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Principles of Extropy
Version 3.11 © 2003
An evolving
framework of values and standards
for continuously improving the human condition
Max More
Chairman,
Extropy Institute
more@extropy.org
or max@maxmore.com
Extropy — The
extent of a living or organizational system’s
intelligence, functional order, vitality, and capacity
and drive for improvement
Extropic — Actions, qualities, or outcomes that
embody or further extropy
A Note on the Use of "Extropy"
For the
sake of brevity, I will often write something like
“extropy seeks…” or “extropy questions…” You can take
this to mean “in so far as we act in accordance with
these principles, we seek/question/study…” “Extropy”
is not meant as a real entity or force, but only as a
metaphor representing all that contributes to our
flourishing.
Similarly, when I use “we” you should take this to refer
not to any group but to anyone who agrees with what they
are reading. Rather than assuming any reader to be in
full agreement with every one of these principles, this
usage instead imagines a hypothetical person who has
integrated the principles into their life and actions.
Each
reader is, of course, at liberty to reject, modify, or
affirm each principle separately. What this tentative,
conjectural approach to the Principles of Extropy loses
in terms of compelling emotive power, it gains in terms
of reasonableness and openness to innovation and
improvement.
Prologue: What is the Purpose of the Principles of
Extropy?
Philosophies of life rooted in centuries-old traditions
contain much wisdom concerning personal, organizational,
and social living. Many of us also find shortcomings in
those traditions. How could they not reach some
mistaken conclusions when they arose in pre-scientific
times?
At the
same time, ancient philosophies of life have little or
nothing to say about fundamental issues confronting us
as advanced technologies begin to enable us to change
our identity as individuals and as humans and as
economic, cultural, and political forces change global
relationships.
The
Principles of Extropy first took shape in the late 1980s
to outline an alternative lens through which to view the
emerging and unprecedented opportunities, challenges,
and dangers.
The goal
was – and is – to use current scientific understanding
along with critical and creative thinking to define a
small set of principles or values that could help make
sense of the confusing but potentially liberating and
existentially enriching capabilities opening up to
humanity.
The
Principles of Extropy do not specify particular beliefs,
technologies, or policies. The Principles do not
pretend to be a complete philosophy of life. The
world does not need another totalistic dogma.
The
Principles of Extropy do consist of a handful of
principles (or values or perspectives) that codify
proactive, life-affirming and life-promoting ideals.
Individuals who cannot comfortably adopt traditional
value systems often find the Principles of Extropy
useful as postulates to guide, inspire, and generate
innovative thinking about existing and emerging
fundamental personal, organizational, and social issues.
The
Principles are intended to be enduring, underlying
ideals and standards. At the same time, both in content
and by being revised, the Principles do not claim to be
eternal truths or certain truths.
I invite
other independent thinkers who share the agenda of
acting as change agents for fostering better futures to
consider the Principles of Extropy as an evolving
framework of attitudes, values, and standards – and as a
shared vocabulary – to make sense of our unconventional,
secular, and life-promoting responses to the changing
human condition. I also invite feedback to further
refine these Principles.
The
Principles of Extropy
in Brief
Perpetual
Progress
Extropy
means seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and
effectiveness, an open-ended lifespan, and the removal
of political, cultural, biological, and psychological
limits to continuing development. Perpetually overcoming
constraints on our progress and possibilities as
individuals, as organizations, and as a species. Growing
in healthy directions without bound.
Self-Transformation
Extropy
means affirming continual ethical, intellectual, and
physical self-improvement, through critical and creative
thinking, perpetual learning, personal responsibility,
proactivity, and experimentation. Using technology — in
the widest sense to seek physiological and neurological
augmentation along with emotional and psychological
refinement.
Practical
Optimism
Extropy
means fueling action with positive expectations –
individuals and organizations being tirelessly
proactive. Adopting a rational, action-based optimism or
"proaction", in place of both blind faith and stagnant
pessimism.
Intelligent
Technology
Extropy
means designing and managing technologies not as ends in
themselves but as effective means for improving life.
