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Becoming More Than Human: Technology and the Post-Human Condi...

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Dostoyevsky, after spending some time in a Siberian prison, came to the conclusion that the human is the creature that can adapt to anything

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This is a significant definition because it highlights the human propensity to change in response to external circumstances – with both positive consequences (it helps us to survive), and negative ones (it induces us to blindly accept injustice).

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Its ideological uniqueness lies in an almost existentialist interpretation of science: while acknowledging the value of the scientific method – based on the principles of precision, objectivity and falsifiability – it foregrounds its relevance for social justice, self-determination and personal fulfilment, in other words, for improving the human condition.

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an activist approach, looking to science to find how it can alleviate suffering and thereby improve this experience.

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transhumanist ideals stem from the propensity of humans to imagine themselves to be other than what they are.

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Cyberspace and the Internet, in particular, have been hailed as signalling the emergence of new conceptions of identity. There is widespread agreement that the Internet has produced new social settings and re-structured communication patterns and perceptions of space. Some have even paralleled its influence on social behavior to architectural changes and the effects of migration and urbanization (Meyerowitz 1985). At the same time, there is an increasing concern by others that such non-physical spaces encourage escapism, addictive behavior and emotional isolation. MIT media theorist Sherry Turkle represents this view when she says that “for those who are lonely yet afraid of intimacy, information technology has made it possible to have the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship” (Turkle, 2004, n.p.).

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The imagination creates environments that seem desirable but that may not be suitable for humans

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when considering technologies that can transform the human constitution, we need to decide carefully what we want to keep and what we want to discard, and what the assumptions and beliefs are behind each choice.   

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there is an increasing concern by others that such non-physical spaces encourage escapism, addictive behavior and emotional isolation. MIT media theorist Sherry Turkle represents this view when she says that “for those who are lonely yet afraid of intimacy, information technology has made it possible to have the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship”

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Originally developed to replace lost or damaged functions in the physically or cognitively disabled, such technologies are now being generalized to enhance “normal” human abilities.

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One cannot play a game such as the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto, for example, non-aggressively or oppositionally, by leading the protagonist to perform charitable acts, or by propelling the story through the actions of marginal characters

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In its history and philosophical underpinnings, science emerged as a spiritual activity aimed at reaching the “truth” and pure knowledge. Is the transhumanist perspective changing science into an instrument for improving the human condition

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It could be that the world is really alien to us, but it could also be that we are just not intelligent enough to understand it and in doing so re-negotiate our existence within it.

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How do changes in the human body and mind affect attitudes towards oneself and towards others, and what would their implications be for the norms and ethics of social interaction?

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a world where an individual is empowered to choose his/her ability and appearance cries out for a socially recognized balance between one’s preferences and another’s – a monitor that would ensure that one’s preference does not become another’s obligation,

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Storytelling, in particular in the form of sophisticated written narratives, such as novels, offers us a creative and safe space in which to hypothesize, project different outcomes to events, reflect on causal processes, and consider the effects of different emotions. 

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The “other” can offer the “self” many occasions to reflect on what it would be like to live in a different physical form with its own strengths and weaknesses

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tolerance for “diversity” is transformed into something else: the potential to experience, even if vicariously, different possibilities of life.

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