A trim here, an accessory there; none of us are strangers to self-maintenance. So ladies roll around in their Range Rover Sport, 21 inch rimmed vehicles with a face lift to match; and men BBM their lunch meeting confirmations with their manicured nails and cosmetic surgery dental work down to a fine smile. My central question is where do we draw the line?
A couple of “Nip/Tuck” episodes later, and plastic surgery doesn’t seem the controversy it once, up until very recently, was. “Extreme Make-Over” shows transform low-life geeks with no lives into Cinderella’s at the ball with nothing but a future of Prince Charmings to choose from. Biological modification then becomes fashionable, if not considered necessary. ‘Perfect’ uniformly shaped and coloured vegetables and fruit that near never expire on our grocery shelves and genetic modification passes as the norm. What are we gaining, and at what cost? What is the real and what is the modified? Is the real still real if modified? Is the modified real if it superificially appears so? The pretty surfaces look great, but authenticity is what is being diluted. Authenticity of what you may be rightly tempted to ask. Of humanity I dare answer.
Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. The movement regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists look to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Dangers, as well as benefits, are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.
In transhumanist thought, according to my faithful friend wikipedia, a “posthuman” is a “hypothetical” future being whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards. Wow!!!! Sounds like a bunch of Sci-fi garb doesn’t it? Something in the distant, far-fetched future? Not quite so. How then can one create such a being in real terms if it is not anything but a fantastic idea? Here’s how:
- Posthumans could be a symbiosis of human and artificial intelligence,
- uploaded consciousnesses,
- or the result of making many smaller but cumulatively profound technological augmentations to a biological human, i.e. a cyborg. Some examples of the latter are redesigning the human organism using advanced nanotechnology or radical enhancement using some combination of technologies such as genetic engineering, psychopharmacology, life extension therapies, neural interfaces, advanced information management tools, memory enhancing drugs, wearable or implanted computers, and cognitive techniques.
Still seem like you’re stuck in someone’s space dream? Then try this for a reality check: the US government has been conducting research the very field to train their soldiers to withstand longer periods of combat without sleep. Not so far off an idea after all huh?
Let me come out of the closet right here and say “when did we tie up all the lose ends of what it means to be a human being before we jumped the gun to trans- and post- humans?” Just a thought.
Then, I’d like to know, with our countries/continents/worlds unresolved challenges with healthcare, unemployment, housing, education (we all know the drill) how and where do these post-humans fit in? It seems human beings are making scientific discoveries toward our growing obsolete. I mean, if we can get a machine/person thing (technophobia they call it) to do a better job with less pay, if any, why get the man to? Sky rocket unemployment rates. Just a thought.
Shall mere human beings be treated with contempt by posthumans because we will be regarded as inferior? What do we do with all our human rights? Does a new constitution have to be written to include posthumans with step by step instructions on how we are all to live in peace?
So what about the human soul? Well, posthumans are every atheist dream, a soulless being created by man, king, creator of all and created by none. We shoulda known the ‘god’ question wouldn’t disappear as easily as ‘we’ll see at heavens gates’ for now we are faced with people playing god in their perceived right in trying to achieve the ‘over-man’, ubermensch, christ, buddha, self-realization through another being/thing. Only this time with no soul… I wonder what the outcome of that might be…
No comments:
Post a Comment