The Google search engine is so advanced that it makes us cyborgs

Oh yes. Researching transhumanism does involve a dip into the world of cyborgs. The Wikipedia page I linked here does offer a very good introduction to the topic. Over the past years I have read about cyborgs now and then, but for some odd reason I never really get carried away by the concept. Now, cyborgs are cool. I enjoy the concept, I tend to like them in movies, and I had my greatest role playing adventures as a Solo in the game Cyberpunk 2020. My character was called Charles Remmmington (three M’s there) and it was a really nasty peace of heavy weaponry combined to a very teenage-like associating mind. But, as a research concept I find cyborgs quite boring.

Some years ago I read a great article by a Finnish researcher, Ilkka Mäyrä. In his1997  article Sähködemoni ja koneihminen: matka hyvän ja pahan tuolle puolelle [Electronic Demon and Machine Man: a journey to the other side of good and evil; my translation], Mäyrä analysed the concept of a cyborg in the genre of science fiction. In the article Mäyrä sees technology as an ambivalent phenomenon. In this ambivalence the creations of science fiction and horror literature forces us to meet ‘The Other’ in the character of a ‘cyborg’. The Other is the ‘demon’, the other side of humanity. The article is great and unfortunately it is available only to the Finnish language audience. In short, we are appalled and amazed at the site of the human-machine hybrid.

Another Finnish book about cyborgs was written only some years ago by the prominent Finnish philosopher Timo Airaksinen. Airaksinen develops his ideas about human-machine unions as a concept of a ‘posthuman’. In his book 2006 Ihmiskoneen tulevaisuus [The Future of Machine Humans, my translation] Airaksinen follows a very philosophical path and describes cyborgs in various ways. Airaksinen puts great emphasis on the autonomy of the subject as well as in trying to understand technology in terms relating to human beings.

Of course, there is a lot more written about cyborgs than these two books. In the future I probably have to take a better look at the phenomenon. But, so far cyborgs offer me a great way to pass the time in various thought experiments. Or, they were experiments until I spent an evening searching for information for a blog post I am working on. Like most of us, I use Google to find things out (sic?). As I was typing different search terms, I realized that my relation to this great search engine is not as straight forward I had hoped it to be.

In fact, I now feel, that I am in a way cybogized by the whole thing. And here is why.

Cyborgs are human-machine combinatins. What does that mean? There are two ways to look at this. In Mäyräs article he deals with what called ‘hard science fiction’ that emphasizes a very blunt and strong way humans and machines are woven together. You are a cyborg if you – for instance – have several body parts changed to machine parts or a if a major part of your cognitive abilities are run by computers. In simple terms, a hard way to define a cyborg, is to claim that it really has to be a very big alternation to the ‘natural human condition’. The other way to define cyborgs has been developed by Andy Clark, for instance. Airaksinen refers to Clarks work on a ‘minimum requirement’ for a cyborg. In Clarcs vision anyone who uses glasses (or contact lenses) is in fact a cyborg.

Both these definitions are difficult to narrow down and between them there is a large gray area. As I was doing my Google searches, I noticed some ‘startling’ things (we are expected to be startled by these discoveries but for me, it was not that startling). Anyway, I realized that a lot of my cognitive work was done by the Google search algorithm.

A search engine is designed to make the searching of information easier. To do this, the algorithm has to do a lot of computing in order to ‘ques’ what I may be looking for. Google does a very good job at this. And that also means, that I don’t have to know how certain words are spelled. Google does that for me. Google also analyses my search patterns and makes suggestions based on that analysis. In a way, Google not only thinks for me but also corrects my thinking.

I don’t have to know how ’emancipation’ is written. I just have to write ‘corelatio’ and Google makes sure that very soon I’ll be reading a Wikipedia page about ‘correlations and dependencies’.

So, as the mobile technology gets faster and smarter and as we start ‘wearing’ (Sports Tracker) it and ‘talking’ to it (Siri), we are not really interacting with technology. We are incorporating technology. There is no clear line where technology starts and I stop. There are no two feedback systems in Sports Tracker, there is only one: you and your heart beat monitor, GPS track record and the act of running are one feedback loop that then connects you+technology to the various social networks you ‘share’ your workout to. And Siri. Right now, It takes good pronunciation to get things done, but soon the AI+voice will not only be your ‘friend’ but your ‘inner voice’.

So, cyborgs are not ‘coming’, we are sliding in to a reality where they just ‘are’. Great. I do like the Google example and I have been playing around the concept and doing a lot of interesting tests with the Google search bar. It does excite me a bit and hopefully in the future, I’ll be buzzing about cyborgs even more. Or, maybe I’ll be buzzing AS a cyborg.

The ways to describe technology-society relations

I just finished editing my draft for the first research article I’m working on. I have done a lot of reading and thinking but there seems to be a real difficulty ahead. In my research I try to argue that transhuman concept of technology also includes a social relation embedded within the technology itself. To argue this, I’ll have to revisit some of the ‘classic’ ways to define technology. As we may know, these could roughly be the deterministic, functional and constructivist ways to view technology.

But, these are constructed concepts. They are used to describe certain phenomenon that is called ‘technology’. To me, it is almost self evident, that these descriptions or concepts of course do not relay ‘reality’ in any meaningful sense. So, if I claim, that the way I conceptualize transhumanisms view on nanotechnology, they also postulate a certain (relevant) social relation within the technology, is there really anything worth researching there?

I am in a way confident about my case. There are difficulties but I am also aware that I am not making this case to point at a certain phenomenon within the transhuman movement but rather a generalization of how technology as such can be seen as (at least) a part of the actor in a society. Now, I am not supporting an ‘objectivist’ view on technology nor am I inclined to speak for technological determinism. My case may in stead reveal, that there is a way to make technology as the actor but fall short in claiming that technology somehow determines action.

I know, this does not make any sense. You can call this post my ‘fieldnotes’ if you will. In fact, I think I’ll create a category for ‘fieldnotes’ to keep track of these internal/public discussions I seem to be having.

What is technology? Part 1: José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)

I have been sick of the flu for about a week now. Yesterday I started feeling a little better and since we have had terrible snow fall in the last couple of days, I could not imagine anything better to do than read something related to my research (what a rosy picture of motivation that is…). As I like my idea of doing the research ‘live’ I decided to start collecting my “readings” here and publishing them as a series. Note, these are my “notes” and should not be reflected as ‘final’ conclusions about a given subject. Keep that in mind if you use these materials for reference.

Part I: José Ortega y Gasset : Meditación de la técnica (1939) [i’m using the Finnish translation: 2006 “Ajatuksia teknologiasta”. Juvenes Print. Tampere.]

The entire book is a great read. Ortega delivers his thoughts like a very interesting lecture. He is funny, witty and tends to surprise the reader. Sometimes he is very blunt about things but manages to keep his style in control and not to have it corrupt in to some form of elitism. This book is also said to be connected with a larger stream of Ortegas thinking, and therefore it helps to understand his most known work La Rebelión de las Masas (1939) (“The Revolt of The Masses”).

Please note that I’m using the Finnish translation (2006, Antti Immonen, Eurooppalaisen filosofian seura ry). This means that my selection of terms and concepts may very well be different than in the true English translation.

In this book Ortega discusses the philosophy and sociology of technology. This book is in fact the first to systematically present a theory or at least a picture of technology as a phenomenon. At the time of it’s release, there really was only the massive work by Lewis Mumford available on the subject. Of course there were books and articles about technology but it is worth noting that Ortega as well as Mumford were really the first to ponder about technology and technology only.

To be human is to be a technician 

The book consists of twelve chapters. In the beginning Ortega starts building his concepts about humans relation to technology and the world. He starts of with the question of human needs. In Ortegas time as well as still in ours, we tend to think that what separates us from animals is that we use technology to satisfy our basic needs. Ortega however takes a different approach.

He suggests that, for instance, the need for warmth and food are basic needs, but they are not just human needs. Food and shelter are only the necessities for life. Animals also need food and shelter (ie. furr) to survive in their “natural environment”. Here is where Ortega gets interesting. Instead of arguing that humans use technology to satisfy these “natural needs” he claims, that we use technology to make “natural needs” irrelevant. In other words, the needs for a human life are not the same as the “natural needs” to survive.

