rewards of natural training vs enhancement

I posted a reflection on what it means to achieve great things easily through technology and to achieve the same through rigorous practice.. this was my post :

rewards of natural training vs enhancement

I practice the Indian martial art form known as "Kalarippayyattu". Now, I have reached a stage where I can catch mosquitos inside my palm and let them fly away without crushing them (may not sound very impressive, but those who practice martial arts know the value of this ability ).

Having gained several of such insights during the practice of martial arts, I feel very satisfied when I reach certain levels. Acquiring each new skill takes a long time of practice. But when you get it, it feels just great !!!

Now, this got me thinking. Life enhancement technologies are developing improved chemicals to enhance neuro-muscular co-ordination to much greater levels than what is achievable by a martial artist in much shorter a time. Come to think of it, Neo (the matrix guru) hooks up his brain to the computer and wakes up to say " I know kung fu".

Would the ready and instant acquisition of skills that usually takes years to achive make us lose respect for such skills. If everybody is able to do the splits after taking a pill, would we lose respect for hard work ?

Now, the FIFA world cup football games are on. It's amazing to watch the players do those acrobatic moves and superior body control during the games. This surely is a result of har work and immense amounts of practice.

In a not too distant future, we would have sporting events where enhanced humans would compete. For them, the acquisition of football skills ( Like those Ronaldinho of the Brazillian team) would be second nature because they would be genetically engineered to play great football. Now, would the game still be interesting ?

I do not know if I have asked a difficult question. But, I can explain it with one more example. In India, we have two major streams of medical practice. One is the modern day allopathy and the other is traditional Ayurvedic treatment. It takes much longer for Ayurvedic treatment to cure a particular malady than allopathy. But, in Ayurvedic treatment, you get a complete restoration of health rather than the specific recovery from a particular symptom achieved in allopathy. Now, which is better ? The quicker one, or the more complete one ?

I got some very good responses and I compiled them. This was my compilation post :

Really nice responses from all you people out there ! I have pasted what i felt very interesting from each of the first four posts on this topic. On the whole, I think most of us agree that the easy acqusition of new skills are not really a bad idea. However, as Marcelo Rinesi notes, it is useless to have a basket full of eggs unless you know what to do with the eggs in a creative manner. Sky Marsen and Miriam Leis observe the important point that easy upload of skills isn't really a bad idea considering the practical reasons behind the same. Michael La Torra observes that such abilities should be used for the upliftment of the society at large which is in harmony with the aspirations of transhumanism.
The quotes from the four posts are as follows :


Marcelo Rinesi
"If/when, say, close brain-machine interfacing becomes possible, that
won't make study and hard cognitive work useless, but quite the
contrary. It will make a lot of things possible without much effort,
true, but it will also give those who take pains to hone their skills
the opportunity to do things that now are all but impossible. Again,
everybody wins."


Sky marsen
"Another relevant point is that many skills are needed
in order to achieve certain aims - in other words as
means to ends. Language acquisition is a case in
point. People learn a foreign language to communicate,
not just to learn it for its own sake (usually, at
least). So the effort is actually quite empty in this
case."


Michael LaTorra
"So if we could use technology to make it easier for people to acquire
skills, not only would we help all those individuals, but we could
reasonably expect a great societal benefit as well."


Miriam Leis
I think natural training and enhancement might not be incompatable with
each other, or rule out each other.
Sometimes the way to the goal is more important than the goal itself,
and sometimes one just needs some
skill in a rather short time and just doesn't have the time and
interest to go through long times of training.

FURTHER VIEWS IN DEFENSE OF TRANSHUMANISM AND THE PRESERVATION OF RELIGIOUS VALUES

Let's take a walk in a railway station or even a busy airport. During rush hour, if someone trips and falls, there are very few people who would stop on their way and pick up the fallen person. I hope everyone is aware of the silent "personal space" battles we fight everyday in restaurants, public benches, and theatre seat armrests. If we extrapolate this graphical example into the future, surely the fears of being left behind that you have suggested is inevitable.

When I spoke in an international conference ( http://www.angelfire.com/indie/naturemeet ) about the possibility of an altruistic Cyborg population, most people asked me whether the cyborgs with their superior intellect would disavow us.

Last week, I spoke with an elderly man who had lost all of his life's savings in buying imported drugs for treating his only son. Important life saving drugs are not available everywhere. They still have to be imported and then at a very expensiverate which is not possible for people with very low incomes.

Farmers have to now suffer the wrath of giant MNC's who pump bio-engineered seeds into agriculture and then place incredibly huge restrictions on traditional practices. Of course, there are legitimate reasons on the part of the companies to protect their hard earned work; but that does not mean that poor farmers should suffer.

The future is not far away. It is evolving as you read this post. The vast majority of people are now convinced that the future does not belong to them or their children but instead to the so-called elite.

