# Posthumanism **Domain:** Philosophy / Technology / Cultural Theory **Doc Type:** Intellectual Framework **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Posthumanism** questions the idea of the autonomous, self-transparent human subject standing above animals, technologies, ecologies, and material systems. It studies how persons are constituted through relations, embodiments, infrastructures, and more-than-human worlds. Posthumanism is not identical to [[wiki/Transhumanism|Transhumanism]]. Transhumanism commonly emphasizes technological enhancement and the transformation of human capacities; posthumanism more often critiques the conceptual boundary and privilege through which “the human” has been defined. ## Corpus Context The journal uses posthumanism within a wider inquiry into observers, systems, representation, and forms of intelligence that cannot be confined to an isolated individual. ## See Also [[wiki/Human Condition|Human Condition]] · [[wiki/Cybernetics|Cybernetics]] · [[wiki/Boundary|Boundary]] · [[wiki/Agency|Agency]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "Maybe the idea of progress itself is not necessarily tied to the idea of humanity. Maybe humans are not the eternal carrier of this idea." > **— Georg Diez**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Progress May Not Need Humanity as Its Carrier by Georg Diez|Progress May Not Need Humanity as Its Carrier by Georg Diez]] > "One is the hope that a moment of singularity will awaken a synthetic spirit superior to the human mind." > **— Andrian Kreye**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Civilization/The Singularity Promises a Synthetic Spirit Beyond the Human Mind by Andrian Kreye|The Singularity Promises a Synthetic Spirit Beyond the Human Mind by Andrian Kreye]] > "Darwin himself realised that "No living species will preserve its unaltered likeness into a distant futurity". We now know that "futurity" extends far further, and alterations can occur far faster — than Darwin envisioned. And we know that the cosmos, through which life could spread, is far more extensive and varied than he envisaged. So humans are surely not the terminal branch of an evolutionary tree, but a species that emerged early in cosmic history, with special promise for diverse evolution. But this is not to diminish their status. We humans are entitled to feel uniquely important as the first known species with the power to mould its evolutionary legacy." > **— Martin Rees**, *2011, Edge Annual Question, “What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?”* [[reminders/Deep Time/Humans Are Not the Terminal Branch of Evolution by Martin Rees|Humans Are Not the Terminal Branch of Evolution by Martin Rees]] > “I don't know which model of quantum gravity is right, but all the leading candidates, string theory, loop quantum gravity and others, teach us that it is possible that all properties of elementary particles are relational and environmental. In different possible universes there may be different combinations of elementary particles and forces. Indeed, all that used to be thought of as fundamental, space and the elementary particles themselves are increasingly seen, in models of quantum gravity, as themselves emergent from a more elementary network of relations.” > **— Lee Smolin**, *2006, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Darwin and Einstein May Illuminate Each Other by Lee Smolin|Darwin and Einstein May Illuminate Each Other by Lee Smolin]] > “Having a good idea is far from rare in the evolution of non-human species. Indeed, many if not most species need to have an idea or trick that works well enough for them to continue to exist. Admittedly, they may not be able to extrapolate its principle from the context in which it emerged, and generalize it as (some) people can, courtesy of their prefrontal cortex.” > **— Marcel Kinsbourne**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Every Species Needs an Idea That Works by Marcel Kinsbourne|Every Species Needs an Idea That Works by Marcel Kinsbourne]] > “Others may prefer to dispense with the idea of fields and explain the evolution of organization in some other way, perhaps using more general terms like "emergent systems properties". But whatever the details of the models, I believe that the natural selection of habits will play an essential part in any integrated theory of evolution, including not just biological evolution, but also physical, chemical, cosmic, social, mental and cultural evolution.” > **— Rupert Sheldrake**, *2005, Edge Annual Question, “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Evolution May Extend Beyond Biology by Rupert Sheldrake|Evolution May Extend Beyond Biology by Rupert Sheldrake]] > “To be sure, the idea has appeared before. Empedocles discusses the idea that the apparent finality in the living kingdom could be the result of selected randomness, and Aristotle himself in his "Physics" mentions a version of this idea for species ("seeds"). But the times where not yet ripe, and the suggestion