Philip Butler | Iliff School of Theology (original) (raw)

Papers by Philip Butler

Georgetown Law Journal, 2024

If you are old enough to remember the song that inspired the title of this Essay, (1) then you mi... more If you are old enough to remember the song that inspired the title of this Essay, (1) then you might already be vibing out to its potential. In Afrofuturistic fashion, I intend to lean into the song's line as a means to explore the topics of data citizenship, (2) data ownership, and universal basic income as it pertains to Black people. Thinking of a master plan is a nod to systematic and intentional approaches to materializing realities in the present timeline. In this case, I am referring to the dimensions of Blackness in/and the United States as timeline(s) all their own. Although these interdimensional, intersectional contexts could extend to people on the African continent and every other Afro-diasporic iteration around the globe, the current lack of cohesive thinking concerning data and its legislation makes the ability to speak broadly more difficult (although one could imagine what it means for people to participate transactionally with U.S. economic structures while outside the United States). Still, I intend to provide this exploration through a Black posthumanist lens that is not only antihuman but is the foundational framework responsible for Black transhuman or Black techno-social ways of being in and with the world.

Transtraterrestrial: The Prequel to the Unarrival Experiment, 2023

The Black Scholar, 2023

This essay will attempt to take a few disparate concepts (spacetime, demonology, neurobiology and... more This essay will attempt to take a few disparate concepts (spacetime, demonology, neurobiology and the US popular culture concept of demon time) and tie them to together in an effort to postulate a necessary cocktail for the end of the world. I think the idea of the end of the world is over stigmatized. Meaning, the end of the world does not have to be the end of the earth—in an ecological sense. However, the malleable nature of planet earth suggests/implies/infers the world is something different. The concept and practice of Worldbuilding places natural environment(s) (in this case earth) in conversation with the mentality, sociality, geopolitical desires, agricultural imagination and technological advancements of a collection of people. This suggests that a world is a materializing figment of an imagined landscape. So, the end of the world should be something less than anxiety inducing. Because in this sense it is not the end of earth and life itself, but the end of one particular mode of existence/way of life over others. So, this discussion on the end of the world is referencing the end of an epoch, era, regime, or episteme.

The Black Scholar, 2022

This essay will explore various forms of technology. It begins with a short discussion on resista... more This essay will explore various forms of technology. It begins with a short discussion on resistance and spirituality that leads to a grounding in both Black transhumanist and Black posthumanist thought. From there it opens up into a reflection on the body as biotechnology and moves to explore spirituality as action technology. If spirituality is a technology associated with the body, then how might spirituality work to maintain and advance bodies? Due to spirituality’s potential to orient bodies in space, part of the work is to unpack the term and it’s relationship with technology. Doing so might allow for spirituality to be digital. By demonstrating that spirituality is more so an element of the mundane, digital spirituality becomes the extension of one’s way of life into digital mediums. Within this line of thought, resistance is considered something used to direct spirituality. So, the combination of spirituality, resistance and digital worlds is meant to open portals into possibilities of complex manifestations of their deployment in everyday life.

Journal of Future Studies, 2019

This essay introduces the Black posthuman transformer. As a futuristic entity, it is a gender shi... more This essay introduces the Black posthuman transformer. As a futuristic entity, it is a gender shifting complex autopoietic system of infinitely augmentable capability. In contrast to the cyborg’s physical and existential compartmentalizations, it is the complete merger of the human animal with nature (as machine) at the cellular level, and so gives vitality to: the technology it embodies; the animality in which it is immersed; and the self-determination necessary for its present temporality. The Black posthuman transformer optimally embodies the energy of what I argue is the complexity of complexities, committing its life towards the freedom its existence requires.

Spiritualities, ethics, and implications of human enhancement and artificial intelligence, 2020

In this chapter, Butler explores potential directions for spiritually augmenting brain computer i... more In this chapter, Butler explores potential directions for spiritually augmenting brain computer interfaces (SABCIs), and the importance of employing computational ethics for emergent technologies. This chapter looks into the ways that neurological understandings of three psychedelic substances (ayahuasca, psilocybin, and LSD) can form the foundation of SABCI experiences. Here, SABCIs function as speculative transhumanist machinery to engineer spiritual augmentation through the regulation of categorically spiritually experiences. This chapter begins with a neurological exploration of the effects that these psychedelic substances have on the brain. This is done in order to unearth some level of similarity among the chosen substances. It then moves to offer possible SABCI experience profiles, and raises questions regarding the ethical distribution and regulation of SABCIs. Finally, this chapter concludes with a proposal for emergent technologies, such as the SABCI, which is grounded in computational ethics.

