Cyberculture, Cyborgs and Science Fiction: Consciousness and the Posthuman (Consciousness: Literature and the Arts 2) (Consciousness, Literature & the Arts)

Addressing a key issue related to human nature, this book argues that the first-person experience of pure consciousness may soon be under threat from posthuman biotechnology. In exploiting the mind's capacity for instrumental behavior, posthumanists seek to extend human experience by physically projecting the mind outward through the continuity of thought and the material world, as through telepresence and other forms of prosthetic enhancements. Posthumanism envisions a biology/machine symbiosis that will promote this extension, arguably at the expense of the natural tendency of the mind to move toward pure consciousness. As each chapter of this book contends, by forcibly overextending and thus jeopardizing the neurophysiology of consciousness, the posthuman condition could in the long term undermine human nature, defined as the effortless capacity for transcending the mindвЂTMs conceptual content. Presented here for the first time, the essential argument of this book is more than a warning; it gives a direction: far better to practice patience and develop pure consciousness and evolve into a higher human being than to fall prey to the Faustian temptations of biotechnological power. As argued throughout the book, each person must choose for him or herself between the technological extension of physical experience through mind, body and world on the one hand, and the natural powers of human consciousness on the other as a means to realize their ultimate vision. Annotation. "Addressing a key issue related to human nature, this book argues that the first-person experience of pure consciousness may soon be under threat from posthuman biotechnology. Presented here for the first time, the essential argument of this book is more than a warning; it gives a direction: far better to practice patience and develop pure consciousness and evolve into a higher human being than to fall prey to the Faustian temptations of biotechnological power. As argued throughout the book, each person must choose for him or herself between the technological extension of physical experience through mind, body and world on the one hand, and the natural powers of human consciousness on the other as a means to realize their ultimate vision."--Jacket Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1: Consciousness and the Posthuman Chapter 2: The Latent Powers of Consciousness vs. Bionic Humans Chapter 3: Derrida’s Indian Literary Subtext Chapter 4: Consciousness and the Posthuman in Short Fiction Chapter 5: Frankenstein: The Monster’s Constructedness and the Narrativity of Consciousness Chapter 6: William Gibson’s Neuromancer: Technological Ambiguity Chapter 7: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash: Humans are not Computers Chapter 8: Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: Unicorns, Elephants and Immortality Chapter 9: Cyborg Revelations: Marge Piercy’s He, She and It Chapter 10: Conclusion: The Survival of Human Nature Works Cited Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z While no theory of consciousness has achieved consensus in the interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies in the West, the one generally accepted by posthumanists as the most convincing holds that "To be conscious is to be conscious of something" (Pepperell 2003: 175).