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Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist Manifesto
Forewords by Dr. Aubrey de Grey (Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge) and Robert A. Freitas Jr. (Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing)"A rare and uplifting vision of the biological future we can and should create for ourselves." – Dr. Gregory Fahy, Chief Scientific Officer, Vice President, 21st Century MedicineThe debate about the ethics of human biotechnology or genetic engineering is one of the most important cultural issues of our time. "Transhumanism" is the philosophy that most of all supports genetic science and biotechnology, yet the public knows little about this emerging philosophy. Transhumanism declares unequivocal support for the attempt to eliminate disease, defeat death, and enhance the body and mind beyond the limitations of the age-old human condition.In Designer Evolution Simon Young presents a polemical espousal of transhumanist philosophy and a trenchant attack on its critics, the "Bio-Luddites." The author calls for a rejection of premodern superstition and postmodern nihilism in favor of a renewed belief in human progress through scientific rationality.In an age when cynicism, fatalism, and nihilism are rife, Designer Evolution will rekindle a feeling of optimism about the future of our species. This is a concise, reader-friendly introduction to a vitally important philosophy that will become difficult to ignore as advances in biotechnology increasingly claim the headlines in the coming decades.
417 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2005
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Simon Young
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June 26, 2020
A ground-breaking work, the first exposition of transhumanism as a philosophical system and manifesto. Inspiring, uplifting, innovative, it provides a philosophical underpinning for transhumanism, and 'a clarion call' for humanity, in the words of Robert Ettinger, author of The Prospect of Immortality.
The author's thesis: we need a new, positive, benevolent belief system for the 21st century, that is consonant with new science and technology, and offers meaning, significance, purpose to life.
The author provides it in a 400 page volume brimming with new ideas.
The book is aimed at the general reader, and divided into short, headed sections, making it easy to open at any page and begin reading.
The Transhumanist Manifesto that opens the work is polemical, rhetorical. It begins with two powerful aphorisms. An introductory statement:
'The chief task of 21st century philosophy is the unification of science and ethics.'
Followed by the opening lines, a memorable response to both Rousseau and Marx:
'Man is not born free but everywhere in biological chains. People of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but your biological chains.'
Numerous aphorisms follow:
'As humanism freed us from the chains of superstition, let transhumanism free us from our biological chains '
'Let us think beyond the human condition; not what man is, but what he could be '.
'Science promises to succeed where religion and politics have failed, to make the weak strong.'
'That which ceases to grow begins to decay. Human beings were not meant to live like the lilies of the fields - our purpose is to be all we can be.'
Transhumanists predict that science will enable us to halt and reverse the aging process, hence:
'Let us dare to dream of greater things, for what is humanity's greatest goal but the defeat of death.'
'Death is a disease waiting to be cured.'
'There can be no greater reverence for life than the will to defeat death.'
'The acceptance of death as a natural part of life is a shallow defence against existential anxiety.'
The manifesto summarises the author's philosophy, and concludes with his vision:
'Imagine a future. As the ever-expanding internet extends the human nervous system around the globe.. a new planetary consciousness will emerge.'
'Gradually, the politics of division, nation against nation, race against race, will begin to fade.'
'Through Superbiology we will enhance our bodies and minds. Through nanotechnology we will eradicate the scourge of poverty and hunger. The tragedy of the human condition will come to an end. And then we could say, a new age has begun.'
The second section of the book is the first comprehensive rebuttal of all arguments against transhumanism. The tone is often forthright: 'Compassion? We are talking about eliminating disease, aging, death, poverty and starvation. Is that compassionate enough?'
But the majority of the work, two thirds of a 400 page volume, is the expression of transhumanism as a philosophical system.
Rejecting Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's cosmic Will and Will to Power, the author describes the universe as a Will to Evolve; an automatic process of 'information complexification'; the production of patterns of increasing complexity over time.
Physicist Paul Davies has expressed a similar view: 'There is nothing within science as such which compels one to favour entropy over organised complexity in characterising the evolution of the universe '
Contrary to the voices of the neo-Darwinists, evolution is not directionless, and humanity is not 'an insignificant twig on the bush of life,' but the current apex of an evolutionary process of information complexification, the human brain being the most complex object in the known universe.
Far from insignificant, 'Humanity is the mind of evolution become conscious of itself,' a view since echoed by physicist Brian Cox:' We are the cosmos made conscious, and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.'
In the author's new model of psychology, Neuromotivational Psychology, or Evolutionary Neuropsychology (combining neuroscience, evolutionary, cognitive and humanistic psychology), human beings are evolved, embodied biocomputers, genetically programmes to survive and reproduce, through the neurochemical behavioural conditioning mechanism of feelings.
But we do not have to be ruled by Freud's basic instincts of Thanatos and Eros. We have evolved higher, cognitive expressions of our survival and reproductive drives:
'The Prometheus and Orpheus drives for Individuation and Integration,' knowledge and creativity, self-development and self-transcendence, correspond to the functioning of the left/right sides of the neo-cortex.
Together, the Prometheus and Orpheus drives constitute a cognitive Will to Evolve; an impulse to increase abilities, and so survivability.
The best way to live is to engage our Will to Evolve by striving to increase our abilities, so acting in harmony with the evolutionary process of information complexification that is the universe:
'Humanity is an unfinished symphony. The book of Life is an unfinished masterpiece. Our goal is to be better than we are. To seek more life through a lust for life.'
'The purpose of life is the continual expansion of abilities in pursuit of ever-increasing survivability and well-being.'
'We are here to be the best we can be.'
The transition from Darwinian to Designer Evolution, control of our own biological evolution, is the next stage in the evolutionary process of information complexification.
The emerging Superbiology (biotechnology and genetics) will allow us to increase longevity, empathy, rationality and creativity, the functioning of the big four faculties of the brain, doing, feeling, thinking, perceiving.
Richard Dawkins was incorrect, we are not 'born selfish' ('as stated on page three of The Selfish Gene), but primed with the neurochemistry of love (oxytocin/vasopressin), 'an evolved neurochemical inducement to protect and surround oneself with those of benefit to survival and reproductive success.' We should therefore speak instead of The Benevolent Gene.
'Felt morality' is extended by 'Thought morality', the ability of the conscious brain to recognise 'the logic of love'; the fact that 'benevolence is sensible self-interest. Malevolence is stupid selfishness.' 'Goodwill to all men is a rational tactic for survival and wellbeing.'
The way to treat one another is through Reciprocal Eugoics; 'the mutual encouragement of ever-increasing wellbeing.'
A future science of neuroenhancement will allow us to extend our moral capacity further;
'Spirituality is a neurochemically-induced feeling of universal love.' 'So let us be spiritual enough to enhance the neurochemistry of spirituality - that we may learn the art of creating universal love on earth - through science.'
In political philosophy, the author first advocates the 'biolibertarianism' and 'Soft Libertarianisn' necessary for transhumanism to avoid ' a recipe for tyranny called eugenics' (control of our minds and bodies), before introducing the principle of Bispectism:
'Bispect politics recognises man's twin nature as an animal programmed for survival through self-interest, and a social animal that recognises the mutual survival value of cooperation '
'The two main political ideologies concentrate their priorities on one side or other of our dual nature as a biological species.'
'The meme war between opposing ideologies of left and right is based on a false dichotomy.'
'Self-interest and social responsibility are complementary not contradictory.'
'Politics should be regarded as a homeostatic adjustment mechanism maintaing a society in a state of dynamic balance between extremes.'
'The future of politics lies in Progressive Centrism. a sensible middle ground between extremes of left and right.'
In aesthetics, 'The solace of shared misery will continue to be sought through art until misery itself is cured through Superbiology,' but the author predicts a positive new 'Up! Art of joy awe and wonder,' made by 'the New Leonardians' who combine art with science. 'Evolution, like art, is a creative process of pattern-making.' 'Through Designer Evolution man is destined to become the artist of his own self-design.'
In sociology, the author sees memetics as the basis of a social science of the future. Cultures evolve through 'Meme Wars;' battles of ideas between 'Defenders of the Meme' competing for control of the 'Metameme' governing cultural behaviour. In a profound aphorism, "He who holds the power is he who controls the meme.'
There is much much more, too much to include here: netaphysics, neuroepistemology, neurotypology, neurodualism, neuromanticism, evolutionary existentialism...
In summation, a monumental work of popular philosophy that provides a much-needed positive new world view for humanity, and anticipates subsequent cultural developments such as the inexorable rise of 'internetics', neuroscience, memetics, and the renewed, positive Enlightenment humanism since espoused by author's such as Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley and Peter Diamantis.
As anti-aging pioneer Aubrey de Grey writes in his preface to the book, 'We need a populist approach. And this book provides it...Read on, stand up, get active.'
And in the author's words, ending The Transhumanist Manifesto, and echoing the humanism of Star Trek ('the modern equivalent of the Greek myths'): 'The human adventure is just beginning, and there are no limits to what we might achieve once we embrace the Will to Evolve beyond our human-all-too-hunan condition.'
The author's thesis: we need a new, positive, benevolent belief system for the 21st century, that is consonant with new science and technology, and offers meaning, significance, purpose to life.
The author provides it in a 400 page volume brimming with new ideas.
The book is aimed at the general reader, and divided into short, headed sections, making it easy to open at any page and begin reading.