Oxford Handbook of Humanism, 2020

This chapter explores the relationship between humanism and well-being through the lens of value.... more This chapter explores the relationship between humanism and well-being through the lens of value. Several conceptions of well-being will be explored. The first is Peter Derkx's description of what constitutes a meaningful life. The second is Anthony Pinn's notion of presence, absence, and the quest for complex subjectivity. The chapter provides critique of both proposals before moving to examine Yasmin Trejo's exploration of Latina nones who struggle for value, through recognition, in Latin American communities. The chapter also connects Monica Miller's presentation of Black youth and Jay-Z, as outlaw human ists, to well-being by constructing one's self-worth. Through an examination of an often overlooked or underexplored demographic along with groups who have historically expe rienced dehumanization, the chapter lifts up the desire to be recognized as a necessary factor in well-being. And the ability to construct one's own sense of meaning as a human ist practice is an essential element for increasing well-being. Ultimately, this chapter as serts that value, whether given, unearthed, or constructed, is the foundation of humanist well-being.

Black Transhuman Liberation Theology , 2019

The foundation of Black posthumanism includes these principles. They can be found in Black Trans... more The foundation of Black posthumanism includes these principles. They can be found in Black Transhuman Liberarion Theology (Butler 2019).

Journal of Posthuman Studies

This article seeks to deconstruct the language employed by critical posthumanism, speciﬁcally th... more This article seeks to deconstruct the language employed by critical posthumanism,
speciﬁcally the term “human animal.” It explores the implications of its use as a
blockade against the equitable inclusion of Black bodies in human enhancement. Essentially, it suggests that human advancement has universal implications. is
is especially important in considering how enhancement will be distributed among those who do not ﬁt normative humanistic descriptions. e reality of my context is that many Black folks in the United States are just beginning to explore what it means to be both Black and human within the bounds of
“equality.” ere remains within Black subjects a tremendous amount of baggage
associated with historical objectiﬁcations, stemming from ancestral experiences
and communal narratives. So, when white scholars propose a futuristic critical
framework without employing a thorough assessment of race, skepticism from Black scholars regarding equity should be expected. is is especially true when
human animality is a key component of that framework.

In this chapter, Butler explores potential realities of technocratic automation at the intersecti... more In this chapter, Butler explores potential realities of technocratic automation at the intersection of criminal sentencing, artificial intelligence, and race. The chapter begins with a synopsis of the role automation plays in technocratic electronic governance. It then moves to demonstrate how the implementation of automation has adversely effected Black communities. Butler then illustrates how artificial intelligence is currently outpacing human performance implying that soon, in the realm of criminal sentencing, artificially intelligent judges will emerge; outperforming and eventually replacing human judges. Next, he applies the lens of race to outline how current concepts of artificial cognitive architectures merely reiterate oppressive racial biases. The chapter concludes by imagining how contemplative overlays might be applied to artificial cognitive architectures to allow for more mindful and just sentencing.

Books by Philip Butler

Bloomsbury Academic, 2019

Mediating Black religious studies, spirituality studies, and liberation theology, Philip Butler e... more Mediating Black religious studies, spirituality studies, and liberation theology, Philip Butler explores what might happen if Black people in the United States merged technology and spirituality in their fight towards materializing liberating realities.

The discussions shaping what it means for humans to exist with technology and as part of technology are already underway: transhumanism suggests that any use of technology to augment intellectual, psychological, or physical capability makes one transhuman. In an attempt to encourage Black people in the United States to become technological progenitors as a spiritual act, Butler asks whether anyone has ever been 'just' human? Butler then explores the implications of this question and its link to viewing the body as technology.

