Robert M. Geraci
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195393026
- eISBN:
- 9780199777136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393026.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The worldview espoused in Apocalyptic AI pop science plays a role in massively multiplayer online games, as shown by the presence of transhumanist religious groups (such as the Order of Cosmic ...
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The worldview espoused in Apocalyptic AI pop science plays a role in massively multiplayer online games, as shown by the presence of transhumanist religious groups (such as the Order of Cosmic Engineers) in Second Life but also by the interest shown by that world’s inhabitants who frequently desire a permanent shift to life online even when they are not explicitly transhumanists. Virtual reality has become sacred space for many online gamers, who acquire powerful communities, meaning and purpose through their online activities. Such religiosity inclines many toward transhumanist goals of transcending the human condition, especially through the possibility of uploading consciousness into virtual reality.Less
The worldview espoused in Apocalyptic AI pop science plays a role in massively multiplayer online games, as shown by the presence of transhumanist religious groups (such as the Order of Cosmic Engineers) in Second Life but also by the interest shown by that world’s inhabitants who frequently desire a permanent shift to life online even when they are not explicitly transhumanists. Virtual reality has become sacred space for many online gamers, who acquire powerful communities, meaning and purpose through their online activities. Such religiosity inclines many toward transhumanist goals of transcending the human condition, especially through the possibility of uploading consciousness into virtual reality.
Frédéric Neyrat
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282586
- eISBN:
- 9780823284931
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282586.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
The Space Age is over? Not at all! A new planet has appeared: Earth. In the age of the Anthropocene, the Earth is a post-natural planet that can be remade at will, controlled and managed thanks to ...
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The Space Age is over? Not at all! A new planet has appeared: Earth. In the age of the Anthropocene, the Earth is a post-natural planet that can be remade at will, controlled and managed thanks to the prowess of geoengineering. This new imaginary is also accompanied by a new kind of power—geopower—which takes the entire Earth—in its social, biological and geophysical dimensions—as an object of knowledge, intervention, and governmentality. Far from merely being the fruit of the spirit of geo-capitalism, this new grand narrative has been championed by the theorists of the constructivist turn (be them ecomodernist, postenvironmentalist, or accelerationist to name a few) who have also called into question the great divide between nature and culture; but in the aftermath of the collapse of this divide, a cyborg, hybrid, flexible nature was built, an impoverished nature that does not exist without being performed by the technologies, human needs, and capitalist imperatives. Underneath this performative vision resides a hidden “a-naturalism” denying all otherness to nature and the Earth, no longer by externalizing it as a thing to be dominated, but by radically internalizing it as something to be digested. Constructivist ecology can hardly present itself in opposition to the geo-constructivist project, which also claims that there is no nature and that nothing will prevent human beings from replacing Earth with an Earth 2.0.Less
The Space Age is over? Not at all! A new planet has appeared: Earth. In the age of the Anthropocene, the Earth is a post-natural planet that can be remade at will, controlled and managed thanks to the prowess of geoengineering. This new imaginary is also accompanied by a new kind of power—geopower—which takes the entire Earth—in its social, biological and geophysical dimensions—as an object of knowledge, intervention, and governmentality. Far from merely being the fruit of the spirit of geo-capitalism, this new grand narrative has been championed by the theorists of the constructivist turn (be them ecomodernist, postenvironmentalist, or accelerationist to name a few) who have also called into question the great divide between nature and culture; but in the aftermath of the collapse of this divide, a cyborg, hybrid, flexible nature was built, an impoverished nature that does not exist without being performed by the technologies, human needs, and capitalist imperatives. Underneath this performative vision resides a hidden “a-naturalism” denying all otherness to nature and the Earth, no longer by externalizing it as a thing to be dominated, but by radically internalizing it as something to be digested. Constructivist ecology can hardly present itself in opposition to the geo-constructivist project, which also claims that there is no nature and that nothing will prevent human beings from replacing Earth with an Earth 2.0.
Jonathan Glover
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195325195
- eISBN:
- 9780199776412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195325195.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, General
“Responses: A Summing Up” replies to the wide‐ranging contributions to the book. It argues for the complete exclusion of torture from public policy, and defends a broadly consequentialist ethical ...
