Sunday, February 26, 2012

A Review of the Post-Human Manifesto

Dear Diarrhea,

today I will review the manifesto of the Post-Human Movement, written by Steve Nichols and first published in 1988 in Games Monthly magazine. While it is relatively short, speaks only in general of the philosophy of posthumanism, and does a poor job of defining its terms clearly and in detail, it is, as far as I am aware at this point in time, the first published attempt at presenting something resembling a unified set of goals for the movement of post- and transhumanism.

In the first section, titled "ROBOTS," Nichols makes the argument that the social and technological advances of the 20th century have produced resources that humanity in its current state cannot fully exploit. The title suggests that robotics are the solution, but the body of the text doesn't elaborate whatsoever--whether Nichols was thinking of the cybernetic augmentation of our flesh and blood bodies, the transferal of our consciousness to a mechanical host, or the delegation of responsibilities to artificial intelligences as the solution to inadequate use of our potential, he merely alludes to it in the extremely vague sentence of "[a]t last, a software upgrade is available!"

Then, he goes on to suggest that transcending our current state of being is an inevitable evolutionary step, and that the idea has been present in philosophy for millennia in various forms; that the dissolution of the ego in Buddhism, the Egyptian Pharaohs' notion of superiority over the hoi polloi, the Übermensch of Nietzsche are all different tellings of the same story. In a sense, this is accurate, as all these advocate a higher state as the norm in the future of humanity; however, these different philosophies all have different ideas of the details of that higher state. Nichols never attempts to reconcile the Buddhist stripping of identity with the self-centered amorality of the Übermensch; and if his goal was merely to illustrate the similarity in the wish to transcend human existence, he neglects to set his own ideal for the next step.

The conclusion is just a marketing bid, therefore it is not relevant to this review; perhaps, though, the advertised leaflet, The Primal Eye explains those issues that this so-called manifesto seems to avoid.

For now, let this be enough; I will see what I can find for you next week. Maybe we'll see more of Steve Nichols' thoughts.

I leave you warming by the flame of my undying love until next time,
-Márton Körtesi.

1 comment:

  1. Yeh as far as I know my original idea in 1988. Deliberately vague, I don't like to be prescriptive, and I also think all the human-been philosophies mentioned to be sub-optimal. Primal Eye is key intertheoretic reduction, 8 part vids at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NtuiZCn83s&list=UUwNRN8X4L_r__VsmHvBfR5A&index=10 and book at http://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-nichols/the-primal-eye/paperback/product-4894333.html Also some papers at https://independent.academia.edu/SteveNichols and check out posthuman.TV when I put it back up in a few days ....

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