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Transhumanism Can Eat a Dick!
Timothy Leary has always creeped me out a little. Actually, sometimes it’s quite a lot. It’s partly his radical advocacy of drugs as the only spiritual pathway (which they are not), and it’s also partly his adherence to the idea of transhumanism or posthumanism. The terminology is a bit confusing, but transhumanism seems to teach that the human condition is only a transitional phase before a higher evolution. This higher evolution is the posthuman condition. It generally connects to scientific fantasies of immortality and leaving the planet and the human body behind as an outdated piece of junk.
In his work on “exo-psychology” Leary says:
This is not for Every Body. The human species is now at a point of genetic fission. Assume that ninety-three percent of the species is going to adapt to life on the planet. Ecology is the seductive dinosaur science that will lead most of the post-human species to conform to terrestrial conditions, become reasonably comfortable, passive, robot-conditioned cyborg insectoids directed by centralized (ABC, NBC, CIA, CNN, MAO, KGB) broadcasting systems. For terrestrial readers this manual outlines the neurological steps necessary to adapt harmoniously to hedonic, five-brained cyborg existence.
This transmission flashes a different signal for the seven percent who we assume are DNA-designed to attain biological immortality, leave the womb-planet, become galactic citizens and fuse with superior interstellar entities.
First of all, I see the quest for immortality as being a kind of ridiculous ego game. It indicates such a strong attachment to the ego and to the individual identity that you want to figure out how to maintain it forever at all costs. Certainly death is scary and mysterious, but to me it seems like the ultimate adventure - because you finally get to overcome (in one way or another) all the petty stuff that’s held you back.
Second: I’m all for space travel. I think it’s both inevitable and sci-fi has done nothing if it hasn’t made me excited about the wild possibilities of it. But I think it’s fucking retarded to call ecology a “dinosaur” and to somehow suggest that it’s going to hold us back from unlimited technological or spiritual growth. And it irritates me equally to hold this same view of the body. It’s just a new dressed-up version of the old awful asceticism of the Christian belief that the flesh was evil and matter was basically synonymous with filth. That kind of thinking doesn’t take you anywhere fun. In fact, it helps make sure you’re going to have a bad time in your life. It’s like going out to a party with the attitude you’re going to have a bad time. It’s pretty much a surefire guarantee that you will.
June 8th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
All of the things transhumanists want to accomplish with their ideas, I find can already be accomplished by the powerful mind as the example of Tibetan monks and their many abilities.
As I read once that using drugs is the easy way out of the search for the alchemical holy grail - I also find that transhumanists are trying to accomplish the same thing, when everything they want is already there with discipline.
Monks can time-travel, control the temperture of their bodies, cause a chi force-field around their bodies, heal themsleves…all with mind over matter.
Transhumanists are just lazy.
June 8th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
The Transhumanist ideology is so repugnant to me I don’t even know where to begin.
Let’s start with the physics. Any kind of space travel that would take us somewhere we would want to go would require technology so beyond our current understanding of Einsteinian physics that we might as well just call it parapyschological. Why bother going through all the trouble to build expensive and polluting machines to accomplish what can be done with the mind (as N.M. suggests in the above post).
Second, its condescension to environmental and ecological concerns is immoral.
Third, I agree with Tim that there is a deep vein of hatred of the biological body. Ascetism has its uses, but it should not be based on a hatred of the body. Otherwise, it is missing the point.
Fourth, Transhumanism contradicts what we already know about where the “soul” resides. You know, transplant recipients and all.
Fifth, all the other things Tim and N.M. say: insane attachment to ego, spiritual laziness blah blah blah. Others have said it already better than I can tonight.
Finally: it’s just a really stupid ideology.
June 8th, 2005 at 11:14 pm
you should read the blinkered,ego-centered postings on future hi to get more of a feel for the transhumanist personality.i got criticised for not being optimistic about thier descriptions of the next level of concious evolution and realised they weren`t interested in dialog so much as wanking to the images of thier transmutation into space gods.
one of thier own gurus,terence mckenna warned that when the eschaton arrives it may not include them.and i got slapped for pointing that out too.
timothy leary got too caught up in his own sugar cubes and his ego`s reflection in the media to be able to be of any more use to society after about 1968.by that time he was thunbing his nose at some pretty humourless types.
it is spiritually lazy to do mushrooms or dmt,but it is effective.and the drugs do you too.
terence`s comments are the most honest and real that i`ve experienced in all of this,from buddha to ken wilber to alan watts.he takes the child-like wonderment of it as the message and,for me,that`s what it`s all about.
