Blinded by “Science”

In Their Quest for a Techno-Future, Transhumanists Ignore the Wonders of the World Today

In 2016, Scott Cohen co-founded CyborgNest “to contribute to the building of a positive path in the inevitable continuous merge with technology.” Soon thereafter, he had the company’s first product, NorthSense, surgically attached to his chest. Once calibrated, the device vibrates when he faces north.

Cohen sees the move as a step toward improving humanity by merging humans with machines. “It is hard to put into words only a few hours after attaching the NorthSense but the feeling I am left with is profound,” he said at a launch event. “People assume cyborgs are less human but I wanted to be more human, to augment the senses I already had. And just as migrating birds and whales and sharks are attuned to magnetic north, I thought I’d start with acquiring that new sense for myself.” His wife Susanna Cappellaro chronicles the experiment in her documentary, My Husband, the Cyborg.

Brittanica.com defines transhumanism as the “philosophical and scientific movement that advocates the use of current and emerging technologies … to augment human capabilities and improve the human condition.” For many, it serves as a religion. TranshumanistChurch.org maintains a directory of transhumanist religious organizations. From a worldview perspective, it presupposes that the material world is all that exists. It sees human limitations as impediments to evolution and holds that “humans with augmented capabilities will evolve into an enhanced species that transcends humanity—the ‘posthuman.’”

Transhumanist Blind Spots

Ironically, as Scott becomes more fixated on being attuned to his spatial environment, he becomes less attuned to his wife. She wants hugs from time to time, but he flinches because of pain at the site as his body rejects the titanium rods anchoring the device. She wants to discuss things other than his new directional sense—her feelings, for example, or how changes in him have affected their relationship. And what about the meaning of life? “There is no meaning of life,” he cuts her off, clearly oblivious to the way his quest has become a life mission. If relationships are part of what it means to be human, we might ask whether Scott’s humanity is being diminished, rather than enhanced.

Another irony, given that transhumanism is all about science as the path to a techno-enhanced future, is that it ignores scientifically established design features embedded in the world we currently inhabit—including certain features of the very bodies it seeks to enhance.

In this issue, we bring you two articles that explore the realm of the very small. In “Fantastic Voyage” (p. 42), Jonathan Witt invites us to accompany three (fictional) lottery winners on a space flight to a distant planet. And Graham Silcock narrates a hypothetical construction of the atom (p. 34), including its constituent parts—all of which exhibit extremely intricate and improbable features from the very origin of their existence. Truly, we already live in an extraordinarily “hi-tech” world.

The Transhumanist Temptation

Yet, as Denyse O’Leary points out (p. 46), transhumanism is here, and for those ungrounded in a world beyond the material, the appeal is strong. Rather than invite Scott to rejoin her in the world they used to enjoy together, Susanna opted to get an enhancement of her own, a small magnet inserted in her ring finger, in hope that it would help her relate to her husband. The magnet worked (she could pick up a paper clip with one finger), but it didn’t bring the marital connection she’d hoped for.

False religions make promises, but they never deliver. For the sake of preserving our collective humanity, we must be prepared to give good answers to the questions driving the transhumanist temptation. Read on and enjoy.