Philosophy Now Forum

by Rick Lewis

http://philosophynow.org/issues/91/Onwards_and_Upwards

augmenting humans...

reading glasses be damned... unless you are using them to read philosophy now?

-Imp

Tempting offer, this enhancement. Faustian. . .
At 63, I'm only just getting round to studying stuff seriously. More time would be nice.
But what if you could live on and on, with no loss of physical or mental capacity, so you would have to decide you'd had enough at some point , to get yourself terminated. Would you ever get to that point?

Impenitent wrote:augmenting humans...

reading glasses be damned... unless you are using them to read philosophy now?

-Imp

Yes I'm using specs to read philosophy now now.

Thundril wrote:Tempting offer, this enhancement. Faustian. . .
At 63, I'm only just getting round to studying stuff seriously. More time would be nice.
But what if you could live on and on, with no loss of physical or mental capacity, so you would have to decide you'd had enough at some point , to get yourself terminated. Would you ever get to that point?

More time would be nice if society allowed equal opportunities for the elderly.

Jobs are becoming very rare these days...efficiency and technology has made a mockery out of human's work. Who needs a human when a machine is more proficient? Would there be enough work to be able to support all these aging overmen?

I am not too keen on the idea of being homeless or seeing homeless due to over population and scarce jobs. I would opt for termination, I think....unless of course...socialism was able to fix the problem.

But as hard as I work now to make a living...I could not envision myself keeping up with it forever. Eventually, I think...I would become tired/bored of trying to compete. I believe, eventually, so would everyone.

Nobody has asked why anybody wants enhanced lives in order to live longer. Why?

If technology is taking away jobs how will we support ourselves if we don't have jobs and live longer? And wont many of us with enhanced lives just get bored and want to die. Then we should have the right to die if we get bored with caring on. All that should create more moral dilemmas.

Perhaps humans are destined to live longer so they can survive space travel and discover other worlds. Perhaps living longer will somehow save our planet. Perhaps the enhancing of human life is in order to create a heartier species so to survive a less healthier planet. Perhaps enhanced humans will act (more than they do now) as filtration plants that remove and digest increased pollutant in our environment. Perhaps humans will be enhanced to need less water and air.

In the future we will have GM humans - Frankenhumans.