Transhumanism

Cybofree - Cyborgs, Fantasy, Reality, Ethics and Education

by VR Manoj

V.R. Manoj AND Jayapaul Azariah Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 11 (2001), 178-183.

This paper examines ethical issues associated with cyborgs. A core issue is whether the cyborg body offers a fredom... more This paper examines ethical issues associated with cyborgs. A core issue is whether the cyborg body offers a fredom for the fantasies of the mind. It is a freedom that enables the mind to explore into the new environments. To characterize such a cyborg based freedom for fantasy creation, we propose the term “CYBOFREE”.

Love and Hope for Other Species in the Posthuman Future

by VR Manoj

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

I am writing this after having responded to a respected friend, a bioethicist with whom I am connected via Facebook.... more I am writing this after having responded to a respected friend, a bioethicist with whom I am connected via Facebook. In his photo albums, he has a picture of a protected area for dogs in Thailand. This got me thinking.

Nietzsche's Transhumanism

by Paul S. Loeb

Het transhumanisme. Een inleiding tot het debat over mensverbetering

by Aeneas De Baets

Wanneer wij via media of op onmiddellijke wijze geconfronteerd worden met genetische manipulatie van mensen, met... more Wanneer wij via media of op onmiddellijke wijze geconfronteerd worden met genetische manipulatie van mensen, met artificiële intelligentie, met cyborgs, met nanotechnologie, en andere fantastische maar daarom geen minder realistische ideeën, is onze eerste reactie veelal angst. Houden deze technologieën, die er op uit zijn menselijk lichaam en geest te veranderen, te verbeteren en te overstijgen, geen gevaar in voor de mensheid, voor onze waardigheid, onze persoonlijke vrijheid? Weten wij misschien niet te weinig over wie of wat de mens is, om ons te wagen aan gewaagde experimenten met onze eigen soortgenoten? Zijn de gevolgen wel overzienbaar?
Het is een discussie die al ettelijke eeuwen meegaat. Vooral binnen de literatuur werd het thema al vaak aangesneden; gaande van het oudste epos aller tijden, de Gilgamesj, via literaire klassiekers als Frankenstein en Brave New World, tot hedendaagse sci-fi films en series. Door de komst van verscheidene nieuwe technologieën, in het bijzonder de biotechnologie, heeft het debat nu ook een prominente plaats gekregen binnen de wetenschappen en de filosofie. Maar daarmee is echter de intuïtieve angst, die heel typerend was en is voor de fictie, nog niet verdwenen.
In dit artikel zal ik een schets geven van de heersende discussie omtrent deze technologieën die de menselijke conditie grondig kunnen beïnvloeden. Wat zijn de mogelijkheden van deze nieuwe technologieën en in hoeverre kunnen ze de mensheid bijstaan? Waarom zouden we bang moeten zijn? Welke beslissingen dienen er nu genomen te worden? En met welke problemen zullen we waarschijnlijk in de toekomst nog worden geconfronteerd?
Ik zal het daarbij in het bijzonder hebben over het transhumanisme, een wijsgerige ideologie die de technologieën promoot die onze menselijke conditie helpen overstijgen. Ik zal aan de hand van de standpunten en argumenten van deze beweging aantonen waar de grote knelpunten liggen.

Transhumanismo y posthumano: principios teóricos e implicaciones bioéticas

by Elena Postigo Solana

Transumanesimo e postumano: Principi teorici e implicazioni bioetiche

by Elena Postigo Solana

Teaching the Superman

by Kris Miranda

draft (January 2012)

In a post-Watchmen world, has anyone yet picked up the pieces of not just the comic book medium or of the comic... more In a post-Watchmen world, has anyone yet picked up the pieces of not just the comic book medium or of the comic book-bound hero in general, but of the “traditional” superhero—the man in tights who flies around the world at impossible speeds to save people and be loved for it—and put him back together in a configuration that moves him above and beyond Alan Moore’s deconstruction? Has anyone really, in other words, reinvented Superman?

I believe we have not yet seen such a single definitive restatement of Superman, but this is probably because we have seen so many post-Watchmen theses, as it were, of what Superman is and how he matters—and this multiplicity is, I think, “the point,” is indeed how he must continue to thrive in a post-modern age. I argue that the multiplicity of Superman reinventions—of which I sadly have room here to sample only a few—can be seen (to borrow Heideggerian terminology) as many “worldings” of the earth of an inexhaustible Superman archetype, and that in this spirit we may yet take some baby steps toward a truly new icon of Superman-like proportions who more readily embodies the values and perhaps the “unthought” of a people hurtling toward the possibility of a technologically achieved posthumanity.

I will also briefly consider other superheroes, including Superman’s counterpart of sorts, (the) Batman. Perhaps the best way forward for Superman, a literally solar-powered hero characterized by Mark Waid in his acclaimed Kingdom Come as “the pinnacle of otherworldly power,” in fact lies in a painstakingly self-made warrior of the night whom Waid calls “the zenith of human fortitude and ambition." Perhaps what Superman, the superhero, must mean or be to us postmoderns is what Nietzsche’s teaching of the superman was always supposed to be: not a savior from above, but a humanly possible path to our own becoming much more than we are.

What Does It Mean to be Enhanced?

by Ryan Mitchell Wittingslow

Laval Virtual VRIC’12, March 28-April 1, 2012 Laval, France
Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1243-1

In this paper, I attempt to question the very idea of ”enhancement” itself. Given the tool-using nature of human... more In this paper, I attempt to question the very idea of ”enhancement” itself. Given the tool-using nature of human beings, does the idea of enhancement have any critical traction, when it could be argued that all tool use is an attempt to enhance experience? This has grave ramifications for the public ethics that surrounds any discussion about the application of transhuman technologies. If, as I argue, there is nothing special about ”enhancement” - indeed, if it is that very thing that makes us human - then the vocabulary of the discourse itself may be occluding a genuine and honest appraisal of these issues.

Introducing Universal Symbiogenesis

by Nathalie Gontier

In: O. Pombo et al. (eds.), Special Sciences and the Unity of Science. Series: Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science 24. Dordrecht Springer.
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2030-5 6,

The Silver Age Superhero as Psychedelic Shaman

by Scott Jeffery

This is an extended version of a paper I delivered at at the 2011 Transitions conference. Aspects of this paper are touched on briefly in the paper, "Producing and Comsuming the Posthuman Body in Superhero Narratives", which also provides more detailed context, but ‘Psychedelic Shaman’ goes into more detail about one specific type of posthuman body found in superhero comics (and the discourse of posthumanism more generally) which I dub the Cosmic Body.

ABSTRACT

In this paper I present some preliminary work from my thesis on the posthuman body in superhero... more ABSTRACT

In this paper I present some preliminary work from my thesis on the posthuman body in superhero comics. It begins with a brief overview of the discourse of posthumanism, how it is used in three different but overlapping realms- philosophy/critical theory, techno-scientific practice, and speculative fiction. For instance the 1938 debut of Superman can be read as part of a wider discourse of the posthuman that takes in popularised Nietzschean ideas and the eugenics movement as a figuration of posthuman corporeality that my thesis ironically dubs, “the Perfect Body”. This paper however deals with Silver Age comics and the “psychedelic” or “Cosmic Body”. It first addresses how the nascent counterculture of the early sixties adopted Marvel comics. The increased use of psychedelic drugs by certain sections of this movement helped foster a vision of a psychedelically evolved post-humanity marked by a form of ‘cosmic consciousness’. Such groups ‘poached‘ the imagery of superheroes as evolutionary blueprints for this transformation as well as adopting terms like freak and mutant to designate their new posthuman identity. A mutual influence, psychedelic imagery found its way into the comics. Intuitively, in the cases of Ditko and Kirby, but apparently quite deliberately by the time of Engelhart‘s Dr. Strange and Starlin‘s Warlock and Captain Marvel in the early seventies. The paper then goes on to consider the superhero as shamanic figure, with particular reference to its influence on the Human Potential Movement that grew out of the counterculture. The paper concludes by discussing how this confluence of mysticism and science, or the modern and pre-modern, can still be found in the superhero comic book, and how the psychedelic posthuman body invites fresh consideration of the lines that separate the body from the mind, reason from irrationality, drugs from technology and superhero fictions from reality.

Producing and Consuming the Posthuman Body in Superhero Narratives

by Scott Jeffery

What follows is a written up version of a paper I presented at the 2011 British Sociological Asscoiation Annual Conference and in a longer form as a departmental presentation earlier that year. It gives an overview of some of the main concepts I'm working with in my thesis. Its tempting to work it up fully into a journal paper but information wants to be free. So borrow and steal from this if you feel the need. But it would be good if you cite me anyway!

For over seventy years the superhero comic book has presented narratives of the posthuman body. In these stories the... more For over seventy years the superhero comic book has presented narratives of the posthuman body. In these stories the posthuman body has been put to work as patriotic propaganda, used to explore notions of morality and identity, and, in more recent years, used to interrogate, however crudely, the workings of the military industrial complex. These developments have been paralleled outside of comic books by a wider discourse of posthumanism, which has taken both popular and academic forms, but shares in both cases an emphasis on the impact of science and technology on the human body. This paper highlights three of these intersections between the comic book posthuman and the wider discourse of the posthuman. The Golden Age of superheroes of the thirties and forties are understood in terms of the eugenics movement, the Silver Age of the sixties in terms of the psychedelic counter-culture of that time, and the contemporary superhero in terms of a globalised military/industrial complex and the emerging technologies it is funding and building. This paper demonstrates how the science-fictional discourse of superhero comics both influences and is influenced by these wider discourses.

