Schager 1 PWR RBA Rhetoric of Transhumanism Paths to Posthumanism: A discussion of Transhumanism and other cultural constructions as a means to achieve

transcendence

Since the beginning of mankind, humans have feared death and the unknown experiences after death. We invented stories about the afterlife, even creating rituals meant to aid the spirits of the fallen in finding paradise. We wanted immortality. Spanish explorers spent years looking for the fountain of youth; Chinese emperors drank mercury thinking that it would cure them of aging, and alchemists, the chemists of the Middle Ages, slaved over cauldron's trying to concoct a potion of immortality. Transhumanist sentiments to escape death are nothing new to the human race, nor the desire of its supporters to end suffering and other negative human feelings. Transhumanism addresses some of the same fundamental human anxieties that religion does, especially in regards to our fear of death, desire for transcendence, and longing for a version of paradise. The goals and rhetoric of transhumanism have much in common with religious doctrines, especially Abrahamic religions, and these commonalities have shaped the cultural movement of transhumanism by aiding it in using addressing the aforementioned human anxieties. Despite its technological and rationalistic underpinnings, transhumanism is a very human-constructed ideology that like many others offers a better life and better future for those who advocate it. Many thinkers try to prove or disprove that transhumanism as a belief system is religious. Trying to show that transhumanism is a religion would be pointless; it would simply be a matter of definitions. If we defined religion as belief and reverence for a supernatural power recognized as a creator and governor of the universe (American Heritage Dictionary), transhumanism would probably not be a religion. However, if we defined religion to be simply a cultural system (Geertz, 91), transhumanism could suddenly magically be lumped into the

Schager 2 same category as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. Confounding this problem is that outside of academia religion can mean different things to different people; the book Psychology of Religion and Coping by Kenneth Pargament brings up a study done that finds that peoples conceptions of religion vary across many factors, including class, ethnicity, and even religiosity itself. As a result, a distinction must be made; the goal of this paper is not to establish whether transhumanism falls under an arbitrary definition of a single facet of human culture, but instead to argue that transhumanism has much in common with religion in the way that it addresses fundamental human anxieties and indeed been influenced by it, despite its secular roots. Nick Bostrom, a scholar at University of Oxford and a prominent transhumanist, defines transhumanism as a movement with the goal of transforming the human condition (specifically human intellectual, physical, and psychological capabilities) using science and technology (Bostrom, What is Transhumanism?). The word also carries with it an idea; from the time it first came into use, the idea remained largely unchanged. Transhumanism first officially came into use by Julian Huxley, a renowned biologist, when he stated that The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way but in its entirety, as humanity.We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. This quote appears to define transhumanist goals very accurately, and captures their most commonly used rhetoric perfectly. Mentions of the grand goal of transcending all of humanity, that the idea is more than about a simple individual, are classic markers of transhumanist rhetoric. Even today, years after Huxley penned this idea, the tenets declared in the organization Humanity+ echo these sentiments (Humanity +: Transhumanist Declaration). Humanity+ is presently by far the largest transhumanist organization in the world (Smithsonian Magazine: How to Become the Engineers of Our Own

Schager 3 Evolution), so it is safe to say that their beliefs reflect those of at least a plurality of transhumanist advocates. In A History of Transhumanist Thought, Bostrom claims that transhumanism descends from rational humanism; it is a result of the enlightenment enthusiasm for science and the scientific method. Renaissance humanism encouraged people to rely on their own observations and their own judgment rather than to defer in every matter to religious authorities... The heritage from the Renaissance combines with the influence of Isaac Newton, Thomas Hobbes,John Locke, Immanuel Kant, the Marquis de Condorcet, and others to form the basis for rational humanism, which emphasizes empirical science and critical reason rather than revelation and religious authority as ways of learning about the natural world and our place within it and of providing a grounding for morality. Transhumanism has roots in rational humanism. (Bostrom - A History of Transhumanist Thought, 2-3). From a transhumanist perspective, this makes sense; however, he is not entirely correct. The very religions that these rationalist philosophies distanced themselves from helped influence transhumanist thought. One small thing that transhumanism and religion both offer are the explanations for the universe that they offer. While transhumanists do not directly state that the darwinian evolution and the big bang theory are explanations for life and humanity, it is implied through their advocacy of evolutionary ethics (must constantly evolve and better human condition) and desire to escape the heat death of the universe (Michio Kaku, Escape to a Parallel universe) respectively. Myth has existed in every society. Indeed, it would seem to be a basic constituent of human culture... and The most obvious function of myths is the explanation of facts, whether natural or cultural (Britannica, Myth). This explanation of observable facts is a way to satisfy the human anxiety of not knowing why the natural world behaves the way it does. In some cultures, they tell oral stories, and in others they look to science. However, I make the claim that at the end of the day, the fact that we are explaining natural phenomena at all shows that the human