I think that we must discuss further as transhumanists on how to address these issues so that we may all harvest from technological yields. Those articles that oppose transhumanism are just blind swings in the night that claim that transhumanists want to transcend and live forever and blah blah. Sure we are all that, but I don't recall any of those articles trying to say why we are also determined to create an equitable future for all. Transhumanists are just about the most selfless gentle techno geeks there can be who care.

1. We are not satisfied with the present world nor the body. We know in our hearts that this state is just temporary.

2. We do not wish to wait for a divine light to uplift us into heavenly heights. Instead, we feel that the light is already within us, the capacity to transcend has already been granted to us. We just have to boldly go about researching and find out the secrets ie; the hidden code, whether it be of genome or whether it be of atoms.

3. We want to live forever. We have heard this promise from religion that one day, we will all be eternal beings. We think this can be made possible with technology. What is wrong with this picture ? How can it be less religious to finally understand the wonders to which our bodies can reach. Those of us who are religious would only thank God more for having given us such transcendable bodies.Somehow we must make those who oppose us understand this.
How do we project a friendlier future ? This is a question open to discussion.

WHY TRANSHUMANISM COULD WORK

a. Global communications have improved to such an extent that most of us around the world can be contacted.

b. Governments around the world are becoming friendlier and forming newer and better co-alitions than ever before.

c. Scientific research, programming code is now increasingly showing a favour for
open source. Hopefully, we would all have unrestricted access to research and code.
eg. the human genome code is available online for those interested.

Therefore, this is a very good time for transhumanists to promise aiming for a friendly society where immortal technology could in fact become available to all ( free of commerce ).

I hope transhumanism can dispell fears amongst all of us humans as a whole that we would be discriminated and deprived from immortalist technologies.

While other futuristic movements talk about being immortal or developing into chimeras, I think transhumanism is the only movement that tries to defend the dignity of every individual in the future. Perhaps this one promise is enough defense in favour of transhumanism. In the wider public arena, it is important for transhumans to self project themselves as individuals who wish for an ethical future filled with technologies that is available to all instead of projecting themselves as gothic manifestations of extreme cyberpunk fantasies. I have chosen the former representation.

I personally do not wish to be immortal in a society that monitors my every biorhythm and
charges me unfairly for every breath I take from the atmosphere. The bills for a mortal in the current world is itself unbearable.

DEFENDING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Most people ask …"If God is so great, then why can't I see him or her ?"

We have been trying to put God within the scope of our senses.This is an impossible thing to do.The concept of God is just too huge. All of our logic and linguistic skills will fail if we try to explain God.

I have not seen God. But I am not dissapointed since I feel that my biological eyes might quite incapable of perceiving a dimensional entity that is much much more complex than my own.We share a lot of genetic homology with almost every other living and non living form in this planet. We realized this only a few years back (The Human Genome project ). This could be taken as the scientific explanation for the "Oneness" with the universe. Any decent physicist should be able to tell you about the many other dimensions that exist. We are able to physically sense only 3 dimensions ( length, breadth and height ).

So, my point is that we are still infants in our potential to evolve. It is too early to hypothesize
about whether Jesus was really blond. Let's use transhumanist technologies to evolve and improve our understanding of our own body. Our understanding of God will also improve along with it and one day, we will be able to experience what we call God without religion, drugs, electrodes. I am sure of this. But that future is so different that I can't even imagine what it would be like.

The true ultimate aim of any religious work is actually to escape and transcend beyond the verses. This is what escaping all bondage and desires really equates to; transcending our biological limitations.

This is why I think transhumanism or any futuristic movement can take us there. Therefore, there shouldn't be a problem in a transhumanist being religious.

However, religion should never be forced on anyone.This also means that you don't get to laugh at people who are religious.

People should study religion by themselves and not depend on falsified versions. It is not religion which is at fault, but us. Let's tweak ourselves, ethically.

LOGIC AND NEED FOR RELIGION FOR TRANSHUMANISM

While it may be perfectly logical to derive an equation stating that Mr.X is unacceptable offering no alternative for reversal; religion offers something called salvation.

The majority of human beings out there are Mr.X's. Science only offers the technology to perhaps overcome mechanical or chemical limitations of their bodies. It is sometimes the love from religion alone that grants some way of hope by which the person concerned would wish to continue to maintain the life force within the
body ( stay alive ).

Transhumanism is a favourable way into the future because it offers something that no other so called logical approaches to the future give. It promises to transcend the biological limitations in an ethical/humane manner. This is very similar to religious promises of a beautiful and equal heaven for all. So, people would choose transhumanism in their futuristic studies as it is the closest thing to what they are already comfortable with, religion.

I have chosen simple words to explain my point. I understand that; to the experienced philosopher or to the self-proclaimed logistics experts, my views may sound distorted and vague.

However, this is exactly the reason why I think transhumanism would work. Because it gives equal hope to those who think through the spirit and those who think through the microscope.

According to me, Transhumanism is a very simple thing to understand. You just need to forget all those difficult words. This is how I see it and I am free to choose so. However, if logistics dictate that my statements are not required since they lack rationality or any of the "isms" proudly and carelessly thrown into the chaos, then I think we have a problem.