BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

Professor Andy Miah email@andymiah.net

@andymiah

Faculty of Business & Creative Industries

BECOMING POSTHUMANFinal lecture

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Where did we begin?– Political, social, and (moral)philosophical

implications of posthumanism• Joanna Zylinska ‘ethics of cultural studies’

(2005)• Communication of science through media• Question found in centuries of philosophical

thought (see Fukuyama)– Different ways of characterising the human

• Transhumanism, cyborgology, posthumanism

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• What is posthumanism?– Fetish for the new (though Posthumanism has

been around as a formal area of scholarly inquiry since 1990s)

• The new is characterised by speculation– eg. We may imagine a future where people

are genetically modified to avoid all suffering brought about by biological dysfunction, but such a future may require an overwhelming burden of health surveillance throughout life

– Consequence of a leisure society• Where enhancement is seen as a necessity,

rather than just a luxury

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Paul Virilio (humanist)– Speed is characteristic of these times– Suspicious of modern/postmodern– Globalisation or virtualisation?– We are not fragmented communities– We retain ‘grand narratives’, such as a concern for

justice

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Paul Virilio– Critiquing the ‘Art of Technology’

• Immediacy and instantaneity• Loss of orientation

– The Transplant Revolution• Collapse of the distinction bw the human body and

technology• Concern for ‘neo-eugenics’

– Critique of Stelarc for becoming the last man before automation

– Rejects Cybersex: technological replacement of emotions

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• What is the status of the posthuman?– Is the posthuman ontologically transitory?

• What happens after AI?• What happens after athletes are genetically

modified?• Does the sky fall or does it just challenge our

imagination in a very difficult way?

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Let’s imagine that world– Genetically modified, surgically enhanced,

super-intelligent, forever young, politically superficial, communicatively reductionistic,

• Not so different from present day• Why have technological futures been

characterised as dystopian?

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Status of posthuman remains the same• Being human is not affected by these

tendencies– We do not become unhuman, subhuman or

inhuman– We do not lose our rationality or consciousness– We retain many of our characteristics– We still feel emotion, care about others

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• It does, however, create new burdens– Responsibility towards ecosystem health– Patenting human genes– Rationing health care resources

• But we are used to this.• We remain human, despite these things

– But this still begs the question ‘what is human’– Is it intelligence? Is it morality? Is it our capacity to feel

and articulate emotion?– These are all good arguments

» (defining the posthuman requires defining the human)

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Once posthuman, can we then ever turn our backs on technology?– The implication being that, even if it is not

wholly explained by technology, that the posthuman is constitutively technological

– But, posthumanism is more than technology, even if technology is constitutive of the posthuman

• Our view of the world changes through technology

– Technology also become a way of returning to nature - environmental technology

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• What comes after the posthuman?– Does it reveal a linearity towards something?– Is posthumanity necessarily ‘after’?– Is posthumanism a reaction to high-technology and its

infiltration of culture• Seeking a return to the natural

– Posthumanism has been used in a way to counter our acceptance of technology

• It instils fear– Cf. Fukuyama

• But this is merely its untheorised, superficial articulation, where it has been used in a same way as…

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• “Monsters, aliens and others still function as important monitors and mediators of understandings of what it means to be post/human” (Graham 2003).

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• Perhaps becoming posthuman entails becoming comfortable with this kind of future/present– Relinquishing us from the ties of

the ‘natural’• Even though we have always

tampered with nature

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• It would be superficial to conclude that we are still human, but also inadequate to argue we are posthuman– Are we in limbo?– We have already contested the definition of

humanness– At most, we can conclude that there are many

ways of being human and, as individuals, we appropriate these different ways in different contexts

• We are not always representing the posthuman

• But posthumanism acknowledge diversity

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

• But if there is no clear definition of being human, then posthumanness might be an acceptance of this– Different ways of being human

• Gray’s definition of the cyborg– Which is why it is primarily an ideology

and not a statement about the human use of technology

BECOMING POSTHUMAN

Beyond Posthumanism?

FINAL DEBATE

We are already

posthuman.

Agree or disagree?