Seite - 163 - in Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics

Cyberneuroethics • 163 Posthumanism Possible future posthumans may be distinguished from transhumans in that they would have evolved from humanity, but their basic capacities so radi- cally exceed those of present human beings as to no longer be considered as human in any significant degree or form.267 In other words, though cyborgs may be characterised as transhumans, since some parts of their bodies remain human or resemble those of humans, with a posthuman nothing of the human body is usually left. Generally, however, it is difficult to accurately describe the posthuman. In her 1999 book How We Became Posthuman, the American author N. Katherine Hayles characterises such a subject as ‘an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundar- ies undergo continuous construction and reconstruction’.268 In this regard, she suggests four different aspects of a posthuman future: 1. The prioritisation of information pattern over material substance. 2. The acceptance that consciousness is simply a mere product of the physical. 3. The recognition that the human body is just an original form and sub- stance of a being that can be upgraded or replaced. 4. The acceptance that human beings can just be compared to intelligent machines, making the two interchangeable.269 It is also unclear how a specific identity is formed in the posthuman. As Hayles indicates: [T]he presumption that there is an agency, desire, or will belonging to the self and clearly distinguished from the ‘will of others’ is undercut in the post- human, for the posthuman’s collective heterogeneous quality implies a dis- tributed cognition located in disparate parts that may be in only tenuous communication with another.270 As such, Hayles accepts that the posthuman body has becomes difficult to define, while noting that William Gibson characterises such bodies as ‘data made flesh’ in his 1984 book Neuromancer.271 The combination of pop science and science fiction in the spread of post- humanism was persistent throughout most of the twentieth century and has helped to drive forward much posthumanist thought.272 But it is still impos- sible to really know what a posthuman future will look like. It will, appar- ently, have its origins in the aims of transhumanism and will continue to build on the belief that, through science and technology, humanity can take charge of its evolutionary destiny by redesigning itself in its own way. This open access edition has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale.