Exotechnology: Human Efforts to Evolve Beyond Human Being

Yet in all its versions, there is a consistent theme: human efforts to evolve out of, beyond human being and the limitations of flesh-and-blood mortal existence. Virtually all religions--Story tellers par excellence--include this self-guided evolution in their mythology and metaphors. In the three Western monotheistic religions, humans evolve post-biologically, post-mortem. Heaven. Medical science attempts to postpone that evolution as long as possible. Some of today's exotechnologies seek to replace post-mortem with post- biological.

Virtual Reality refers to an interface technology. Originally, it was the name Jaron Lanier gave to his company's "artificial reality" technology. It has since become the generic label for 3-D realtime immersion simulation technologies. These metaforms have their mechanical roots in Mort Helig's Sensurama and their electronic roots in military flight simulators. But it was William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer which gave cyberspace its name and identified its cyberpunk ecology.

As a label, "Cyberpunk" is perfection. It suggests the apotheosis of postmodernism. On the one hand, pure negation: of manners, history, philosophy, politics, body, will, affect, anything mediated by cultural memory; on the other, pure attitude: all is power, and "subculture," and the grace of Hip negotiating the splatter of consciousness as it slams against the hard-tech future, the techno-future of artificial immanence, where all that was once nature is simulated and elaborated by technical means, a future world-construct that is as remote from the "lessons of history" as the present mix- up is from the pitiful science fiction fantasies of the past that tried to imagine us.

--Istvan Csicsery-Ronay

The significance of the "Cyberpunk Controversy" ... [is] really of two natures: first, the relatively narrow significance of the role cyberpunk has played (and continues to play) in the recent evolution of science fiction into a literary genre of considerable formal ingenuity and thematic significance; secondly, broader significance of c-p's relationship to the complex set of radical ruptures--both within a dominant culture and aesthetic and also within the new social and economic media system (or "postindustrial society") in which we live--that are associated with post-modernism, as that term is being used by critics such as Jean-Francois Lyotard, Ihab Hassan, Jean Baudrilliard.

--Larry McCaffrey

Although they have improved dramatically in the last few years, VR simulations are not yet photorealistic, and a complete VR system is still quite expensive. VPL's cost upwards of $300,000; the VR system GE built for the military cost $16 million. VR hardwear includes 3-D audio-visual head-mounted displays (based on Ivan Sutherland's 1965 design of the "ultimate display"), and realtime tracking devices like "datagloves" and "cybersuits." These are linked by umbilical cables to some very sophisticated software and some powerful computer hardware. Together, they immerse the user in cyber spaces and places s/he then has the sense of participating in.

But why be satisfied with a mediated sense of participating in ...

The US military was among the earliest cyberpundits and BiCy enthusiasts. The Futurists II Workshop was sponsored by the Aeronautical Systems Division of the Air Force Systems Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The meetings were held at Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, Ohio, May 7-9, 1985, and included military scientists and planners, aerospace engineers and government officials, science fiction writers and futurists. The R&D recommended by the group included implanting computer chips in pilots' brains to boost their performance, running computers by thought waves, self-replicating bio-molecular computers which could be "implanted into infants or even embryos," and genetically engineering pilots.

Genetic Engineering is a fact of life today. The goal of the Human Genome Project--slated for completion early in the new millennium--is to map the entire human genetic code. When successfully completed, our knowledge of genetics will increase dramatically and relatively suddenly. We will know exactly what gene and combinations of genes produce which physiological, neurological, and psychological characteristics. Our genetic engineering skills and abilities should increase commensurately. Indeed, genetic engineering may become a branch of another exotechnology.

Nanotechnology would enable genetic engineers to manipulate single atoms to create structures (like molecules or genes) that can in turn be used to create even larger structures (like materials or beings). A Virtual Reality version of such genetic nano-engineering is inherent in Doyne Farmer's and Chris Langton's field: Artificial Life.

You can think of a computer in two ways: You can think of a computer as something that runs a program and calculates a number, or you can think of a computer as a kind of logical universe, a digital universe that you can make behave in many different ways. We believe we can put into computers sufficiently complex universes able to support processes that with respect to that universe, would have to be considered alive ... the goal is to abstract what it is to be alive from the material. (Brockman, p.5)

Cryonics is the low temperature preservation--freezing--of people who by today's standards are dead, with the expectation that improvements in medical, biological, neurological, mechanical, computer technology will allow the reversal of the errant process--the malfunctions--that caused the individual to die.

