Well That's Weird: Our Experiment in Anarchy

In her most recent column, Catherine Heffner explores the ideas surrounding transhumanism, and just how far it will go.

For hundreds of years, we’ve sought to enhance the human life through technology. But these days, the direction of our invention is turning inwards – looking at how we can change our bodies, minds and the very future of humanity. But is there a point where technology can go too far?

Well, if you’ve ever dreamed of having superhuman strength, of being able to read minds or of having bionic limbs like Iron Man then you may well be a ‘transhumanist’. Transhumanism is an intellectual movement whose followers both desire and anticipate a future where human capabilities are enhanced by technology.

While admittedly, transhumanism is somewhat of a fringe science, it is gathering a lot of popular support and has influences from some very powerful people. For instance, Ray Kurzweil; author and director of engineering at Google, is one of the most prominent advocates for the movement. In his book The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil predicts and illustrates his concept of ‘The Singularity’ – a point in the near future at which he believes technological advances will allow for the creation of super-human intelligence. Think microchips, brain implants and synthetic neocortex extenders.

Kurzweil has even founded The Singularity University, whose graduate programs in science and technology centre on this theory. Corporate executives can also pay thousands of dollars for a few days of workshop-style teaching with some of the most influential scientists and technologists in the world. The university is currently backed by internationally recognised organisations such as Google, Nokia and NASA.

Image Credits: Wired

If Kurzweil’s estimations are correct, we will have reached the ‘Singularity’ by the year 2045. Kurzweil believes that technologies and paradigm shifts multiply over time at an exponential rate – starting with a slow increase, and leading to what he describes as “explosive and transformative” changes in the future.

This seems to be confirmed by the media around us, which constantly reports truly mind-blowing advances in science. For instance, the EU has just committed millions of euros to the development of wearable robotic exoskeletons for factory employees, in the hope of reducing work related injuries. In 2012, a team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University were able to replace a woman’s ear that she had lost to cancer by reconstructing a new ear from her rib cartilage. This new ear was grown in her forearm for several months before being grafted onto her head.

Earlier this year, scientists created a kind of micro-particle which, when injected, allows for sufficient oxygenation of the body that breathing is no longer required for life. The scope for the expansion of our technologies seems to be limitless.

As you’d expect, transhumanism has caused a great deal of controversy. People are often uncomfortable with the idea of the post-human world for moral, ethical or religious reasons, and as such, the movement has provoked a lot of discussion. Often, there are no simple answers as to whether the technologies transhumanism supports are ethical or not. Especially when finance comes into the equation. Already, the wealthy seem to have an upper hand in the use of these technologies. People are spending tens of thousands of dollars to have their body preserved through cryonics, in the hope that one day, they will be resuscitated by a future generation.

New parents can now pay for the storage of their child’s umbilical cord blood which can be used a source of stem cells should the child develop a disease later in life.  Artificial organs, bionic limbs and other new therapies and prosthetics are often still only available to the wealthy. Many people have argued against this divide. Others protest that it would be more ethically unacceptable to prevent the use of these technologies until society has created a fairer arrangement.

Even aside from finance, the ethical issues surrounding certain practices are complicated. Particularly practices involved with the prevention of ageing. In the popular Channel 4 documentary “How to Build a Bionic Man”, the bioethicist George Annas notes: “We’re a great death denying species. Even though the death rate is 100%, it’s very difficult to find someone who accepts that. I mean in the last 150 years, the average life expectancy has increased by 7 hours every day. It’s remarkable it continues to do that. Is that good? It’s horrific to say no to that question but the answer is no, its not good – there’s a limit.”

This is a long-existing debate. Although written more than half a century ago, I found C.S. Lewis’s writing on ‘The Abolition of Man’ particularly sobering; “The final stage has come”, he reasons, “when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of nature to surrender to Man.” Take this as an extreme view, but it certainly doesn’t seem far-fetched. We’re at a stage in technological advancements where the lines between the natural and the man-made are becoming more and more blurred.

Talk to any person of an older generation and quickly you realise how this one is different. We’ve seen the progression of mobile phones, the creation of the Internet, the sequencing of the human genome, and many other incredible discoveries and inventions. We’re part of the first generation to have grown up with these incredible technologies – where nobody seems quite sure how to use them or whether they should even be used in the first place. In the words of Eric Schmidt; “The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand; the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.” So what then do we want to say when years down the line, we’re talking to the younger generations? Will we be even able to call them human? It may just be that by then, in a transhumanist’s dream world, our experiment in anarchy will have succeeding in leaving nature to surrender to man.

 Catherine Heffner, Features Columnist 

Find Exeposé Features on Facebook and Twitter.