Applying science and technology creatively and
courageously to transcend "natural" but harmful,
confining qualities derived from our biological
heritage, culture, and environment.
Open
Society
Extropy
means supporting social orders that foster freedom of
communication, freedom of action, experimentation,
innovation, questioning, and learning. Opposing
authoritarian social control and unnecessary hierarchy
and favoring the rule of law and decentralization of
power and responsibility.
Preferring bargaining over battling, exchange over
extortion, and communication over compulsion. Openness
to improvement rather than a static utopia. Extropia
("ever-receding stretch goals for society") over utopia
("no place").
Self-Direction
Extropy
means valuing independent thinking, individual freedom,
personal responsibility, self-direction, self-respect,
and a parallel respect for others.
Rational
Thinking
Extropy
means favoring reason over blind faith and questioning
over dogma. It means understanding, experimenting,
learning, challenging, and innovating rather than
clinging to beliefs.
The
Principles of Extropy Unfolded
1.
PERPETUAL PROGRESS
Pursuing
extropy means seeking continual improvement in
ourselves, our cultures, and our environments. Perpetual
progress involves improving ourselves physically,
intellectually, and psychologically. It means valuing
the perpetual pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
Perpetual progress calls for us to question traditional
assertions that we should leave human nature
fundamentally unchanged in order to conform to "God’s
will" or to what is considered "natural".
Achieving
deep and sustained progress leads us to consider
fundamental alterations in human nature. This pursuit of
betterment stimulates questioning of the traditional,
biological, genetic, and intellectual constraints on our
progress and possibility.
Extropy
recognizes the unique conceptual abilities of our
species, and our opportunity to advance nature’s
evolution to new peaks. Humans as we currently exist can
be seen as a transitional stage between our animal
heritage and our posthuman future. On the early Earth,
mindless matter combined so as to form the first
self-replicating molecules and life began.
Nature’s
evolutionary processes generated increasingly complex
organisms with ever-more intelligent brains. The direct
chemical responses of single-celled creatures led to the
emergence of sensation and perception, allowing more
subtle and responsive behaviors. Finally, with the
development of the neocortex, conscious learning and
experimentation became possible.
With the
advent of the conceptual awareness of humankind, the
rate of advancement sharply accelerated as we applied
intelligence, technology, and the scientific method to
our condition. Upholding perpetual progress means
sustaining and quickening this evolutionary process,
overcoming human biological and psychological limits.
Valuing
perpetual progress is incompatible with acquiescing in
the undesirable aspects of the human condition.
Continuing improvements means challenging natural and
traditional limitations on human possibilities. Science
and technology are essential to eradicate constraints on
lifespan, intelligence, personal vitality, and freedom.
It is absurd to meekly accept "natural" limits to our
life spans. Life is likely to move beyond the confines
of the Earth — the cradle of biological intelligence —
to inhabit the cosmos.
Continual
improvement will involve economic growth. We can
continue to find resources to enable growth, and we can
combine mindful growth with environmental quality. This
means affirming a rational, non-coercive
environmentalism aimed at sustaining and enhancing the
conditions for flourishing. Individuals enjoying vastly
extended life spans and greater wealth will be better
positioned to intelligently manage resources and
environment.
An
effective economic system encourages conservation,
substitution, and innovation, preventing any need for a
brake on growth and progress. Migration into space will
immensely enlarge the energy and resources accessible to
civilization. Extended life spans may foster wisdom and
foresight, while restraining recklessness and
profligacy. We can pursue continued individual and
social improvement carefully and intelligently.
Embodying
this principle implies valuing perpetual learning and
exploration as individuals, and encouraging our cultures
to experiment and evolve. Valuing perpetual progress
entails neither universal conservatism nor radicalism:
it entails conserving what works for as long as it works
and altering that which can be improved. In searching
for continual improvement we must steer carefully
between complacency and recklessness.
No
mysteries are sacrosanct, no limits unquestionable; the
unknown will yield to the ingenious mind. The practice
of progress challenges us to understand the universe,
not to cower before mystery. It invites us to learn and
grow and enjoy our lives ever more.
