Humanity stands now on the precipice of a new phase in human
evolution, referred to as “posthumanism”or “transhumanism." This
new phase emerges due to the confluence of new developments in
the life sciences (e.g., genomics, stem-cell research, genetic
enhancement, germ-line engineering,), technology (i.e., robotics,
nanotechnology, pattern recognition technologies), and neurosciences
(e.g., neuro-pharmacology and artificial intelligence). Today
human beings are not only able to enhance their own performance
and make important strides against devastating diseases such
as cancer, diabetes, and AIDS, but also endow humanly-engineered
traits to future generations. The new technologies may be able
to produce human beings with enhanced capabilities who will live
longer and provide the capacity to create and modify (i.e., clone
and engineer) existing forms of life, including humans. In the
transhuman phase, humans will become their own makers, transforming
their environment and themselves. Proponents of transhumanism
believe that advances in robotics, nanotechnology, artificial
intelligence and genomics will liberate humanity from pain and
suffering. Presumably, in the transhuman age humanity will conquer
the problems of aging, disease, poverty, and hunger, finally
actualizing happiness in this life.
Yet, many people, especially those committed to a religious outlook, intuitively recoil from the trans-human vision and find within that vision an affront to human dignity. It is precisely the belief that humans are created by God in the image of God that leads many people (including religious scientists) to resist the trans-human vision as a new hubris that will destroy humanity by “redefining” it, and further endanger life on our vulnerable planet through unforeseeable consequences. Those who advocate transhumanism promote a utopian vision rooted in a host of unstated assumptions about the meaning of being human. To face the challenges of transhumanism with appropriate depth, an interdisciplinary approach is urgent.
Our interdisciplinary committee seeks to devote the Templeton Lecture Series to examine and evaluate the claims of transhumanism through public lectures, symposia, conferences, and an interdisciplinary faculty seminar. The first year will consider philosophical questions, the second year will be devoted to social and legal issues, the third year will engage transhumanism from an environmental perspective, and the fourth year will wrestle with the religious implications, with a focus on eschatology. We hold that only an interdisciplinary approach that is attentive to culture, social institutions, and history can address the challenges of transhumanism by highlighting how religion, science, technology, law and public policy interface. Such an interdisciplinary approach does not treat ‘science’ and ‘religion’ as two reified a-historical categories, and thereby avoids falling into the pitfalls of either seeing them as necessarily in conflict with each other or as separate and unrelated spheres.
Upcoming Lectures and Activities
The four years of the Templeton Lecture Series will examine the meaning and implications of transhumanism. In addition to public lectures delivered by the Templeton Fellow, this examination will take place in the interdisciplinary faculty seminar (22 faculty members), “Being Human: Religion, Science, Technology, and Law.” The Templeton Fellow will participate in meetings of the faculty seminar and will contribute to the on-going conversation on science and religion at ASU.
Year 1 Theme: Transhumanism and the Concept of Human Nature
The claims of Transhumanism emerge from the confluence of new developments in the life sciences, bioengineering, and the neurosciences. The transhuman vision, which places much confidence in the ability of humans to change nature including their own, conflicts with the claims of evolutionary psychology that there is a universal human nature based on a species-typical collection of complex psychological adaptations that are universal among and unique to human beings. We hypothesize that the debate between the two camps rests on a lack clarity concerning the meaning of the phrase “human nature” and that to clarify the confusion we need to integrate the study of neuroscience, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy. We will explore, on the one hand, whether the arguments of the transhumanists undermine the evidence about human nature marshaled by evolutionary psychologists (e.g., Steven Pinker, David Buss, and Leda Cosmides), and, on the other hand, whether the claims of evolutionary psychologists hold up against the new findings about the non-linear nature of brain processes as discovered by neuroscientists (e.g., Steven Rose).
Year 2 Theme: Transhumanism,
Technology, and Culture
Transhumanism is an ideology that attempts to provide coherence to the acceleration
of knowledge in emerging fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, information
and communication technology, robotics, and applied cognitive science. The confluence
of these inquiries has created a new situation in which the human has not only
become a design project, but, due to genetic engineering, human beings will be
able to redesign future generations, thereby affecting the evolutionary process
itself. Transhumanists enthusiastically endorse these developments in the prediction
that the human will evolve into a transhuman state through the application of
technology to the human condition. In the second year of the project, we will
explore the interplay of science, technology and culture which has given rise
to transhumanism. The philosophical roots of Transhumanism are to be found in
the Enlightenment Project, but the revolutions in genetics, nanotechnology, and
robotics have generated a new human condition to which the conceptual framework
of the Enlightenment no longer applies: the new genetics enables us to enhance
our biological state; nanotechnology enables us to manipulate materials on an
atomic scale; and robotics not only replaces the human brain with non-biological
computing power, which will exceed the human brain, but also facilitates the
integration of biological and information technology. As a result, the Enlightenment’s
dichotomy between the observer and the observed, the humans and the physical
environment, nature and culture, making and thinking is no longer tenable. In
the second year of the project we will seek to understand the urgency of the
new situation and articulate a theoretical framework that could address the new
complex reflexivity. In particular, we will examine the transhumanist conviction
that technology will transform human beings and that this transformation constitutes “progress” for
the human species.
Year 3 Theme: The Social and Legal Implications
of Transhumanism
If the transhumanist vision becomes a reality, all our social
institutions—the
family, the workplace, the political system—could be profoundly affected.
According to transhumanists, the enhancement of cognitive abilities (e.g., verbal
fluency, memory, abstract reasoning, social intelligence, spatial cognition,
numerical ability or musical talent) is ethically good and socially beneficial.
We hypothesize that while transhumanism seeks to benefit all human beings, it
could in fact increase inequality and undermine the most cherished value of American
democracy—equality of opportunity. The transhumanist vision reflects the
interests, life-style, and political preferences of affluent, secular, Caucasian
males in Western post-industrial societies. Moreover, the transhumanist vision
does not take into consideration the social needs of people in developing societies,
for whom the new technologies are either irrelevant or even harmful. Even for
members in materially advanced societies, the promises of tranhumanism need to
be carefully examined in light of our belief in equal opportunity and fairness
for all individuals and our concern for communal well-being and human dignity.
Year 4 Theme: Transhumanism as Secularized Eschatology
Transhumanism articulates a vision about the possibility of attaining happiness in this life. The very use of advanced technologies, according to transhumanists will liberate humanity (both collectively and individually) from many ills. While the pursuit of happiness has been the deepest longing of humanity, transhumanists have given this pursuit a strict materialistic interpretation. The combination of neuroscience and genetics now promises to alleviate not only debilitating mental illnesses but also temporary sadness and occasional despair. We hypothesize that the materialistic approach to human happiness, characteristic of transhumanism, should be understood in the proper historical and cultural perspectives. The origins of transhumanism are the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century and the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, which culminated politically in the French Revolution. We maintain that if we study contemporary transhumanism in comparison with developments of the 17th and 18th centuries, we will be able to explore not only the religious roots of modern science, but also the utopian and even eschatological import of contemporary transhumanism. As the scientific advances in the 17th and 18th centuries, with their social and political consequences, produced modern societies dominated by a secular vision of the utopian fulfillment of human history, how will contemporary scientific, social and cultural advancement transform our vision of end and fulfillment of human history? Will it be the Golden Age of historical fulfillment or an apocalypse of human destruction? Will transhumanism inaugurate a trans-ethical fulfillment of ethics or a decline into demonism? Understanding transhumanism as secularized eschatology will frame this phenomenon in proper historical and cultural perspectives and enable us to understand the full implications of this contemporary development.