Re-imagining incarnation as a relationship between vitality, biochemistry, and genetics, the book also takes a critical scientific approach to understanding the biological embodiment of Black spiritual practices. It shows how current and emerging technologies might align with the generative biological states of Black spiritualities in order to concretely disrupt and dismantle oppressive societal structures.
Table of contents
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments

Introduction and Overview
1. Thinking of Black Transhumanism: Non-Humanity, Moving Away From Transhumanism's Roots
2. Foundations of a Black Transhumanism: Blackness as the Biotechnologically Mediated Experience of Black Vitality
3. The Neurophysiology of Spiritual Experience
4. Black Transhuman Liberation Theology
5. Black Transhumanism as Revolt Spirituality

Glossary of Terms
Notes
References
Index

Critical Black Futures , 2021

Critical Black Futures imagines worlds, afrofutures, cities, bodies, art and eras that are simult... more Critical Black Futures imagines worlds, afrofutures, cities, bodies, art and eras that are simultaneously distant, parallel, present, counter, and perpetually materializing. From an exploration of W. E. B. Du Bois’ own afrofuturistic short stories, to trans* super fluid blackness, this volume challenges readers—community leaders, academics, communities, and creatives—to push further into surreal imaginations. Beyond what some might question as the absurd, this book is presented as a speculative space that looks deeply into the foundations of human belief. Diving deep into this notional rabbit hole, each contributor offers a thorough excursion into the imagination to discover ‘what was’, while also providing tools to push further into the ‘not yet’.

Drafts by Philip Butler

Concillium, 2021

This is an extended version of an essay to be published in Concillium in 2021: This essay peers ... more This is an extended version of an essay to be published in Concillium in 2021:

This essay peers into the off-centered points of globality in hopes to unpack a few nodes of posthuman subjectivity-namely Blackness. Historically, the ghostly and monstrous were used to distance Blackness from the humanity and divinity. Outside of the realm of Black theology, Blackness has not historically been associated with divine embodiment/incarnation. This essay seeks to turn the terms specter and monster on their head, being subjectivities that bear divine reality. An investigation into the dangers posed by Black spectral and monstrous divinity points toward new posthuman subjectivities (being specters and monsters of Black personhood and divinity). Whenever people see a ghost they make sense of it the best they know how. Or, not. Here, meaning relies heavily on the current contours of individual perspectives/knowledge systems. Very little prepares people for seeing a ghost, except experience with the ghostly. Further, people rarely actually see the specter. They see and feel the effects of the ways ghosts interact with their environment. The same goes for when people try to make sense of an encounter with a monster.

Conference Presentations by Philip Butler

This paper/presentation will provide an initial exploration of a Black posthumanist reality. It w... more This paper/presentation will provide an initial exploration of a Black posthumanist reality. It will do so as an extension of Zakiyya Iman Jackson’s invitation to pause present convergences upon u-/dis-topic posthuman future(s). This pause is not an invitation for other posthuman thinkers to stop imagining so much as it is a call to take seriously the types of imagining that takes place around the particularities of Black posthuman imaginations. Black scholarship often stands in critique of posthuman framings of the human or the post-. Posthuman utopias which often promote ideas of hyper relative, ubiquitous egalitarianism continue to under explore what might be both posthuman and utopic from the vantage point of Black people—where Black people name these future realities for themselves on their own terms. Granted not many Black scholars have explicitly ventured into the waters of posthuman thought. However, within this paper I will begin to conceptualize a Black posthumanism. While Rosi Braidotti offers what she names as a move “beyond Humanism . . . [where she] envisage[s] a leap forward towards a posthuman ethics of collaborative construction of alternative and post-identitarian ways of ‘being-in-this-together’” I think a more intricate look into the importance of these identities (namely Black identities) and how Black people might live from them in the midst of their dynamic fluctuations is important to consider—given the delicate, complex and tumultuous histories that still need to be unpacked. This also includes present ways of being. So, this paper will wrestle with what it means to be both Black and posthuman while considering the arduous relationship between Blackness and humanity. In doing so, I will engage questions such as: where are Black people in posthuman future(s)? In posthuman utopia(s)? What might happen when Black people create, sustain and live under Black ways of being in a space where they might govern themselves? How do we make room for a fluidity of identities, including a fluidity of Black identities? How might Black people imagine a posthuman existence and what might a Black posthumanism look like? Especially, in contrast to other notions of critical, philosophical and technological posthumanist thought?