2. SELF-TRANSFORMATION
Extropy
focuses on self-improvement physically, intellectually,
psychologically, and ethically. Self-transformation
involving becoming better than we are, while affirming
our current worth. Perpetual self-improvement requires
us to continually re-examine our lives. Self-esteem in
the present cannot mean self-satisfaction, since a
probing mind can always envisage a better self in the
future.
In
pursing transformation we are committed to deepening our
wisdom, honing our rationality, and augmenting our
physical, intellectual, and emotional qualities. In
choosing self-transformation we choose challenge over
comfort, innovation over emulation, transformation over
torpor.
Extropy
emerges from
neophiles and
experimentalists who track new research for more
efficient means of achieving goals and who are willing
to explore novel technologies of self-transformation. In
our mission of continual advancement, we rely on our own
judgment, seek our own path, and reject both blind
conformity and mindless rebellion.
Self-transformation will frequently lead us to diverge
from the mainstream because growth is not chained by any
dogma, whether religious, political, or intellectual.
The responsibility for self-transformation means
choosing our values and behavior reflectively, standing
firm when necessary but responding flexibly to new
conditions.
Advanced,
emerging, and future technologies deserve close
attention for their potential in supporting
self-transformation. Valuing self-transformation entails
supporting biomedical research to understand and control
the aging process, and implementing effective means of
extending vitality.
It means
practicing and planning for biological and neurological
augmentation through means such as information
technology, neurochemical enhancement, communications
networks, critical and creative thinking skills,
cognitive techniques and training, accelerated learning
strategies, and applied cognitive psychology. We can
shrug off the limits imposed by our natural heritage,
applying the evolutionary gift of our rational,
empirical intelligence as we strive to surpass the
confines of our human limits.
Since
every individual lives with others, we need to
continually improve our personal relationships. Our
interests intertwine with those of others making acting
for mutual benefit an effective strategy.
Self-transformation implies not self-absorption but a
continued attempt to understand others and to work
toward optimal relationships based on mutual honesty,
open communication, and benevolence.
Evolution
left us with animalistic urges and emotions that
sometimes prompt us thoughtlessly into acts of
hostility, conflict, fear, and domination. Through
self-awareness and understanding of and respect for
others we can rise above these urges.
While
valuing other people we will do better to focus
primarily on self-transformation rather than trying to
change others. Recognizing the dangers of controlling
others suggests that we try to improve the world through
setting an example and by communicating ideas. We may be
intensely committed to the education and improvement of
others, but only through voluntary means that respect
the rationality, autonomy, and dignity of the
individual.
3. PRACTICAL OPTIMISM
Extropy
entails espousing a positive, dynamic, empowering
attitude. It means seeking to realize our ideals in
this world, today and tomorrow. Rather than enduring
an unfulfilling life sustained by fantasies of another
life (whether in daydreams or in an "afterlife"), An
extropic orientation implies directing our energies
enthusiastically into moving toward an ever-evolving
vision.
Living
vigorously, effectively, and joyfully, requires
prevailing over gloom, defeatism, and negativism. We
need to acknowledge problems, whether technical, social,
psychological, or ecological, but we need not allow them
to dominate our thinking and our direction. We can
respond to gloom and defeatism by exploring and
exploiting new possibilities.
Practical
optimism entails an optimistic view of the future, a
commitment to discovering potent remedies to many
ancient human ailments, and taking charge to create
that future. Practical optimism disallows passively
waiting and wishing for tomorrow; it propels us
exuberantly into immediate activity, confidently
confronting today’s challenges while generating more
potent solutions for our future. We take personal
responsibility by taking charge and creating the
conditions for success.
Practical
optimists question limits others take for granted.
Observing accelerating scientific and technical
learning, ascending standards of living, and evolving
social and moral practices, we can project and encourage
continuing progress. Today there are more researchers
studying aging, medicine, computers, biotechnology,
nanotechnology, and other enabling disciplines than in
all of history. Technological and social development
continue to accelerate.
