On Transhumanism and Why Technology Is Our Silicon Nervous System

April 28, 2014

(The Daily Beast) – Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp, is the latest in a series of Hollywood films with what you might call a transhumanist flair. Other recent movies exploring the symbiosis of man and machine and our relationship with technology include the Robocop remake and Her. What we are seeing is the mainstream finally flirting with some of the headiest ideas in the history of the world, reflecting our need to grapple with the implications of a world sustained by increasingly powerful technologies, and a redefinition of what it means to be human.