--Ralph Whelan,
Editor, Cryonics

Future medicine will one day be able to build cells, tissue, and organs and to repair damaged tissue. This, obviously, would include brain tissue suffering from preexisting disease and the anticipated effects of freezing. These sorts of advances in technology will enable patients to return to complete health from conditions that have traditionally been regarded as nonliving, and beyond hope, i.e., dead. (Regis, p.4)

But even if an ancient Egyptian, Abraham Lincoln, or Albert Einstein could be resurrected physically, their minds would be blank. They could be reprogrammed with (i.e., taught) all the information we have about them, but much of their original personalities would be lost forever. But future resurrectees may have an option.

The process Hans Moravec describes in Mind Children (Harvard, 1989), downloading, involves precise mapping, copying, and simulating in a powerful neural net computer every structure and pattern of the human brain. The consciousness those biological structures and patterns supported should, then, reboot, reanimate as a separate, evolving cyberspace intelligence--a cyber-I. (I propose that this moment be known as your bootday.)

Proposition:

• If all physical sensations, thoughts, feelings, and emotions are reducible to Moravec's pattern-identity,

  > Then we should be able to enhance the sense of them by manipulating those patterns virtually or via nano-engineering.

Moravec's idea of downloading comes to life in the LifeScan and MAPHIS (Memory Array and Processor for Human Intelligence) technology in Platt's 1991 novel. And like Moravec, Platt offers his cyber-I's robotic bodies: ADVENT, "Autonomous Demonstration Vehicle with Experimental Neural Topology."

In Platt's neuromantic vision, the success of these exotechnologies changed global politics and socioeconomics in the first quarter of the 21st century.

Gottbaum laughed happily. "I'm the only one with a million copies of myself--that's right, a million copies [of his downloaded mind]--manipulating data directly with the power of my mind. I'll disassemble their vaccines. [computer viruses created to destroy him]; it'll be child's play. My clones [copies of his scanned intelligence] will live on like information police, crashing any system that tries to redistribute wealth, create a monopoly, or regulate liberty. You know, Bayley, we used to have a saying, long ago, back in the days when it actually seemed that the men in high places were going to have to loosen their grip on the world and allow some reforms to be made. Power to the people!" (p.244)

• If individuals' bodies and brains can be resurrected from preserved, replicated, or genetic nano-engineered DNA, and
  > If their memories and personalities can be preserved in a backup copy of their downloaded mind,
  
  >> Then one endotechnological challenge becomes how to reintegrate body and mind.

• Perhaps via virtual manipulation of key quarks, atoms, and molecules to reconfigure electrochemically or holographically stored memories via nano-engineered cellular neuro-chip circuits implanted into the brain and digitally networked with the genetic code.

• Or perhaps via biocybernetics. Cosmetically concealed behind the ear, a small port through which cyber-I's could communicate previously recorded neurological and electrochemical patterns directly with a biological mind via brainwave.

• Or perhaps using some future version of today's Superconducting Quantum Interface Devices (SQUIDs), which measure the magnetic field produced by the brain's electrical activity, in conjunction with Magneto-encephalograms (MEGs), which correlate SQUID data and map minute fluctuations in the brain's magnetic field. These maps would enable any cyber-I to interface directly with others and to implant memories into its bio-I's via virtual or bioactive nanointerfaces.

• Will we be superseded by our mind children?

• Is this the divorce of Human from Being?

• What conflict-resolution techniques can be used when cyber- I's and bio-I's disagree?

• If we succeed in creating self-replicating DNA-based biocomputers or implanting neural-network circuitry into infants or embryos, or
  > If we create a cyber-I,
  >>Then is this "artificial" Intelligence a threat to our very existence?
  >>Else, in this brave new world of cyber-I's and hyper sapiens, will the distinctions between "human" and "machine" be obfuscated?

• Will AI's start thinking for themselves and questioning our authority?

• Who would go digital, who would stay biological?
  
  >And what would that digital Darwinism mean for the "human" gene and meme pool?

