Natasja Burger - 25210298
The humanists believe in reason, science and technology and are opposed to any religious doctrines. In line with this view, the musician Ben Harper once said that the only reason people believe in a God is because we know that we are going to die. People are perhaps striving towards immortality because we do not want to serve a God anymore. If we are immortal, we do not have to abide to any rules in order to get into a Nirvana or Heaven. People want to kill God and become the gods of this world.
If immortality were to become a reality, only the rich would be able to afford this technology. Only the rich will live on. Would this then be the new aristocracy? The rich would be able to live their happy and prosperous lives for eternity, without the poor bringing them down. They would be able to create their own Heaven on earth. The problem is that people will always strive to be better than somebody else. Without this strive to be better, there would be no progress and things would only stand still or even move backwards.
Naturally the human body will disintegrate as some point. This would mean that the human brain would have to be put into some kind of cyborg or robot. The brain and the body are accounted for, but what about the soul? Is the soul connected to the brain? Like Bob Dylan said, all the money you made could never buy back your soul. Ever get that feeling that you are the only ‘real’ person on earth and everybody around you is a robot?
Yes, this strive towards immortality in South Africa would be a luxury. It would be the elitist utopia. There would be no poverty and no diseases. It would be affordable, because there would only be a few people left in the country. But why would you want to stay in this hell we call earth, when there can be so much more waiting for us on the other side. The heaven created on earth by humans would always just be a superficial one. In the end everything must die, not just humans, but even technology.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Posthumanism in South Africa
Nadia Levinson 25280971
“Certainly, we can attain much while remaining human. Yet we can attain higher peaks only by applying our intelligence, determination, and optimism to break out of the human chrysalis.” This quote is from Max More’s On becoming Posthuman. The posthuman enterprise attempts to find a ‘solution’ to the longing for immortality as expressed by humanity from the earliest times. Transhumanists and Extropianists suggest that technology can bring the human race within reach of this eternal life. According to posthumanists, acquiring the relevant information will lead to the achievement of immortality.
True enough, technology has certainly made it possible to alter/enhance/prolong one’s body or life by, for example, incorporating technology into ourselves such as pacemakers. I do feel however that the idea that death should (and will according to posthumanists) become obsolete is not only wishful thinking, but also a symptom of a fear of death.
South Africa (and indeed the world) is plagued by diseases, incurable and horrible. Naturally the idea of being free of the threat of disease or the encumbering body in old age is appealing in a country where AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera (to name only a few) are serious and growing dangers. Unfortunately though, the majority of South Africans dealing with these diseases are the poor and uneducated/illiterate. I thus consider it useless to consider technologically induced immortality as a solution to these problems due to the fact that technology is expensive. Technological advances, especially ones that imply such radical shifts in daily life as, for example immortality would, will involve huge amounts of money – money that the majority of the disease stricken don’t have. A technology that promises immortality would thus only be perpetuating the divide between the haves and have not’s, relegating the post-human strive for immortality to the ‘luxury goods’ aisle of the bio-tech supermarket.
Terrible diseases afflict South Africa and of course we should strive to find solutions to these problems but surely immortality is not the answer? Even if this is to become possible (the issue of its evident elitist nature has already been mentioned), would eternal life not contradict a fundamental characteristic of being human? The process of growing up, becoming an adult, al the while learning and growing old is part of our human status. Would we really want to exchange out humanity, our very being, to become post-human; to ‘cheat death’ with our money and so-called intelligence? Perhaps this entire enterprise is merely trying to ‘get back at God for making us suffer so horribly…’
“Certainly, we can attain much while remaining human. Yet we can attain higher peaks only by applying our intelligence, determination, and optimism to break out of the human chrysalis.” This quote is from Max More’s On becoming Posthuman. The posthuman enterprise attempts to find a ‘solution’ to the longing for immortality as expressed by humanity from the earliest times. Transhumanists and Extropianists suggest that technology can bring the human race within reach of this eternal life. According to posthumanists, acquiring the relevant information will lead to the achievement of immortality.
True enough, technology has certainly made it possible to alter/enhance/prolong one’s body or life by, for example, incorporating technology into ourselves such as pacemakers. I do feel however that the idea that death should (and will according to posthumanists) become obsolete is not only wishful thinking, but also a symptom of a fear of death.