Schager 4 mind is curious enough to care why its surroundings behave the way they do. Most transhumanists would point any inquirer of human origins to the big bang and afterwards evolution. While these theories of mankinds beginnings are more probable than previous mythical origin stories, the scientific communitys explanation for the universe and for humanitys existence still satisfy the same basic human curiosity that the ancient Greeks satisfied when they claimed that Atlas held up the sky. However, this is not where Transhumanism borrows heavily from religion. Transhumanists advocate for the chance to become much more powerful through the use of technology, and to one day transcend into posthuman demigods. One of the more outspoken transhumanist voices on transcendence is Ray Kurzweil. His book The Singularity is Near is an optimistic take on humanitys technological future. He advocates that we as humans transcend our biological limitations by welcoming the advancements in technology (Kurzweil 23). He claims that by 2045, we will reach a technological singularity; an event horizon of technological progress in which we will not be able to go back to our previous technological or social state and instead advance in ways that right now we cant possibly imagine. The idea is that entering this singularity will allow us to cure all of humanitys problems, such as poverty, mortality, and pollution and eventually become so powerful that we will spread across the universe, bending matter to our will and in a way allowing the universe to transcend from dumb matter to a state of matter capable of extending human thought and creativity (Kurzweil 321). Transhumanism shares many rhetorical commonalities with various religions but especially Christianity. Even when casually perusing transhumanist works like that of above, you stumble upon words that absolutely permeate from their most common sources; words such as transcendence, immortality, resurrection and eternity spring to mind. Threats of technological apocalypse through disasters such as an out of control AI or lab-generated superplague also create a voice of advocacy that transhumanist thinkers tend to outlet. Humanity+

Schager 5 states in its tenets that, Reduction of existential risks, and development of means for the preservation of life and health, the alleviation of grave suffering, and the improvement of human foresight and wisdom should be pursued as urgent priorities, and heavily funded. It advocates for ethical and moral direction of technology to avoid apocalyptic scenarios. While this advocacy is important, the group H+ believes that they are holders of the moral compass. Again, this guiding moral compass is not dissimilar to the impulse of other ideologies to guide human morality. Even philosophies like rational humanism do this, but the point is that transhumanists, like religions and ideologies before them, seek to guide humanitys moral compass. Hopkins states that schools of thought like transhumanism use religious language because permeated by a religious culture, it is not surprising that nontheists use language typical of theists, particularly when talking about things previously only religions talked about, such as life after death and immortality... These religious undertones can be observed in transhumanist works as popular as those by Kurzweil. Kurzweil states that ...it is our destiny to do the saturating of the universe; enlisting matter and energy in the process to do our bidding; aiding universe in transcending, becoming God. Indeed, Kurzweils claims are that technology can eventually allow humanity to attain Godhood. While his views are based on extremely optimistic extrapolations of current trends in science and technology (instead of just pure faith like many other ideologies that claim we can attain Godhood), he would not make these claims in the first place if he did not find ultimate power and Godhood desirable. I make the claim that he desires Godhood just as much as an ancient Roman Emperor (or any other ruler of the ancient world) might have. Based off of the theory of the universe that these two men are or would be familiar with, they have both charted what appears to be in their opinion a path that would one day perhaps give them ultimate power and ultimate happiness. Kurzweil himself admits that this technological journey is spiritual in its purpose, and in a way he presents these ideas strikes one as very similar to the yearnings of the religious to