In the starting chapters Ortega puts this bluntly: technology is an enhancement to control nature and make time and space for ‘real human needs’ that are different than the needs of ‘survival’. Thus humans use technology to create a ‘supernature’ that exists between man and nature. Ortega aggressively claims that human is only a human if he uses technology.

Wellbeing

Human Nature (if Ortega uses this term, I don’t know) does not subjucate to nature but reacts to it. Since it is ‘not human’ to just satisfy the necessary needs for living, Ortega writes, that true human needs include the “natural needs” as well as “other needs” as objective human needs. Ortega gives an example of getting drunk as a very much human need that we however do not need to satisfy in order to stay alive.

The human need to live is to be understood as a need to live well. Technology is used to produce these “extra needs” as well as “natural needs”. Ortega very strongly equates wellbeing with the use of technology.

But, does this mean we are at some level determined by the technology we use? No, says Ortega. He points to the fact that though technology is used to react to our environment, it is not determined by this mechanism. In fact, Ortega takes a very critical stance against such determinism. He claims, that technology is guided by society and especially the particular idea that society has about ‘wellbeing’. Now, he does not mean ‘social constructivism’ as such but he notes that ‘human needs’ direct technology and that these human needs tend to change over time and differ between cultures.

Conceptualizing technology

In the next chapters Ortega dives into some theoretical questions about technology and humanity. He arrives to a conclusion we saw earlier: that the human use of technology means using technology to transgress the “natural” or “human” limitations of “nature”.

Here Ortega begins to slice the concept of human into pieces. He starts at the level of “things”, claiming that there are three possible relations the “human thing” and the “environment thing” can have. 1. If there would be no resistance between humans and nature, humans and nature would in effect be the one and the same. This is the case for plants and rocks. 2. If there would be nothing but conflict, humans would not exist at all. And, perhaps too self evidently, 3. the relation between humans and nature is “complex and filled with resistance and harmony”.

Then Ortega claims that the ‘ontological uniqueness’ of man is to ‘concur the world’ around him. To this he adds that “natural man” is not a human at all. A true Human Nature can exist only through technology that can be seen as as tunnel through which human creativity (the act of being human) can be channeled.

Projects for existence

Ortega claims, that humans must have a project for his existence. This is not an ontological concept, since Ortega also notes that there are people who are satisfied to “doing nothing”. The idea of having an active person developing “his or her project” that is acted out though technology is directly linked to Ortegas concept of having an “idea of wellbeing” in control of technical development.

A human is a “thing” that is “not yet”, Ortega puts it in a nutshell.

The environment (world) is therefore in a role of “raw materials” for humans to cultivate in mans own image – so to speak. Ortega also writes, that if humans are to address the question of ‘being human’ by the use of technology, humans must first get rid of ‘natural needs’ like we saw earlier. After that there is time to focus on the ‘enhancing of humanity’ technology that actually creates the ‘wellbeing’. This is somewhat close to the famous ‘hierarchy of needs’ by Maslow.

Ortega again notes, that technology does not create its own ends and is therefore not deterministic. In other words, technology does not create the ‘project of humanity’ but only makes it real. Here Ortega notes an interesting factor: in the ‘beginning’ technology made things ‘more clear’ but as technology got more and more complex, it started to affect the ‘project’ making it more fuzzy again. Here he remarks on the ‘modern technology’ and the problems and questions it had raised already in 1939.

In the next chapters Ortega discusses gentlemen and boddhisatvas as different orientations to ‘human projects’ and claims that gentlemen are more connected with work and ‘rational ends’ than boddhisatvas and therefore these ‘cultural prototypes’ (England and India) create different technologies.

The ‘history’ of techonoly

Ortega does not write about causal history when he discusses historical phases in technology. He divides different ‘phases’ of technology in three epochs. 1. The random technology, meaning that ‘in the stone age’ people used whatever sticks or rocks they had nearby to accomplish different ends. 2. In the ‘artisan’ phase technology was created by craftsmen and was considered ‘a skill’ but not yet a ‘world of it’s own’. 3. The third phase – or modern technology – technology had a differentiated place in society and culture and manifested itself in the form of an ‘engineer’. This was also the time when technology and science (19th century) bagan to to be seen as parts of the same system.

Modern technology

Ortega claims that modern technology has three distinct features. 1. It creates a ‘supernature’ that humans are related and dependent of. According to Ortega, it is now impossible to ‘live outside of technology’. 2. A machine or mechanics were introduced in the late middle-ages and came to be in 1825 when Roberts patented a ‘knitting machine’. For Ortega a Machine was thing that made humans not the users but the ones being used by technology. In example, a factory is a machine that uses human work as it’s energy. 3. The separation of research and technology, that manifests as ‘engineers’. Not only is technology now a ‘machine’ but ‘technology’ is also a way of thinking. Here Ortega comes close to the views of – as an example – Michael Foucault attributes to ‘mechanisms of power’.

Technology is identified with it’s way of analyzing things. Ortega gives an example. An Aristotelian philosopher of technology looks at the phenomenon and tries to see its ‘substantive ends or final ends’, an engineer dissects a problem and analyses it. This is, according to Ortega, a shift in the way technology is viewed. In other words, technological thinking begins to analyse nature.

Final remarks

This was one way of reading Ortegas essay. I left out some parts and anybody who is interested in the research of technology should spend an evening reading this short but very inspiring text. There are some parts that obviously are of interest to my transhumanism research. Mainly the idea of ‘supernature’ that technology creates between man and nature. It is worth noting that this supernature is something we develop a dependency towards. Also, the view that technology is created by the ‘human project of wellbeing’ is interesting and I may use it as a starting point when I begin to develop my concept of a technological actor. But, this is just a beginning and I’ll probably have a lot of fun reading this in about a years time.

Against the static orientations to nature and institutions

Note. This text is meant to be provocative. It does not reflect the way my PhD is done nor are the points argued as my ‘true beliefs’. It is meant to provide a background of an ‘ideology’.

Today I’m hosting a workshop at Onnistamo 2012, the an event on Social Entrepreneurship at the Hub Helsinki. Due to some very unexpected challenges in my personal life, I have not had much time to prepare so I’m doing it now. The workshop is about a co-op company I’m trying to piece together but It has very little to do with my PhD so don’t think of this as a commercial thing. Why I’m writing about it here is because the underlying ‘philosophy’ me and some of my friends are developing is somewhat future and change oriented. It also involves some of the same questions transhumanism faces when political and societal issues concerning humanity is conceptualized.

I’m trying to argue that a) we are facing an uncertain future that will very likely bring about major threats to all life on earth, and b) we should focus on survival of humanity and c) to do this we need to get rid of the static thinking societal institutions and ‘harmony with nature’ entails.

The risks to our living are large. The first time I came to realize a concept of risk was in the writings of Ulrich Beck. He is the father of the idea of ‘risk society’. In short, a risk society is a world much like ours. The risks are no longer personal or limited but international and unlimited. This has very much to do with the development of technologies that destroy nature and perhaps even crush what is considered ‘human’. This pessimistic vision is something that has grown from the project of modernity and is seen as an ever increasing expansion of technological systems. In short, Beck famously puts it: “there is no way to test the safety of a nuclear plant, it’s too complex. We have to build one to see if in fact is safe to use”. This ‘risk consciousness’ is reflected as a feeling of uneasy about everyday living.

A prominent proponent of transhumanism, Nick Bostrom, has brought this discussion of ‘existential risks‘ in major focus. He is currently running the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford that focuses on the ‘foresight’ of different technological ‘extermination scenarios’. There are some quite utopian options out there as well as the more known, like the destruction of our living environment. Existential risks are risks that threaten the survival of our entire species and are hard to predict.

Now, we might be living in such a scenario when it comes to the destruction of our environment. There are also major species threatening risks that involve the use of biological weapons or nanotechnology. None of the possible futures can be predicted with certainty. The way I see it, is that taking in to serious consideration, there is a reasonable chance that this is right now happening in our world. This comes just short of being an ‘end times faith’, which I am against. We should not take the ‘precautionary principle’ too seriously. It is a technical way of addressing realistic risks and therefore the ‘strong program’ of it would cause us to stop everythinfg.

The biggest problem is when we become static. Too much emphasis on ‘danger’ makes only stand still while in reality nothing gets really stopped. The other sources of static behavior is the focusing on traditions or ‘institutions‘ or taking the stand that we should live in ‘harmony with nature’.

