Evolving Beyond Ourselves

 

The purpose of this venture is to get you to consider what would happen if humanity evolved into something entirely different from what it is now and is becoming. The issue that we are currently facing is environmental justice being compromised due to humanity putting itself first. This can be improved by looking through a posthumanistic lens. 

 

Every species on this planet has its time here, usually about ten million years. Eventually our time will come to an end. And with the rate that humanity is using up non-renewable resources, that time will come sooner than we were possibly allotted; we are currently living in what is to be the planet's sixth mass extinction (Withgott,50-56). In order to save our species, and overall, the home that supports us, we need to acclimatize and modify our habits to be sustainable. If we destroy our planet before it has a chance to destroy us, or let our rein run its course, we will not have time to even consider all of the advancements we can make as a society.

 

This brings me to the interesting concept of transhumanism as a hopeful theory. Transhumanism is based on the idea that humans will someday employ biotechnology to make themselves stronger, more intelligent, less prone to violence, and longer-lived (Fukuyama, 2004). This theory is widely influenced by science fiction (Hughes,2004). A popular concept within transhumanism is the idea of the technological singularity. The hypothesis that accelerating advancements made in the field of technology will cause a snowball effect where artificial intelligence will surpass human intellectual command, radically changing our society in an event called "the singularity" (Colombetti, 2014). Transhumanism is an optimistic theory because it will move us in the direction to employ progressive technology as an instrument we can use to better our intellect, physicality, and psychological capabilities. This theory is a philosophy that will guide humanity to becoming posthuman. 

 

Another posthumanistic theory, Cyborg theory, is brought forth by author Donna Haraway in her article, "Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century." She states that, “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.” It is inferred then that we can, in fact, relate science fiction to our reality. Science fiction and its seemingly dystopian settings and “far out” scientific progressions are really no different than our own civilizations are or could be. Haraway’s take on the cybernetic organism, or cyborg, is focused greatly on the elimination of politics and gender. Her theory helps illuminate the fact that, to advance as a human race, we need to collectively put our differences aside and put our energy into building something greater than ourselves. 

 

Another author, one of the foremost theorists of the posthuman, whose works are paralleled by Haraway's effectively is N. Katherine Hayles. In an interview with Arthur Piper for A Journal of Modern Critical Theory, she describes posthumanism as, "...a historical phenomenon, something that occurred in ideas about the human from roughly the 1930s to the present." In her book, How We Became Posthuman, she explores popular posthumanist yearning for incorporeal organization and gives an interesting take on the human form. Hayles believes that the body is the prosthesis of the mind, putting information over materiality (Hayles, 1999). Her exploration with cybernetics, defined as the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine (Wiener, 1948), lead to a greater understanding of the possibilities of advancing our species with self-regulating technology. With these advancements, our society would not have to rely on our planet to sustain ourselves. 

 

These theories and identities relate science fiction, speculative fiction, technology, and sustainability to environmental justice through the desire to achieve equality for humanity and the earth.