INTERVIEW WITH THE PHILOSOPHER AND RICCARDO CAMPA SOCIOLOGIST

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The President of the Italian Transhumanist and Professor of Sociology of Science at the University of Krakow, Riccardo Campa, was recently invited to participate in The Barbarian Invasions, successful transmission conducted by Daria Bignardi LA 7.

The discussion dealt with the anti-aging therapies, a central theme of transhumanist philosophy. After the face-to-face with the Secretary of the Democratic Party, Pierluigi Bersani, the leader in dining invited a diverse group of participants, including the former Milan defender Billy Costacurta, actress Alessandra Faiella, the singer Dorina Leka, the writer Lidia Ravera, the doctor Filippo Ongaro, the basketball coach Dan Peterson, and - in fact - the transhumanist philosopher Riccardo Campa. As often happens in talk shows, touching important issues, but for reasons of timing and dynamics of the discussion, you can not properly investigate any matter. We therefore asked Professor Campa to get more detail, answering the questions in this interview.

Professor Campa, The Barbarian Invasions are an important audience. It is estimated that his speech was followed by about a million viewers, while they are counted at least six million hits zapping. At first his answer on the nature of transhumanism, the presenter has however shown some concern. It really is an issue too "high" for the television audience?

I do not think this is the case. The presenter does his job and goes right to the intellectual to speak with simple concepts, to reach the widest possible audience. However, I wanted to be precise at least initially on a "scientific", because I think the audience following a program like the barbarian invasions is more cultured than following other programs on other channels during prime time. Therefore, able to understand a concept such as transhumanism which, incidentally, I presented almost as a synonym or "self-directed evolution." What I meant is that the anti-aging therapies are only one aspect of a much more important question philosophically, that is: is it appropriate to intervene directly on human biology, with the most sophisticated technologies, to eliminate or minimize the aspects of nature that we like less. To transhumanists, its most indigestible that gives us a dowry nature, as a result of an evolutionary process not managed rationally, are indeed aging, weakness, disease, death.

Someone thinks otherwise. There are those who consider these aspects of the human condition as inevitable or even necessary, desirable ...

This "someone" has every right to think whatever you like. We call them mortalisti, supporters of the death. No one is obliged to use them these technologies to slow down aging, to stave off death, to enhance the human being. Live longer and in good health is a sweet fruit but it costs sacrifices. So you do not see how you can make someone. I worry about when this "someone" wants to impose their way of life to other traditionalist. Very often, technophobes are not content to live without technology, but would forbid them from others. More often hypocritically deny them to others without denying themselves. When, for example, complain of technology and industrial companies on the Internet or on television. Like computers and cameras were products that are manufactured in plants.

It can be done without technology?

For me, consistency is a fundamental value. If anyone finds intolerable industrial society, why not go to live coherently in a pre-industrial? There are entire villages abandoned in the Apennines or the Alps Who exalts the pre-industrial society should go and live in these places, with goats, lanterns, oil, wood heating. Away from the cities, from television, newspapers, publishers. But no. We also have electronic technophobes. These do not estimate it for anything. On the contrary, I have great respect for the Amish. In the U.S., the Amish have made a choice anti-technology and are consistent. Among other things, no one touches them, no one forces them to use electricity or combustion engines. So, when a student of mine once again the litany of how beautiful life in pre-industrial societies, give him a simple task to do at home. As a test, ask him to give up to three months not at all, but only three products of industrial society: toilet paper, soap and toothpaste. Of course, I also ask to refer to the outcome of the experiment by phone.

So are the technophobes and mortalisti the intolerant ...

You can not generalize. However, if an exception is made for compulsory gymnastics, proposed by the Futurists in the early twentieth century, and indeed in force today in schools (except as a last resort you can be exempt), there is no danger to health, strength, youth, beauty are imposed by law. Everyone is free to make their own calculations and make the correct decisions. If a person wants to burn like a candle, enjoy fast and hard life, and then step aside, go ahead. Very often these people then we see old, sickly, suffering in the hospital ward, cursing the lifestyle that brought them to that point - as rightly pointed out the doctor Filippo Ongaro. Billy Costacurta said that the anti-aging therapies have allowed him to extend his career by another ten years. Dan Peterson is still going strong, but because it followed a balanced diet and made daily use of vitamins and other supplements.

But if it becomes a trend and the majority of people start to treat obsessive appearance and health, who does not risk being marginalized. Although there are no legal obligations.

