The best Transhuman scii-fi novels?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Gardensnake

That was my point. He's not relevant to either one.

I'm sorry, but if that's a joke, I'm failing to get it.

[Flyndaran]

I think they were implying in a rather round about way that they also have no clue what Nye had to do with the discussion.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I think they were implying in a rather round about way that they also have no clue what Nye had to do with the discussion.

Maybe I missed something. I thought MazeMonster was the first person to bring Nye up in this discussion; was Nye mentioned earlier?

[Flyndaran]

I meant that I think Gardensnake was making fun of Mazemonster's odd reference to Nye that came from nowhere.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I meant that I think Gardensnake was making fun of Mazemonster's odd reference to Nye that came from nowhere.

Oh, okay. That allows a plausible reading.

[Johnny1A.2]

There's a story for which it is a debatable question as to whether it should be called 'transhumanist' or not, but it certainly includes themes that overlap with transhumanist ideas.

That story is Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End. It's a peculiar story in many respects. For one thing, IMHO it's actually not SF at all, for all that it involves aliens and starships and other trappings of science fiction and science fantasy. I would actually call Childhood's End a rather subtle horror novel.

But the core of the story is that humanity is about to give birth to Homo superior, a new species that will emerge in one generation, and be very inhuman. The story is actually primarily about the end of humanity, and our replacement by an entity that is objectively superior to us by almost any standard, but also very alien and with essentially nothing in common with us.

There are also some subtle Lovecraftian overtones, which also touch on the human perception of the advent of Homo superior as a terrible, terrifyingly bad, repellent thing.

(The H. superiors that make up the first post-human generation are repellently inhuman to humans, including their parents.)

As I said, whether or not Childhood's End is transhumanist is a judgement call, but it's definitely part of the larger set of ideas and stories that undergird transhumanism. In some ways, Childhood's End is a darker, more pessimistic 'take' on some of the same ideas and themes Clarke used in 2001.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

As I said, whether or not Childhood's End is transhumanist is a judgement call, but it's definitely part of the larger set of ideas and stories that undergird transhumanism. In some ways, Childhood's End is a darker, more pessimistic 'take' on some of the same ideas and themes Clarke used in 2001.

I think it's clearly not transhumanist. In the first place, the posthuman children's abilities seem to be psionic in nature, more or less; psionics plays almost no part in any transhumanist material I've read, whether fictional or speculative/prognosticative. In the second place, the ascent is not achieved through human agency, but through intervention by the Overmind; but transhumanism generally assumes human agency.

In fact, it would be possible to read CE as a modern-day retelling of the Revelation of St. John, as its events might be seen by ordinary human beings who had little knowledge of Christianity. The Overlords are the angels who see humanity raised above them ("Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" as Paul asked).

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think it's clearly not transhumanist. In the first place, the posthuman children's abilities seem to be psionic in nature, more or less; psionics plays almost no part in any transhumanist material I've read, whether fictional or speculative/prognosticative. In the second place, the ascent is not achieved through human agency, but through intervention by the Overmind; but transhumanism generally assumes human agency.

Yeah, but the underlying concepts of transhumanism are old. Whether they are assumed to work through psionics or not isn't really important.

In fact, it would be possible to read CE as a modern-day retelling of the Revelation of St. John, as its events might be seen by ordinary human beings who had little knowledge of Christianity. The Overlords are the angels who see humanity raised above them ("Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" as Paul asked).

But without any assurance of anything joyous or good in the elevation. The future turns out to be the transformation of humans not into perfected beings, but inhuman monsters. That's why I called it a horror novel at its core, with a Lovecraftian bent.

But almost all transhumanist writing has a religious undertone to it, I think entirely unconsciously on the part of most of the writers. As I noted upthread, the phrase 'Rapture of the geeks' isn't just mockery.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Yeah, but the underlying concepts of transhumanism are old. Whether they are assumed to work through psionics or not isn't really important.

You might just as well, then, say that the Greek legends of Heracles, Dionysus, and Castor and Pollux being elevated to godhood are transhumanist, because "whether they are assumed to work through nectar and ambrosia or not isn't really important." But it seems to me that transhumanism is more historically specific than that, and that its specificity includes human ascension through human agency as embodied in science and technology.

You could have a transhumanist novel in which the science is parapsychology, I suppose, if human beings were granted psi powers through genetic engineering, or eugenics starting from rare psychic talents, or the use of weak psi powers to "awaken" psi in other people. But having psi arise through spontaneous mutation, or alien intervention, or the like is not "human agency" and thus is a different narrative. (See for example the Arisian breeding program that produced the Children of the Lens.)

But without any assurance of anything joyous or good in the elevation. The future turns out to be the transformation of humans not into perfected beings, but inhuman monsters. That's why I called it a horror novel at its core, with a Lovecraftian bent.

But the difference between perfected beings and inhuman monsters is a value judgment. For me, for example, the "saved" people in the heaven of orthodox Christianity are inhuman monsters; remember that "in order that the bliss of the saved may be more delightful to them, it is given to them to see perfectly the torments of the damned." There's a passage in the Divine Comedy that exemplifies this: As Dante is going through Hell, he tells one of the tortured sinners there that he wishes he could make the man's agony worse, and his mentor Virgil praises him for becoming more holy.

Or for another example, Atlas Shrugged has the heroes retiring into a private utopia, while in the world they leave behind civilization crumbles and, presumably, millions of people die; does that make them "perfected beings" (having received John Galt's evangelic message) or "inhuman monsters"? There are lots of readers for either interpretation.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You might just as well, then, say that the Greek legends of Heracles, Dionysus, and Castor and Pollux being elevated to godhood are transhumanist, because "whether they are assumed to work through nectar and ambrosia or not isn't really important."