The Transhumanist Manifesto that opens the work is polemical, rhetorical. It begins with two powerful aphorisms. An introductory statement:
'The chief task of 21st century philosophy is the unification of science and ethics.'
Followed by the opening lines, a memorable response to both Rousseau and Marx:
'Man is not born free but everywhere in biological chains. People of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but your biological chains.'
Numerous aphorisms follow:
'As humanism freed us from the chains of superstition, let transhumanism free us from our biological chains '
'Let us think beyond the human condition; not what man is, but what he could be '.
'Science promises to succeed where religion and politics have failed, to make the weak strong.'
'That which ceases to grow begins to decay. Human beings were not meant to live like the lilies of the fields - our purpose is to be all we can be.'
Transhumanists predict that science will enable us to halt and reverse the aging process, hence:
'Let us dare to dream of greater things, for what is humanity's greatest goal but the defeat of death.'
'Death is a disease waiting to be cured.'
'There can be no greater reverence for life than the will to defeat death.'
'The acceptance of death as a natural part of life is a shallow defence against existential anxiety.'
The manifesto summarises the author's philosophy, and concludes with his vision:
'Imagine a future. As the ever-expanding internet extends the human nervous system around the globe.. a new planetary consciousness will emerge.'
'Gradually, the politics of division, nation against nation, race against race, will begin to fade.'
'Through Superbiology we will enhance our bodies and minds. Through nanotechnology we will eradicate the scourge of poverty and hunger. The tragedy of the human condition will come to an end. And then we could say, a new age has begun.'
The second section of the book is the first comprehensive rebuttal of all arguments against transhumanism. The tone is often forthright: 'Compassion? We are talking about eliminating disease, aging, death, poverty and starvation. Is that compassionate enough?'
But the majority of the work, two thirds of a 400 page volume, is the expression of transhumanism as a philosophical system.
Rejecting Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's cosmic Will and Will to Power, the author describes the universe as a Will to Evolve; an automatic process of 'information complexification'; the production of patterns of increasing complexity over time.
Physicist Paul Davies has expressed a similar view: 'There is nothing within science as such which compels one to favour entropy over organised complexity in characterising the evolution of the universe '
Contrary to the voices of the neo-Darwinists, evolution is not directionless, and humanity is not 'an insignificant twig on the bush of life,' but the current apex of an evolutionary process of information complexification, the human brain being the most complex object in the known universe.
Far from insignificant, 'Humanity is the mind of evolution become conscious of itself,' a view since echoed by physicist Brian Cox:' We are the cosmos made conscious, and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.'
In the author's new model of psychology, Neuromotivational Psychology, or Evolutionary Neuropsychology (combining neuroscience, evolutionary, cognitive and humanistic psychology), human beings are evolved, embodied biocomputers, genetically programmes to survive and reproduce, through the neurochemical behavioural conditioning mechanism of feelings.
But we do not have to be ruled by Freud's basic instincts of Thanatos and Eros. We have evolved higher, cognitive expressions of our survival and reproductive drives:
'The Prometheus and Orpheus drives for Individuation and Integration,' knowledge and creativity, self-development and self-transcendence, correspond to the functioning of the left/right sides of the neo-cortex.
Together, the Prometheus and Orpheus drives constitute a cognitive Will to Evolve; an impulse to increase abilities, and so survivability.
The best way to live is to engage our Will to Evolve by striving to increase our abilities, so acting in harmony with the evolutionary process of information complexification that is the universe:
'Humanity is an unfinished symphony. The book of Life is an unfinished masterpiece. Our goal is to be better than we are. To seek more life through a lust for life.'
'The purpose of life is the continual expansion of abilities in pursuit of ever-increasing survivability and well-being.'
'We are here to be the best we can be.'
The transition from Darwinian to Designer Evolution, control of our own biological evolution, is the next stage in the evolutionary process of information complexification.
The emerging Superbiology (biotechnology and genetics) will allow us to increase longevity, empathy, rationality and creativity, the functioning of the big four faculties of the brain, doing, feeling, thinking, perceiving.
Richard Dawkins was incorrect, we are not 'born selfish' ('as stated on page three of The Selfish Gene), but primed with the neurochemistry of love (oxytocin/vasopressin), 'an evolved neurochemical inducement to protect and surround oneself with those of benefit to survival and reproductive success.' We should therefore speak instead of The Benevolent Gene.
'Felt morality' is extended by 'Thought morality', the ability of the conscious brain to recognise 'the logic of love'; the fact that 'benevolence is sensible self-interest. Malevolence is stupid selfishness.' 'Goodwill to all men is a rational tactic for survival and wellbeing.'
The way to treat one another is through Reciprocal Eugoics; 'the mutual encouragement of ever-increasing wellbeing.'
