According to Julian Huxley, transhumanism is “man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.” Julian, Aldous Huxley’s brother, coined the term in his book Religion Without Revelation in 1927. When Huxley came up with the term “transhumanism”, I doubt he was thinking of primarily tech and bio implants as the key to improving the human condition. The transhumanism that we get in Transmetropolitan however, is mainly focused on this technological transhumanism: mixing man with machine and genetic modifications to ascend oneself.
Transmetropolitan, being set in a cyberpunk future, is full of wonderful electronic devices and unsettling human-alterations. The most extreme example is Channon’s boyfriend Ziang who downloads himself. Downloading is the process of uploading your mind across a million foglets. The controversy surrounding this practice is simple. According to Hans Moravec, a human does not stop being human because he has an artificial leg or heart. Taking this to the extreme, he figured that at no point do you stop being human. This is the basis for the foglet community. They are foglet, but still human, implying that the mind and not the body or its shape is what makes a human, human. Channon does not see it this way. To her, the body, and consequently all of its needs and problems, are what defines the human experience. Simply being a conscious being in any form is not enough.
Tico informs Channon that foglet humans do not give up anything besides the annoying physical needs of the body. Spider concludes by telling Channon that Tico is still human from his personality.
To religious people who believe that humans are made in their god’s image, this kind of ascension is sacrilegious. Foglet humans are basically god-like. They are immortal and can create anything out of thin air. From a political view, having these care-free foglets invisibly roaming about would be a nightmare. What rights would they have? Are they really still people? And how can you protect others from the mayhem that they could potentially create? Placing these powerful, conscious machines capable of bending matter to their every will alongside ordinary humans could be disastrous.
To me, extreme transhumanism, like uploading the mind into foglets, is kind of disturbing. I can see the necessity in replacing a lost limb with artificial limbs, or saving someones life with an artificial heart. However, unlike Moravec, I believe there is a certain point where you do lose your humanity, or at least part of it. I have no problem with enhancing our five senses or our organs, as long as form and texture is retained. A human should look fleshy, not metallic. Having an ear that could amplify and filter out sounds would be awesome. If this is done by having an electronic device attached to the ear that can be controlled via brain, I’m fine with that, as long as there are no wires dangling from my head.
Seriously, are all the wires necessary? And that one on the top left looks suspiciously like a vga connector.
Looking like a machine is weird to me. Maybe if I lived in the future where everyone had cords running from their head to their stomach I would not mind. From my current perspective though, the less obtrusive the enhancements are, the more welcoming I am to them.
COMM 2302 (Spring 2013) 