Billions of dollars are currently being spent by a suite of private firms, mostly in Silicon Valley, pursuing radical research to enhance human capacities. These companies want to put off, or even defeat, aging, upload our minds to computers and give humans new abilities. Is this simply the next frontier for science and something to be welcomed, or should Christians hesitate to endorse research which appears to target our very created selves? What is the difference between using technology to tackle cancer versus tackling the aging process itself? And what is driving tech billionaires to spend their fortunes in this way?
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
Billions of dollars are currently being spent by a suite of private firms, mostly in Silicon Valley, pursuing radical research to enhance human capacities. These companies want to put off, or even defeat, aging, upload our minds to computers and give humans new abilities. Is this simply the next frontier for science and something to be welcomed, or should Christians hesitate to endorse research which appears to target our very created selves? What is the difference between using technology to tackle cancer versus tackling the aging process itself? And what is driving tech billionaires to spend their fortunes in this way?
If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, find more resources to read, listen to and watch at John’s website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
In this episode we pick up our conversation from last week about transhumanism and how technology might redefine what it means to be human. We consider what place technology has in today’s social narrative and whether it makes sense as Christians to automatically resist efforts to use cutting-edge science to reshape ourselves. Is the human body to be regarded as a Lego kit or a flawed masterpiece of art? How do we discern the Creator’s original intention for our bodies in a world where they, like everything else, have been broken by the Fall? And how might it change our ethics in this area if we focused our attention on the resurrected Jesus as the firstfruits of a new kind of humanity?
In each episode of Matters of Life and Death, brought to you by Premier Unbelievable?, John Wyatt and his son Tim discuss issues in healthcare, ethics, technology, science, faith and more. John is a doctor, professor of ethics, and writer and speaker on many of these topics, while Tim is a religion and social affairs journalist. We talk about how Christians can better engage with a particular question of life, death or something else in between.
In this episode we pick up our conversation from last week about transhumanism and how technology might redefine what it means to be human. We consider what place technology has in today’s social narrative and whether it makes sense as Christians to automatically resist efforts to use cutting-edge science to reshape ourselves. Is the human body to be regarded as a Lego kit or a flawed masterpiece of art? How do we discern the Creator’s original intention for our bodies in a world where they, like everything else, have been broken by the Fall? And how might it change our ethics in this area if we focused our attention on the resurrected Jesus as the firstfruits of a new kind of humanity?
If you want to go deeper into some of the topics we discuss, find more resources to read, listen to and watch at John’s website: http://www.johnwyatt.com
Podcast notes and links
Transhumanism is a philosophical movement which argues for the enhancement and improvement of the human body and mind, in order to achieve levels of human functioning and longevity which are far beyond current limitations.
The idea of using advanced technology to try to overcome many of the fundamental problems and limitations of the human body is an idea whose time has arrived.
It fits it with the technological focus and preoccupations of our society. Whenever we confront a serious problem or obstacle that seems to restrict or threaten our lives then our natural instinct is to say – “let’s find a technological solution to overcome it.”
Life-extension research
Silicon Valley has become a focus for research into ageing and life extension. It seems there are a number of ageing tech entrepreneurs who have accumulated enormous wealth, but who are frightened of their own ageing and impending death. Their natural instinct is to throw large sums of their own money into advanced scientific and technological research in order to solve ‘the problem of ageing’.
Once example of this is the Silicon Valley company Calico funded and owned by Alphabet, the owners of Google. It’s goal is to ‘tackle ageing’ so that people can live ‘longer and healthier lives’. This seems to be a technological version of the ancient and potent dream of ‘the elixir of life’. It is significant that Calico is a private company funded by the enormous profits of a Big Tech company. Anti-ageing research is not a mainstream university science activity.
Entrepreneurs argue that there is an common acceptance and complacency about ageing and death. They describe this as ‘deathist’.
The Fable of the Dragon by Nick Bostrom
“Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigour and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be done to prevent or retard aging, this focus made sense. Rather than fretting about the inevitable, one could aim for peace of mind.
Today we face a different situation. While we still lack effective and acceptable means for slowing the aging process, we can identify research directions that might lead to the development of such means in the foreseeable future. “Deathist” stories and ideologies, which counsel passive acceptance, are no longer harmless sources of consolation. They are fatal barriers to urgently needed action.”
We do invest huge resources into using scientific knowledge to overcome life-threatening diseases. Once example is the transformation in paediatric mortality over the last 100 years.