Practical
optimists strive to maintain the pace of progress by
encouraging support for crucial research, and pioneering
the implementation of its results. As practical
optimists we maintain a constructive skepticism to the
limiting beliefs held by our associates, our society,
and ourselves. We see past current obstacles by
retaining a fundamental creative openness to
possibilities.
Adopting
practical optimism means focusing on possibilities and
opportunities, being alert to solutions and
potentialities. It means refusing to moan about the
unavoidable, accepting and learning from mistakes rather
than staying in a loop of self-punishment. Practical
optimists prefer to be for rather than against, to
create solutions rather than to protest against what
exists.
This
optimism is also realism in that we can take the world
as it is and do not complain that life is not fair.
Practical optimism requires us to take the initiative,
to jump up and plow into our difficulties, our actions
declaring that we can achieve our goals.
By
embodying practical optimism in our actions and words we
can inspire others to excel. We are responsible for
taking the initiative in spreading this invigorating
optimism; sustaining and strengthening our own dynamism
is more easily achieved in a mutually reinforcing
environment. We stimulate optimism in others by
communicating our extropic values and by living our
ideals and standards.
Practical
optimism and passive faith are incompatible. Practical
optimism means critical optimism. Faith in a better
future is confidence that an external force, whether
God, State, or even extraterrestrials, will solve our
problems. Faith breeds passivity by promising progress
as a gift bestowed on us by superior forces. But, in
return for the gift, faith requires a fixed belief in
and supplication to external forces, thereby creating
dogmatic beliefs and irrational behavior.
Practical
optimism fosters initiative and intelligence, assuring
us that we are capable of improving life through our own
efforts. Opportunities and possibilities are everywhere,
calling to us to seize them and to build upon them.
Attaining our goals requires that we believe in
ourselves, work diligently, and be willing to revise our
strategies.
Where
others see difficulties, practical optimists see
challenges. Where others give up, we move forward. Where
others say enough is enough, we say let’s try
again with a fresh approach. Practical optimists
espouse personal, social, and technological evolution
into ever better forms. Rather than shrinking from
future shock, practical optimists continue to advance
the wave of evolutionary progress.
4. INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY
Extropy
entails strongly affirming the value of science and
technology. It means using practical methods to advance
the goals of expanded intelligence, superior physical
abilities, psychological refinement, social advance, and
indefinite life spans. It means preferring science to
mysticism, and technology to prayer.
Science
and technology are indispensable means to the
achievement of our most noble values, ideals, and
visions and to humanity’s further evolution. We have a
responsibility to foster these disciplined forms of
intelligence, and to direct them toward eradicating the
barriers to the unfolding of extropy, radically
transforming both the internal and external conditions
of existence.
We can
think of "intelligent technology" in a variety of useful
ways. In one sense it refers to intelligently designed
technology that well serves good human purposes. In a
second sense it refers to technology with inherent
intelligence or adaptability or possessed of an
instinctual ability. In a third sense, it means using
technology to enhance our intelligence – our abilities
to learn, to discover, process, absorb, and
inter-connect knowledge.
Technology is a natural extension and expression of
human intellect and will, of creativity, curiosity, and
imagination. We can foresee and encourage the
development of ever more flexible, smart, responsive
technology. We will co-evolve with the products of our
minds, integrating with them, finally integrating our
intelligent technology into ourselves in a posthuman
synthesis, amplifying our abilities and extending our
freedom.
Profound
technological innovation should excite rather than
frightens us. We would do well to welcome constructive
change, expanding our horizons, exploring new territory
boldly and inventively. Careful and cautious development
of powerful technologies makes sense, but we should
neither stifle evolutionary advancement nor cringe
before the unfamiliar.
Timidity
and stagnation are ignoble, uninspiring responses.
Humans can surge ahead — riding the waves of future
shock — rather than stagnating or reverting to
primitivism. Intelligent use of bio- nano- and
information technologies and the opening of new
frontiers in space, can remove resource constraints and
discharge environmental pressures.
