Pioneers and Post-Humanism

 

Technology is improving, and every day it improves faster.

The complexity of technology as a function of time has been studied, and it's been recognized to be growing exponentially. The moment that the speed at which technology improves beyond our ability to keep up with it has been dubbed The Singularity. It's been proposed (by high-profile, technologically influential people like Ray Kurzweil) that in order for humankind to keep developing and stay connected with technology, we will have to integrate with it. We will have to augment ourselves with technology in order to keep evolving, because the speed at which technology advances has far surpassed our biological evolution.

When this day comes, we'll gain a new reference level, and will look at the past in a way we are currently unable to do. Gaining a more in-depth understanding of a concept causes the limitations of the idea to become broader. When we project into the future, and imagine the manifestation of a certain idea that isn't real yet, we're usually only capable of producing a caricature.

It's a weird example but, consider when women's rights were less of a concern, rape was thought of as penetration from some strange dude in a dark alleyway. With further understanding and education, the definition has broadened, and now any undesired sexual act from anybody can be understood to be rape. With time we developed a broader idea, beyond the caricature it used to be. 

So once the singularity has arrived, and being a cyborg becomes a common idea, I feel we'll look in the past and try to see what kinds of things led up to it. Just as we look in the past and analyze the conditions that precipitated World War II, I feel we'll look back to see what the first steps of the singularity were. Our concept of cyborg will broaden and become more realistic, beyond the action-comic concept we once had. We'll look back and hold Steven Hawking as the first cyborg, our post-human pioneer. A celebrity genius who was an example of our future before any of us were able to see it.