Child (under 5 years) mortality in UK in 1920 was 141 per 1000, in 2020 it was 4 per 1000 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041714/united-kingdom-all-time-child-mortality-rate/
Neuralink is company founded and supported by Elon Musk. Its aim is to create brain-machine interfaces. Elon Musk has outlined his science fiction inspired vision for Neuralink on many occasions https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
He claims that the technology will seamlessly blend the human brain with AI, and will ultimately become an added human function, just like speech itself. Neuralink could also allow us to incorporate cloud-based AI computing directly into our minds. It would represent a completely new stage in human evolution.
Mind-brain interfaces have obvious applications for people with severe neurological conditions and paralysis. They will enable people to control machinery by the power of thought alone. Not surprisingly there is a great deal of interest in this from military strategists. The US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is actively funding research into this technology. The obvious military goal is to create highly enhanced soldiers who will interface with military technology.
The ethical, philosophical and theological issues raised by the possibility of human technological enhancement seem genuinely new and problematic. It is not immediately obvious what a Christian response to these technological possibilities might be.
Why should we not use technology not only to improve our environment but also improve our bodies ‘under the skin’.
What might be called ‘Low-tech transhumanism’ is already becoming part of contemporary culture: for example cosmetic surgery, gender-reassignment surgery, recreational pharmaceuticals, anabolic steroids and ‘gene doping’ to enhance sporting ability.
In the second part of the podcast we look at some of the fundamental philosophical and theological issues raised by human enhancement and transhumanism.
New developments in human enhancement technology are running ahead of our ability to understand how to use it wisely for the good of humankind.
Techno-optimism is the underlying belief that technology will always improve our lives and our bodies and minds; it will make people better, smarter, healthier, happier, and more moral. Techno-optimism is an idea whose time has arrived. It is a feature of early 21st century thought which contrasts with the deep pessimism about the negative impact of science and technology in the 20th century.
The “yuck factor” is a spontaneous and intuitive negative psychological response to new technological initiatives. Although it is a fragile and malleable reaction it may reflect a deeper sense that limits to technological manipulation are necessary to protect the deeper creation order – what it means to be human.
Lego kits and flawed masterpieces
If we regard the human body as a Lego kit, then there is no underlying order. All the pieces can be connected in any way we choose. The only limits to creation and manipulation are in our imagination.
But if the body is regarded as an artistic masterpiece which has become flawed by the consequences of the Fall, then our task is use to technology to restore the masterpiece where possible according to the original creator’s intention.
This leads to the distinction between restorative and enhancing interventions. Within this framework restorative interventions are morally appropriate whereas enhancing interventions are to be resisted because they are ‘changing the design’.
Human essentialism
Is there an essential essence to being human? Is it possible to identify an ideal model of humanity? In orthodox Christian thinking Jesus is described as the Second Adam and the progenitor and model of a new form of humanity. If the original unenhanced kind of human body was good enough for Jesus then it’s good enough for me. I don’t need to have my body enhanced to be fully human, ‘human-as-God-intended-me-to-be’.
The Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus as a physical, touchable, recognisable human being represent God’s final vote of confidence in ‘original model’ human being. See Oliver O’Donovan “Resurrection and Moral Order”, IVP.
Divinisation
A central doctrine of historic orthodox Christianity. God’s ultimate plan for human beings is not just salvation and redemption from sin, it is glorification (Romans 8:17, 30; 2 Corinthians 3:9-18). We will always be creatures; we will not and cannot share in the divine ‘substance’. But it seems that by God’s grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit, the capacities of our pneumatikos (spiritually energised) bodies will ultimately reflect the divine capacities to the fullest extent that is possible for our created human natures. “…we shall be like him, because we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
The drive for human enhancement through technology may come in part from our created human nature, a deep human longing for ultimate glorification. What CS Lewis called the “Inconsolable Longing”.
Is it possible that God is calling us to develop and enhance our humanity here and now through technology? For example, would it be appropriate to use technology (such as by manipulating our brain chemistry) to encourage human beings to become less aggressive and more collaborative?
In my view, although we might not want to exclude the possibility completely, the priority for the 2020s is to use human technology for restorative rather than enhancing purposes; to ensure that every human being on the planet has access to excellent restorative healthcare, before we consider the possibilities of technological human enhancement.
Further reading
Article: The future of humanity
Is enhancing our bodies and minds the natural endpoint of the Enlightenment?
Resurrection and Moral Order, Oliver O’Donovan, IVP
Transhumanism and Transcendence, ed Ronald Cole-Turner, Georgetown University Press
Modern technology and the human future, Craig Gay, IVP
Transhumanism and the image of God, Jacob Shatzer, IVP
Human enhancement, ed Savalescu and Bostrom, Oxford University Press
Read more elsewhere on my website:
Article: Ethical issues within emerging medical technologies
Are we going about making humans better, or making better humans?
Essay: How technology changes the way we understand ourselves
First clockwork machines, then hydraulics, followed by the telegraph, and finally computers. But what are we really?