To live with the artificial or to live as the artificial?

Abstract

Human beings are at the crossroads where technology can be used to transcend the limits of nature. In our search for who we essentially are, there are two possibilities at the ends of a spectrum: one, the technologicus, a complete technological being ideated by Kevin Warwick; the other, the aestheticus, a higher liberated being implied by Goethe available in the works of Herbert Marcuse. Should we find our essential nature by being more human or blend in with technology? We show that the current trend in philosophy of technology is predictively and politically inadequate to handle this question. Interestingly, Schirmacher crosses the traditional boundary between the subject and the object, and posits the generator that is quintessentially artificial. If we are artificial at our core, is achieving the aestheticus any more significant? We weigh both the technologicus and the aestheticus with the generator, and contemplate the possibilities towards finality.