How would you engineer the perfect human?

[Ivan Seeking]

If you had complete control over the design of future humans, what would your design be? [no jokes about the perfect woman please] Assume that you have mastered genetic engineering.

 

[steppenwolf]

well eugenics is a sensitive issue at best but why not, hypothetically speaking of course

if i had such power i would genetically engineer humans to be incapable of not feeling empathy, it would consist of an automatic response, ie reflex, to inflicting pain on others that would make the inflictor feel the same pain. in the early stages of developpment the child brain would be capable of processing the physical pain the child inflicts on others, but as the person grows up they would have no choice but go throught all the emotional, physical and pychological pain that they inflict upon any other person.

i'm too tipsy right now to consider the actual science of this dream, but i like it damn it! the world would be a better place... perchance to dream anyway

 

[Kerrie]

i wouldn't change much except maybe put in a better immunity against disease...

 

[eNtRopY]

That's funny you should mention this because I was talking with a girl last night at a party about something similar. She told me that if she were to create a better species of humans, she would put the brains of Europeans in the bodies of Africans... So much for being politically correct.

eNtRopY

 

[jammieg]

Perfection is relative, to me a perfect human would be very imperfect-absolute perfection is imperfection seeking perfection. The journey is more rewarding than the outcome, so no matter how advanced a species becomes they would long for challenge and novelty basically imperfection, it is when a species or individual is taxed to it's limits that it is pushed to evolve into something more. The thing I would change is life expectancy, although no one would ever live forever it would be nice to live 200 years instead of 75, provided it doesn't mean living in constant physical and mental deterioration.

 

[steppenwolf]

it's a fair comment that humans would evolve if pushed to the brink of extinction:

it is when a species or individual is taxed to it's limits that it is pushed to evolve into something more

what scares me is the thought that we will destroy oursleves before realising the fatality of our current way of life, the way we interact with the world and other humans, there's no hope!

 

[Andy]

How would you engineer the perfect human?

In my Image!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by steppenwolf
there's no hope!

Where there is life there is hope. Besides, ET is going to save us!

 

[Dave]

Better back. No food storage unless consisly told to.
Get rid of unrealistic optimism so people can see real risks to themselves ie smoking (I won't get lung cancer)

 

[Mattius_]

jet propulsion that selectively comes out of some sort of extension in our leg...

 

[Andy]

Myabe you don't need to have an extension coming out from your leg, maybe you could use an already active part of the body for propulsion.

 

[plus]

Inbuilt subordination to me.

 

[Mattius_]

lol and then you could get away from the wife anytime you wanted to...

 

[noahfor]

well defined, clear, never fading emotion

 

[noahfor]

nothing subconscious that affects feelings or thoughts

 

[Loren Booda]

With an internal environment and external genetics.

 

[FZ+]

Preprogrammed with an intuitive understanding of QM.

 

[Iacchus32]

What? No "Weird Science" jokes? Nevertheless I think they had the right idea.

Neither could I help but believe they created the perfect human being, honest, as I'm sure a lot of other people would agree.

You're right, men are pigs! ...

 

[The Grimmus]

thats what we are doing right now...or were doing before we made up standards with the money. It may be slow but evolution is possable the best way to suravay the world and remove the mistakes soem peopel made...

but if i had to decide the perfect human would be smart unactractive and have little emotions concerning love...this is so the human will work as my slave creating cutting edge technolgy...at low low prices

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by The Grimmus
...this is so the human will work as my slave creating cutting edge technolgy...at low low prices

You're really Bill Gates aren't you?

 

[Nomolesteporfavor]

Common sense hands down.

 

[The Grimmus]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
You're really Bill Gates aren't you?

no bill gates is my proto type obviousl there are some bugs with the low prices and the efficancy of the technolgy...

End communication

 

[eNtRopY]

Originally posted by FZ+
Preprogrammed with an intuitive understanding of QM.

What good would that do for creatures who live in a classical world? Seriously, think about. Does a waitress need to know quantum mechanics in order to do her job? How about a construction worker? How about a dentist? How about a lawyer?