was lost in the following religious ages. I think that the resistance against Darwin is not just the difficulty of seeing the power of a spectacularly beautiful explanation: it is the fear of realizing the extraordinary power that such an explanation has in shattering rests of old world views.” > **— Carlo Rovelli**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Evolution/How Apparent Finality Can Emerge by Carlo Rovelli|How Apparent Finality Can Emerge by Carlo Rovelli]] > “Here is a possible analogy. About two billion years ago mitochondria evolved from primitive bacteria by entering into a symbiotic relationship with early eukaryotic cells. Each benefitted the other; so this was not a hostile takeover but a gradual coming together until neither the living cells nor the mitochondria within them could survive without the other. The cells feed and protect the mitochondria; they provide the power. Could our future be heading this way? The analogy implies a world in which humans manage the power supplies to feed an ever-increasing number of inventions in return for more fun, games, information and communications; a world in which we so value the fruits of our machines that we willingly merge both physically and mentally with them.” > **— Susan Blackmore**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Humans May Merge with Machines as Cells Merged with Mitochondria by Susan Blackmore|Humans May Merge with Machines as Cells Merged with Mitochondria by Susan Blackmore]] > “Finally—and those in AI have held this thought for a long time—that which makes us uniquely human is also just computable. While the advent of true AI is still far off, as general purpose computers continue to shrink, and the biological interface is perfected, we will become one with our new god. Choose your new religion wisely—Transhumanist, Singulartarian, or the new file-sharing cult recognized in Sweden, Kopimism.” > **— Jordan Pollack**, *2012, Edge Annual Question, “What Is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, Or Beautiful Explanation?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/The Destructive Wrath of the General Purpose Computer by Jordan Pollack|The Destructive Wrath of the General Purpose Computer by Jordan Pollack]] > “Twenty or thirty years ago, people dreamed of a global mind that knew everything and could answer any question. In those early times, we imagined that we'd need a huge breakthrough in artificial intelligence to make the global mind work — we thought of it as resembling an extremely smart person. The conventional Hollywood image for the global mind's interface was a talking head on a wall-sized screen.” > **— Rudy Rucker**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?”* [[reminders/AI Control/The Global Mind Emerged Without a Breakthrough in AI by Rudy Rucker|The Global Mind Emerged Without a Breakthrough in AI by Rudy Rucker]] > “Our medieval forebears in Europe had a cosmic perspective that was a million-fold more constricted than ours. Their entire cosmology — from creation to apocalypse — spanned only a few thousand years. Today, the stupendous time spans of the evolutionary past are part of common culture — except among some creationists and fundamentalists. Moreover, we are mindful of immense future potential. It seems absurd to regard humans as the culmination of the evolutionary tree. Any creatures witnessing the Sun's demise 6 billion years hence won't be human — they could be as different from us as we are from slime mould.” > **— Martin Rees**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/We Should Take the 'posthuman' Era Seriously by Martin Rees|We Should Take the 'posthuman' Era Seriously by Martin Rees]] > “The idea that most impressed me — and did the most to shake me of the belief that language was separate from the rest of the mind — goes back to Darwin. Not "survival of the fittest" (a phrase actually coined by Herbert Spencer) but his notion, now amply confirmed at the molecular level, that all biology is the product of what he called "descent with modification". Every species, and every biological system evolves through a combination of inheritance (descent) and change (modification). Nothing, no matter how original it may appear, emerges from scratch.” > **— Gary Marcus**, *2008, Edge Annual Question, “What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?”* [[reminders/Evolution/Whats Special About Human Language by Gary Marcus|Whats Special About Human Language by Gary Marcus]] > “Despite the growing digital divide, the number of people who use the Net is still exploding, even in the developing side of the world. What is fair, what is democratic, what kind of principles can we all agree on this single global complex system, from all corners of the world is my question of the year to come.” > **— Izumi Aizu**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “What Questions Have Disappeared?