(Kevin Kelly)
vo: Humanity's Identity Crises
March 2008
This century will see a major theme: the pursuit of our collective identity. We are looking for who we are. What it means to be human? Can there be more than one kind of human being? Besides, what exactly is a human?
On average, science reveals a new invention every day, and it does almost never misses these days, that daily invention disrupts the notion we have of ourselves. Every day the news gives question our identity. Therapy based on stem cells, genetic sequencing, artificial intelligence, robots operational, new animal clones, interspecific hybrids, brain implants, drugs that improve memory, limb prosthesis, networks social - each of these tools blurs the boundaries between us as individuals and us as a species. Who we are and who we want to be?
can play online with answers to these questions. On Second Life, or in chat areas, we can choose who we want to be, our gender, our genetics, even our species. Technology gives us the means to change sex, living in new forms, modify our own bodies.
same time, we have the rise of hyper-reality. These simulations are so complex, so compelling and consistent, they have their own force of reality. Infringement so good, it is bought and sold as a counterfeit fabulous. A Disneyland so attractive, it creates its own "fakes". There must be something to counterfeit. Or images edited with a so obviously unreal degree, they have their own reality. Synthetic materials more desirable than natural materials. Below their original reproduction. No matter what is true and what is Memorex.
These hyper-realities launch questions such as: aggression in a virtual account does as a true violent assault, simple assault or virtual? What share of mind in our real lives? To what extent is it really a consensual hallucination? What is the point where the mind ends and begins outside? And if everything - everything that is outside us - was a spirit?
more our lives are rapidly and extensively publicized - we spend more time communicating through technology - the more this question, "What is real", has become urgent. How do we tell the difference, if indeed it exists, between reality and simulations? How do they redefine these people? Investigations
free-thinking, almost demented Philip K. Dick, the legendary author of science fiction, give me great satisfaction. I am a big fan of Dick. The vast corpus of his works is now inevitable, because the two themes he cultivated a predilection are two themes that we will grow in the next 100 years: What is a human and what is the nature of non-human, or reality.
Two images A Scanner Darkly, an adaptation of Substance Death of Philip K. Dick.
In a speech surprising (and surprisingly funny) that Dick gave in 1978, he drew his themes:
The two basic topics which fascinate me are: "What is reality?" And " What is being Authentic human? "For twenty-seven years that I have published novels and short stories, I immersed myself in these subjects again and again. I consider that these are important issues. What are we? What is around us, which we call the non-self, or empirical or phenomenological world?
themes of Dick became our theme. The question "Who are we?", "What is reality?" Will move from the confines of science fiction towards the center of our culture. I can imagine these issues in control of our social consciousness. The question human identity will be one of the USA Today and CNN. The Supreme Court will be interested. These will be topics of conversation at dinner.
In recent decades, when become concrete realities such as Philip K. Dick was just dreaming and when we will experience a better daily artificial intelligence, and when the babies have grown GMOs, when the dopants intellectuals march, when virtual reality will be routine, with social hive mind in constant activity, so the break- Dick struggled with which heads will be our puzzles. Like: Matrix , but the newspaper late night. There will be senators and businessmen and strong Republicans who will say: "Dude, what it would do, if reality was really a different level? And if being a human was a choice? "
can expect a large uncertainty in our species identity and the nature of what we consider as real. This will be an anxious time. This deep anxiety and uncertainty will be the breeding ground of many sects, weird and strange beliefs - as they were for Philip K. Dick (just read the speech!). Psychoses and wars will be based on the uncertainty of what a human being. The war over abortion and the war against slavery are just two indications of the point at which this issue can cause a deadly conflict.
Even those who escape violence - the bulk of ordinary citizens and Internet users - will be squeezed by a layer of insoluble doubt. Who am I? Can there be more than one species of humans? A robot can be a child of God? Slavery is it acceptable among intelligent machines? Should we extend the circle of empathy beyond the animals and living things, so that it includes things made? If it hurts, is that true?
When a friend is eaten by these unanswered questions, you see what it looks like? He may freak out, or become paralyzed by that terrible burden. Now, imagine a world shaken by these obsessions dickiennes. An entire species affected by a crisis of identity. Coming soon.
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