Discussions of the implications of the augmentation of our biological bodies with prosthetic technologies can be found quite readily in the esoteric discourses of self-described transhumanists, social theorists and bioethicists.
Engineering Greater Resilience or Radical Transhuman Enhancement?
by Andy MiahAbstract: This article investigates the conceptual distinctions between therapy and various forms of human enhancement. It begins by proposing a typology of human enhancements in order to make more rigorous and grounded discussions about the distinction between therapy and enhancement. Three types of human enhancement are proposed: 1) engineering traits of accepted value, 2) engineering traits of contested value and 3) radical transhuman enhancements. Subsequently, the paper explores the distinctions between the ethical justifications that are advanced for therapeutic interventions, comparing them with human enhancements, concluding that the salient characteristic of health-related suffering enables enhancement to gain legitimacy from the perspective of traditional medical ethics. Finally, the paper considers a number of practical obstructions to the realization of radical transhuman enhancements. Specifically, it discusses procedural obstacles to approving experimental medical research for human enhancements, the likely commercialization of human enhancements that would ensue from their development, and the need to develop experimental medical interventions via animal models.
Recommended Citation
Miah, Andy (2008) “Engineering Greater Resilience or Radical Transhuman Enhancement?,”
Available as PDF here after registration
The Shifgrethor of Changelings
by Athena Andreadis“Maybe there are only two sexes: men and mothers.” Alice Sheldon, writing as James Tiptree Jr. to Joanna Russ
Radical Prosthetic Implants
by Mike TrederAn article in Scientific American titled ”Scientists Set Sights on an Implantable Prosthetic for the Blind” tells about a Boston neuroscientist who is “developing a device that may someday help the blind by sending images directly to the brain.”
Postgenderism: Beyond the Gender Binary (IEET White Paper 03)
by George DvorskyAn IEET White Paper by By George Dvorsky and James Hughes.
This essay is forthcoming in an edited book on gender and reproductive technologies, but in a shorter, revised form. So we wanted to share this IEET White Paper version with our readership for comment and improvement that we can use in revising the book chapter.
Abstract: Postgenderism is an extrapolation of ways that technology is eroding the biological, psychological and social role of gender, and an argument for why the erosion of binary gender will be liberatory. Postgenderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary biological and psychological gendering in the human species through the application of neurotechnology, biotechnology and reproductive technologies. Postgenderists contend that dyadic gender roles and sexual dimorphisms are generally to the detriment of individuals and society. Assisted reproduction will make it possible for individuals of any sex to reproduce in any combinations they choose, with or without “mothers” and “fathers,” and artificial wombs will make biological wombs unnecessary for reproduction. Greater biological fluidity and psychological androgyny will allow future persons to explore both masculine and feminine aspects of personality. Postgenderists do not call for the end of all gender traits, or universal androgyny, but rather that those traits become a matter of choice. Bodies and personalities in our postgender future will no longer be constrained and circumscribed by gendered traits, but enriched by their use in the palette of diverse self-expression.
Download the Complete Document (PDF)
Smart Policy: Cognitive Enhancement in the Public Interest
by Nick BostromRecommendations
• Conceptualize pharmacological cognitive enhancers as part of a wider spectrum of ways of enhancing the cognitive performance of groups and individuals.
• Expand the disease-focused regulatory framework for drug approval into a health- or wellbeing-focused framework in order to facilitate the development and use of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement of healthy adult individuals.
• Provide public funding for academic research into the safety and efficacy of cognitive enhancers, for the development of improved enhancers, and for epidemiological studies of the broader effects of long-term use.
• Increase public funding for research aimed at determining optimal nutrition for pregnant women and newborns to promote brain development.
• Disseminate information to the public about optimal pre- and perinatal nutrition.
Prosthetics-a-gogo
by George DvorskyThe latest cyborg arms, augmented risk-assessment, using your head to Wii, and tattoo interfaces for your smart phone.
Origins and Theory of the World Transhumanist Association
by NoneAndres Lomena recently conducted an interview for the Spanish magazine Cronopis with the Chair of the IEET’s Board of directors Nick Bostrom, as well as with IEET friend David Pearce, about their co-founding of the World Transhumanist Association and related topics. They have kindly allowed us to reprint the interview here.
Promoting BioFuturist Policy Brainstorming Among the Young
by J. HughesWhen I was twelve my Dad gave me a subscription to The Futurist. Mainstream futurology kind of paled for me next to the science fiction I was reading, but at least I knew early on that there were people trying to anticipate and prepare for a radically different future. Imagine my surprise thirty five years later, after a decade of bio-futurist work, to discover that in 1974, one year after I started reading The Futurist, a program for junior futurists was started which today includes more than 250,000 kids in grades 4-12 worldwide.
Genetic Selection for Human Enhancement
by Andy MiahAbstract This paper examines the UK regulatory framework and the ethical arguments surrounding the use of genetic tests, specifically considering how they would apply to selecting for enhanced health characteristics.
Poll: Should steroids be banned in pro-sports?
About half of you think they should be banned outright, and half are for at least allowing them to be used in a liberal fashion in a separate sporting league.
Of Functionality and “Forgotten” Machines
by Anne CorwinI’ve been using a portable word processor (a Laser PC6) for about two weeks now, and I absolutely love it. My only question is: Where has it been all my life?
