How do you feel when you put on your virtual reality goggles and are whisked away into the Amazonian jungle? And when does the doctor tell you the sex of your unborn child? Even when you just call someone on Skype instead of meeting in person? Nothing special? Let's try to find out if so …
Through man
This is a literal translation from Latin of the word "transhumanism". Now it is no longer just a philosophical concept founded in the 1930s by the English evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley, but a whole international movement. The main commandment of transhumanists is to make humanity better, that is, to improve our mental and physical capabilities, bringing us closer to "perfection." The main goal is to get rid of suffering, disease, old age and even death.
For this purpose, transhumanism in every possible way supports technical progress, studies the achievements of science in order to timely prevent moral problems associated with the implementation of these achievements. This includes resisting government initiatives that restrict cutting-edge research, teachings and organizations that promote ideas of "return to nature" opposite to transhumanism, as well as religious fundamentalism, traditionalism and other similar trends.
Many of the transhumanists believe that the continuously accelerating scientific and technological progress by 2050 will allow the creation of the so-called posthuman - the “human of the future”, created using the latest technologies: genetic engineering, nanotechnology, neuroprostheses and direct “computer-brain” systems.
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New appearance
Transhumanists intend to solve the problem of sick or crippled people. For this, it is proposed to use neuroprostheses - electronic implants that can restore sensitive and cognitive functions in case of their loss (for example, today a cochlear implant is used - a device that restores the functions of the eardrum and stapes). Organs that have ceased to work or are completely absent are also proposed to be grown (which is being done today) or cloned.
But the participants in the movement "through man" do not stop there. They intend to transform quite healthy people, whose abilities they want to develop to literally inhuman ones. Just first you need to learn how to accurately diagnose genetic diseases at the embryonic stage. “Unnecessary” embryos should be removed, and “necessary” ones should be replaced. We are talking not only about congenital diseases, but also simply about the choice of external data of the unborn child: from the color of the eyes and the shape of the nose to gender, height and level of intelligence. It is clear that, theoretically, it is at this stage that many human problems can be solved.
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But transhumanists don't think about the psychological component. True, they still came up with something. They propose to solve many personal difficulties with the help of doping (simply giving a person narcotic drugs) and nootropics, that is, neurometabolic stimulants (drugs designed to have a specific effect on the higher mental functions of the brain - mental activity, cognitive processes, memory and learning ability) …
And the transhumanists have declared war on suffering. How? Roughly the same: using tranquilizers (psychotropic drugs, most often designed to reduce anxiety and fear), analgesics (pain relievers), antidepressants, empathogens (substances that enhance empathy between people and suppress any negative feelings; close to psychedelics, for example, a well-known psychostimulant Ecstasy also refers to empathogens).
The latter, by the way, sometimes even lead to long-term improvements in quality of life and mental health (but not permanently). The rest, as a rule, cause strong dependence and many side effects, which are sometimes so strong that they completely negate the benefits of such drugs. How to deal with these troubles is not clear. There is, however, the option of using "natural" hormones instead of the same psychedelics. Take the "love hormone" oxytocin. It is known that if you introduce this hormone to a person, he will begin to show love and understanding to others and, as a result, become “happier” himself. Sometimes even in the long run. True, those around them, in theory, may be different - from a wife to a casual passer-by, or, say, a thief who wants to steal your wallet …
Bright future
Transhumanists, however, hope that in the future it will be possible to create more harmless analogues of these substances - to make more advanced antidepressants or the same empathogens. And they also rely on technologies that today you can only dream about (well, or fantasize). For example, cryonics - deep freezing of a person (or his brain) in the dying stage. The goal is to "revive" him in the future, when technologies have reached such a level that it will be possible to quickly cure the disease from which he dies (for example, cancer or myocardial infarction).
Transhumanists also hope for the so-called loading of consciousness - a hypothetical technology for scanning and mapping the brain, which will allow transferring a person's consciousness to another system or to a computer. As a result - to invest huge databases in the brain (say, new languages or methods of struggle), or even completely "reload" it in order to "clear" unnecessary information (something like getting rid of unhappy love in the movie "Eternal Sunshine mind ").
You can do without a biological brain or its parts altogether, replacing it with an exocortex - an external information processing system, a kind of "prosthesis" of the cerebral cortex. By the way, if the term is understood broadly, then we can assume that the exocortex has already been partially introduced into our minds in the form of the Internet, gadgets and smartphones. This is understandable, because today all this greatly simplifies the process of "thinking" and memorizing (if you forgot some fact, you can find information about it on the Web in seconds and … forget about it again).
