Post by whiterose on Oct 25, 2007 14:36:51 GMT -5
Invasion of the high-tech body snatchers
Ready for infrared vision, and hearts that work better than the original? While bioethicists obsess over cloning, bioengineers will soon be able to replace every part of our bodies.
By Alan H. Goldstein
Invasion of the high-tech body snatchers - Salon.com
Sep 30, 2003 | Right here, right now, it is virtually impossible to find a human being in the developed world who is not technologically enhanced or modified. Ever been vaccinated? Have a tooth crowned? Wear contact lenses? One does not need a pacemaker to qualify as a bioengineered Homo sapiens.
These examples have profound implications. There is no theoretical difference between a dental implant and a mental implant except that we know how a tooth works and can manufacture a functional replacement. Currently, the same cannot be said for the neural network of the brain. But from a bioengineering standpoint, that is only a matter of time.
Once the structure and function of an organ are elucidated, bioengineers can develop replacement parts. Artificial heart-valve implantation is practically routine. Next-generation pacemakers will come with built-in diagnostics and telemetry to provide your hospital's computer with a constant stream of data on the condition of both your heart and the pacemaker itself. Some designs even include global positioning systems for emergencies. Several tissue-engineering companies produce commercial synthetic-skin products for grafting onto burns. Some use a mixture of biological and synthetic polymers, while others offer the genuine article, natural tissue grown from cells. As these technologies emerge, humans will metamorphose: The first stage of our metamorphosis will, in fact, be the physical fusion of human beings with both the biological and nonbiological systems we are engineering.
But rather than the end, this quasi-cyborg, or "Homo technicus," is just the beginning. While bioethicists wring their hands about the morality of human cloning, and politicians battle about where we may or may not get our stem cells, nanotechnology is moving toward the elimination of the cell as the fundamental unit of life. Yet outside the laboratory, how many people are paying attention?
As a concept, bioengineering, like information technology, has entered our collective consciousness through the usual channels of the media. In practice, bioengineering enters our lives through advanced medical procedures and imaging technologies: the total hip replacement or the MRI.
Bioengineering, currently an embryonic technology, will grow to include genetic engineering but will use both living and nonliving materials for the devices it builds. Nanotechnology, the ability to design and assemble materials one atom at a time (aka "nanofabrication") is, by definition, the ultimate form of engineering for life-forms or devices operating in our physical world. Currently we are in the process of using these technologies to build the end of evolution.
The bioengineering mega-trend is crucial to the future of humanity because bioengineering via nanofabrication will erase the border between living and nonliving materials. Maybe not this century, but most likely in the next. The result will be the emergence of a totally new type of being. Homo sapiens is on a path toward speciation into Homo technicus. But Homo technicus will have no evolutionary relationship to biological life. Just the opposite. The ascendancy of Homo technicus will mark the end of that particular 4-billion-year experiment.
The current popular fixation on clones, or science fiction's obsession with cyborgs, does not provide useful paradigms for the new forms of sentience that will ultimately emerge from nanotechnology. Both clones and cyborgs are too anthropomorphic. Ultimately, the future will not be about mixing humanity and technology but about sentient chemistry. Just as the revolution in quantum physics laid the foundation for the creation of weapons capable of vaporizing the planet, so the nanotechnology revolution is laying the foundation for the end of evolution and of life in any form we can imagine.
Given this obvious outcome, one of the most amazing developments is what has failed to develop. There appears to be virtually no cohesive attempt to address the ethical challenges of bioengineering, challenges that are prima facie far beyond those posed by molecular biology. The scientific, and therefore ethical, boundaries of biotechnology are the cell and its biomolecular components. Bioengineering, on the other hand, knows no such limitations.
As the skein of technology continues to feed into the fabric of life, the yarn is undergoing molecular substitution. The natural fibers will be replaced as needed. The entire periodic table of elements is available and there is no reason for discrimination. Bioethicists are disastrously underestimating the trajectory of this technology. Issues of infinitely greater technical and ethical complexity than cloning are already on the table. Bioengineering is about to jump to warp speed while human psychology and consciousness plug along on impulse power. The slope may appear slippery now, but we are still human beings trying to keep our footing amid a tangle of DNA and stem cells.
That is about to change. But bioethicists seem unaware of the concept of sentient chemistry through nanotechnology. One possibility is that they do not have the technical training to properly evaluate the rate at which nanotechnology will supersede even the most advanced frontiers of biotechnology. Quantum leaps, so to speak, are in the cards. While no one doubts that we must deal with the unprecedented ethical and social implications of cloning, we must simultaneously create an expanded vocabulary that allows us to move beyond the biological and come to grips with a more realistic assessment of where our technology is taking us, and of who "us" will be. Terms such as "artificial intelligence" and "cloning" will soon be anachronisms. A vast technological entity has been created. It is almost already beyond comprehension. And we are just getting started.
