When simplicity outsmarts complexity

Abstract

Although there has been a marked increase in the academic study of the “posthuman” it has had a tendency to be polarized: on the one hand, certain elements of academia are mirroring popular culture in a prophetic examination of social nihilism and unfettered technological advance, culminating in the marriage of human and computer. On the other hand, some academics treat the topic as fanciful, part of a general degradation of modern culture, which in turn, leads them to ignore and sometimes even ridicule research done in the name of the posthuman. Unfortunately – and possibly as a result of this ridicule – those who are willing to write from the former, seem to have an overarching desire to do it from a scientific realist standpoint; as if it was the only legitimate position to take. The result of this has been a number of in-depth articles on the computer dynamics necessary – and the vast scientific and technological advances needed – to achieve computational parity with human neurology. But although it follows that there would be limited desire to “upgrade” the human by plugging it into something deemed “inferior”; the scientific realist perspective has resulted in the timeframe for fundamental posthuman change being one of centuries, rather than decades. In opposing the scientific realist position I will argue – using Bostrom’s example of the human computer simulation – that from a more "sceptical" philosophical position, such a device may in fact be practically on our doorstep, rather than light-years away.