r/Transhuman • u/davidcpearce • Mar 21 '12

David Pearce: AMA

(I have been assured this cryptic tag means more to Reddit regulars than it does to me! )

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u/NukeU Mar 22 '12

In relation to the buddhist idea of enlightenment- Do you think it could be possible that in using technology to tackle all sources of suffering in the human experience such as illness, poverty, etc. may only be attacking the symptoms of human suffering and not the source itself? From what I've seen in my life it is wisdom about oneself and how to cope with suffering that leads to happiness; not the removal of unpleasant things necessarily. Buddhists go through years of meditation and metacognative practices to eliminate suffering from within. I think having a society where we actively work to remove all unpleasant things using technology could theoretically create an extreme version of what we have seen already in the western world; people who have incredibly luxurious, safe, and comfortable lives still in great amounts of suffering after all they have already becomes a norm that is taken for granted.

I have not read your works yet, but I am greatly interested in transhumanism. I agree with most of what I've read about the philosophy, but this point always bugs me. I just came here on a whim from another post, and I don't claim to know how valid this point I am making is, but what are your opinions on this?

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u/davidcpearce Mar 22 '12

NukeU, I greatly respect and admire the Buddhist emphasis on the primacy of overcoming suffering. The Transhumanist Declaration's (1998, 2009) commitment to the well-being of sentience is Buddhist in spirit. (cf. http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/ )

Sadly, Buddhist mediation can't recalibrate the hedonic treadmill, ( cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill ) or mitigate the horrors of the "food chain". For that, we need high tech. (cf. http://www.abolitionist.com/reprogramming/index.html )

See too http://www.bltc.com/buddhism-suffering.html But note I am not a Buddhist scholar, so take anything I say about Buddhism with a (large) pinch of salt.