Welcome back. You belong here.

The issue of the “emerging church” is picayune compared to the advent of the “post-human”.
Since I use the term “post-human” in my writing quite a bit, I thought I would offer a brief
piece on what I mean when I use this term.

Besides the obvious influence of too much science fiction, I was first inspired in this area of thinking by an article published in Wired Magazine written by Bill Joy titled, “Does the Future Need Us?” and later by a Summer 2000 issue of New Perspectives Quarterly (NPQ) titled, “Post-Human History?” The summer 2000 issue of the NPQ offered interviews with several thinkers, among them social philosopher Francis Fukuyama and futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

One point of view on the term “post-human” describes a future in which nanotechnology and robotics have created self-evolving robots that become superior in certain ways to humankind. Bill Joy’s infamous article (Wired, 1999) takes us on an adventure down this potential future path. The fear here is one of survival. What happens when humankind encounters a superior creature? Joy, then the chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, warns of a world in which humankind becomes a kind of “cattle” species for a superior race of robots. For Joy today’s technologies create a danger greater than the nuclear and chemical weapons of te 20th century. This is a serious and important perspective and probably what most people think of when they hear the term “post human”.

A second, even dicier POV on the term describes a future in which the nature of humankind is changed via biotechnology. Fukuyama describes a world in which biotechnology reaches out and touches the depths of the human soul, the essence of the human. The questions that emerge here are hugely important and provocative. Will we alter ourselves at the genetic level in such a way that a new evolved homo sapient emerges on the planet? How will the power to genetically alter all of one’s descendants change humankind? How will this effect history, politics, morality?

A third even more provocative POV on the term “post-human” is one which describes a future in which some hybrid of man and machine merge together to form one operating/biological system. This would yield a totally new life form and introduce a new species on the planet: “anthropo-technology” (Peter Sloterdijk).

These last two scenarios are what I point to in “Homo Electronicus Migratus”, a letter to my children I wrote in 1999. Those of you who follow my writings will remember that I re-published this letter here at “into the mystic” around one year ago. It’s been said before that the future earth is populated by clones and cyborgs. Add to this roll call, evolving robots, anthropo-technology, and Homo Electronicus Migratus. Our quest in that world will be the same as our quest in this world: to make it human again.

To those of you who have asked, I hoped ths brief description of how I use the term is helpful. There’s a lot more to come on the “post human” future. What do you think?

See you “in the mystic…”

Alex

IMN UPDATE: Join ERWINMCMANUS and ALEXMCMANUS for HUMANA 2.0, a new National Conference in Orlando, Fl. Register before September 15 and save up to $100.00 per registrant.

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Welcome back. You belong here.

Dean and I were working at his dining room table last week in between spurts of conversation about the future. Erica walks in, listens for a sec and then contributes a thought that went something like this: In the past computers were large and the goal was to make them smaller. In the future the computer will be large again. The difference is that this time we’ll be living in the computer.

She happily walks away and I sat there delighted by the imagination. Erica does this to me all too regularly. That’s right, I thought. In the future our entire human environment will be interactive.

In an article based on the book, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, Adam Greenfield writes:

“Everyware” is an attempt to describe the form computing will take in the next few years. Specifically, it’s about a vision of processing power so distributed throughout the environment that computers per se effectively disappear. (A List Apart: Articles: Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing)

Robert Schank, a leading researcher in artificial intelligence and professor in the school of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, writes:

Fifty years from now, knowledge will be so easy to acquire that one will be able simply to say aloud whatever one wants to know and hear an instantaneous response from the walls –enhanced by a great deal of technology inside those walls, of course. [The Next Fifty Years, 2002]

In the future, our environment will be alive. All of our appliances, the walls of our houses, the cars we drive, will be portals to humankinds’ knowledge base easily accessible by voice commands.

Imagine yourself toasting bread in the kitchen as you mull over how to proceed with your new church plant. You turn to the toaster, What do you think?
“About what?” The toaster says.
“How long should I work with my core team before we go public?”
“Well, do you want them light or dark?” The toaster asks.

