by Bruce T. Gourley
Published September 2014 – January 2015
(Baptist Studies Bulletin Archives Index)
Welcome to a three-part series on a vast, mind-boggling and already-unfolding seismic shift in the story of humanity and life, a chapter that many scholars and observers have dubbed “posthumanity.” In the first part of this series, we begin with the new you.
PART ONE: THE NEW YOU
Imagine, for a moment, a world teeming with life, yet a world in which there are few, if any, humans in the traditional sense of the word. What role would religion play in this posthuman world? And more precisely, how would Christianity intersect with posthuman society?
Fantasy? Hardly. Thanks to an unprecedented, rapid acceleration of life-altering technological advances, the early contours of a decidedly posthuman world are quietly taking shape all around us. This emerging new world is evident in the zombie-like movements, any given moment of any given day, of hundreds of millions of earthlings staring, as if in a trance, at tiny glowing screens that collectively convey addictive and mesmerizing streams of mostly-useless but endlessly-stimulating data under the broad rubric of “social media.”
Look closely at the people around you on the streets, in stores and restaurants, in your office, at the airport, and even in your church’s pews. As many as 75% of all Americans (in some nations the percentage is higher) now own at least one smartphone, and on average are checking their mobile devices at a rate approaching 200 times a day. Studies indicate that one-half or more of smartphone users check their devices during meals, while sitting on the toilet, and while in bed. Some 10-20% text while driving, a combination that is more deadly than driving under the influence of alcohol. And 10% of smartphone users admit to using their devices while having sex.
The minds and eyes of so many humans have been melded to technology to such a degree that in 2010 a new word was coined to describe the fear of being without your smartphone: Nomophobia (short for no-mobile-phone-phobia), now recognized by some as a psychological disorder. Some studies indicate that about 85% of humans worldwide are addicted to their mobile devices.
Dr. David Greenfield, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction, describes smartphone addiction as similar to other addictions in that it creates dysregulation of dopamine in the brain.
According to Greenfield, however, nomophobia is no ordinary addiction. Smartphone addiction is a worldwide phenomenon, twice as powerful as other addictions and “not reflective of what happens in real life.” Referring to the global nature of mobile phone addiction, Time Magazine’s Deputy Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs noted, “It’s hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones.”
The implications are dire. A growing mountain of research on this global phenomenon has shown that smartphones impare our cognition, block our ability to create memories, make millennials more forgetful than senior citizens, heighten fears of being alone for mere minutes at a time, and yet at the same time reduce social consciousness, create a decrease in empathy for others and damage friendships.
Global mobile phone addiction, in short, is transforming forever (for there will be no turning back from technology) the very experience of being human.
But, you may say, I have a smartphone and it (and by extension social media) has not changed my life that much.
Really? Try turning your mobile device(s) off for a week. Or 72 hours. Or even 24 hours. Odds are, you can’t do it.
And yet this is only the beginning of posthumanity.
In the September 10, 2014 edition of Time Magazine, Lev Grossman and Matt Vella make a compelling argument that the newly-introduced Apple Watch, if successful in the marketplace, will further accelerate our descent into a posthuman world by initiating the mass-market driven melding of body and technology.
Humans, in short, are in a transitional stage in which the technology in our hands, and in growing instances on and in our bodies (more on this in the next article in this series), is re-defining what it means to be human. Embedded with technology, our minds, our bodies and our relationships are already in the early stages of a journey to becoming posthuman.
The posthuman world now in process may have sneaked up on most of us, but it is a reality which will rather quickly force us all to wrestle with the myriad ethical, philosophical and spiritual dimensions and dilemmas pertaining to intelligent, autonomous and sentient life beyond humanity.
In conclusion, I offer a few questions which congregations might engage in an intentional attempt to examine the potential responses and roles of Christianity in the emerging posthuman world:
- How does today’s technology often make us oblivious to the world around us in our daily lives?
