The coming cyber-human

[zengrifter]

Transhumainists See "Cyber" Homo Sapiens Future: Part Digital, Part Biological Man
Added: Oct 27th, 2006 8:46 AM

Cyber Sapiens
by Chip Walter

...We will no longer be Homo sapiens, but Cyber sapiens--a creature part digital and part biological that will have placed more distance between its DNA and the destinies they force upon us than any other animal ... a creature capable of steering our own evolution....
Excerpted from Thumbs, Toes, and Tears, Walker & Co. 2006. Published on KurzweilAI.net October 25, 2006.

Today nature has slipped, perhaps finally, beyond our field of vision.
-O. B. Hardison Jr.

Now after six million years of evolution, where do we go next? How will evolution, our newly arrived intellect, our primal drives and the powerful technologies we continually create, change us?

Our current situation is unlike anything nature has seen before because we are not simply a by-product of evolution, we are ourselves now an agent of evolution. We are this animal, filled with ancient emotions and needs, amplified by our intellects and a conscious mind, embarking on a new century where we are creating fresh tools and technologies so rapidly that we are struggling to keep pace with the very changes we are bringing to the table.

Where will this lead? Will we develop new brain modules, new appendages, revamped capabilities just as we have over the past six million years? Absolutely, but probably not in the way we suspect. It appears, if we look closely, that the DNA that has been such a perfect ally in the evolution of life, may itself be in for a revamping. Evolution may be prowling for a new partner. And the partner may be us, or at least the technologies we make possible.

The irony is that it takes a being like us, a human being, to bring about change this fundamental.

...more - http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=302