Search Results (8)

Viktor Frankl attributes significant importance to religion in relation to the human quest for meaning. According to Frankl, religion maintains its existence and continues offering guidance in the search for meaning irrespective of worldly conditions or developments. Since the 19th century, secularism—initially adopted particularly by Western nations but influential globally—has significantly limited the presence of religion in public life. Although the predictions of positivist scientists did not materialize and science has not “overthrown” religion, the number of religious individuals is rapidly declining in the contemporary era, while atheism is increasing. Nevertheless, research indicates that religions still serve as powerful guides in believers’ search for meaning. Moreover, globally, the most religious segments of the population tend to be the poorest and, as Frankl suggests, religion enables people to attribute meaning to their patience and endurance in the face of adversity. It is discussed by the academia that in the future world, humanity might transcend biological limitations, reaching an advanced form of existence (“trans-humanism”), and eventually even surpassing the biological form of Homo Sapiens into a digitally based life form described as the “post-human” stage. This study argues that unless humanity reaches this stage, people’s quest for meaning will continue independently of technological advancements, religions will persist in guiding these searches, and Frankl’s views will most likely remain valid. Full article

Transhumanism embraces the use of technology to enhance human capabilities. In keeping with traditional theories of cognition, transhumanists typically assume that mental capacities are organism-bound (or brain-bound), and enhancement is thus achieved exclusively by modifying the human organism. However, 4E cognition challenges this assumption. Instead, understanding the mind as extended or scaffolded highlights how cognitive processes recruit environmental resources to perform their tasks. Therefore, as Andy Clark argues, cognitive enhancement is no longer restricted to modifications of the biological organism but is also achieved by using cognitive tools or niches that allow brain–body–world coalitions to perform more efficient or more sophisticated cognitive functions. Hence, humans are ‘natural-born cyborgs’ who have long been using environmental resources to enhance cognitive abilities. In this article, I extend this analysis to religion. Drawing on recent work on 4E cognition in religious practices, I argue that religious practices can themselves be understood as ‘cognitive technologies’ that count as enhancements. These insights from cognitive science serve to reframe the dialog between Christian theology and transhumanism: (1) enhancements are reframed as belonging to a long history of self-modification, rather than being the sole purview of the future, (2) humans should be understood as intrinsically technological, and (3) theologians are already in the enhancement game and, conversely, transhumanists should consider religious practices. Full article

This essay attempts to analyse the discourses, gestures and projects of the new digital galaxy’s protagonists who conceive their mission in fundamentally religious terms. It will also aim to trace the intellectual genealogy and conceptual premises of their cultural and communicative vision. This analysis will attempt to define four ideal types based on reference figures taken from mythology and religion as well as the imaginary of contemporary popular culture: Prometheus, Moses, Hermes Trismegistus and Iron Man. Full article

This essay proposes a new model for understanding religious transhumanism by extending existing frameworks that have been useful for predicting the success of new religious movements (NRMs). This paper focuses on the Mormon Transhumanist Association as a case of religious transhumanism that is incongruent with existing models of NRMs, thereby highlighting the limitations of these models. First, I demonstrate how the Morman Transhumanist Association challenges religious scholars’ conventional concepts for understanding NRMs, particularly within anthropology, cosmology, and eschatology. Then, I present a model that effectively accounts for the unique characteristics of religious transhumanist groups, thereby demonstrating and addressing the field’s current lack of an explanatory framework. Full article

Posthumanism and transhumanism are philosophies that envision possible relations between humans and posthumans. Critical versions of posthumanism and transhumanism examine the idea of potential threats involved in human–posthuman interactions (i.e., species extinction, species domination, AI takeover) and propose precautionary measures against these threats by elaborating protocols for the prosocial use of technology. Critics of these philosophies usually argue against the reality of the threats or dispute the feasibility of the proposed measures. We take this debate back to its modern roots. The play that gave the world the term “robot” (R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots) is nowadays remembered mostly as a particular instance of an absurd apocalyptic vision about the doom of the human species through technology. However, we demonstrate that Karel Čapek assumed that a negative interpretation of human–posthuman interactions emerges mainly from the human inability to think clearly about extinction, spirituality, and technology. We propose that the conflictual interpretation of human–posthuman interactions can be overcome by embracing Čapek’s religiously and philosophically-inspired theory of altruism remediated by technology. We argue that this reinterpretation of altruism may strengthen the case for a more positive outlook on human–posthuman interactions. Full article

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an intense interest in creating “speculative fiction”, including speculative fiction about outer space. This article ties this interest to a broader tradition of “speculative religion” by discussing the Mormon Transhumanist Association. An interest in outer space is linked to nineteenth and twentieth-century speculation by Mormon intellectuals and Church leaders regarding “Abrahamic Astronomy”. The article suggests that there is a Mormon view of the future as informed by a fractal or recursive past that social science in general, and anthropology in particular, could use in “thinking the future”. Full article

In October of 2018, Norman Hardy became the first individual to be cryopreserved after successful recourse to California’s then recently passed End of Life Options Act. This was a right not afforded to Thomas Donaldson, who in 1993 was legally denied the ability to end his own life before a tumor irreversibly destroyed his brain tissue. The cases of Norman Hardy and Thomas Donaldson reflect ethical and moral issues common to the practice of assisted dying, but unique to cryonics. In this essay, I explore the intersections between ideologies of immortality and assisted dying among two social movements with seemingly opposing epistemologies: cryonicists and medical aid in dying (MAiD) advocates. How is MAiD understood among cryonicists, and how has it been deployed by cryonicists in the United States? What are the historical and cultural circumstances that have made access to euthanasia a moral necessity for proponents of cryonics and MAiD? In this comparative essay, I examine the similarities between the biotechnological and future imaginaries of cryonics and MAiD. I aim to show that proponents of both practices are in search of a good death, and how both conceptualize dying as an ethical good. Cryonics members and terminal patients constitute unique biosocial worlds, which can intersect in unconventional ways. As temporalizing practices, both cryonics and MAiD reflect a will to master the time and manner of death. Full article

Through a consideration of examples of the AI Creation Meme, a remix of Michelangelo’s Creazione di Adamo featuring a human hand and a machine hand nearly touching, fingertip to fingertip, this article will tackle the religious continuities and resonances that still emerge in AI discourse in an allegedly ‘secular age’. The AI Creation Meme, as a highly visible cultural artefact appearing in a variety of forms and locations, will be analyzed and discussed for its religious, apocalyptic, and post-humanist narratives, along with reference to earlier work on the New Visibility of Religion—specifically, Alexander Darius Ornella’s consideration of the New Visibility of Religion and religious imagery of the 2006 film, Children of Men. Work that outlines the aspects of critical post-humanism, speculative post-humanism, and transhumanism in relation to the contemporary post-secular age will also be addressed to expand on the implicit apocalyptic messages of the AI Creation Meme. Such a consideration of repeating and remixed imagery will add to the scholarly conversation around AI narratives and the entanglements of religion and technology in our imaginaries of the future. Full article