Transhumanism

Let’s begin on a light note. If you’ve played any of the games of the Crysis franchise (underrated gem, that series), you’ll be familiar with the above picture. For those of you who haven’t, he- or, more appropriately, this is the protagonist. Look at the suit he’s wearing. The game gives it a fancy name of “The Nanosuit”, and what it does is, enhance the soldier in every possible way. Enhanced strength, vision, and even invisibility. Very Fancy. Now, this is a highly science fictionized version of the topic here, but then, the topic in itself seemed to be a figment of science fiction about three decades back.

Humans have been around for approximately 200,000 years. We have grown, evolved and adapted to the planet’s changing environment. But look at us today. We reached our evolutionary zenith quite a few centuries back and now stand at an Evolutionary Endpoint. For Humans, there really isn’t anywhere else to go. Or is there?

Where are we going? What’s next for us? Does evolution end here? What is the path forward? These questions bother a lot of our minds. Now, we might have an answer to those questions.

For today’s post, I’ll be writing about Transhumanism and the variety of fields associated with it.

Early Beginnings

First theorized in 1923 by British geneticist J. B. S Haldane, in his book Daedalus: Science and the Future (published in 1924), he predicted the great benefits of applying advanced scientific technologies to the Human Body. The book is an early vision of transhumanism and his vision of a future in which humans controlled their own evolution through directed mutation and the use of IVF.

Haldane used the figure Daedalus from Greek Mythology to reflect the revolutionary nature of scientific progress. The book also discusses his skepticism over such scientific advancements and highlights the need for science to develop ethically.

Interestingly, the book was first read to the Heretics Society, an intellectual club at the University of Cambridge, and it makes for a nice little joke on the nature of this revolutionary work (you need to get the meaning of the word “heretic” here to understand the joke.)

However, it was Julian Huxley’s 1957 essay, “Transhumanism” that brought the term into existence. Although the essay largely deals with improving the human condition via social and cultural change, the Transhumanist movement considers it to be the cornerstone of their philosophy. Huxley, in his essay, held that although humanity had naturally evolved, it was now possible for social institutions to complement evolution in refining and improving the species. The ethos of his essay can be found in the Transhumanist movement’s commitment to assume the role of evolution but through technology rather than society.

Transhumanism

Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed over the past two decades.

"Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values."

– Max More (1990)

Humanity+ formally defines Transhumanism based on Max Moore’s original definition in the following manner:

1. The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

2. The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.

In essence, Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase. This highlights an extremely interesting point, as Transhumanism doesn’t specify any particular end goal or any evolutionary endpoint for the human species. It just specifies the need for us to evolve into more advanced beings, something greater than the human form that we have now.

So How Is It Done?

Before I start this section, I find it extremely important to mention that I’m just a student and have a fairly negligible idea as to the real technologies that are the subject of research matter, so please excuse me if I get a few technicalities wrong. Frankly speaking, most of these are ideas and lab experiments to date but are definitely fascinating paths going forward. That being said, let’s dive right back in.

As I’ve mentioned in the previous sections, the focus of Transhumanism is to augment the natural process of evolution with the help of technology. This opens up a plethora of options for us to choose from. The primary focus as of now is to increase our life span using cryonics and other similar technologies.

Many more such improvements have been floated over the course of the development of the movement, including enhanced memory systems using artificial implants or memory-enhancing drugs (in a medical pov only), improved intelligence systems using neural interfaces and Artificial Intelligence, and many more.

One might ask at this point that what exactly does define a Transhuman? How are we to know when we have achieved this stage of Evolution? Or simply put, how do we define a Transhuman?

And this brings us to the concluding section of the post for today -

Transhumanism is not the End……….. It’s a Beginning

If you’ve stuck with me this long, be pleased, this is where a proper dose of science fiction kicks in and all the fun begins.

Transhuman, as the name suggests, is no final state. It is, rather, a transitionary state between our current form of human and a possible future state of the human, Human 2.0 or, what is commonly referred to as, “Posthuman”.

Now, don’t get any ideas, I freaked out the first time I read it too. In essence, we do not know the extent to which the state of Transhuman might advance us. Given this dearth of knowledge, it is useful to theorize about possible future beings whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans that they are no longer unambiguously human by our current standards. The standard word for such beings is “posthuman”.

At this point, it is extremely difficult to imagine what it would be like to be a Posthuman. The capabilities of this being will greatly transcend the boundaries of our current human form, and may even include shared intelligence (hiveminds), anti-aging, improved genetics, resistance to diseases (if only coronavirus came a few decades later), basically anything under the Sun which isn’t as outlandish as the Terminator.

But Posthumans are a topic for another day. The point here is that the Transhumanist movement is, in all probability, the next step of human evolution. Humans are apex predators in the food chain, a determining factor in natural evolution, and it isn’t an unreasonable assumption to believe that whatever we evolve into, it is in our hands completely.

Transhumanism isn’t a radically different view from Humanism itself, instead, it can be viewed as an extension of it. It recognizes all the qualities that make us humans, our emotions, our fears, our rational thinking, our freedom, but it also empathizes with what we have the potential to become. It urges us to be greater than what we are, to improve, and to be better versions of ourselves, goals that should benefit human society as a whole.

References:

1. Encyclopedia Britannica

2. whatistranhumanism.org

3. The Transhumanist FAQ - Humanity+

4. The Transhumanist Declaration – Humanity+

I used the above sources to research on the topic and found quite a lot of exciting information. Feel free to explore these resources to learn more about Transhumanism.

If this topic interests you, please feel free to discuss them by commenting on their corresponding Facebook or Instagram posts which you'll find on the accounts linked with this site. However, I urge you to keep the comments respectful and non-derogatory. I look forward to reading your views, and I sincerely hope that you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.