Our innate biological constitution is the only objective proof of human identity, the core feature of human identity and a guarantee of human rights. Our human identity is the primary object protected by human rights. Any discrimination against our innate biological constitution is an attack on human identity and a violation of human rights.
Our innate biological constitution must be protected not because it is natural (disease is also natural) but because it is the only independent means for consciousness to realise itself in the world as a causative agency, as a morally autonomous Self. Any interference with these independent means of self-realisation by other agents would disrupt the integrity of the targeted Self and thus negate her moral agency and moral status. Our moral status as Humans hinges on the recognition of our innate biological constitution as an absolute right. To deny it in even one instance would be to deny it as a property of the human kind, and thus damage all of humanity. (# Human rights)
I agree with almost every point that Harari makes in this interview. His analysis of the Trolley Problem is spot on (pretty much exactly what I said to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, who responded to my critique of mandatory vaccination by describing healthcare as a trolley problem). I now understand that my moral disagreement with Harari can be traced to his lack of engagement with social ontology, or how conscious agency necessitates objective moral norms as a condition of existence. Nevertheless, Harari suprised me by stating he is afraid that in trying to improve human constitution by means of technology we could end up degrading it, that the technology can be abused by corporations and governments. This is precisely why, now more than ever, we need to guard our human right not to be discriminated against or coerced on the basis of our innate biological constitution, in favour of biotechnologically augmented subspecies. Zizek is a little low on form here but I generally find him entertaining and likeable, a treasure-chest of autistic insights, despite his ideological inconsistencies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jjRq-CW1dc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jjRq-CW1dc
YouTube
Slavoj Žižek & Yuval Noah Harari | Should We Trust Nature More than Ourselves?
Are we above nature? How can we combat extremism? How do extreme ideologies often become their opposite?
In a lively discussion between Slavoj Žižek and Yuval Noah Harari, the two thinkers debate extremist ideology, our role in nature, the notions of good…
In a lively discussion between Slavoj Žižek and Yuval Noah Harari, the two thinkers debate extremist ideology, our role in nature, the notions of good…
My email to Yuval Noah Harari about the significance of our innate biological constitution for human rights. Discrimination against the unvaccinated implies that our innate human constitution (being born human) is no longer a guarantee of full human rights, which is absurd. https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/email-to-yuval-noah-harari-18082022
When nature hurts us, we do not accuse nature of wrongdoing, we do not feel resentful. When a plague strikes we burry our dead, we cry, and we move on. When humanity turns on itself, when humans harm other humans, we feel victimised by our own kind, we cannot help but to see the perpetrators of the crimes committed against us as beings of the same kind, like us, but despicable. This implicitly makes us despise our kind, and thus indirectly despise ourselves. The resentment associated with victimhood is essentially self-hate. This hate can last for generations, it does not just go away, but must be conquered. The key to its resolution also lies in our belonging to humanity, but requires discernment of that which unites us, makes us human: the collective creation of meaning.
The pursuit of eternal life is a symptom of spiritual death: nihilism.
“The leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life. Even if killing death seems a distant goal, we have already achieved things that were inconceivable a few centuries ago.” Y.N.Harari
Humankind already has eternal life; the generational cycle of death and birth make it eternal.
“The Human Brain Project, founded in 2005, hopes to recreate a complete human brain inside a computer, with electronic circuits in the computer emulating neural networks in the brain. The project’s director has claimed that, if funded properly, within a decade or two we could have an artificial human brain inside a computer that could talk and behave very much as a human does.”
Those who desire eternal life are implicitly confessing that their life lacks meaning, but are too unaware of their nihilism to suicide.
An integrated self is not afraid of death, because meaning transcends life. A conflicted self will not find meaning even in immortality.
“The leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life. Even if killing death seems a distant goal, we have already achieved things that were inconceivable a few centuries ago.” Y.N.Harari
Humankind already has eternal life; the generational cycle of death and birth make it eternal.
“The Human Brain Project, founded in 2005, hopes to recreate a complete human brain inside a computer, with electronic circuits in the computer emulating neural networks in the brain. The project’s director has claimed that, if funded properly, within a decade or two we could have an artificial human brain inside a computer that could talk and behave very much as a human does.”
Those who desire eternal life are implicitly confessing that their life lacks meaning, but are too unaware of their nihilism to suicide.
An integrated self is not afraid of death, because meaning transcends life. A conflicted self will not find meaning even in immortality.
Yuval Noah Harari asserts that “technology will turn Men into Gods”, but this is a category error. The essence of God is internal perfection, perfection of Self which is also moral perfection, and any technology available to Man would still leave Man as we are, morally imperfect, mentally conflicted and delusional. Technology and the perfection of Self are two independent categories. In fact, fixation on technology may be a sign of moral failure, of becoming less true to the ‘image of God’ and more like a smart animal.
Is she registered with the local council, microchipped and desexed? Who is her owner? Cats are generally not permitted to roam public spaces or trespass on other properties and can be seized: “Stray or roaming cats create a nuisance by trespassing on other peoples' property, and they can also kill local wildlife. Neighbours can object to your cat on their property and your cat can be seized by our animal management officers.” 24h curfew applies in some local councils: “Residents in Melbourne’s east will be hit with pricey fines if their cats stray from their home at anytime.” I suggest a weekly flea treatment. BTW, how does she know what it feels like to be a cat? I hope she is not also claiming to have any human rights.