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“Responses: A Summing Up” replies to the wide‐ranging contributions to the book. It argues for the complete exclusion of torture from public policy, and defends a broadly consequentialist ethical view of war. It discusses the mutual interplay between society and systems of belief, and urges the relevance of epistemology to dialogue between conflicting ideologies. In discussing an “external moral law,” it expresses doubts about “external reasons.” It discusses the obligation to alleviate poverty, recognizing how hard we find this, and looks for ways of doing better by working with the grain of our psychology. It considers how fantasies about being hard and tough erode the compassion that inhibits atrocities. “Responses: A Summing Up” (overoptimistically?) hopes to express some coherence of outlook toward these very diverse questions.Less
“Responses: A Summing Up” replies to the wide‐ranging contributions to the book. It argues for the complete exclusion of torture from public policy, and defends a broadly consequentialist ethical view of war. It discusses the mutual interplay between society and systems of belief, and urges the relevance of epistemology to dialogue between conflicting ideologies. In discussing an “external moral law,” it expresses doubts about “external reasons.” It discusses the obligation to alleviate poverty, recognizing how hard we find this, and looks for ways of doing better by working with the grain of our psychology. It considers how fantasies about being hard and tough erode the compassion that inhibits atrocities. “Responses: A Summing Up” (overoptimistically?) hopes to express some coherence of outlook toward these very diverse questions.
Andrew Pilsch
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781517901028
- eISBN:
- 9781452957685
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9781517901028.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book argues that transhumanism should be taken more seriously as a Utopian force in the present. Combatting the widespread idea that transhumanism is a naive and dangerous reframing of the most ...
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This book argues that transhumanism should be taken more seriously as a Utopian force in the present. Combatting the widespread idea that transhumanism is a naive and dangerous reframing of the most excessive forms humanist thought, this book situates the contemporary transhumanist movement within the longer history of a rhetorical mode Pilsch calls "evolutionary futurism." Evolutionary futurism is a way of arguing about technology that suggests that global telecommunications technologies, in expanding the geographic range of human thought, radically reshape the future of the human species. Evolutionary futurist argumentation makes the case that we, as a species, are on the cusp of a radical explosion in cognitive, physical, and cultural intelligence. Transhumanism surveys the varying uses of evolutionary futurism throughout the 20th century, as it appears in a wide array of fields. This book unearths evolutionary futurist argumentation in modernist avant-garde poetry, theosophy, science fiction, post-structural philosophy, Christian mysticism, media theory, conceptual art, and online media culture. Ultimately, the book suggests that evolutionary futurism, in the age of the collapse of the state as a unit for imagining Utopia, works by highlighting the human as the limit that must be overcome if we are to imagine new futures for our culture, our planet, and ourselves. Less
This book argues that transhumanism should be taken more seriously as a Utopian force in the present. Combatting the widespread idea that transhumanism is a naive and dangerous reframing of the most excessive forms humanist thought, this book situates the contemporary transhumanist movement within the longer history of a rhetorical mode Pilsch calls "evolutionary futurism." Evolutionary futurism is a way of arguing about technology that suggests that global telecommunications technologies, in expanding the geographic range of human thought, radically reshape the future of the human species. Evolutionary futurist argumentation makes the case that we, as a species, are on the cusp of a radical explosion in cognitive, physical, and cultural intelligence. Transhumanism surveys the varying uses of evolutionary futurism throughout the 20th century, as it appears in a wide array of fields. This book unearths evolutionary futurist argumentation in modernist avant-garde poetry, theosophy, science fiction, post-structural philosophy, Christian mysticism, media theory, conceptual art, and online media culture. Ultimately, the book suggests that evolutionary futurism, in the age of the collapse of the state as a unit for imagining Utopia, works by highlighting the human as the limit that must be overcome if we are to imagine new futures for our culture, our planet, and ourselves.
Frédéric Neyrat
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282586
- eISBN:
- 9780823284931
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282586.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
After developing the conception of the anaturalist drive prominent behind a myriad of constructive, postenvironmental discourses in the West, Neyrat begins to provide a definition for the discourses ...
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After developing the conception of the anaturalist drive prominent behind a myriad of constructive, postenvironmental discourses in the West, Neyrat begins to provide a definition for the discourses and types of thought that would fall under this rubric of eco-constructivism. During the course of this chapter he outlines the similarities between eco-constructivism and geo-constructivism and highlights the important differences that distinguish them from each other. After providing a nice summary of the currents of the movement known as Accelerationism and the Accelerationist Manifesto as well as currents in transhumanism, the chapter ends by calling into question what all these various discourses falling into positions of ecomodernism or postenvironmentalism seem to blindly adhere to: an ecology that wholly embraces technological advancement and its fervor for continual construction.Less
After developing the conception of the anaturalist drive prominent behind a myriad of constructive, postenvironmental discourses in the West, Neyrat begins to provide a definition for the discourses and types of thought that would fall under this rubric of eco-constructivism. During the course of this chapter he outlines the similarities between eco-constructivism and geo-constructivism and highlights the important differences that distinguish them from each other. After providing a nice summary of the currents of the movement known as Accelerationism and the Accelerationist Manifesto as well as currents in transhumanism, the chapter ends by calling into question what all these various discourses falling into positions of ecomodernism or postenvironmentalism seem to blindly adhere to: an ecology that wholly embraces technological advancement and its fervor for continual construction.
Tavia Nyong'o
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479856275
- eISBN:
- 9781479806386
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479856275.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gay and Lesbian Studies
This chapter explores the emergence of artificial intelligence as a challenge for theories of post-humanism that fail to center blackness and queerness. Through a reading of the black transfeminine ...
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This chapter explores the emergence of artificial intelligence as a challenge for theories of post-humanism that fail to center blackness and queerness. Through a reading of the black transfeminine “mind-clone” Bina48—a robot whose affective states mirrors the structural antagonism that the black female subject presents to normative temporalities of technological advance—the chapter seeks to contribute to a nascent field of critical black code studies.Less
This chapter explores the emergence of artificial intelligence as a challenge for theories of post-humanism that fail to center blackness and queerness. Through a reading of the black transfeminine “mind-clone” Bina48—a robot whose affective states mirrors the structural antagonism that the black female subject presents to normative temporalities of technological advance—the chapter seeks to contribute to a nascent field of critical black code studies.
George M. Young
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199892945
- eISBN:
- 9780199950577
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892945.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses Cosmism and related developments in Russia today. Institutions for the study and propagation of Cosmism include the Fedorov Museum in Moscow and the Tsiolkovsky Museum of ...
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This chapter discusses Cosmism and related developments in Russia today. Institutions for the study and propagation of Cosmism include the Fedorov Museum in Moscow and the Tsiolkovsky Museum of Cosmonautics and Chizhevsky Center in Kaluga. Related institutions and movements include ISRICA, the Institute for Research into Cosmic Anthropoecology in Irkutsk; the Neo-Eurasianist followers of Lev Gumilev; the Hyperborean movement; and the Russian transhumanist and immortalist movements led by Igor Vishev and Danila Medvedev. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the significance and prospects of the Cosmist tendency.Less
This chapter discusses Cosmism and related developments in Russia today. Institutions for the study and propagation of Cosmism include the Fedorov Museum in Moscow and the Tsiolkovsky Museum of Cosmonautics and Chizhevsky Center in Kaluga. Related institutions and movements include ISRICA, the Institute for Research into Cosmic Anthropoecology in Irkutsk; the Neo-Eurasianist followers of Lev Gumilev; the Hyperborean movement; and the Russian transhumanist and immortalist movements led by Igor Vishev and Danila Medvedev. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the significance and prospects of the Cosmist tendency.
Susan B. Levin
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190051495
- eISBN:
- 9780190051525
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190051495.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Transhumanists urge us to pursue the biotechnological heightening of select capacities, above all, cognitive ability, so far beyond any human ceiling that the beings with those capacities would exist ...
