Super charging Human evolution?

[Enforcer Talen]

He hasnt been supercharged yet.

[Rye]

In today's understanding of the universe i does not exist.

...what?

Another nihilism wanker, I suppose. "You can't prove something doesn't exist, therefore it does!" Psychic beam attack!

His argument is more sophistry than nihilism. Nihilism is the opposition to and rejection of values, institutions and laws established by tradition in the most common sense, alternatively it is extreme skepticism (solipsism), the rejection of absolutely everything, and that meaning of it certainly isn't asserting the existence of anything like telekinesis. He's just an idiot.

[KrauserKrauser]

An idiot with UNLIMITED POWER! (Insert Force Lightning picture)

I think we scared him away though.

Maybe someone used their telekinesis on him.

[Enforcer Talen]

His looking for his perfect hearing.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Hey, can you blame him? 25 posts in 31 minutes, almost all showing how utterly stupid his premise was. That's gotta be a blow to someone not used to actual debate.

[Darth Servo]

is see both of your points
and by perfection i will elaborate
imune to all illness

What happens when a new ones evolves?

20/20 vision

Why stop at that? Why not give us the eyes of animals like hawks which are far superior to human eyes?

flawless hearing

Again, what is mean by flawless? Can hear everything? That would simply provide too much background noise.

not physical or mental imparments

Both intelligence and physical ability are bell curves.

increased strenght

By how much? To that of an NFL linebacker, a chimpanzee or a tiger?

and the human brain has unlimited potential, so telekinese may be possible as we evolve

It does NOT have unlimited potential. Its potential is limited by its physical size and the laws of the universe.

[Eris]

Hey, can you blame him? 25 posts in 31 minutes, almost all showing how utterly stupid his premise was. That's gotta be a blow to someone not used to actual debate.

That's actually kind of sad. To be fair, topics that are not pure flamebait and require thought and research to post in cannot be so quick as this, but still it does make a telling statement when the topic that merits the swiftest responses involves tearing the moron of the week to very small pieces. You all are misanthropists, and clearly take far too much enjoyment in ridiculing the general public.

Of course, we already knew this, and it's why I lurk/post here to begin with. Carry on I suppose.

[Feil]

and the human brain has unlimited potential, so telekinese may be possible as we evolve

It does NOT have unlimited potential. Its potential is limited by its physical size and the laws of the universe.

Technically, the human brain's potential is only limited by the net strength of the force fields that affect it and its position relative the origin of that force field. We could, for instance, try to put an electric charge on the brain, and hold it under some current-carying wires. Or just take it up in an airplane.

[Medic]

Hey, can you blame him? 25 posts in 31 minutes, almost all showing how utterly stupid his premise was. That's gotta be a blow to someone not used to actual debate.

That's actually kind of sad. To be fair, topics that are not pure flamebait and require thought and research to post in cannot be so quick as this, but still it does make a telling statement when the topic that merits the swiftest responses involves tearing the moron of the week to very small pieces. You all are misanthropists, and clearly take far too much enjoyment in ridiculing the general public.

Of course, we already knew this, and it's why I lurk/post here to begin with. Carry on I suppose.

In otherwords: "postcount++"

While the OP was deeply flawed, I can sympathize with Enforcer Talen in that it would be nice to in some way, speed up the evolutionary process for humans. Although would choosing which genes to express actually be evolution? In order for a sort of artificial selection to work, certain undesirable genetic traits can't be allowed to breed. In order for some idealized model to come into prevalence, those undesired traits have to be culled out through successive microevolution.

Lastly, I'd start with further progressing the the current direction of human evolution. Further marginalize and eventually get rid of the appendix and tailbone remnants, make childbirth less painful for woman etc. In addition to choosing to express the best available vision and hearing in the gene pool. I don't rightly know how many factors contribute to intelligence, but I'd second that societal changes are worth looking at too.

[Darth Raptor]

It's a forgone conclusion though, that anything meat can do machines can do one million times better. Unless you're willing to work with 100% artificial prosthetics somewhere, you're placing a glass ceiling on what Transhumanism can accomplish, be it by eugenics or outright genetic manipulation.

[Broomstick]

Actually, genetic engineering could feasibly have a male pregnancy, though I'll leave that to the women folk. No watermeons are coming out of me, no thank you.

Actually as a matter of definition no male can be pregnant. Being incapable of pregnancy is one of the fundamental characteristics of being male.

Oh?