Yuval Noah Harari claims that free will does not exist, which implies that human thought is deterministic and therefore completely predictable, but few sentences later he asserts that technology is non-deterministic, because (the allegedly deterministic) humans can invent new uses of technology. This guy is not a consistent thinker. Regarding ‘free will’ (the idea that humans are capable of coming up with thoughts that are not pre-determined by the prior state of the world) can in fact be formally defended, because to assert thought-determinism would be to commit Russell’s paradox: https://culturalanalysisnet.wordpress.com/2018/06/08/russells-paradox-contra-determinism/
Cultural Analysis & Philosophy
Russell’s Paradox Contra Determinism
Causal determinism, the idea that the present state of the world is fully determined by its antecedent states, is generally considered incompatible with causa sui thought, the idea that t…
Is anyone interested in a solution to the Hard Problem of Consciousness? Going cheap, Sunday night special. For clarity, the phenomenal-content of subjective experiences is symbolically expressed as f-properties in the included formulas. https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWODO It just occurred to me that nobody noticed that this was (at least provisionally) solved.
If transhumanism were beneficial to humans then you’d think the billionaires would be doing it already, but they don’t. Schwab, Thiel, Gates, Bezos, Musk are not getting any implants, no neurolink, no biotech augmentation. They are eating organic meat, use homeopathy, send their unvaccinated kids to Waldorf/Steiner schools and avoid digital technology as much as they can. Transhumanism is only for you, the slave class, just like vaccines.
Harari sets up a strawman argument that because humans are influenced by external information they do not have free will. This is not what free will means or has ever meant; free will means only that external inputs (which are necessary to have thoughts at all, providing us with the objects of thought) do not fully determine our choices, that something else within us creates an opening for indeterminacy. The fine print reveals that humans just dont use free will enough by blindly following desires. This part makes sense; to blindly follow desires is to act as an animal, but humans reason about choices, and can resist desires if reason dictates that the ultimate-self interest (or what is Right) lies in not fulfilling certain desires. In short, acting like animals following impulses makes us deterministic, whereas acting as deeply rational beings makes us indeterministic, therefore free will. Self-scrutiny, suspension of judgement, careful reasoning and examining objections to our own preferences, is the secret of freewill, and the essence of humanity (understood in the Kantian sense). I again suspect that Harari’s target audience are the majority of people who do not think rationally but blindly follow the implicit instructions given to them by the news networks (or by their trusted alternative media, for those who desire to be alternative). Since the desire to be alternative is a well established human urge for a substantial percentage of human population, any corporate entity serious about “biohacking” would need to control not just the mainstream media but, necessarily, the alternative media as well. Social engineeng is in fact easier via the alternative media, where the “agents of change” naturally reside, whereas the mainstream (the naural followers) are effectively restrained and awaiting directions. Logos (reason) liberates; Desire enslaves. Behind the strawman argument against free will Harari (perhaps unwittingly, or perhaps intentionally) implicitly invites us to submit completely to corporate powers or to choose Logos, and therefore free will. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy
the Guardian
Yuval Noah Harari: the myth of freedom
Governments and corporations will soon know you better than you know yourself. Belief in the idea of freedom has become dangerous
Humans cannot become free until they regain free will, which is Logos. Logos is hard work, and the majority has grown intellectually lazy, but the rewards of Logos are incommensurable to the cost: to think critically and have the emotional capacity to acknowledge being wrong, to evaluate reasons and seek inconsistencies in your desires, to question your will.
People have limited bandwidth for consciously absorbing information, especially if the relevant information conflicts with their beliefs. Effective political movements use factually or symbolically correct, logically consistent, and relentlessly repetitive messaging: the same message or two everywhere, over and over again. Messaging is about imprinting the subconscious mind of the unthinking with the message, until they become conscious of it and compelled to reflect on its merits. Many different messages amount to no message at all, because the unthinking will not be imprinted without persistence and repetition of the same, narrowly defined content. A distinction needs to be made here between propaganda and ethical messaging (both can use the same tool for different ends): propaganda seeks to deceive whereas ethical messaging only seeks to be considered without prejudice.
Every organisation, rebel doctor or politician on Telegram is now defending the right to Informed Consent, but hardly anyone apart from NORMAL even mentions the right to Free Medical Consent, free from social-opportunity coercion or economic deprivation. Your Informed Consent is useless if you have to take the injection anyway, because you will lose your job and profession if you would refuse. To give up on Free Medical Consent is to accept that being born human is no longer a guarantee of human rights, therefore there are no human rights, only conditional privileges. Now that you are informed enough you may want to ask those champions of freedom why are they not defending your right to Free Medical Consent. Why are they dragging their feet? Is there a problem?
The Golden Rule is an intuitive realisation of the ontological fact that consciousness is essentially a mirror, and every instance of subjective thought is a reflection of a reflection between Self-consciousness and Other-consciousness facing one another, giving rise to a virtually infinite depth and complexity of being, a relational virtuality becoming the fragmented (and thus objectified) substance of the real. https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWTGR
philpapers.org
Michael Kowalik, The Golden Rule as it Ought to Be - PhilPapers
The Golden Rule, most commonly expressed in the form "do to others what you would have them do to you", has attracted criticism for failing to provide practical guidance in case ...
Difference between Informed Consent and Free Consent
Informed Consent: I am informed of the risks and benefits of this medical procedure, and that I will lose my job and profession if I refuse it.
Free Consent: I might not fully understand the scientific merits of this medical procedure, but I know that my rights and freedoms will not be restricted if I refuse it.
Informed Consent: I am informed of the risks and benefits of this medical procedure, and that I will lose my job and profession if I refuse it.
Free Consent: I might not fully understand the scientific merits of this medical procedure, but I know that my rights and freedoms will not be restricted if I refuse it.