Transcript Future Visions - ASU Transhumanism

Transhumanism and
the Posthuman Future:
Will Technological
Progress Get Us There?
Ted Peters
Center for Theology
and the
Natural Sciences
at the
GTU
Transhumanism
“Humanity will be radically changed by
technology in the future. We foresee
the feasibility of redesigning the
human condition, including such
parameters as the inevitability of
aging, limitations on human and
artificial intellects, unchosen
psychology, suffering, and our
confinement to the planet earth.”
- Transhumanist Declaration
World Transhumanist Association
Nanotechnology
Nanobiotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nano Tech + Genetic Engineering = Nanobiotechnology
Nano = Dwarf
1 Nanometer = One billionth of a meter
10 hydrogen atoms side by side
“Size Matters”
STMX = Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscope [UCB/LBL]
See 25 to 35 Nanometers – physics prior to emergent life
Nanobots = nano sized robots to move oxygen or clean out cholesterol
Bio Fab = application of nano-engineering to living systems
IA = Intelligence Amplification (or cognitive augmentation)
Cybernetic Immortality? Post-Humanism?
STXM = Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy
Rollie Otto
STXM = Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy
National Center for X-Ray Tomography, UCB
Electron Microscope for biological imaging
Electrons travel at 99.9% speed of light
Brighter than the sun
Imaging whole cells at 35 nanometers
Imaging structures at 25 nanometers
Future: resolution at 10 nanometers
Merging of the fields of physics and biology
Synthetic Life
In Transhumanism we witness a
NBIC Convergence
- Jean-Pierre Dupuy
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Nanotechnology
Biotechnology
Information Technology
Cognitive Science
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
IA (Intelligence Amplification)
Capitalism: laissez faire
NBICAIC?
Singularity: 2045 !
Cybernetic Immortality:
“Uploading a human brain means scanning all of its salient details and
then reinstantiating those details into a suitably powerful
computational substrate. This process would capture a person’s
entire personality, memory, skills, and history.” pp. 198-199
Technological progress extends biological evolution.
“The purpose of the universe reflects the same purpose as our lives:
to move toward greater intelligence and knowledge…we will within
this century be ready to infuse our solar system with our intelligence
through self-replicating non-biological intelligence. It will then
spread out to the rest of the universe.” p.372.
Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Penguin, 2005)
H+
Transhumanism = a “ToTalized philosophical sysTem”
• Metaphysical or Cosmological Level: the world is a “process of
evolutionary complexification toward evermore complex structures, forms, and
operations.”
• Psychological Level: we human beings are “imbued with the innate Will to
Evolve…” to expand survivability and well-being.
• Ethical Level: “we should seek to foster our innate Will to Evolve by continually
striving to expand our abilities throughout life…by acting in harmony with the essential
nature of the evolutionary process…”
- Simon Young, Designer Evolution, pp. 87, 19, 202.
Progress within Evolution?
“…man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is.”
– Charles Darwin, Autobiography, p.77
Progress within Evolution?
NO
Stephen Jay Gould
Francisco Ayala
The Eschatological Problem
How do we get there from here?
Two Views of the
Future
Futurum & Progress
Adventus & Apocalypse
Progress is cumulative advance
The backbone of the doctrine of
progress is that “something is
better than it had been and promises
to get better still in the future.”
- Steven Goldman, “Progress,” Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, 3:1519.
Futurum
(Futurology, Futurism)
•Understanding
•Decision
•Control
Transhumanists want to replace “Darwinian
Evolution with Designer Evolution—from slavery
to the selfish genes to conscious self-rule by
the human mind.”
–Simon Young, Designer Evolution, p. 207.
The Eschatological Problem
Transhumanists want to replace “Darwinian
Evolution with Designer Evolution—from slavery
to the selfish genes to conscious self-rule by
the human mind.”
–Simon Young, Designer Evolution, p. 207.
How do we get there
from here?
Can a leopard change
its spots?
Is Religion Luddite?
“I am about
to do a
new thing.”
Isaiah 43:19
Adventus (Eschatology)
Human progress is subject to divine judgment.
Sin
Poor Judgment
Graffiti
Computer Virus
Totalitarianism
Genocide
Is original sin back again?
Can we overcome sin through
science and technology?
Martin Luther
“Original sin really means
that human nature has
completely fallen…the
intellect has become
darkened…sins have
taken such deep root in
our being that in this life
they cannot be entirely
eradicated.”
Luther’s Works, American Edition, 1:114.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Christian Realism:
No advance in technology will
overcome history’s ambiguity.
“The idea of progress is…highly dubious….It is false in so
far as all historical processes are ambiguous.” The doctrine
of progress fails to recognize that “history is filled with
endless possibilities of good and evil…every new human
potency may be an instrument of chaos as well as of order;
and history, therefore, has no solution of its own problem.”
- Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2:240, 154-155.
Langdon Gilkey
Christian Realism:
No advance in technology will
overcome history’s ambiguity.
“Morals do not advance in history. Hence, a progress of
technology may in fact augur a regress in social harmony
and social justice…instead of ‘saving’ mankind, can threaten
to become the demonic instrument of mankind’s destruction.
This permanent ambiguity of historical process, this
continuation of sin even in an advancing culture, [means] that
if there be a kingdom, it could not be realized through a
sociohistorical development leading to a perfect society in
history.”
- Langdon Gilkey, Reaping the Whirlwind, 233.
History
Eschatology
M. Grunwald, Eisenheim Altar Piece
The New Jerusalem
Adventus
Albrecht Dürer, 16th Century
Gustav Dore, 19th Century
He will wipe every tear from
their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain
will be no more,
for the first things have
passed away.
- Revelation 21:4
Conclusions
H+ needs more realism:
No amount of increased
technology or intelligence
will liberate us from sin.
The Bible promises
transformation: this
fosters an ethic that
promotes change in light
of future well-being.
Bye, Bye