Institutions are static by nature. One way to define an institution is to claim that it is a social configuration that no one person can hope to change. Institutions do change over time, but very slowly. When I say that institutions are static by nature, it is important to note, that nature itself is in fact very much static. Evolution does occur but it takes millions or at least thousands of years to happen. Humans are only partly connected with nature. Yes, we are natural beings that are rooted in biology. But also, we are able to transgress these boundaries in our imagination – or ‘The Will‘ if you need a reference to philosophy of much of human history.

Nature through the idea of a ‘Gaian‘ system and institutions in form of culture are ways of not thinking in progressive terms. The other way to address the situation is to call the bluff. Nature is a constricting factor in human existence and culture is conservative by definition.

Some people say, that giving up on the belief in ‘bigger things’ life is devoid of meaning. This is sometimes referred as ‘postmodernism‘. I’m not going in to that here, since postmodern is a huge discussion in various sciences and it deserves a better handling than what I can give here.

Here is where my workshop begins. I claim, that we need a new breed of thinkers and activists, who can transgress the boundaries set to us by culture and nature. This does not lead to losing our values – completely the opposite is true. Once we focus on the human actor, we focus on the flesh and blood of existence. This is also where the influence of Alain Touraine becomes evident in my thinking. The transhuman concept of expanding the possibilities is, in my opinion, all about this.

Some of you readers might have realized that I am very much opposed to relativism. If we give up on tradition and stop believing in natural constrictions, do we then have to slide in to a relativistic way of thinking? No, because there is a universal human nature. This is also a big conversation that has certainly not started with transhumanism. It also deserves to be discussed in real detail and I will do that once my PhD gets there.

Here I’m just following on the lines set by an English philosopher Robert Scruton in his book Beauty. In the book there is much to debate about, but it also focuses in trying to find the experience of beauty. Beauty, according to Scruton, is objective and therefore a universal part of human nature. I would widen this definition and argue, that our sense of beauty is a way to sense things that are satisfactory and things that aren’t. There is a true risk of taking this argument to far, like the conservative thinker Leon Kass has shown in support of the ‘yack argument‘.

When we hear news about a famine in a far away country, we often struggle to care. It offends us in some sence, but the feeling does not manifest in a strong moral resentment. However, once we go there and get personally involved, we feel uneasy – we feel it is ugly.

The challenge for the new breed of thinkers and activists is to focus on creating beauty through their action.

And this is done by resisting the static forces in nature and in society. We need to start thinking about the ‘harmony with nature’ argument in another way. Nature is a restrictive force that subjucates us by our mental, psychical and existential borders. The reason to protect nature is not for it’s sake but for ours. I’m not against nature here, mind you that. I just see humans and nature forming a one system that is not our master but our partner.

We also need to resist conservative views when tackling questions of uncertain future. Here we would go against traditions, ethics, religions, political systems and economic ‘laws’. Again, nothing wrong with the mentioned, but we should not hold on to them if we are seeking new ways of thinking and acting.

In the light of the possibility of an extermination scenario of all life on earth, the stakes are high. Risks must be taken. The new thinkers I call Exeptional Challengers (written in an exceptional way in purpose) adhere to this ethics of exception.

The final point about ‘exeptionality’ is that it calls for sacrifice. Sacrifice of the old, our time and our resources – even our lives. This is difficult pitch to make in a world that has just had a few decades of economic growth well being (oh, this is actually not at all true if we look at the entire planet).

So, it comes down to this: we need to start considering what we should sacrifice for beauty in order to survive to the next millenia.

What if the thing we call ‘ethics’ does not exist?

My initial idea in doing this research was that I would focus on the ethical debates transhumanism sparks here and there. Especially I was interested in the field of bioethics, witch means applying philosphical ethics to the (new) genetics discussions. Very soon after I had read some articles and followed some debates about genetic engineering and the especially on proactionary principle, I started to see something started labeling as ‘cultural production of ethics’. I started thinking that these debates were mostly arguing within a discourse that defined ‘a human being’ or the concept of ‘health’.