The struggle for a smarter world
by J. HughesAbstract: The coming knowledge society will see an acceleration in the trend towards increasing human intelligence begun hundreds of thousands of years ago. Many converging technologies will facilitate this acceleration of intelligence, including psychopharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and communications technology. The accelerating increase in intelligence will not just be in individual brains, but also in the social, political and economic systems that link those brains together. From growing individual and social intelligence we will create increasingly accurate models of the way the social and natural world works, and how best to achieve human ends. But the struggle for a smarter world will require a political struggle for greater liberty and equality to enable everyone to participate fully in social decision-making and to benefit from human enhancement. [Futures 39(8) Oct 2007: 942-954]
Saletan on Sandel and human perfection
by Russell BlackfordThe New Tork Times review of Michael Sandel’s The Case against Perfection by William Saletan gets things about half right, as Saletan says of Sandel himself.
Augmented Fluid Intelligence
by Jamais CascioCan we survive the multitasking era?
Poll: Will ability to change skin, hair & body make racism irrelevant?
Oh my. What a bunch of pessimists. So the majority of the world that is Asian, South Asian and African will rush to look like Marilyn Monroe and Brad Pitt, thereby reinforcing racially-chauvanist ideals of beauty? Somehow I doubt it. And we’ll have to save the question of whether such a risk constitutes a reason to restrict access to body modification for later.
New poll: Should ecstasy (MDMA) be legalized? See the recent UK drugs safety study for more information.
Modification, Consent, and Prosthetic Self-Determination
by Dale CarricoI have long been leery of the general term “enhancement medicine” to describe what are now (and will soon be in even more powerful forms) therapeutic practices of genetic, prosthetic, and cognitive modification.
Top Ten Cybernetic Upgrades Everyone Will Want
by Michael AnissimovThe IEET would like to welcome our latest contributor, Michael Anissimov, author of the popular Accelerating Future blog.
The height of hubris?
by Simon SmithOver the past month, I’ve become obsessed with reading about limb lengthening surgery.
I ain’t givin’ up on sleep
by George DvorskyA common human ‘limitation’ that many transhumanists would like to overcome is that of sleep. I am not one of them.
Emergence 2006-12-04
Hey, deep ecologists: the planet is not your nature preserve!
by George DvorskyIn the absence of a Creator a number of people have taken to worshipping the next best thing, creation itself. This phenomenon has been exemplified by the rise of Gainism and the Gaianists. Given the poor state of the environment today this sentiment has mutated into the kind of reverential desperatism and misanthropism that is now the all too familiar opium promoted by the deep ecologists. God may be dead, but religious sensibilities that showcase the unworthiness of man have been retained by these radical environmentalists, resulting in a worldview that perpetuates defeatism, shamefulness and self-loathing.
SENS scrutinized
by George DvorskyA couple of weeks ago I was walking with Aubrey de Grey in picturesque Palo Alto when I asked him what the latest word was on Technology Review’s SENS challenge. He looked at me quite seriously and said, “The first three submissions will be presented in just two days.” I asked him if he was worried, and he responded by noting that he was pleased with the selection of judges – a panel that includes Rodney Brooks and Craig Venter, among others.
Constructing the case for enhancement at Stanford
by George Dvorsky
This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend and speak at the Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights (HETHR) conference at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The conference, which was sponsored by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE), and the Stanford Law School (SLC), brought together a diverse array of thinkers who spent the weekend ruminating over the challenging issues surrounding human enhancement.
Pop Art Gets Proletarianized, or How Technology Will Enable Anyone to Play Guitar Like E. Van Halen
by George Dvorsky
Technology changes how art is done and by whom. And it’s only going to get better. Not only will more and more people be able to afford the gadgetry of making art, but the intrinsic ability to create and perform art will be impacted as well.
Prosthetic Perception: Turn on, Tune in, Tune Out (and then hit Replay)
by Wrye SententiaReview of Michael Chorost’s Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human (2005)
Hirntod und technologischer Wandel
by J. HughesPersonale Identität, neuronale Prothesen und Uploading
Biotechnologien, die es bereits gibt und deren Entwicklung wir voraussehen können, greifen in unser Verständnis des Lebens ein und zwingen dazu, die Grenzen zwischen Leben und Tod neu zu ziehen. Das ist heute immer weniger eine philosophische oder religiöse Aufgabe, sondern ein praktischer Bestandteil der Lebenswirklichkeit, die stets neuen Anlaß zu Auseinandersetzungen provoziert und zeigt, wie stark die Techniken buchstäblich in das Leben eines jeden früher oder später eingreifen.
Der amerikanische Bioethiker diskutiert die Infragestellungen der Todesdefinitionen anhand bereits existierender und möglicherweise bald zu erwartender Technologien. Heute wird ein Mensch nicht mehr als tot betrachtet, wenn es zu einem Herz-Kreislauf-Stillstand gekommen ist, sondern wenn sein Gehirn irreversibel ausgefallen ist. Aber schon beginnt die Diskussion, ob man das Kriterium des Ganzhirntodes durch das weitaus problematischere des Teilhirntodes ersetzen, ob letztlich der körperliche Tod dem Tod der Persönlichkeit oder dem sozialen Tod weichen soll.
Page 1 of 1 pages
IEET Blog