Critical Annotated Webliography

“From Frankenstein to the Visible Human Project, technological ‘progress’ has always forced society to re-evaluate the meaning of ‘life’.” Discuss critically.

Since we entered the period of technology and science, different discourses were raised among our society. From the horror of uncontrollable technology in Frankenstein to the advancement in the Visible Human Project that provide us a new perspective on body and life, technology is influencing our perceptions on human body and the nature, so as the meaning of life. In this webliography, I m going to address on how the “meaning of life” is being re-evaluated from different viewpoints and different people.

As Murray critically access Waldby’s article on Visible Human Project, she states in her article (1) that the technology advencement in the Visible Human Project “blur the line between the organic and the machinic, between the actual and the virtual, between genesis and what Waldby calls ‘technogensis.’” “Life” and “death” are being redefined and destablized in the implications of these technologies. As a result, people begin to question the ontological implications of the project and the effects on human values and human life.

On the other hand, while Van Brakel admits that “the development of technology in general and of telematics in particular changes the life forms of human beings”, he also states that some changes are being exaggerated that “tends to be an overemphasis on the effects on the individual”. (2) By illustrating the technology development in recent decades of web, hyperspace and cyborgs, he suggests that the technology will eventually lead to “a hyperintelligence in which what were once called human persons have been reduced to homunculi or nodes in a neural network.” Thus he thinks we should examine more on the “socio-political ramifications of globalized technology” other than on the “parochial concept” of identity.

“Meaning in life is no longer a social given, but a matter of personal choice; it has to be constructed, or chosen, from a proliferation of options.” (3) As long as the technology development is influencing our concepts on the meaning of life, Eckersley suggests that the perceptions on the meaning of life are no longer influenced by the family, social ties and religion, but “comfortable with its absence of absolutes and blurred distinctions between real and virtual, equipped for its abundant opportunities, exciting choices and limitless freedoms, and its hazards and risks.”

De Garis also raises his concerns on his article (4) that worries about the machines will be smart enough to modify themselves of “searching out new structures and behaviors”. He thinks that these “Darwinian artilects (artificial intelligence)” will evolve in a sense that to improve themselves and finally become threatening to human beings by turning against us that beyond our control and comprehension. He hence comments that we should rethink whether the artilects should be built or whether the artilects should be allowed to modify themselves into superbeings. He generally show his anxiety on the apparently over developed technology that we will finally lose the control of them.

Kass suggest in his article (5) that the pursuit of “ageless body” or “untroubled soul” through technologies like genetic screening and genetic engineering is not the way of a flourishing life, but should be “lived in rhythmned time, mindful of time's limits, appreciative of each season and filled first of all with those intimate human relations that are ours only because we are born, age, replace ourselves, decline, and die – and know it.” He thinks that although one can seek the perfection through the biotechnological means, and get the effects “without understanding their meaning in human terms”, it disrupted the normal character of “human being-at-work-in-the-world" and we are being dehumanized.

Bell also agrees that the technological progress is driving the world toward a “Singularity” that “technology and nature will have become one”, and finally we will have new definitions of “life”, “nature” and “human”. (6) However, he argues that this “Singularity” will drive to an “unprecedented decline of the planet’s inhabitants”, and eventually an extinction of human race. The new technologies such as genetically engineered foods, nano-technology and robotics are argued that they have lost the connection to the nature that they are competing and combining together, and ultimately technology will defeat the nature.

By discussing the six component beliefs of cybernetic totalism, Grab addresses the fear of “cybernetic eschatology” that brought on when computers become ultra-intelligent masters of matter and life is an “intoxicated” thought that will not actually happen. (7) He thinks that “treating technology as if it were autonomous is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy”. As he argues, while biotechnology is attempting to computerize the body, it’s the quality of the “software” to manipulate the hardware of the body. However, he thinks that to get computers to perform tasks of significant complexity in a “reliable but modifiable way, without crashes or security breaches” is an impossible mission. Hence, he states the irony that the limitation of the software is “the best insurance our species has for long-term survival as we explore the far reached of technological possibility”.

In dealing with these different perspectives on how the meaning of life is perceived, we could observe in a few sources that there is generally a discourse about the threat of the technology that going beyond the control of human being and even cause the extinction of human race. In fact, we could also observe how the technological progress in the recent decades result to new definitions on what is “life”, “death” and “human body”.

(1) Murray, Stuart J. ‘Catherine Waldby's The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine.’, Reconstruction. 10 April 2006.
http://www.reconstruction.ws/021/revVisibleHP.htm

(2) Van Brakel, J. “Telematic Life Forms.” 1999. University of Louvain, 10 April 2006.
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4_n3html/VANBRAKE.html

(3) Eckersley, Richard. “What’s it all about?” The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 March 2000, Spectrum section, p.4; We have know-how, we need know-why, The Age, 3 June 2000, News Extra, p.2. 11 April 2006.
http://nceph.anu.edu.au/Staff_Students/Staff_pdf_papers/Richard_Eckersley_papers/Richard_E_SMH-Age_meaning.pdf

(4) De Garis, Hugo. “The 21st Century Artilect: Moral Dilemmas Concerning the Ultra Intelligent Machine.” 1990. Revue Internationale de Philosophie. 10 April 2006.
http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/essays/Artilect-phil.html

(5) Kass, Leon. "Beyond Theory: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Human Improvement." January 2003. The President’s Concil on Boethics. 11 April 2006.
http://bioethics.gov/background/kasspaper.html

(6) Bell, James. “Technotopia and the death of nature.” 2001. Earth Island Journal. 12 April 2006.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0469.html?printable=1

(7) Grab, Screen. “One-Half of a Manifesto.” December 2000. WIRED Magazine. 11 April 2006.
http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/8.12/lanier.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=