A future science of neuroenhancement will allow us to extend our moral capacity further;
'Spirituality is a neurochemically-induced feeling of universal love.' 'So let us be spiritual enough to enhance the neurochemistry of spirituality - that we may learn the art of creating universal love on earth - through science.'
In political philosophy, the author first advocates the 'biolibertarianism' and 'Soft Libertarianisn' necessary for transhumanism to avoid ' a recipe for tyranny called eugenics' (control of our minds and bodies), before introducing the principle of Bispectism:
'Bispect politics recognises man's twin nature as an animal programmed for survival through self-interest, and a social animal that recognises the mutual survival value of cooperation '
'The two main political ideologies concentrate their priorities on one side or other of our dual nature as a biological species.'
'The meme war between opposing ideologies of left and right is based on a false dichotomy.'
'Self-interest and social responsibility are complementary not contradictory.'
'Politics should be regarded as a homeostatic adjustment mechanism maintaing a society in a state of dynamic balance between extremes.'
'The future of politics lies in Progressive Centrism. a sensible middle ground between extremes of left and right.'
In aesthetics, 'The solace of shared misery will continue to be sought through art until misery itself is cured through Superbiology,' but the author predicts a positive new 'Up! Art of joy awe and wonder,' made by 'the New Leonardians' who combine art with science. 'Evolution, like art, is a creative process of pattern-making.' 'Through Designer Evolution man is destined to become the artist of his own self-design.'
In sociology, the author sees memetics as the basis of a social science of the future. Cultures evolve through 'Meme Wars;' battles of ideas between 'Defenders of the Meme' competing for control of the 'Metameme' governing cultural behaviour. In a profound aphorism, "He who holds the power is he who controls the meme.'
There is much much more, too much to include here: netaphysics, neuroepistemology, neurotypology, neurodualism, neuromanticism, evolutionary existentialism...
In summation, a monumental work of popular philosophy that provides a much-needed positive new world view for humanity, and anticipates subsequent cultural developments such as the inexorable rise of 'internetics', neuroscience, memetics, and the renewed, positive Enlightenment humanism since espoused by author's such as Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley and Peter Diamantis.
As anti-aging pioneer Aubrey de Grey writes in his preface to the book, 'We need a populist approach. And this book provides it...Read on, stand up, get active.'
And in the author's words, ending The Transhumanist Manifesto, and echoing the humanism of Star Trek ('the modern equivalent of the Greek myths'): 'The human adventure is just beginning, and there are no limits to what we might achieve once we embrace the Will to Evolve beyond our human-all-too-hunan condition.'
December 22, 2009
God, this book was a chore. Here I was hoping for at least a moderately well-reasoned treatment on such things as the morality of genetic enhancement or futuristic aesthetics and instead I got 300+ pages of rambling, poorly reasoned ideas based on a flawed understanding of some rather basic scientific principles. At several points Young puts forth ideas that sound intriguing and seem, for purely visceral reasons, to be desirable, but when his "reasoning" is considered it makes no sense. He contradicts himself wildly, obviously doesn't understand the theory of evolution, intentionally misquotes people to support his ideas, uses annoyingly repetitive sound-bites and catch-phrases in lieu of reasoned arguments, and commits that most egregious of all scientific errors of selecting only confirming evidence and ignoring all disconfirming evidence while trying to make his points. Basically, Young reads like someone who took a few philosophy courses in undergrad and read a whole bunch of pop-science books and now considers himself to be some kind of highly cerebral autodidact on the cutting-edge of everything, yet succeeds only in sounding like an adolescent neo-Randian lobbying for the development of biotech that will give all of us KEWL POWRZ 'cause that would be AWESOME. The one thing that I may end up taking from this is further reading matterial: Young lists several sources as inspiration, sources he may have wildly misunderstood (if his "understanding" of things like evolution is any indication), so I can at least do some back-tracking through his sources and see if any of them are more logical than he was.
January 21, 2018
Readability 5. Rating 2. Wow. Stunning that this book was ever published - I guess his dad is credible enough to open some doors. It does have a nice cover and it seems to be endorsed by guys who, while out on the fringe, would seem to have better things to do than write forewards for a book like this. Actually, it isn't a book - it is a glorified blog rant from someone lacking anything but enthusiasm. I don't think it is productive to dissect what he's written - suffice it to say that if one is looking for science or even credible speculation on how humanity might change itself, this is not the book.
Want to read
May 23, 2008Amazon 2008-05-23, link from featured book on http://www.transhumanism.org/index.ph.... I feel it's more my duty to read this (and thus be more fully aware of other transhumanist thought) than anything else.
Read
August 23, 2007nonfiction,philosophy,science,transhumanism,enhancement
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews