to counter this belief on a number of occasions. While it might be a
supposition that there are endless discussions on the ethics of human
enhancement, this topic, bar none, has been the most sought after topic for
those who are deeply involved in human enhancement sciences and
technologies. I think the disconnect is that there has never been a key
figure within the arts who has written extensively on this topic and also
has been fortunate enough to have had a heavily populated support system as
has feminist studies (and related areas such as your own field) and gay and
lesbian studies. These studies have created new fields within the arts, and
rightfully so. One day there will be a heavily populated support system for
human enhancement studies as well, but that time is yet to be realized.
To counter Haraway's claim about "trashumanist technoenhancement" (which I
googled but could not locate) and which you say "very often neglects the
political implications and the hierarchies and inequalities on which it
rests", there are many worldwide organizations which have been in
discussions about human enhancement for well over a decade. More recently,
there was a summit of experts in their fields on this and other issues.
This summit (February 15 - 29, 2004) states, "Learn why this Summit is so
urgently needed, how it will work, what it will accomplish, and who should
participate in bringing about ethical and proactive development of human
enhancement."
VP Summit: http://www.extropy.org/summitabout.htm
Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies: http://ieet.org/
Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford University) http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/
Human enhancement can be broken down into three areas: therapeutic
enablement modification, selective enhancement, and evolution design. The
first is often, if now customary, an individual choice. Whether or not one
wants a prosthetic limb is usually a choice. Often pharmaceutical
(chemical) therapeutic modification is not a choice, but usually it is).
Selective enhancement, meaning taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or
other chemical components to improve the human condition is usually a
choice. The later stages of human enhancement, that of evolution design, is
a choice. Not everyone has to alter his/her physiology. That is why I
stated that altering human nature "regardless of why, when or how
biotechnological advancements come about" is a choice and a right. The
negative and positive right of "Morphological Freedom" covers this area.
Often it is thought of as a negative right (meaning only the rich will be
able to enhance, but that is not a correct assessment of this theory because
it is more about the right not to be coerced to enhance, which protects
those who would like to remain unenhanced.)
You asked: "[A]re we sure that what we have been differently experiencing as
our actual or potential enhanced condition is a direct 'consequence' of
technological 'evolution' and of the eventual merging of nature (biology)
and culture (sciences)? Or isn't rather that a different set of practical
and theoretical possibilities (apparatuses), undoubtedly also offered by the
production and consumption of new technologies, allows us to rethink our
boundaries and boundary enactments and do without binary categories?"
I'm not sure I understand the question, but I will do my best to answer.
No, our actual or potential enhanced condition is not necessarily a
consequence of technological evolution, but it certainly is one result of
it. Further potentials are meditation, immersive and interactivity of
enhanced reality or virtuality in altering or enhancing perceptions. This
relates to altered brain states, or electrical charges in the brain which
can cause mood shifts, cognitive shifts, and perceptual shifts. This area
of neuroscience is fascinating and a very big aspect of human enhancement
methodology.
Yet, this type of enhancement can be applied with technologies such as
within the nascent field of optogenetics (optics and genetics affecting
neural circuits at high speeds (millisecond-timescale)).
Not everyone will want to enhance, nor should they be forced to enhance. We
need more diversity among our species (as I am sure you will agree). While
we may not really need different types of sentient life forms, they will
most likely be developed. And because of this fact alone, it makes for the
need of new fields within the arts to explore the area of human enhancement.
I will be speaking on this at the Re:live conference and I am currently
writing my paper for the Superhuman conference - both in Melbourne.
Hope to see you soon too -
Best,
Natasha
-----Original Message-----
From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr
[mailto:yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of
fmarineo@libero.it
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 8:50 AM
To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] R: Re: ethnic cyborg
Hi Natasha,
Nice to talk to you again.
I'd like to comment on your final
suggestion to "get beyond the cyborg symbol and investigate what is being
done *right now* in art, science, philosophy, technology which are
specifically located in *the field of human enhancement".
As a matter of fact, I do not
feel I want to go beyond the cyborg figuration just because the term isn't
fashion anymore. My idea of cyborgness, filtered trough Haraway, Sandoval,
and postcolonial cyberfeminism, among the others, has never been fashion.
Rather, I have always considered it as an antidote to what Haraway has
termed "trashumanist tecnoenhancement", which very often neglects the
political implications and the hierarchies and inequalities on which it
rests. I am not specifically talking about your projects or your idea of
transhumanism, although, I must confess, I am deeply uncomfortable (and
surely not because I am a biological fundamentalist) reading about the
evolution/enhancement of human nature as an individual choice and right
"regardless of why, when or how biotechnological advancements come about" (I
am quoting from your "The New [human] Genre — Primo Posthuman" paper here).
And this because of the words "individual" and "choice", and "regardless".
But anyway: are we sure that
what we have been differently experiencing as our actual or potential
enhanced condition is a direct "consequence" of technological "evolution"
and of the eventual merging of nature (biology) and culture (sciences)? Or
isn't rather that a different set of practical and theoretical possibilities
(apparatuses), undoubtedly also offered by the production and consumption of
new technologies, allows us to rethink our boundaries and boundary
enactments and do without binary categories? Why do we still have to think
of humanity as an endangered species, that must be either (partially)
protected or superseded? Following Karen Barad** (very "right now" thinker,
quantum physics and all…), I notice a very common tendency towards
"thingification", that is the transformation of material-discursive
relations into entities, which in a way or another evokes a metaphysical
distinction of subjects/objects, minds/bodies and so on. Do we really need
this?