- How has technology changed spirituality in the past 10-15 years? How has it changed Christianity?
- In today’s context, how much technology is too much technology?
- How has Facebook changed our perception of “friends”?
- Are smartphones, and by extension social media, enhancing or damaging Christian community?
- As users of immersive social media that tracks and commoditizes our identity, are we victims of global corporatization or participants in a new era of human rights?
- Could a week’s sabbatical from smartphones and social media enhance the well-being of individuals, families and congregations?
PART TWO: CYBORGS, NOW AND IN THE FUTURE
In the first part of this series we examined the effects of smartphones on humanity. In short, a growing body of surveys, social behavior studies and scientific analysis indicates that the pervasive presence and inherently addictive nature of smartphones often changes, negatively, the cognitive abilities and social awareness of individuals.
While computers for many decades have enhanced human life in the spheres of work, leisure and home life, the conversation about a posthuman era arose on the margins of public discourse only about 20 years ago. As digital devices have increasingly saturated seemingly every sphere of human existence in the developed world, the posthuman conversation since the year 2000 has skyrocketed.
Even as mounting evidence suggests that smartphones are altering fundamental human behavior, most users of mobile devices are physically one degree removed from the technology itself. That is, in most cases our phones are neither directly worn on nor embedded within our bodies.
The remaining distance between humans and technology, however, is rapidly closing. Most visible are wearable mobile devices. The hottest new technological niche, such devices are often in the form of bracelets or watch-like apparatuses that are programmed to monitor the user’s health and fitness, or computerized glasses that feature cameras and/or project streaming data. Many stores this Christmas season are stocked with such devices, including your local Costco. Consumer wearable technology is now a drop-down menu option on Amazon.
A greatly enhanced but less common type of wearable technology is the exoskeleton, a computer-powered body frame that can help paraplegics walk, increase worker productivity and turn soldiers into supermen. You can’t yet buy an exoskeleton at your local super store or Amazon, but it you could, the price tag would be $100,000 or more. Affordable exoskeletons may be many years away.
In addition to wearable technology that monitors our physical health, projects information in front of our eyes or wraps around our bodies to enhance physical capabilities, computer scientists are making rapid strides in the development of processors that mimic the neural networks in the human brain. Google, IBM, Stanford and others are hard at work trying to crack the neural computing code. While there is not yet a computer that can replicate human cognition, the creation of the equivalent of a digital human brain seems merely a matter of time.
The convergence of the proliferation of wearable computers and the race for digital cognition has, in turn, fostered advancements in cyborg technology. Once the domain of science fiction, cyborgs—the fusion of organic and biomechatronic parts in a being—already exists in the early stages. Some amputees are now living with mechanized, computer-programmed machines limbs that are organically embedded and controlled by the user’s mind and/or muscles. Some blind persons now have vision thanks to computerized brain implants and electronic eyes.
Neil Harbisson of Northern Ireland, born colorblind, became the world’s first official cyborg in 2004. Now he is one of hundreds, or perhaps thousands. Implanted in Harbisson’s head and projecting outward is a digital antenna that allows him to see not only colors normally accessible to the human eye, but also infrared and ultraviolet light. In addition, his Bluetooth-equipped digital-aided brain can process remote light waves sent via external cameras and, in the future, satellites.
“For me, a cyborg is someone who feels their technology is a part of their biology,” Harbisson says. “They have integrated a device or devices into their body and this has added something to their senses or capability above and beyond what’s currently normal for humans.”
MIT’s Biomechatronics Group is at, or near, the forefront of cyborg technology. “First, we seek to restore function to individuals who have impaired mobility due to trauma or disease through research and development,” their website notes. “Second, we develop technologies that augment human performance beyond what nature intends.”
Interestingly, familiarity with the physical integration, or fusion, of technology and humans has led to a backlash against the term “cyborg.” Use of the word has already peaked, and no one word has taken its place, in part due to the fact that cyborg technology has become so personal and commonplace as to no longer be a novel or foreign concept.
