ABSTRACT
Humanity is a work in progress. The evolution of all species, including Homo sapiens, continues today just as it has for the past several billion years. If this fact goes unappreciated, perhaps it is because the time scale for visible evolutionary change is typically – but not always – much longer than the typical human attentional focus on the coming hours, days, and years. Evolution is guided by natural selection, takes place at the level of the population,
and is measured by statistical changes in the frequencies of particular genes. Because gene frequencies are aggregate numbers applicable to groups but not individuals, individuals do not evolve, no matter what biological changes they may undergo in their lifetime. At the same time, however, individuals do contribute to the evolution of their species through their actions, with some actions being more important than others. A female chimpanzee’s selection of a sexual partner, for instance, will probably make a greater impact on gene frequencies than will her choice of food, unless that food is contaminated and leads to death before reproduction. Even something as simple as deciding to climb one tree versus another may have a genetic consequence: decisions beget more decisions, actions lead to other actions, and an ever-lengthening chain of cause and effect impacts survival and reproduction in unpredictable ways. This ability to steer evolution by conscious choice is greatly magnified in humans.
We are uniquely cognitive animals. That cognition provides for the development of language, a rich and pervasive culture, and a collection of technologies that affects the distributions of human genes. In fact, it may be fairly said that cultural and technological forces, rather than natural forces, are the greater determinant of human gene frequencies. Birth control and in vitro fertilization, for example, have changed gene distributions across the population by providing women and men with greater control over their reproductive processes. Medicine allows many who would otherwise have died to survive and reproduce. These and other tools provide us
with unprecedented control over the evolution of our species, even to the extent that it makes sense to talk about cultural selection as an evolutionary force falling under the more general heading of natural selection. Transhumanism is a philosophical movement that affirms the human ability and
right to fundamentally influence our own evolution, guided by the highest ethical principles and values. It is an extension of humanism, and correspondingly, it values human life and supports the application of reason to solve human problems. Transhumanists tend to view sickness, aging, and death as unnecessary burdens to be overcome. They seek to extend human physical and intellectual capabilities beyond their current limits, and to develop technologies that accelerate the pace of progress on these fronts. The transhumanist movement also focuses upon the ramifications of technological development and attempts to predict potential future scenarios, some of which appear indistinguishable from science fiction, often to both scientists and non-scientists alike. Like most people, transhumanists support the development of medical technolo-
gies to alleviate human maladies, the creation of artificial body parts to replace wornout bones and joints, and the improvement of tools to diagnose and treat disease. They also advocate, however, the evaluation of technologies for non-medical applications such as the amplification and extension of human capabilities beyond “normal” functioning. Some in the field point to the accelerating pace of discovery in biology, genetics, neuroscience, nanotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence as evidence that humanity is on the cusp of a leap forward in our ability to reengineer ourselves. The possibilities associated with that power are impressive: drugs to prevent and reverse aging (de Grey 2003); the replacement of red blood cells with nanodevices allowing a person to sprint for several miles or to remain underwater for hours (Freitas 1998); neuropharmaceuticals to dramatically improve attention and memory (Bostrom and Sandberg 2009); neurochips allowing us to control external devices using our thoughts (Lebedev and Nicolelis 2006) and providing wireless “telepathic” connections to other people (Thompson 2008); and the uploading of one’s mind to non-biological substrates (such as silicon computer chips), overcoming once and for all the spectre of biological death (Sandberg and Bostrom 2008). Some of these abilities are already present to some extent in other mammals, while others represent a fundamentally new kind of cybernetic being: Homo excelsior. Where would the application of such powers lead us? Perhaps the most grandiose
answer is: to the Singularity (Kurzweil 2006). One of the central pillars of the Singularity is a technological bootstrapping process wherein the first intelligent machines develop even more intelligent machines, and the first tiny, autonomous robots build even tinier robots. As each generation of new technology serves to further extend our senses and abilities, repair microscopic damage to our tissues, and make available to our web-enabled minds the ever-growing encyclopedia of human knowledge, we may reach a critical point, a discontinuity, beyond which all subsequent development would be subsumed by, and contained within, one great superintelligence. Some futurists imagine an entity that could be embodied either in human form via a dramatic upgrade and accessorizing of our normal bodies, or in a purely man-made form via electrical engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence. To some, this is a
vision of a dream come true. To others, it is a dystopian techno-nightmare; indeed, there is a subfield of artificial intelligence research dedicated to ensuring that the first superintelligence that we create is sympathetic toward “mere” human beings (Goertzel 2001). As should be clear from the above, the fulfillment of transhumanist goals depends
upon scientific discoveries. But it is misleading to portray the majority of transhumanist thought as a branch of science. Rather, its statements and hypotheses belong to the gray area between science and science fiction, simply because so many of them are presently untestable. This has not, however, prevented passionate debate over the ethical dimensions of transhumanist hypotheses and aims.