Hope to meet you soon,
Federica
** http://xml.nada.kth.
se/media/Research/k-sem/k-sem-aktuell/Abstracts/SignsBarad.pdf
>----Messaggio
originale----
>Da: natasha@natasha.cc
>Data: 21/07/2009 22.26
>A:
<yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
>Ogg: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] ethnic
cyborg
>
>Quoting Joseph Ingoldsby <landscapemosaics@verizon.net>:
>
>> In the
discussions to this point mention has been made of the cyborg as an
>>
extension of human beings, compensating for their weakness, and magnifying
>>
their strength- for good or bad. They are used for scientific exploration,
>>
industrialization, and for war. They are physically formed with a human
>>
face and there has been attempts to imbue them with human attributes to be
>>
both servant and master. The machine is an extension of the human being. We
>>
are also of the earth in a web of interconnected life. Our technology allows
>>
us to destroy life and ourselves. The development of our inner life and
>>
consciousness have not kept pace with our technological advancement. Those
>>
cultures who lived in cyclical harmony with all organisms have been killed,
>>
conquered and marginalized. We are a seriously flawed species, who will self
>>
destruct in time. Our technology may not be able to save us from ourselves.
>
>Thank you for a stimulating post.
>
>I have mentioned this before, but it does
not seem to draw interest or
>response. But I think it might be helpful to
look outside the cyborg
>domain for what is occurring in other areas which
are taking leaps and
>bounds in the area of human enhancement.
>
>The field
of human enhancement has been the central focus for decades
>- far longer
than postmodernism or the brilliant work of Haraway with
>her cyborg theory.
This field of human enhancement stems from the
>works and writings of
philosophy, cybernetic theory, and the
>scientific and technological advances
in nano-bio-info-cogno/neuro.
>Assessing a future human which stems from our
unfixed biology and
>which merges with technology is the fully developed
perspective is
>transhumanism. Now I know that many of you do not favor
transhumanism
>because of some bad press several years ago ? that you
associate it
>with capitalism, consumerism and America, but that is simply
>inaccurate and insufficient reasoning in not investigating what it is
>and
how it can be useful in these types of discussions.
>
>If a human merges with
technology for the purposes of augmentation,
>modification and enhancement
that human is improving his/her
>physiological condition. This improvement is
firstly semi-biological
>but ultimately a technical modification for
enhancement. Deeply
>augmenting the senses, modifying the restricted
lifespan of 122
>maximum and enhancing cognition through nanotechnology and
artificial
>general intelligence means that the human is evolving beyond what
the
>Homo sapiens sapiens wholly biological condition.
>
>Once we started
changing the genetics and producing offspring outside
>the body, and further
extending our cognition beyond the neocortex
>structure within the body, we
were approaching something other than
>biological dependency. This
technological enhancement is leading
>toward a species transformation.
Whether or not one favors or
>disfavors the term "transhuman" it has been the
term which
>characterizes the human?s transitional transformations brought
about
>by the merging of biology with the sciences and technologies
(usually
>nano-bio-info-cogno/neuro). That transformation does not have to
have
>a full stop at the posthuman or leave behind the human, as no one
>truly knows what we will become in the next hundred/thousand years.
>
>> And
what is human that is worth saving? Empathy? Memory? Love? Intelligence?
>
>I
just gave a talk on Human Enhancement Aesthetics at the Metanexus
>Institute
Conference in Tempe, AZ last weekend ("Cosmos, Nature,
>Culture A Tran
disciplinary Conference).
>
>It is our "humaneness" that is worth sustaining.
It is our sense of
>love, joy, compassion, kindness, curiosity, creativity,
intelligence,
>etc. that we must protect and explore more deeply.
>
>> There
is an artist who speaks a poetic visual language of our self
>> immolation. He
is Robert ParkeHarrison, who knits together the tattered
>> remains of a
destroyed planet. Robert ParkeHarrison becomes the last human
>> alive on a
smoldering planet. His work stages futile attempts to mend the
>> earth,
reconnect the technologies, to communicate, to restore the damage to
>> an
earth despoiled. The works are a series of elegies to humankind, to the
>>
Industrial land, to the Promised land and Earth Elegies that speak with a
>>
poetic voice a shattering scream that echoes against the barren landscape.
>>
To be human, to be alone, with the façade of technology stripped away to
>>
face an uncertain future. His work embraces the human consciousness as one
>>
reconstructs memory after a tragic, cataclysmic event
>> http://www.
parkeharrison.com/slides-architechsbrother/index.html
>> http://www.
parkeharrison.com/slides-graydawn/index.html
>
>Beautiful work. But my
question is why do we not envision an
>aesthetics of the future which
suggests a future worth living in?
>This was the crux of my talk. Too often
the future is perceived
>through the media of SF literature and filmmaking,
which are either
>highly utopian or enormously dystopian. Most of the
current future
>aesthetics is dark, dismal and saturated with how rotten the
world has
>become. I am a big Buckminster Fuller fan, and I have to say that
I
>continue to return time and time again to his particular logic. What
>can we do to bring about a vision for the future which will prompt
>solutions finding.
>
>I think Bruce Mao did a marvelous job with this in his
Massive Change
>project (although it was not about human enhancement). And I
think
>many of my colleagues at the Planetary Collegium are producing
>meaningful projects to bring about a glimpse of vision - hope - and
>experience, be it virtuality, immersive design, or theory.
>
>Anyway, if we
want to develop a larger discussion on human
>enhancement, it might be
beneficial to get beyond the cyborg symbol
>and investigate what is being
done *right now* in art, science,
>philosophy, technology which are
specifically located in *the field of
>human enhancement*.
>
>Natasha
>
>
>
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