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Transhumanists urge us to pursue the biotechnological heightening of select capacities, above all, cognitive ability, so far beyond any human ceiling that the beings with those capacities would exist on a higher ontological plane. Because transhumanists tout humanity’s self-transcendence via science and technology, and suggest that bioenhancement may be morally required, the human stakes of how we respond to transhumanism are unprecedented and immense. In Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism, Susan B. Levin challenges transhumanists’ overarching commitments regarding the mind, brain, ethics, liberal democracy, knowledge, and reality in a more thoroughgoing and integrated way than has occurred thus far. Her critique shows transhumanists’ notion of humanity’s self-transcendence into “posthumanity” to be pure, albeit seductive, fantasy. Levin’s philosophical conclusions would stand even if, as transhumanists proclaim, science and technology supported their vision of posthumanity. They offer breezy assurances that posthumans will emerge if we but allocate sufficient resources to that end. Yet, far from offering theoretical and practical “proof of concept” for the vision that they urge upon us, transhumanists engage inadequately with cognitive psychology, biology, and neuroscience, often relying on questionable or outdated views within those fields. Having shown in depth why transhumanism should be rejected, Levin defends a holistic perspective on living well that is rooted in Aristotle’s virtue ethics but adapted to liberal democracy. This holism is thoroughly human, in the best of senses. We must jettison transhumanists’ fantasy, both because their arguments fail and because transhumanism fails to do us justice.Less
Transhumanists urge us to pursue the biotechnological heightening of select capacities, above all, cognitive ability, so far beyond any human ceiling that the beings with those capacities would exist on a higher ontological plane. Because transhumanists tout humanity’s self-transcendence via science and technology, and suggest that bioenhancement may be morally required, the human stakes of how we respond to transhumanism are unprecedented and immense. In Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism, Susan B. Levin challenges transhumanists’ overarching commitments regarding the mind, brain, ethics, liberal democracy, knowledge, and reality in a more thoroughgoing and integrated way than has occurred thus far. Her critique shows transhumanists’ notion of humanity’s self-transcendence into “posthumanity” to be pure, albeit seductive, fantasy. Levin’s philosophical conclusions would stand even if, as transhumanists proclaim, science and technology supported their vision of posthumanity. They offer breezy assurances that posthumans will emerge if we but allocate sufficient resources to that end. Yet, far from offering theoretical and practical “proof of concept” for the vision that they urge upon us, transhumanists engage inadequately with cognitive psychology, biology, and neuroscience, often relying on questionable or outdated views within those fields. Having shown in depth why transhumanism should be rejected, Levin defends a holistic perspective on living well that is rooted in Aristotle’s virtue ethics but adapted to liberal democracy. This holism is thoroughly human, in the best of senses. We must jettison transhumanists’ fantasy, both because their arguments fail and because transhumanism fails to do us justice.
Stuart Murray
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789621648
- eISBN:
- 9781800341159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621648.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Chapter One concentrates on recent theoretical writings on disability and posthumanism and also explores the intellectual spaces in which the subjects take shape, before moveing to a discussion of ...
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Chapter One concentrates on recent theoretical writings on disability and posthumanism and also explores the intellectual spaces in which the subjects take shape, before moveing to a discussion of how these come together in select science fiction films. Disability Studies and critical posthumanism have much in common; a critique of humanist norms; a recognition of complex embodiment; and a commitment to intersectionality and inclusive practice among them. But they also harbour suspicions of one another. The most important divergence between the two subject areas comes in arguments surrounding transhumanism. Transhumanist assertions that the application of future technology will allow for bodily and neurological enhancement, and the ‘improvement’ of humans as a result, are met with hostility by many with disabilities who see in them suggestions that disability is a condition that might, and indeed should, be eradicated in a science-led drive towards ‘perfection’. The chapter will explore these and other debates, especially as they form around cultural representations and the ways stories are told about the bodies and technologies of the future.Less
Chapter One concentrates on recent theoretical writings on disability and posthumanism and also explores the intellectual spaces in which the subjects take shape, before moveing to a discussion of how these come together in select science fiction films. Disability Studies and critical posthumanism have much in common; a critique of humanist norms; a recognition of complex embodiment; and a commitment to intersectionality and inclusive practice among them. But they also harbour suspicions of one another. The most important divergence between the two subject areas comes in arguments surrounding transhumanism. Transhumanist assertions that the application of future technology will allow for bodily and neurological enhancement, and the ‘improvement’ of humans as a result, are met with hostility by many with disabilities who see in them suggestions that disability is a condition that might, and indeed should, be eradicated in a science-led drive towards ‘perfection’. The chapter will explore these and other debates, especially as they form around cultural representations and the ways stories are told about the bodies and technologies of the future.
Stuart Murray
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781789621648
- eISBN:
- 9781800341159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789621648.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
The Conclusion focuses on debates around the end of life and transhumanist claims about the need to prolong life, in the context of debates about disability. It analyses Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K to ...
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The Conclusion focuses on debates around the end of life and transhumanist claims about the need to prolong life, in the context of debates about disability. It analyses Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K to make a series of points about cultural representation of embodiment, the end of life and disability futures.Less
The Conclusion focuses on debates around the end of life and transhumanist claims about the need to prolong life, in the context of debates about disability. It analyses Don DeLillo’s novel Zero K to make a series of points about cultural representation of embodiment, the end of life and disability futures.
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- March 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198843467
- eISBN:
- 9780191879302
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198843467.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This brief commentary articulates a link between the second and third volumes in this series and points to a discussion of the work of redemption, grace, the Holy Spirit, and participation in the ...
