Tuesday, July 02, 2013

What is Technopotheosis?

Technopotheosis is my answer to a very big question: What Next? What is the next evolution of humanity as a species? Essentially, What Are We Becoming?

In order to imagine that future in a useful way, it's helpful to examine the present as compared to the past. We live in an age of unprecedented Scientific understanding that is drastically changing the way we experience and interact with the universe. Like all organisms we do not simply exist within the universe, we alter it for our own purposes. That is fundamental basis of Technology: purposeful alteration of the physical universe. There's little fundamental difference between wasps building a nest by processing wood into paper, and hominids building a city by processing stone into concrete, only a difference of scale and complexity. Technology is the imposition of our will and intellect upon the structure of the universe, and it's a concept that's been around since the first primate used a sharp rock to make a sharper rock.

Where things get interesting is when we take this idea and apply it to ourselves; altering not just the universe around us, but within us as well. As biological organisms, we have many hard limitations on our capability to act on and perceive the universe. For example, a basic model human cannot run at 60mph for a sustained period of time. Even if it were possible for the muscles to move that fast, and the nerves to coordinate them, and the cardiovascular system to support them, the physical materials that the body is constructed from simply can not survive the mechanical stress. However, through the use of Technology such a task can becomes trivial; the human organism's biological limitation can be transcended though the use of an external machine, or by altering the body with internal machinery. That's basic Trans-Humanism, and it begs the question: how far can the the human organism alter it's self and it's relationship with the external universe before it becomes something other than human?

The word Trans-Humanism is a very modern one, but the concept of humans overcoming their fundamental limitations is as old as Gilgamesh. It's arguably most well known in the buddhist and hindu concept of Enlightenment, but the ancient Greeks called it Apotheosis: the glorification of a mortal being to the divine level. In either case, the human organism becomes something new and mighty; gaining both a greater knowledge of the universe, and a greater power with which to apply that knowledge. Now consider this: stripped of all the mysticism and mythology, that is exactly what we are already doing; what we have been doing since we were monkeys sharpening rocks. Through The Scientific Method we expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe, and through Technology we enhance our power over it.


Technopotheosis (Technological Apotheosis) describes that process and answers the the question: What are we becoming?

We are becoming gods.


Until then,
Stay Alive 

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