The Evolution of Synthetic Thought

Takshashila Essay
By Ganesh Chakravarthi

Views expressed in the essay are of the author and not of the Institution

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Introduction
The world has never been enough. At least for us, humans. The endeavour to
become more than what we are lies at the heart of human civilisation. We have
overcome challenges of nature, obstacles of time, physical and mental
impediments. Perhaps nothing reflects the culmination of this collective zeal to
surpass our capabilities as much as Transhumanism.

Transhumanism is a belief that human beings can transcend the limits of physical
and mental limitations through technology. For some, a Transhumanist is an ideal
to strive towards, and for others, it is both a source and an answer to all of
humanity’s problems.

Borne out of a belief system that humankind should reach the pinnacle of its
capabilities and beyond, Transhumanism comprises augmentations to overcome
limitations. While technological augmentations may be a recent endeavour,
primitive humans have utilised tools to augment their capabilities. From the
wooden spears they used to hunt, the prosthetic wooden and iron legs to augment
walking, all the way to lances in warfare, humans have employed augmentations
throughout history. Eyeglasses, clothing, and ploughs signalled a rise in using
tools to augment our capabilities.

The rise in medical technology, genetic science, and electronics from the 1990s,
has opened new frontiers in human capabilities. We don’t merely use technology
as enablers but have started adopting it from within in the form of cybernetics.
Armbands, deep-brain stimulators, physical and neural augmentations,
mechanical and cybernetic implants, and potentially gene editing are
technologies which humans can use to enhance themselves and achieve
capabilities previously unheard of.

On one hand, science is driving innovation in augmentation, and on the other,

Transhumanism has given rise to a significant amount of philosophical thought.
Notions of challenging what it means to be human, virtues and vices of post-
humanism, and the dangers of uncontrolled immortality provoke deep questions
that do not have answers but encourage much debate and discourse. There is also
an entire section of humanity that believes that the very notion of Transhumanism
is irrelevant, for any such technological advancements are several decades away.

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Transhumanism has generated fear and enthusiasm in equal measures. While

proponents extol the virtues of embracing technology to enhance our lives,
detractors fear what this will mean to be human at all. The widespread availability
of Transhumanist technologies could result in radical life extension, overall well-
being and improper perpetuation could create class divides, encourage
oppression and even alter geopolitical landscapes.

For the first time in human history, we can radically alter our minds and bodies
and take shortcuts to the various destinations of natural evolution. This essay
looks at Transhumanism from an emerging technological paradigm and attempts
to provide an objective view of where Transhumanism is headed and what it
means to the rest of the world.

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Defining Transhumanism
Transhumanism stands at the convergence of multiple fields; medical prosthetics,
behavioural sciences, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and gene editing, to name
a few. As such, Transhumanism is imbued with definitions from scientists and
philosophers, each coining different meanings for Transhumanism. The ‘trans’ is
often substituted with ‘transformative’1, ‘transcendental’2 and the ‘transitional’3.
‘Humanism’ per its definition is the philosophical and ethical stance that
emphasises value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively.
Humanism values critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over
dogma or superstition4.

Transhumanism is the intrinsic belief that humans, with the help of technology,
can transcend their physical and mental limitations. Radical life extension and
immortality form central tenets of Transhumanism. Transhumanists believe that
through these technologies, humanity will be able to make death from an absolute
to one of accidental and physical intervention5.

For thousands of years, humanity used uncomplicated machines, and up until the
late 20th century, man's reliance on machines was mostly external to nature, but
instrumentally, transhumanism deeply intertwines technology with the human
body. Beyond the 1990s, advancements in technologies have included prosthetics
that enhance physical movements, surgical interventions that treat mental
diseases to neural implants that can improve sensory perceptions like hearing and
vision that far surpass normal human capabilities. Concurrently, advancements in
gene sequencing like CRISPR have enabled potential enhancement of physical and
mental traits, opening up new possibilities for human enhancement. While the
discourse is mired between extremes of designer babies and the extinction of
certain species, the potential of gene editing cannot be undermined.

Transhumanism is, however not limited to physical augmentations.

Transhumanism structurally encompasses advancements in medicine and genetic
science, physical, cybernetic, and neurological augmentations. Augmentations are
devices that humans can attach to themselves. These devices can be attached
physically and surgically. Examples of physical augmentations are smartwatches
that can inform physical states to prosthetic legs that can help overcome
disabilities. Surgically implanted augmentations include deep brain stimulators
that can treat mental conditions like clinical depression and PTSD to implanted

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antennae that can provide an alternative treatment to colour-blindness.

Networked cybernetic implants, currently in conceptual stage, can enable direct
access between the human brain and a computer.

The merging of human intelligence and machine intelligence will be a stepping

stone in human evolution6. This merger will also be an incremental process as is
evident from a variety of technologies that are developing concurrently.

Objectively, Transhumanism encompasses all technologies and developments

geared towards the enhancement of human life. The technologies developed
under the umbrella of Transhumanism are called Human Enhancement
Technologies (HET).

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History of Transhumanism
The history of Transhumanism was a sparsely documented one up until recent
times. Some recent works shed significant light on the field of study. One of the
principal challenges of documenting is the labelling of humankind's collective
effort to be higher than other species, races and nature itself. The history is indeed
a bright one and has equal measures of enlightening and reformative themes, but
sometimes it has also been ruinous. There are thoughts and ideas, both scientific
and philosophical that can be labelled Transhumanist in retrospect.

However, not all of them contribute to modern Transhumanism. But there are
some seminal pieces of literature, events, and magnificent scientific
breakthroughs that led to the emergence of modern Transhumanism. A colourful
anecdote of Transhumanism’s history is that the dualistic aspects of
transcendence and dystopia have always accompanied every innovation or
misfire, literature or event, declarations and failures.

Precursors - Origins of Transhumanist Thought

The roots of Transhumanist thought stretch all the way back to Russian futurism
of the late 19th century, when Christian mystic philosopher, Nikolai Fyodorov,
proposed that man's natural destiny was to take to the stars, to achieve
immortality through science, to resurrect the dead with medical technology, and
to colonise space7. Fyodorov's beliefs came to be known as Cosmism. Cosmism
sought to achieve human perfection, to unite humanity in a commitment to
overcome death and master the cosmos, as God had intended. Fyodorov's
influence would later filter down to the establishment of the Russian space
program directly in the 20th century, and the race to put the first man into orbit.

In the year, 1923, Daedalus: Science and the Future, a book by the British scientist,
JBS Haldane, sowed the seeds of modern Transhumanism8. Haldane, a population
geneticist, highlighted the role that eugenics would play in enhancing human life,
calling the ‘biological inventor’, today’s geneticist, as the most romantic figure in
science9. Haldane was also one of the first scientists to highlight the ethical
consequences of such capabilities.

Following closely on the heels of Haldane’s work, John Desmond Bernal published
The World, the Flesh and the Devil in 192910. This work introduced several
ambitious elements key to modern transhumanism, such as liveable space

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habitats, and upgrades that science could bring to human physiology and
intelligence11. Conversely, in 1932, Aldous Huxley’s famous work of fiction, Brave
New World, illustrated a Transhumanist dystopia replete with psychological
conditioning, promiscuous sexuality, biotechnology, and the opiate drug "soma"
keeps the population placid in a static, conformist caste society12. The 1930s saw
human enhancement gaining traction at Cambridge University, who believed in
the capacity of science and technology to improve human condition, with the bulk
of development focusing on genetic enhancements13.

