Technological Posthumanism's Eschatological Discourse.doc (original) (raw)
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2021
Over the past 20 years, the idea of singularity has become increasingly important to the technological visions of posthumanism and transhumanism. The article first introduces key posthumanist authors such as Marvin Minsky, Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Frank Tipler. In the following, the concept of singularity is reviewed from a cultural studies perspective, first with regard to the cosmological singularity and then to the technological singularity. According to posthumanist thinkers the singularity is marked by the emergence of a superhuman computer intelligence that will solve all of humanity's problems. At the same time, it heralds the end of the human era. Most authors refer to the British mathematician Irving John Good's 1965 essay Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine as the originator of the idea of superintelligence. Individual elements of the singularity idea such as the impenetrable event horizon, the frontier and the ongoing acceleration of progress are contextualized historically and culturally.
Posthumanism and the Ends of Technology
Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism, 2022
To pose the question of posthumanist technology today, it is insufficient to reiterate the question as posed by Heidegger in the years immediately following the Second World War. In this chapter, it is argued that only by moving beyond the anthropocentric limits of Heidegger’s position, does it become possible to engage critically with both the place and the potential of technical ensembles within the giant cybernetic system we know as the Anthropocene. To do this, it is necessary first of all to analyze the process of instrumentalization as the deracinating essence of our technological modernity that seems hell-bent on global catastrophe. The coincidence of instrumentality and causality that begins with Aristotle determines just what can and, more importantly, cannot be counted as an entity deserving of ethical consideration. Indeed, the truism that posits the existence of an internal principle unique to biological organisms that governs the organization of living forms of matter still prevails to this day and remains fundamental as to how we think of ourselves as human beings today, a normative process of identification that is repeatedly fed back to us in the form of our worst collective nightmares. This principle, it is argued, serves an entirely ideological function, propping up an unfounded distinction between living and nonliving forms of organization on the basis that the organization of living beings retains as its condition the potential to be profoundly unpredictable. Whereas the metaphysical concept of life only ever drags us back to the impossibility of genetic origin and to the ghost in the machine that is all that remains of humanism, the potential for novelty definitive of metastable forms of organization – including all forms of living being – has no need of magical donations of vitality. And potential, above all else, is the primary concern of both the posthuman and the technological insofar as it concerns the chance of a future in the making.
2006
Posthuman speculative science, typified by the writings of Hans Moravec, Frank Tipler, and Ray Kurzweil, evinces a faith in technology's capacity to transform the future destiny of humankind. For these thinkers technology, and in particular information technology, will provide the means by which present-day humanity or its descendents will participate in their posthuman evolution, thus ushering in an eschatological kingdom marked by the end of human and cosmic finitude. This paper * * * "See, the home of God is among mortals.
Our Posthuman Past: Transhumanism, Posthumanism and Ethical Futures
Technological advances directly affect the human being's material existence and its self-understanding. The Enlightenment's intentional agent is, due to specific technologies, undergoing a fundamental transformation. Yet, if the ideological basis of this understanding, the justness of social luck, is not rejected, then a new understanding of the "subject" which would avoid unfreedom in the territorialization of the digital world is made impossible. This book offers a novel Hegelian reading of the posthuman discipline in order to propose a new subjectivity. Twitter feed on it https://twitter.com/philosvillan/status/1400393073134292998
Being Human in a Technological Age: Rethinking Theological Anthropology, 2020
Unprecedented developments in artificial intelligence (AI) characterize our time. This chapter aims to bring the futuristic expectations of the post- and transhuman world into dialogue with Christian eschatology and anthropology. The choice of a positive-critical interaction between Christian theology and the techno-futurism of Moravec and Kurzweil is obvious, given the fact that AI already has various fields of development. After a brief presentation of both authors, we will examine to what extent their expectations concerning AI and post- and transhumanism are interpreted and guided by philosophical-theological aspects. Consideration will also be given to what degree Christian theology can be enriched and challenged by their technological visions. Doing so, this chapter will focus on the themes of (1) imperishability, inertia, and death, (2) on fragmentation and the dualism of the material and immaterial, and (3) on the transformation of human life.