This is not science fiction. This is happening in a laboratory near you.
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Ready for infrared vision, and hearts that work better than the original? While bioethicists obsess over cloning, bioengineers will soon be able to replace every part of our bodies.
By Alan H. Goldstein
Invasion of the high-tech body snatchers - Salon.com
Sep 30, 2003 | Right here, right now, it is virtually impossible to find a human being in the developed world who is not technologically enhanced or modified. Ever been vaccinated? Have a tooth crowned? Wear contact lenses? One does not need a pacemaker to qualify as a bioengineered Homo sapiens.
These examples have profound implications. There is no theoretical difference between a dental implant and a mental implant except that we know how a tooth works and can manufacture a functional replacement. Currently, the same cannot be said for the neural network of the brain. But from a bioengineering standpoint, that is only a matter of time.
Once the structure and function of an organ are elucidated, bioengineers can develop replacement parts. Artificial heart-valve implantation is practically routine. Next-generation pacemakers will come with built-in diagnostics and telemetry to provide your hospital's computer with a constant stream of data on the condition of both your heart and the pacemaker itself. Some designs even include global positioning systems for emergencies. Several tissue-engineering companies produce commercial synthetic-skin products for grafting onto burns. Some use a mixture of biological and synthetic polymers, while others offer the genuine article, natural tissue grown from cells. As these technologies emerge, humans will metamorphose: The first stage of our metamorphosis will, in fact, be the physical fusion of human beings with both the biological and nonbiological systems we are engineering.
But rather than the end, this quasi-cyborg, or "Homo technicus," is just the beginning. While bioethicists wring their hands about the morality of human cloning, and politicians battle about where we may or may not get our stem cells, nanotechnology is moving toward the elimination of the cell as the fundamental unit of life. Yet outside the laboratory, how many people are paying attention?
As a concept, bioengineering, like information technology, has entered our collective consciousness through the usual channels of the media. In practice, bioengineering enters our lives through advanced medical procedures and imaging technologies: the total hip replacement or the MRI.
Bioengineering, currently an embryonic technology, will grow to include genetic engineering but will use both living and nonliving materials for the devices it builds. Nanotechnology, the ability to design and assemble materials one atom at a time (aka "nanofabrication") is, by definition, the ultimate form of engineering for life-forms or devices operating in our physical world. Currently we are in the process of using these technologies to build the end of evolution.
The bioengineering mega-trend is crucial to the future of humanity because bioengineering via nanofabrication will erase the border between living and nonliving materials. Maybe not this century, but most likely in the next. The result will be the emergence of a totally new type of being. Homo sapiens is on a path toward speciation into Homo technicus. But Homo technicus will have no evolutionary relationship to biological life. Just the opposite. The ascendancy of Homo technicus will mark the end of that particular 4-billion-year experiment.
The current popular fixation on clones, or science fiction's obsession with cyborgs, does not provide useful paradigms for the new forms of sentience that will ultimately emerge from nanotechnology. Both clones and cyborgs are too anthropomorphic. Ultimately, the future will not be about mixing humanity and technology but about sentient chemistry. Just as the revolution in quantum physics laid the foundation for the creation of weapons capable of vaporizing the planet, so the nanotechnology revolution is laying the foundation for the end of evolution and of life in any form we can imagine.
Given this obvious outcome, one of the most amazing developments is what has failed to develop. There appears to be virtually no cohesive attempt to address the ethical challenges of bioengineering, challenges that are prima facie far beyond those posed by molecular biology. The scientific, and therefore ethical, boundaries of biotechnology are the cell and its biomolecular components. Bioengineering, on the other hand, knows no such limitations.
As the skein of technology continues to feed into the fabric of life, the yarn is undergoing molecular substitution. The natural fibers will be replaced as needed. The entire periodic table of elements is available and there is no reason for discrimination. Bioethicists are disastrously underestimating the trajectory of this technology. Issues of infinitely greater technical and ethical complexity than cloning are already on the table. Bioengineering is about to jump to warp speed while human psychology and consciousness plug along on impulse power. The slope may appear slippery now, but we are still human beings trying to keep our footing amid a tangle of DNA and stem cells.
That is about to change. But bioethicists seem unaware of the concept of sentient chemistry through nanotechnology. One possibility is that they do not have the technical training to properly evaluate the rate at which nanotechnology will supersede even the most advanced frontiers of biotechnology. Quantum leaps, so to speak, are in the cards. While no one doubts that we must deal with the unprecedented ethical and social implications of cloning, we must simultaneously create an expanded vocabulary that allows us to move beyond the biological and come to grips with a more realistic assessment of where our technology is taking us, and of who "us" will be. Terms such as "artificial intelligence" and "cloning" will soon be anachronisms. A vast technological entity has been created. It is almost already beyond comprehension. And we are just getting started.
This is not science fiction. This is happening in a laboratory near you.
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