Progress in this arena was gradual. However, the Second World War brought
Transhumanist concepts to a grinding halt. The ideas and applications purported
by the Nazis in the 1940s, and the subsequent racially-targeted war crimes
brought forth a hiatus for eugenics, and consequently all human enhancement
technologies for a short period14. Looking back, one can still spot tiny slivers of the
idea tearing through, like Robert Ettinger’s The Jameson Satellite in 1948 15, which
proposed cryonics as a one-way medical time travel to the future, and Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point, which presented the idea of man
‘transhumanising’ himself and the genesis of Singularity16.

But the year, 1951, was a vital year for Transhumanism, where Julian Huxley first
used the term ‘Transhumanism’ in a lecture titled Knowledge, Morality and
Destiny17. Six years later, in 1957, Huxley’s seminal work, Religion without
Revelation18, was a major milestone in which he stated:

Up till now, human life has generally been, as Hobbes described it, 'nasty, brutish
and short'; the great majority of human beings (if they have not already died young)
have been afflicted with misery… we can justifiably hold the belief that these lands
of possibility exist, and that the present limitations and miserable frustrations of our
existence could be in large measure surmounted… The human species can, if it
wishes, transcend itself—not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an
individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity.

Technology and the Academia’s Inculcation of

Transhumanism
Cryostasis, the idea of freezing people up so that they can be brought back to life,
became popular in 1964, with Robert Ettinger’s The Prospect of Immortality19. The
idea was well-received then and led to the establishment of several cryonics

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societies across the United States. Three years later, Robert Nelson, a TV
repairman, became the first person to be cryogenically frozen, giving much
needed narrative boost for the technology, however, the experiment was deemed
unsuccessful20.

In 1972, Fred and Linda Chamberlain, established the Alcor Society for Solid State
Hypothermia, which was later renamed as the Alcor Life Extension Foundation21.
This foundation has since remained a frontrunner in radical life extension. Just a
year later, Professor Feridoun M Esfandiary (who named himself FM-2030)
published Up-Wingers - A Futurist Manifesto22, and subsequently a book titled,
‘Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of
Growth’ in a rapidly changing world23.

Natasha Vita-More published the first Transhumanist Manifesto in 1983. An

ambitious declaration, the manifesto provided many tenets of Transhumanist
technology, philosophy, and the endeavours of its practitioners 24. A year later,
William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’ gets published, marking a distraction from
Transhumanism’s optimistic outlook25.

In 1986, Eric Drexler proposed an interesting theory of nanotechnology as

‘molecular assemblers’ that could position atoms and molecules for desired
reactions with utmost precision. Assemblers were proposed as a potential
solution for the dwindling resources and growing population26. This was followed
immediately by the establishment of The Foresight Institute, whose principal
objective was to ensure beneficial implementation of nanotechnology.

Max More and T.O. Morrow published Extropy: Vaccine for Future Shock, in 1988,
which was later renamed as The Journal of Transhumanist Thought27.

The Extropians Mailing list, the first major online hub for Transhumanist ideas,
was established in 1991. This portal is still active with several theorists, writers,
and technologists regularly contributing to the boards28. Vernor Vinge, a science
fiction author, computer scientist, and a mathematician, published The Coming
Technological Singularity in 1993. This book further improved the idea of
Singularity which has caught on ever since and continues to propagate via modern
futurists.

In 1994, the Extropy Institute held its first conference in California. A year later,
Peter Diamandis established the X Prize, an organisation dedicated to fund

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"radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity." The Hedonistic Imperative,

the first edition of David Pearce’s seminal work was published in 1995, introducing
the idea of how technology may be used to abolish all suffering in sentient life. A
year later, Natasha Vita-More published an updated version of the Transhumanist
Manifesto, which was sent with the Cassini Huygens space probe to Saturn29.

The World Transhumanist Association was established in 1998 by Nick Bostrom

and David Pearce. The same year, the first iteration of the Transhumanist
Declaration was created. In 1998, the first Transvision Conference was held in the
Netherlands. The conference is now a constant feature that encompasses various
ideas of Transhumanism. In the year, 2000, FM-2030, entered cryonic suspension
at Alcor Life Extension.

From the year, 2000, technological advances gave a significant boost to human
enhancement technologies, bringing forth several new scientific, philosophical,
and foundational ideas that are central to modern Transhumanism.

In 2003, The Methuselah Foundation was established to create new technologies

for radical life extension. In 2004, Nick Bostrom and James Hughes, founded the
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which publishes the Journal of
Transhumanism30. The same year, James Hughes also published the Citizen
Cyborg and the position of Democratic Transhumanism, a piece of literature that
merged Transhumanist and leftist political positions. The same year, prominent
technologist and futurist, Francis Fukuyama, labelled Transhumanism as the
‘world’s most dangerous idea’.

Ray Kurzweil published his most popular book, The Singularity is Near, in 2005.
This book extolled the idea of Singularity proposed by Vernor Vinge. The book
discusses several key concepts on which research is underway. The same year,
Nick Bostrom, established the Future of Humanity Institute, a multidisciplinary
research institute that is investigating how to live a long flourishing life. A key idea
being explored by the Institute is that of “existential risk”, a risk where an adverse
outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently
and drastically curtail its potential31.

In 2008, Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg published the "Whole Brain
Emulation Roadmap," a manifesto for mind-uploading, an idea that has since
gained a lot of attention. A year later, Eliezer Yudkowsky published the blog,
LessWrong, where a discussion on artificial intelligence resulted in the thought

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experiment, Roko's Basilik, and the subsequent banning of its debate on the
forums. The same year, Aubrey de Grey founded the SENS Foundation, an
institute pursuing research to cure ageing.

Several institutes have sprung up since then that pursue research on reversing
ageing. Many pieces of literature have emerged, the prominent among them, Nick
Bostrom’s Historical Overview, Greg Egan’s many science fiction novels, the
Transhumanist Wager, by Zoltan Istvan in 2013, and to some extent Cixin Liu’s
Three Body Problem.

The dynamics of Transhumanism are accelerating in recent years with more and
more people being drawn to its technological prospects32.

The Many Themes of Transhumanism

Themes of immortality and endless progress have enlivened Transhumanism
throughout history. Science fiction pulp magazines like Startling Stories,
Astounding Science Fiction, and Amazing Stories told tales of humans colonising
foreign solar systems, being suspended in cryogenic caskets and woken up in the
far future, and devising powerful technologies in order to become immortal
superhuman figures of derring-do. A symbiotic relationship that remains
foundational to transhumanism came forth in this era: taking ideas from science
fiction and attempting to make them real.

Modern Transhumanism's most direct progenitors were the extropians of the late
1980s, like Max More and Eric Drexler. More is a Transhumanist philosopher and
the CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Extropy got more envisioned,
standing in opposition to the natural law of entropy: the inevitable decline of all
energy in the universe into disorder and chaos. The extropians believed that
humans could overcome entropy through technology and practical 'rational
optimism33.' The ideas central to extropy found their way online mailing, which
continues to this today as the longest continually running Transhumanist
message board on the internet.

Many of the tenets of transhumanism - overcoming death, cryonics, mind

uploading, nanotechnology, advanced computing, and alternative forms of
currency - was widely discussed on the list, which gained both influence and
notoriety once its top members were profiled in Wired magazine issue, "Meet The
Extropians34." By the mid-90s, the techno-utopian vision of modern

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transhumanism had found a fertile breeding ground in Silicon Valley, where

incredible wealth appeared from private investment, and technology never before
imagined seemingly came online overnight. The idea that technology could
remake society at every level became a focal point of enormous investment35.