Tell that to the seahorses

Now, you might have male sex characteristics and still be able to become pregnant, but that would just put you in some third sexual category. To be fair, this is not only off topic, such as there is one to begin with, but also is a semantic nitpick. Your point remains that we could in theory genetically engineer a creature that has both female and male sex characteristics; it happens by natural mutation after all, and I see no reason why that's an unduplicateable feat.

In theory a fertilized embryo could be implanted in the abdomen of a male human being and grow to term (at which point a Cesearan is sort of necessary). Basically, an artificially induced etopic pregnancy. However, given the enormous risks to both parent and child in an etopic pregnancy such an experiment would be highly unethical.

[RedImperator]

We spent a hundred million years evolving to the point we can make tools. Why would you fuck around genetically engineering humans to do the same thing you could accomplish with Cipro, binoculars, a hearing aid, reconstructive surgery, a prybar, and a robot to fetch your drink?

We can improve tools for much faster and cheaper than we can improve people. And if you fuck up and accidentally design a flawed tool, it doesn't, you know, live a freakish unnatural life of agony.

[Eris]

In otherwords: "postcount++"

In essence, yes.

While the OP was deeply flawed, I can sympathize with Enforcer Talen in that it would be nice to in some way, speed up the evolutionary process for humans. Although would choosing which genes to express actually be evolution? In order for a sort of artificial selection to work, certain undesirable genetic traits can't be allowed to breed. In order for some idealized model to come into prevalence, those undesired traits have to be culled out through successive microevolution.

Lastly, I'd start with further progressing the the current direction of human evolution. Further marginalize and eventually get rid of the appendix and tailbone remnants, make childbirth less painful for woman etc. In addition to choosing to express the best available vision and hearing in the gene pool.

I honestly think that eugenics and other genetic manipulation, if properly research and conducted, could be a powerful and useful tool in furthering the human condition. You mention a few clear cases of large scale manipulation that can constitute objective improvement, but it hardly stops there. Low level changes in the integrity of successive generations of cells could extend healthy life in theory indefinitely; a huge numbers of genetic diseases could be eliminated obviously as well; changes to the metabolism could do almost bloody well anything. The metabolism is one of the most powerful and constraining functions our bodies have; being able to reliably and safely tinker with it would be mindboggling in adding to our medical bag of tricks. The list goes on.

I don't rightly know how many factors contribute to intelligence, but I'd second that societal changes are worth looking at too.

I single this one out for special treatment. In short, there are a metric fuckload of factors that contribute to intelligence. This beyond the brute fact that 'intelligence' such as we consider it is a pretty meaningless concept. Take for instance an autistic man who despite being very mentally retarded in many ways can perform mathematical calculations that make most person's brains melt. Or the brilliant novelist that never got beyond Newton's first law in physics. There are too many elements and blurry lines when it comes to intelligence to make generalisations.

Despite that though, we can say a lot about how it's determined. One, it's very very very closely linked to hereditary traits. Two smart parents will almost inevitably produce smart children. Early environmental factors also play a large role, in particular parental stimulation. And I don't mean setting up play dates or getting whatever plastic "enrichment" crap is on the market, I mean really parenting. Peek-a-boo, balls of tin foil and just plain talking to kids--the things that take up hours, but are vital for making the formative neural pathways in a child's developing brain.

I grossly over-simplify of course, since I could spend hours talking about the subject without scratching the surface, but the general idea is that genetic engineering alone will not make people smarter. The human brain is just far too complex and sophisticated a system for it to be so easy.

It's a forgone conclusion though, that anything meat can do machines can do one million times better.

In theory I might agree with you. In theory. And even then I think it'd take more argumentation than has been given. Now, I will agree that it is clear for a vast majority of tasks machines can perform tasks better than biologicals, but there are classes of actions that it honestly is an open question. Take heuristic analsys; computers can only do this by brute forcing large volumes of possible cases, and even then humans can out-think them.

Now, I am not claiming that it is not the case that given sufficient development that computers could not be better than humans, I'm just asserting this is the sort of thing that requires an [/i]argument[/i]. To the best of my knowledge (and I could be wrong here, and admittedly we've got a few hundred million year headstart in the design phase), the closest we've come to demonstrating reasoning abilities are in fields such as fuzzy logic and faking true heuristic reasoning. Any and all necessity claims require something more behind them than a simple assertion that it's forgone and must be so, and this one is not only hindered by the fact we don't know how far we can push the limits of machine development, but we don't even know how the meat works yet either.

[Enforcer Talen]

I like to include cybernetics with transhumanism, so Id be playing with artificial organs, implanted AIs, gengineering and memetics as I feel the inclination.