It's the same underlying impulse, or core concept, yes. Transhumanism is its latest incarnation, but the underlying desire/fear is exactly the same.

But it seems to me that transhumanism is more historically specific than that, and that its specificity includes human ascension through human agency as embodied in science and technology.

Now, it's fair to note that transhumanism is a specific incarnation of that underlying concept, unique to itself in its details. That's why I also said that whether Childhood's End should be considered a transhumanist work is a judgement call.

But it's definitely relevant to transhumanist thinking and fiction, even if it's not strictly of it. If it's not the same species, it is the same genus.

You could have a transhumanist novel in which the science is parapsychology, I suppose, if human beings were granted psi powers through genetic engineering, or eugenics starting from rare psychic talents, or the use of weak psi powers to "awaken" psi in other people. But having psi arise through spontaneous mutation, or alien intervention, or the like is not "human agency" and thus is a different narrative. (See for example the Arisian breeding program that produced the Children of the Lens.)

The Lensman stories have some relevance to transhumanism, as well, it's another 'same species different genus' case. But there are substantial overlaps.

An idea that permeates both Childhood's End and the Lensman stories is the 'evolutionary ladder', or 'pyramid' or whatever metaphor you want for the idea of an inherent 'upward' climb toward 'higher' levels, meaning more capability, usually more intelligence, etc.

In both stories, whether that natural progress trends toward unity with a cosmic mind (Childhood's End) or the evolution toward the Third Level of Intellect (Lensman), it's seen as a natural progression, a natural tendency, though in both stories the process gets a helping hand artificially for story reasons.

(Another example of this trope, though a far less well-executed one, is the chain of Uplift in David Brin's second Uplift Trilogy).

Now, from a strictly Darwinist perspective, this is nonsense. In fact, the idea only makes sense if you assume that the whole system was set up to work that way by intelligent intent. (This is hinted at in the Lensman stories, in fact.)

Now transhumanism, as I noted upthread, tends to embrace philosophical materialism and Darwinism as 'givens' (as with any movement, exceptions can be found, but that's by far the trend). And yet...

There's not a dime's worth of solid evidence that 'uploading' is even a valid scientific concept. It may be, but there's no supporting evidence at all for it yet. Likewise, real-world implementations of 'virtual reality' show definite limitations that may well turn out to be inherent. Yet fictional representations, and transhumanist speculations, tend to visualize VR and uploading in terms that sound an awful lot like various visions of Heaven.

(Jaron Lanier, the man credited with coining the term 'virtual reality', is especially scathing about this sort of techno-disconnectedness.)

I offer as a specific example Steven Harris' article, A Million Years of Evolution. It's an interesting speculative discussion of future possibilities, heavy on transhumanist and uploading themes. One of his speculations is that our descendants will convert the mass of the Solar System into a vast Matrioshka computer, living within it, along with AI programs, as virtualized intelligences. Later in the essay, he becomes explicit in referring to the 'Heaven' of the VR simulation and the 'Hell' of reality.

Now, it's possible, maybe likely, that he's writing a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the concepts are there to be seen.

Another instance of underlying unity is the computeraggedon, also known as the Vingian Singularity. This is so similar in its narrative structure to the alien transformation of Childhood's End that I'm tempted to classify the two as different subspecies, rather than different species of the same genus.

Yeah, in CE the Event comes about as the result of natural evolution, helped along a bit by the aliens as 'midwives', accelerating so that the last stage of the evolutionary ladder happens in a few years instead of megayears. The Event consists of the first post-human generation being absorbed into a cosmic intellect beyond human comprehension, while earlier true humans die off, no longer relevant.

...whereas in the computeraggedon, the Event comes as the result of the natural progression of self-enhancing, self-accelerating technological advancement, so that the last stage of cultural evolution happens in a few years or months or days, instead of megayears. The Event consists of either the annihilation of humanity as no long relevant because the super-AIs have better use for the atoms of their bodies, or (optimistic view), humans get instantly transformed into inhuman virtualized programs running on a vast AI system beyond human comprehension...

(Granted, that's a particular version of the Vingian Singularity, but I took it straight from transhumanist speculations, and it's so similar to the end scenario of Childhood's End that I'm tempted draw a causal link.)

Of course there are transhumanist speculations and writers who reject those scenarios too, but they are right in there in the center of the mix, and the parallels with their cousin narratives in other genres are there to be seen.

A common theme in transhumanism is that they are talking about the 'next step' in the evolutionary process, another step 'up'. From a strict Darwinist perspective, though, there is no 'up' or 'down', there's only 'reproductive success' and 'reproductive failure', successful adaptation and maladaptation.

Transhumanism usually assumes as an article of faith that intelligences greater than human are possible. Now that could be true...but it's also possible that it's not. Poul Anderson once speculated about that in a story, humans go out to the stars and meet aliens, all of whom are just about exactly as intelligent as humans, on average, not much more or less, and the reason is that the underlying mechanisms of intellect are complexity-limited, above a certain level of complexity they break down, and so species that evolve toward sapience hit an eventual limit and are as smart as they can get. Computers and AIs suffer from the same inherent limits. The universe just doesn't allow for 'higher' intelligence.

What's interesting is that this idea has just as much evidence supporting it as the idea of super-intelligent AIs and runaway intelligence Singularities (i.e. none). From a scientific POV, either is as likely to be true or false as the other, in Darwinian terms.

But the transhumanist conviction that 'of course' higher intelligence is possible is more or less a religious precept, recast for use in a supposedly materialistic frame.