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Are We Externalizing Ourselves out of Existence?: A Speculation on the Future of Humankind

There is a convergence of technologies in the beginning of the twenty-first century that may (or may not) lead to the beginning of the end of Homo sapiens on this planet. These technologies include organ transplants, artificial organs, robotics, and nanotechnologies combined with advances in computer and long-distance communications. Imagine, if you will, the following image. A flat screen computer monitor, two speakers on either side of the monitor, a Skype camera eye on top of the monitor, a keyboard in front of the monitor, and a desktop computer somewhere in the vicinity. Or perhaps the computer is a laptop with all these components combined into one. All this is connected to an external device that is, in turn, connected to the World Wide Web. Now imagine the computer monitor has the shape of a human face, the speakers have been integrated into the monitor and have the appearance of ears, the Skype camera eye is doubled and has been integrated into the computer monitor; the keyboard, likewise, has been melded into the human facelike monitor and appears as a mouth with the keys as so many teeth. The CPU has similarly been incorporated into the human face-like monitor and has become transparent to the onlooker, much like the Apple-designed hard drive/monitor. Further, this technological device is equipped with an enormous memory and random access capacity. It is also linked to a worldwide, next generation Internet. Now, take this artificial intelligence device and put it on a future generation robotic, human-like frame that makes it highly mobile. What do we have? The benign android DATA from "Star Trek: The Next Generation"? Or, the very human robots from Isaac Asimov's I-Robot series? Or do we have any number of malevolent machines from "The Matrix" or "The Terminator"? Although early prosthetics date back to at least three-hundred B.C., in the second half of the twentieth century and certainly into the twenty-first century, science, medicine, and technology have teamed up to accelerate the process of replacing human body parts in ways previous generations could only imagine, such as the mechanical heart, hearing aids, parts of the eye, hip replacements, leg replacements, even skin, speech, and full face transplants. Computer technology has even given "voice" to physicist Stephen Hawking. Human replacement parts are even being "grown" in the laboratory. Technologies, including computer technology, enable paraplegics and quadriplegics to live more normal lives. The list of prosthetics and human replacement parts lengthens with each passing year. Further, humankind is not only inventing ways to replace or enhance human parts but also essentially finding ways to externalize and extend our senses, in the sense that Marshall McLuhan articulated in his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. These "sensory" technologies imitate and extend some physical aspect of the human body. This imitation and extension of physical aspects of the human body appears to be an inexorable human activity. The evolution of television is a case in point. Early television sets were big, but the screens were very small. Content was in black and white. In time, content was delivered in "living color" and screens got larger. Today screens are not only larger, they are flatter and no longer have to sit on the floor or in an entertainment center: they can be hung on a wall. Programming is broadcast digitally and in high definition, the sound is in stereo, and with the attachment of rear speakers, one can experience surround sound at home. Even closer to the present, television programming is beginning to be broadcast in 3D. It is a matter of time before the television set becomes even more transparent and we watch programming holographi-cally, as in Episode Four of "Star Wars." Is this not a replication of how the human eyes and ears see and hear? Also, videoconferencing allows for two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously (e. …