“Scott Bakker says:
September 17, 2015 at 2:59 pm
This has been a fantastic discussion: I especially would like to thank Steve (Fuller) for helping me think through the form and consequences of the Augmentation Paradox, and the kinds of crash spaces that might arise as a result.
Rick: “Do you think, Scott, that we will ever free ourselves from the crash space, or is it even possible to establish islands of safety and stability while the ground beneath us keeps moving?”
As you note, social ecology is the target, the domain where the paradox has the most bite. The problem it poses transhumanism seems to be about as radical as can be. And the argument falling out of it is dreadfully simple:

1) Heuristic cognition depends on stable, taken-for-granted backgrounds.
2) Social cognition is heuristic cognition.
/3) Social cognition depends on stable, taken-for-granted backgrounds.
4) Transhumanism entails the transformation of stable, taken-for-granted backgrounds.
/5) Transhumanism entails the collapse of social cognition.

What makes this so devilish, I think, is that it’s so bloody easy to understand heuristics in *mechanical terms,* and thus incredibly difficult to take flight in underdetermined abstractions. Reliable heuristic cognition turns on cues possessing reliable differential relations to the systems cognized–end of story. Once what David calls ‘hyperplasticity’ is upon us, then the differential relations between cues and systems become endlessly variable, and the cues become useless, and *heuristic cognition becomes impossible.*
Since intentional cognition is (indisputably, I think) heuristic cognition, this means intentional cognition will become impossible. Transhumanism basically means the death of meaning. And so to answer your question, Rick, I think crash space just is our future so long as we require that meaning play some cognitive role. Causal cognition is the only way forward I can see.
This is another reason why I love Steve’s zombie metaphor, although I think it would be more ‘accurate’ to see *both* parties as zombies, the transhumanists that embrace their biomechanical nature, and the bioconservatives, who are deluded by the limits of their biomechanical nature (their need to rely on heuristics) into thinking they are more than zombies, or ‘human.’
For years I’ve been searching for a ‘master argument’ for the Semantic Apocalypse, and I think this might be it.”
– See more at: http://enemyindustry.net/blog/?p=5869&cpage=1#comment-19929
RSB needs a new name for this as Semantic doesn’t capture the full brunt of the crash.