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The Posthuman Condition: Consciousness Beyond the Brain

by Robert Pepperell.
Intellect Books, Bristol, U.K., 2003.
203 pp., illus. ISBN: 1-84150-048-8

Reviewed by Rob Harle (Australia)

recluse@lis.net.au

This is a highly readable and thought provoking book. Pepperell’s research is extensive and covers many quite disparate disciplines such as art, technology, culture, history and religious politics. All these are relevant to the posthuman condition.

Just what is meant by posthuman? Briefly, three rather different notions apply to posthumanism. Firstly, it means the end or demise of “humanism”. Secondly, it embraces a new way of understanding that which constitutes being human. Thirdly, it “refers to the general convergence of biology and technology to the point where they are becoming indistinguishable” (p. iv). The book expands and carefully investigates these definitions. The questions asked are profound and the answers provided, in some cases speculative, delve into the deepest and most sacred beliefs of the waning humanist epoch.

The Posthuman Condition: Consciousness Beyond the Brain, is challenging and for stalwart, recalcitrant humanists I think it will be most confronting. Pepperell is not a fanatic, nor is he a table thumping techno-evangelist. In fact, his approach is gentle, perhaps somewhat understated. I was delighted in reading this book not to have to endure the over enthusiastic, overly sensationalised techno-hype which is evident in quite a few books dealing with cyborgs, transhumanism and Extropianism. The lack of techno-hype and pseudo-scientific jargon tends to belie the extreme importance and relevance of Pepperell’s work.

This is not a manual for building intelligent robots nor a primer for creating a conscious (of self) artificial intelligent entity. However, I believe anyone who does not embrace the fundamental concepts outlined in this book will never create such entities. AI researchers generally, have grossly underestimated the complexity, essential embodiment and interconnectedness with the environment of complex dynamical systems (ants, humans, plants). Hence the failure to produce anything except apparently smart machines. There are exceptions to this ignorance (and arrogance) such as the work of Brookes et al. at M.I.T. [1], whose work I have also drawn on and cited extensively in my own research [2].

The Moody Blues created an album in 1969 entitled, On The Threshold of a Dream, this book is about emerging from such a threshold into the reality of a new epoch — the posthuman. Elements of this dream were; an understanding of existence without the fear and prejudice perpetrated by religious dogma, an holistic interconnectedness of all living things (including this planet), and the possibility of subsuming the life destroying humanist world view (humans as the measure and pinnacle of all things) which has brought us towards the brink of extinction. This book advocates nothing less than a major paradigmatic shift in our understanding of existence.

This book has an extensive bibliography, eight chapters and Appendix II contains —The Posthuman Manifesto. The chapter titles will give the prospective reader a good idea of the scope of Pepperell’s investigation.1 - Consciousness, humans and complexity. 2 - Science, knowledge and energy. 3 - Order and disorder, continuity and discontinuity. 4 - Being, language and thought. 5 - Art, aesthetics and creativity. 6 - Automating creativity. 7 - Synthetic beings. 8 - What is posthumanism?

Chapter 5 seems somewhat ineffectual compared with the rest of the book. Especially the section discussing good and bad art. I found Pepperell’s notion of “aesthetically stimulating” and “aesthetically neutral” art unconvincing (pp. 103-106). This section could have perhaps been replaced with an overview of Eastern philosophies which have had much of importance to say about consciousness and the nature of “the self”, which is now being acknowledged by quantum mechanics and cultural studies (deconstruction). This is a minor criticism though — maybe something to look forward to in a future edition.

Possibly the greatest contribution this book makes to our future is the extensive attempt to clarify the relationship between us (male and female humans) and the rest of the “stuff” of the universe, from rocks, to plants to our technology. Computers and mobile (cell) phones are not devices foisted upon us by some alien visitors, they are created and utilised by us as extensions of ourselves. That is, from the beginning of our existence we have attempted to “extend our physical abilities with tools”, this is the “extensionist” view of human nature (p. 152).

As Pepperell eloquently puts it (ibid) “where humanists saw themselves as distinct beings in an antagonistic relationship with their surroundings, posthumans regard their own being as embodied in an extended technological world”.

[1] Brooks, R.A.(et al.) Alternative Essences of Intelligence. COG Project. http://www.ai.mit.edu/COG/project 

[2]  Harle, R.F. Artificial Intelligence: Is it Possible? 1999. http://www.lis.net.au/~recluse/harleHarle, R.F. Cyborgs, Uploading and Immortality – Some Serious Concerns. Sophia. vol.41, no.2, pp.73-85. October 2002. Ashgate.

 

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