• Who would have access to downloading?
  
  >Who would pay for the procedure and subsequent cyberspace living expenses?

What Alcor calls "cryonic suspension" is not "suspended animation." Freezing someone before that person is legally "dead" is considered murder. But if the goal is to "suspend" life and consciousness, the cryonic procedure would have to be done before physical death. And even if postmortem physiological changes could be "corrected" via nanoengineering, what pattern would the nanotechnologist follow? There is no neuro-map for that individual. No one has textbook physiology. (A society of textbook perfect beings invokes the specter of "master race," to say nothing of the part overcoming physiological, psychological, genetic defect plays in defining and inspiring the "human spirit.")

And perhaps more importantly, realistically, who would pay for the reanimation procedures? Current cryonic suspension contracts cover only the cost of suspension and storage. Who would pay for any medical treatment needed during recovery or any readjustment counseling that a recent resurrectee would likely need?

How would resurrectees support themselves? It's difficult enough trying to save for retirement. Trying to save enough money or make investments sufficient to finance Reanimation Lifetimes 1, 2, 3, etc. might be even more difficult (although considerable interest would accumulate during long hibernations, and one would not feel compelled to live through old age and ill health if downloading and BiCy reintegration, cryonic suspension, and reanimation were possible).

However, "cryonics" real future as a viable Life Extension technology seems more likely to be found in the preservation of gametes and fertilized eggs,

• Battle Over Embryos

The Tennessee Supreme Court heard arguments over who should get custody of seven frozen embryos conceived by a couple before their divorce. Mary Sue Davis Stowe wants to donate the embryos to an infertile couple. Lawyers for her ex-husband, Junior Lewis Davis, argued that he "has a constitutionally protected right not to become a parent" against his will.

[science fiction] ... is a kind of guidance system for the scientist, and in return is an equilibrium between the scientists and the writers, and science becomes a kind of guidance system, in a way, for literature.

--Victor Kumin

Science fiction, science, engineering, and technology are synergistic.

--Derek J. deSolla Price

But in virtually all countries, the amount of money needed to research and develop applications of exotechnologies like Virtual Reality, biocybernetics, downloading, cryonics, genetic nano-engineering, and reanimation can generally be found in only three places: the government, the military, and big business. All three are feudal-industrial pyramid structures. But this top-down model is inappropriate for the information age, which emphasize the information process rather than the manufactured artifact information represents, and we are drowning in a sea of information.

Visualization of information processes is at the heart of Virtual Reality.

A supercomputer can generate billions of numbers, but what do you do with a billion numbers? It's impossible to digest them in the form of reams of paper. So the idea of taking those numbers and putting them into insightful, meaningful pictures is very important.

--Donna Cox, Associate Director,
University of Illinois, National Center for
Supercomputing Applications &
Associate Professor of Art & Design

The legal, mind-altering "soma" of the future may not be a drug, but a computer program so powerful that it challenges the user's perception of reality. The technology, termed "virtual reality," presents special problems for the criminal justice system...

A more recent warning came from the author of Virtual Reality:

Virtual-Reality technology has the potential to become a tool to enhance the quality of life, a window onto invisible worlds, and a liberating force for good minds trapped in bodies diagnosed as dysfunctional.

But the technology also has the potential to become a dangerous brainwashing device or a form of imprisonment through illusion.

The full potential of this technology will take 10 to 20 years to manifest itself. Now is an ideal time for a widespread public discussion of the benefits and liabilities of virtual-reality-based applications.

--Howard Rheingold
"Virtual Reality's Promise - and Threat,"
The Christian Science Monitor,
January 2, 1991, p.15

"Virtual Reality holds a key to the evolution of the human mind."

--Dr. Larry Angelo

Bionomics describes the economy as an evolving ecosystem which parallels the similarly evolving bio-ecosystem.

New scientific and technical knowledge is the source of all economic growth. The central role of technology--long ignored by static Newtonian economics--is the very essence of bionomics. Indeed, according to bionomics, capitalism is merely the process by which technological information evolves.

--Michael Rothschild

• Who and what influence the ecosystems that are developing exotechnologies?

• If exotechnologies are guiding human evolution, who or what is guiding theirs?

