Digital Mind, Digital Organs, Digital Immortality
Cyborgs, trans-humans, and post humans can be very exciting topics, but also very scary ones. Cyborgs and trans-humans have a lot more potential for positive outcomes than post-humans. Cyborgs and trans-humans can, to an extent, be roped into the same category and are more about increasing human’s abilities. On the other hand, post-humans are essentially what is going to happen when there aren’t any humans (as we know them today) left. The post human era is when humans have become something else allowing them to transcend, through technology, beyond biological limitations and create a new world through our infinitely more intelligent minds. This era is also referred to as “the singularity”. The concept of cyborgs, trans-humans, and post-humans could very soon be a larger part of our reality than it seems.
Cyborgs are defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as people whose bodies contain mechanical or electrical devices and whose abilities are greater than the abilities of normal humans. Technically, some people could be classified as cyborgs today. Many people are fitted with electronic or mechanical limbs that help them on a day-to-day basis. Cyborgs of the near future will probably be more like the people out of the film Repo Men. Repo Men is essentially about organ transplants in the future. Today, medical bills and hospital bills are already extremely expensive. The bills put many people in severe debt and can financially ruin them, but if Repo Men has anything right about the future, an unpaid medical bill will cost people their lives.
In this film people who need organ transplants can get their dying organs replaced with robotic ones. The company that makes the artificial organs gives them to the people on an agreement that they will be paid off over time, but the artificial organs are extremely expensive. The two main characters, Jake and Remy (played by Forest Whitaker and Jude Law respectively), are two of the many “repo men” of the future. When people do not pay for their organs, these repo men go out to “repossess” the organs. In order to do this the repo men track down the recipients wherever they may be and cut the organs out of their bodies and take them back to the company. The people are awake and usually die when they do this. Because of this repossession, many people who cannot finish paying for their transplants go into secret communities where they attempt to hide from the repo men, knowing that they will likely be killed if found.
These artificial organs technically classify the people in Repo Men as cyborgs as they gain the ability of extended life as long as they can keep their bills paid. While cyborgs of the near future may not have their artificial organs or limbs brutally removed if they cannot keep them paid, the image we see of them in Repo Men will likely be similar to what we will see soon.
Even so, let’s take it a step further. What about when we can replace almost any body part with a robotic one? What if we could have robotic eyes, or ears, or arms, or legs? That is usually what we think about when we hear the term “cyborg”.
The film Robocop is a great example of what we envision a true cyborg to be. Without getting into too much detail, a street cop is turned into a cyborg that is almost invincible with incredible strength. Hardcore Henry has not come out yet, but this movie follows a similar premise. A man is either killed or seriously injured, and many of his body parts are replaced with robot parts and he is also basically invincible and incredibly strong.
Maybe it’s the kid in me, but my two favorite examples of cyborgs are Cyborg from Teen Titans, and Darth Vader. The character Cyborg has a robotic eye and robotic arms and legs. His arms can extend and one can even change into some sort of cannon. His cyborg features make him a much more powerful human being. Darth Vader, on the other hand, is only being kept alive by his robotic parts. Darth Vader is more similar to the idea of cyborgs that the film Repo Men portrays. Cyborgs like Darth Vader are not necessarily being improved from their basic human form, they are just being kept alive.
Cyborgs are essentially trans-humans because they are not fully human but are not fully something else. However, trans-human implies there is something more. There is an aspect of the being that transcends humanity. The film Lucy is a great example of this. In Lucy, the main characters gains abilities to use her brain in amazing ways and can even change physics. While she still has her basic human form, she is much, much more than a human.
Post-humanity is where everything gets really interesting, and really weird. Post-humanity is often referred to as “the singularity”. In physics, the singularity is the point in a black hole where (we assume) all matter is compressed to it’s smallest form. However, we don’t really know what that means, or what happens after that. We also don’t know what is going to happen when the post-human era comes around. The film Transcendence is an example of what being a post-human may look like. In this film, a man’s consciousness gets uploaded to a computer and is connected with all of the other computers in the world. So what would a world like that be for the rest of us?
Ideally, we would know what we are, and where we are. If we could upload our consciousness somehow to a computer and be connected to everyone and everything on the planet we would be able to accomplish so much. But, what would be the point? Would we just be playing around in cyberspace? Would we just sit around thinking? If we knew everything there would be no purpose but just to sit there and exist forever, and what would it feel like? Would we be able to feel or would we simply just be? All of these questions are why it is called the singularity. Once we can leave our biological selves behind, we have no idea what will happen next. The world may not need us anymore and we, as a species, might go extinct with only a select few left to be digitally immortal. Hopefully, it will mean something good besides the death of the human race, but it will be here sooner we than we know it and we will figure it out then.
