It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie – being able to “upload” our minds to computers to live on after we die, to freeze our bodies only to bring them back in the future, or to pop pills to enhance our mood and intelligence.
While these may seem like impossible notions, these are the kinds of things the transhumanism and posthumanism movements are hoping for and working toward.
However, as with most technological advancements, these proposals have bioethicists and theologians questioning: just because we can, does that mean we should?
Transhumanism is a loosely-defined cultural, intellectual and technical movement that describes itself as seeking to “to overcome fundamental human limitations” including death, aging, and natural physical, mental and psychological limitations, says humanity+, a transhumanist online community.
The movement overlaps greatly with posthumanism, which posits that a new, biologically superior race is on the horizon, and could replace the human race as we know it. Posthumanists support technologies such as cryogenic freezing, mood-and-intelligence-enhancing drugs, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, bionics and “uploading” a mind to an artificial intelligence.
Will treading into this territory completely change the way man relates to God, to their own bodies, and to one another? These are the questions many bioethicists are grappling with as they consider the morality of such technologies.
For Catholics, escaping suffering and trials by escaping human nature itself is a morally unacceptable option, according to Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., Director of Education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
“Catholics cannot accept a vision of man which presupposes an outright ‘unacceptability’ of his basic human nature, nor a vision that labors to replace it with an alternate bodily structure that is engineered to be ‘post-human,’” Fr. Pacholczyk told CNA.
Instead, the “integral vision of man” accepts that man is incarnate – that humans have a body –and that “we are meant to embrace and grow through the limitations of our human nature,” he said.
“Even if our nature were to be radically re-engineered and modified,” he elaborated, “our innermost self would retain fundamental shards of incompleteness.”
The human experience is a struggle between a longing for the infinite, and learning to accept and embrace human’s finite nature, Fr. Pacholczyk explained. This longing would still exist even if technology were to significantly advance man’s material reality, because the longing for the infinite transcends the material world, he added.
Christ’s life provides the road map to transcendence – rather than transhumanism – for man’s life, “achieved through repentance, discipleship, self-denial, committed love, and generous self-giving,” said Fr. Pacholczyk. The infinite that man longs for “is effected from above through grace, rather than through the mere machinations of human cleverness or willfulness.”
Only by accepting their nature can humans re-orient themselves to “the only authentic source of redemption compatible with his essence,” which is Jesus, he added.
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Indefinitely extending the life of a psychologically flawed human, who has no interest in addressing those flaws, and instead singlemindedly seeks to create a world in which they can shield themselves from the natural consequences of their behaviors sounds terrific. Just think of it, living forever! [oh, but one catch] with megalomaniacs like Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon Bonaparte. Mmmmm. Sounds heavenly doesn’t it? No thanks.
If it were possible to upload our mind to a supercomputer and then later download it into a body, the thing downloaded would be something akin to Cro-Magnon man. The reason is obvious: the spiritual component of a man can never be uploaded to a computer.
I have no doubt that my friends in the scientific and engineering fields will work very hard to obtain eternal life through digital technology. Funny, though, since the Son of Man already told us how to achieve eternal life through very low tech analog means. All you have to do is download the Gospel and then you can upload the resurrection. And that’s good news!
Can. Not. Happen. God has ordained that Man must die. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.” Hebrews 9:27 (DRA). Satan is running out of time and tactics. He thought he won, by convincing Mankind of the time (and all of us) to kill the physical Christ. Oops, wrong again! The Resurrection showed Satan that he was truly outmatched by God.
What next? Well, how about Satan trying to stop Death, even though he interceded with Adam and Eve’s judgment to introduce Death into Mankind’s relationship with God. The so-called “Transhumanism” might have a trick or two to wow Mankind, but it is not lasting: we all must die (even if you went to Harvard).
Who in their right mind would want to come back to this world again? Like marriage, once is enough. My motto on the latter is: ” If at first you do not succeed, for crying out loud give up.” Perhaps that is because I have seen too many failed first, second, third and even fourth marriages. To me the grass is never greener on the other side because it still requires lots of work — planting, fertilizing, watering and then mowing before one can enjoy — better to stay on the first side and work on that.
Ann,
You made the statement “Who in their right mind would want to come back to this world again?”
To exist is always a greater good then to not exist. Therefore, a person who doesn’t believe in an afterlife would naturally be very interested in this topic.
You are right about that one Steve.
Anne T., your post gave me quite a chuckle. I wish we had a ” like ” button for posts on CCD. You’d have gotten one from me, especially that first sentence!
Well, we agree on some things, YFC. My post was old age talking — supposedly the wisdom of old age and more than fifty years of marriage to the same man. We both saw the disasters that divorces caused in our families and decided that we were going to stick it out, come hell or high water as the saying goes.
super cool !!!
TransHumans live forever !!!
Will really be boring when the
Last Star in the Universe burns out
and these trannies freeze in the dark forever.
Getting back to the original article, I have read or heard on other reports that some of those bodies that were frozen for future “resurrection”, have already been beheaded and just the heads kept and the bodies cremated or buried. It has not been cost efficient to keep the whole body frozen.