In fact, I started to wonder if the whole ethos of bioethics was a construction of certain non-ethical principles that preceded the ‘the good ethical principles'[1]. As I researched more, It began to seem like I was right. Bioethics did not come out of thin air. It was formed in a history of ethical debates that concentrated on the assumed ‘rights’ of persons’. The prototype for this kind of thinking was introduced after the Second World War when the horrors of Nazi Germany became public. Especially the involvement of German doctors got the world thinking.

As a result of this a code of ethics was hatched that came to be know as the Nuremberg Code (1947). It stated the rights of a person as a patient and the constraints for the medical personnel. The ‘informed concent‘ was a direct relative of this thinking and it was first introduced in 1957 Later the code became a matter-of-fact and it was carried along in to the large ethical cosmos of ‘medical ethics‘. It became the bedrock of all medical ethics and such it still remains today. The ‘new’ field of bioethics is about applying these principals to the new medical practices that especially genetic engineering has made possible.

All this is in fact very good and such principles and ethical discussions are definitely needed to give guidance to medical personnel in the free world.

However, It also means that the ethical debates that the new (and yes, forthcoming) technologies get tangled in these predefined ways of ‘debating’. As a sociologist that was what got me thinking that perhaps this thing we call ‘ethics’ is in fact – at least to some extent – a specific set of ‘roles’ and ‘scripts’ we start acting out when an ‘ethical discussion’ starts.

But are ethical discussions only some convenient theater to organize ideas and practices to suite political, religious or ideological discourses?

This issue seems to have been discussed before and a quick search in to the archives of the journal for Sociology of Health and Illness uncovered an article by José López. The author writes:

“The disciplinary origins of bioethics in moral and analytical philosophy and theology has created a selectivity towards a formalistic, procedural, disembodied and universalistic way of identifying and resolving bioethical dilemmas”[2].

This is the ethnographic critique of bioethics and it follows on the lines of my argument and thus supports the idea that bioethics is actually producing an ethical view that is compatible with a common view of morality. Rather than discussing the ‘main topic’ of what is a human being and what do these new (genetic) technologies imply, the standard bioethics ‘discussion’ operates on preset standards.

Of course there is a way out. And it would mean that ethical discussions should be stripped of the ‘ethical’ element they harbor. In my view, this is done by reducing the argument. I’m not a big fan of relativism in ethical or political issues (because I am a firm believer in human rights) so the discussion should be anchored to some relevant empirical situation. Now, relevant situations is a concept not that easily defined, I agree. However, in order to engage in discussions and debates in medical issues, one has to agree on certain basic principles.

These principles don’t have anything to do with the technologies in question and perhaps not even the outcomes. The availability of a certain technology, like genetic engineering, sets the area of possibilities. Now, that does not cover the actual world so what will be the outcome of using certain technologies is a matter of much debate. If we put too much emphasis on ‘informed consent’ we create a situation that we really can’t be sure about the ‘informed’ part of the argument. There can never be so much information available that we know exactly what the outcome will be so if an individual will to use ‘radical’ medical technologies needs to be supported by factual outcomes, the it follows that no treatment decisions can be made based on the medical knowledge available.

This follows from the idea that there is no clear link between the ‘real world’ and the way science or technology presents that world. I discussed this in short in my last post. Bioethics should be based on arguments and López explains this process and defines three ways (here we present two) principals are created as concepts for argument.

“The rules for the formation of concepts have three dimensions. The first refers to the order of succession or relations between statements. In bioethics, we find rules for the derivation of general principles from a common morality, but also rules of philosophical analysis concerned with the development of deductive reasoning and the avoidance of contradiction, and rules for the employment of deontological and/or consequentialist reasoning. The second dimension establishes the types of statement which are accepted and those that are rejected; thus, statements that appeal to rational, calculable and universal criteria would be accepted whereas emotional, religious and idiosyncratic belief statements would be rejected” [2].

In the mentioned article López argues the importance of sociological research in to bioethics. That would be the way to get rid of other view that weigh in the arguments and tend to standardize moral control of the medical technologies. Although cultural meanings do affect the way we understand ethics, we should try to brake this barrier. But are we left with only the unlikely path to argue the matter only by reference to ‘technical’ or ‘practical’ problems. That would not yield any good outcomes. In stead the author asks us to consider the ‘history’ of bioethics itself to find out how we should weigh in the arguments.