South Africa (and indeed the world) is plagued by diseases, incurable and horrible. Naturally the idea of being free of the threat of disease or the encumbering body in old age is appealing in a country where AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera (to name only a few) are serious and growing dangers. Unfortunately though, the majority of South Africans dealing with these diseases are the poor and uneducated/illiterate. I thus consider it useless to consider technologically induced immortality as a solution to these problems due to the fact that technology is expensive. Technological advances, especially ones that imply such radical shifts in daily life as, for example immortality would, will involve huge amounts of money – money that the majority of the disease stricken don’t have. A technology that promises immortality would thus only be perpetuating the divide between the haves and have not’s, relegating the post-human strive for immortality to the ‘luxury goods’ aisle of the bio-tech supermarket.
Terrible diseases afflict South Africa and of course we should strive to find solutions to these problems but surely immortality is not the answer? Even if this is to become possible (the issue of its evident elitist nature has already been mentioned), would eternal life not contradict a fundamental characteristic of being human? The process of growing up, becoming an adult, al the while learning and growing old is part of our human status. Would we really want to exchange out humanity, our very being, to become post-human; to ‘cheat death’ with our money and so-called intelligence? Perhaps this entire enterprise is merely trying to ‘get back at God for making us suffer so horribly…’
Iwona Marczak
25067011
In South Africa our everyday lives consists of the realities of serious diseases such as cholera, malaria and AIDS. However, the population rate in South Africa is still growing at a rapid rate. In fact, populations all over the world seem to be growing bigger and bigger. The subject of immortality has been asked since the beginning of time and so it seems that it is almost natural for humans to try and find the one thing that will make them live forever. Humans are afraid of the unknown and the inexplicable, such as death. Immortality may be a reality or there may come a time that immortality will come close to our fingertips in another form. In history, people would seek immortality through potions and magic and now it seems that technology has become the modern day potion. With South Africa in mind, the subject of immortality would be controversial on a number of levels. Here in South Africa, our internet dial-up connections aren’t even close to the standards of broadband width in America and so if there were to be a breakthrough in something like cryonics and it worked, it would take decades before the technology could even be considered to be brought into the country. Then the questions remains, who would pay for this kind of technology? Would it be something that started out exclusively (such as the iPod) but so many people bought into it that the prices would drop and everyone would be able to live forever? I have no doubt that there would be hordes of people trying to save themselves from death. Whilst we might become the most technologically advanced African country by buying into this immortality factor, it seems that people have forgotten that we have to first break certain barriers, such as whether people in this country (with all our different cultures) would want to live forever. And our population count and disease count would either sky-rocket again or it would completely diminish. If people could be cured easily from serious illness and live forever, perhaps diseases would take on new and frightening evolutionary twists. And perhaps, if we live in a country full healthy and immortal people, they will see an opportunity to do whatever they want and gain power over others because there is nothing that can stop them.
25067011
In South Africa our everyday lives consists of the realities of serious diseases such as cholera, malaria and AIDS. However, the population rate in South Africa is still growing at a rapid rate. In fact, populations all over the world seem to be growing bigger and bigger. The subject of immortality has been asked since the beginning of time and so it seems that it is almost natural for humans to try and find the one thing that will make them live forever. Humans are afraid of the unknown and the inexplicable, such as death. Immortality may be a reality or there may come a time that immortality will come close to our fingertips in another form. In history, people would seek immortality through potions and magic and now it seems that technology has become the modern day potion. With South Africa in mind, the subject of immortality would be controversial on a number of levels. Here in South Africa, our internet dial-up connections aren’t even close to the standards of broadband width in America and so if there were to be a breakthrough in something like cryonics and it worked, it would take decades before the technology could even be considered to be brought into the country. Then the questions remains, who would pay for this kind of technology? Would it be something that started out exclusively (such as the iPod) but so many people bought into it that the prices would drop and everyone would be able to live forever? I have no doubt that there would be hordes of people trying to save themselves from death. Whilst we might become the most technologically advanced African country by buying into this immortality factor, it seems that people have forgotten that we have to first break certain barriers, such as whether people in this country (with all our different cultures) would want to live forever. And our population count and disease count would either sky-rocket again or it would completely diminish. If people could be cured easily from serious illness and live forever, perhaps diseases would take on new and frightening evolutionary twists. And perhaps, if we live in a country full healthy and immortal people, they will see an opportunity to do whatever they want and gain power over others because there is nothing that can stop them.
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