Posthuman#Posthuman in transhumanism

{{Main article|Posthumanism}}

In critical theory, the posthuman is a speculative being that represents or seeks to re-conceive the human. It is the object of posthumanist criticism, which critically questions humanism, a branch of humanist philosophy which claims that human nature is a universal state from which the human being emerges; human nature is autonomous, rational, capable of free will, and unified in itself as the apex of existence. Thus, the posthuman position recognizes imperfectability and disunity within oneself, and understands the world through heterogeneous perspectives while seeking to maintain intellectual rigor and dedication to objective observations. Key to this posthuman practice is the ability to fluidly change perspectives and manifest oneself through different identities. The posthuman, for critical theorists of the subject, has an emergent ontology rather than a stable one; in other words, the posthuman is not a singular, defined individual, but rather one who can "become" or embody different identities and understand the world from multiple, heterogeneous perspectives.Haraway, Donna J, "Situated Knowledges" in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge, New York: 1991

Approaches to posthumanism are not homogeneous, and have often been very critical. The term itself is contested, with one of the foremost authors associated with posthumanism, Manuel DeLanda, decrying the term as "very silly."{{cite web|url=http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=383|title=CTheory.net|website=www.ctheory.net|access-date=2009-01-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923211650/http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=383|archive-date=2015-09-23|url-status=dead}} Covering the ideas of, for example, Robert Pepperell's The Posthuman Condition, and Hayles's How We Became Posthuman under a single term is distinctly problematic due to these contradictions.

The posthuman is roughly synonymous with the "cyborg" of A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway.{{cite journal |last1=Mateos-Aparicio |first1=Ángel |title=Trespassers of Body Boundaries: The Cyborg and the Construction of a Postgendered Posthuman Identity |journal=Critical Approaches to Ethnic American Literature |date=2007 |issue=2 |pages=243-296,298-299 |doi=10.1163/9789401204774_014 |isbn=978-94-012-0477-4 |url=https://stats.lib.pdx.edu/proxy.php?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/trespassers-body-boundaries-cyborg-construction/docview/214831096 |access-date=6 May 2024|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite journal|last=Haraway|first=Donna|date=1985|title=Manifesto for cyborgs: science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s|journal=Socialist Review|pages=65–108}} Haraway's conception of the cyborg is an ironic take on traditional conceptions of the cyborg that inverts the traditional trope of the cyborg whose presence questions the salient line between humans and robots. Haraway's cyborg is in many ways the "beta" version of the posthuman,{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} as her cyborg theory prompted the issue to be taken up in critical theory.Haraway, Donna J, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. Routledge, New York: 1991. "A Cyborg Manifesto" originally appeared in Socialist Review in 1985. Following Haraway, Hayles, whose work grounds much of the critical posthuman discourse, asserts that liberal humanism—which separates the mind from the body and thus portrays the body as a "shell" or vehicle for the mind—becomes increasingly complicated in the late 20th and 21st centuries because information technology puts the human body in question. Hayles maintains that we must be conscious of information technology advancements while understanding information as "disembodied," that is, something which cannot fundamentally replace the human body but can only be incorporated into it and human life practices.{{cite book| author = Hayles, N. Katherine| author-link = N. Katherine Hayles| title = How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics| url = https://archive.org/details/howwebecameposth0000hayl| url-access = registration| publisher = University Of Chicago Press| year = 1999| isbn = 978-0-226-32146-2}}

The idea of post-posthumanism (post-cyborgism) has recently been introduced.Mann, Steve. "The post-cyborg path to deconism." CTheory (2003): 2-18.Bredenoord, Annelien L., Rieke van der Graaf, and Johannes JM van Delden. "Toward a "Post-Posthuman Dignity Area" in Evaluating Emerging Enhancement Technologies." The American Journal of Bioethics 10, no. 7 (2010): 55-57.Mann, Steve, James Fung, Mark Federman, and Gianluca Baccanico. "Panopdecon: deconstructing, decontaminating, and decontextualizing panopticism in the postcyborg era." Surveillance & Society 1, no. 3 (2002): 375-398.Campbell, Heidi A. "Postcyborg Ethics: A New Way to Speak of Technology." Explorations in Media Ecology 5, no. 4 (2006): 279-296.Spiller, Neil. "The Magical Architecture in Drawing Drawings." Journal of Architectural Education 67, no. 2 (2013): 264-269.

