Naomi: Hi, this is Naomi Murf. This is the second part of 523's Mobile Feast on Transhumanity.

Transhumans look like humans but go beyond innate human possibilities with augmentations. We discussed in part one how our humanness becomes a variable, with the transhuman potential to be, to be continually updated. Now we will explore the jolt to self as transhumans step into the formal educational sphere. And the third part will look at the trend to integrate circuit chips in the brain, as entering a rabbit hole.

Rachel: Hi everyone, I'm Rachel.

Naomi: What would you change about yourself if you could?

Rachel: I've been asked that question a few times.

Naomi: Fair enough. It's a common question. Let me rephrase it. Would you re-engineer yourself?

Rachel: Never!

Naomi: Are you so sure? What if you had a medical problem?

Rachel: Sure, most people, love life. Like my granddad has a mechanical valve and a pacemaker. And there's this kid in Ontario who had an artificial heart.

Naomi: What about improving an ability like memory? Would you get a brain chip?

Rachel: Definitely not!  

Naomi: But say your grand-mom, mom, or you're affected with dementia? Astrid Norberg, the researcher on advanced dementia, describes it as if you lose a sense of self. What then?

Rachel: Well, that's a little different, isn't it?

Naomi: Historically, humans have done what they could to stay alive. This practice continues today with an increase of external, internal, and embedded devices that connect to the Internet of the Body.

Rachel: The Internet of the Body, never heard of it.  

Naomi: It's an ecosystem that continually collects real-time biometric data and personal information, from devices like your grand-dad's pacemaker, to regulate his device as needed.

Rachel: Like my smartwatch, it monitors my heart rate and my steps. It's so dope.

Did you hear some schools use Smart EEG headbands? They change colour if you're not paying attention. So, imagining must be the colour red in those schools.

Naomi: There are a few issues. And there's the push for the right to morphological freedom and the uptake of bio-hackers chipping in and chipping out.  

Rachel: Like Neil Harbisson.  

Naomi: That's right. An important question is how will the educational sphere prepare for individuals experiencing transhumanism?  

Rachel: And how'll it reduce the existing problem of being othered? That's such a bummer.  

Naomi: The variety of enhanced and non-enhanced individuals will only increase in the educational sphere. It's not time to stick our heads in the sand. After all, formal education's role is to orient students to the future. Our near future will be informed by transhumanism.

Whether you queue for an upgrade or are dubious of the whole thing, it becomes vital to stop and reflect on the fundamental question of what it means to be human, to have self.  

Rachel: What about transhumans?  

Naomi: It should not be surprising that not everyone sees themselves as uniquely human.  

We're more than a self-lubricating skeleton frame with agility and movement, more than chemical and electrical signals flowing to and from the brain. More than a brain informed by signals collected through the senses. As sapient and sentient beings, we think, reason, and feel.  

Rachel: We're also dynamic, creative, and social.  

Naomi: Humans have evolved to stay alive.

The neuroscientist, Anil Seth, puts forward that the brain predicts our perception by being trained through our lived experiences. From this process, individuals develop the consciousness that makes each of us unique. Nevertheless, from this perspective, learning only through actively pursuing new knowledge and technical and analytical skills using an array of technological devices does not guarantee cognitive development, no matter how engaging the experience.  

Traditionally, the educational structure determines the tools, practices, integration, and desired outcomes used to enhance learning. Regardless of a technology's flexibility and capabilities, student access can be delimited to engaging with a stimulus that requires a response, resulting in a positive or negative consequence that is reinforced or dissuaded.    

Rachel: You know we had a constant diet of chunked, sequenced, reinforced, and gamified digital content in school. But it was so fun to play. It gave us badges. We knew when we won immediately.

Naomi: You've made an interesting point. Nonetheless, according to sociologist, Steve Woolgar, technology and design have politics. He studies how ordinary technologies control our lives. Technology and design express the values, assumptions, and biases of the people who conceive, create, and approve them. He argues that how the user is defined, the prescribed boundaries and set parameters of the device configure the user's character, agency, and possible future actions.    

 

Rachel:  It's just like a straightjacket.  

Naomi: To an extent. Formal education can be a jolt to the self, especially if you're an outlier. Norberg describes the self as having three elements: the feeling that we are, who we are, and who we are together with other people. Transhumans show us that there's no right and wrong way to be. And being is constantly in flux; for humans and transhumans.

Rachel: Thanks for spending time with us. Until next time, when we enter the strange and surreal world of brain-computer-interfacing.