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This brief commentary articulates a link between the second and third volumes in this series and points to a discussion of the work of redemption, grace, the Holy Spirit, and participation in the Trinity. Such a discussion forms the theological backdrop to understanding the life of graced virtue when perceived through the experience of faith. Sergii Bulgakov’s works present an aesthetic account of wisdom and participation in God that still carries some risk of pulling away from a grounded, rooted, and fully earthed perspective on human life. Disincarnate cultural trends towards transhumanism draw on science, but amount to impoverished secular accounts of redemption. All such eschatologies need to be reminded of the material, bodily, and grounded nature of human life in our creaturely contexts, so that even graced virtue which pulls away from immersion in a multispecies framework fails as fully redemptive virtue.Less
This brief commentary articulates a link between the second and third volumes in this series and points to a discussion of the work of redemption, grace, the Holy Spirit, and participation in the Trinity. Such a discussion forms the theological backdrop to understanding the life of graced virtue when perceived through the experience of faith. Sergii Bulgakov’s works present an aesthetic account of wisdom and participation in God that still carries some risk of pulling away from a grounded, rooted, and fully earthed perspective on human life. Disincarnate cultural trends towards transhumanism draw on science, but amount to impoverished secular accounts of redemption. All such eschatologies need to be reminded of the material, bodily, and grounded nature of human life in our creaturely contexts, so that even graced virtue which pulls away from immersion in a multispecies framework fails as fully redemptive virtue.
R. S. Deese
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520281523
- eISBN:
- 9780520959569
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520281523.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book explores the life and work of two brothers, a scientist and an artist, who changed the way we think about science, religion, and the future of our species. As an evolutionary biologist and ...
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This book explores the life and work of two brothers, a scientist and an artist, who changed the way we think about science, religion, and the future of our species. As an evolutionary biologist and conservationist, Julian Huxley argued that we must accept responsibility for our future evolution, and coined the term Transhumanism to promote this idea in the 1950s. While Aldous Huxley explored the dystopian dangers of manipulating human nature in his most famous work of literature, Brave New World, his less noted writings on religion, ecology, and human consciousness may in fact have been more influential in the long run. These proved to be powerful catalysts for the environmental and human potential movements that proliferated across the industrialized world in the decades following 1945. While they often disagreed about the role of science and technology in human progress, Julian and Aldous Huxley both believed that the future of our species would depend on a saner set of relations with each other and with our environment. Their common concern for ecology has given their ideas about the outlook for Homo sapiens an enduring resonance in the face of climate change and mass extinctions. The amphibian metaphor that both brothers used to describe humanity highlights not only the complexity and mutability of our species but also our ecologically precarious situation.Less
This book explores the life and work of two brothers, a scientist and an artist, who changed the way we think about science, religion, and the future of our species. As an evolutionary biologist and conservationist, Julian Huxley argued that we must accept responsibility for our future evolution, and coined the term Transhumanism to promote this idea in the 1950s. While Aldous Huxley explored the dystopian dangers of manipulating human nature in his most famous work of literature, Brave New World, his less noted writings on religion, ecology, and human consciousness may in fact have been more influential in the long run. These proved to be powerful catalysts for the environmental and human potential movements that proliferated across the industrialized world in the decades following 1945. While they often disagreed about the role of science and technology in human progress, Julian and Aldous Huxley both believed that the future of our species would depend on a saner set of relations with each other and with our environment. Their common concern for ecology has given their ideas about the outlook for Homo sapiens an enduring resonance in the face of climate change and mass extinctions. The amphibian metaphor that both brothers used to describe humanity highlights not only the complexity and mutability of our species but also our ecologically precarious situation.
Yvonne Howell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780252041754
- eISBN:
- 9780252050428
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041754.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter theorizes that Soviet civilization was inherently “science fictional” in its ideological superimposition of scientific utopianism and radical social change. It imbeds a discussion of the ...
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This chapter theorizes that Soviet civilization was inherently “science fictional” in its ideological superimposition of scientific utopianism and radical social change. It imbeds a discussion of the work of the Russian science-fiction writers Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky in the social and cultural context of the Soviet Union. The chapter describes the development of the Strugatskys’ work over three decades, from rationalist optimism to humanistic despair.Less
This chapter theorizes that Soviet civilization was inherently “science fictional” in its ideological superimposition of scientific utopianism and radical social change. It imbeds a discussion of the work of the Russian science-fiction writers Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky in the social and cultural context of the Soviet Union. The chapter describes the development of the Strugatskys’ work over three decades, from rationalist optimism to humanistic despair.
Joshua Raulerson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319723
- eISBN:
- 9781781381052
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319723.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
In a time of protracted economic crisis, failing political systems, and impending environmental collapse, one strand in our collective cultural myth of Progress – the technological – remains ...