This body of work outlines the after-effects of long-term adaptation to cyborg technologies and their subsequent removal, e.g., what happens after 20 years of constantly wearing computer-mediating eyeglass technologies and subsequently removing them, and of long-term adaptation to virtual worlds followed by return to "reality."Mann, Steve. "'WearCam'(The wearable camera): personal imaging systems for long-term use in wearable tetherless computer-mediated reality and personal photo/videographic memory prosthesis." In Wearable Computers, 1998. Digest of Papers. Second International Symposium on, pp. 124-131. IEEE, 1998.Azuma, Ronald, Yohan Baillot, Reinhold Behringer, Steven Feiner, Simon Julier, and Blair MacIntyre. "[http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA606245 Recent advances in augmented reality]{{dead link|date=June 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}." IEEE computer graphics and applications 21, no. 6 (2001): 34-47. and the associated post-cyborg ethics (e.g. the ethics of forced removal of cyborg technologies by authorities, etc.).Muri, Allison. The Enlightenment cyborg: a history of communications and control in the human machine, 1660-1830. University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Posthuman political and natural rights have been framed on a spectrum with animal rights and human rights.Woody Evans, 2015. "Posthuman Rights: Dimensions of Transhuman Worlds". Revista Teknokultura 12(2). [http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/TEKN/article/view/49072/46310] Posthumanism broadens the scope of what it means to be a valued life form and to be treated as such (in contrast to certain life forms being seen as less-than and being taken advantage of or killed off); it “calls for a more inclusive definition of life, and a greater moral-ethical response, and responsibility, to non-human life forms in the age of species blurring and species mixing. … [I]t interrogates the hierarchic ordering—and subsequently exploitation and even eradication—of life forms.”{{Cite book|title=Posthumanism|last=Nayar|first=Pramod K.|publisher=Polity|year=2014|isbn=978-0745662411|location=Cambridge|pages=8–9}}

Technology integrated into the human body changes how individuals interact with the external world. Sensory activity is mediated by technology, creating a new interface with the world. The introduction of nanotechnologies and hybrid computing into the organism alters the normal perception and cognition of things and the world. The fusion of the human body with technology within the organism lays the groundwork for the emergence of individuals endowed with new attributes and capabilities. Human beings and the modification of their psycho-physical characteristics become subjects of direct manipulation, necessitating a reevaluation of the concept of humanity from various humanistic, philosophical, and biological perspectives.

Human ability to incorporate inorganic elements of technological nature into oneself can radically alter both inner and outer appearance, transforming individuals into cyborgs. This new hybrid form replaces the humanistic view of humanity and raises a series of new philosophical questions concerning ethics and human nature.{{Cite book|author=Eugenio Viola|title=Post Human: experiences and issues in art criticism|volume=}}

Especially for new generations, the combination of carnal body and virtual body can determine forms of identity hybridization and possible negative effects on identity formation.{{Cite journal

| last = Digennaro

| first = Simone

| title = The syndrome of multiple bodies: the transformative impact of the onlife existence on preadolescents

| journal = Frontiers in Education

| volume = 9

| date = April 4, 2024

| doi = 10.3389/feduc.2024.1362448

| doi-access = free

}}

{{main article|Transhumanism}}

{{further|topic=an intermediate form between human and posthuman|Transhuman}}

According to transhumanist thinkers, a posthuman is a hypothetical future being "whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."{{cite web |url=https://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-faq/ |title=Transhumanist FAQ |website=Humanity+ |date=c. 2016 |orig-year=Version 1.0 published c. 1998 |version=Version 3.0 |access-date=2018-08-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061231225013/http://www.transhumanism.org/resources/FAQv21.pdf |archive-date=2006-12-31 |url-status=live}} Posthumans primarily focus on cybernetics, the posthuman consequent and the relationship to digital technology. Steve Nichols published the Posthuman Movement manifesto in 1988. His early evolutionary theory of mind (MVT) allows development of sentient E1 brains. The emphasis is on systems. Transhumanism does not focus on either of these. Instead, transhumanism focuses on the modification of the human species via any kind of emerging science, including genetic engineering, digital technology, and bioengineering.{{cite web|title=What is the difference between posthumanism and transhumanism?|url=https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/lagrandeur20140729|website=Institute for Ethics and Transforming Technologies |date=2014-07-28 |first=Kevin |last=LaGrandeur |access-date=8 November 2017}} Transhumanism is sometimes criticized for not adequately addressing the scope of posthumanism and its concerns for the evolution of humanism.{{cite journal | author = Evans, W. | title = Review of On Transhumanism | journal = Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation | volume = 38 | issue = 2 | pages = 271–74 | date = June 2022 | doi = 10.13169/prometheus.38.2.0271 | doi-access = free }}

{{Further|Human enhancement}}

Posthumans could be completely synthetic artificial intelligences, or a symbiosis of human and artificial intelligence, or uploaded consciousnesses, or the result of making many smaller but cumulatively profound technological augmentations to a biological human, i.e. a cyborg. Some examples of the latter are redesigning the human organism using advanced nanotechnology or radical enhancement using some combination of technologies such as genetic engineering, psychopharmacology, life extension therapies, neural interfaces, advanced information management tools, memory enhancing drugs, wearable or implanted computers, and cognitive techniques.

