Trans humanism and theology

[Phillnb25]

TL;DR Possiblity of humans being able to live forever, moral or not?

 

Hello all! 

I found this sub forum and got super excited because it is right up my alley

ok I wanna purpose a semi hypothetical situation.....for those who may not be familiar Trans humanism s defined as "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology" from here on out it will be referred as H+. 

So H+ proponents believe that they could either reverse or completely eliminate human cell aging by the year 2050. They believe that an event known as the singularity is coming and could be here by the 2030ish. From there H+ believe that humans could either A) implant themselves into machines (aka cyborgs), B) create procedures to reverse human cell aging, C) create digital copies of the human consciousness and upload it to a "cloud" storage system. Now this could be cool for many reasons, such as scientific development could be massively extended if scientists could live for extended periods of time. People with terminal illnesses could simply switch bodies. Stuff like that.

However with all things morality and ethics should be examined. Could a person be transferred into a new body and still be the original person? How would the soul figure into the equation? If we could would it be a sin? Would that be flying in the face of God's plan?

The bible never specifically answers questions such as the given the situation and personally I feel as if moral gray areas should be avoided like the plague. Though I would be excited about the potential to live forever. 

What are your thoughts? Should H+ be pursuing these ideas or could this be a demonic trap?

Edited March 31, 2019 by Phillnb25
Added TL;DR summery

[Who me]

On 31 March 2019 at 9:41 AM, Phillnb25 said:

"the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology" from here on out it will be referred as H+. 

The bible never specifically answers questions such as the given the situation and personally I feel as if moral gray areas should be avoided like the plague. Though I would be excited about the potential to live forever.

What are your thoughts? Should H+ be pursuing these ideas or could this be a demonic trap?

Firstly this depends on the assumption that evolution is a fact.

If you think it is please define what you mean by evolution and profide evidence of it. ( most evidence is of evolution within a species. ie of changes to a dog into a dog. )

Second as you wonder yourself about it being a deception, in this you are right.

Regardless of whether our lifespan can be increased or whether human conciousness can be transported into a computor it is distracting humanity away from reality.

The reality of God, of worshipping him and of the eternity that he promises.

Why serve God if one can live for a couiple of hundred years without him?

[ChessPlayer]

On 3/31/2019 at 3:41 AM, Phillnb25 said:

TL;DR Possiblity of humans being able to live forever, moral or not?

 

Hello all! 

I found this sub forum and got super excited because it is right up my alley

ok I wanna purpose a semi hypothetical situation.....for those who may not be familiar Trans humanism s defined as "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology" from here on out it will be referred as H+. 

So H+ proponents believe that they could either reverse or completely eliminate human cell aging by the year 2050. They believe that an event known as the singularity is coming and could be here by the 2030ish. From there H+ believe that humans could either A) implant themselves into machines (aka cyborgs), B) create procedures to reverse human cell aging, C) create digital copies of the human consciousness and upload it to a "cloud" storage system. Now this could be cool for many reasons, such as scientific development could be massively extended if scientists could live for extended periods of time. People with terminal illnesses could simply switch bodies. Stuff like that.

However with all things morality and ethics should be examined. Could a person be transferred into a new body and still be the original person? How would the soul figure into the equation? If we could would it be a sin? Would that be flying in the face of God's plan?

The bible never specifically answers questions such as the given the situation and personally I feel as if moral gray areas should be avoided like the plague. Though I would be excited about the potential to live forever. 

What are your thoughts? Should H+ be pursuing these ideas or could this be a demonic trap?

I know it's a bit of an older topic but I found it interesting. Firstly, there are a lot of different branches even within the transhumanist movement. The SENS research community aim to eliminate biological aging as a way to reach biological "immortality" while others are more in the camp of mind uploading (which brings on a ton of other philosophical questions as it would be a copy of your mind rather than your actual mind). Still others favor a combination approach using nanorobotics. The SENS and nanorobotics approaches are very promising in the next 30-40 years in my opinion to at least increase life expectancy. Note that I put immortality in quotation marks earlier. This is because even if you achieved a life free of disease and would not die of what we would call "natural causes," entropy is the great equalizer and under known models of physics, you would eventually die even if it took trillions of years. 

Now on to the moral questions. Firstly, I don't think there would be moral problem with SENS or nanorobotics. Both of these approaches are the philosophical equivalent of taking pharmaceuticals, or in the cybernetics case, giving an amputee a prosthetic. Perhaps you could argue that the Theseus Ship Paradox is relevant for cybernetics. Either way, I don't see those two technological paths to transhumanism becoming a moral problem for theists. The mind uploading approach is slightly different as I'm not sure how we should view copies of human minds which eventually diverge from the original mind in terms of thought. It is certainly an interesting area of debate. 

As I said previously, transhumanism does not grant immortality in the way we think of God as immortal. It would allow us to live vast lifespans and do many things but we cannot escape that we are physical beings bound by entropy and even if we live for a long time, we will eventually pass on.        

[missmuffet]

On 3/31/2019 at 1:41 AM, Phillnb25 said:

TL;DR Possiblity of humans being able to live forever, moral or not?

