Frankenstein was probably the most successful horrible character created by Mary Shelley in 19th century. It extends the image of fear from novel, TV drama, and movie and even to our popular culture and reality aspects. The plot of Frankenstein arise a series discussion about the balance between humanity and technology. Humans praise for benefits from technology; meanwhile, we are alerted to the unprecedented development and dependence of it. Transhumanism is a new ism generated by contemporary technical environment which suggests the use of new science to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes. However,it is still a controversial topic and be regarded as an extension and practice of Frankenstein experiment by many scholars. In this webliography, I will base on Transhumanism aspect to explore my guided question with the help of Google Scholars, Google Books and Yahoo search engine.
1. Nick Bostrom’s “Transhumanist Values” firstly gave us a clear definition of transhumanism and offered suitable background information to investigate the derivative values of transhumanism. Human enhancement is a generally term often used for explaining transhumanism, It directs the use of advance technology to enhance human condition in mental or physical and human organism opened up. Technologies involved in transhumanism are diversity. It includes genetic engineering, information technology, biotechnology, molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence etc. As transhumanists treating human nature as work-in-progress, they believe it is an alpha version now that we can restructure in desirable ways. Therefore, a final vision of transhumanist is to explore the posthuman realm. A realm promotes a keep going exploration on those hitherto inaccessible values. Besides a complete explanation of the core values of transhumanist, Bostrom listed some derivative values to extend transhumanism into practice. Global security is one of the examples. Due to the development of surveillance technology, it is easier to detect illegal weapons trading activities and then keep international peace. This article is a good springboard to further examine the relationship between Frankenstein fear and technology.
2. In the “The World's Most Dangerous Ideas” article by Francis Fukuyama, he identifies transhumanism as "a strange liberation movement" that wants "nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints." Science, and in particular biotechnology, has, Fukuyama believes, the potential to change the kinds of our beings, and to 'recommence history' which is propelling us from a human to a posthuman world. Fukuyama's argument runs something like this. Human values are rooted in human nature. Human nature is rooted in our biological being, especially in our genes. Messing around with human biology could alter human nature, transform our values and undermine capitalism. “What is ultimately at stake with biotechnology”, Fukuyama declares, “is... the very grounding of the human moral sense.” We therefore need international regulation to obstruct any technological advance that might disrupt either the unity or the continuity of human nature, and the human rights which are based upon it.
Besides most worried about genetic engineering, Fukuyama also concerns other technologies. He believes cloning is an unnatural form of reproduction that might create unnatural urges in a parent whose spouse has been cloned. Prozac is giving women 'more of the alpha-male feeling that comes with high serotonin levels', while Ritalin is making young boys... sit still even though the nature never designed them to behave that way. This article gave me an opposite direction to review the values of transhumanism and provided an in-depth discussion about the relationship between the Frankenstein fear and transhumnism as advanced technology gradually invading our nature and daily life.
3. In the book “The Natural and the Artefactual”, Philosopher Keekok sees such transhumanism developments as a part of an accelerating trend in modernization in which technology has been used to transform the natural into artifactual. He argues that advanced science and technology bring as much risk of disaster as opportunity for progress. The most concerned one should be genetic engineering. Keekok shows particular feasr on genetic engineering of human beings, because he concerns the blurring of the boundary between human and artifact. In the extreme, this could lead to the manufacturing and enslavement of Frankenstein monsters such as human clones, human-animal chimeras or bioroids. But, Keekok does not advocate a halt to scientific activity; he calls for tighter security and perhaps an end to traditional scientific openness. This book suggests a more practical fear of transhumanism based on real technical environment and provides a clear vision for readers to examine the possibility of Frankenstein myth becoming true.
4. The journal from BBC News “Frankenstein fears after head transplant” offers us a very debatable discussion based on a medical case. Professor Robert White, from Cleveland Ohio, claimed that he succeeded in transplanting a whole monkey's head onto another monkey's body, and the animal finally survived for some time after the operation. He believes that the operation is a good starting point, and experiment on human head transplant is valuable to further investigate. He is confident that the operation will play an important role in transplant world. Although technology pushing medicine into another high level, dozens of patients still suffer from different immedicable injuries. The head transplant operation raised the possibility that it could be used to treat people paralysed and unable to use their limbs, and whose bodies due to their brains’ injury. “People are dying today who, if they had body transplants, in the spinal injury community would remain alive.” Doctor White said. However, an opposite voice was raised by Dr Stephen Rose, director of brain and behavioural research at the Open University. He regarded this transplant technology as grotesque, completely mad and out of all proportion to what's needed. “It's scientifically misleading, technically irrelevant and scientifically irrelevant, and apart from anything else a grotesque breach of any ethical consideration.” He added. Although head transplant is at initial step, it brings human a struggle between human nature and technology. Should human remove the Frankenstein fear for accepting a longer life-span and more healthful body?
