'I AM A POSTHUMAN'

I Am A Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

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Code 

The code above appears in my new painting I Am A Posthuman. It actually 'forms', or maybe 'performs', or otherwise 'instructs' a structural element to the 'figure'. You can guess the translation for sure!

But, is this figure me? Maybe? It could also be a posthuman entity from a far distant future expressing itself through me? That's probably a bit far fetched, but worth considering, even if only playfully. However, if we are simulations run by posthuman entities, as per Prof Nick Bostrom's theory, then maybe not such a playful idea! It depends if you believe that the posthuman is something that will occur in the far distant future or whether you think we are already posthuman as a result of various things including drugs, technological devices such as pace makers, glasses, hearing aids and other health oriented devices. Then there are the augmentation or enhancement devices such as [again] drugs, wearable monitoring devices, certain sports gear, cosmetic surgery, developments in AI assisted activities and more.

Extinction

Yet, are these various devices making us posthuman or is it more correct to describe them as part of a transhuman process? The prefix 'post' means after and whilst we humans may have changed over the centuries, unless we are all simulations, I think the 'posthuman' tagline is somewhat premature. Having said that, though, some of our activities may precipitate a human extinction event that does flip the whole idea of the human into the posthuman [ie: no human!] potentially rather quickly. Whilst the chance of such event/s occurring are considered to be very small, the outcomes are considered potentially irredeemable. This kind of risk concern has seen the formation of various research centres that examine existential risk posed by emerging technologies Future of Humanity Institute [Oxford], Center of the Study of Existential Risk [Cambridge], Future of Life Institute [US - out of MIT].

Being Human

If using technology that enhances and augments somehow makes us posthuman then have we been posthuman since our early ancestors picked up rocks and stones to make tools? One could argue that any kind of implement is a technology that enhances chances of survival and progress. Or, maybe just thinking differently about ourselves flips us from human to posthuman? But, history is a complex trajectory of many instances where cultural, political and social changes have triggered new ways of thinking about being human. Examples are feminism, Indigenous rights, post-colonial theories, democracy, science and more! I would argue that these processes are actually what makes us human...just like the cognitive impulses that saw our stone-age ancestors pick up rocks and stones to use as implements.

But, returning to existential risk posed by emerging technologies - the fact that multidisciplinary research in this area is taken very seriously should cause people to take notice. A literal post-human time may occur before we are ready to ensure some kind of human survival! 

I Am A Posthuman

Like some of my other recent 'posthuman' paintings this posthuman figure is formed with a combination of 'codes' ie: binary code and the tree-of-life. The figure seems to float in outer space. There is no horizon line nor indication of precise environment. Is this posthuman simply an entity embedded in a computer or is it a speck of stardust or is it at 'home' in outer space? Or, maybe its 'environment' is my imagination?

Recent other posthuman posts and paintings

MY POSTHUMANS ARE DANCING

A HUMAN'S HOUSE and a POSTHUMAN'S HOUSE

IMAGINING THE POSTHUMAN

MY FUTURE POSTHUMAN

MY FUTURE POSTHUMAN

My Future Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

Regular readers will have noticed that I am having fun with the posthuman!

In my mind the posthuman is something that may happen in the future, the far distant future. I don't believe we are already posthuman. However, some people do. They believe that due to technology's mediation of minds and bodies we are no longer human and therefore we are posthuman. 

Maybe we are transhuman? Some think the process of becoming posthuman is an evolutionary one and that becoming transhuman is a stage through which evolution must pass. There are arguments that treatments and/or enhancements such as mind altering drugs, prosthetics and implants represent transhumanist change or alteration. Contemporary transhumanists such as Zoltan Istvan, Aubrey de Grey and Nick Bostrom suggest that humanity is compromised by its biology. They propose that technological intervention could 'cure' biological vulnerabilities that cause aging, death and sickness. There's political agency in this proposition! Indeed, Zoltan Istvan is a current US presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party These types of transhumanists see technological intervention and alteration of the human as enhancing the human experience. Whereas, other transhumanists [or those who think about transhumanism] particularly from the arts/humanities see transhumanism as a way to re-create or re-invent the self.  

But, let's get back to the posthuman. 

