The Future Of Humans Enhancement by Technology

I'd like to discuss with you my researchover the past many years, which is in the domain of human enhancement, which is looking at not just the individual, but the possibility of connectome of the human physiology and cognitive properties.

The Future Of Humans Enhancement by Technology

This area is all about what could become ahuman nature?

Certainly we would contain many the values,the experiences that we have asbiological animals.

But looking beyond that whereas digitality,electronics interface with us throughhuman-machine interaction, what could webecome with this type ofimmersivity, transparency almostindistinguishable invisibility of technology?

It's all around us. It has become part of us.

And we will have many different issues about ethics and who we might becomeBut the bottom line of it all iswhat is the future of human enhancemnt,where are we going, who do we wantto become?

I look at it from two perspectives. Number one is life expansionTaking the notion of life extension,looking beyond our limitation of biology, which for thehuman animal is approximatelya 122-123 years, to what we might become through theimplementation of design.

Now one of the most interestinginnate characteristics of human to meis our love of exploration and ourability to innovate.

We're inventors, we love to problem solveand it ties very neatly into designbecause design, as you know,is iterative process, we're constantly reforming, remaking ourconcepts. So that they are not only feasible,they're doable.

Design is all about our problem solving.

The second part of my interest in this area oflife expansion is, as a reseacher -- part scientist, part designer,part artist, part theoritician -looking at how we might developa field for people, who would like to live healthyas long as they can, with as much conscious spirit andproductivity as possible.

The exploration of us and the innovation in ourinsight and also live beyond the limitation of a 122 years.

And you might say: "well, that certainly that'sa long time to live and who would want to live longer than that?"

But many of us do. You take someone who isin their hundreds, who is still vital, who still has atremendous "joie de vivre"

That person ought to live longer if he orshe wants to. And, certainly, you might say what isthe ethics of it, what about haves and the have-nots?

Only the rich can have this? Not so. We know from basic economics thatthe price is driven down. And, certainly, with the idea ofAnd what are we evolving into? Well, part of us is evolving into digitality.

We're data across streamsthrough Twitter, through interfaces,through all sorts of abilitiesto adapt to our environment. So, let's assume, how did all this come around.

I came around by a gentleman called Norbert Wiener. He worked in a concept of cybernetics,and cybernetics certainly dealt with machines,it dealt with warfare, but it also dealt with space exploration.

And one of our great explorationsthat we still drive for,with innovation, beyond any comparisonespecially with the X Prize,is space exploration, mining the asteroids.

But how does this tie into life expansion?

The idea of the cyborg, an old idea,certainly lost its 21st century spin,but the cyborg was aboutthe human and machines integratedso that the human could exist in zero-gravity.

Why? Because zero gravity could affect ourmuscular system and our bone density.

In zero G we would needa different type of body to exist. So, we are not in zero G,but we could becomme in zero G. But where are we?

We are not simply in the biosphere all the time,we're in the cybersphere. We spend just as much time,generally, in our computers working with elements of digitalityas we do with elements of oxygen. So, we take a look at this.

Where are we going?

We are adapting to what we might become. And it is my view, which is the cyborg view,although I'm not a cyberneticist,nor do I value the term cyberg any longer,but it is a great historical route for what we are becoming.

The transhuman is a notion of livingfully and richly through our lifesand adapting, and moving, and envolvingthrough our own abilityto steer our future through the innovationsand explorations in our sciences,technologies and numerous advancesthrough a transdisciplinary perspective.

So, we take a look at our own bodiesand how we’re engineering aspects of it.

We have transplants, implants, we have add-ons,we have enhancements.

Certainly there are over a hundred thousand people eachare waiting for a transplantand many of them have to die because there is no a transplant,there is no solution to it.

So we’re farming out these,we’re developing pigs to grow organs,we’re looking to manufacturing organs andwe’re looking at stamp cells for building our own organsand freezing them for the timewhen we may need to have a transplant.

But what else is there? An example here is prosthetics. Prosthetic devices that enable thosewithout their bodily functions to havevery interesting and sometimes better devicesthan our biological devices.

The only good thing that I can ever saythat comes from any type of war and hatred,is that the engineering and design sensibilityto build prosthetics have given people who have suffereda very stunning leg or an arm.

So where is this all going? What are we talking about here?

As far as a future body, a transhuman body,to live longer outside the biology.

I like to look at it as a type of platform diverse system.

If we’d look at biology as a substrate,we look at cybernetics or electronic digitally as another substrate,what if we could cross between these substrates?

What would it require for us?

We already have avatar bodies in Second Life in the Metaverse,we also have multiple personalities and all of our email exchanges.

And we can become multiple people in different environments.

But on a basis of living longerwe need to look at combining this biosphere that we love so much,that we live in, that we want to protect and prolong,And the cybersphere this other type of environment,this digital world that we become,so familiar with as if it was our own offspringand our parents as well.

