No sleep, but I’ve read plenty of A Girl and her Fed and David Brin’s The Uplift War, so you get a musing on transhumanity.
Disclaimer: What I’m about to say might make complete sense to you; it might also seem completely unnecessary. Remember Newspeak and keep in mind that definitions do matter.
Abstract: This isn’t going to be nearly long or deep enough to be an argument or essay; rather, it’ll be a brief introduction to ideas for the reader to mull over, with my opinions attached. I’ll first argue that for the future, we’ll eventually need to expand the highest-level word for “us” to include non-human and post-human iterations, then present my proposed definition for this identity.
No matter how you slice it, a good-future scenario is going to involve questions about what it means to be human. Science fiction has been predicting that crisis of identity since 1896’s The Island of Dr. Moreau at least, and even though we’ve ducked a few possible flashpoints (remember the paranoia about in vitro supermen?), eventually we’ll have to decide.
It’s easy to just say that people will go with the common-sense answer that people are human, but just look to pop culture’s two contradictory views of future humanity. On the one hand, we’re brought up to think prejudice against cyborgs would be apartheid; on the other, to quote PvP, “Mister Spock. Only your robot brain can save us from our glorious humanity.” How often are logic and robotic enhancements trumpeted over good ol’ humanity? Didn’t think so.
So if common sense can drive the definition of “us” and “human” in two directions, and if a mind could just switch between bodies like they’re clothes (Ghost in the Shell) or a body could be genetically engineered for zero-G — would these still be humans?
The idea of humanity has so much baggage and common-sense humans are this that it just can’t adapt to newcomers like that. But if we still want to make them welcome and part of the unstigmatized in-group, what will we call them? What’s the bridging identity, the equivalent of the American citizenship that trumps racial or political differences?
First — is an uber-identity necessary? I’d argue so, mainly because of the example above: unity depends on definitions. For people to work together, there needs to be a recognition of common ground. The ideal definition would also exclude the truly alien, be they actual ETs or rogue AIs spouting 80s clichés about illogical humanity needing to be exterminated.
This identity wouldn’t be human-centric, though — we have to fit Superman in somehow. Biologically, he isn’t human or created by them. Instead of working through biology, the definition of this uber-identity would be anyone who is rooted in the dialogue of Earth-originated culture. Leaving for the asteroid belt and making yourself more machine than man? As long as you have a philosophy that owes a debt to Earth-based culture, you’re in the clubhouse. So quick summary, this uber-identity includes anyone who:
-is defining the uber-identity through discourse or action;
-has a philosophy that, however rough, is fair (fulfills the categorical imperative);
-and doesn’t just want to kill everything.
The only way to exempt yourself would be to try for genocide, omnicide, or somehow act in a way that has nothing to do with humanity. It’s not enough to try to be Quebec and secede from Canada; it’s more like trying to be a duck without trying to convince other people that humans should be more like ducks. Good luck with finding an entirely alien way to think instead of just expanding possibilities within the existing culture.
So that’s my idea of the uber-identity’s definition. For the name itself, “human” won’t do; “transhuman” might technically include all iterations of humanity, even the enhanced forms, but it colloquially implies only the beyond-human and utterly fails to incorporate AIs or Uplifted post-animal species. In sci-fi, Eclipse Phase uses “transhumanity” for all of the above, and David Brin calls them “EarthClan”. Really, this bit is purely speculative so anything I could come up with wouldn’t be needed until our clan expands beyond human and transhuman… but I’m partial to AUans.
Aow-ans. Aow-ans. It sounds cool, but not self-consciously edgy. We might not be able to take our homeworld with us to the stars, but we’ll define everything else by its distance from the sun.
Which somewhat undermines the idea of being inclusive of possible future cultures, I suppose…
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