I think the major difference between the transhuman and the posthuman is that the former is more about enhancing the human, but the latter is more about replacing the human. I enjoy thinking about what a posthuman might be like and what kind of 'existence' a posthuman might experience. So, I imagine an era where no humans remain, due to extinction caused be either our own hands or natural means, such as the sun's tumultuous demise. In the place of humans are machines that appear to have garnered the ability to mimic human modes of being. However, these modes are greatly augmented - so much so that abilities far exceed human ones - to the point where human-ness is almost indiscernible. These machines 'exist' on a far away exo-planet, having escaped Earth - or maybe humans sent them off to investigate alternative planetary homes, but not in time to actually save humanity? 

BUT, maybe there are no tangible presences? Instead only an awareness of downloaded minds, harvested from humans, even those stored in cryogenic facilities for centuries. These downloaded minds trip around the universe on light beams aided by algorithms that replicate and continually enhance. 

My Future Posthuman

In my new painting above I imagined me [or my mind] as a posthuman. But, I also decided that I could paint an imaginary friend, my posthuman imaginary friend. Indeed, perhaps I've unwittingly painted the posthuman being who is operating me as a simulation? Yep, you read right! This idea stems from Nick Bostrom's simulation argument. Please read Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?   This certainly turns the whole idea of the posthuman upside down, because Bostrom suggests that if we are living in a computer simulation, it is being run by posthumans. Does that mean we are already posthuman, even if we are only simulated? 

So - in My Future Posthuman I've painted a figure with tree-like appendages, a multicoloured heart and a head shaped like a question mark - but the question mark is formed from two rows of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human'. Hence, the question mark! I love the tree-like wings that spring from the figure's shoulders. They and the tree-like appendages connect the figure to the outer reaches of the universe, of time and space. Regular readers will identify the trees as my visual re-interpretation of the age/old transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol. I don't think this symbol's potency has been exhausted. That's why I gain a contrary enjoyment in juxtapositioning it with binary code. Both 'codes' have instructional qualities, although they may suggest alternative paths, which may or may not cross. 

Worth looking into though!

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com 

VASCULAR SYSTEM FOR POSTHUMANS?

Vascular System for Posthumans? Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

THE POSTHUMAN

I've been thinking about posthumans and posthuman futures. Regular readers of this BLOG will have noticed my interest!

I recently read Founder and Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, Prof Nick Bostrom's paper I Want To Be A Posthuman When I Grow Up . He makes some convincing arguments about why it would be in humanity's best interest to welcome posthuman modes of being. Yes, very logical arguments pertaining to healthspan, cognition and emotion. Is logic a way to live though? We'd [whatever 'we' means] live longer and never get sick...cures for aging and sickness! We'd have enhanced ability to think, learn, deduce, create and appreciate. Plus, the posthuman would experience emotionally stable states of happiness and well-being, healthy relationships with self and others. 

All sounds pretty terrific [no not really!]. BUT...

Envisioning the end game ie: posthuman beings of exemplary capacities is one thing, but how do we get there? The 'road' is a long and curly one! What if there are occurrences that render the best possible posthuman mode of being impossible, compromised, vulnerable? I mean, to be posthuman entails enhancements and augmentations to alleviate the constraints of biology, so there are processes to be developed and achieved. As Bostrom, in another paper The Transhumanist FAQ notes there are a few ways to become posthuman - they include technological and eugenic-like processes.  

• “completely synthetic artificial intelligences”
• “enhanced uploads”
• “result of making many smaller but cumulatively profound augmentations to a biological human.”  Nick Bostrom, “Transhumanist FAQ: A General Introduction Version 2.1” (2003), 5. 

I ask myself, what if all three posthuman ways of being occurred because consensus about choosing one mode was not successful? Would a hierarchy develop? Would a 'haves' and the 'have nots' develop? Would the utopic nature of the hoped-for outcome actually render it impossible, therefore exposing vulnerabilities? Would posthumans end up being a mish-mash?

VASCULAR SYSTEM FOR POSTHUMANS

There are lots of questions to be asked. And, it's both fun and frightening to think about them. And, it's the asking of questions that has inspired my new work on paper Vascular System for Posthumans?

I've combined my much-loved age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life with binary code again. As regular readers know, I see the tree's repeating branching patterns as some kind of template for the universe. Might posthumans or postbeings perhaps already 'roam' in this universe?  