As used in this article, "posthuman" does not necessarily refer to a conjectured future where humans are extinct or otherwise absent from the Earth.Ferrando, Francesca [https://www.academia.edu/29854963/_WHY_SPACE_MIGRATION_MUST_BE_POSTHUMAN_Full_Text "Space Migration Must Be Posthuman"] in Critical Posthumanism and Planetary Futures, Springer 2016, pp. 243-256. Kevin Warwick says that both humans and posthumans will continue to exist but the latter will predominate in society over the former because of their abilities.{{Cite book |last=Warwick |first=Kevin |title=I, Cyborg |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=2004 |url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072154}} Recently, scholars have begun to speculate that posthumanism provides an alternative analysis of apocalyptic cinema and fiction,{{Cite book|title=Fantasies of Self-Mourning: Modernism, the Posthuman and the Finite.|last=Borg|first=Ruben|publisher=Brill|year=2019|isbn=9789004390348|location=Leiden}} often casting vampires, werewolves, zombies and greys{{cite book |last1=Masters |first1=Michael Paul |title=Identified Flying Objects A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon |date=March 15, 2019 |publisher=Masters Creative LLC |isbn=9781733634007 |pages=168–213 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334545996}}{{cite book |last1=Masters |first1=Dr Michael Paul |title=The Extratempestrial Model |date=June 2022 |publisher=Full Circle Press |isbn=978-1733634045 |pages=273–286 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361103244}} as potential evolutions of the human form and being.Deborah Christie, Sarah Juliet Lauro, ed. (2011). [https://books.google.com/books?id=0oZIlm84F2oC&q=romero+&pg=PA57 Better Off Dead: The Evolution of the Zombie as Post-Human]. Fordham Univ Press. p. 169. {{ISBN|0-8232-3447-9}}, 9780823234479 With these potential evolutions of humans and posthumans, human centered designed ways of thinking needs to also be inclusive of these new posthumans. The new "post human resists binary categories and, instead, integrates the human and the nonhuman.[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405872616300971#sec4]" Human centered thinking needs to be redone in a way to include posthumanism.

Many science fiction authors, such as Greg Egan, H. G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Bruce Sterling, Frederik Pohl, Greg Bear, Charles Stross, Neal Asher, Ken MacLeod, Peter F. Hamilton, Ann Leckie, and authors of the Orion's Arm Universe,{{cite web|url=http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/492d76d2f173e|title=Archailects|website=Orion's Arm - Encyclopedia Galactica}} have written works set in posthuman futures.

A variation on the posthuman theme is the notion of a "posthuman god"; the idea that posthumans, being no longer confined to the parameters of human nature, might grow physically and mentally so powerful as to appear possibly god-like by present-day human standards. This notion should not be interpreted as being related to the idea portrayed in some science fiction that a sufficiently advanced species may "ascend" to a higher plane of existence—rather, it merely means that some posthuman beings may become so exceedingly intelligent and technologically sophisticated that their behaviour would not possibly be comprehensible to modern humans, purely by reason of their limited intelligence and imagination.Michael Shermer. [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shermers-last-law Shermer's Last Law], Jan 2002, see also * Oliver Krüger: Virtual Immortality. God, Evolution, and the Singularity in Post- and Transhumanism., Bielefeld: transcript 2021

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• Body hacking
• Biopunk
• Kardashev scale
• Nanopunk
• Posthumanization
• Postcyberpunk
• Speculative evolution
• Technological singularity
• Transhumanism
• Web life

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In 2017, Penn State University Press in cooperation with Stefan Lorenz Sorgner and James Hughes established the Journal of Posthuman Studies, in which all aspects of the concept "posthuman" can be analysed.{{cite web |title=Journal of Posthuman Studies: Philosophy, Technology, Media |url=http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html}}

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Category:Critical theory

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Category:Transhumanism

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Category:Science fiction themes