5. Writing in Reason magazine, Ronald Bailey accuses those technophobia researches in article “Right-Wing Biological Dread”. He regards scholars speculating about the creation of subhuman creatures with human-like intelligence or Frankenstein monster as alarmism. Bailey insists that the aim of conducting research on animals involving the modification of animal or human is simply to produce human health care benefits. He offers sport as an example where transhumanism can be applied and where posthumanity already exists. Athletes and their ability continuously transcend known boundaries of human capability technology enhancement is one of the main factors make sport tends toward. In this respect, sport offers a unique environment where transhumanism is no more than a normalized ism.
6. Cyberculture scholar Chris Hables Gray looks at the ever-changing human body in “Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age” and makes some well-educated guesses on the makeup of the future cybernetic body politic. Though he does go out of his way to remind the reader that nearly all of us are bioenhanced (that is a vaccination scar, isn't it?), he's neither a fear generator nor technophobia. His thesis is refreshingly simple in a world overfilled with postmodern complexity: we're changing our bodies more and more radically, and we have to think about how this will change our way of life. Examining health care, social interactions, and politics, Gray's focus is largely on particular modifications and enhancements such as prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, performance-enhancing drugs, and their descendants. The book never dips into terror. Even if Gray uses colorful examples to illustrate his points, he still maintains a humanistic attitude throughout. His simple thesis, “coupled with this attitude, create a web of thought that is simultaneously entertaining and enlightening”. Cyborg Citizen is a good prescription for readers to take a moderate comment and balance the opinions between different aspects.
According to those online resources, the values of transhumanism are usually examined with the fear of Frankenstein and human nature. Enjoying the benefits from technology enhancement or being responsible to avoid dehumanization, it is a difficult task to decide between two. Maybe we can inspect the direction with Chris Hables Gray: remaining our humanistic attitude and looking forward to a positive, progressive vision of a sexy, high-tech future.
2. In the “The World's Most Dangerous Ideas” article by Francis Fukuyama, he identifies transhumanism as "a strange liberation movement" that wants "nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints." Science, and in particular biotechnology, has, Fukuyama believes, the potential to change the kinds of our beings, and to 'recommence history' which is propelling us from a human to a posthuman world. Fukuyama's argument runs something like this. Human values are rooted in human nature. Human nature is rooted in our biological being, especially in our genes. Messing around with human biology could alter human nature, transform our values and undermine capitalism. “What is ultimately at stake with biotechnology”, Fukuyama declares, “is... the very grounding of the human moral sense.” We therefore need international regulation to obstruct any technological advance that might disrupt either the unity or the continuity of human nature, and the human rights which are based upon it.
Besides most worried about genetic engineering, Fukuyama also concerns other technologies. He believes cloning is an unnatural form of reproduction that might create unnatural urges in a parent whose spouse has been cloned. Prozac is giving women 'more of the alpha-male feeling that comes with high serotonin levels', while Ritalin is making young boys... sit still even though the nature never designed them to behave that way. This article gave me an opposite direction to review the values of transhumanism and provided an in-depth discussion about the relationship between the Frankenstein fear and transhumnism as advanced technology gradually invading our nature and daily life.
3. In the book “The Natural and the Artefactual”, Philosopher Keekok sees such transhumanism developments as a part of an accelerating trend in modernization in which technology has been used to transform the natural into artifactual. He argues that advanced science and technology bring as much risk of disaster as opportunity for progress. The most concerned one should be genetic engineering. Keekok shows particular feasr on genetic engineering of human beings, because he concerns the blurring of the boundary between human and artifact. In the extreme, this could lead to the manufacturing and enslavement of Frankenstein monsters such as human clones, human-animal chimeras or bioroids. But, Keekok does not advocate a halt to scientific activity; he calls for tighter security and perhaps an end to traditional scientific openness. This book suggests a more practical fear of transhumanism based on real technical environment and provides a clear vision for readers to examine the possibility of Frankenstein myth becoming true.