So, the people who enjoy thinking about this,as an exploratory adventure,think about who wants this?

Who would want to live longer?

The people who simply do not want to die right now.

We say no one wants, to die right now.

Certainly, I do not want to die right now, but for these of us,who has faced life death situations, we know how fragile we are again,and our base safety net for staying alive is,of course, being with loved ones,having an animal companion, having financial security,having family love and support and being mentally sound,working out, being as healthy as we can for as long as we can.

And if we are going to invest the amount of money that we do todayand health in our own maintenance. Why would we just stop itbecause all of a sudden a 122, a 123 comes aroundand that is the maximum life span that humans have had so far.

So, my option here is to come up with an ideafor a whole body prosthetic that could be an alternative design.

You say: What, why would weback up the brain? Well, certainly,we back up our computerson a daily basis, if noton a minute to minute basis,why not back up our brains?

Aren't we a little bit sillythat we haven't done that yet?

Oh, that's not as easy as that in fact.

Some of the world's leadingcognitive scientists

are woriking in that area,as well as neuro scientists,thinking about how we couldback it up. The whole body prosthetic,because if you have a bodyyou have to have a brain in it.

So we get into the issue ofthe Cartesian issue of dualism.

And looking at if the mindis separate from the body is thatcorrect? Or is the mind in a brainwhich is part of a body?

Or can we just have a disembodied braindealing in cyberspace like an upload?

Or what do we do? Where do we meet here?

Oh, I'm of the different schoolof the thought than the mostof philosophers and theoreticiansin the academic arts whotalk about disembodiment.

That if we're going to cyberspaceas persons we will becomedisembodied agency.

I disagree, I think no matter what substrate we’re in,we will still have some kind of body,we need our perceptual apparatus,we need to have adventure and exploration,not just through our cognitive abilities,but through emotions, through feeling, to experiencing.

So, when we take on a first prototype in the design process,it should it's surely theoretical conseptual conceptand then we build it and then we test it and build it again.

The first time I built the future body prosthetic puma post humanwas in 1997 and it was extremely successful,not monetearly, because it was before it’s timeand I couldn’t build it,but I conceptualized it.

It was a very successful concept.

Now I’m looking at it againbecause technologies come up to the times,back then it was nanobioinfocogno technologies,but today those technologies that I'd worked ontheoretically are now making strides in our own fieldso I have to revisit the whole situation.

So here is my original drawings for puma post humanand, as you've noticed,I dealt with the mind and the body and the brain.

And today I still deal with it.

But first.. the body, then the brain, then personhood,because this is a continuation of our identity, ourself,who we are that we want to preserve,No matter how long we live, no matterwhat circumstances we go through,it is ourself, our person that to havea continuity of self would resolve inyou being suspended overtime wetherit is in the biological systemsemi-biological system or cybernetic system.

So here is my original designin 1997 of the transitional humanand a little of mock-up companyI develop was Ageless Thinking.

And you could see that I came up withdifferent ideas about the skin would regenerated itself.

Well… I met a dermatologist on the plane here.

And he was telling me about a patternin a couple years that it is an injectable with the skincould feasibly developed on its own collagen.

And there is many other issues therewith plastic surgery, with reconstructive surgery,dermatology, nanomedicine coming on board,genetic engineering dealing with the telomeresin our body that shortensas our daughter cells regenerateover and over and then lose ability to regenerate…This is just the beginning.

So, eventually, we could be able to havean MRI tells us if the onset of any type ofwide damage in our brain,and the onset of dementia or senility.

We could look at our bone density and seewhere we’re having a degenerative amount ofof bone loss or muscle loss.

We could look at our spinal column and seewhere some of the bones of the spine are fusing,we may have to go into intervene…These are ways we can see inside the bodyand that’s amazing.

We take it for granted sometimes with the MRI,but we can see inside the body,now we need to talk to the body.

So if we had nanomedicine, we would havelittle computers going to the body and talk to us.

So that’s my brain on the MRI, that’s my body with the bone densityand muscle density and that’s my body talkingabout the future body design.

I think it.. This stage ought to look biologicallike we are today and enhance an old manourselves as we choose.

And they will have issues about morphological freedomwho has a right to enhance andwho ought never to be coursed to enhancebecause the extent of the human enhancementis a personal choice each individual in my view anywayhas a right to determine how long  he or she wants to live or can live.

Now you might again say that’s the haves and have-notsso that it’s a economic issue that’s where you live.

Yes that’s very true, but we’ve learned over the yearsthat the cost goes down,the people by a large love to stay aliveand protect their family and keep each other alive.

So what I want to end with todayis looking at some of these robotic designs,and that arm is exquisitely beautifuland these pieces of the bodyare beautiful to look atlike sculpture like Andrey Moraor Jean Hans Arp any of the beautiful designspart of the bodily designs,they have movement, they have sensitivity.

So if designers could get togetherand design bodies for us to live longer in a durable

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