Since 2000, many of Silicon Valley's biggest companies are pursuing aims that can
be called Transhumanist in nature: Google, through its incorporation of Calico
Labs invests in research into curing ageing. Mark Zuckerberg and Sir Strand,
among other tech elite, the fund Breakthrough Prize, which awards $3 million to
fund advances in life extension technologies. Peter Thiel co-founded the Sea
Steading Institute "which will allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully
test new ideas for government."

Google hired Singularity theorist Ray Kurzweil to work on the company's

machine-learning artificial intelligence project, Google Brain. Jeff Bezos, Elon
Musk, and Peter Diamandis are gearing to pour billions into private space
exploration, in the case of SpaceX, with the goal of one day populating Mars. To
aid in SpaceX's quest, Larry Page wants to leave his private fortune to Musk.

These are just a few of Silicon Valley's labs, institutes, foundations, prizes, think-
tanks, and boards advocating for the fulfilment of transhumanism's dreams.
Though they may not call themselves transhumanists, these companies and their
CEOs share a common vision with many elements of its worldview: to many of
them, redefining the meaning of "human being" is not hubris, but innovation. It is
not impossible, but unlikely. It's only a matter of time.

Medicine, Eugenics, and Genetics, and

Transhumanism
There are many theories from medicine, eugenics, and gene modification
theories, that make genetic science a key component of human enhancement.

Humans have employed medicine for ages. However, it was merely enough to
assuage pain, relieve symptoms, and cure a few diseases. Over the last 200 years,
medicine has seen considerable advancements, and has been a key component in
radical life extension36.

Applications of medicine were merely reactive, applied only when people were
afflicted by maladies, inflicted with wounds, or suffered pain. Preventive care was

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unknown for a long time. But when preventive care evolved, human lifespan
increased by manifolds. Advancements in science and research helped in the
creation of vaccines, eradication of several chronic diseases, curing chronic
illnesses. Subsequent commercialisation of medicine paved the way to wider
availability of these medicines, improving human life expectancies at scale.

Recent advancements in medical science have given rise to stem-cell therapies.

Although some of these procedures have their own share of controversies, the
ambition is quite clear. In the middle of all this came a curious school of thought
of Eugenics.

It is often argued that eugenics became the negative twin of a progressive

mindset. The negative connotation of eugenics is attributable to its history of
wrongful enforcement37. Theories of eugenics have been in existence since
ancient Greece. However, the more famous ones, that even had attributed
scientific thoughts to themselves, began in the late 19th century. Francis Galton,
a scientist, cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term eugenics.

Galton’s theory brought forth the ideas of eliminating ‘undesirables’ and

multiplying the ‘desirables’ in the human race38. The ideas circulated far and wide
in the early 20th century as a drive for social improvement, and was used as a tool
for potential racial cleansing. The idea of eugenics eventually became a tool for
manipulating heredity and breeding to produce better people and eliminate
biologically inferior people39.

In the 1920’s, the United States passed eugenic sterilisation laws across 24 of its
states, and similar laws were passed in Canada and Sweden as well. While race
was an important factor in the Scandinavian and British iteration of eugenics laws,
it played a significant role in American and Canadian iterations. Forced
sterilisation in the United States targeted minorities, criminals, women, physically
handicapped and the mentally ill40. By 1936, as many as 60,000 people had been
forcefully sterilised. The subsequent Nazi Party’s racial and ethnic cleaning
actions are a permanent scar on the name of eugenics41.

The scenario has changed since then. Advancements in medical and genetic
science has helped in the treatment of several medical conditions. One such
advancement is a molecule that can enhance healthspan, the amount of time any
living thing remains healthy42.

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Another breakthrough is the CRISPR technology. Researchers have tested CRISPR

Cas-9 on several species of microbes, plants, and animals. Some promising results
include hindering cancer cells from multiplying, making cells more resistant to
diseases, altering the nature of yeast that can create sustainable biofuel, and
making plants resistant to fungus43.

Jennifer Doudna, from the University of California and Emmanuelle Charpentier,

a French microbiologist from Ume University Sweden, teamed up and published
an article in Science describing the native principle of the CRISPR Cas-9 system44.
CRIPR allows DNA sequence alterations and modified gene functions.

Advancements in CRISPR Cas9 technology has brought forth the prospects of

treating diseases which previously had none. It has also brought forth the
potential to curb inheritable diseases. Apart from medical applications, the
systematic editing of genes can allow humans to overcome certain physical and
mental limitations. Some advances posited by gene editing include enhanced
strength, endurance, motor skills, as well as heightened perception, alertness, and
so on. Gene editing advancements can help humans live longer and healthier
lives45.

The ability to overcome physical and mental limitations is a key objective of

Transhumanism. Up until now, evolution has held sway over human life.
Therefore, Transhumanists view gene editing as one of the paths towards
controlled evolution. The ability to manipulate genes to extend life and overcome
physical limitations therefore garners much enthusiasm among Transhumanists.

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The Rise of Human Augmentation

Augmentations are not new. Humans have been augmenting themselves since the
primitive ages. While the word ‘augmentation’ implies becoming bigger and
better, all augmentations are instruments that help us overcome our deficiencies.
Humans have been using sticks to support our movement, spears to hunt, and
animal cloaks and palisades as protection from the cold and hostile creatures
respectively. The primitive human was smart enough to supplement his
incapability like the lack of claws, only two legs, and the lack of fur. As our
intelligence evolved, we started creating better instruments to make up for our
deficiencies.

Armours, footwear, helmets, and gauntlets are instruments that people attached
to themselves while going off to war. Our ingenuity allowed us to extend these
instruments to war animals as well, making them near impervious to damage.
From the Middle-Ages, advances in physics and optics helped us understand light
better, leading to the invention of eyeglasses. Eyeglasses have remained one of
the longest standing augmentations in human history. A relatively recent
invention, the hearing aid, is also an instrument that has since remained constant.

Through centuries, these instruments have evolved significantly even though

their core functions remain the same. Armours evolved to exoskeletons,
eyeglasses to contact lenses, gauntlets to sophisticated gloves, and wired hearing
aids to tiny earpieces. Footwear too evolved, each fulfilling a specific purpose –
sports, adventure, casual, formal and occasional. And to this day, these external
instruments supplement our deficiencies and help us perform our daily tasks
better. But these prosthetics are not limited to people with physical disabilities.

One of the biggest inventions in human augmentation is the creation of neural

augmentation46. Neural augmentations are not mere attachments to the human
body. These instruments are surgically implanted in the human body and can
interface with the human neurology, with the help of a catalyst.

In 1972, the first commercial cochlear implant was developed and to this day,
remains a successful clinical neuro-prosthetic device47. In the 1980’s, deep brain
stimulation came into existence. Deep brain stimulation began as an option to
treat Parkinson’s disease and through the years, variations of this technology have
been used to treat patients with deep clinical depression and post-traumatic
stress syndrome48.

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Since the 1990’s, augmentations acquired a new dimension. Modern

augmentations comprise prosthetic legs with motor skills that can match and
sometimes exceed normal performance. Wooden limbs have been replaced with
mechanical limbs that have superior range of motion and can perform walking
and running actions with the same efficiency as normal biological limbs 49.
Similarly, bionic arms have improved strength, durability, and range of motion,
that allow people to lift objects heavier than normal hands can. There are
muscular augmentations that allow people to exercise better, limb attachments
that augment running, and wearable protection equipment used in fields involving
manual labour50.