As well, Brungardt, I view a person's body should be their business, and thus they will choose their own direction to evolve.

Intelligent Design at last

[Eris]

Oh?

Tell that to the seahorses

Oh, drat. I forgot about them. Serves me right for making such broad claims. Point conceded.

In theory a fertilized embryo could be implanted in the abdomen of a male human being and grow to term (at which point a Cesearan is sort of necessary). Basically, an artificially induced etopic pregnancy. However, given the enormous risks to both parent and child in an etopic pregnancy such an experiment would be highly unethical.

Really? Now that is interesting. Could you point me in the direction of more information related to this? I was under the impression that ectopic pregnancies inevitably led to death and misery all around without intervention, beyond the scope of even enormous risk, even in environments that were already vaguely like those suited for a developing fetus.

[Darth Raptor]

In theory I might agree with you. In theory. And even then I think it'd take more argumentation than has been given. Now, I will agree that it is clear for a vast majority of tasks machines can perform tasks better than biologicals, but there are classes of actions that it honestly is an open question. Take heuristic analsys; computers can only do this by brute forcing large volumes of possible cases, and even then humans can out-think them.

Which means there must be a reason why. A physical process that could be duplicated and improved upon with abiotics. Neural AI isn't even in its infancy. The biggest strength computers have (built into their very name) is ironically their biggest weakness. They're far too fixed into a math-based language and thereby, thought pattern.

Now, I am not claiming that it is not the case that given sufficient development that computers could not be better than humans, I'm just asserting this is the sort of thing that requires an argument. To the best of my knowledge (and I could be wrong here, and admittedly we've got a few hundred million year headstart in the design phase), the closest we've come to demonstrating reasoning abilities are in fields such as fuzzy logic and faking true heuristic reasoning. Any and all necessity claims require something more behind them than a simple assertion that it's forgone and must be so, and this one is not only hindered by the fact we don't know how far we can push the limits of machine development, but we don't even know how the meat works yet either.

Exactly, and once we do, we will find that it's not due to a mysterious magical soul or any such ballyhoo. It will be because there's an actual physical process behind it. One we can replicate with materials not limited to organic macromolecules. Biological life doesn't use organics because it's the best, it uses organics because it's the only thing available to it. Nothing else could have gone through abiogenesis. Not even silicon. I'm not saying we should abandon everything the flesh has to offer, but you're severely limiting yourself by tinkering with the genome only to the exclusion of everything else.

[Eris]

Exactly, and once we do, we will find that it's not due to a mysterious magical soul or any such ballyhoo. It will be because there's an actual physical process behind it. One we can replicate with materials not limited to organic macromolecules. Biological life doesn't use organics because it's the best, it uses organics because it's the only thing available to it. Nothing else could have gone through abiogenesis. Not even silicon. I'm not saying we should abandon everything the flesh has to offer, but you're severely limiting yourself by tinkering with the genome only to the exclusion of everything else.

Reasonable enough. I should apologise; I think I misinterpreted what you said earlier to be some form of technowank über alles. I'm in agreement that any thought processes we find are going to run along some kind of functionalist materialist lines, and that limiting what we have to work with is going to be just that, limiting.

Eh, I have come to the belief that I am too tired to be debating anything today. I think I'll withdraw semi-gracefully before I embarass myself further.

[mr friendly guy]

I can see the point of genetic engineering to get rid of genetic diseases. In which case I think that is highly ehticaly.

In regards to creating an uber man, while it might be "cool" to imagine such a person, practically what can such a man do that machines can't? Nothing really so in which case, why do it?

[KrauserKrauser]

He can love a woman in a way no machine ever can, just because he's Uber Man.

[Broomstick]

In theory a fertilized embryo could be implanted in the abdomen of a male human being and grow to term (at which point a Cesearan is sort of necessary). Basically, an artificially induced etopic pregnancy. However, given the enormous risks to both parent and child in an etopic pregnancy such an experiment would be highly unethical.

Really? Now that is interesting. Could you point me in the direction of more information related to this? I was under the impression that ectopic pregnancies inevitably led to death and misery all around without intervention, beyond the scope of even enormous risk, even in environments that were already vaguely like those suited for a developing fetus.

Well, as I said, etopic pregnancies are incredibly risky... but these days are sometimes survived. Although to be more precise we're referring to extrauterine pregnancies

It was either the Discovery or Health channel that recently had a show on survivig such pregnancies. They don't always result in birth - one woman never gave birth for 30 years, the baby died inside her and turned into a lithapedia, which is sort of the human equivalent of a pearl in an oyster - her body encased he fetus in calcium deposits.

