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Essentially Embodied Kantian Selves and The Fantasy of Transhuman Selves
 
Title (other)Сущностно инкорпорированные кантовские самости и фантазия о трансчеловеческих самостях
PIIS271326680021060-6-1
DOI10.18254/S271326680021060-6
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Robert Hanna 
Affiliation:
Address: USA
Journal nameStudies in Transcendental Philosophy
EditionVolume 3 Issue 3
Abstract

By “essentially embodied Kantian selves,” I mean necessarily and completely embodied rational conscious, self-conscious, sensible (i.e., sense-perceiving, imagining, and emoting), volitional or willing, discursive (i.e., conceptualizing, judging, and inferring) animals, or persons, innately possessing dignity, and fully capable not only of free agency, but also of a priori knowledge of analytic and synthetic a priori truths alike, with egocentric centering in manifestly real orientable space and time. The basic theory of essentially embodied Kantian selves was spelled out by Kant over the course of slightly less than two decades, between 1768 and 1787, but above all, it flows from an empirical realist and metaphysical reading of the “Refutation of Idealism” that Kant inserted into the Postulates of Empirical Thought section in the 1787 edition of the first Critique. In my opinion, all rational but also “human, all-too-human” creatures like us are, synthetic a priori necessarily, essentially embodied Kantian selves. Let’s call that the essentially embodied Kantian selves thesis, or for short, EEKST. If EEKST is true, then it’s synthetic a priori impossible for the selves of creatures like us to exist independently of our own living organismic animal bodies or beyond the deaths of those bodies, whether temporarily or permanently, by any means whatsoever. Indeed, the very ideas of disembodied selves, their survival after death, and of human immortality, while minimally logically consistent, are in fact conceptually empty and incoherent, even over and above the synthetic a priori impossibility of such things, since the term “myself” indexically picks out an essentially embodied Kantian self, all of whose core features require grounding in a particular living organismic animal body. According to the recent and contemporary movement of transhumanism, the selves of creatures like us can not only exist independently of our bodies, as functional systems of representational content that are inherently able to be implemented or realized in digital-mechanical technology and uploadable to servers, but also to survive accidental or natural human death in server-limbo, then be downloaded into technologically enhanced partially mechanical humanoid bodies or even into wholly artificially-created completely mechanical non-humanoid bodies, survive in these new implementations or realizations for an indefinitely long time, repeat that process, and possibly even become immortal. Transhumanism is in fact metaphysically equivalent to Swedenborgianism, which Kant so effectively criticizes and wittily derides in his 1766 book, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics. Moreover, and more importantly, if EEKST is true, then, just like Swedenborgianism, transhumanism is not only conceptually empty and incoherent, but also synthetic a priori impossible. And what’s more, it’s also existentially and morally reprehensible. In short, then, the belief in transhuman selves is nothing but a reprehensible noumenal fantasy or Hirngespinst.

Abstract (other)

Под сущностно инкорпорированными кантовскими «Я» я подразумеваю животных или личностей с необходимостью и полностью инкорпорированным рациональным сознанием, самосознанием, чувствами (т.е. обладающих органами чувств, воображением и эмоциями), волей или желанием, дискурсивным мышлением (способных к концептуализации, суждению и умозаключениям), обладающих врожденным достоинством и способных не только к свободной деятельности, но и к априорному знанию аналитических и синтетических априорных истин, с центрированных эгоцентрически в явно реальном ориентируемом пространстве и времени. Основная теория сущностно инкорпорированных «Я» была сформулирована Кантом на протяжении почти двух десятилетий, между 1768 и 1787 гг., но прежде всего она вытекает из эмпирико-реалистического и метафизического прочтения «Опровержения идеализма», которое Кант вставил в раздел «Постулаты эмпирического мышления» в издании первой «Критики» 1787 г. По моему мнению, все рациональные, но также и «человеческие, слишком человеческие» существа, подобные нам, с необходимостью синтетически априори являются по существу инкорпорированными кантовскими «Я». Назовем это тезисом о сущностно инкорпорированных кантовских самостях, или, для краткости, EEKST. Если EEKST верен, то синтетически априорно невозможно, чтобы «Я» таких существ, как мы, существовало независимо от наших собственных, живых животных тел (организмов) или после смерти этих тел, временной или постоянной, каким бы то ни было способом. Действительно, сама идея о неинкорпорированных «Я», их выживании после смерти или о человеческом бессмертии, хотя и являются минимально логически последовательными, на самом деле концептуально пусты и бессвязны, даже помимо синтетической априорной невозможности таких вещей, поскольку термин «Я» указывает на инкорпорированное кантовское «Я», все основные характеристики которого требуют укорененности в конкретном живом органическом животном теле.