Cybernetics and neural augmentations gave rise to a new generation of human

beings that challenge the nature of responses to stimuli and neural perceptions.

Neil Harbisson, a British-born individual and currently an avant-garde artist, was

born with a condition called achromatopsia, a form of extreme colour-blindness.
In 2004, Harbisson was equipped with a specialised cybernetic eye that can
render preconceived colours as sounds on the musical scale — in essence allowing
him to ‘hear’ colour. Harbisson claims that his adaptation to this implant has
resulted in the development of a highly advanced perception of colours.
Harbisson has since achieved worldwide renown for officially being the first
human being to be recognised as a cyborg by the British government51.

Nigel Ackland, a precious metal smelter, lost a part of his arm because of an
industrial accident. After the amputation, Nigel’s lost arm was replaced with a
cosmetic one without functionality and later with a body-powered hook with a
limited range of motion. After using an electric arm for a short period, Nigel was
given a bebionic3 hand. This hand has a superior range of motion and possesses
incredible dexterity. The prosthetic boasts of a particularly alarming grip, dubbed
as the ‘trigger grip’. Nigel can independently move each of his fingers and grip
objects, just like healthy biological hands52.

Humanity is now at the stage of merging seamlessly with technology. The internet
opened up new avenues for human augmentation. Post 2010, augmentations have
made steady inroads into our lives by way of wearable devices. Armbands and
smartwatches that can tell our pulse rates, calories burnt, and bodyweight
differentials have enabled us to understand our bodies better, something we could
only do by visiting a doctor. Their networking ability allows people to
communicate, stay in touch on social media, and allows radical customisation of

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their lifestyles. There are some who have taken the functionality of implants to
the next level.

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, has

experimented with various implants. Warwick has implanted several microchips
in his arms that allow him to operate doors, lights, heaters and computers
remotely53.

There are several examples; Jerry Jalava’s USB thumb, Claudia Mitchell’s bionic
limb54, and Jesse Sullivan’s robotic hands55, all point to the collective endeavour of
using technology to overcome physical disabilities, gain new perceptions, and
even improve body functionalities. All augmentations involve complex surgical
procedures. While neural augmentations may be difficult and expensive to
replace, mechanical augmentations have their advantages i.e. long life and
relatively easier replacements.

The Future of Transhumanism

Computers, smartphones, and wearable devices are great examples of technology
shaping our way of life. However, a lot of them are comparable to the major
developments in information and communication technologies56.

The future of Transhumanism promises many developments that will make

humans stronger, resilient, and more intelligent. Wearable technology, body
augmentation will extend beyond simple armbands today. Developments in the
field include universal translators, contact lenses that can take photographs and
capture videos, subdermal implants for biometric security, and concept
technologies like mind-controlled prosthesis57. On the other hand, advances in
gene editing can potentially help us eradicate chronic and heritable diseases 58.

One such instance of public trial of human augmentation is the Cyborg Olympics,
a competition that tested the performance of exoskeletons and augmented
people59. Although mechanically replaced arms and limbs don’t match up to
biological arms and legs in their full capacity, they are quite competitive and the
ability to reach up to biological standards does not seem far.

Few fields are as influenced by science fiction as much as Transhumanism.

However, human augmentation is still in the nascent stage. But for a few science
experiments and rare cases of prosthetic replacements, augmentation is still not

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mainstream. A few upcoming inventions in the sphere are poised to change the
way we humans operate technology and our communication perceptions.

Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMI) have opened up new frontiers in communication

between humans and machines. Some theoretical applications include controlling
objects, accessing computers, issuing commands to robots, and objects that we
can control with our thoughts. A range of devices are being developed by
companies like Facebook, Neuralink, and agencies like DARPA60. These interfaces
are networked and implanted on the human body, and have multidisciplinary
applications ranging from neuroscience, engineering, computer science, and
clinical rehabilitation. Commercial applications include wireless communication,
interfacing directly with computer systems, and allowing unfiltered articulations
at the speed of thought.

Virtual Reality is another form of augmentation with many applications in the

fields of education and entertainment. Computer simulations are widely
employed today in the field of skill development such as driving and performing
complex repairs. The next step in virtual reality is haptics – the sense of touch.
Haptics will serve to bridge the gap between virtual and objective realities. VR
advances include developmental initiatives, training programmes, skill
development, and even creating real-world scenarios to see the impact of major
policy changes61.

A combination of Virtual Reality and BMIs can improve human empathy 62. If we
can understand a new perspective, not just from an information outlook but from
a straight, visceral, experience of another individual’s brain, then our
understanding of fellow humans may increase. VR is a great technology that can
make life fun, intuitive, visceral, and can bring about a cultural shift in the way
people perceive the world.

Personalisation has become an important keyword in modern society. The

information we consume digitally is highly personalised to our tastes, based on
the frequency with which we habituate certain information spheres. Neural
implants embedded in the human brain are usually networked and can transmit
and receive a variety of information. Although neural implants have not advanced
that far, they present a world of opportunity for content developers to create and
deliver highly personalised information to people.

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An interesting development is a universal translator earbud, which can eliminate

barriers in communication. The idea that people can talk to one another without
learning another language holds significant promise63. However, there are still
some barriers on the way. Natural Language Processing needs to advance
significantly before we see such changes, but the prospects are interesting.

Most of these developments are near-future developments. Some ambitious

developments that are still in the realm of science fiction but garner enthusiasm
include cross-species genetics to help humans breathe underwater, augmented
bodies that can live off less food and oxygen which could be a major advantage in
space exploration, and uploading of the brain onto a computer, and achieving
cognitive immortality.

The all-encompassing nature of Transhumanism cannot be ignored. Very soon,

most fields in the world will be interlinked through human enhancement.
Multipurpose augmentations that can be interchangeable across different fields
will hold sway eventually.

Transhumanist Schools of Thought

There is no clear moment where humanity emerges as Transhuman. Our
integration with technology in the Information Age has always been an extension
of ourselves. This is evident in our reliance on computer technology which has
seamlessly integrated into almost every field. But understanding the potential
hybrid of man and machine has many lessons.

Transhumanism is a definitive step towards controlled human evolution. It will

converge multiple fields together, which will affect behaviours, thought
processes, and economic situations worldwide. Society may be altered
permanently but before we hit the stage of the ultimate transhuman, which
Humanity+ calls Human 2.0, there is a significant technological, philosophical, and
regulatory gulf that needs bridging.

In a hypothetical scenario, if one nation decides on the creation of physically and

neurally augmented military, how long before another nation follows suit? These
choices will philosophically question what we humans value most. Our ability to
engineer outcomes per our needs will call to question whether we value
fulfilment, happiness, success, technological prowess, or something else entirely.
Up until now, geopolitics and capitalism has held sway over most technological

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trends, but Transhumanism signals a change in which humanity perceives

technology.

Societal opinions on Transhumanism range from embracing the technology

wholeheartedly, making cautious and judicious use, to subjecting it to stringent
legislation. There is also deep philosophical thought attached to Transhumanism
with its own dualities; one promising that technology will be the greatest good for
mankind and the other warning dire consequences of morality as the only
compass for humanity, which has resulted in disastrous outcomes in history.
These are surface-level arguments however there are deep schools of thought
that have given rise to these opinions. The following sections will address these
in more detail.