OK, that was tongue-in-cheek, but a few decades from now, the first time a wall talks back to you, remember this post. There is an old saying, the walls have ears. I think that in the future, not only will the walls be listening, they’ll be speaking too.

What do you think?

see you in the mystic…

Alex
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Upcoming events you don’t want to miss:

Join ERWIN and ALEX MCMANUS in Orlando, Florida on February 7-8 for a new National Conference called HUMANA 2.0. Readers of “Into the Mystic” are the first to know about the “Petaflop” discount for this national convergence scheduled for February 7-8 in Orlando, Fla. Register before September 15 and you’ll save well over $100.00 per registrant. Speakers: Erwin McManus, Lead Pastor of Mosaic, Gerardo Marti, author of A Mosaic of Believers, Moi, and others.

The Summer discounts for the Makers of Fire tour expire in a few days. Register before 31 August and save $30.00 on these regional events. Join the IMN team in Chattanooga, Detroit (area), Montreal, Kansas City (area), or Providence.

Needed: Heroes for a quest to save the universe one planet at a time. Safe return doubtful. Apply now for the second flight of the 2007 7-Day Mentoring Immersion in Orlando or Los Angeles. Seating is limited. The deadline is September 15.

Meet your favorite bloggers –or as we like to call them, voxers –and listen to good music. Hang out with us in Orlando on the weekend of February 9-11, 2007 for the first ever VWMJ (VOXTROPOLIS WORLD MUSIC JAM)–a music jam for independant artists and a connection point for the cyber city.

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Welcome back. You belong here. Enjoy.

The Birth of Human Machines
Rodney Brooks, professor of computer science and director of the Artificial Intelligence lab at MIT, writes that within the next fifty years, we will adopt robot technology, silicon and steel into our bodies not to fix something but to improve it.

This is a massive, galaxy-quaking shift in history. No longer will humankind submit to Darwinian evolution. “Now,” writes Brookes, “we will have the option of participating in explicit ways in that evolution.” This would definitely take man yet another step apart from his cousins within the animal kingdom.

Brooks tells us that the widely held assumption in the field of molecular biology is that “humans are machines”. Every living system is a product of molecular interactions. In fact, writes Brooks, the thirty year goal at MIT is to so control the genetics of living systems that “instead of growing a tree, cutting it down, and building a table out of it, we will ultimately be able to grow the the table.”

Imagine a world in which we breed bacterial robots to repair or improve human bodies at the molecular level. Darwin’s revolution placed man in the animal kingdom. The 21st century may see man placed in the world of machines.

Will future generations long for the good old days when Man was just an animal?
Will “Humanity 2.0″ be characterized by self-determined evolution that resembles today’s software upgrades? [If you're new to "Into the Mystic," read this post in conjunction with my prior post, The Next Fifty Years: The Rise of the X-Men.]

What do you think? Would you enhance your IQ, your memory, your reading speed and retention? Would you enhance your kids to give them an advantage in the world? Welcome to the future.

See you in the Mystic…

Alex McManus

——————————————-

Upcoming events you don’t want to miss:

• Readers of “Into the Mystic” are the first to know about the “Petaflop” discount for HUMANA 2.0 a national convergence scheduled for February 7-8 in Orlando, Fla. Register before September 15 and you’ll save well over $100.00 per registrant. Speakers: Erwin McManus, Lead Pastor of Mosaic, Gerardo Marti, author of A Mosaic of Believers, Moi, and others.
• The Summer discount for the Makers of Fire tour expire in a few days. Register now and save $30.00 on these regional events. Join the IMN team in Chattanooga, Detroit (area), Montreal, Kansas City (area), or Providence.
• Needed: Heroes for a quest to save the universe one planet at a time. Safe return doubtful. Apply now for the 7-Day Mentoring Immersion in Orlando or Los Angeles. Seating is limited.
  
• Meet your favorite bloggers –or as we like to call them –voxers and listen to good music. Hang out with us in Orlando on the weekend of February 9-11, 2007 for the first ever VWMJ (VOXTROPOLIS WORLD MUSIC JAM)–a music jam for independant artists and a connection point for the cyber city.

5 comments