Knowmads, Infocology of the future

The human body sits squarely at the center of this debate. Until today, we have largely conceived of technology as a collection of external objects. Now, technology enters the body, merges with it, becomes a constitutive part of its host. This presents us with a unique moment in evolutionary history. The biggest drivers of change can be found in the military and the pharmaceutical sectors of the economy. And the big unknown is whether we will be able to put the new possibilities to good use.

New ideologies have emerged that frame the techno-narrative and justify its propagation. The most influential among them is the ideology of transhumanism, a worldview predicated on the notion of transcendence. By merging man and machine, transhumanists hope to open up new avenues of human development. A core group of transhumanist thinkers has found a home at Oxford University, from where they fight against the humanist desire to protect and examine humanity in its current form...

This changes everything: Not only our human self-perception (which has always been important for our conception of present and future) but also our definition of civilization. Some of these developments proceed at a breathtaking pace, and it’s only justified to ask whether members of the transhumanist vanguard and advocates of “inversive” technologies actually grasp the consequences of their work.

Hence the following assertion: The emerging global neuro-technological industry is more significant than all current political uprisings and military conflicts. Experiments are good. Careless tinkering with human nature is not.

The crucial point is that we simply don’t know enough about ourselves to speedily abandon our current view of humanity and to turn ourselves – as some transhumanists desire – into cyborg creatures. Our confusion starts at the fundamental level: For example, what does it mean to “know”? Is it possible to transfer all knowledge online if we can develop algorithms with adequate levels of sophistication? Can knowledge become de-corporealized?

Technology will become more human in the long run!