Benjamin Cain
2 min readAug 13, 2022

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I agree that there's an objective, real context in our use of language. These are Dennett's real patterns, or they're perceptual information (so-called sense data), and so on. The question is whether you can speak the truth about them without understanding what you're talking about. For us to understand reality is to humanize it to some extent, to impose some conceptions, interpretations, and preoccupations to which the rest of reality is indifferent and which will count for nothing once our species is gone.

So, if a car is approaching a squirrel on a road, there's the squirrel's understanding of that real event; there's the human's; and there's also a hypothetical, more enlightened, or transhuman perspective. Are they all equally objective or reality-based? Or do the inferior conceptions become delusions in comparison to the advanced, more encompassing and empowering ones?

I don't think universal agreement can be equated with objectivity. For one thing, that could be a fallacious appeal to popularity. For another, Kant explained how such agreement could be based on transcendental conditions of possible human experience, which are both subjective and universal/necessary.

I've written a series on transhumanism. I'm not a cultist or a wannabe prophet on the matter. I just use the idea in thought experiments. Neither do I follow Hegel or Nietzsche, although I might build on some of their ideas. I'd connect transhumanism, rather, to ordinary secular humanism or liberalism, much as Yuval Harari does in Homo Deus.

https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/transhuman-epistemology-knowledge-in-the-greater-scheme-78d68bdc6704?sk=e47050735c56aeda7ec12647bbc090b3

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/should-transhumanists-be-pessimistic-about-human-nature-2c2f46122fb7?sk=ab2fdb107eea4a099fe22c9a7a9d74c0

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/does-transhumanism-rehash-the-delusions-of-progressive-religion-532aa1f0c784?sk=165601f7308bd1480cc894848d93fea4

https://medium.com/illumination-curated/the-stakes-of-transhuman-godhood-7a5b39bf0433?sk=37652a96a645529b50ee3059237a5d11

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Benjamin Cain
Benjamin Cain

Written by Benjamin Cain

Ph.D. in philosophy / Knowledge condemns. Art redeems. / https://benjamincain.substack.com / https://ko-fi.com/benjamincain / benjamincain8@gmailDOTcom

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