In this painting an x-ray/scan type impression of a body is achieved. Yet, binary code 'instructing' Am I? repeats itself along major vessels in the human vascular system. These erupt into cascading tree appendages and a branching-expanded mind! As I was painting this image, I thought it could represent the merging of human and machine or even a completely synthetic AI's circuitry  - or maybe its idea of what it is...holding onto a remnant of represented human-ness in its synthetic 'brain'. A kind of wishful computation on the part of an original code? I also thought maybe it could represent the 'picture in mind' of 'self' for an enhanced and uploaded mind, even if it does not have a 'body'? Or the image could illustrate "cumulatively profound augmentations to a biological human"...maybe the branching trees represent humanity's expanded presence throughout the universe...well lets stick with the galaxy first then we'll go intergalactic! 

Other recent Posthuman Paintings

Posthuman Modes of Being 

Posthuman 'Habitat'

Two Humans - Uploaded 

Picturing the Posthuman

Picturing the Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com 

A POSTHUMAN 'HABITAT'?

I am Am I? Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

This new painting [above] follows on from some other recent paintings where I have incorporated binary code. 

In I am Am I? I have repeated binary code 'instructing' the words I am, I AM, Am I?. 

These 'instructed' words exist outside some kind of portal which maybe a destination or possibly it's a place of departure...a place already left behind? Yet, you can still see, although faintly, the markings of this place under the dark blue. Maybe the blue is a sheath that co-exists in parallel with what seems to be a  more colourful world beyond? Maybe this sheath is another kind of 'habitat', one where downloaded minds, in a posthuman future, might 'exist'. This sheath could be some kind of a sophisticated superconductor, holding everything together? The small trees, my interpretations of the age-old transcultural/religious symbol of the tree-of-life, are reminders of human embodied existence. I have placed them alongside the binary code to indicate that they are also 'code'. In a posthuman future the tree symbol may embed  a  'code' that simulates human feelings, emotions, desires and more? 

If minds are downloaded for an 'existence' in a posthuman future surely questions about I would be significant...but then again maybe not...hence the ????

So...these downloaded minds may have 'left' the world glimpsed through the portal in the middle of the painting. Maybe it was the only way to escape some kind of apocalyptic situation that threatened the extinction of humanity and the annihilation of Earth? 

The place seen through the portal may be the past, or possibly the future.

What do you think?

As you can tell, I am having fun with these new paintings. 

And, yes...this is another painting that I would call a cosmic landscapes!

Other recent posts and paintings are:

Two Humans: Uploaded 

Human Landscape

Text and Code

Picturing the Posthuman

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com 

BEYOND MORTALITY

Beyond Mortality Mixed Media on Paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

 

 

I know the title Beyond Mortality sounds serious and huge...and it is both of these! And, where did the idea come from you might ask?

 

It has come directly from thinking about my own reactions to my university research. I am delving into some pretty hefty topics, that certainly do make me wonder. One of these topics is existential risk posed by emerging technologies...the kind of risk that could cause humanity's annihilation. An associated topic is artificial intelligence and potential threats posed by self-learning entities, seen and unseen. All of this spills over into topics such as transhumanism, singularity and posthuman futures. There's an Australian transhumanism site that you might like to look at HERE. As with most things, there's both positive and negative possibilities associated with many of these topics.

 

BEYOND MORTALITY

You can see where the Beyond Mortality title has come from! Yes, thinking about the future, the role of technological 'enhancements' of the human and what 'existence' might mean. The obvious thought that comes to mind is that 'beyond mortality' means immortality. I suspect it might be, strangely, much more complicated than that...

 

In Beyond Mortality I have taken the Christian idea of ascension, coupled it with binary code, and cosmological time and space.  But, the idea of ascension is not only a Christian one. It is shared by a many religions and spiritual beliefs, including Judaism and Islam. My painting also plays with ideas of resurrection, which is what the binary code is 'instructing'. By combining ascension and resurrection with technology's 'promise' of transhuman and/or posthuman futures I'm playing with questions about existence, re-existence [even de-extinction] and mortality. Needless to say there's no resolution or even a stationary viewpoint, but rather, a intellectual and imaginational 

discursiveness that has stimulated my visual 'play'.

 

And, for regular readers...yes...Beyond Mortality is also one of my untethered landscapes. Even the mountain is unleashed from wherever it came from, Galgotha, Calvary or even 'Metaphor'! Yet, the ribbon of colourful binary code creates a landscape-like contour in space, maybe suggestive of new types of scapes where downloaded consciousness-es might 'exist'? The ribbon also seems like it's giving directions, making a pathway...

I wonder if once we are on the path...are there places to get off, make detours, see other directions?

