20 - The End of Homo Sapiens

Описание: For billions of years, life evolved through natural selection. Homo sapiens, despite achievements, remained bound by biological limits. At the twenty-first century's dawn, this fundamental rule changed. We transcend those limits, replacing natural selection with intelligent design.

The Agricultural Revolution initiated this 10,000 years ago through selective breeding. Genetic engineering vastly amplified this power. Alba, a fluorescent green rabbit engineered by Eduardo Kac in 2000, symbolizes this new era—she couldn't exist through natural selection, only through human intelligent design.

THREE TRANSFORMATION PATHWAYS

Biological engineering directly modifies organisms genetically. Scientists engineered bacteria producing biofuel and insulin, created frost-resistant potatoes, and developed genetically modified cows producing mastitis-fighting milk. "Genius mice" possess enhanced memory and learning. If we can engineer enhanced cognition in animals, why not humans? Our genome is only 14% larger than mouse genomes, suggesting dramatic human improvements are technically possible. Russian, Japanese, and Korean scientists mapped the woolly mammoth genome planning resurrection. Harvard's George Church suggests implanting reconstructed Neanderthal DNA into human eggs, creating Neanderthals for approximately $30 million—several women volunteered. A second Cognitive Revolution through genetic engineering could transform us into something altogether different.

Cyborg engineering combines organic and inorganic parts. DARPA develops cyborg insects with implanted electronic chips. Scientists create bionic ears translating sounds into auditory-nerve signals, retinal prostheses enabling partial vision, and bionic arms controlled entirely by thought. Brain-computer interfaces achieve revolutionary potential: Duke University experiments showed monkeys thought-controlling detached bionic limbs from great distances. Aurora the monkey operated three arms simultaneously—two organic, one bionic, located in different rooms. Direct brain-computer interfaces could link brains to the Internet or link multiple brains directly, creating "Inter-brain-nets." Collective minds would share memories and experiences directly as personal recollection. Individual self and identity would dissolve.

Inorganic life represents the third frontier. Computer viruses evolve independently of human control. The Human Brain Project aims recreating complete human brains inside computers with electronic circuits emulating neural networks. Digital minds—composed entirely of computer code yet possessing consciousness, memory, and self—could run on computers, raising profound questions: would deleting a digital mind constitute murder?

THE SINGULARITY
We approach a singularity moment like the Big Bang, when known laws cease applying. Concepts like "me," "you," "men," "women," "love," and "hate" may become irrelevant post-Sapiens. Future masters would be as different from us as we from Neanderthals—except godlike.

The Gilgamesh Project (humanity's quest to conquer death and disease) makes stopping impossible. Scientists justify genetic engineering, cyborg development, and artificial mind creation as disease-curing, life-saving means. Yet real potential is far more dramatic: transforming Homo sapiens itself, including emotions and desires.

THE ETHICAL PARADOX
Our modern world uniquely recognizes basic human equality. Yet bioengineering threatens creating history's most unequal society. Throughout history, upper classes claimed superiority—usually delusionally. With enhancement technologies, pretensions become objective reality. We could engineer superhuman beings, creating permanent genetic aristocracy.

THE FRANKENSTEIN QUESTION
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein warned that playing God leads to disaster. Yet the deeper concern: future scientists could create genuinely superior beings viewing us as we view Neanderthals. We comfort ourselves with stories where creations go haywire and are destroyed, preserving human supremacy. But what if scientists engineer spirits as well as bodies? What if creations would be undeniably superior?

History teaches that forecasted futures often fail materializing due to unforeseen barriers while unimagined scenarios emerge. Nuclear power's 1940s eruption predicted flying cars and space colonies by 2000—few materialized. Nobody foresaw the Internet.

Yet one certainty deserves contemplation: history's next stage involves fundamental transformations in human consciousness and identity, so profound they challenge the word "human's" very meaning. The final question isn't "What do we want to become?" but "What do we want to want?"—recognizing we may soon engineer not just bodies and minds, but desires themselves. This prospect is more unsettling than any science fiction, since accurately describing such a future would be incomprehensible to us—like creating Hamlet for a Neanderthal audience.