The
coming years and decades will bring enormous changes
that will vastly expand our opportunities and abilities,
transforming our lives for the better. This
technological transformation will be accelerated by life
extending biosciences, biochemical and genetic
engineering, intelligence intensifiers, smarter
interfaces to swifter computers, worldwide data
networks, virtual reality, intelligent agents,
pervasive, affective, and instinctual computing systems,
neuroscience, artificial life, and molecular
nanotechnologies.
5.
OPEN SOCIETY
Extropic
societies are open societies that protect the free
exchange of ideas, the freedom to criticize, and the
liberty to experiment. Coercively suppressing bad ideas
can be as dangerous as the bad ideas themselves. Better
ideas must be allowed to emerge in our cultures through
an evolutionary process of creation, mutation, and
critical selection.
The
freedom of expression of an open society is best
protected by a social order characterized by voluntary
relationships and exchanges.
In
advocating open societies we oppose self-proclaimed and
imposed "authorities", and we are leery of coercive
political solutions, unquestioning obedience to leaders,
and inflexible, excessive hierarchies that smother
initiative and intelligence.
We can
apply critical rationalism to society by holding all
institutions and processes open to continued
improvement. Sustained progress and effective, rational
decision-making require the diverse sources of
information and differing perspectives that flourish in
open societies. Centralized command of behavior
constrains exploration, diversity, and dissenting
opinion.
We can
pursue extropic goals in numerous types of open social
orders but not in theocracies or authoritarian or
totalitarian systems.
Societies
with pervasive and coercively enforced centralized
control cannot allow dissent and diversity. Yet open
societies can allow institutions of all kinds to exist —
whether participatory, autonomy-maximizing institutions
or hierarchical, bureaucratic institutions. Within an
open society individuals, through their voluntary
consent, may choose to submit themselves to more
restrictive arrangements in the form of clubs, private
communities, or corporate entities.
Open
societies allow more rigidly organized social structures
to exist so long as individuals are free to leave. By
serving as a framework within which social
experimentation can proceed, open societies encourage
exploration, innovation, and progress.
Open
societies avoids utopian plans for "the perfect
society", instead appreciating the diversity in values,
lifestyle preferences, and approaches to solving
problems. In place of the static perfection of a utopia,
we might imagine a dynamic "extropia" — an open,
evolving framework allowing individuals and voluntary
groupings to form the institutions and social forms they
prefer. Even where we find some of those choices
mistaken or foolish, open societies affirm the value of
a system that allows all ideas to be tried with the
consent of those involved.
Extropic
thinking conflicts with the technocratic idea of
coercive central control by insular, self-proclaimed
experts. No group of experts can understand and control
the endless complexity of an economy and society
composed of other individuals like themselves. Unlike
utopians of all stripes, extropic individuals and
institutions do not seek to control the details of
people’s lives or the forms and functions of
institutions according to a grand over-arching plan.
Since we
all live in society, we are deeply concerned with its
improvement. But that improvement must respect the
individual. Social engineering should be piecemeal as we
enhance institutions one by one on a voluntary basis,
not through a centrally planned coercive implementation
of a single vision. We are right to seek to continually
improve social institutions and economic mechanisms. Yet
we must recognize the difficulties in improving complex
systems.
We need
to be radical in intent but cautious in approach, being
aware that alterations to complex systems bring
unintended consequences. Simultaneous experimentation
with numerous possible solutions and improvements —
social parallel processing — works better than utopian
centrally administered technocracy.
Law and
government are not ends in themselves but means to
happiness and progress. In advocating open societies we
do not attach ourselves to any particular laws or
economic structures as ultimate ends. We will favor
those laws and policies which at any time seem most
conducive to maintaining and expanding the openness and
progress of society.
Fostering
open societies means opposing dangerous concentrations
of coercive power and favoring the rule of law instead
of the arbitrary rule of authorities. Because coercive
power corrupts and leads to the suppression of
alternative ideas and practices, we need to apply rules
and laws equally to legislators and enforcers without
exception. Open societies are frameworks for the
peaceful, productive pursuit of individual and group
goals.
