The idea of altering or augmenting the human body through technology is as old as humanity itself. From the moment humans first fashioned tools and learned to harness fire, humanity stepped beyond its biological constraints. Augmenting the body has been done for hundreds of years we have fixed poor eyesight with corrective lens, straightened peoples teeth with braces and fixed broken bones with casts. But the idea of Transhumanism sees augmenting the body as a way to not only fix broken bodies, but to enhace or even entirely replace our biological bodies. A transhuman then is someone who has taken this step and upgraded their body in a way that doesn’t just fix a deficient part to behave as commonly expected but replaces something that works perfectly fine in order to do something more than is biologically possible. It’s also no surprise that armies around the world are eager to lead the way into the new frontier of transhumanism, generals and war leaders have always sought any means to give their army the upper hand over an opponent. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said that humans “were the weakest link in Defense systems.” Some examples of DARPA’s research into transhumanist technologies include allowing humans to convert plant matter to glucose, threat detection through optical implants, and even a way for humans to cling to the surface of a flat wall. So like all new technologies, we are left wondering if merging with technology will be used for good or evil.
Again, this is yet another example of how humans are beginning to merge with technology…….and the beginning of the singularity.
-C.Rawe
Transcendence 