Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism

Humanism (H)

• Human powers are importantly distinct from those of nonhumans.

• Reason, Autonomy, Virtues, Culture, Technology, etc.

• Human powers confer exceptional moral status.

• Improving Human lives requires extending Human powers.

• Extending Human powers has priority over other ethical goals.

Humanist Biopolitics

Human Nature

Reason AutonomyVirtuesCulture

EducationPolitics

Transhumanist Biopolitics (H+)

Human Nature

NBICTECH

EducationPolitics

Reason AutonomyVirtuesCulture

NBIC Technologies

• Nanotechnology – very fast and precise atom-scale manufacturing,

programmable matter (New Materials, Post-Scarcity Economics).

• Biotechnology – manipulating life and living systems at the

genetic/sub-cellular level, synthetic life (Genetic Enhancement,

Ageing Cures)

• Information Technology – computing, cybernetics (Artificial

Intelligence, Brain Machine Interfaces)

• Cognitive Science – understanding the architecture and

implementation details of human and nonhuman minds (Cognitive

Enhancement, Mind-Uploading)

Bad Borgs

Cyborg Humanism ?• The promise, or perhaps threatened, transition to a world of

wired humans and semi-intelligent gadgets is just one more

move in an ancient game. . . We are already masters at

incorporating nonbiological stuff and structure deep into our

physical and cognitive routines. To appreciate this is to

cease to believe in any post-human future and to resist the

temptation to define ourselves in brutal opposition to the

very worlds in which so many of us now live, love and work

(Andy Clark, Natural Born Cyborgs. Oxford OUP: 2003, 142).

The Technological Singularity

And what happens a month or two (or a day or two) after that? I have only analogies to

point to: The rise of humankind. We will be in the Post-Human era. And for all my rampant

technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding

these transcendental events from one thousand years remove... instead of twenty. Vernor

Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era”

“an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the

intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is

one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even

better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion“

I J Good, cited in Vernor Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to

Survive in the Post-Human Era”

(Speculative) Posthumanism

SP: Descendants of current humans could

cease to be human as a consequence of

technical alteration.

Key features of SP

• Value Neutrality – not an ethical position (unlike H/H+)

• Descent is wide not just biological

• Human-Posthuman difference (arguably) consists in a relation

between historical individuals not concepts or abstract kinds.

The Posthuman Impasse

Discounting (i.e. hoping for the best) seems irresponsible.

Accounting for posthumans, then, seems obligatory…

….but maybe impossible.

Solving the Impasse

1. Understanding posthumans is not possible only if there is a human cognitive

essence.

2. There is no human cognitive essence (assumption).

3. Understanding posthumans is possible (1, 2)

4. Given their dated non-existence, the best conditions for understanding

posthumans involve us making posthumans or becoming posthuman (True

for any non-existent technological artefact).

5. We are obliged to attempt to understand posthumans (Accounting).

6. If we are obliged to understand something, we are obliged to bring about the

best conditions for understanding it (Strong Epistemic Obligation Principle).

7. We are obliged to bring about the best conditions for understanding

posthumans (5, 6)

Conclusion: We are obliged to make posthumans or become posthuman

(5, 8)

Further thoughts…

Suppose posthuman natures are diachronically emergent. Where

A diachronically emergent behaviour or property occurs as a result of a temporally

extended

process, but cannot be inferred from the initial state of that process. It can only be

derived

by allowing the process to run its course.

4 could be substituted with: 4’) Given their dated non-existence, the only

conditions for understanding posthumans involve us making posthumans or

becoming posthuman (True for any non-existent technological artefact).

This means we can get by with a more moderate Epistemic Obligation Principle:

6’) If we are obliged to understand something, we are obliged to bring about the

necessary (only) conditions for understanding it (Moderate Epistemic obligation).