I dont know what you're talking about, "grossly irrational"??? I think you've misunderstood me, look at Salima's example of the family whose child was born with disabilities, there is no alternative so I think you're confused about what Im talking about.

With regards to noodles, well I dont have the time to check your link, i have to go to work, but worshiping noodles, well that's your choice and I respect that. Goodbye.

Alternatives will come to light as the science develops further, and it seems you don't accept them. Why is that?

If they have not come to light, then we cannot accept them, because they don't exist. Just because science will eventually come up with a better solution for a quadriplegic doesn't mean that there is currently a better method than 'turd polishing' (which is basically just accepting the situation as currently not fixable and doing the best you can while you wait for the solution to 'come to light). So it is not masochism, because there really are no alternatives.

Well I think you saw the picture of that guy testing a neurally-controlled prosthetic limb earlier ITT.

What I was really referring to as 'turd-polishing' is the overall attitude of "we can't do anything, 'human nature' shouldn't be disturbed, we should just learn to accept defeat indefinitely" which is clearly fallacious.

You probably agree with my reply to Fido then.

At any rate, it seems like the question really doesn't get interesting until we get into specific ethical quandaries. For instance, when is it appropriate to alter the genetic structure of a zygote? Certainly optimizing physical appearance seems iffy. What about choosing sex, or other characteristics? Just an example.

Alternatives will come to light as the science develops further, and it seems you don't accept them. Why is that?



Worshiping an invisible Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't much different from worshiping anything else.

Why wont I accept it? Because I have no idea what you're talking about, perhaps if you explained/expanded then I would understand what you're talking about.

I think it is different simply because noodles is not easy to believe in.

I don't recall advocating forced surgery on people.

No, because that's coercive. I am not promoting coercion.

Well ... I can see some ways that accelerating developments in technology could threaten ordinary humans. Out of all the possibilities discussed by people like Hugo de Garis and Nick Bostrom, two come to mind most strongly:

• Posthumans exist in small enough numbers to feel a potential threat from humans, yet large enough to threaten humans. Armed conflict could break out.
  
• Posthumans go all Robespierre on humans and just wipe them out in disgust.
  

The first, I think is more likely than the second, but both can be preempted very easily if everyone is on the same boat.

And, remember, a huge rift between posthumans and regular humans could lead to conflict between the two sides. That's a very strong reason to elect for brain modification in itself.

http://www.wtec.org/ConvergingTechnologies/1/NBIC_report.pdf[INDENT]EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

M.C. Roco and W.S. Bainbridge

In the early decades of the 21 st century, concentrated efforts can unify science based on the unity of nature, thereby advancing the combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, converging technologies could achieve a tremendous improvement in human abilities, societal outcomes, the nation's productivity, and the quality of life. This is a broad, cross-cutting, emerging and timely opportunity of interest to individuals, society and humanity in the long term.

The phrase ``convergent technologies'' refers to the synergistic combination of four major ``NBIC'' (nano-bio-info-cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnology; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communications; (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience.

Timely and Broad Opportunity. Convergence of diverse technologies is based on material unity at the nanoscale and on technology integration from that scale. The building blocks of matter that are fundamental to all sciences originate at the nanoscale. Revolutionary advances at the interfaces between previously separate fields of science and technology are ready to create key transforming tools for NBIC technologies. Developments in systems approaches, mathematics, and computation in conjunction with NBIC allow us for the first time to understand the natural world, human society, and scientific research as closely coupled complex, hierarchical systems. At this moment in the evolution of technical achievement, improvement of human performance through integration of technologies becomes possible. Examples of payoffs may include improving work efficiency and learning, enhancing individual sensory and cognitive capabilities, revolutionary changes in healthcare, improving both individual and group creativity, highly effective communication techniques including brain-to-brain interaction, perfecting human machine interfaces including neuromorphic engineering, sustainable and ``intelligent'' environments including neuroergonomics, enhancing human capabilities for defense purposes, reaching sustainable development using NBIC tools, and ameliorating the physical and cognitive decline that is common to the aging mind.

The workshop participants envision important breakthroughs in NBIC-related areas in the next 10 to 20 years. Fundamental research requires about the same interval to yield significant applications. Now is the time to anticipate the research issues and plan an R&D approach that would yield optimal results.[/INDENT]What god(s) do you believe in?

No matter what you believe, it's always some kind of invisible dragon phenomenon no more or less ridiculous than the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I mean as an agnostic I'm not saying such a thing could not exist, I'm just not going to assume so in the total absence of compelling evidence.

I can't help but draw on the sayings often used that might help you in your understanding a bit: "what goes around, comes around; and if it ain't broke don't fix it!" William

I can't help but draw on the sayings often used that might help you in your understanding a bit: "what goes around, comes around; and if it ain't broke don't fix it!"

