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Category Archives: Transhuman

Transhuman – Snafu Comics Wiki

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A Transhuman or trans-human is an intermediary form between the human and the hypothetical posthuman.

The etymology of the term "transhuman" goes back to French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who wrote in his 1949 book The Future of Mankind: Liberty: that is to say, the chance offered to every man (by removing obstacles and placing the appropriate means at his disposal) of 'trans-humanizing' himself by developing his potentialities to the fullest extent.

And in a 1951 unpublished revision of the same book: In consequence one is the less disposed to reject as unscientific the idea that the critical point of planetary Reflection, the fruit of socialization, far from being a mere spark in the darkness, represents our passage, by Translation or dematerialization, to another sphere of the Universe: not an ending of the ultra-human but its accession to some sort of trans-humanity at the ultimate heart of things.

In 1957 book New Bottles for New Wine, English evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley wrote: The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. "I believe in transhumanism": once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Pekin man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny. One of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the Human" at The New School of New York City in the 1960s, used "transhuman" as shorthand for "transitional human". Calling transhumans the "earliest manifestation of new evolutionary beings", FM argued that signs of transhumans included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, reconstructive surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny, mediated reproduction (such as in vitro fertilisation), absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values.

FM-2030 used the concept of transhuman, as an evolutionary transition, outside the confines of academia in his contributing final chapter to the 1972 anthology Woman, Year 2000. In the same year, American cryonics pioneer Robert Ettinger contributed to conceptualization of "transhumanity" in his book Man into Superman. In 1982, American artist Natasha Vita-More authored the Transhuman Manifesto 1982: Transhumanist Arts Statement and outlined what she perceived as an emerging transhuman culture.

Many thinkers today do not consider FM-2030's characteristics to be essential attributes of a transhuman. However, analyzing the possible transitional nature of the human species has been and continues to be of primary interest to anthropologists and philosophers within and outside the intellectual movement of transhumanism.

In March 2007, American physicist Gregory Cochran and paleoanthropologist John Hawks published a study, alongside other recent research on which it builds, which amounts to a radical reappraisal of traditional views, which tended to assume that humans have reached an evolutionary endpoint. Physical anthropologist Jeffrey McKee argued the new findings of accelerated evolution bear out predictions he made in a 2000 book The Riddled Chain. Based on computer models, he argued that evolution should speed up as a population grows because population growth creates more opportunities for new mutations; and the expanded population occupies new environmental niches, which would drive evolution in new directions. Whatever the implications of the recent findings, McKee concludes that they highlight a ubiquitous point about evolution: "every species is a transitional species."

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Transhuman - Snafu Comics Wiki

Sci-Fi Story Altered States of Plaine Harbors Ambitions That Tower Above Its Tiny Budget

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Photo by Gary Robinson

Gallagher as Emanuel Plaine in Altered States of Plaine.

Despite expensive anomalies like The Matrix and Inception, which found huge audiences for densely scripted plotlines, studios still regularly hand Michael Bay the annual GDP of French Guiana.

Science fiction is hard, but making fart jokes with giant robots is easy. It's the corporate equivalent of having Eggos for dinner. Altered States of Plaine, like indies Pi and Primer, harbors ambition that towers over its super-saver discount budget.

Director Nick Gaglia hides the actual rough edges of the production with the artistic rough edges of handheld cameras, slow shutter speeds, and tight, low-angle close-ups that favor his charismatic actors. The transition between the blue-grays of the city and the saturated yellows of the desert are as disorienting as the main character's problem. Whenever Emanuel Plaine (George Gallagher, who co-wrote the script) falls asleep, his body teleports to a random point on Earth, raptured away without clothing or possessions.

In the film's opening moments, he awakens naked on a New York subway, screaming in full panic, just as confused as the audience. During an apartment B&E to steal clothing, he saves a young prostitute named Violet (Kether Donohue) from a violent john, and eventually convinces her to drive him to Maryland to plead for help from a physics professor whose work entails the teleportation of photons.

The script, only occasionally clumsy, errs on the side of mystery, leaving open the question of whether Emanuel is insane or transhuman until the final moments.

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Sci-Fi Story Altered States of Plaine Harbors Ambitions That Tower Above Its Tiny Budget

Google invents smart contact lens with built-in camera: Superhuman Terminator-like vision here we come

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Google has invented a new smart contact lens with an integrated camera. The camera would be very small and sit near the edge of the contact lens so that it doesnt obscure your vision. By virtue of being part of the contact lens, the camera would naturally follow your gaze, allowing for a huge range of awesome applications, from the basis of a bionic eye system for blind and visually impaired people, through to early warning systems (the camera spots a hazard before your brain does), facial recognition, and superhuman powers (telescopic and infrared/night vision). In related news, Google Glass is publicly available today in the US for one day only (still priced at $1500).

This new smart contact lens would have a tiny CMOS camera sensor just below your pupil, control circuit, and some method of receiving power wirelessly (more on that later). Because an imaging sensor, by definition, has to absorb light, it wouldnt be transparent but it could probably be color matched to your iris, so that your eyes dont look too freaky.

