Sunday, March 6, 2011

The squishy, weak flesh


Since my last, rather milestone-ish birthday, I have been obsessed with preserving myself.  I feel that I have accomplished very little in my time and I blame no one for that besides me.  I keep engaging in the unhealthy activity of wishing to have time back in order to do work that I should have done all along.  I'd like a "do over" and I'm running out of time to get one.  Those feelings are in large what began my quest to learn more about transhumanism, looking for any way that I can to prolong my life and gain more time in which to achieve something significant. 

Come to find out that there is a term for this desire or the quest to extend one's life anyway.  It's called extropianism.  "Extropy" is the philosophy of improving the human condition via science and technology.  In addition to longer life, Extropians seek higher levels of intelligence and wisdom whilst removing the existing limits of physiology, psychology, and politics.  As you might imagine, that covers quite a bit of ground.  Everything from diet supplements to concepts such as cyborg bodies and uploading consciousness into an android or a computer.

I could handle being inside an android body.  Of course this brings any number of questions about identity.  Would I still be Jon or would my essential persona change ins some irrevocable way?  Do I get a new name?  Perhaps my old name augmented by a Twitter-esque hash tag or other such marking?  Whatever works, I suppose. I want more time...just like most anybody else does, I'm sure.

Did a quick Google on android bodies and came up with this:


This is an ostensibly real-life cyborg that the former Soviet Union experimented with.  I don't know.  Seems to me that the "cyborg" looks an awful lot like robots in the trailers for Sucker Punch.  A bit too steampunk to be a genuine article (not that I have anything against steampunk, mind you.)  This is probably just a case of viral marketing.  If you want the link to see for yourself, here you go.  In the meantime, I'll keep going with diet, exercise, and supplements.  Until I can augment with cybernetics, they will have to do.



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