Anyhow - the big risk for the mother is always bleeding to death. Either bleeding to death when a fallopian tube ruptures (not something that will happen to a man) or, if the fetus implants in a place where it can grow without outright destroying something, bleeding to death when the baby is removed. The placenta - which arises from the fetus, not the mother - creates large blood vessels that can bleed like a firehose. The uterine blood supply has mechanisms to allow its blood vessels to spasm and help shut off the flow. The rest of the body does not have these safety features.

Nonetheless, if the placenta implants along, say, the intestines your looking at a situation that might be survived. Women have also survived with the liver or kidney supporting an ectopic pregancy. In the case of an artificial male pregnancy the risk would be somewhat reduced by the doctors being able to choose an implantation site rather than relying on random chance. This is important - the safest course for removing the placental attachment is to remove what it is attached to. So, for example, if the attachment is a kidney then it's safer to just remove the whole kidney than to attempt to salvage it. Ditto for a length of bowel. If you're looking at the liver, though, you can't really just lop it out - that would be fatal, too.

Anyhow, here's an article on a mother and child pair of such survivors.

[Broomstick]

I honestly think that eugenics and other genetic manipulation, if properly research and conducted, could be a powerful and useful tool in furthering the human condition. You mention a few clear cases of large scale manipulation that can constitute objective improvement, but it hardly stops there. Low level changes in the integrity of successive generations of cells could extend healthy life in theory indefinitely; a huge numbers of genetic diseases could be eliminated obviously as well

What's interesting to me is that we do have eugenics these days - just not formal and institutionalized.

Parents can now find out if they're at risk for many disorders prior to conception. The options aren't always extensive, but there are certainly more than there used to be. Some couples opt not to have biological children, there is pre-implantation screening, amniocentesis, abortion... The rates of some genetic diseases in newborns is falling not because of genetic engineering but due to couples making decisions one at a time. This shouldn't be surprising since parents do have a drive to provide and protect their offspring.

Of course, such informal eugneics will not eliminate all suffering but it will significantly descrease the genetic burden on a population over time. It is open to abuse, such as sexual selection that severely skews the gender balance in a popluation (look at China). And there will be some friction between those than want to scrub clean the genome more than others. There have been a number of people with genetic disorders who elected to have children, knowing there was a risk of passing on the disorder that in some cases ranged from 50 to 100%. This has been sharply criticized by the "squeaky clean" camp. On the other hand, while some disorders are definitely disorders, those who posses them do not think they are horrific enough to justify abortion, or don't see their disorder as getting in the way of a good life. It's an inconvenience, not a misery.

[SG-17]

Perfect hearing and vision do occur naturally, but deteriorate over time. I mean that they are preserved in their state of perfection.
Maybe telekinesis does not exist, but mind over matter does. Example: Stigmata the wounds were generated in the persons who experiance it, by intese belief that stigmata is caused by God. When it has been proven that the mind has influenced the cells and cell groups to act out the symptoms of stigmata. There are studies being conducted at major universities about the concept of mind over matter. This may be a natural feature for humans, which as a benifical one will be improved by evolution.

[Howedar]

If there are lots of studies about such things at major research universities, surely you could link us to the relevant websites about precisely what research is being conducted.

I for one am curious.

[Velthuijsen]

You know that to keep them preserved in a state of perfection you are basically asking for immortality?

The slow detoriation of your body is due to damage to the DNA. So to keep the eye (non brain parts) and the muscles that control it in the condition needed for 20/20 (or better) vision you need to stop this damage from occuring or a way to repair the damage.

The other problem is braincells not dividing to compensate for losses. You need to figure out a way to get them to do that without it turning into a cancer if you want to keep the brain processing the data it receives from eyes and ears at the level you want.

These are two of the three major problems associated immortality
Once you have solved those problems you might as well go the final step and stop telomere destruction during cell division from occuring.

You might be able to solve problem two and three of immortality in the (relative) near future but the first will be a pain to even try and conceive a way of doing.

The other thing you are talking about is called biofeedback and it is already being used to control certain body processes (pain reduction, bloodpressure control, migraines, epilepsy, etc). It just takes time and a way to show that changes are occuring.

[SG-17]

http://www.aspr.com/
http://parapsych.org/
http://www.parapsychology.org/
http://www.rhine.org/
http://www.spr.ac.uk/
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telekineses
http://www.pubmed.gov/ (search for telekineses)

Here are a few links to universities and foundations relating to psychokiesis.