“Staring into the Singularity” and Other Posthuman Tales: Transhumanist Stories of Future Change
History and Theory, 2021
In this article, I conduct a contextual analysis of transhumanist conceptions of posthuman futures. Focusing on cryonics, nanotechnology, and artificial superintelligence technological projects through a study of primarily American sources from the 1960s onward, I identify three distinct conceptualizations of the posthuman future: Promethean, spontaneous, and scalar. I argue that transhumanists envision posthumanity as resulting from a transition that involves both continuity and radical change. Although these three posthuman futures appear to share an interest in predicting a superior "cosmic" realization of human destiny, they involve distinct "liberal" conceptions of historical agency. These include the unlimited individual liberty of the technologized self, the knowledge-ordering properties of the market, and the rational aggregation of individual interests over the long term. I locate these heterogeneous and partly conflicting conceptions of historical agency in the context of the postwar crisis and remaking of liberalism's future. I argue that transhumanist ideas about the transition toward a more-than-human or beyond-human future are best understood as manifesting a wide range of attempts at thinking about horizons of unprecedented change within the terms of postwar liberal projects. Ultimately, transhumanist futures shed light on the multiplicity of political temporalities that are required for thinking and writing stories about unprecedented futures. This article is part of the Iterations: Historical Futures series edited by Zoltán Boldizsár Simon and Marek Tamm
Accelerating the Human: the cybercultural origins of the ‘Technological Singularity’
2012
"Contemporary 'Singularity' thinking has its origins in Vernor Vinge’s influential proposal of the emergence of greater-than-human artificial intelligence (AI) as an ‘event horizon’ in human history. This notion finds its technological basis in the exponential development of information technology during the 20th century, as expressed in 'Moore’s Law'. However, the pace of development of information technologies is uncertain, and the predictions for the date of emergence of a 'Singularity' are pushing it farther into the future. An analogy can be established with religious eschatology and its trademark anxiety for a form of Rapture. 'Singularity' thinking's ancestry can be traced back to the utopian thinking of Campanella, as well as positivistic utopianism, the works of eschatological thinkers such as Teilhard de Chardin, and the speculative writings of computer scientists. More recently, it has become a common trope in speculative fiction. This heritage is acknowledged in the writings of V. Vinge, which have laid the conditions for the rise of a 'technological singularity'. As an heir to the utopian tradition, 'singularitarianism' espouses a theory of human history as progress towards better forms of existence. Scientific and technological development would be destined to accelerate humankind into a post-human condition, with the creation of artificial intelligence as the milestone signalling the beginning of that new era. The acceleration thesis of ‘singularitarianism’ and its inherent uncertainty have given rise to a variety of positions, ranging from the enthusiastic (as, for example, N. Bostrom, R. Kurzweil, or H. Moravec), to the sceptic (including B. Joy, J. Lanier, R. Penrose). Rarely have they been the object of a sustained philosophical approach (an exception would be D. Chalmers’ “The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis”). The 'Singularity' scenario integrates images, metaphors, notions, and hopes also present in cyberculture: the central element of technology, its interfaces with humans, hybridization, mind-body dualism, the moral nature of AI, and the coexistence between humanity and AI. As a result, this paper addresses a needed critical characterization of 'Singularity' thinking, exploring some"
2015
AI or Artificial Intelligence, beyond technical and scientific application, is one of the most common grounds of technological ideas explored in science fiction films as well as cyberpunk novels. Contemporary science fiction films and novels offer technological adventures where the boundary of human fantasies, adventures and romances interfuse with technological future which tends to blur the age-old conflict between science and religious belief. Blending with visions of science and technology, many of these science fiction films and novels portrait fantasies or quests (for salvation, immortality, overcoming physical illness, innovation, power etc.) as posthuman crises of a post human dystopia while this posthuman condition also offers determinations for transcending any earthly limitations of human existence. This paper intends to explore artificial intelligence within the area of popular science fiction novels and films, which incorporates the fantasy of techno-salvation in the near future of singularity through overcoming the carbon limitations of human, fusing essence of spirituality with technology as well as extending spiritual beliefs into technological faith. Investigating fictional depiction of “Artificial Intelligence” as a transhuman or posthuman idea in science fictions, the paper tries to trace out the potential patterns of technological salvation for humankind while it does also find humanizing or dehumanizing elements in these science fictions about the problematic and politicized power relations of binaries like human/machine or human/non-human. This paper is conducted through qualitative research, especially operating within textual analysis of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer and visual methodology incorporating some contemporary sci-fi films like Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Alex Proyas’ I,Robot (2004), Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix (1999), José Padilh’s Robocop (2014) and Wally Pfister’s Transcendence (2014). Therefore, the paper contends that artificial intelligence, as a posthuman entity in popular science fiction and films, integrates the fantasy of techno-salvation where technology is fused with spirituality extending spiritual beliefs into technological faith. Thus, it tries to destabilize traditional concepts of spiritual beliefs; and at the same time, re-appreciates and re-appropriates the spiritual ideas of omnipotence, heaven, immortality etc. through better comprehending of science and technology.
Call for Papers / Proposals (Philosophy) 2017 - LIMITS AND BOUNDARIES OF THE POSTHUMAN
The term " posthumanism " was used for the first time in the critical sense that entered then common language by Ihab Hassan in 1977. In its almost four decades of existence, posthuman theory has witnessed several evolutions, transformations and refinements, not least because this concept does not name an homogeneous and compact field, but is rather a " discourse " in the Foucauldian sense, a multiplicity of different streams, heterogeneous and fragmented, held together by a basic idea: the notion that old humanism is over. This issue of " Lo Sguardo " intends to attempt a sort of assessment of the last four decades, in order to analyse the limits and boundaries of the concept of posthuman. The leading thread of this issue is thus the question: what is still alive and topical, today, in the question of the posthuman? What themes and trends have progressively run out, and what instead have come to the foreground? How did the questions, and most importantly the answers, to the problem of the posthuman evolve? The question of technology, that is of the hybridization between human and machine, is still for many the most " showy " trait of the posthuman, both in popular culture and for the common understanding within academia; and yet the triumphalism of a certain posthumanism – and above all of its transhumanist deviations – alienated a number of scholars, starting precisely with one of the " mothers " of posthuman theory, Donna Haraway. The fact remains that the levels of technology's intimacy and intrusion into the human have, if anything, enormously increased sinceA Cyborg Manifesto (1983), and so have also the oppositions to it (Habermas, Fukuyama), and this keeps raising inexhaustible ontological, ethical and aesthetic questions (decisive are here Bostrom's reflexions).