In open
societies people seek neither to rule nor to be ruled.
Individuals should be in charge of their own lives.
Healthy societies require a combination of liberty and
responsibility. For open societies to exist, individuals
must be free to pursue their own interests in their own
way. But for individuals and societies to flourish,
liberty must come with personal responsibility. The
demand for freedom without responsibility is an
adolescent’s demand for license.
6. SELF-DIRECTION
Extropy
sees personal self-direction as a desirable counterpart
to open societies. Self-direction increases in
importance as culture and technology present us with an
ever-expanding range of choice. Each individual should
be free and responsible for deciding for themselves in
what ways to change or to stay the same.
Self-direction means being clear about our values and
our purposes. Having clear purpose in life not only
brings both practical and emotional rewards but also
protects against manipulation and control by others.
Freedom from others brings fulfillment and personal
progress only when combined with self-direction.
Successfully directing ourselves requires first creating
a clear (yet developing) sense of self then implementing
that vision by exercising self-control. The human self
contains a bundle of desires and drives built into the
biological organism through evolutionary processes and
cultural influence. Taking charge of ourselves requires
choosing from among competing desires and
sub-personalities. While spontaneity plays an important
role, creating and sustaining a healthy and successful
self requires self-discipline and persistence.
Personal
responsibility and autonomy go hand-in-hand with
self-experimentation. It is extropic to take
responsibility for the consequences of our choices,
refusing to blame others for the results of our own free
actions. Experimentation and self-transformation require
risks; individuals require the freedom to evaluate
potential risks and benefits for themselves, applying
their own judgment, and assuming responsibility for
outcomes.
Pursuing
extropy means vigorously resisting coercion from those
who try to impose their judgments of the safety and
effectiveness of various means of self-experimentation.
Personal responsibility and self-determination are
incompatible with authoritarian centralized control,
which stifles the choices and spontaneous ordering of
autonomous persons.
Coercion
of mature, sound minds outside the realm of
self-protection, whether for the purported "good of the
whole" or for the paternalistic protection of the
individual, is unacceptable. Compulsion breeds ignorance
and weakens the connection between personal choice and
personal outcome, thereby destroying personal
responsibility. Extropy calls for rational individualism
– or cognitive independence, living by our own judgment,
making reflective, informed choices, profiting from both
success and shortcoming.
Since
self-direction applies to everyone, this principle
requires that we respect the self-direction of others.
This means trade not domination, rational discussion not
coercion or manipulation, and cooperation rather than
conflict wherever feasible. Appreciating that other
persons have their own lives, purposes, and values
implies seeking win-win cooperative solutions rather
than trying to force our interests at the expense of
others. We respect the autonomy and rationality of
others by learning to communicate effectively and
working towards mutually beneficial solutions.
The
virtue of benevolence should guide our interactions with
the self-directed lives of others. Benevolence naturally
goes along with an appreciation of the value in other
selves and with confidence in our own self. We act
benevolently not by acting under obligation to sacrifice
personal interests; we embody benevolence when we have a
disposition to help others.
Self-direction means approaching others as potential
sources of value, friendship, cooperation, and pleasure.
A benevolent disposition not only embodies more
emotional stability, resilience, and vitality than
cynicism, hostility, and meanness, it is also more
likely to induce similar responses from others.
Benevolence implies a presumption of common moral
decencies including politeness, patience, and honesty.
While self-direction cannot mean getting along with
everyone at any cost, it does imply seeking to maximize
the benefits of interactions with others.
Self-direction means being in charge of our lives. This
requires choosing actions intelligently. This in turn
requires independent thinking. One of the less noble
human qualities shows itself when anyone gives up
intellectual control to others. Self-direction calls on
us to rise above the surrender of independent judgement
that we see – especially in religion, politics, morals,
and relationships.
Directing
our lives asks us to determine for ourselves our values,
purposes, and actions. New technologies offer more
choices not only over what we do but also over who we
are physically, intellectually, and psychologically. By
taking charge of ourselves we can use these new means to
advance ourselves according to our personal values.
