assignment 1 - guiding question 2

2. “From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be a human.” Discuss critically.
To discuss and address this question critically, the response would likely have to address several important questions…

Does the act of radically exceeding the basic capabilities of the human body make a person less human? How has the body been continually reinterpreted, and in the eyes of society, has ‘what it means to be human’ changed? Is modern medicine and science taking humanity to posthumanity? Is it possible to be human without a body? Through transhumanism, does mankind risk losing it’s humanity entirely?

These are all questions that flash into my mind, and are ones which I would hope to investigate inside an actual response to the essay question. Obviously, this would require detailed research into the range of topics surrounding trans/post/humanism, identity and technology. The following are five different sources that I would likely use to aid and support my critical discussion of the question.

Nick Bostrom appeared frequently in my search for high quality research, and for good reason. His paper, In Defence of Posthuman Dignity, evaluates the arguments between transhumanists and bioconservatives in fairly great detail, while still using clear and easily understood language. It underlines the difficulties faced by transhumanists in making the argument that becoming cyborgs/post human is not an attack, but rather is ‘compatible and complementary’ to humanity. Sources are like these are invaluable because so often others appear to use difficult and complicated language in their discussion to appear more sophisticated. The source is of scholarly origin and is of a high standard, featuring a detailed reference list.

K. Mark Smith has written an interesting paper that confronts three popular arguments against posthuman enhancements, while noting the pitfalls of these arguments and essentially providing posthuman counter-counter arguments. This is important in the critical response to the statement as a person needs to have an idea of several different arguments to make a fair response. Smith’s engagement of those arguments makes it particularly valuable to my engagement of the essay. Of similar style to Bostrom’s article, it is written in relatively clear language, which is so essential in opening the debate to a wide audience and keeping the potentially complicated arguments simple. Smith’s paper is also well sourced and of scholarly origin, confirming it as a high value source.

Anthony Tongen writes an interesting article on biological computers and if they will ever advance to the stage of being considered human. Tongen has made the point that should scientists accurately ‘map’ the neural and chemical processes of the brain, the technology already exists to build computers operating the same processes. Clearly this article would be a valuable source in responding to the essay question because it helps raise the point that, at least physically, even the most advanced parts of the human body will likely ‘soon’ be able to be reproduced in computers. Will this lead to the creation of a ‘human’ AI? Probably not, given the difficult ethics, but the source is still valuable in exploring these issues. Tongen’s article is not perfect however, as there are some elements that lower the value of the source. The source is becoming dated, being around five years old. Furthermore, Tongen does not include an extensive bibliography in his article, referencing only a few sources.

Andy Miah’s paper argues that transhumanism has so far lacked mainstream support not because it isn’t applicable, but because of the difficulty of applying it in our cautious technological society. He goes on to make that point that the one area in which it has been acceptable in society so far is professional sport. This is important because it raises the point that the nature of elite sports is to push (and perhaps go beyond) the capabilities of the human body. What then, when athletes are no longer entirely human? This paper is clearly of relevance to the essay statement and being of a well-researched scholarly nature, is a high value source.

Although Daniel Nalesnik is not a fully accomplished academic, his paper is still well researched and quite useful in critically responding to the essay question. Naelsnik the views and opinions of several prominent thinkers in the area of posthumanity, such as Fukuyama, Clark, Brooks, McKibbin and Kurzweil. This paper is a great starting point to discover what are the major concerns and themes surrounding posthumanism are, which is of relevance to ‘what it means to be human’. His paper is well sourced and hosted on an academic website, lending it credibility.

Hopefully from the brief webliography above, one can see that any essay critically addressing the statement that ‘From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, the body is continually reinterpreted as a limit to what it means to be human’ would be well placed to make a reasonable response. Though I have noted a general swing towards transhumanist views in my sources, the sources above are fairly balanced themselves, making this a smaller problem. If there wasn’t the limit of 5 sources available online, I would have liked to include more sources from the humanist point of view. As it stands, I believe this webliography is a good base from which to firstly form a response, and secondly use as a base for further reading, such that one might be able to critically respond to the essay statement.

references

Bostrom, Nick (2005) In Defence of Posthuman Dignity, http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/dignity.html (accessed 28 August 2008)

Smith, Mark K. (2005) Saving Humanity?:
Counter-arguing Posthuman Enhancement, http://jetpress.org/volume14/smith.html (accessed 20 August 2008)

Tongen, Anthony (2003) Will Biological Computers Enable Artificially Intelligent Machines to Become Persons?, http://www.cbhd.org/resources/biotech/tongen_2003-11-07_print.htm (accessed 26 August 2008)

Miah, Andy (2003) Be Very Afraid:
Cyborg Athletes, Transhuman Ideals & Posthumanity, http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/miah.html (accessed 24 August 2008)

Nalesnik, Daniel (2005) Posthumanity: Changing Our Species, http://www.comcol.umass.edu/academics/deansbookcourse/pdfs/F05Nalesnik.pdf (accessed 23 August 2008)