Yesteryear’s scary, science-fiction cyborgs have morphed into neighborly computer-enhanced humans. Unlike the cloning of human beings, ethical concerns regarding cyborgs do not garner headlines. Upon losing an arm (or a leg, or an eye), who wouldn’t want to become a cyborg if given the opportunity?
If the current state of the fusion of technology and humans is any indication, both science and the general public seem to be of a general opinion that cyborging is an acceptable way to directly enhance one’s bodily and cognitive capabilities. Digital devices, after all, do not intrude into the realm of human consciousness or delve into the murky depths of the soul.
At least not yet.
In conclusion, should religion be concerned with the rapidly advancing fusion of computers and humans? Here are a few questions for congregations to ponder:
- What does it mean to be created in the image of God?
- Does cyborg technology negate the worth of impaired, incomplete or flawed human beings?
- Cyborg technology is capable of greatly enhancing the quality of life of individuals. Should such technology, now subject to market forces and far too expensive for all but the wealthiest (or luckiest) of persons, be made available to all persons who would benefit from it?
- Should limits be placed on the technological enhancement of human beings?
- As cyborg technology transforms humanity further and further beyond that which is natural, at what point does a human body become something other than human?
- What is the essence of humanity, and at what point would that essence be violated in the fusion of computers and humans?
PART THREE: BEYOND HUMANITY
The first television set I recall as a child was black and white, while I have no memories of computers until the early 1980s. By way of contrast, my daughter is growing up at a time in which technology is melding with humanity in a way only science fiction writers could have dreamed of back in the 1960s.
Smart phones. Wearable computers. Artificial intelligence. Exoskeletons. Cyborgs. All are now realities that collectively are redefining humanity.
The morphing of humanity into a dimension unknown in prior generations has led to the skyrocketing of the posthuman conversation since the year 2000. Embedded within and alongside this posthuman conversation is the question of the nature of human life, as well as a rapidly expanding search for extraterrestrial life.
For thousands of years humans have wondered if life exists beyond planet Earth. In 1960 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established an Exobiology Program in order to scientifically assess the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. As the prospects of life apart from Earth evolved from an unknown to a distinct possibility, the 1990s witnessed a re-orienting of NASA’s efforts to the field of astrobiology, “the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe.” So central to the mission of NASA is astrobiology that it is now considered “a cross-cutting theme in all of NASA’s space science endeavors, knitting together research in Astrophysics, Earth Science, and Heliophysics as well as Planetary Science.”
As the search for extraterrestrial life has evolved from the 1960s to the present, the definition of life has also evolved. Reflecting the contemporary complexities associated with the question, there is currently no universally, agreed-upon definition of life. NASA’s work is based on a working definition of life as “a self-contained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.”
The biggest breakthrough in rethinking life is unfolding just a short drive from my home. Yellowstone National Park is known for its thousands of hot springs, pools and geysers. Within these extreme environments are microscopic thermophilic viruses, functioning organisms that somehow manage to exist in conditions that, until recent years, were believed to be far too harsh for life. Are these viruses a form of life? There is no scientific consensus yet, but like other life forms, thermophilic viruses pass along genetic information from one generation to another.
The thermophiles that exist in Yellowstone’s extremely harsh environments, having forced scientists to reexamine the very definition of life, now propel NASA’s search for extraterrestrials. Yellowstone, in short, provides a hands-on model for identifying seemingly-hostile planetary conditions in which the hardiest of simple life forms can exist.
Astrobiologists, however, do not limit their search to simple rudimentary organisms. The larger goal is the discovery of complex multicellular beings.
Until a few years ago, it was commonly believed that the universe (that is, the cosmos; all existing matter and space) harbored few planets potentially capable of hosting complex multicellular beings. The launching of the Kepler spacecraft in 2009, however, soon blew away that supposition.
