Moving Back …..
Comments (1)Ok managaing two blogs is a bit more tricky than it seems especially when the themes of the two blogs overlap and thus I am moving the contents of this blog to The Best of Possible Blogs. Transhuman related posts will be posted on that blog.
CNN weighs in on the Future
CNN weighs in on the future and the possibilities that it may hold in a series of articles. The current installment of the series is on the so-called Hell-scenario where technology goes out of control. They outline how things can go terribly wrong and the possibility of new technologies getting into the hands of wrong people who can inflict massive harm to the whole world given that most of these technologies are more readily available and relatively easily accessible like genetic engineering. The prospect of a frightening post-human future is also raised.
One of the interesting things that they note is that it usually takes culture and society some time to catch up with technological innovations. This could be because people growing up with new technologies view the world in a different manner and drive the engines of change in a society. Here is an excerpt.
“Culture and values evolve slower than technical innovation,” says Garreau. “If you look at the 1950s, it was a time of huge advances in technology — nuclear weapons, birth control, TV — yet it was the 1960s that was the decade of upheaval, there’s a lag. Similarly the 1990s was a decade of innovation, with the Internet, cell phones, the PC all taking off. But it’s now, in the first decade of the 21st century that we’re seeing the upheaval with the rise of fundamentalism as a reaction to the new insecurities technology has brought.”
Biopolitics
I recently came accross an article by Alyssa Ford over at utne.com about possible reconfiguration of the lines between the right and left based upon how people view the transhumanist agenda. Although the article is more than a year old but it gives one reason to pause and think about the shape of things to come. Welcome to the brave new world of biopolitics. Consider the excerpt:
By definition, social conservatives oppose the transhumanists, but the new movement also has many enemies on the new age, environmental, anti-GMO, and anti-biotech left. These progressive opponents have even aligned with right wing factions in opposition to transhumanist goals. In 2002, Jeremy Rifkin and other environmentalists joined with anti-abortion groups to float an anti-cloning petition. Abortion opponents again found themselves working with the left when a group of feminists and civil libertarians began pressuring the Indian government to restrict women’s access to ultrasounds and abortions for fear of female infanticide. The transhumanists, in turn, call these anti-technology liberals “left luddites,” “bioconservatives,” and “technophobes” — a not-so-subtle linguistic clue that the new biopolitical axis has the potential to completely reconfigure traditional politics.
Already Cyborgs?
In his book Natural Born Cyborgs Andy Clark describes how the humans by their very nature are Cyborgs and we have been Cyborgs at least since the beginnig of written laguage and possibly since spoken language arose as a mode of communication. Language can be thought of as a technology which allows us to offload some of our cognitive processing ‘into the world’. Think of a person when she is solving a complex mathematical problem. She uses a pencil and a piece of paper to solve the question in additon to her mental faculties. According to Clark the paper and the pen is part of her ‘mental’ appratus in solving the question. This is a trivial example of how humans already are cyborgs. We already have the ability to temporarily merge with our technologies in a non-invasive manner. From here one could argue that merging in an invasive manner would be of much difference.
Review of “More Than Human” at Metapsychology
Metapsychology has a fairly good review of Ramez Naam's More Than Human. From the review it seems that the book is fairly concise in terms of bringing out the important issues and concerns related to transhumanism. Naam brings out the important point that is most cases there is not a clear cut distiction between finding a cure for some disease via genetic engineering and enhancing human beings. In some cases the distinction is almost non-existant because the same technologies can be used for curing a defect and enhancing human beings. This is in effect equivalent to stating that once we start out on the path of using such technologies for cure there is not turning back the clock of enhancement. Naam does not think that the post-human future will not be a techno-utopia but we can improve our condition. A lot of critics of transhumanism hold that humans are to be defined by their limits but Naam argues to the contrary that we are defined by going over out limits. These arguments were reminicent of Andy Clark's arguments in Natural Born Cyborgs.
Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference
I almost missed this one but came accross reading via slate.com about the Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference at the Stanford Law School. Judging by the description at slate.com, the discussions at the conference were out of the ordinary. The libertarian bent of the participants can be gleaned by the following excerpt.
The sessions were … interesting. A panel on religious views consisted of a transhumanist Zen Buddhist priest, an advocate of human enhancement as divine healing, and a pro-cryonics "Christian immortalist." Another panel addressed "the self-demand amputation community." You've heard of a woman trapped in a man's body? Imagine being a one-legged person trapped in a two-legged body, said the speakers. A third panel brought up the "cyborg dialectic": thesis, antithesis, synthesis, prothesis. I have no idea what a prothesis is. I assumed the cyborg dialectic would culminate in a prosthesis.
An interesting line of reasoning used by the proponents of radical transformation of humanity lies in analogy i.e., they take examples of current day modifications or changes that we have brought about in humans via technology and then basically state if this then why not that. It is difficult to argue against them and that is why their opponets should present counterarguments in order to stay in the discussion.
InstaPundit interview with Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil is considered to be one of the most famous Transhumanists of today, although he firmly placed in the camp which thinks that a tehnological singularity is inevitable. (It should be noted that not all Transhumanists have the same view about the future of humanity and how our post-human future might unfold.) Here is an interview of Ray Kurzweil by InstaPundit in late 2005. (Note: The InstaPundit blog is considered to be in the top 5 most visited blogs on the net.) Different people have different reactions about Kurzweil. Some consider him over stating the case while others consider him to be a visionary. I say, let history be the judge.
What is Transhumanism?
A few of my friends asked me (offline) about what exactly was transhumanism so I thought what better way to reply then to quote Nick Bostrom himself.
“the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility anddesirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by using technology to eliminate aging and greatly enhance human intellectual,physical, and psychological capacities”
- Nick Bostrom (The Transhumanist FAQ)
Christian Transhumanism
The transhumanist scene is mostly dominated by people from a non-religious or an agnostic background with a libertarian bent. There are however a few exceptions like Christian Transhumanism which at first sight might appear to be an oxymororn but it really os not. Christian Transhumanism derives from a fairly liberal interpretation of the Christain tradition and the second coming of Christ is identified with the singularity. Resurrection is reinterpreted as mind uploading. It makes one wonder what kind of theological responses other religious traditions like Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism would develop in response to transhuman developments.
The Last Question
Perhaps the most memorable short story in science fiction is Asimov's The Last Question. The story imagines the ultimate in post-human evolution. I won't give the ending away but you can read the story at the following link.