A diagram of Googles smart contact lens with integrated camera [Image credit: Patent Bolt]

Beyond the medical- and consumer-oriented applications, you can also imagine the possibilities if police were equipped with contact lenses that could spot criminal faces in a crowd, or a bulge under a jacket that could be a concealed weapon. Oh, and the most exciting/deadly application of them all: Soldiers with smart contact lenses that alert them to incoming fire, provide infrared vision that can see through smoke, real-time range finding for more accurate sniping

A contact lens display in a rabbits eye (way back in 2011)

This invention, from the Google X skunkworks lab, comes in the form of a patent that was filed in 2012 and was recently published by the US PTO. Earlier this year, Google announced that it was working ona smart contact lens for diabetics that provides a real-time glucose level reading from your tears. As far as we can tell, theres no timeline for real-world trials of either variety of contact lens but we can tell you that the technology to create such devices is very nearly here. Way back in 2011, a smart contact lens with an LED display was trialed in the lab.

Moving forward, there are some concerns about power delivery (theres no space for a battery, of course, so it has to be beamed in wirelessly), and whether its wise to have a wireless device implanted in a rather sensitive organ, but I dont think these will be game-breaking problems.For now, were talking about fairly chunky contact lenses that are best suited to laboratory testing but it shouldnt be more than a few years until real, comfortable smart contact lenses come to market.

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Google invents smart contact lens with built-in camera: Superhuman Terminator-like vision here we come

Coming to Terms With Humanity's Inevitable Union With Machines

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Joaquin Phoenix in a scene from ''Her'' by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures/Associated Press

By John Havens2014-04-11 12:05:50 UTC

Our robot overlords are already here.

Were just anthropomorphizing our technology in more subtle ways than wed imagined in the past. We stigmatize Theodore Twombly, Joaquin Phoenixs character in the movie, Her, as morally questionable when falling in love with his operating system, yet dont find it adulterous when the last face we look at before falling asleep belongs to our smartphone versus our soulmate.

Its time to come to grips with what it means to be human in a digital environment. That is, a fully digital or virtual environment. We can talk about unplugging from technology, but that behavior is more akin to minimizing an activity window while our relationship continues running in the background of our lives. Sensors in our phones and the innards of our globe monitor ubiquitously, broadcasting our unencrypted consciousness to the world.

Its hard not to get philosophical. Or judgmental Im genuinely struggling with the idea that well soon fully merge with machines.

As technology gains human level sentience, I need to evolve my mindset. What if my daughter wants to marry an algorithm? Can I have dinner with its parents? Can we expect to see anti robot-bullying campaigns soon? Or a reworked cover of Macklemores, SIM love?

I joke because Im conflicted. Im genuinely a bit freaked at the idea that humans and machines are already so inexorably linked. And I firmly believe that things like the wearables industry are simply intermediary technologies to mentally prepare us for our inevitable union with machines. They help reveal the personal data thats currently invisible in our lives while providing a thin, albeit fashionable, buffer between the time devices will be on our skin versus within.

My goal here is to confront my unease with this union while my identity is largely located in my cortex rather that the cloud. Im not anti-robot, as I thought I might be in the past. But the reality of transcendence with technology shouldnt be taken lightly, even if it is inevitable.

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Coming to Terms With Humanity's Inevitable Union With Machines

The Planner, April 7: 20 things Joe Gross is looking forward to in March

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1. EMA, The Futures Void (Matador). The second album from the South Dakota singer-songwriter Erika M. Anderson, who brought us the amazing 2011 song California. (Tuesday)

2. Updike by Adam Begley (Harper). Long-awaited biography of the ground-breaking writer. (Tuesday)

3. Patton Oswalt, Tragedy Plus Comedy Equals Time CD/DVD (Comedy Central). New special from one of the great comedians of his age. (Tuesday)

4. Face the Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley (HarperOne). The Starchild weighs in on the band he has fronted for 40 years. (Tuesday)

5. Joe. The newest movie from Austin director David Gordon Green, starring Nicholas Cage and Tye Sheridan. (April 11)

6. A Field in England Blu-Ray/DVD. Ben Wheatleys seriously weird story of 17th century England was introduced to Austin audiences at last years Fantastic Fest. (April 15)

7. Rodney Crowell, Tarpaper Sky (New West). Speaking of 40 years in the music biz, this album reunites Crowell with his 1980s musical accomplice Steuart Smith. (April 15)

8. Nas, Illmatic XX (Columbia/Legacy). Heres the 20th anniversary edition of the 1994 hip-hop classic, remastered, with bonus material. (April 15)

9. The Afghan Whigs, Do to the Beast (SubPop). This is the first album Greg Dulli has made under the name Afghan Whigs in 16 years. Whigs bassist John Curley is on it, Whigs guitarist Rick McCollum is not. Your call. (April 15)

10. The Both, The Both (SuperEgo). The Both is Aimee Mann and Ted Leo. Enjoy. (April 15)

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The Planner, April 7: 20 things Joe Gross is looking forward to in March


  1. Transhuman