June 8th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
yeah i like mckenna for that reason too. do you happen to know exactly where he said that line about them being left out of the eschaton? thats a great idea about looking at future hi for more info on this. ive only looked at their site a couple times, but have been mostly bored with it. perhaps we could start a big rumble though
June 9th, 2005 at 12:22 am
terence was suggesting that as computers and technology rushed to this convergance point at some point in the near future,the entity may wake up and rub it`s eyes and say…..enough with all the crap you guys(meaning us,of course.)and take corrective action.
on the future hi site there is a page with audio files from terence and others.his comments in this regard were contained on one of those files.
terence was only speculating in one direction about what the eschaton could possibly be and it was merely an opinion about an event that could happen in the future.i think the greatest gift we give each other is the arena to be able to speculate without judgement.it is opinion,after all.
the folks on future hi were tolerant of me and my cynicism for only so long and i have left them,out of respect,to thier own devices.i can`t subscribe to a totally blissed out nirvana like evolution of our species through technology and philosophy.we are talking about humans,after all.praedatory carnivores.
we have had the means to become more benign in our politics and religion(the two subjects not to be discussed at the table) for thousands of years and it hasn`t happened,so why should nanotechnology change that?
that`s where the future hi boys got ratty.
June 9th, 2005 at 1:14 am
yeah thats a great point, i think. that we’ve had all the opportunity in the world already to be perfect and blissful and its not going to suddenly be a new possibility to do that with technology. all the old problems will plague us.
June 9th, 2005 at 7:16 pm
the future hi folks got a bit hairy when i agreed that the transhuman thing was bound to happen,it just wouldn`t be available to the bean shoot and tofu crowd.it would be another extention of the military/industrial complex.
intellectuals get rounded up when shit hits the fan.we run the risk of that when we post,however small the risk maybe in our country(s).
i`m glad to be able to voice my ideas,to test thier validity,and to joust with keen minds in a safe environment.the future hi thing turned a bit too elitist for me.not enough street level logical thought.
the idea of a blog against blog thing appeals in a playful sort of way.if i thought they`d see the humour of it,it would be good to do…….but i get the feeling they`re just a little too tightly wrapped for a laugh.
June 11th, 2005 at 2:47 am
I think some of the criticisms directed at Leary here are a bit off-base.
Particularly this one:
“It’s partly his radical advocacy of drugs as the only spiritual pathway”
Could you dig up an example of that? I know that drugs were more-or-less passe to him as he got older. Not to mention he was a big believer in finding your own path.
I think you’re either misrepresenting him or thinking of something that he produced very early on.
That aside, I think sometimes you’re a bit rash in your judgements, Tim.
June 11th, 2005 at 10:10 am
i think YOURE sometimes a bit rash in YOUR judgements. so there. anyway, why cant i be rash? why cant i say what i think? so what if its wrong? im not gonna dance around and pretend like i dont have an opinion just because people might not agree with me
June 11th, 2005 at 10:41 am
[…] ins but also passion. Yeah, I tell other philosophies (and philosophers) they can “eat a dick.” Yeah I spend an inordinate amount of time cursing t […]
June 11th, 2005 at 11:20 am
DR.tim leary was a clinical psychogist working in research using lsd as a modality to treat criminals in jails.he found that his program was extremely effective in treating recidivism amongst his patients.i dont think he believed his patients were spiritually effected,so much as functionally effected.cured.a much more clinically precise term.
how a man reacts when what he has discovered works is then vilified is told by history.most of what we know about the man is his reaction to the governments actions after his clinical trails were halted.i read a biography of tim,a large silver bound book.the name escapes me,but it tells the story.he was radicalised by he felt was an injustice.he found a cure and it was outlawed and he became one as a result.
i tend to feel that there is too much money to be made by people being ill and incarcerated for a cure to be allowed.
timothy leary almost single-handedly changed the face of american culture and if someone did manage to put a few pints of sandoz lsd-25 into a municipal water source then all bets would have been off.
June 11th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Somewhere floating in cyberspace is a copy of a screamingly hilarious 70s era drug war ad. It depicts a suitcase with a hysterical headline aloing the lines of “this suitcase could hold enough LSD to poison an entire city’s water supply- what are YOU going to do about it?” The best weapon against these goons is their own ridiculous propaganda.