 

On that kind of sobering note....
Cheers!
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com  

COUNT DOWN

Towards The Past and Future Gouache on paper 2013

 

 

Count Down has begun for my exhibition COSMIC ADDRESS! The doors are open from Tuesday 15 October... 3 weeks away. The exhibition will end on Sunday 27 October. 

 

I rather like the term 'Count Down' in reference to an exhibition called COSMIC ADDRESS.

 

Let me explain...as well as I can.

There are a few things that have lead me to wonder...and wonder.

 

One is this most fascinating article A Jewel At The heart Of Quantum Physics by Natalie Wolchova in Quanta Magazine . It is about the fact that Physicists have discovered a jewel-shaped geometric object that challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature.

 

The geometric object is an amplituhedron...yes an amplituhedron!

 

Here are a few quotes, but please read the whole article and the comments it has attracted.

 

.....the new geometric approach to particle interactions removes locality and unitarity from its starting assumptions. The amplituhedron is not built out of space-time and probabilities; these properties merely arise as consequences of the jewel’s geometry. The usual picture of space and time, and particles moving around in them, is a construct.

 

And: 

 

But the new amplituhedron research suggests space-time, and therefore dimensions, may be illusory anyway.

 

And:

 

Beyond making calculations easier or possibly leading the way to quantum gravity, the discovery of the amplituhedron could cause an even more profound shift, Arkani-Hamed said. That is, giving up space and time as fundamental constituents of nature and figuring out how the Big Bang and cosmological evolution of the universe arose out of pure geometry.

 

Ye gads! Holy mackerel! Hey what!

 

Where does all of that place a COSMIC ADDRESS?

 

 

Shadow's Secret Gouache on paper 2013

 

 

I did say there were a few things that have made me wonder...

 

SIMULATION

The next is  Prof Nick Bostrom's idea that we are living in a simulation, somehow determined by a post-human project/'life' of re-'living' humanity's history. But, there's more, the simulation includes the creation/re-creation of the Universe...even the multiverse. So, it's a pretty stupendous simulation! These poor post-humans essentially have no life of their own...they just recapture memory...certainly not a pathway to Utopia one would think?! Could be more Kafkaesque?

 

LIVING INSIDE A COMPUTER

So, we maybe living inside a computer? But, then again we may not? But if, indeed, we are living inside a computer it would have to be a really magnificent computer and probably not recognisable as a computer to us, otherwise we'd detect the subtext, the guile, the subterfuge...wouldn't we? But, as the Professor writes, if someone did detect something, the post-human simulators could eradicate the memory of detection, wipe the slate clean...and the simulation would continue.

 

But....maybe the Professor's postulation is a sign of the simulation itself...maybe an undetected leakage from the post-human future or maybe a deliberate play...a teasing loop?

 

And...maybe... the discovery of the amplituhedron, and it's indication that time and space are illusions, is evidence that the simulation postulation is indeed plausible?

 

So, if we are living in a computer simulation, it would be fair to say that we are, in French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's seductive terms, fatally mediated. Because, if we are living in a simulation based on 'memory', the world has already come to an end. Our fundamental destiny is not to exist and survive, as we think: it is to appear and disappear.**

 

 

Cosmic Ouroboros  Oil on linen 120 x 150 cm 2012

 

And,

 

When I was very young, laying awake at night or gazing out the school bus windows, I used to wonder if Life was orchestrated by someone or something that moved us and everything else around like pieces of a board game. I remember thinking that whoever/whatever was in control would have to think of a lot! But, I also thought it would be great fun...

 

But:

 

Back to COSMIC ADDRESS:

If time and space are illusions then a COUNT DOWN and an ADDRESS are actually illusions too! Why... because counting, in this way, is a 'measurement' of time and an address is normally a place in a geographic space. And a COSMIC ADDRESS is situated in time and space...seemingly so anyway.

 

The three paintings above will be in COSMIC ADDRESS.

 

 

** Baudrillard, J. Fatal Strategies, Semiotext[e], Columbia University, NY, 1990 P. 175

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________

 

 

COSMIC ADDRESS:

Earth Maybe Our Home But The Universe Is Our Environment

Solo Exhibition

 

BRISBANE

15-27 October

 

Graydon Gallery

29 Merthyr Rd, New Farm, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Earth, The Universe

 

Please check out  my

 

COSMIC ADDRESS PAGE

 

for all the details!

 

______________________________________________________________________
 

 

 If you have not already done so, please read my last post Putting On A Show

 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com