Okay, but this is the rule of the open society. So, similarly, to maintain equality, we should not study, read books, inform us? In the name of equality, we must all become poor as the poorest, as stupid as stupid, weak as the weakest, as sick as sick as ignorant as the most ignorant, cowardly as the most cowardly, ugly as the ugliest and so on? We all have weaknesses, flaws, problems. And no one says you have to help the unfortunate, but it is not becoming like them who help them. Do we want a leveling down? Hopefully instead of the competition, the players - that is a legacy of ancient Greek culture - ports rather a general improvement in living conditions. But the one on which I insist is that the transhumanist philosophy goes well beyond the surface of healthy living.

So we try to go deeper, because here we have the time and space to do so. What has not been able to say in transmission?

First of all I believe is fundamental to clarify that the anti-aging is not just a fad and it's not a "new" fashion. There is an ancient tradition centered on the search for the elixir of life that goes back to the Greek myths and continues in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance with the alchemical tradition, to leave traces also important in the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, Futurism, in Socialism . In the myth of Prometheus, men receive from Zeus the secret of eternal youth, but lost badly to the benefit of snakes. In the Middle Ages, the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon - by some referred to as the inventor of spectacles and gunpowder - holds that God has deprived men of eternal life, but just to see if they can get it back by themselves through medicine. It's just that Bacon introduces the idea that aging is to be seen as a disease. Of course, the Catholic Church was not frowned upon, so much so that he was imprisoned for many years, but his ideas will then be taken during the Scientific Revolution by Francis Bacon. The utopia of the latter, The New Atlantis, is a society based on science, where biotechnology plays a central role in the struggle for longevity. Later, during the Enlightenment, is that Condorcet in his most famous work - Historical overview of the progress of the human spirit - says that science will be able to give the man an unlimited life. And then Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who is also venturing into futurological forecast says that man will be able to defeat aging and death merging with machines. The idea of evolution and self-directed correction of human nature also converges Leon Trotsky, one of the masters of socialist thought. In short, there is a noble and ancient tradition of thought behind today's anti-aging. And here I am limiting only a few examples.

What works would indicate, in his, for those wishing to deepen this aspect?

Ethic of pure science is a history of the ethos of science, or of the values underpinning scientific research. But between the lines of that book is a real hidden genealogy of transhumanism. Signs are also found in Mutare or perish, even though the book is more focused on current events. But I would say go even deeper into the question in other essays, such as "Ratzinger against Bacon", appeared on Mondoperaio, "Leon Trotsky: socialism with a face posthuman", "The Superman of the future" and "The pagan roots of the revolution biopolitics , "appeared in Becoming. Here, I would recommend above all else.

So how do the Bignardi: could be summed up in simple words the moral of the story?

In simple words, should not the message that now we talk about anti-aging because the new consumer society, the pharmaceutical industry, not knowing what to sell, have invented this fashion, transforming ipso facto in healthy patients, making us all hypochondriacs. This is not the philosophy anti-aging, nor is this transhumanism. Of course, multinational companies have sensed the business and have been in turmoil. For this, I know well that I teach sociology and these mechanisms are the first to say you need a lot of attention. We must be careful to charlatans and speculators interested only in profit. So I say to our readers always turn to the medical officers. "Trusted" in order to minimize the risk of becoming a guinea pig for unscrupulous entrepreneurs. That said, from time to time get a blood test to see which substances are lacking, and then integrate the feed with some pills prescribed by a doctor, does not mean you become hypochondriacs. It means prevention.

I play devil's advocate, but serve the doctors and pills? Not just a diet of natural foods or natural supplements?

The difference between natural and artificial is a true legend. Certainly, one can overcome certain deficiencies ingesting foods that are on the market. For example, if you are deficient in magnesium, you can take a lot of rice. However, cooking the rice loses a large amount of magnesium and the uncooked rice is not just a treat. So the tablet can be comfortable. Because - and this is the thing I want to point out - there is a natural magnesium than artificial. Magnesium Magnesium is always, wherever he is. It is the chemical element in the periodic table of the elements that has the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. Believe that magnesium in rice is more healthy than that in the tablet is a real superstition. By the way, if "artificial" means "man-made", many foods of animal or vegetable we buy at the market are artificial. The pig, for example, is an artificial being. Does not exist in nature. He created man, through a process of genetic selection lasted millennia. GMOs are only a new method to get what the first was obtained through graft and selections. Our ancestors began in the Neolithic far to modify living organisms.

But, coming to the sociological fact, this attention to your body is not a sign of individualism, hedonism, selfishness of our times? In other words, transhumanism will also have noble fathers, but now the question is likely to be trivialized.