Transhumanity and the Imago Dei: A comparison of Christian and Transhumanist anthropologies

by Max Baker-Hytch

Transhumanism is an increasingly influential worldview which advocates the radical technological transformation of... more Transhumanism is an increasingly influential worldview which advocates the radical technological transformation of humans, with a view to eliminating aging and death and vastly expanding the range of human possibilities. Underpinning these bold aspirations is a very specific notion of what it means to be human; but one which has yet to be thoroughly explored in relation to Christian understandings of human nature. In this dissertation I attempt to answer the questions: “What is the interrelation of transhumanist and Christian anthropologies?”, and “To what extent can Christian anthropology affirm the goals of transhumanism?” Such a study is especially apt due to Transhumanism's concern—unusual for a secular worldview—with primarily the same themes as Christian theology: the nature, vocation, and destiny of human beings. In conducting this study, I draw on major twentieth-century theological analyses of human nature by Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, and more recent studies such as those of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen and F. LeRon Shults. Salient themes which emerge from these works include the crucial importance of human embodiment and the fundamentally social nature of our existence. I attempt to bring this literature into creative dialogue with transhumanist writers such as Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, and Max More, who understand human flourishing rather in terms of overcoming all limits which our nature places upon us and even emancipation from the inherent fragilities of the body by uploading the mind into cyberspace. I argue that a small measure of consensus may be reached between these two anthropologies regarding the use of technologies which can help to alleviate suffering, but in the end, I conclude that transhumanism seeks ultimately to use technology as a means to supplant God through the attainment of humanly-wrought immortality and virtual omnipotence—goals that Christian anthropology cannot endorse.

Transhumanist Arts. Aesthetics of the Future? Parallels to 19th Century Dandyism

by Melanie Grundmann

Transcending the meat: immersive technologies and computer mediated bodies

by John Sullins

Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 12(2000) pp. 13-22

In this paper we will call into question the philosophical grounding for the belief that our mind can in principle be... more In this paper we will call into question the philosophical grounding for the belief that our mind can in principle be removed from, or transcend, our bodies. We will show that modern immersive technology, such as virtual and web technologies, tacitly attempt to implement this philosophy. We will find that there is a growing community called the Transhumanists who are a loosely knit group of highly educated hi-tech professionals and scientists who explicitly accept the transcendent mind hypothesis. Through the work and influence of these professionals values that are antagonistic to the body enter, explicitly or tacitly, into computer technology. It is our claim that the transcendent mind hypothesis is in error and that immersive technologies have to take seriously issues regarding the embodied nature of their users and that this embodiment can not be transcended in any meaningful way.

Technonatures Introduction White Wilbert

by Damian White

An attempt to survey and think through the political implications of hybridity discourses such as Latour and Haraway for environmental politics. This is the introductory chapter from D.White and C.Wilbert (Eds) Technonatures: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-first CenturyISBN13: 978-1-55458-150-4, 2009.

Lots of other really interesting cuts in the book from Erik Swyngedouw, Sarah Whatmore, Mike Michael, Steve Hinchliffe and others ...check it out at Available from http://www.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/white-wilbert.shtml

Free using of the own body

by Tamás Mezei

Presented on ENRI Conference in Oradea

more https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxlbnJpY29uZmVyZW5jZXxneDo1YjRkNWY0MGY0ZTIzZWI1&pli=1

The Ambivalence of Moral Psychology

by Tommaso Bruni

AJOB Neuroscience, 2(4): 13-15

Human Enhancement, Prosthesis and Transhumanism

by Byron Kaldis

ABC-CLIO World Historical Encyclopedia

"The Problem of Transhumanism in the Light of Philosophy and Theology"

by Philippe Gagnon

Chapter 34 in Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, J. B. Stump and A. G. Padgett (eds.) (Malden/Oxford: Wiley/Blackwell, 2012), pp. 393-405.

Transhumanism is a means of advocating a re-engineering of conditions that surround human existence at both ends. The... more Transhumanism is a means of advocating a re-engineering of conditions that surround human existence at both ends. The problem set before us in this chapter is to inquire into what determined its appearance, in particular in the humanism it seeks to overcome. We look at the spirit of overcoming itself, and the impatience with the Self, in order to try to understand why it seeks a saving power in technology. We then consider how the evolutionary account of the production of organisms does not set them against a perfect standard, but rather injects in them a contingency that seems to be near to the heart of the problem. We then try to assess the objective basis for improvements and manipulation of nature, and although we do not find it forbidden on all occasions, it seems that the criteria for such alterations are impossible to detach from a form of eugenics. We finally open a window toward a theological account of the problem, and find that the desire of autonomy and independence is inevitably going to be challenged by the Christian dogma of creation.

Performing the Future: Laurie Anderson and the Cyborg Sound as Postgender Prophecy

by Jacob Morris