{"title":"Virtual Immortality—God, Evolution, and the Singularity in Post- and Transhumanism. by Oliver Krüger","authors":"Bastiaan Van Rijn, Sarah Perez","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0089","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90672244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"South Asian Transhumanist Posthuman Ontologies: The Relationship between Vehicle Art and Mind Uploading in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing","authors":"Qurratulaen Liaqat","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0033","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 One possible way to decolonize the posthuman field of literary criticism is to find possible stylistic and thematic affinities between the literatures from the less technologically advanced regions such as South Asia and mainstream Euro-American science fiction. This article invites and affirms alternative ways of perceiving and comprehending the transhumanist posthuman paradigms from the technologically underdeveloped world (South Asia) through a critically informed analysis of the motifs, symbols, and characters in the Pakistani writer Uzma Aslam Khan’s Anglophone novel Trespassing (2003). It argues that the nonhuman agency of truck art in Trespassing can be interpreted as a metaphor for a possible local technique for consciousness uploading. By applying the theoretical framework of transhumanist/posthumanist literary theory, this article demonstrates that the depiction of truck art in the novel can be analyzed as an analogy for the transhumanist posthuman dream of whole brain emulation.","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"416 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79443373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Art on the Moon, Poetry for Homo spaciens: An Interview with Eduardo Kac about His Artwork Adsum","authors":"S. Osthoff","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This interview focuses on Eduardo Kac’s new artwork-poem Adsum, a laser-etched glass sculpture created for the lunar environment. From the work’s enigmatic title to its five stages of development involving NASA spacecraft, cosmic tests, as well as micro, human, and cosmic scales, the artist considers the following questions: How do you create a meaningful visual composition at the threshold of visibility? How do you write with symbols in a manner that is not dictated by Earth gravity? How do you consciously forward a message into the future while maintaining the ability to communicate contemporaneously?","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82284670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ontology and Closeness in Human–Nature Relationships: Beyond Dualisms, Materialism and Posthumanism, by Neil H. Kessler","authors":"G. Meyer","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0094","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73214524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Space Art: My Trajectory","authors":"E. Kac","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.6.1.0004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This essay traces the author’s trajectory in space art. It starts in 1986, when he first conceived of a holographic poem to be flown to deep space (scheduled for liftoff in 2023), and continues into the twenty-first century through several works, including Inner Telescope, realized with the cooperation of French astronaut Thomas Pesquet aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017. The author discusses his theoretical and practical involvement with space-related materials and processes. Special attention is given to his space artwork Adsum, conceived for the Moon.","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75626006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evolution of Enactive Transhuman Beings: Moderate Transhumanism in Conservation of Adaptation","authors":"Stefan Günthner","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.5.2.0109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.5.2.0109","url":null,"abstract":"This article is intended to offer constructive criticism of the transhumanist imperative of advancing the creation of living beings beyond the human. For this purpose, the conditions of possibility for the emergence and long-term survival of transhuman beings will be identified and examined, particularly within the framework of an enactive understanding of evolution according to Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and others. Transhuman beings, that is, technically corrected and upgraded entities, have their origin in human individuals whose essential characteristics I consider to be (1) their participation in life and their performance of life and (2) their sense-making cognitive activity—both describable by the autopoietic idea of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. I demonstrate that transhuman beings, which are assumed to share these features with humans and which I therefore describe by the term enactive, can only develop and stay alive if mutual adaptation between them and their environment is maintained. To achieve adaptation, enactive transhuman beings must exhibit the ability to adapt on their own—making adaptedness and adaptability conditions of possibility for the emergence and long-term survival of enactive transhuman beings. From this perspective, optimizing and therapeutic interventions into so-called human nature, which has always possessed a technical–cultural side, are an expression of human adaptability and enable new adaptive equilibria between transhuman being and environment on a phylogenetic level. Therefore, I advocate a moderate transhumanism that seeks to preserve this mutual adaptedness while expanding the (trans)human capacity for adaptation.","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"148 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77343188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nemesis in Mordor: The Possibility of Posthuman Savagery","authors":"W. Bainbridge","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.5.2.0169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.5.2.0169","url":null,"abstract":"Innovative computer games can sometimes serve as valid simulations of real sociocultural processes, exploring hypotheses about the possible impact of future technology on civilization. In February 2021, Warner Brothers was granted a patent for an artificial social intelligence system that it first used in Shadow of Mordor, a very popular computer game based on the legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien, but reversing his humanistic and precautionary values. The main theme of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was development of genuine friendship in a crusade to destroy a technology that gave its user superhuman powers at the cost of replacing sympathy with total selfishness. Shadow of Mordor and its successor Shadow of War promoted sadism and enslavement as tools for transcending human limitations, implicitly slandering transhumanism. This article surveys this troubling dynamic in four parts: (1) a conceptual introduction drawing upon a diverse literature about the human dimensions of current technological progress, (2) an overview of recent developments in the genre of Tolkien computer games, (3) a close examination of how the Nemesis multiagent system was designed, and (4) an initial assessment of public reactions to the Shadows expressed through videos and text comments on YouTube.","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74760382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Encyclical Laudato Si’ and the Overcoming of Humanism","authors":"F. Damour","doi":"10.5325/jpoststud.5.2.0190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.5.2.0190","url":null,"abstract":"In June 2015, Pope Francis published Laudato Si’, an encyclical that, in many ways, constitutes a split. For the first time, although the magisterium of the Catholic church has, since the time of John Paul II, repeatedly expressed its views on the topic, an encyclical approached the theme of ecology and climate crisis, in the tradition of Catholic social doctrine. The break is also within ecological thought, into which Pope Francis invites himself, seeking to open another path between anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, and so on. The worldwide echo of its reception testifies to the novelty of the text, and also demonstrates the power of the pontifical voice in the collective imagination. In his encyclical, Francis conducts a powerful denunciation of a “techno- scientific paradigm” and its anthropocentric and Western-centric perspective. Can the pontifical voice be added to the posthumanist movement, whose horizon is inseparable from the technological changes and the environmental question? Does his criticism concern only anthropocentrism or the idea of centrality? Reading Laudato Si’ from the perspective of posthumanism debates is a way moving these debates forward.","PeriodicalId":55935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Posthuman Studies-Philosophy Technology Media","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87094501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}