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In a time of protracted economic crisis, failing political systems, and impending environmental collapse, one strand in our collective cultural myth of Progress – the technological – remains vibrantly intact, surging into the future at ramming speed. Amid the seemingly exponential proliferation of machine intelligence and network connectivity, and the increasingly portentous implications of emerging nanotechnology, futurists and fabulists look to an imminent historical threshold whereupon the nature of human existence will be radically and irrevocably transformed. The Singularity, it is supposed, can be no more than a few years off; indeed, some believe it has already begun. Technological Singularity – a trope conceived in science fiction and subsequently adopted throughout technocultural discourse and beyond – is the primary site of interpenetration between technoscientific and science-fictional figurations of the future, a territory where longstanding binary oppositions between science and fiction, and between present and future, are rapidly dissolving. In this groundbreaking volume, the first to mount a sustained and wide-ranging critical treatment of Singularity as a subject for theory and cultural studies, Raulerson draws SF texts into a complex dialogue with contemporary digital culture, transhumanist movements, political and economic theory, consumer gadgetry, gaming, and related vectors of high-tech postmodernity. In theorizing Singularity as a metaphorical construct lending shape to a range of millennial anxieties and aspirations, Singularities also makes the case for a recent and little-understood subgeneric formation – postcyberpunk SF – as a cohesive body of work, engaged in a shared literary project that is simultaneously shaping, and shaped by, purportedly nonfictional technoscientific discourses. Less
In a time of protracted economic crisis, failing political systems, and impending environmental collapse, one strand in our collective cultural myth of Progress – the technological – remains vibrantly intact, surging into the future at ramming speed. Amid the seemingly exponential proliferation of machine intelligence and network connectivity, and the increasingly portentous implications of emerging nanotechnology, futurists and fabulists look to an imminent historical threshold whereupon the nature of human existence will be radically and irrevocably transformed. The Singularity, it is supposed, can be no more than a few years off; indeed, some believe it has already begun. Technological Singularity – a trope conceived in science fiction and subsequently adopted throughout technocultural discourse and beyond – is the primary site of interpenetration between technoscientific and science-fictional figurations of the future, a territory where longstanding binary oppositions between science and fiction, and between present and future, are rapidly dissolving. In this groundbreaking volume, the first to mount a sustained and wide-ranging critical treatment of Singularity as a subject for theory and cultural studies, Raulerson draws SF texts into a complex dialogue with contemporary digital culture, transhumanist movements, political and economic theory, consumer gadgetry, gaming, and related vectors of high-tech postmodernity. In theorizing Singularity as a metaphorical construct lending shape to a range of millennial anxieties and aspirations, Singularities also makes the case for a recent and little-understood subgeneric formation – postcyberpunk SF – as a cohesive body of work, engaged in a shared literary project that is simultaneously shaping, and shaped by, purportedly nonfictional technoscientific discourses.
David Martin Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197510612
- eISBN:
- 9780197520765
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197510612.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
If the politics of prudent diffidence and the restoration of political balance, civil association, and limited constitutional rule, proves incapable of recovering political conduct under contingent ...
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If the politics of prudent diffidence and the restoration of political balance, civil association, and limited constitutional rule, proves incapable of recovering political conduct under contingent conditions, what alternative dispositions might mould the contours of our post historical future? This chapter concludes the book by examining how historically body politics have died from a variety of internal and external distempers and how this might be Europe’s fate. It further considers how a brave new artificially intelligent world might organize new liberal and illiberal progressive futures either through a digitally administered party state like China or Singapore or what Silicon Valley envisages as an algorithmically managed, digital oligarchy that renders individual autonomy and democracy redundant. Both envisage a technocratically managed future where AI caters to and defines the needs of a dependent citizen body eking out its days in either a distracted or opiated stupor. Both forms of technocratic rationalism represent the antithesis of the understanding of civil society as a local and contingent compact between the dead, the living, and the yet to be born.Less
If the politics of prudent diffidence and the restoration of political balance, civil association, and limited constitutional rule, proves incapable of recovering political conduct under contingent conditions, what alternative dispositions might mould the contours of our post historical future? This chapter concludes the book by examining how historically body politics have died from a variety of internal and external distempers and how this might be Europe’s fate. It further considers how a brave new artificially intelligent world might organize new liberal and illiberal progressive futures either through a digitally administered party state like China or Singapore or what Silicon Valley envisages as an algorithmically managed, digital oligarchy that renders individual autonomy and democracy redundant. Both envisage a technocratically managed future where AI caters to and defines the needs of a dependent citizen body eking out its days in either a distracted or opiated stupor. Both forms of technocratic rationalism represent the antithesis of the understanding of civil society as a local and contingent compact between the dead, the living, and the yet to be born.