Jobe Smith is mentally handicapped or, as they put it in the film, a "half wit": the perfect subject for intelligence-enhancement experiments. Dr. Angelo uses VR--the hardwear which linked not only the wearers' visual but autonomic and endocrine systems directly with their virtual counterparts--in combination with nootropic drugs, virtual stimulation of the brain, and cyberlearning programs to increase Jobe's intelligence. He succeeds--beyond his wildest dreams. Jobe uses exotechnologies to evolve beyond human being to god-like cyber-I.

In the final scene of the film, Dr. Angelo vows to continue his work "underground," and to keep it "out of the wrong hands": the military, the government, and big business. Ironically, Virtual Reality pioneers-- including those who consulted on the film--have traditionally gotten their R&D funding from the government, the military, and big business, all of whom who have their own ideas about applications. And it is applications that will decide whether Virtual Reality represents a difference that makes a difference. Again, potential difference can also be seen as possible danger.

D.E. Stark summarized some common concerns about VR and exotechnologies in an article entitled "Biocybernetics: The Merging of Man and Machine" in Professional Careers Magazine (5:5, 9-13):

If your brain pattern has been "downloaded" into a new, shiny android body, what happens to your old body and brain, presumably still intact and functioning? Who will decide what to do with that entity? Who will break the news to it if the decision is made that there can only be "one you" in the universe, and it's time to "shut it down?"

If any knowledge can be recorded and read into our brains, what will this do for the unaugmented literacy level of our nation? Will children of the future say, "Why should I learn to read when I can "boot it" directly?"

And who will be responsible for telling us when we've had enough "virtual fun" and it's time to go outside and get some real exercise?

Being fearful is inappropriate. Being informed is essential as we continue our efforts to develop and apply exotechnologies to redefine Human and Being.

Thomas Berry, The New Story (Chambersburg: Anima, 1978).

John Brockman, "Artificial Life: A Conversation with Chris Langton and Doyne Farmer," Ways of Knowing: The Reality Club 3, John Brockman, ed. (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991, 1-14).

K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation (Garden City: Anchor, 1986).

K. Eric Drexler, Chris Peterson, Gayle Pergamit, Unbounding the Future (New York: Morrow, 1991).

Robert C.W. Ettinger, The Prospect of Immortality (New York: Doubleday, 1964).

Futurists II Workshop: Executive Summary (Washington: Anticipatory Sciences Inc, 1985). Freedom of Information Act document.

Simson Garfinkel and K. Eric Drexler, "Critique of Nanotechnology: A Debate in Four Parts," Whole Earth Review, 67: 104-113 (Summer, 1990).

William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace, 1984).

Katie Hafner and John Markoff, Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).

Walter Kirn, "Valley of the Nerds," Gentlemen's Quarterly, 61: 96-101, 106 (July 1991).

Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

Raymond Kurzweil, The Age of Intelligent Machines (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1990).

Christopher Langton, ed. Artificial Life: Proceedings of an Interdisciplinary Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1989).

Max More, "Uploading, Cryonics, and the "Rapture," Cryonics 12: 9-10 (December 1991).

Alan M. Olson, Christopher Parr, Debra Parr, Video Icons and Values (Binghamton: SUNY Press, 1991).

Charles Platt, The Silicon Man (New York: Bantam, 1991).

Neil Postman, Technopoly (New York: Knopf, 1992).

Ed Regis, Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition (Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1990).

Howard Rheingold, Virtual Reality (New York: Summit, 1990).

Avital Ronell, The Telephone Book: Technology - Schizophrenia - Electric Speech (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1989).

Michael Rothschild, Bionomics: The Inevitability of Capitalism (New York: Henry Holt, 1990).

Luc Sala and John P. Barlow, Virtual Reality: de Metafysische Kermisattractie (Amsterdam: Sala Communications, 1990).

Science and Literature: A Conference (Washington: Library of Congress, Central Services Division, 1985).

Ralph Whelan and Mike Darwin, Cryonics: Reaching for Tomorrow (Riverside: Alcor, 1991).

Lois Wingerson, Mapping Our Genes: The Genome Project and The Future of Medicine (New York: Dutton, 1990).

Gary Wolf, "Avital Ronnel on Hallucinagenres," Mondo 2000. 4: 63-69 (1991).