The french language philosopher Michel Foucault (1984) observed that although humanism attempts to regulate peoples’ behaviour through dogmas and rules, the Enlightenment activity sought to remove such boundaries to help people transcend the material / physical world. In a way, post humanism takes advantage of her the questions raised throughout the Enlightenment period and rejects any presumptions about human nature. Post humanism may be understood to be a school of thought or perhaps movement that emphases crucial inquiry and prompts visitors to reflect about themselves and the role on the globe, rather than just observing external phenomena (White, 2015). Ihab Hassan, the literary theorist who gave the expression “post human”, observed that inside the post man era, being human, desires and look may be obstacle and revised (Dow Wright 2010, p. 299)
The advent of digital and multimedia technologies features certainly had a profound influence on what we may do and how we see yourself. Thanks to technology, we can modify our bodies, increase our sizes and give new meaning to the limitations in the material universe. With the introduction of significantly sophisticated human enhancement technology that can be used to treat illness as well as to enhance human being performance, we could select each of our babies’ physical traits prior to they are born, produce children whether were fertile or not, adjust our looks through cosmetic surgery and improve our mental functions. At the moment, scientists are working on whole brain emulation techniques thanks to which we all will soon be able to scan the contents of the brains and copy these people into pcs that will work as if they had their particular conscious heads.
By simply placing a great deal emphasis on the human mind and treating our body as a thing that needs to be altered or even eliminated in order for human beings to realise the full potential, post humanism clearly reaffirms Descartes’ dualistic view in the mind-body trouble. In order to determine whether the use of day-to-day digital and media technology is slowly and gradually turning us into a fresh species with extraordinary capacities and properly mouldable systems whose singular purpose is usually to help us expand our nature, we need to reflect on the relationship between individuals and technology. It has been discovered that a post human body does not perform operations that are past human nature because technology merely enables us to multiply or intensify pre-existing capabilities (Morey, 2015). Since technology does not allow us to visit beyond physical limitations, we ought to avoid referring to ourselves applying terms that imply a vertical activity. According to Brian Rotman, para humanism is a considerably more accurate term that delivers expansion and multiplication, whereas the term content human suggests that technology may well somehow provide us with new capabilities that we did not possess initially (Morey, 2015). Due to the fact digital and media solutions simply alter and increase what was ever present, it would probably be more accurate to mention that our growing use of technology is producing us more para human, rather than content human.
As Rose bush Gentic (2015) pointed out, post humanism rests on the assumption that since humans will be essentially made from information, our body is an unnecessary accessory that we can certainly do away with. The key problem with this kind of argument is that it describes information and the body because two distinctive realities, one among which is far more important compared to the other. Because current as the mind-body problem might appear, thinkers and philosophers coming from all over the world have been completely exploring the dichotomy of mankind since time immemorial. According to Greek philosopher Plato, our body is impetuous whereas the soul, designed as a persons mind and intellect, is usually immaterial and immortal. As a result of his daring arguments, Bandeja was one of the first philosophers to put forward the idea that the spirit / head is spiritual while the body is nothing more than a prison. On the other hand, Aristotle saw your body and the soul / head as two sides of the same coin, even though he stated that the mind was a house of the human body, he pictured the human mind as a completely immaterial function, thus which makes it clear that the body plus the mind are created from different chemicals.
When discussing content humanism in comparison with how technology has been augmenting the human body, the term cyborg quickly comes to mind. Like a being in whose body includes both mechanical and organic and natural / human elements, a cyborg may be considered as a post human being whose physical capacities are enhanced through technological means. As Toffoletti (2007, g. 2) pointed out, the term cyborg reflects the confusion that surrounds the interaction between humans and machines. In the event our connection with technology made all of us cyborgs, we might have to determine that because our make use of digital and media solutions grows, our human nature will weaken in favour of a new species. However , technology ” designed as the equipment, methods and skills utilized to achieve goals and produce products and services ” has always been an essential part of human history: just like the tyre, steam electrical power and industries, digital and media technology are nothing more than equipment whose primary purpose is always to help human beings enhance their capacities and enhance their lives. It is up to each one of us to choose whether each of our reliance upon technology makes us post human.
With the advent of the World Wide Web, a fresh virtual community has emerged where people can face mask, reveal or perhaps falsify their real id. From an analysis of varied social media websites’ features, it appears that the “online” world can be utilized either to complement or exchange our “real world” lives. Platforms like Facebook, Tweets, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube allow us share personal data, pictures, text messages, thoughts, wants, dislikes, interests and hobbies that are meant to reflect who also we really are. All of these websites use a variety of measures to verify the identities and be sure that we aren’t misrepresenting ourselves, for instance, whenever we try to connect with someone we do not know in real life, Fb may mail us a warning concept explaining that spamming violates the website’s policy or maybe suspend the accounts. This kind of clearly implies that “online worlds” are not meant for users to replace all their real lives with more satisfying, virtual types.
With that being said, the digital world allows people to generate new electronic friends and place up information that reflect their best selves instead of their actual selves, in order to increase their self-worth. Psychological studies have revealed that our actual selves, intended since the attributes, characteristics and qualities that we think we all possess, will not always coincide with our ideal selves, which can defined as the attributes, attributes and attributes that we think others want us to receive (Higgins, 1987). Higgins (1987) even discovered a third domain name of the do it yourself, i. electronic. the ought self, which is the way in which we represent the attributes, characteristics and features that somebody believes we ought to possess. Exactly why we at times choose to present ourselves in a way that reflects each of our ideal or perhaps ought selves rather than each of our real selves is because of the gap existing between two or more domains with the self. Quite simply, when each of our ideal or perhaps ought selves do not match with our actual selves, we may experience mental discomfort and stay more ready to use networks to promote yourself in a manner that much more similar to our ideal or ought selves. Sometimes, users’ online details are so different from their true ones that people find it difficult to see the digital and real world as two areas of the same actuality.
While Nathan Jurgenson (2011) known, there is just one reality in which technology performs an essential position in augmenting the self, without duplicating it. Although of us include learnt to live with the idea that the digital and physical worlds happen to be two separate realities that people can inhabit simultaneously ” just like in the Matrix ” the truth is the numerous dualisms brought about by the Digital Age can result in false assumptions about the existence and identity. Prior to the advent of the net, people accustomed to connect with each other through handwritten letters, telephones and text messages, whose functions and scope were much more limited than patients of the Internet. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to assert that deception and deceit stem from your diffusion in the Internet, all things considered, even before the net was created in the late eighties, it was not impossible for people to face mask their actual selves above mail, cell phone and SMS. This means that even though the Internet made it easy for users to create intricate false identities so as to decrease the gap among their genuine and best /ought selves, our tendency to judge ourselves on the basis of internalised standards is the central reason why we certainly have always exploited technology to maximise our self-worth.
