Transhumanism H+

An experimental, developmental, and life changing science is on the horizon. Offering technological, scientific, and bioengineered products to make you once again be able to do all of the things you used to be able to do regardless of the disability that your might suffer. Better yet, gentlemen they can rebuild you they have the technology to make you better, stronger, faster. Yes I know sounds like a cheesy T.V. show, but it is becoming reality. With this reality comes the question is this mankinds attempt to play god? If it is, is that really a bad thing?
    Humans are built to learn, we have a zest for knowledge as a people and continuously strive to be better. It’s part of the human condition, we all dream it from the time that we are young. Think of when you were a child laying on your back in the grass as the wind blew over your face, eyes transfixed into the clouds dreaming that you could fly with the birds unfettered. But you were limited, to forever walk on your two legs left only to dream. Dreams are the seeds of the future, it’s a gift that we have being humans to strive for something that we don’t already have. Man wanted safety, he built dwellings. Man didn’t stop there though, he built better dwellings, stronger, bigger, dryer, more beautiful. This is the human way, we don’t stop until we attain perfection. Why should medicine be any different. Man loses a limb and wants a new one, so we develop a hook, should we just stop right there? That is inhuman, the inhumanity isn’t building a better, stronger, more efficient limb, it’s in not doing so. The reality is that these things are being made already. Think of the case of Claudia Mitchell, She lost her left arm and shoulder in a motorcycle accident and was accepted into a program that moved nerves that would have sent signals to her hand to her chest. This allowed doctors to attach a new experimental prosthesis. A bionic arm. By attaching electrodes to the nerve centers in her chest and is able to have movement that allows her to do many things that she wasn’t able to do before. Future upgrade plans will allow her to “feel” through the arm and have more range of movement.(1)
This technology is called BMI or brain-machine interface, and experimental uses of this have allowed monkeys full range of motion with prosthetic arms as well as allowing paraplegics to have the ability to send e-mail, play pong, and move a mouse around on a screen with just their thoughts guiding the way.(2) The combination of this technology and a surgical procedure called muscle innervation is what makes this possible for amputees. Don’t think that limbs are the only one getting all of the attention either! John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah has developed a chip that interfaces with the visual cortex, welcome to the table a whole new science to help the visually impaired. Is this really going too far?
    Limbs and eyes are not the only structures in the human body that are being “fine tuned” either. Organ growth technology is something that has been coming to the forefront as well. But they are starting to reach beyond just regrowth and are starting to produce what might be termed “better” organs. A UCLA team has grown heart-muscle cells onto a gold and silicon structure. Using a process developed my computer chip makers they etch supporting beams into a thin block of silicone. The combine a bio material and gold and put living heart cells into it. After the polymer was dissolved the part inorganic part organic construction was “alive”. (3) These little constructs are being looked at to generate electricity to power implants because of the energy they can produce. Living cells inside of microchips have been developed that release insulin for use in the pancreas that is being tested in rats now as well at the University of California, this would enable diabetics to live normal lives without finger-pricking and injecting. The combination of inorganic and organic features enables things to work more efficiently, two things that were previously thought to be impossible. It even extends to bones A company in Massachusetts has developed a product called NanOss. It literally fuses with bones in order to make them as tough as steel.
    So what does this all mean? It’s not hard to see where these potentials could go. A lot of these research facilities developing these things owe a lot of their funding to a Military that has dumped billions of dollars in order to “help their wounded veterans”. And while that may very well be a motivation to not look at the other side of the coin would be limiting ourselves. Superior working organs that are tougher and more efficient, self activated adrenal glands, cybernetic eyes that can see in the night, cybernetic arms that can lift and throw a man like a feather. These things all sounds outlandish right? Where there is a whole way of thought that disagree’s with that. And although they claim to be strictly de-military, the advancements that they want would all fall in line with this. It’s both a philosophy and a science known as Transhumanism or denoted by the symbol h+. They seek to perfect human exsistance and use genetics, science, and engineering in order to achieve this goal. Whether it is extending the human life span or expanding the potential of the mind they are pursuing it with passion. And in my opinion just like a human should.