Transhumanism

From guest blogger Ben Mussett.

I can honestly say that in thirty years I have no idea what I will be. My bones could be laced with C60 carbon molecules, making my skeleton so durable it can withstand free falling from airplanes or impacts from high caliber ammunition. My blood could be laced with nano-bots that constantly monitor everything about my body. Cuts, scrapes and other more serious injuries can be fully healed in minutes and even seconds. I could have a film over my eyes that turns my full field of vision into a heads up display that can do anything from display my favorite movie to creating a hologram of my wife who is located thousands of miles away.

Transhumanism is an awareness of technology. It is being aware of its pace, what it is and how it is evolving. In becoming more aware of technology people are able to understand and support its development. It is also a movement for the rights to choose our own evolutionary path. This will allow humans become something greater then human, while still maintaining their human rights.

The human race is coming upon a beautiful age. We will be able to completely edit every part of our bodies, allowing us to control how we evolve. Our culture will become a mixture of science and art. Information will be able to be accessed and downloaded into our brains from anywhere on the planet via implants inside our bodies.

How do I know these things? Much of the technology that would be needed to bring to life what I have described above is already being researched and developed. Just in 2006, MIT students created nanoparticles that hone in on prostate cancer particles and deliver targeted chemotherapy. Could you ever believe in wireless electricity? You should, because Dr. Soljacic, an assistant professor at MIT, has already developed it.

Technology is moving at an exponential rate. Paradigm shifts, which are changes in a way of thinking, usually pertaining to scientific communities, happen yearly now. Every single year the rate that we make advances in technology are increasing at an ever-faster rate. Here is an example from Ray Kurzweil's article The Law of Accelerating Returns:

The first technological steps -sharp edges, fire, the wheel--took tens of thousands of years. For people living in this era, there was little noticeable technological change in even a thousand years. By 1000 A.D., progress was much faster and a paradigm shift required only a century or two. In the nineteenth century, we saw more technological change than in the nine centuries preceding it. Then in the first twenty years of the twentieth century, we saw more advancement than in all of the nineteenth century. Now, paradigm shifts occur in only a few years time. The World Wide Web did not exist in anything like its present form just a few years ago; it didn't exist at all a decade ago.

Companies like Intel release new hardware every six months that almost doubles the power of the last released model. That kind of advancement in technology has been unheard of until the last few years. Humans will have the power to become almost like gods. Is this possible? Is this right? Is it natural? What are the risks of such advanced technologies?

There are many people that argue against becoming Post-Human. Post-Humans are people that change themselves with nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Some argue that this process in "unnatural." Skeptics often say that if life becomes too easy and lasts for too long it will lose meaning.

How can one acknowledge an argument like that? Whether something is natural or not is often subjective to the person stating it. If we stop research on any technology someone claimed to be "unnatural" we would all be Amish, sitting in huts with natural warm milk, getting natures natural health care by lying in bed and hoping we get better. What is to stop us from creating new meaning in our lives if our life span becomes extended?

Others say it simply cannot be done. There is no possible way we can reach a point where we will not have to worry about things like death and hunger. It is hard for me to believe things like this when much of the technology for the future I believe in has been proven possible. The scientists just need the time to get there. Many basic nano-machines are already in use and are becoming smaller and more advanced every year.

There is also controversy about overpopulation. The world's population growth rate hit a peak in 1965 and has been falling ever since. There have been constant declines in the fertility rate in every corner of the globe. The world is becoming more educated. Statistics show that people are less likely to have kids the more educated they are. More and more people are moving from low populated areas into large cities. There are obvious declines in the fertility rate amongst those that live in cities compared to those that live in less populated areas. Different studies show the human population will level out at anywhere from 8-10 billion, while the humanity has the ability to support four times that number today.

I see a very bright future for the human race. It is a future that has a lack of hunger, disease and poverty. I will continue to look forward and contribute as much as I can to the development of this future and I hope you will too.