It would be more useful to be preprogrammed with an intuitive understanding of classical mechanics. However, this would possibly destroy our understanding of the science of observation. Yes, I am sure of it. It would be best to be preprogrammed with a capility of learning about our environments by observing the world around us. Hey, what do you know? That's exactly what we have.

eNtRopY

 

[jammieg]

A fear is that we will be compelled to create a race of above 150 IQ people. Is it a bad thing to be able to understand more? I'm guessing that when they do this they will prove that intelligence is much more than particular gene sets being on or off, that genes only give the canvas and the person must paint the picture and that the smartest people's genes can also turn out to be the dullest, that shyness is not a disease but a different way of dealing with things and advantageous in it's own ways. Intelligence is born of great internal and external tormoil, not ease of operation, so as humans we usually take a very long time to gain use of our brains because of the difficulty and complexity of it's construction, the more to overcome the more to gain. Nature has had millions of years to work on perfecting the human species, human arrogance is often that we can fix what we don't understand in far less time and likely to lead to doing more harm than good, but preventing decidedly bad congenital diseases is something that genetics should handle well.
I would guess that modest genetic manipulation will become common because it is beneficial, but that radical genetic manipulation will quickly become unethical because we don't really know how it works and lead to more harm than good.

 

[Another God]

1. Brave new World setup. Structuring the members of society so that they want to do their tasks in society, and have them enjoy doing it.

2. Physically, I would design a body which has smooth all over skin, only head hair, slim build (with particularly strong muscles though). Completely collapsable skin based wings (like a bats) protruding from the back. Bones made particularly light and strong. Assuming i knew how to design anything genetically, then I will also assume that we have some decent biologically creatable super strength light weight product. (think: Diamond is carbon based)

Size proportionate silk shooter thingies from each wrist. Basically like spiderman i guess (obviously) although that wasn't the inspiration for this. Seriously, I though of the practical application of having the ability to 'catch yourself' as you fall with some sort of super strong strand. Expelling it in the way spiders can too, so that you can eject some of it with the extra coils in it, for the stretch effect (effectively carrying our own bungy cords with us)

I would engineer a Sonar system, allowing us 360° vision as well as our traditional acute eye sight (maybe improve that a little, with various zoom options). I would also engineer in a sense of direction much better than what we have (many animals can get compass style bearings by the polarisation of the light in the sky, while others can get direction from magnetic fields. I would try to incorporate both of these into one sense).

I would engineer the skin to be Photosynthetic (maybe hair too). Living without needing to eat could be beneficial. Of course, choosing to eat would still be available, but not necessary. Of course have the two energy input systems balanced, taking energy from whatever is available, as appropriate.

Incorporate whatever is required to stop aging. Probably need to improve Antioxidant capabilities, cell repair mechanisms etc. Have greater telomere control, ensure every anti-cancer gene is in action, Perhaps even engineer myself with Tetraploidy, where the second copy of the chromosome is not for the diversity, but rather as a hard copy in back up. Engineer a new Polymerase Protein which ercognises Synalogous Chromosomes, and cross references the Base pairs at every copy. Thus removing mutations (by haveing two copies, there are 4 strands, so if a mutation occurs, 3 strands will agree, one will disagree, the disagreeing one is 'voted' out.). Have the genes programmed to 'Develop' until age 25, and then maintain that stage of development.

Change our eye setup for those that the Octapus has (ensure same quality though.)

Improve Anaerobic capacities.



And do it all in a Genome about half the size the one we have currently.

 

[Iacchus32]

So whatever happened to natural selection? Doesn't anyone think life is miraculous enough as it is?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
So whatever happened to natural selection? Doesn't anyone think life is miraculous enough as it is?

Perhaps this is the next step in natural evolution: Self guided evolution. I used to think that this may go against God's plan or muck up the gene pool. Now, I feel that this comes down to a matter of random odds vs choices. Nature can be very cruel.

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Perhaps this is the next step in natural evolution: Self guided evolution. I used to think that this may go against God's plan or muck up the gene pool. Now, I feel that this comes down to a matter of random odds vs choices. Nature can be very cruel.

But why the sudden leap all of a sudden, from that which is seemingly inocuous as natural selection, to that which seems to have "seized control" and quite possibly developed into its very antithesis? What part of the process will continue to remain "natural" once everything becomes artificial and man-made?

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Iacchus32
What part of the process will continue to remain "natural" once everything becomes artificial and man-made?

The fact that our brain function is a direct result of natural selection, and our brains are designing the new bodies...

 

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by Another God
The fact that our brain function is a direct result of natural selection, and our brains are designing the new bodies...

I think "estranged" from the whole process is probably the best way to put it? Indeed I think it's indicative to a basic flaw in the theory that we merely arrived here by natural selection alone, not that I believe the whole theory is invalid ...

I would venture to say that as a species we've only been here about 10,000 years -- more than likely as "transplants" -- thus accounting for the Advent of Modern Man and the development of agriculture in Asia Minor, as well as the differences between the races of people, which conceivably could have happened in about that period of time. I speak about this idea further in the first three chapters of my book (specifically in chapter 2) if you're interested ...


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