Talk:Transhumanism/Archive 5

message: When one tries to edit the Transhumanism article, one can read the following warning at the top of the page: 
This page is 39 kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size 
I've trimmed the article just enough for the warning to go away. I recommend that future editors be as concise as possible and avoid adding redundant information. --Loremaster 23:04, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't be foolish. The rationale for the 30k limit faded away years ago; it is merely retained through inertia. I think it would be "preferable" for the article to be even longer. --maru  (talk) contribs 00:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Limit or no limit, if you say in many words what can be said in few, you're wasting the reader's time. Eliminating redundancy and wordiness is a worthy cause. -- Schaefer 01:54, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, Loremaster should not have said anything then, since his admonition to avoid redundancy is itself redundant- there are no style guides that say to wax prolix; clarity too is a worthy goal not always compatible with conciseness. In my experience on Wikipedia, when someone calls for concisenss and avoiding redundancy, those calls are coded messages that really mean "Let's start removing stuff." --maru  (talk) contribs 04:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow... I always find people's ability to debate nothing amazing. This isn't a Da Vinci Code novel. I simply think we should be clear and concise. When a Wikipedia article is too long, it discourages many people from reading it. As for removing stuff, as the main editor to this article, I wouldn't want that to happen since the current content is crucial to understanding what transhumanism is about. --Loremaster 16:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  IMPORTANT: Article Size 

message: "Transhumanism" as a term is not employed by analytic philosophers of any hue.  Suffice it to say that "transhumanism" as an "emergent philosophy" is an overeggageration, at best.  I'll be reediting this page significantly to bring it up to par with the other branches of materialism. 
Amicuspublilius 02:25, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nick Bostrom (Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University) seems to be an analytical philosopher of some hue, and yet  this is the WTA's 'Transhumanist FAQ', with the authorship of which he is credited on the page. --Archelon 15:56, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a movement rather than strictly a philosophy (and there is no body of agreed philosophical doctrines). But analytic philosophers are gradually coming to look at transhumanist ideas. So far, these have attracted most attention from philosophical bioethicists rather than from the field of applied ethics more generally. Metamagician3000 12:51, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Emergent Philosophy?

message: This showed up on Human Brain: "The ethical/political theory known as Transhumanism is largely concerned with methods of enhancing the human brain; although enhancement of the body and peripheral nervous system is also proposed, the brain is considered the common denominator of personhood and is thus the primary focus of Transhumanist ambitions." If that's true and interesting, could somebody integrate the material here? I wasn't sure if it was necessary, but I didn't want to toss the text outright. --William Pietri 14:39, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it Will. It should compliment the existing information here on the mechanics of altering humanity. Pydos 11:20, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this information was never added to the article. Should we or should we not include it or some version of it? --Loremaster 04:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may just be me, but in my experience, transhumanists are largely focused on the brain- why else would uploading receive so much attention and interest? --maru  (talk) contribs 04:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how much attention mind uploading is actually getting in transhumanist circles compared to the use of human genetic engineering for an overall enhancement of the human body. However, neurosciences and neurotechnologies are seen as the driving engines of near-future society. I'll think about it during the night and come up with the best way to include a concise version of all this information in order to add it to the article.--Loremaster 05:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done! --Loremaster 21:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: This essay might be it: http://www.jetpress.org/volume10/prolegomena.html --Loremaster 16:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added it as reference in the article. --Loremaster 22:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brain as major focus? 

message: Unless one can provide online documentation of transhumanist technocracy has an existing and organized (rather than simply conceptual) current with transhumanism, its mention will be deleted. Loremaster 16:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If such a thing existed or occurred it, then chances are we wouldn't be having this discussion on wikipedia... Kind of like Doomsday argument and End of the universe were to actually occur... We'd have some form of communication one would think, but I don't think a transhumanist technocracy should be included unless someone has wrote an extensive paper, PHD thesis, magazine article, or a book on the subject and used as a reference in this article. Otherwise we'd be just pulling the concepts out of thin air. --James 208.253.80.123 21:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess I could have worded that better. I simply meant that unless there is a prominent transhumanist thinker or activist advocating the virtues of a future transhumanist technocracy, we should not mention this concept in the article. --Loremaster 04:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Transhumanist technocracy?