R. S. Deese
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520281523
- eISBN:
- 9780520959569
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520281523.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The Darwinian revolution of the nineteenth century lent a new sense of plasticity to our conceptions of human nature, and helped clear the way for such concepts as eugenics and biotechnology. While ...
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The Darwinian revolution of the nineteenth century lent a new sense of plasticity to our conceptions of human nature, and helped clear the way for such concepts as eugenics and biotechnology. While Aldous satirized attempts to change human nature with technology, Julian was more open to the idea. After WWII, Julian coined the term Transhumanism, giving name to what would become a growing movement advocating the deliberate improvement of the human species through the use of new technologies. This movement has gained prominent advocates such as the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom and prominent critics, such as the Catholic intellectual Fabrice Hadjadj. In the future, the debate over human enhancement would benefit from remembering an important quality that was common to the best work of Julian and Aldous Huxley: their profound reverence for the complexity of human nature, and the fragility of the web of life on which we all depend.Less
The Darwinian revolution of the nineteenth century lent a new sense of plasticity to our conceptions of human nature, and helped clear the way for such concepts as eugenics and biotechnology. While Aldous satirized attempts to change human nature with technology, Julian was more open to the idea. After WWII, Julian coined the term Transhumanism, giving name to what would become a growing movement advocating the deliberate improvement of the human species through the use of new technologies. This movement has gained prominent advocates such as the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom and prominent critics, such as the Catholic intellectual Fabrice Hadjadj. In the future, the debate over human enhancement would benefit from remembering an important quality that was common to the best work of Julian and Aldous Huxley: their profound reverence for the complexity of human nature, and the fragility of the web of life on which we all depend.
Michael Hauskeller
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262036689
- eISBN:
- 9780262341981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262036689.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter asks the question whether sexual and/or romantic relationships with robots could ever be as satisfying as the real thing. Three main arguments are made. First, if we assume that robots ...
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This chapter asks the question whether sexual and/or romantic relationships with robots could ever be as satisfying as the real thing. Three main arguments are made. First, if we assume that robots will be not be real persons and instead simply behave and act as if they are persons (“pseudo-persons”) then love and sex with them will never be as satisfying as it is with a real person. Second, if robots somehow manage to be real persons (and not just pseudo-persons), we run into problems regarding their moral status and, importantly, their freedom to choose to be our romantic partners. It is more satisfying to be loved by a real person that freely chooses to be your lover than it is to be loved by someone who is programmed to love you. Finally, it is argued that the desire for relationships with robotic persons does reveal something telling about the transhumanist desire for total autonomy and independence. The only possible way for me to become completely independent is by cutting all ties to other persons, by making my own world, uninhabited by any real persons except myself. Robotic partners may consequently be the preferred inhabitants of that transhumanist utopia.Less
This chapter asks the question whether sexual and/or romantic relationships with robots could ever be as satisfying as the real thing. Three main arguments are made. First, if we assume that robots will be not be real persons and instead simply behave and act as if they are persons (“pseudo-persons”) then love and sex with them will never be as satisfying as it is with a real person. Second, if robots somehow manage to be real persons (and not just pseudo-persons), we run into problems regarding their moral status and, importantly, their freedom to choose to be our romantic partners. It is more satisfying to be loved by a real person that freely chooses to be your lover than it is to be loved by someone who is programmed to love you. Finally, it is argued that the desire for relationships with robotic persons does reveal something telling about the transhumanist desire for total autonomy and independence. The only possible way for me to become completely independent is by cutting all ties to other persons, by making my own world, uninhabited by any real persons except myself. Robotic partners may consequently be the preferred inhabitants of that transhumanist utopia.
Thaddeus Metz
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199599318
- eISBN:
- 9780191747632
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599318.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Moral Philosophy
Chapters 5 through 7 demonstrate that the most promising motivation for holding any form of supernaturalism is the perfection thesis that meaning requires engagement with a maximally conceivable ...