NASA’s first spacecraft specifically tasked with finding Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars, Kepler soon rocked the scientific world. On November 4, 2013, astronomers reported the results of some four years of Kepler space mission data: according to the data, as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets exist in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy. (The Milky Way Galaxy, our own, is just a tiny fraction of the universe, spanning a mere 100,000 light years within a universe that is 13.8 billion light years across. Until fairly recently, scientists were uncertain that planets existed outside of our solar system, which is but a tiny part of the Milky Way.)
Translated, almost one in every four stars within our little galaxy may be accompanied by near-Earth sized planet(s) that receive the right amount of sunlight capable of producing life. This number is theoretical, based on hard data extrapolated for what we currently know about the entirety of the Milky Way. To date, over 1,400 planets beyond our solar system have been concretely identified. Of those, 28 have been confirmed as Earth-size planets located in the habitable zone and thus capable of hosting life. Of those 28, twelve were confirmed this month.
So what does all of this mean?
By the 18th century reason and science had evolved to the point of seriously challenging traditional religious dogma. In the Western world Enlightenment principles enthroned freedom of conscience for all and advocated church state separation (both principles earlier championed by Baptists). In the 19th century Darwin supplanted direct divine creation with evolutionary processes, while the 20th century witnessed the victory of science over religious dogma to such an extent that many religious conservatives set about re-defining science in order to make it compatible with biblical literalism. By the end of the century young Westerners were trending away from organized religion, partially reflective of disinterest in religious fundamentalism on the one hand, and faith in science on the other. (It should be noted that the Enlightenment largely bypassed the Eastern world, however. Some scholars today point out that Islamic fundamentalist terrorism reflects a pre-Enlightenment Muslim worldview.)
Presently, the rapid advance of technology-enabled knowledge in the 21st century has elevated the religion and science debate to an entirely different level. Traditional religious belief, broadly-speaking, limits life to planet Earth. This ancient belief yet enshrined in much of modern human consciousness, however, is now challenged by a vastly more expansive view of life itself.
So confident is NASA in the data now being mined from the universe that last year the space agency announced that extraterrestrial life will likely be discovered within the next twenty years, thanks to technological advances in the field of astrobiology. Some astrobiologists are convinced that technology will enable us to identity intelligent extraterrestrial life by about 2040. Such “life” will likely be in the form of advanced robots whose intelligence is far superior to ours, according to some astrobiologists and philosophers.
In short, not only is the definition of life expanding due to new discoveries on planet Earth, but somewhere among the estimated 40 billion Milky Way planets potentially capable of harboring life are, almost certainly, other intelligent beings. So assured is NASA of life beyond Earth that in September 2014 the space agency and the Library of Congress hosted an astrobiology symposium entitled, “Preparing for Discovery: A Rational Approach to the Impact of Finding Microbial, Complex, or Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.” Philosophers and theologians were well-represented among the participants from around the globe. The goal of the symposium was to begin preparing the public “for what the implications might be when such a discovery [of extraterrestrial life] is made.”
The seemingly impending discovery of life, and quite possibly intelligent beings, beyond planet Earth raises big questions about life and the cosmos. Religion, including Christianity, has a history of trying to discredit new discoveries that contravene traditional religious beliefs. NASA is already engaging theologians in conversations regarding the implications of life beyond Earth. Many persons reading this essay will almost certainly live to witness the discovery of extraterrestrial life. In the coming decades, how will Christian communities and individual Christians greet news of life beyond Earth?
In conclusion, here are a few questions for congregations to ponder:
- How might Christianity re-imagine the relationship between faith and science in the decades to come?
- How might technologically-immersed, scientifically-driven younger generations help Christianity (and other religions) move beyond the limitations that scriptural literalists place upon knowledge?
- How might theologians prepare new generations of believers for future paradigms of life?
- How might Christianity image God within the context of life beyond Earth that includes intelligent beings?