No Free Lunch
The best thing our transhuman future will bring is choices. For the first time in history, it is possible that we will all have the option of living free from the fear of illness, aging, even death. We will enjoy greatly expanded freedom to choose our lifestyles, including an astounding range of enhancements and upgrades to our bodies and minds. Emerging technologies will offer power almost beyond imagining.
The worst thing our transhuman future will bring is choices. With such unprecedented power also comes unprecedented risk. Bioengineered mutant warriors, runaway nanotechnology "gray goo" disasters, a despotic AI that proclaims world dictatorship and has the power to enforce it—all these nightmares and more could move out of the pages of science fiction and into the headlines if we don't make the right choices.
Writer Robert A. Heinlein coined the acronym TANSTAAFL, to remind us that There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. If we want the upside that scientific progress could bring us, we must prepare to deal with and minimize the downside.
Attitudes, Alternatives, Actions
Once we have a clear understanding of the momentous possibilities the near future holds, what choices will we make? What attitude will we adopt? In our personal lives, how will this knowledge affect our alternatives? What actions will we take to encourage the dissemination of the life-improving benefits of transhuman technologies, and to discourage the horrific possibilities that their misuse could produce?
You've already made at least one choice, which was to visit this website. This site may be your initial exposure to the concepts of transhumanism, posthumanity, and the Singularity. Or you may already have read quite a bit, but you're still not sure what to do next. The point is, we all make choices every day—many times a day in fact—that determine the course of our lives in a very real way.
Planning for an Uncertain Future
Someone recently posed this dilemma:
"Has anyone else sensed the futility and irrelevance of most traditional social models in light of a transhuman future? I'm referring to things like getting married, breeding, attending church, planning for retirement, buying a plot at the cemetery, etc. What are your thoughts about the value of traditional social models for transhumanists?"
Making a rational decision about whether to marry, have children, attend church, plan for retirement, buy a cemetery plot, and so forth, depends upon how you answer these two questions:
Would you choose to do those things if there were no “transhuman future” in sight?
Can you reasonably expect a social structure to exist that will support those traditional choices for at least another 50 years?
If you answer no to question #1, then the issue is moot. You have made a legitimate choice independent of what the future might hold.
If you answer yes to both questions, then it seems sensible to proceed along traditional lines, always keeping a close eye on the future, of course.
But if you answer yes to the first question and no to the second, that is where the dilemma resides. At its core, it is an age-old existential human question: Should I have dreams, make plans, and attempt to build a life when the future is so uncertain?
This question can be cast in terms of the Cold War and fears of nuclear annihilation, in the Depression of the 1930’s, in either of the great World Wars, in the capture and enslavement of millions of Africans, in the Plague of the Middle Ages, in the several “barbarian” invasions of Europe, in the conquering and enslavement of the Jews by the Babylonians, even back to the Neanderthals, cowering in a cave awaiting the next attack from their dreaded tall, smart cousins. In each case there were hundreds of thousands of individuals, just like you and me, who had to make a choice. We can ask for advice, we can seek wisdom, but it finally comes down to a single, lonely, isolated individual making his or her own decision. That’s the essence of existentialism.
But aha! Our posthuman future may contain an antidote to our existential angst. No, I’m not referring to some type of “soma” drug that banishes all our fears and sorrows. Imagine, instead, being able to make choices based on more than your own inherently limited human knowledge and experience. Imagine having nearly instantaneous access to all relevant human knowledge and experience. Imagine being able to analyze this information a million times faster than you can today. Beyond that, imagine sharing your decision-making process in a direct interface with other posthumans, or even with superhuman artificial intelligences. This is well within the realm of the conceivable, although for some it may be frightening. It certainly leads one to wonder about the nature, and possibly even the value, of individual existence.
These are big questions, but we’d better ask them now while we still have time.