“In this paper I have argued that the bioethics phenomenon should be of interest to sociologists because of the central role it plays in aligning core societal values. I have outlined the cognitive critique developed primarily by ethnographers, but have also argued that the cognitive critique, alone, is unlikely to secure a place for ethnography and sociology in the field of bioethics. This is because the legitimacy of bioethics, as a socially sanctioned knowledge, does not derive from the validity of its cognitive claims. I have drawn on Foucault’s concept of discursive formations to explore how the rules of discursive formation can be used to illustrate the sources of bioethics’ claims to legitimacy, and have also used this analysis to outline the challenges faced by sociologists and ethnographers. I have concluded by arguing that sociologists and ethnographers need to reflect on the ways in which they might democratically secure legitimacy for their own ethical object(s).” [2].

This is the issue transhumanism faces when arguing about genetic engineering and especially germ line engineering. It is radical, because it truly challenges the way ethics is understood. Only after the dissection of ethical concepts in use can we start arguing about issues concerning individual rights and the responsibilities (?) of social actors and institutions to prohibit or allow certain technologies.

[1] Pilnic, Alison (2002): Genetics and Society. An introduction. Philadelphia. Open University Press.

[2] López, Jóse (2004) “How Sociology Can Save Bioethics…maybe” in Sociology of Health and Illness: 2004/26 (875-896).

What!? The Established Scientific Community is an illusion!

Cultural definitions are sometimes defined as something so incorporated in everyday life and understanding that we hardly ever start to question them. Like furniture, we don’t pay much attention in them unless something gets broken or is being talked about. So, what makes a theory or a device a part of the ‘real science’ or the Established Scientific Community? Such a thing must exist since almost every transhumanist I have met or chatted with do claim that ‘transhumanism is not (yet) accepted in the scientific community’.

That is a duality I can start off with.

As a sociologist I have questioned this duality from early on. A few days ago I was reading more books about the sociology of knowledge. Sociology of knowledge is a field of sociology, that examines the different forms of knowledge in society as well as the way they are created and how they interact. It is not only because of methodological concerns that sociology of knowledge is important but it also raises theoretical issues. This is especially true in the field of science and technology research.

Technology is a rather novel concept. I’m not going to discuss the origins or the formation of the modern concept of technology. There is plenty of time to go into that in later posts. For now it suffices to bear in mind that technology is not the same as science and that technology is much more than just devices we use to make our microwave diners. In fact, at this point, the question of what is technology gets very tricky.

Unsurprisingly I am currently reading Scientific Knowledge – A sociological Analysis by Barry Barnes, David Bloor and John Henry (1996). The book is built from blocks that you can imagine analogous with the process of scientific research. It starts off with ‘observation and ‘interpretation’ and then moves on to discuss how scientific theories are created in and with language. The rest of the book is refining the main argument: every scientific theory is culturally produced knowledge and there is no objective link between it and the “real world”. That is a very crude shortening of the 200 and so pages but it will do for now.

There are two things from the book I’d like to point out here.

One, scientific knowledge is always linked to other systems of meaning in society. The microwave oven is a technological device that has a certain meaning in culture of cookery, urban living or healthy eating. The machine itself is connected to different fields of physics and the way it is produced is a part of a very large global economic and transport system. Also, the theoretical work behind the technology exists somewhere in thousands of research rapports and university lecture halls.

The second point is, that scientific knowledge is not a special kind of knowledge. Science as a ‘method’ does not stand for absolute objective guarantee for truth. I know it’s hard to stomach, but that’s what some theories of the sociology of knowledge come down to. For a sociologist, this is good news because it means we can address the ‘culture of science’ like any other field of human social behaveour. However, it may be bad for the atheist trying to peace together his argument against Intelligent Design (actually, it’s not a problem because it is possible to point out that intelligent design is not a scientific theory in the ‘common’ meaning of the word.)

Now, these are big claims and I do agree with them to some extent. I do take a stand against relativism, so I hope to find some way to postulate information that could pass as ‘objective’ in a sense that all humans or human-like-actors would agree. I’ll have an interesting angle on this subject as I get to the ‘technology as social relations’ part of my PhD.