4. The journal from BBC News “Frankenstein fears after head transplant” offers us a very debatable discussion based on a medical case. Professor Robert White, from Cleveland Ohio, claimed that he succeeded in transplanting a whole monkey's head onto another monkey's body, and the animal finally survived for some time after the operation. He believes that the operation is a good starting point, and experiment on human head transplant is valuable to further investigate. He is confident that the operation will play an important role in transplant world. Although technology pushing medicine into another high level, dozens of patients still suffer from different immedicable injuries. The head transplant operation raised the possibility that it could be used to treat people paralysed and unable to use their limbs, and whose bodies due to their brains’ injury. “People are dying today who, if they had body transplants, in the spinal injury community would remain alive.” Doctor White said. However, an opposite voice was raised by Dr Stephen Rose, director of brain and behavioural research at the Open University. He regarded this transplant technology as grotesque, completely mad and out of all proportion to what's needed. “It's scientifically misleading, technically irrelevant and scientifically irrelevant, and apart from anything else a grotesque breach of any ethical consideration.” He added. Although head transplant is at initial step, it brings human a struggle between human nature and technology. Should human remove the Frankenstein fear for accepting a longer life-span and more healthful body?
5. Writing in Reason magazine, Ronald Bailey accuses those technophobia researches in article “Right-Wing Biological Dread”. He regards scholars speculating about the creation of subhuman creatures with human-like intelligence or Frankenstein monster as alarmism. Bailey insists that the aim of conducting research on animals involving the modification of animal or human is simply to produce human health care benefits. He offers sport as an example where transhumanism can be applied and where posthumanity already exists. Athletes and their ability continuously transcend known boundaries of human capability technology enhancement is one of the main factors make sport tends toward. In this respect, sport offers a unique environment where transhumanism is no more than a normalized ism.
6. Cyberculture scholar Chris Hables Gray looks at the ever-changing human body in “Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age” and makes some well-educated guesses on the makeup of the future cybernetic body politic. Though he does go out of his way to remind the reader that nearly all of us are bioenhanced (that is a vaccination scar, isn't it?), he's neither a fear generator nor technophobia. His thesis is refreshingly simple in a world overfilled with postmodern complexity: we're changing our bodies more and more radically, and we have to think about how this will change our way of life. Examining health care, social interactions, and politics, Gray's focus is largely on particular modifications and enhancements such as prosthetic limbs, artificial organs, performance-enhancing drugs, and their descendants. The book never dips into terror. Even if Gray uses colorful examples to illustrate his points, he still maintains a humanistic attitude throughout. His simple thesis, “coupled with this attitude, create a web of thought that is simultaneously entertaining and enlightening”. Cyborg Citizen is a good prescription for readers to take a moderate comment and balance the opinions between different aspects.
According to those online resources, the values of transhumanism are usually examined with the fear of Frankenstein and human nature. Enjoying the benefits from technology enhancement or being responsible to avoid dehumanization, it is a difficult task to decide between two. Maybe we can inspect the direction with Chris Hables Gray: remaining our humanistic attitude and looking forward to a positive, progressive vision of a sexy, high-tech future.
http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.pdf (accessed 27 March 2008).
2. Francis Fukuyama. The World's Most Dangerous Ideas (2004). http://www.mywire.com/pubs/ForeignPolicy/2004/09/01/564801?page=4 (accessed 28 March 2008).
3. Keekok Lee. The Natural and the Artefactua: The Implications of Deep Science and Deep Technology for Environmental Philosophy (1999).
2. Francis Fukuyama. The World's Most Dangerous Ideas (2004). http://www.mywire.com/pubs/ForeignPolicy/2004/09/01/564801?page=4 (accessed 28 March 2008).
3. Keekok Lee. The Natural and the Artefactua: The Implications of Deep Science and Deep Technology for Environmental Philosophy (1999).
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZeH62s45c3oC&printsec=frontcover&hl=zh-TW#PPP1,M1 (accessed 29 March 2008).
4. BBC News. Frankenstein fears after head transplant (2001). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1263758.stm (accessed 28 March 2008).
5. Ronald Bailey. Right-Wing Biological Dread (2003). http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/miah.html (accessed 30 March 2008)
6. Chris Hables Gray. Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age (2002). http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/TranshumPolitics.htm (accessed 29 March 2008).
4. BBC News. Frankenstein fears after head transplant (2001). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1263758.stm (accessed 28 March 2008).
5. Ronald Bailey. Right-Wing Biological Dread (2003). http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/miah.html (accessed 30 March 2008)
6. Chris Hables Gray. Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age (2002). http://www.changesurfer.com/Acad/TranshumPolitics.htm (accessed 29 March 2008).
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