Occasionally I get asked why I’m so dour about the utility of implantable technology, especially when it may solve very hard problems.
Usually my response is something along the lines of they are awful now, are inaccessible to most, and if the underlying conceits are right we should have non-invasive options able to do the same things.
But underlying that response is that I am strongly post-humanist, or believe that natural systems are universal and humans are a subset rather than a superset of those systems.
From my perspective, BCIs are decidedly in the trans-humanist camp, and while they are now limited in scope and effectiveness, the drive to continue whittling away at what makes us human will not stop with fixing obvious problems. Trans-humanist philosophy ultimately ends with us looking like the borg, copies of an ideal who’s drive is only to conform the universe rather than coexist with it.
Understanding flexible behavior as universal among organisms instead of something only humans are capable of kind of underlines the difference between the two philosophies.
While trans-humanists often consider post-humanism an end state of trans-humanism, the difference is like assuming communisms end state is post-scarcity. There’s fairly critical differences that seem subtle only due to the limitations and lack of nuance of language.
Posthumanism vs. Transhumanism: From the “End of Exceptionalism” to “Technological Humanism”
What is the Difference between Posthumanism and Transhumanism? – Love this idea, “human” is what we are instead of how we look. Anything can be human for a post-humanist, for a trans-humanist we make rocket raccoons.