Transhumanism as a Religion

A central idea of Transhumanism is the evolving human nature. An idea

popularised by Huxley and later made famous by Nick Bostrom, who stated:

Transhumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning

that we can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the
endpoint of evolution. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science,
technology, and other rational means, we shall eventually manage to become
posthuman, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have64.

Technological progress has often resulted in dispelling of myths, superstition, and

an observable decline of religious thought. A flipside of this progress however, has
been the attachment of religious connotation to Transhumanism itself.

Transhumanism was a matter of serious intellectual debate throughout the 20th

century. But the first decade of the 21st century has seen several established
religions taking Transhumanism seriously65.

A significant portion of the Transhumanist discourse veers towards theological

views of Transhumanism. Transhumanists like Eric. K Drexler, believe technology
itself to be divine, and scientists wielding godlike power to structure matter and
recreate nature. We now live in an age where technology constructs our
worldview. The extent to which human interaction has evolved has resulted in
newer perceptions of how human beings conceive religion 66.

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Anthony Levandowski, an engineer working on self-driving cars, recently founded

Way of the Future Church, a religious organisation. Working on the premise that
a superintelligence is inevitable, the Church is in pursuit of developing godlike
artificial intelligence67.

Yuval Noah Harari, in the book, Homo Deus, states that “Technology defines the
scope and limits of our religious visions, like a waiter that demarcates our
appetites by handing us a menu. New technologies kill old gods and give birth to
new gods68.”

In the same vein, several organisations have sprung up in the form of churches of
Transhumanism – The Church of Perpetual Life, Terasem, the Mormon
Transhumanist Association, The Turing Church, and the Christian Transhumanist
Association. A feature common to all these religions is the foundation of
technology.

Religious narratives and fervour have sustained the advance of science across
most spheres. It might be a bit premature to say that this is the result of
conditioning borne from centuries that attaches these connotations to
Transhumanism. For through history, science and religion have been at
loggerheads.

Conversely, Transhumanism may be the first phenomenon to pave the way for a
harmonic future where both science and religious thought are deeply intertwined
and give rise to a technocratic worldview, one where both are encouraged.

Transhumanism as a Technological Utopia - Proponents

There are many scientists, inventors, and technologists attracted to the idea of
Transhumanism as a perfect response to all of human deficiencies. These people
imagine a world characterised not by scarcity, but one by abundance.

Transhumanism is a definitive step towards controlled human evolution.

Proponents assess different theories, technologies, and social systems that can
improve all life. From a proponent's perspective, enhancements made available to
all of humanity could be key to ending the squabbles of legal and political
inequality. Some hold the view that all sentient beings deserve sapience69. The
ability to reason being a threshold of intelligence that is not arbitrary, and can be
potentially quantified.

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Proponents of Transhumanism include a veritable mix of technologists, futurists,

and philosophers who postulate technologies like genetic engineering, and
eugenics will hold sway over biological evolution. Visions of a future, where
hunger, disease, war, poverty, ageing, and death itself will be things of the past,
where environmental degradation will be solved, and climate change will not be a
thing of worry. Work will be a thing of the past, as intelligent machines allow us
to indulge our dreams and live with absolute, unbounded freedom. Humans will
be unrecognisable to our present-day selves. Advanced medical science will
ensure we never fall sick70. Human cells will never age, and so they will never die71.
People long dead will be brought back to life. Smart drugs, primitive in their
enhancements today, will grant humans a perfect mind with a genius IQ, for the
price of a pill72.

In a world without wants, violence may become archaic. With human intelligence
having ascended to rational perfection, politics and religion will lose their current
meaning and be forced to evolve and governments, as we know them, maybe
rendered obsolete, and disbanded. Concepts of race, gender, and power will
acquire new meaning and importance.

Transhumanist enhancements can make interstellar travel viable. Robots will

mine asteroids for resources to bring back to Earth, just one of thousands of
planets that our new technologies will have terraformed and made habitable for
the hundreds of billions of immortal human beings living in the universe. When
machine intelligence reaches the point at which it can infinitely improve itself, we
will have reached the Singularity and there will be no more natural or physical
limits to humankind73. Anything will be possible. Everything will be plentiful. All
this and more is the fantastical dream vision of the future according to
Transhumanist proponents.

The stakes are high and so are the benefits. Understanding and applying tech
solutions to increase longevity and quality of life are worthy goals of science.
Several proponents like Zoltan Istvan, Ray Kurzweil, and David Pearce, the co-
founder of Humanity+, have been vocal about the technology. David Pearce says:

If we want to live in paradise, we will have to engineer it ourselves. If we want

eternal life, then we’ll need to rewrite our bug-ridden genetic code and become god-
like … only hi-tech solutions can ever eradicate suffering from the world.
Compassion alone is not enough74.

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Transhumanism as a Dystopia – Detractors

Transhumanism is an interdisciplinary field. As such, it is difficult to come up with

a set of possibilities as the scientific and ethical constraints as their respective
dispositions are not yet set in stone. Besides, the nature of Transhumanist thought
attracts severe criticism and controversy from ethical perspectives, political and
the traditionally religious schools of thought.

Detractors of Transhumanism are two-fold. The first is the philosophical question

of what Transhumanism will do to human values. The other is the potential class-
divide this might engender, either via the high cost of procedures limiting its
reach or the unfair advantage that enhanced humans may possess.

Based on these developments, it is not difficult to imagine professional job

opportunities which could be suitable only for those who have augmentations.
Similarly, it is also not difficult to imagine potential espionage opportunities in an
increasingly geopolitical world and stratification of humanity based on people
who can or cannot afford human augmentation. Several science fiction elements
that have used this trope, some of them even being commented upon by scientists
for their plausibility75.

The nature of the field has drawn several critics that are highly vocal such as
Francis Fukuyama, who vehemently believe that it will only cause social instability
and alter the very fabric of what makes us human.

Fukuyama, in his famous book, Our Posthuman Future, outlines his argument
against human enhancement technology. Using gene editing as an example,
Fukuyama laments on the technology’s potential to alter our emotional states
permanently. Fukuyama says how good characteristics of human beings are
deeply intertwined with bad ones. In essence, a positive trait in one person can
be a negative trait in another. Our lack of knowledge of how deeply these traits
are intertwined and depend on one another is something Transhumanists ignore.
Humans haven’t figured out the inner workings of how and why people behave.
On the other hand, Transhumanists take it upon themselves to determine what is
good and bad. While this is harmless in the context of debate, the fact that these
debates point the way forward for Transhumanism is a worrying premise.

Another major argument by Fukuyama is our political right to equality. The

fundamental human essence that transcends sex, class, and race. Since human

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values are deeply rooted in our ability or inability to do certain things or surpass
natural limitations, altering our biology could result in an irreversible change in
human values as well. In this regard, Fukuyama says:

“What is ultimately at stake with biotechnology is the very grounding of the human
moral sense. We therefore need international regulation to obstruct any
technological advance that might disrupt either the unity or the continuity of human
nature, and thereby the human rights that are based upon it76.”

A critical element of Transhumanism is its anti-ageing premise; improved

medication adherence, better immune system, and embedded physical and neural
augments that enhance mental and physical performances of the human body. As
regards the potential cost of these procedures, Fukuyama highlights the potential
economic divide this will engender.

“The dividing line between the First and Third Worlds in two generations will be a
matter not simply of income and culture but of age as well.77”

Transhumanism’s Ethical Conundrum

Radical life extension and immortality play central roles in Transhumanism.