 

Hello all! 

I found this sub forum and got super excited because it is right up my alley

ok I wanna purpose a semi hypothetical situation.....for those who may not be familiar Trans humanism s defined as "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology" from here on out it will be referred as H+. 

So H+ proponents believe that they could either reverse or completely eliminate human cell aging by the year 2050. They believe that an event known as the singularity is coming and could be here by the 2030ish. From there H+ believe that humans could either A) implant themselves into machines (aka cyborgs), B) create procedures to reverse human cell aging, C) create digital copies of the human consciousness and upload it to a "cloud" storage system. Now this could be cool for many reasons, such as scientific development could be massively extended if scientists could live for extended periods of time. People with terminal illnesses could simply switch bodies. Stuff like that.

However with all things morality and ethics should be examined. Could a person be transferred into a new body and still be the original person? How would the soul figure into the equation? If we could would it be a sin? Would that be flying in the face of God's plan?

The bible never specifically answers questions such as the given the situation and personally I feel as if moral gray areas should be avoided like the plague. Though I would be excited about the potential to live forever. 

What are your thoughts? Should H+ be pursuing these ideas or could this be a demonic trap?

My thoughts are that the Holy Bible tells me the human souls lives for an eternity. Either with Jesus Christ or in hell. That is all I need. The world might tell me differently but that is not important to me.. 

[Justin Adams]

The only thing that may live on is man's vanity. And God will take care of that.

[AnOrangeCat]

I've pondered this topic from time to time as well. I'm not going to go so far as to say I believe this is what Revelation 9:6 is talking about when it says "And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.", but it is interesting to consider the possibility. With regards to transhumanism in general, past a certain point it just gets scary. Companies and governments already have tremendous power to invade our privacy, collect our personal data, and even predict what we might search for on the internet. As much as I'm intrigued by the possibilities offered by technology, when people start incorporating it into their physical bodies on a mass scale there's no way world governments won't take advantage of it in terrible ways.

 

[The Barbarian]

On 4/13/2019 at 1:50 AM, Who me said:

Firstly this depends on the assumption that evolution is a fact.

It's directly observed to happen.  Can't get more factual than that.

On 4/13/2019 at 1:50 AM, Who me said:

If you think it is please define what you mean by evolution and profide evidence of it. ( most evidence is of evolution within a species. ie of changes to a dog into a dog. )

The scientific definition is "change in allele frequency in a population over time."   So, it would nicely fit this issue, of humans changing but remaining people.  For example, if we found a way to stop telomeres from dropping off our DNA at each cell division, then we'd prevent aging and eventual death from aging.    We'd still be humans, however.   No speciation.

It is true, though that even most creationist organizations now accept the fact of speciation, often accepting the evolution of new genera and even families of organisms.   Far beyond what this OP is suggesting.

 

On 4/13/2019 at 1:50 AM, Who me said:

Why serve God if one can live for a couiple of hundred years without him?

Seems like a paltry deal, compared to eternity.   Just saying.

[Alive]

Entropy--yup real difficult to get away from it. I am convinced it is the 'reality' that was introduced into the equation at the fall.

Whether or not that is true, I speculate that in the New Heaven and New Earth---entropy will be a non-factor.

I keep an eye on the sciences because studying the universe is to see my Creator there--just as Paul mentioned in Romans.

I am convinced and have seen much evidence over the years, that the deeper science looks, the more it becomes obvious that God exists and His hand is observed.

I believe and there is evidence that humanity is devolving--this is consistent with the principle/law of entropy.

It has been observed that the rate of mutation in each generation is increasing exponentially. Note the word 'rate'. 

The vast majority of 'mutation' is deleterious.

'Mind' is a far more mysterious thing than most folks think it is...I very much doubt that 'Mind' can be transferred, despite the entertaining Sci-Fi stories.

[Jayne]

3 hours ago, Alive said:

Entropy--yup real difficult to get away from it. I am convinced it is the 'reality' that was introduced into the equation at the fall.

Whether or not that is true, I speculate that in the New Heaven and New Earth---entropy will be a non-factor.

I keep an eye on the sciences because studying the universe is to see my Creator there--just as Paul mentioned in Romans.

I am convinced and have seen much evidence over the years, that the deeper science looks, the more it becomes obvious that God exists and His hand is observed.

I believe and there is evidence that humanity is devolving--this is consistent with the principle/law of entropy.

It has been observed that the rate of mutation in each generation is increasing exponentially. Note the word 'rate'. 

The vast majority of 'mutation' is deleterious.

'Mind' is a far more mysterious thing than most folks think it is...I very much doubt that 'Mind' can be transferred, despite the entertaining Sci-Fi stories.

Ya'll…..you can't get much more of a better answer than this. ^^^^

[Eman_3]

God has his own method of transferring the soul, are we arrogant enough to attempt God's work? Maybe God intended us to have one soul, and live a specific time, and extending our personal time that much maybe contrary to God's will.

Would this interfere with a person's soul going to Heaven? Could it be lost?

Personally I would never do that, I will rely on God's work instead.