June 11th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
[…] are not only “stoopid” but that they have the freedom to be. This is exactly what’s wrong with transhumanist philosophy: it tantalizes you wi […]
June 11th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
“DR.tim leary was a clinical psychogist working in research using lsd as a modality to treat criminals in jails.he found that his program was extremely effective in treating recidivism amongst his patients.i dont think he believed his patients were spiritually effected,so much as functionally effected.cured.a much more clinically precise term.”
I don’t think that’s true.
I read an article on the whole prison thing written by Leary, and he wasn’t clinical in his observations at all.
as an example:
“The morning after the session, driving back to the prison was like returning to some comfortable place in my skull. Strong bonds of empathy had developed. We had been through the adventure together. We had gone beyond the roles of Harvard psychologist and convict, faced fear together, had trusted and laugh.
This time I felt at home in the prison. It always works this way after a good trip. Your old reality fades a bit, and you incorporate a new reality. This identification is not metaphorical. It is neurological. In scientific papers we called this process re-imprinting.”
June 12th, 2005 at 5:17 pm
have you actually done acid jacob?it disolves semantic constructs.it allows a person to choose thier tunnel reality,if they wish.his postulate that mood,dose and setting were critical to the effectiveness of the cure are clinically accurate and precise.his statements you quoted above are after the fact and are his recollection of the process.not a description of the process it`sself and it`s preparation.the process was entirely controlled.
the way that leary describes the process is written for the layman and as such does not contain the codified language of clinical psychiatry.if it did it would be readable only to other clinicians.you can discover this for yourself by reading doctorate level discussions on any subject.
leary discovered,amongst other things,a cure for recidivism.the cure for an ineffective self.that of the criminal,in this instance.without going into conspiracy stuff,you have to ask yourself what the governments and militaries of the world were doing in lsd research if,when a cure is found,everything is packed up and filed away.
the business of prisons is a growth industry.it is slowly being privatised.we have the largest prison population,per capita,of any nation on the planet.and old tim found a way to reprogram the criminal mind.oops.better call g.gordon liddy.
we have an imprint of fear as the basis for our society.it resonates with the reptilian cortex or however you describe being an asshole globally.it roots us in six year-old behaviour of action-reaction.you do that,i`ll take it personally and get you back.so hitler invades poland while chamberlain is proclaiming peace in our time.
give adolph some(a lot of)acid, a couple of kind-hearted hookers and a weekend in the alps and he`d be singing eidlwiess and hugging jews with a tear in his eye.
easy answer?no.but he found something that worked and it scared the stone-hearted bureaucrats.
terence mckenna was on the same trail and someone asked him how come the cops didn`t arrest him like tim and he answered typically”i used big words,they didn`t understand what i was talking about.”
god bless tim and terence.
August 6th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
[…] Jumping back to Star Trek for a moment, Gene Roddenberry was a well-known advocate of Humanism (and yes I know that I am jumping all over here connecting things). Intertwined with scientific philosophy, Humanism replaced the theological Christian worldview which placed importance only on the afterlife. Humanism said that the realm of human affairs was decent and important in it’s own right. Which leads me in turn to Transhumanism - which I originally thought was just about transcending the limits of the human body, but I now realize is also about transcending the Humanist philosophy itself. In fact, I found a group of Transhumanists who refer to themselves as Ascensionists: Ascensionism is a new branch of humanism composed of humanists of various beliefs united by a common thread. That thread is the idea that through science and technology, we can not only improve the world around us, but we have a sacred duty to humanity to improve upon and move past the “natural” human condition and progress into immortality and beyond. […]
August 21st, 2006 at 1:27 am
[…] Searching for transhumanism on Google (something I haven’t done in a while), I stumbled across a gem of a blog post suitably entitled, “Transhumanism Can Eat a Dick!” I shall repost it here, in all its glory… Timothy Leary has always creeped me out a little. Actually, sometimes it’s quite a lot. It’s partly his radical advocacy of drugs as the only spiritual pathway (which they are not), and it’s also partly his adherence to the idea of transhumanism or posthumanism. The terminology is a bit confusing, but transhumanism seems to teach that the human condition is only a transitional phase before a higher evolution. This higher evolution is the posthuman condition. It generally connects to scientific fantasies of immortality and leaving the planet and the human body behind as an outdated piece of junk. […]