7.
RATIONAL THINKING
Extropy
affirms reason, critical inquiry, intellectual
independence, and honesty. Rational thinking means
rejecting blind faith and the passive, comfortable
thinking that leads to dogma, conformity, and
stagnation. Commitment to positive self-transformation
requires critically analyzing our current beliefs,
behaviors, and strategies.
To think rationally we will readily admit error and
learn from it rather than professing infallibility.
Embodying
the disciple of rational thinking means preferring
analytical thought to fuzzy but comfortable delusion,
empiricism to mysticism, and independent evaluation to
conformity. It means affirming values, standards, and
principles but remaining distant from dogma – whether
religious, political, or personal – because of its blind
faith, debasement of human worth, and systematic
irrationality.
Rational
people are not cynics who reject every new idea. Nor are
they gullible people who accept every new idea without
question. Rational thinkers employ critical and creative
thinking to discover great new ideas while filtering out
indefensible ideas whether new or old. Rational thinkers
recognize that advancing individually and socially calls
for critically challenging the dogmas and assumptions of
the past while resisting the popular delusions of the
present.
Rational
thinkers accept no final intellectual authorities. No
individual, no institution, no book, and no single
principle can serve as the source or standard of truth.
All beliefs are fallible and must be open to testing and
challenging. Rational thinkers do not accept revelation,
authority, or emotion as reliable sources of knowledge.
Rational thinkers place little weight on claims that
cannot be checked.
In
thinking rationally, we rely on the judgment of our own
minds while continually re-examining our own
intellectual standards and skills. Emphasizing the
primacy of reason should not be taken to imply a
rejection of emotion or intuition. These can carry
useful information and play a legitimate role in
thinking. But rational thinkers do not take feelings and
intuitions as irreducible, unquestionable authorities.
Those processes can more productively be seen as
unconscious information processing, the accuracy of
which is uncertain.
Extropy implies seeking objective knowledge and truth.
We can know reality, and through science the human mind
can progressively overcome its cognitive and sensory
biases to comprehend the world as it really is. Humans
deserve to be proud of what we have learned, yet should
appreciate how much we have yet to learn. We should have
confidence in our ability to advance our knowledge, yet
remain wary of the human propensity to settle for and
defend any comfortable explanation.
FURTHER
INFORMATION
Version
3.11 is the September 20, 2003 version with purely
linguistic and formatting corrections to version 3.1. My
thanks to Brett Paatsch for edits.
More
extended treatments of these principles can be found in
essays, some of which have been published in
EXTROPY (now Extropy Online at
www.extropy.org/eo/). Practical Optimism was
previously called Dynamic Optimism. The original (1990)
version of "Dynamic Optimism" appeared in Extropy
#8. A different, more practically-oriented version is
available on the web. Self-Transformation was discussed
in "Technological Self-Transformation" in Extropy
#10. The principle of Self-Direction was developed in
"Self-Ownership: A Core Transhuman Virtue" in Extropy
Online. A pancritical rationalist understanding of
rational thinking was presented in "Pancritical
Rationalism: An Extropic Metacontext for Memetic
Rationalism" at the EXTRO 1 conference in 1994. The
original essay on transhumanism, "Transhumanism: Toward
a Futurist Philosophy" was published in Extropy,
and a later statement of transhumanism was published in
Free Inquiry as "On Becoming Posthuman". Answers
to many questions arising from The Principles of Extropy
are answered in the FAQ at
http://www.extropy.org/.
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POLICY
The
Principles of Extropy 3.11 may be reproduced in any
publication, private or public, physical or electronic,
without need for further authorization, so long as the
document appears unedited, in its entirety and with this
notice. Notification of publication or distribution
would be appreciated. The Principles of Extropy 3.1 are
copyright ©2003 by Max More. Contact: more@extropy.org
or max@maxmore.com.
_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com/
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute.
http://www.extropy.org/
more@extropy.org
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