Redefining What It Means to Be Human

For centuries, religious zealots and philosophers have sought to define what it means to be a human, and what our defining characteristics are. Answers to this question have succeed themselves over the ages, but now we may be forced to ask the same thing and answer it from a different perspective.

Given our modern society and our cultural development, this question cannot and most likely will not remain a purely theoretical one. In the near future and beyond, our advancing technological capabilities will most likely play a more important role in the new definition than anything else.

Already, technology is starting to be implemented in the human body, enhancing our capabilities, correcting flaws and defects, and also boosting the natural abilities of the human mind.

Conceivably, this trend will be perpetuated in the foreseeable future as well, because, let's face it, who doesn't want to make themselves better if given half the chance?

One potential issue that may arise from this status-quo is related to the availability of technological enhancements. That is to say, experts who think about this sort of things have started wondering about what will happen if technological augmentations are only made available to a portion of the population.

This new school of though, called “transhumanism,” raises very interesting social, ethical and political questions and fascinating possibilities. Arizona State University expert Brad Allenby tackled some of the issues in a new interview, which is available here.

The expert is a professor in one of the ASU Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

He also holds joint appointments as professor of law and the Lincoln professor of engineering ethics in the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics at the university.

The interview he gave was conducted by a student organization that seeks to make sense of the most pressing human issues, located “at the intersection of science, technology, society and a law.”

The Triple Helix group is run by undergraduate students from a variety of universities, both in the United States and abroad.

For more details on the fascinating possibilities of transhumanism, watch Allenby' podcast video.