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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Vital Futurology

You may recall that in a post yesterday I drew attention to Robot Cultist Martine Rothblatt’s denunciation of what she calls the “fiction” that biology is really the scientific study of life processes and living organisms given the fact that this science (so called! Ha!) does not accommodate fictional forms of robotic and software “life” (that don’t, you know, exist and stuff). In a Very Serious Futurological post today, Rothblatt has gone on modestly to propose that to avoid this “confusion” that only she feels, we all need to start using a neologism she has just now come up with -- “vitology” -- when referring from here on out to the scientific study of life. Rothblatt airily declares that “Vitology includes biological life as well as cybernetic life.” Well, Martine, you should know. You just made the term up, after all. It can mean whatever you need it to mean, dear. I am sorry to say, however, that this act of assertive stipulation in a vacuum doesn’t actually bring the “cybernetic life” presumably included within it into actual existence. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that “vitology” will take a confused world by storm, and a host of biology textbooks and biology department letterhead across the planet is even now being bagged for disposal.

11 comments:

erickingsley said...

For a moment, I thought she was talking about Pearl Jam, but that's Vitalogy, which actually reads better.

Dale Carrico said...

For me "vitology" conjures up visions of hucksters of yore in bowler hats selling dowsing rods and balding cures made of human pee. Which actually isn't far from what transhumanism is really all about, come to think of it.

jimf said...

> For me "vitology" conjures up. . .

Well, I suppose "vitology" bears the same relation to biology
as "Scientology" does to science.

Both are claimed to take the scholarly status quo and do
it one better. Oh, and the latter coinage also had something
to do with evading the Feds (after the original "Dianetics"
got El Ron in trouble for practicing psychiatry without a
license).

(Don't Ms. Rothblatt and others among the >Hists realize what
they sound like? I guess not -- it's a kind of tone deafness
to serious discourse. I know our esteemed blog host doesn't
like "psychologizing" these things, but to me that kind of
"tone deafness" to social nuance screams autistic spectrum
and/or narcissistic personality disorder -- not that **I'm**
a psychiatrist either, or even play one on TV. ;-> )

Dale Carrico said...

Don't... the >Hists realize what they sound like?

I have been flabbergasted by this complete tone deafness and lack of self-awareness in so many of them from the beginning. I think this sort of reflexivity immersed in attentiveness to audience is one of the many dimensions of intelligence -- one they seem to lack, at least when they are waxing futurological -- as of course also would the fantasies of "intelligent machines" they endlessly confidently predict they are the verge of introducing to a grateful startled world, decade after decade after decade, on and on and on, always in exactly the same terms with always the same failure, but never the least bit of awareness of the foolish merry-go-round they are on creeping in, never any awareness of the waste they justify, never aware of the denigration of actual human sensitivity and dignity in which they participate.

jollyspaniard said...

I wouldn't compare them to Scientologists in a deep sense but creating a term like "vitology" on the fly is very Hubbardesque.

Scientologists are ten times more obnoxious than transhumanists but I've got more sympathy for them at least. Most of them are people who suffered a loss such as the painful death of a loved one or a nasty divorce that left them vulnerable for recruitment and indoctrination. I feel sorry for them more than anything else.

Dale Carrico said...

Scientologists are ten times more obnoxious than transhumanists

ymmv

jimf said...

> I've got more sympathy for [Scientologists] at least. Most
> of them are people who suffered a loss such as the painful
> death of a loved one or a nasty divorce that left them
> vulnerable for recruitment and indoctrination. I feel sorry
> for them more than anything else.


http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/10/not-offensive-just-delusive.html
------------------------
Impertinent Weasel said...

I don't want to comment on this link except to say that it
was written by John Grigg in 1999, it answers every question
I ever had about why people would be attracted to cryonics,
and it disturbs me greatly.

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=11777
------------------------


http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=11777
------------------------
From: "John Grigg"
Subject: My views on things

"[L]earning disabilities, a.d.d., clinical depression and my father's
abandonment of me has hamstrung me in my life. I am so frustrated and angry
by these things. . .

To me cryonics offers the possibility of a life here in this world that is
what I should have had in the first place. . .

I belong to the Mormon church. I even served a two-year mission. . .
We believe in the resurrection of the body in a perfect,
immortalized form. . .

I feel that I need cryonics to peer over the horizon
of world events. If Christ is coming back which I believe he is,
it could be in a few decades, but perhaps not till at least the
late 21st century. I might be brought back to face the final
tribulation events! [Though s]ometimes I think the very technologies
the extropians talk about could be the basis for the
power of the AntiChrist, should he arise."
------------------------

jollyspaniard said...

Cheers for posting that link I read the article and through the comments. It sounds remarkably like early Scientology which was extremely nasty. There seems to be a Scientologyish cult archetype that I see getting repeated. This paticular cult definitely seems to follow that mold.

First it predicates itself on a "Scientific" premise. It then promises immortality and superiority to other people. Well, I don't need to elaborate to anyone reading this blog you get the idea.

The worst offenders nowadays however are the Quantum Homeopathy gurus. They are basicaly running the Scientology scam. A mate of mine a very sweet lady in her 60s fell in with one of these gurus after her partner left her and her son developed severe health problems. She got incredibly nasty and self righteous and severed contact with most of her friends.

The latest gimmick they're using that really burns me is that are putting out recruitment videos on youtube that start out as celebrations of the Occupy movement. So for the first two minutes you're going "right on!" then they slowly segue slowly the cults false front recruitment pitch before you're directed to Glorious Leaders webpage.

In my opinion these guys are the worst offenders, they're certainly netting the most fish.

jimf said...

> There seems to be a Scientologyish cult archetype that I see
> getting repeated.

Oh sure, the dynamics of the cult leader/cult follower are
very similar across many movements even though the content
(the specific beliefs, the message) can vary greatly.

I've posted a lot of quotes from books about cults on this blog
over the years. The >Hists, by the way, reject the
"cult" label. As do the Scientologists, of course. And
the followers of Ayn "I am not a cult!" Rand.
The people **in** cults never acknowledge the fact that
they're in cults. It's not until they get out of them
that they can admit such a thing.

See, for example:

http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2011/09/you-know-nobody-is-forcing-you-to-stay.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2010/06/revolutionary-fanwanking-of-robot.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/10/those-curious-cryonaughts.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/10/cryonicists-getting-cool-reception.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/04/no-youre-cultist.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2009/03/from-futurological-confusions-to.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-defamatory-utterances-against.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-to-do-about-those-who-toot-in-moot.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/04/not-exactly-sport.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2008/03/ayn-raelians.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2007/09/still-more-on-superlativity.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2007/10/superlative-church.html
http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-sadly-outdated-heuristics.html

jimf said...

> http://amormundi.blogspot.com/2010/06/revolutionary-fanwanking-of-robot.html

I see by the way that Horgan had more to say about the Singularity on
his Scientific American blog around the same time as the above
post:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=singularity-schtick-hi-tech-moguls-2010-06-23

jimf said...

Sunday, February 12, 2012
Another of those insights which required some "incubation"
by Mark "Plus"
http://thelifeofmanquamanonearth.blogspot.com/2012/02/another-of-those-insights-which.html

Breaking news: water is wet!
Details at 11.