True, the process of creating an exocortex began, in fact, with the advent of writing. People no longer needed to store a huge abyss of information in their heads - it was enough to put it in books and then read it.
The famous anthropologist Stanislav Drobyshevsky even claims that over the past 25 thousand years, the human brain has decreased. Is this connected with the "stupidity" of humanity? On the one hand, there is no direct correlation between brain size and intelligence level. On the other hand, up to certain limits, after which, of course, the process of mental degradation begins. In fact, today each of us no longer needs to know how to build a house, and at the same time be able to observe the movement of the Sun and the stars (to determine the timing of the harvest, for example), to hunt professionally and successfully and at the same time be able to predict the weather. Everyone today is responsible for his own field of activity: an engineer - for designing a house, an astronomer - for observing the sky, a hunter - for hunting fur, and a meteorologist - for predicting the weather. It's comfortable,reliable and leads to an increase in the general intelligence of mankind, but, possibly, to a decrease in its level in an individual.
One of the best scenarios for such a development, according to the same Stanislav Drobyshevsky, is a highly developed civilization with the same highly developed people (on the condition that a decrease in the level of intelligence does not reach a certain critical point). One of the worst is the transformation of humanity into a kind of biomass of organisms that only do what they eat and reproduce. All other organs are simply reduced in them. Like parasites. Is it happiness? The question is philosophical.
About feelings
What will a person experience if he is sure that he will live forever? There is a chance that it will become for him something that Bilbo Baggins, the hero of The Lord of the Rings, described, speaking of his endless life: “I’m as thin, stretched out … like a piece of butter smeared on too much bread.” In 2013, sociologists of the Levada Center asked passers-by with the question: "Do you want to live forever?" To everyone's surprise, 62% of Russians do not wish for a similar fate. Indeed, in this case, questions immediately arise: how exactly to live - whether I will be healthy or sick; will my relatives and friends be alive and well; and why? Despite the seemingly seductive prospects, if a person knows that he will never die, will he be motivated to do something in life, to achieve something? Firstly, "there will always be time", and secondly,“I won’t die anyway” - achievements are not necessary for immortality (read more about this in issue No. 14 for September-October 2014 in the article “Is a person ready to live forever?”).
And if you die, but live a happy and rich life, which was full of joy because of taking all kinds of drugs, and instead of unhappy love, "happy" was loaded into the brain? In this case, happiness, it would seem, is possible. But is there a chance to feel like a real human being? Or maybe this feeling is not necessary at all? This is no longer psychology, but philosophy, which, perhaps someday, will give an answer to the question of what happiness is and a person as an essence.
Opinion
“The question of“dehumanizing”people with the help of gadgets directly relates to the question“What do we call human?”Says psychoanalyst Dmitry Olshansky. - When we use soap or a toothbrush, does it “dehumanize” our nature or not? Are we giving up our natural state when we use electric lights or a car? The question of gadgets is on a par with these questions, and, of course, it is far from new.
With regard to every major invention of mankind, the question arose, does it not violate our natural appearance? At the end of the 13th century, there was a serious theological debate in Florence about whether glasses were an invention of Satan, who wants to violate human nature by tempting us with vigilance, and whether a good Christian can use this dubious invention.
Since then, the danger of losing human nature has been talked about every time in connection with the invention of printing or the steam engine, cinema or the Internet - any thing that changes our way of life. Indeed, man is the only creature that is able to independently change the surrounding reality and the environment in which it lives.
Throughout the history of his existence, a person is only engaged in changing his nature. According to Freud's aphorism, human culture began when, instead of killing the enemy, our distant ancestor began to shower him with insults. Man arose there and then when he began to use words, that is, to replace material reality with symbolic one. Instead of murder, he began to scold, instead of violence against the opposite sex, he used the words of seduction, instead of accidental reproduction - the laws of kinship. That is, natural reactions were replaced by cultural codes, so our distant ancestor became a man.
Rituals of memory, taboos on incest, elementary kinship structures - this is what distinguishes humans from animals, symbolic order made us human and brought us out of natural space. Man is a product of an exit from the natural environment, he arose as a result of the counter-natural, unnatural development of evolution. So the question of “dehumanizing” people in connection with the invention of certain devices sounds illogical. After all, the more unnatural our environment becomes, the more symbolic, digital, digital it is, the more human and comfortable it is for the development of the species Homo sapiens.
Olga Fadeeva