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Chapters 5 through 7 demonstrate that the most promising motivation for holding any form of supernaturalism is the perfection thesis that meaning requires engagement with a maximally conceivable value. Chapter 8 provides reason to favour a contrary 'imperfection thesis' that there can be meaning without perfection. After rejecting extant arguments against the perfection thesis and supernaturalism, suggested by the likes of Brooke Alan Trisel and Kurt Baier, it presents a new one, namely, that most readers cannot coherently hold such views, given plausible beliefs to which they are already committed. This chapter also specifies the imperfection thesis, arguing for the best view of exactly how much less than perfect value in the natural world one must engage with in order for one’s life to be meaningful all things considered. In doing so, it addresses how human nature and transhumanism bear on whether a life counts as meaningful on balance.Less
Chapters 5 through 7 demonstrate that the most promising motivation for holding any form of supernaturalism is the perfection thesis that meaning requires engagement with a maximally conceivable value. Chapter 8 provides reason to favour a contrary 'imperfection thesis' that there can be meaning without perfection. After rejecting extant arguments against the perfection thesis and supernaturalism, suggested by the likes of Brooke Alan Trisel and Kurt Baier, it presents a new one, namely, that most readers cannot coherently hold such views, given plausible beliefs to which they are already committed. This chapter also specifies the imperfection thesis, arguing for the best view of exactly how much less than perfect value in the natural world one must engage with in order for one’s life to be meaningful all things considered. In doing so, it addresses how human nature and transhumanism bear on whether a life counts as meaningful on balance.
Ashley Woodward
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748697243
- eISBN:
- 9781474418669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748697243.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Approximately one trillion, trillion, trillion (101728) years from now, the universe will suffer a “heat death.” What are the existential implications of this fact for us, today? This chapter ...
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Approximately one trillion, trillion, trillion (101728) years from now, the universe will suffer a “heat death.” What are the existential implications of this fact for us, today? This chapter explores this question through Lyotard’s fable of the explosion of the sun, and its uptake and extension in the works of Keith Ansell Pearson and Ray Brassier. Lyotard proposes the fable as a kind of “post-metanarrative” sometimes told to justify research and development, and indeed the meaning of our individual lives, after credulity in metanarratives has been lost: it replaces the adventure of the subject of history aimed towards the perfection and emancipation of the human with the adventure of inhuman, negentropic processes aimed towards the survival and extension of complexity. Negotiating Lyotard’s thought in relation to contemporary movements such as transhumanism and speculative realism, this chapter reflects on the existential significance of the “deep time” revealed by contemporary science.Less
Approximately one trillion, trillion, trillion (101728) years from now, the universe will suffer a “heat death.” What are the existential implications of this fact for us, today? This chapter explores this question through Lyotard’s fable of the explosion of the sun, and its uptake and extension in the works of Keith Ansell Pearson and Ray Brassier. Lyotard proposes the fable as a kind of “post-metanarrative” sometimes told to justify research and development, and indeed the meaning of our individual lives, after credulity in metanarratives has been lost: it replaces the adventure of the subject of history aimed towards the perfection and emancipation of the human with the adventure of inhuman, negentropic processes aimed towards the survival and extension of complexity. Negotiating Lyotard’s thought in relation to contemporary movements such as transhumanism and speculative realism, this chapter reflects on the existential significance of the “deep time” revealed by contemporary science.
W. Patrick McCray
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226372884
- eISBN:
- 9780226373072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226373072.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Following his release from prison in 1976, counterculture guru Timothy Leary began to espouse a new plan for experimentation if not human enhancement. SMI2LE was Leary’s moniker for “space migration, ...
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Following his release from prison in 1976, counterculture guru Timothy Leary began to espouse a new plan for experimentation if not human enhancement. SMI2LE was Leary’s moniker for “space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension.” For the next several years, Leary promoted an evolving recipe for self-directed human mutation in public appearances, books, and even comics. This essay explores Leary’s ideas and connects them to other ’70s-era examples of science and technology that lingered at the fringes of respectability. It also shows how Leary’s techno-trip served as a stepping stone to the more activist-oriented transhumanist movement of the 1990s which embraced – as did Leary – a combination of radical technologies including cryonics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence.Less
Following his release from prison in 1976, counterculture guru Timothy Leary began to espouse a new plan for experimentation if not human enhancement. SMI2LE was Leary’s moniker for “space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension.” For the next several years, Leary promoted an evolving recipe for self-directed human mutation in public appearances, books, and even comics. This essay explores Leary’s ideas and connects them to other ’70s-era examples of science and technology that lingered at the fringes of respectability. It also shows how Leary’s techno-trip served as a stepping stone to the more activist-oriented transhumanist movement of the 1990s which embraced – as did Leary – a combination of radical technologies including cryonics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence.