message: Among the copyedits, I thought i'd flag these changes: 1] i de-linked john spencer, since none of the disambiguated people seemed to be the right one. 2] i tried to increase the NPOV in the Drexler paragraph. Hope that helps, "alyosha" 22:21, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to history 

message: The fiction section has been getting very long and strays in topic quite a bit from the rest of the article, which deals with the real-life variety of transhumanism. Also, the article has passed 30kb in size. I'd like to fork this section into a separate article if none here are opposed. -- Schaefer 02:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd agree with that sentiment, it would allow both articles to be further expanded.  The original article should still contain some references to fiction's influence on transhumanism, however. Glowimperial 15:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is the correct thing to do. The normal wikipedia style is to have a paragraph on transhumanism in fiction with a link at the beginning of the paragraph in italics to the new article saying see main article etc, SqueakBox 15:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moving "Transhumanism in fiction" to its own article 

message: I think that McKibben's view is considerably more precise and sophisticated (even though I happen not to agree ith it) than its representation here. At some point, I'll try to tighten up the relevant sentence, if no one else does so. Metamagician3000 12:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: About McKibben 

message: Because of the discussion here, i thought it would be good to make folks aware of the notices i've just placed on transtopianism, and the explanation i posted in Talk:Transtopianism.  I look forward to your input there.  Thx, hope this helps, "alyosha" (talk) 00:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When I have some free time, I am reluctantly working on improving it. --Loremaster 01:35, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done a fair bit of work on it, and left a comment on its talk page. Metamagician3000 12:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Looks like the transtopianism article has been deleted and references to transtopianism seem to have been taken out of this one. That makes sense in both cases. Metamagician3000 05:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with transtopianism article 

message: Transhumanism (sometimes abbreviated >H or H+) is an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to overcome human limitations and improve the human condition.
That's so general as to be meaningless, IMO. All science and technology, back to the first time a pre-human used a stick for a club, has been "to overcome human limitations and improve the human condition." What about "...supporting the use of science and technology to alter and improve the bodies and minds of human beings." ...or something like that. KarlBunker 16:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: However general it might be, this is the common and accepted definition of transhumanism while what you propose is an extremley narrow one. For example, supporting the development of molecular nanotechnology to create a post-scarcity world is very much on the transhumanist agenda but has nothing to do with altering and improving human bodies. Your definition would exclude this... --Loremaster 01:16, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, I accept that. But: I thought I read the article pretty darn carefully, and I came away with the impression that transhumanism is about modifying human beings. If it isn't, what is it? Advocating the development of some speculative technologies that might change the world in profound ways? Advocating the development of some speculative technologies that some people find scary? Just advocating the development of some speculative technologies? I'm confoozed. And I'm wondering if the subject of this article is so fuzzily defined that, no matter how well crafted the article is, it won't make a good FA, because who wants to read an article about something that isn't defined? KarlBunker 02:13, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although I would define transhumanism as a movement advocating the development and use of emerging technologies which could have radical impact on individuals and society (in ways past and present technologies do not), you seem to be the only one has a problem with the current definition. Many people find this article interesting and worth-reading. That being said, I  slightly improved the definition for more clarity. --Loremaster 04:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I like Metamagician3000's version better. I was also wondering if it's really correct to say that technologies or uses of technology that don't directly bear on altering humans are a part of transhumanism, or are they just among the things that transhumanists tend to talk about, since anyone who looks at transhumanism is going to be someone who looks at future uses of technology in general. Just a thought. KarlBunker 11:20, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a difficult question, and I'm not sure I know the answer. I think of it as being primarily about altering human beings. But as Loremaster alludes to, some thinkers who are either transhumanists or closely allied to transhumanism do seem to put a lot of emphasis on the other aspect, emphasising such things as the creation of artificial superintelligences and the development of very powerful methods of molecular manufacture. I'm not sure where, exactly, it begins and ends or how we could document one "correct" definition rather than another. It's complicated by the fact that not many thinkers with serious profiles beyond the transhumanist movement actually seem to call themselves "transhumanists", even if they are obviously allied with the small group who openly do (Max More, Nick Bostrom, James Hughes, etc), and often have the label to applied to them by others. If we tweak the definition further, I suggest that we look at what people like More and Bostrom have said on the subject of definition. Metamagician3000 12:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: First paragraph? 

message: Additional support to ideas of transhumanism comes from the biological HIDL theory (), which states that humans are born  with an "exceptionally high load of initial damage", and therefore "even small progress in optimizing the early-developmental processes can potentially result in a remarkable prevention of many diseases in later life, postponement of aging-related morbidity and mortality, and significant extension of healthy life span."
I have removed this text from the Overview section so we can all analyze it and debate whether or not a version of it should be included in the article. --Loremaster 23:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's too specific for a general article like this. Metamagician3000 00:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur. --Loremaster 23:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  HIDL theory? 

message: I think that the article should include a section on doping and performancing enhancing drugs.  I was just reading this article on SI: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/03/06/growth0313/ .  It seems to me that doping is technically within the domain of transhuman philosophy and it should be discussed head on.  
:Although doping with performance-enhancing drugs is technically within the domain of transhumanism, I don't think there is enough of a focus on this subject by transhumanist philosophers for it to warrant a section in this article. However, the Human enhancement article would be the perfect place for it. --Loremaster 20:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Doping and Performancing Enhancing Drugs