[MD] Transhumanism

[Krimel]

[Matt]
Okay, (1), that's not true about philosophy's 2500 year history 
(as you well know, given that Newton was a "natural 
philosopher"), but (2), I take your point, and 

[Krimel]
Not to belabor the point but the role of natural philosophers for the past
2500 has been to carve out philosophical questions and provide ways of
answering them. As a result they are no longer considered philosophical
questions anymore. Philosophical speculation about mathematics fell to the
Greeks. Philosophical speculation about physics fell to the Italians and
English.

[Matt]
(3) I _hope_ technology increases at a geometric rate because 
it's the only hope for humankind to feed the stupid numbers of 
them we've produced recently, and 

[Krimel]
Tru dat.

[Matt]
(4) why on earth would anybody think 
that the Metaphysics of Quality should have something to say 
about cyborgs and holodecks?  Isn't that like demanding that 
the literary critic have something relevant to say about gluons 
or carburetors?  Even if philosophy is about including 
everything, once you reach the level of abstraction that it 
takes to do so, what kind of "relevance" are we exactly talking 
about here?

[Krimel]
If philosophy and especially metaphysics is about examining the assumptions
that underlie one world view, then it seems to me at least that it _ought_
to have something to say. Pirsig's talk about cultural lensing for example.
In fact I think that particular metaphor does not go far enough. If that was
all there was to it I guess you would be quite right. But we aren't really
restricted to single fixed focus lenses any more. We have lenses that go
from wide angle to telephoto and focus automatically. As an off shoot of
Taoism or sprouting out of the pre-Socratic conflict between a continuous
versus discontinuous world I see no reason why it shouldn't have something
of relevance to say. For example if one thinks about high levels of
abstraction as something like your desktop icons. When you blow them up
information is lost. Pixilation makes them rapidly become meaningless. But
you can have icons that contain all of the information at whatever level you
choose so that when you blow them up you reveal the additional detail. This
of course means you still have lots of baggage to carry around. Or you can
have something like a fractal icon where the level of abstraction one
chooses is a conscious choice and infinite detail or lossless compression
allows reconstruction at any level of detail. Got a baby crying gotta run.
But something like that...