If we consider the matter bearing in mind a fundamental truth of sociology - that there is no society without individuals or individuals exist without society - we realize that the question has more faces. On the one hand it is true that the anti-aging therapies do them first for ourselves, to stay healthy. So, are inspired by our selfishness. But there is also a dimension altruistic social policy would even say anti-aging. The Italian company is already one of the longest in the world. There exceed Japan and a few others. However, the Italian company is also the one with the greatest number of lunatics. Dementia occurs, along with other degenerative diseases, because we grow old evil. The two issues of aging and disease are held. Bacon had an extraordinary insight to see the aging itself as a disease. But let's get social aspect. Older people often have a bag full of experience and wisdom. It is important that the trasmettessero young people. As rightly stressed Lidia Ravera, there is a time for everything. When the body withers, our thoughts can still flourish. But as long as you do not rincretinisca. Avoid becoming demented is therefore also an altruistic gesture in favor of the company, because not only do we avoid becoming a problem for the community, a burden, but even we can still give something positive.

During the broadcast, he made a joke about sex. A media strategy to take back the word, to bring attention to himself, and therefore on transhumanism?

Well, I must admit that I did not choose the theme for the event. I started maybe too serious, considering that I had to speak with a comedian, so I tried to play down then. But this is not a joke. Many independent studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between frequency of sex and longevity. Of course, the issue is more complex. A correlation is not a causal relationship, although the role of hormone production in this process is well known. It should also be pointed out that it must be a frustrating sexual activity or stress. Be many fans might not be the ideal solution. Statistics show that long-lived people in strong relationships with strong sexuality, the single very sexually active, or the faithless, but only if they have a second steady partner and the first not too jealous, because stressful situations in a shortened life . Unfortunately there was not time to go into those details. But the main thrust of my observation is that to live a long and healthy life should not be locked in a glass case. You can also enjoy life. The important thing is to find the right entertainment.

The surgery was much applauded. And all participants in the talk show said they were in agreement.

This means that bigotry and sexual phobia that we have inherited from a certain tradition is fading inexorably. It seems to me a good thing.

In the end, he has said that anti-aging is just a beginning. He talked about stem cells, genetic engineering. So, for transhumanists, pills and supplements are a no brainer. Much more in store ...

Yes, luckily I was able to mention the issue. The anti-aging are important, but must be seen primarily as a bridge that can lead us toward technologies longeviste much more powerful. We do not know when these future technologies will be available. But we know that the more we stretch our lives, the more likely you are to be there when they appear. By intervening directly on human biology, in practice we stop the aging process. Empirical research in the laboratory are carried out in different countries, with different goals and methodologies. Or you try to turn off the genes, the mechanisms that make us grow old and die. Or, and this seems like the best solution at hand, to renew periodically cells through therapeutic cloning and stem cell-based therapies. In short, the "resurrection of the flesh" promised by Christianity, could be obtained thanks to science, even if you prefer the more prosaic term "regeneration of tissues." But this therapy can be seen as a second bridge to technology even more powerful. Also periodically regenerating tissues, we are fragile beings, exposed to various dangers. We can still die in car accidents, or unknown diseases, or killed by weapons. Here then can be convenient to think and also to strengthen not only the regeneration. We can for example ibridandoci empowers us with machines, replacing biological organs with electro-mechanical, when work better. After all, if Pistorius is emblematic. With artificial legs, the South African athlete runs stronger than everybody else.

Although I was fascinated by themes transhumanists, in closing, I would once again do the devil's advocate. Transhumanism emanates from a strong desire to live, to do, to fight. But if we can live for centuries, thanks to these technologies, we do not run the risk of being bored? This was the punchline of the Faiella ...

As a joke made me laugh, but it was just a joke. Dying is the easiest thing in the world. Just do not do anything. Who is bored with life should not do is go to an isolated place, to be deprived of all technologies, including clothes, and wait. Time a few hours or a few days and died of cold, thirst, hunger. The Man Without a technology does not exist, nor has it ever existed. When not handled yet technology called monkey, not a man. The technology is therefore the essence of humanity. Technology is our life. Then, the anti-transhumanist, or those who say "I hate technology and want to die soon" (the opposite of what he would say a transhumanist, namely: "I love technology and I want to live forever"), if he is still alive, apparently is lying. In fact, it is struggling to survive, like all the others. Mind or is in a state of false consciousness. I conclude by saying that I live so long to get bored with the life would be a good result. In the end, then, to die is a breeze. The tragedy is to die when you still want to live. Or, having to live, think of the Welby case, when you would like to die. The optimum would instead be able to decide when to die. Therefore, the base value of transhumanism is not so much life, as the will. We do not want life at any cost, but rather to remove the obstacles to our natural and social will to existence, wisdom and power. I think this is also the oldest and most sincere desire expressed by man as demonstrated by the fact that, when he imagined the gods, eternal and blessed them imagined. What he wanted to be.

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