Schager 6 transcend. He gets it right when he says that "[transhumanism] has implications for issues that religion has attempted to deal with (IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 2013). His advocacy for the elimination of negative emotions to attain the ultimate happiness and subsequent assent to godhood sound eerily familiar. The idea that we can become god-like through technology is not all that different from the idea that we can each become our own personal gods (like in the Church of Latter Day Saints) or that heroes in Elysium experience happiness for eternity. A quote from Hesiod about the Roman afterlife sounds similar enough to the messages delivered by Kurzweil: And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deepswirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them. In the transhumanist vision of this world, perhaps Cronos would be replaced by an all-powerful artificial intelligence, and the heroes would be ordinary people immersed in a virtual reality environment. Again, the point is not to ascribe transhumanism as a religion, but to recognize the human elements contained within this seemingly novel ideology. We as humans create ideal worlds and scenarios where we can imagine feelings of being omnipotent and in complete control of our world. This control over emotions, life, death, and the physical realm are all things we lack in our material world, but our imaginations allow us to create scenarios where this some day might not be the case. An even more interesting goal has been brought up by transhumanist advocates; to escape the heat death of the universe. Theoretical physicist and transhumanist sympathizer Michio Kaku gave a talk on this, saying, One day it will get so cold that you'll look at the night sky and it will be almost totally black. All the stars will have exhausted all of their nuclear fuel, the universe will consist of neutron stars, dead black holes, the temperature will reach near absolute zero, and at that point even consciousness, even thought itself, cannot exist. and some people think that perhaps the laws of physics are a death warrant to all intelligent life; that we're all going to

Schager 7 die when the universe freezes over... But you know, there's a loophole. There's a loophole in the laws of physics. you see, trillions of years from now, perhaps intelligent life will be able to master what is called, "The Planck Energy." The Planck Energy is the ultimate energy. It's the energy of the Big Bang. It's the energy at which gravity itself begins to breakdown... Bubbles begin to form at this Planck Energy. And perhaps these bubbles are gateways. Gateways to a parallel universe. (Kaku, Escape to a Parallel Universe) This heat death of the universe can be seen as the ultimate rapture or apocalypse in transhumanist discourse, not dissimilar to apocalyptic events in Christian or other publications. In fact, this fascination with an ultimate ragnarok of events permeates human culture and belief; even if the transhumanist version of ragnarok has some basis in scientific reality, the fact that transhumanists are giving talks on the subject shows that they have found their own ragnarok to cling to. This human desire to escape death has much more tangible analogs than the heat death, however. Interestingly enough, a freezing slightly less drastic than the heat death of the universe actually offers many transhumanist thinkers a chance at extended life. Cryonics is the idea I am referring to; it has already inspired real action on the part of transhumanist sympathizers. The most obvious movement is the cryonics movement. Cryonics itself began with a book called the Prospect of Immortality, and froze their first man in 1967 (Best, A History of Cryonics). The movement, a subset of transhumanism, promotes real action from people who sincerely believe that technology might someday have the capacity to revive cadavers and resurrect all of the dead cells in the respective cadavers bodies such that the resurrectee will be indistinguishable from the person living prior to expiration. H.G. Pargament, author of The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, and practice, would call the transhumanist treatment of death Coping. Coping is a search for significance in times of stress, and it is a way to preserve and maintain objects of value, such as family, your career, your life, your feelings of immortality. Additionally, he states that Coping can

Schager 8 include the conservation or transformation of means and ends to preservation of these objects of value (Pargament, 65-66). His discussions of coping were exclusively about religion, but one could see how it could easily apply to transhumanism as well. Patrick Hopkins, an author in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, would call these desires and the yearning to transcend a desire to escape our deflationary animal account. He states, I argue that both religion and transhumanism begin conceptually as reactions to a particular deflationary description of the human condition, termed the animal account. He calls the reaction of religions like Christianity and transhumanism working in that associates with both ideologies wish to eventually move beyond human limitations by doing something about it, either through faith in God or faith (of a different kind) in technology. He elaborates by saying, For many people, perhaps most people, there is no accommodation with the animal account. It may either be rejected or never seriously considered, but is always viewed as unappealing at best and completely miserable and contemptible at worst. The desire to transcend the animal is thus central and fundamental.... This can work out in two ways. First, we might think that the animal account is simply factually wrong. We already are, or will be, transcending the animal, and the important thing is how and where our transcendence will get played out. For example, the standard Christian belief is that all humans already are immortal and our decisions in this life determine how our eternal existence will be spent. Second, we might basically accept the animal account as correctly describing what we currently are and how we got here, yet not be content to accept such a state as inevitable (and so cope), nor seriously regard religious claims of transcendence as likely to be true (and so hope). Our goal instead would be to spend this life trying to develop the tools needed to change into another life, to create our own transcendence.(Hopkins 16)

