Transhumanism

The term ‘homo-superior’ was coined by the philosopher and science-fiction author Olaf Stapledon to describe the main character in his 1935 novel Odd John. This concerned an exceptional individual ‘John Wainwright’ at odds with ‘the little mob of homo-sapiens’, but soon the idea of groups of advanced humans, accelerated by technology to what is often described as ‘a higher evolutionary level’ became a familiar trope in science fiction. Already by that point, however, scientists themselves had been thinking about how applied genetics might improve human powers, and in fact the term ‘transhumanism’ was introduced by the geneticist and Marxist J.B.S. Haldane in his 1923 essay Daedalus: Science and the Future. Forty years later he revisited the theme of human transformation speculating about ‘Biological Possibilities for the Human Species in the next Ten thousand Years’. These included individuals selecting partners on the basis of known genetic attributes and predicted cloning from “persons of attested ability”, as well as the synthesising of new genes that might be introduced into human chromosomes, and intranuclear grafting of animal genes into humans. The other source of thinking about human enhancement leading to the existence of beings that transcend existing human nature is AI and Robotics. Again, this began in science fiction with the idea of cyborgs, but already there are techniques for correcting or mitigating blindness, deafness, and certain neurological conditions by means of implants which could also be developed to enhance normal functions. The ethical questions are those of unforeseen consequences and of the propriety of seeking to change human nature.