However, eternal life poses a serious moral dilemma which calls to question the
very foundations of modern society, labour, social services, healthcare, pension,
insurance, individual rights and liberty, food scarcity, social and economic divides.
And yet, this may be a Malthusian argument whose effects have been kept at bay
for most the part of modern history via economics.

Another challenge is one of quantifiable intelligence. Mark O’Connell, in an

interview about his book, To be a Machine, explains how reducing human values
merely to intelligence is a dangerous idea, and a shallow way of conceiving human
beings. A techno-Darwinism as opposed to a techno-utopia, this optimisation of
intelligence may end up in our own values becoming obsolete78.

In a Transhumanist society, the only disabled will be the ones without any
augmentations. When is it justified to replace a healthy human arm or a limb, with
a bionic arm that is superior to the biological one? Additionally, with superhuman
performance, immortality, and augmentations, unless the affordability of the tech
becomes feasible, will it result in a class divide between the rich and the poor? A
robotic heart currently costs $200,000, which is not an affordable sum for many79.

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Throughout history, mankind has employed scales to measure intelligence and

even used some of them to justify acts of cruelty. But this school of thought has
had numerous critics all the way from David Hume, Nietzsche, and Freud. Despite
this, there are several schools of thought that place intelligence as the highest
virtue.

Plato, in his seminal work, The Politics, states, “That some should rule and others
be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth,
some are marked out for subjection, others for rule. What marks the ruler is their
possession of ‘the rational element80”. This is a common ethical conundrum
throughout history, but the consequences of artificially enhanced intelligence are
largely unpredictable81.

Transhumanism also suffers from another ethical issue of implantation of

technology within our bodies. Devices embedded in our bodies will be networked.
These will be devices that register our emotional, physical, and mental states. As
human beings implant more and more devices, these devices can be leveraged to
make subtle alterations in messages to trigger emotional reactions, which is not
all that bad. If neural implants can alter human emotional states then they can
potentially be a cure to a plethora of mental illnesses. These implants can hinder
the emission of specific enzymes which result in different moods. A happiness
filter or a dopamine emitter garners significant enthusiasm. These ‘synthetic
thoughts’ present new opportunities and challenges.

The flipside being unlawful exploitation of these devices for advertisements, lack
of issues with privacy, and potential security risks by hacking these neural
augmentations. Newer security standards for neural augmentations will be
necessary, giving rise to devices incompatible with other augmentations, very
similar to computer technology.

Using technology to improve, to become more than what we are when human
morality itself is a subjective notion that changes with time might result in
irreversible social dynamics. Brute physical strength has waned in popularity due
to the advent of technology. Regardless, a physically augmented military can have
a significant advantage over an unaugmented adversary. Similarly, intelligence
meritocracy has always been an influential account of social worthiness. A
neurally augmented person may have an unfair advantage over his peers.
Professions might develop which might require only augmented individuals,
putting others at a significant disadvantage.

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Workers’ rights may come under fire, and this might create a whole new set of
issues. Technology shifted the dynamics of power in the workforce, which was
entrenched in unionisation up until the late 20th century. However, creation of a
physical and neural barrier for professions might bring about dire and highly
unpredictable consequences.

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Crystallising the Positive and Negatives, and

Ethics of Transhumanism

Technology Effects Optimistic Scenarios Pessimistic

Scenarios

Radical life We will have longer Economic growth can Problems in

extension lives, there will be be spurred as affordability will
reduced disease expertise stays limit technology to
(Natasha Vita-More), around for longer. We the financially elite.
can preserve (Francis Fukuyama)
important
personalities.
Nanobots will be
used to potentially
reverse ageing,
starting our journey Space exploration will This will alienate the
towards immortality spur transhumanism financially poor and
(Ray Kurzweil), and help mitigate draw up political
existential risks and economic
(Zoltan Istvan) structures that
favour only the rich.
Increased population
could pose dangers
previously not
thought of. Decision to preserve
specific individuals
might give rise to
corrupt, self-
fulfilling practices.

Neural There will Increased There will be There will be

augmentati intelligence, better Improved learning, blurring of lines
ons reaction times, and better knowledge between natural
connection to retention, and intelligence and

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computing. improvement of augmented

Augmented Reality collective human intelligence.
and Virtual Reality knowledge (Elon
will be accessible Musk)
neurally
There will no longer
(NeuraLink/Elon
be a measure of
Musk)
achievement.

This might give rise

to hedonistic
tendencies in
policymaking

Physical There will be better There can be Augmentations can

augmentati quality of health, and augmented armies give people the
ons the ability for which don’t feel pain ability to oppress
disabled to play on a or fatigue. (Frost and the physically weak.
level-playing field. Sullivan Study)

There will be a new

Humans can surpass spectrum of crimes
the natural limits of (hacking neural
physical strength. Powered augmentations,
exoskeletons can be erasing DNA traces).
used in disaster
management and
space exploration.
(Frost and Sullivan There can be
Study) potential addiction
to agents that act as
augmentation
catalysers

Gene We will live longer This is a great There can be blatant

editing lives, eliminate opportunity to misuse of gene

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diseases. We can become healthier. therapy due to lack

permanently Improved medication of regulations.
alteration human response can also aid
physiology treatments. We can
potentially eliminate
Designer babies is a
heritable diseases.
popular ethical
argument against
gene editing

Will changing our

genetic makeup
change what makes
us human
permanently?

The table represents some of the main technologies under Transhumanism and its effects,
potential optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. These are in no way limited to the ones mentioned
in the table.

Albert Einstein said, "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a

pathological criminal."

It is human nature to overcome obstacles. Human ingenuity has enabled

technology which in turn has enabled us to dominate earth’s food chain. Yet, our
collective genius has not yet been able to surpass death.

Technology has always been an extension of our selves. It is difficult to demarcate

a time period where we have not relied on technology. There is a perception that
technology was something separate from us however, one look at the history tells
us otherwise. After weapons were invented, there hasn’t been a time when wars
were waged without them. After computers came, there are only a handful of
fields that do not use computers. The lines have blurred with the advent of
smartphones, social media, and augmented devices.

Gamification has become an important component of encouraging human

engagement82. For instance, the UI of an Uber driver has changed considerably
from ‘Collect Cash’ to ‘Collect Reward’. Similarly, rating tags such as ‘Hero’ and

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complimentary feedback mechanisms have encouraged significantly more work

than ever before, especially in this segment. As such, when financial incentives
aren’t enough, behavioural changes are instrumental in achieving desired
outcomes. Many new companies are now adopting behavioural nudges to
encourage productivity. And this is not just limited to businesses but on a
fundamental level where people modify their lifestyles significantly.

Although our reliance on technology has always been absolute, humans have
mostly held sway over how it is applied. But now the tides are changing. Our
fitness trackers motivate us to do things we would otherwise not do. The progress
and status bars that we see on our smartphones that inform our physical states
compel us to perform better. To-do lists, diet plans, and that are reward-based
motivate us to become better every single day. While science and technology have
changed the way humans think in the past, never before has science integrated
into our lives with on such an intimate level.

Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, presents the idea of how the

printing press allowed for the same ideas across a region to permeate and led to
the creation of a community83. The shared knowledge and information led to the
appearance of nationalism. Human communities changed with the advent of the
internet. Our interactions from the advent of social media and other smartphone
applications have changed the way humans communicate. Information flows from
one place to another more efficiently than ever before.