Oden, you can't disturb nature; you can only piss her off and the film you introduced is evidence of just how irate she can become due to our ignorance stemming from our presummed and autonomous intelligence, of which some atheist claim to have all the answers, in referring to that intelligence that is the core of the universe as the 'flying spaghetti monster"? How rude! Which is typical; if we don't understand it we call "it" names!

But you can rest assured it was to the anger of Mother Nature due to our ignorance of all her complexities. IMO; something we will never understand in it's entirety. At least not soon at any rate.

But that's coercion!!

That's right humanity, just get "on the same boat" with the posthumans and they won't wipe you out "in disgust". Be prepared, "elect for brain modification" today!

How does your explanation apply to Salima's example of the family who has a child with learning difficulties but it has made their life better in many ways? And you really haven't offered an explantion/theory to support your claim, all you've done is given alot of information but the information above does not include any proof of anything, it's just a summary, it doesn't actually include a real life experiment to back up what it means with real life results and no conclusive proof of anything!

The god i believe in is the god that I have experienced in the past and the present during moments I cannot really explain, cant see how it's similar to noodles.

Im sorry I cant open your link odenskrgare.

The way I look at it, is that lawsuits in the U.S. help to keep overzealous tinkerers at bay. The first whopping million dollar lawsuit usually acts as a wake-up call. And when you mess around with the mind, you are talking big bucks.

Don't really like the legal system in the U.S., but it has its usefulness - especially in keeping the fixer-uppers in their place. Just google "million dollar lawsuits surgeon". There are plenty of them. And they are won!

Rich

Last, not all the neuroscientific procedures I'm sure you find ghastly are invasive. A number of brain-computers interfaces just read the electromagnetic signature of the brain passively without jimmying open the skull, badabing, no room for medical malpractice lawsuits.

It's not personal coercion per se; I mean nobody's pointing a gun to your head.

Just don't be a party pooper and everything will be just fine.

Is blindness a form of brokenness?

I'd say so.

(Yes, so it seems. I will be more than happy to get you a pair of glasses, if you wish? Sorry, it is not I who is blind, if that is what you are referring to?)

Nature isn't a person, "he" or "her".

(Do tell? Ever heard of human nature? Granted it is not "Mother Nature", but they both have "their natures" and they must get along, IMO.)



This is what causes smallpox, good ol'Variola vera:



And it is understood in its entirety. From Wikipedia:
[INDENT]During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300-500 million deaths.[7][8][9] In the early 1950s an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year.[10] As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year.[10] After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979.[10] To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated.[11]
[/INDENT]And you know how this was brought about? Science. Not hand-waving.

(Science just "eyeballed" the predator, knowing where it came from is not known).

It's not personal coercion per se; I mean nobody's pointing a gun to your head.
Just don't be a party pooper and everything will be just fine.

(Just don't bring your poop to my party, or disturb my guests with your "new and improved brain"! No body likes a "know it all anyway)

Well, I have no idea what disease that kid has in the first place but can assume safely it's in the brain. What the summary of that paper is about it how nanotechnology, biology, cognitive science and information science are coming together in ways that are making it possible (not will, are) to transcend the limitations of our biology.

(IMO, it's not limitations; it is a brick wall and it is there for a reason.)

So eventually it will be possible to fix learning disabilities like his.
Also science doesn't prove anything, js

"I can't really explain" has been shown throughout history to be a really unproductive attitude.

(It couldn't be the repercussions of technology is what caused that "unproductive attitude now, could it? Hmmm?)

In particular assuming there is some kind of "magic" that prevents things from being understood has always fallen flat.

(Seems like you need a "magic wand"? Nothing like puffing up the old spirit, huh?)

It's a PDF, can you open PDFs? Try again.

Yeah, those scientists and doctors with their attempts to gain knowledge and heal the injured: A PLAGUE UPON BOTH THEIR HOUSES.

(Watch out for what you wish for; it could have very damaging results!)

Great to hear that the medical profession is learning how to keep itself out of lawsuits.

Rich

If I thought your vision of the future had even a remote chance of becoming reality I might be worried... :rolleyes:

As for the above added "scarcasms", sorry; couldn't resist.) :surrender:You dish it out rather well, so I am sure you can take it, Huh? No offense.

William

Deliberately inflicting suffering on yourself for no good reason looks like masochism well enough.



Of course I don't believe in God. God is for heathens. I believe in the one true author of the Universe:

Actually, Gods are for heathens, and Pagans; and if you should ask, they are the same thing... The people of the Heath, in England, and the Pagani, the country people of Italy were the last to give up their traditional Gods... We find the same conservatism among our country people today...God works for them and they can see his works... Their belief is re-enforced...

That's very interesting but, seriously, what have Woden, Mercury, or Chernobog done for us recently?

Thor, Woden, and Fria give us the three best days of every week...Is that recent enough for you???