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Who Should Make the Truly Global Decisions, and How by Izumi Aizu|Who Should Make the Truly Global Decisions, and How by Izumi Aizu]] > “Individual humans will eventually fade even from the social world. When you can literally wire your brain to others, who's to say where you stop and they begin? When you can transfer your mind to artificial embodiments, and copy it as a digital file, which one is you? We'll need a new language, a new conceptual vocabulary of everything from democracy to property to consciousness, to make sense of such a world.” > **— David Dalrymple**, *2013, Edge Annual Question, “What *should* We Be Worried About?”* [[reminders/Mind Upload/Wiring Brains Together May Erase the Boundary Between Selves by David Dalrymple|Wiring Brains Together May Erase the Boundary Between Selves by David Dalrymple]] > “Can we program a computer to find a 10,000-bit string that encodes more actionable wisdom than any human has ever expressed?” > **— Scott Aaronson**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Can a Computer Encode More Actionable Wisdom Than Any Human by Scott Aaronson|Can a Computer Encode More Actionable Wisdom Than Any Human by Scott Aaronson]] > “Will the creation of a super-human class from a combination of genome editing and direct biological-machine interfaces lead to the collapse of civilization?” > **— J. Craig Venter**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/Could Genome Editing and Brain Interfaces Create a Superhuman Class by J. Craig Venter|Could Genome Editing and Brain Interfaces Create a Superhuman Class by J. Craig Venter]] > “Is the unipolar future of a "singleton" the inevitable destiny of intelligent life?” > **— Brian Christian**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Is a Singleton the Inevitable Destiny of Intelligent Life by Brian Christian|Is a Singleton the Inevitable Destiny of Intelligent Life by Brian Christian]] > “The central issue is the social, not scientific, definition of "thinking". A generation of Western intellectuals who took their identity mainly from their intelligence has grown too old to ask the question with any conviction, and anyway, machines are all around them thinking up a storm.” > **— Pamela McCorduck**, *2001, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT QUESTIONS HAVE DISAPPEARED?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Machines Are Already Thinking Up a Storm by Pamela McCorduck|Machines Are Already Thinking Up a Storm by Pamela McCorduck]] > “How much time will pass between the last minute before artificial superintelligence and the first minute after it?” > **— Bruno Giussani**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/The Minute Before and After Artificial Superintelligence by Bruno Giussani|The Minute Before and After Artificial Superintelligence by Bruno Giussani]] > “What will be the literally last question that will preoccupy future superintelligent cosmic life for as long as the laws of physics permit?” > **— Max Tegmark**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Deep Time/What Will Superintelligent Cosmic Life Ask Last by Max Tegmark|What Will Superintelligent Cosmic Life Ask Last by Max Tegmark]] > “When will "human being" cease to be a meaningful category to speak of?” > **— James J. O'Donnell**, *2018, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Personhood/When Will Human Being Stop Being a Meaningful Category by James J. O'Donnell|When Will Human Being Stop Being a Meaningful Category by James J. O'Donnell]] > “When we establish contact with such an intelligence, will we receive instructions for building a machine to upload Jodie Foster? Probably not. The download will proceed the other way.” > **— George Dyson**, *1999, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INVENTION IN THE PAST TWO THOUSAND YEARS?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/The Download Will Proceed the Other Way by George Dyson|The Download Will Proceed the Other Way by George Dyson]] > “So here we are in 2012, with people writing essays and wondering whether their descendents will be artificial life forms travelling back into space.” > **— John C. Mather**, *2012, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Our Descendants May Be Artificial Life Forms by John C. Mather|Our Descendants May Be Artificial Life Forms by John C. Mather]] > “What might the last fully biological human's statement be at their last supper?” > **— Lorraine Justice**, *2018, Edge Annual Question: “WHAT IS THE LAST QUESTION?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/The Last Fully Biological Human at the Last Supper by Lorraine Justice|The Last Fully Biological Human at the Last Supper by Lorraine Justice]] ## Relationships - **Edge Annual Question source relationship:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] preserves the annual-question source corpus from which a proposition-specific quotation is connected to this entry. - **Edge source route:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] connects this topic to exact Annual Question passages promoted into the Simple Reminders archive.