Schager 9 This is important because it makes the distinction between paths to transcendence, yet in the end transhumanism and certain religions, in this case Christianity, actively seek to transcend the human condition through action on the part of the person or persons. Both ideologies seek to do something about human limitations rather than accept or celebrate them like humanism. Although many transhumanists like Bostrom claim that transhumanism is closely intertwined with secular humanist philosophy, that actually doesnt appear to be the case. Earlier, one of our sources revealed that Bostrom believed transhumanism to be a direct relative to rational humanism, however this statement seems less and less true. While humanism offers an alternative philosophy to religion, it does not offer a means to immortality, omniscience, omnipotence, and true happiness in the way that transhumanism or certain religions do. Transhumanism seeks to transcend the human condition, while humanism seeks to celebrate it. In Transcending the Animal, Hopkins defined different way these two beliefs deal with the mortal, imperfect state that we are in. He notes that secular humanists embrace the current human state wholeheartedly by definition, while transhumanists seek to overcome deficiencies in our animal state through the advancement in technology; While some people (especially secular humanists) are satisfied with this account, others are dissatisfied and actively hope and work to transcend animal limitations (Hopkins 15). He states Someone truly satisfied with the animal account of humanity would see very little value to be gained by existing in some other way and would often view the desire for transcendence not only as misdirected, but detrimental. Such a desire, with its attendant focus on otherworldly matters, distracts us from the here and now real problems and possibilities of life and is therefore both socially and psychologically harmful. (Hopkins 14). Other sources go as far to say that transhumanism is antihumanism in that it is a Rebellion Against the Human Condition (Dupuy, H-). However, despite transhumanisms dubious relationship to secular humanism, there are many possible reconciliations between the at first seemingly dichotomous transhumanist

Schager 10 rationality and one of a plethora of spiritual ideologies. When asking whether a religion might be compatible with transhumanism, Hopkins states When it comes to the question of whether transhumanism and religion can be complementary, the answer is that this will be the constant practical battlefield. When is technology permissible, when does it help achieve religious goals, and when has it gone too far? The practical issue will be whether technology can be understood as in support of God, salvation, or enlightenment when it promotes significant changes in the heretofore normal range of phenomena and human nature. That is, when is technology just using our God-given intelligence to make morally and religiously appropriate changes in our lives, and when is technology overstepping some boundary into competition with religion? There are very seemingly counterintuitive movements arising that hybridize transhumanism and religion. One example is the Morman Transhumanist group, and another is the Technopagan movement. These religions may indeed use technology as a means to transcendence to become more spiritual beings, or closer to their god. The fact that they can be reconciled in the first place indicates that their goals must be somewhat alignable, and not completely juxtapositive. Because a desire to transcend appeals to both the religious man and the transhumanist advocate, it appears that reconciliation is possible, however unlikely. Both religion and transhumanism reflect core human desires.The desire to maintain conscious experience and agency by prolonging our lives through means of religious devotion or technological transcendence is understandable. The desire to feel happy all the time, and all powerful, being completely in control of your surroundings, is also understandable. Promises of the fulfilling of these longings are not ill-intentioned; indeed, hope is a beautiful and powerful thing when directed towards the future. In the end, the most human way to express these

Schager 11 desires is to long to become greater than human, and that is literally what transhumanism is all about.

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Works Cited "American Heritage Dictionary - Search." American Heritage Dictionary - Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://ahdictionary.com/>. Best, Ben. A History of Cryonics. -: -, 0. Print. Bostrom, Nick. "A History of Transhumanist Thought." Journal of Evolution and Technology 14.1 (2005): 0-25. Print. Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. "H-: Cybernetics Is An Antihumanism: Advanced Technologies and the Rebellion Against the Human Condition." Top Stories | Metanexus. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 June 2013. <http://www.metanexus.net/essay/h-cybernetics-antihumanism-advancedtechnologies-and-rebellion-against-human-condition>. "Escape to a Parallel Universe | Michio Kaku | Big Think." Blogs, Articles and Videos from the World's Top Thinkers and Leaders | Big Think. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2013. <http://bigthink.com/videos/escape-to-a-parallel-universe>. Geertz, Clifford. "Religion as a cultural system." The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays 1 (1993): n. pag. harvard.edu. Web. 10 June 2013. Pargament, K.I.. Psychology of Religion and coping: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Guilford Press, 1997. Print.

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"Transhumanist Declaration." Humanity+ | Technology & the Future. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2013. <http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/>. "What is transhumanism?." Nick Bostrom's Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 June 2013. <http://www.nickbostrom.com/old/transhumanism.html>. "myth -- Encyclopedia Britannica." Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2013. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/400920/myth>. retval;}, e(a);return. "How to Become the Engineers of Our Own Evolution | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine." History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places | Smithsonian Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 June 2013. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/How-to-Become-the-Engineers-ofOur-Own-Evolution.html>.