If science and technology are just one kinds of cultural systems, how can transhumanism as a movement or a philosophy be ‘cast out’ from the “main stream science community”?

There must be power at play here somewhere! As I was trying to get my research question fine tuned to post here in the blog, I realized that until I get a clear understanding of how transhumanism and ‘the established scientific community’ are related, I actually have no place to start collecting my data. I’ll start of with two fundamental questions:

1. How the relation between society and science (and technology) is defined historically.

2. Does the transhuman concept of technology open some new ways to conceptualize technology AND relate to society.

Something like that I’ll try to figure out in my first article that I’m now starting to work on.

The “need” for modification?

I just read an article about Mary Jose Cristernan, or “vampire lady” as she is called in the media. Mary has tattoeed almost 100 percent of her body and added some extreme implants under her skin. The most striking added features are the “horns” she has on her forehead.

Mary is not the first to do this – remember Orlan? In fact, as a cultural phenomenon body modification is as old as mankind. This has caught the interest of many researchers and one clear outcome of the research in to the field is that extreme body modifications are very closely connected to the cultural or religious habits of the social group. There is a good book edited by Mike Featherstone about body modification in general.

But not only is extreme body modification a cultural phenomenon, it is understandably also a very very personal matter. In the modern west we have a tendency to view things like this in a psychological framework. So, we set out to explain implants, tattoos and altered eye colors with the mental needs of the individual. I agree that having horns is propably a very empowering thing to have but I disagree about diminishing this in to a set of psychological explanations.

Not only do tattoos and other body modifications share symbols they also are a platform for the personal identity. In some cultures, this identity is strongly linked in to the cultural background such as having your ear peirced in order to show your social status.

The extreme body modification pioneers and the possible advances of modern technology are connected in at least one level. They are transgressing the boundaries of the human body. As these boundaries become more and more flexible, one can argue that this is something that can also alter what it is to be human.

And this is where transhumanism comes along.

There are some technologies I have been following for years. One is the mind-machine interfaces and “wearable computers”. We can be brave and call this the “cyberzation of the body”. The other is the research done in the field of artificial intelligens. If Siri pops to your mind, you are where the technology currently is going.

Transhumanism is very much about a concept of “enhancing” the individual. I quoting the word “enhance” just because it seems very often to be used as a concept to describe a larger phenomenon and not just some tweeks of the body here and there. In fact, I consider enhancement to be one of the key concepts of the future “what is it to be human” debates.

I’m not going to write about the debate side of the matter. The debate more or less gravitates around the question of what it is to be human, so as everyone can agree, that is a big discussion.

The point I’m making is that if human-machine interfaces become entagled with our body and mind and if artificial intelligence systems are more and more  doing our thinking, we are very likely to be enhanced. But also, as this progress goes on, we will come to a point where we start doing things with these new tools and that can cause disconnect with the way we are used to communicate and present ourselves.

Imagine walking around with special glasses that augment the reality around you. You see peoples Fb-updates hovering over their heads, commercials in the sidewalk, arrows pointing to where you are going (is it a loss of humanity, if we can’t get lost anymore?). Being a “user” of a system is more about being “apart of something” that just having a good tool for, say, communication.

This is  of course a prediction made with Facebook in mind. The technology we now have paves the way for new technologies we (want) to develop in the future. The future horizon is a daunting view. I don’t think we need to be over cautious about it since I don’t think technology “just happens”. I think technology develops in concert with our cultural values and social needs.

I may be a bit optimistic about the “need” to be modified or enhanced in this way. The way we are going is very likely to produce positive and negative effects, such as creating a culture that is accessible by only the few with the wits and the resources.

In that case it is a good question to ask, who gives us the “need”. Since needs gives us solutions and these solutions create new social roles and (importantly) new social relations, the outcome is something to be discussed.

In this vision of the future “extreme body modification” is to be understood at an industrial level. It is therefore given to the “masses” and it is impossible to predict what the outcome will be. Currently the pioneers of cyborgs and body modification are laying in place the initial discussion about the future. What our “needs” will be is a more or less controlled outcome of that discussion.

Will there be a new concept of humanity or will there be the thousands of years old “mankind” entering an enhanced world. I suppose that is one starting point of discussing the matter in depth.