Согласно современному движению трансгуманизма, «Я» таких существ, как мы, не только может существовать независимо от наших тел, в виде функциональных систем репрезентативного содержания, которые могут быть реализованы посредством цифро-механических технологий и загружены на серверы, но и пережить смерть человека в состоянии серверного лимба, а затем будучи загруженными в технологически усовершенствованные, частично механические, гуманоидные тела или даже в искусственно созданные полностью механические негуманоидные тела, выжить в этих новых реализациях или воплощениях в течение неопределенно долгого времени, причем процесс этот можно повторять вплоть до бессмертия. В действительности, трансгуманизм с метафизической точки зрения эквивалентен Сведенборгианству, которое Кант так эффективно критиковал и остроумно высмеивал в своей книге «Сны духовидца, разъясненные снами метафизики» (1766 г.). Более того, что еще более важно, если EEKST верен, то, как и Сведенборгианство, трансгуманизм не только концептуально пуст и некогерентен, но и синтетически априорно невозможен. Более того, он также экзистенциально и морально предосудителен. Короче говоря, вера в трансчеловеческие личности – это не что иное, как предосудительная ноуменальная фантазия или привидение (Hirngespinst).

KeywordsImmanuel Kant, Selves, Embodiment, Swedenborgianism, Transhumanism
Keywords list (other)Кант, самость, инкорпорирование, Сведенборгианство, трансгуманизм
Received15.09.2022
Publication date29.12.2022
Number of characters85263
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Table of contents

Introduction
Swedenborgianism, The Impossibility of Strong AI, and the Crypto-Swedenborgian Noumenal Fantasy of Transhuman Selves
Conclusion
References
1
hanna1

“Who Was Swedenborg?” (Swedenborg Foundation, 2022)
2
hanna2

“Face of the Future” (Guardian, 2018)
3 In Stockholm there dwells a certain [Swedenborg], a gentleman of comfortable means and independent position. For the last twenty years or more he has, as he tells us, devoted himself exclusively to cultivating the closest contact with spirits and with the souls of the dead, and, in exchange, to giving them information about this present world, to composing hefty volumes devoted to his discoveries, and periodically travelling to London in order to supervise their publication…. [Swedenborg] distinguishes between the outer and inner memory in humankind. A person has outer memory as someone belonging to the visible world, whereas a person has inner memory in connection with the spirit-world. [Swedenborg’s] own superiority consists in the fact that, already in this life, he sees himself as a person who belongs to the community of spirits and that he is recognized as someone belonging to that community. It is also in this inner memory that everything, which has vanished from outer memory, is conserved, none of a person’s representations ever getting lost. After death, the memory of everything which had ever entered his soul and which had so far remained concealed from him, goes to make up the complete book of his life (DSS 2: 354, 362).
4 As humans, we are defined by, among other things, our desire to transcend our humanity. Mythology, religion, fiction and science offer different versions of this dream. Transhumanism—a social movement predicated on the belief that we can and should leave behind our biological condition by merging with technology—is a kind of feverish amalgamation of all four. Though it’s oriented toward the future, and is fueled by excitable speculation about the implications of the latest science and technology, its roots can be glimpsed in ancient stories like that of the Sumerian king Gilgamesh and his quest for immortality…. Transhumanism represents a desire to obliterate the boundary between human bodies and machines, and a confusion in the first place as to the distinction between the two (Guardian, 2018).
5

Introduction
6 By “essentially embodied Kantian selves,” I mean necessarily and completely embodied rational conscious, self-conscious, sensible (i.e., sense-perceiving, imagining, and emoting), volitional or willing, discursive (i.e., conceptualizing, judging, and inferring) animals, or persons, innately possessing dignity, and fully capable not only of free agency, but also of a priori knowledge of analytic and synthetic a priori truths alike, with egocentric centering in manifestly real orientable space and time. The basic theory of essentially embodied Kantian selves was spelled out by Kant over the course of slightly less than two decades—between 1768 and 1787—in the proto-Critical 1768 essay, “Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space,” in the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Analytic, especially including the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, in the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 (i.e., the first or A edition) and 1787 (i.e., the second or B edition), and in the 1786 essay, “What is Orientation in Thinking,” but above all, it flows from an empirical realist and metaphysical reading of the “Refutation of Idealism” that Kant inserted into the Postulates of Empirical Thought section in the 1787 edition of the first Critique—henceforth, for convenience, “the RI.” This basic theory is also supplemented and supported by practical accounts of essentially embodied Kantian selves that can be found in the Critique of Practical Reason, the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Religion Within the Bounds of Mere Reason, and the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.
7 Or as the pre-Critical Kant much more compactly puts it in 1766: “My soul is wholly in my whole body, and wholly in each of its [organic] parts” (DSS 2: 325 italics in the original, bracketted word taken from the original source quoted by Kant, cited in the editorial note on p. 449, n. 11).
8 In my opinion, all rational but also “human, all-too-human” creatures like us—for example, the readers of this essay—are, synthetic a priori necessarily,1 essentially embodied Kantian selves. Let’s call that the essentially embodied Kantian selves thesis, or for short, EEKST. If EEKST is true, then it’s synthetic a priori impossible for the selves of creatures like us to exist independently of our own living organismic animal bodies or beyond the deaths of those bodies, whether temporarily or permanently, by any means whatsoever. Indeed, the very ideas of disembodied selves, their survival after death, and of human immortality, while minimally logically consistent, are in fact conceptually empty and incoherent, even over and above the synthetic a priori impossibility of such things, since the term “myself” indexically picks out an essentially embodied Kantian self, all of whose core features require grounding in a particular living organismic animal body. 1. For a full presentation and detailed defense of the analytic-synthetic distinction, including the synthetic a priori, see (Hanna, 2001, and 2015: esp. ch. 4).

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