Today, the barriers of communities are no longer restricted by region. Although

nationalistic sentiments prevail in certain areas, the concept of nationalism is
slowly and steadily being accompanied by shared experiences across the world.
Movies, memes, and media have led to the creation of worldwide fan followings,
social media groups have spread across nations, and ideas, ideologies, and
strategic messages are broadcast across these groups. The use of English has
increased drastically, and regional language penetration remains low.

Here is where universal translators come into play. Natural Language Processing
still has a long way to go but slowly and steadily, translation services like Google
Translate are bridging the gap between English and other languages. If one were
to envision several steps further, there could be a time when a simple implant or
a wearable device is able to instantly translate anything language. If one were to
create a neural augmentation with this capability, it would change the way people
communicate across the world.

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Enter the world of artificial intelligence. While there are many technological
benefits to AI, one of the most important benefits this has given rise to is the
ability to parse large amounts of data and draw inferences from them. From stock
markets, to defence, to behavioural sciences, AI is now helping humans generate
insights at a rate much faster than ever before. As a result of which, machines
have become more reliable in their performance, and tasks that used to take
months due to the high amount of processing have now become faster. So much
so that speed is now taken for granted. Our ability to make split-second decisions
based on actionable insights is now better than ever before. And this ability is
driving the engines of modern human spending. Personalised advertisements,
strategic placement of information are some ways humans are being nudged
towards spending or performing certain actions. With sensors in every device that
humans use, this opens up pathways for obtaining real-time behavioural data and
tailor solutions accordingly.

Virtual Reality applications with sharing capabilities are being developed every
day. With advancements in haptics, this will serve as a platform to share vivid
visual, auditory, and sensory experiences with other people, each of them
responding in their own subjective and unique way. As the boundaries between
shared experiences disappear, as information permeates throughout the world, it
could well result in the dispelling of several long-held beliefs about different
cultures. On the flipside the chances of developing and propagating echo
chambers across borders will become higher.

Concepts like brain uploading and immortality are still far away. But the rate at
which technology is driving, altering, and expanding our daily lives is much higher
than the rate at which human beings are able to cope with the legal, economic,
and climatic outcomes or consequences. The nature of balance that mankind will
need to strike will determine the civilisational structures of the next century.

Taking control of Synthetic Thoughts

It is an inescapable fact of the Earth that all its resources are finite: there will be
a time when planes no longer fly, unless an ever-renewable fuel source is
discovered. There will be no more concrete buildings made of construction sand.
We only have so much arable land on which to grow our food. There is no future
in which our growing population can enjoy our current rates of consumption
forever; we will one day come up against our planet’s limits.

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We will one day come up against our planet’s limits84. But this will not deter
civilisation.

Many transhumanists who advocate for physical immortality, like Zoltan Istvan,
are always careful to stress that eternal life would be available to everyone 85, and
it will not be the purview of tiny, wealthy elite, but a medical enhancement
available commonly and cheaply. If we take these Transhumanist predictions of
the Singularity at their word, and it comes to pass by the middle of this century
with physical immortality shortly to follow, it would raise an extraordinary set of
problems: how will so many immortal people, and their immortal offspring,
compete for the planet’s limited economic resources without wreaking total
havoc? The limits may not be physical in nature, but the economic conditions of
the world will need to consider longer lifespans and different scales of work.

The inevitability of Transhumanism is not to be ignored either. In October 2014,

the Pentagon presented a report detailing the many ways in which climate change
will pose an increasingly significant global security threat: escalating military
tensions over rising disease outbreaks, food and water shortages, and growing
numbers of displaced persons whose lands will no longer be liveable 86.

Temperatures in the Persian Gulf are set to rise to 35 degrees Celsius by 2100,
making parts of that area periodically uninhabitable. Well before then, in the next
10 years, desertification could uproot as many as 50 million of the world’s poorest
people, and pose an enormous challenge to the sustainability of drinking water
reserves. A recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
proposed that climate change, in the form of severe drought, forcibly displaced
Syria’s farming population, and became a contributing factor in that country’s civil
war87.

Some prominent transhumanists believe that these are not the kinds of existential
risks we should be concerned with. Nick Bostrom, one of the philosophers most
closely associated with transhumanism today, founder of the Future of Humanity
Institute and advisor to the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, says that
climate change is a “very, very small existential risk.” Bostrom says climate
predictions only mean that conditions in some parts of the world will be “a bit
more unfavorable88.”

Bostrom argues that the most pressing threat to the future of human life is an out
of control artificial intelligence that could destroy us. To illustrate his point,

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Bostrom sometimes invokes what’s come to be called the “paperclip maximizer”

thought experiment; a hyper-intelligent, sentient, and infinitely powerful
machine is tasked with making as many paperclips as it can. What’s to stop it from
turning all matter in the universe into paperclips, destroying everything in its
wake89?

Bostrom says that ensuring AI will be friendly towards future human beings is a
moral imperative, “an enormous good that will tend to outweigh even immense
benefits like eliminating poverty or curing malaria” today90. For people so
concerned about living to see the future, many transhumanists are profoundly
ambivalent about the present.

“The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms
which it can use for something else.” Eliezer Yudkowsky.

In 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, a report produced by
MIT that laid out multiple scenarios for population increase, and the future
management of the world’s available resources. The report’s models indicated
that barring major changes to consumption levels and emissions, global collapse
would be a likely economic and environmental outcome beginning in the mid-21st
century91. A 2008 update to the original report found its “business as usual”
scenario, in which no resource management changes were made, to have tracked
fairly closely to real-world data.

The first comprehensive report of its kind to suggest that unlimited post-
industrial economic growth was undesirable for sustainability; The Limits to
Growth received significant pushback, particularly from free-market economists.
But it would come to influence two significant strains of Transhumanist thought,
both of which are active areas of research and development today: molecular
nanotechnology and outer space mineral mining.

Physicist and engineer, K. Eric Drexler, while still a student at MIT, offered a two-
fold solution to Earth’s resource strain: mining in space and developing atomic
scale, self-replicating machines that could mechanically position reactive
molecules in order to make everything from anything. This was laid out in
Drexler’s book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, and its
microscopic robots soon became an excitable point of Transhumanist
discussion92.

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Intelligent Nanomachines are nowhere near close to becoming a reality

Nanotechnology is today the focus of billions of dollars’ worth of research

investment. So far, its payoff as salve for our resource crunch has been scant:
nanotech developments in energy production have been rebuked by some, and so
far, its carbon manufacturing processes are some of the most energy intensive in
existence. Drexler’s intelligent Nano machines (“assemblers”) are nowhere near
close to becoming a reality, if they are physically possible at all. Nonetheless, Ray
Kurzweil believes Drexler’s nano assemblers will be here within the next five to 10
years93.

As for space mineral mining, no human has set foot on a foreign celestial body
since 1972, the year The Limits to Growth was published. Successfully launching
the Rosetta mission, which put a lander on a comet for the first time last year,
costing more than $1.4 billion. Any program to bring back essential resources to
Earth from a comet or asteroid would pose a significant question of cost vs.
benefit. In spite of the enormous engineering challenges, private space initiatives
like these remain a well-funded pet project in Silicon Valley.

Between 1950 and 2050, the global population may have quadrupled. By 2100 —
total annihilation at the hands of malevolent AI not withstanding — there will be
11 billion of us, all vying for whatever is left of the world’s resources. Everything
we now know about the carrying capacity of the planet indicates that we will have
to make drastic changes to our consumption habits well before then in order to
avoid disaster. But Transhumanism’s visions of human immortality largely
disregard this, promising a world in which there will only ever be more of us —
never less.