Voyager: Houston we have a probe-lem

Image credits: Sweetie187

With the Voyager 1 probe being the first man-made object ever to leave our solar system, James Coghlan explains what this means for mankind’s great journey into the final frontier.

For all its shortcomings, humankind has managed to achieve a remarkable amount in its rather short existence; in the last five hundred years alone, man has circumnavigated the globe, investigated both poles, and conquered the highest mountains the Earth has to offer. We have climbed every mountain and forded every stream. There is nothing we cannot do – we are unstoppable.

As the first human to look at the place we call home in all its splendour from the surface of another celestial body, one could forgive Neil Armstrong for thinking something along those lines as he stamped his name onto the story of the human race. The culmination of nine years of development, the Apollo 11 mission touched the dreams of millions of people around the globe and forever changed their perceptions of what it means to be human. Not since the launch of the first man-made object into outer space has the potential for extra-terrestrial discovery been so greatly enhanced. But the journey did not stop there.

In spite of the enormity of each of our achievements, mankind has managed to out-do itself time and time again, endlessly increasing its capacity for knowledge and enhancing its appetite for adventure. Everyone thought that the field of science and technology had reached its peak, but eight years after our greatest achievement as a species, the story was no different.

Little did the men and women working on NASA’s Voyager programme know that the probe designated Voyager 1 would go on to penetrate the outer reaches of our solar system’s heliosphere and become the only man-made object in history to enter interstellar space. If that isn’t amazing enough, here are some eye-watering facts: it has been in service for 36 years – hurtling towards the stars at a peak speed of 62,136 kilometres per hour – and has travelled almost 19 billion kilometres, a distance so large that it takes 17 hours for radio messages to reach Earth. That means the probe is 126 astronomical units away from home. Translated into plain English, that’s 126 times the distance between the Earth and our Sun.

Quite an impressive achievement then, especially once you consider that a modern-day sound system can possess more than five times the power that Voyager 1 currently has. However, in spite of its relative technological crudeness, the little probe has a lot riding on its shoulders. Voyager 1 was originally intended to study the planets of the outer solar system, but has recently been burdened with the responsibility of being NASA’s only source of information within interstellar space. No pressure, then.

To be honest, there could not have been a better-qualified piece of equipment for the job. It overtook its sister probe Voyager 2 – launched some two weeks before it – and became the first probe to discover Jupiter’s planetary rings, along with volcanic activity on its moon Io.

Image credits: Sweetie187

It was also the first to capture high-resolution images of Saturn’s moons, identifying surface structures never seen by the Pioneer probes. So, even before it assumed the mantle of being mankind’s most important far-flung creation Voyager 1’s journey had been immensely productive, the information gathered by the probe enough to rewrite astronomy textbooks. Were the people behind the project satisfied?  In one word: no. Like all humans, they wanted more.

Having completed its flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1’s planetary mission came to an end. However, instead of decommissioning the craft NASA chose to direct it past Saturn’s giant moon Titan. This flyby deflected the craft in such a way so as to remove it from the plane of the ecliptic, sending it off into deep space. NASA could have directed the probe to Pluto to complete its part of the Grand Tour, but they didn’t. Voyager 1 was destined to explore more than our home turf, and NASA knew this; the capabilities of the probe extended far beyond the tasks originally assigned to it. NASA’s intentions must have stretched just as far, seeing as both of the probes left this world carrying golden records containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. There is no question that NASA intended for these probes to extend the domain of the human race, in both discovery and spirit.

Armed with increased funding and carrying a symbol of human achievement, Voyager 1 hurtled into the unknown and, as we discovered in September, entered interstellar space on the widely agreed date of August 25 2012. It was on this date that changes in the density of charged particles were first detected, thus suggesting that the craft had finally left the clutches of the heliopause at the edge of our solar system and entered the unknown. This date carries with it yet more significance, however, as this was the exact date on which the world lost its greatest pioneer: Neil Armstrong. Perhaps it is fitting that as one great trailblazer passed from us, another took up its mantle; the sense of adventure and discovery was not lost, but passed on. Human endeavour is characterised by one achievement superseding another, and this is exactly what Voyager 1 represents.

The probe is set to continue transmitting data to Earth until 2025, at which point its on-board power systems will not be able to support any of its instruments. Until then, it will inform our understanding of the medium beyond our solar system, providing solid data where before there was only indirect evidence and models.

Naturally after such a momentous achievement there is only one question on my mind: where do we go from here? There are proposals to send autonomous spacecraft to nearby stars, but such vehicles would take centuries to reach their destinations, not decades. Having said that, the human race would not be where it is right now if it did not out-do itself. With Voyager 1, it is safe to say that we have out-done ourselves yet again.

James Coghlan