the posthumanist paradigm shift - bookforum.com / omnivore

[Ian Livingston]

I've never quite cottoned to the idea of posthumanism as an embrace of
cyborgism. Nanotech would always necessarily be a topical introduction into
the human, rather than any natural, philosophical, or pathological
development, as in the case of the evolution of humanism into the void
generated by the disintegrating action of scientific discovery upon the
religious paradigm. Posthumanism, it seems to me, must more likely be
sought out in the effects of scientific discoveries that ever more firmly
reinforce the interdependence of all species in the ecosystem produced by
planetary conditions that favor biological life. Those philosophical and
paradigmatic characteristics that develop out of response to a world in
which humans are no longer the central, special, specie are much more
interesting as a genuine posthumanism. While Borg mentality may totter
about for a bit, it holds no fruitful place in the development of worldly
harmony, and only reflects a misdirected cognitive pathology of humanism
foundering about in another repressed desire for the continued special
status of humans and human egoism.

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 3:17 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

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