But this assumes very little credit to human ingenuity94. Mankind has been great
at overcoming odds that would have made us extinct. Science, economics, and
political intervention will become vital in the future to ensure workarounds and
sustainability of life. Augmentations may become an important component of our
future, if only to beat the potential scarcities and existential risks95.

Faced between humanity’s imperative to survive, the notion of moral bio-

enhancement features prominently, where they assert humanity’s risk of
annihilation should it choose to not get enhanced96. However, our transition to a
Transhumanist society will test the evolving ecological, scientific, and political
structures to their limits.

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Conclusion
Where humans should put their efforts into?
It would be improper to view Transhumanism as a mere philosophy that is
growing day by day. The technology that enables the merging of man and machine
will be a major turning point in human evolution.

Unfortunately, many of the technologies that Transhumanism will encompass are

still considered emerging tech – a result that encourages discourse with harmful
rhetoric that veer away from practicality. Many of the developments that are
fuelling the growth of Transhumanist thought are also principal developments in
many different fields, i.e., nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, gene sequencing,
and so on. Additionally, governance of emerging technology is difficult, as the
risks and consequences cannot be predicted until these technologies reach a
certain level of maturity.

What is essential to the Transhumanist thought paradigm are models that can
create governance and potential regulatory mechanisms to bring the best out of
emerging technologies, and keep negative consequences to a minimum.

Governance Gaps
Adaptation is one of the hallmarks of governance. For instance, transgenic pest-
protected plants were developed in 1987, whereas a year before, the United States
adopted the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology. Since then,
transgenic pest-protected plants have been an essential biotechnological
product97. The USDA proposed changes to the programme more than two decades
later, and since then, the regulation includes the import, movement, and
environmental release of genetically modified organisms98.

As emergent technologies are rapid in their development, governance must also

be flexible and adaptable to account for these changes in due time. Mechanisms
that can allow incremental changes in legislation to incorporate new technologies
could help mitigate legislative lag. Improved stakeholder involvement, involving
smaller companies, and the tech diaspora, could lead to periodic updates keeping
the world abreast of developments. For instance, the Flash Crash in 2010 was the
first time a significant portion of the world became aware of artificial intelligence
used in High-Frequency Trading, although AI has long been used before then99.

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Models
Nanotechnology has always sparked widespread concern, and most countries
view nanotechnology with a sense of wariness, although funding into this area has
increased in recent years. This is in large part attributable to potential unintended
consequences on human health and the environment. Similarly, a portion of the
onus lies on public agencies to identify research needs, and provide advice and
direction in the way technology progress occurs.

An example of one such intervention is the creation of risk assessment

frameworks and tools that can assess the potential harms posed by engineered
nanomaterials (ENM)100. Since data gathering is a key issue with emerging
technology, particularly due to their confidential nature or lack of progress,
theoretical frameworks like these can help put in place adequate checks and
balances to ensure that human beings or the ecology are not exposed to harm.
The risk assessment framework classifies engineered nanomaterials on a
threshold of low, medium, and high scales and allows adequate freedom for ENMs
classified as low threat and suggests regulatory intervention for ENMs labelled
‘high threat’.

A similar model of regulatory framework model was framed around gene editing.
A three-level framework for governing three broad categories, corresponding to
three stages of development of the gene editing. The first Fundamental R&D, the
laboratory stage where research can be freely conducted under lab conditions,
the second ‘trial’ stage where clinical trials and field trials can be conducted,
provided they meet all regulatory approvals, and finally, the ‘Public Release’ stage
where once the technology has met safety, disclosure, and other regulatory
standards, it can be sold openly in the market.101

With the public, it is important to create better information channels for

Transhumanist technologies. One such example is a ‘commitment’ level for people
interested in augmenting themselves. This commitment level ranges from high -
surgical implantation, to medium - an external detachable augmentation, to low -
something akin to plugging earphones102.

All said and done, today’s bioethics should take into account the future prospects
of Transhumanism and create an essential toolkit for moral bioenhancement 103.

Nudges for a scientific discourse

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A growing divide growing amongst the tech diaspora and the common man seems
prevalent today. The language used in the discourse and a dearth of real-world
examples and benefits creates an opportunity for widespread misinformation.

Companies developing transhumanist technologies, while fairly rational in their

explanations, are quite verbose in extolling the benefits — an eternal life, freedom
from disease, elimination of suffering, or ‘transcending’ physical barriers.

Arguments on potential ‘cyborg’ revolutions and a backlash by ‘purists’  are

opinions projecting far into the future. There is a significant gulf to be bridged
before Transhumanism becomes an ethnicity unto its own. But it is interesting to
note that what began as an intellectual movement rooted in technology has
evolved into a philosophical movement with debates inducing more fear than
enthusiasm for technology.

Beth Singler, of the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion, points out how
discussions amongst AI and Transhumanist enthusiasts signal thoughts of people
waiting for a god104. Singler draws parallels between religious vocabulary
pervading futuristic depictions of technology and technologists — Ray Kurzweil,
being anointed as a ‘prophet’ and sometimes as a ‘prophet of doom’ and
‘superintelligence’ as a sapience surpassing human capabilities. The rhetoric
sometimes become so dense that it is difficult to connect it to reality and the
direction in which technology is progressing105.

A principal reason for this is that whenever people are faced with a situation which
requires predicting the unknown, they always lapse into vocabulary used to
describe the supernatural. As Singler points out, the stories and forms that
religion takes are still predominantly driving the narratives behind AI and
Transhumanist philosophy. And so, people use the same language as they do to
define the ethereal, the metaphysical, and the unknown, rooted in technology
though they may be.

A strong nudge towards using scientifically descriptive analogies is important. A

lot of anxiety about attaining godhood, and immortality are sometimes victims of
poorly articulated intuitions and social arrangements.

Transhumanism, at its core, is the idea that technology can lead to better quality
of life, physically and mentally. The technological objectives can and should fall
under the umbrella of modern scientific trends, as a continuation of the advances

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the world has been witness to. The key determinants of Transhumanism will
always be the success rates of its constituent technologies. More research and
academic intervention are necessary to counter these unhealthy debates.

Narratives that embody pluralism sans intrinsic biases are the need of the hour,
for they are necessary steps for a society heading towards the convergence of
man and machine. Transhumanism, on one hand, will question what it means to
be a human, while on the other, is an open invitation for humanity to shape the
world on a strong scientific edifice.

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Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. London: Duckworth, 2016.
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81
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95
Rakic, Vojin, and Milan M. Cirkovic. "Confronting Existential Risks With Voluntary Moral
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100
Romero-Franco, Michelle, et al. "Needs and Challenges for Assessing the Environmental Impacts of
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101
“Madhav Chandavarkar, Anirudh Kanisetti, et
al, A Framework For Governing Gene Editing, Takshashila Discussion Document, 2017-04”
102
Metz, Rachel, and Rachel Metz. "Five Ways You Can Already Become a Cyborg, One Body Part at a Time."
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part-at-a-time/.
103
Rakic, Vojin, and Milan M. Cirkovic. "Confronting Existential Risks With Voluntary Moral
Bioenhancement." Journal of Evolution and Technology 26, no. 2 (September 26, 2016). Accessed May 19,
2018. https://jetpress.org/v26.2/rakic_cirkovic.htm.

41
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104
Singler, Beth. "Why Is the Language of Transhumanists and Religion so Similar? – Beth Singler | Aeon
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