Philosophy, technology, and pushing beyond human limitations

Science fiction movies and TV shows often imagine futures where technology reshapes what it means to be human, depicting dystopian scenes of humans using AI and implantable devices to alter consciousness. In one episode of “Black Mirror,” for example, a woman interacts with an AI version of her late boyfriend, and in another, a relationship unravels due to use of an implantable device that allows people to replay memories.

To Gary Purpura, the associate vice provost for education and academic planning in the Office of the Provost and a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, these scenarios aren’t just entertainment but philosophical provocations.

This semester he is teaching Enhancing the Human Mind with Technology—a class whose title captures what transhumanists seek. Purpura’s aim? To show the value in thinking about the concepts of transhumanism—a movement that advocates for using science and technology to enhance or transcend the human condition—not only through a lens of engineering and design, business, or media, but with a focus on philosophical issues.

“Transhumanists think about technology as opportunities for transformation—for enhancing a person’s capacities,” says Purpura. “This perspective on technology forces us to rethink the role of technology in our lives and in shaping who and what we are.”

The concept of transhumanism, Purpura says, can be applied to a wide range of technologies, from those that are emerging to those that don’t yet exist. Meta, for example, has unveiled augmented reality glasses, but they’re not yet available to the public. In a medical context, this might include a brain-computer interface that could restore lost function in people with brain damage. The most radical transhumanists, Purpura says, seek to replace the brain with a machine that could interact with the body, representing “a sort of nonbiological thinking and/or feeling.”

He poses that question to his students: “Is nonbiological cognition even possible?” The class also gets into moral issues around transhumanism, such as bodily autonomy, health risks, and privacy, since data can be hacked and it is hard to keep data private.

Purpura teaches this course as a first-year seminar and says he enjoys introducing students to big topics in philosophy. His primary goal, he says, is to get students thinking critically. If they hear a moral claim or a claim about human intelligence, for example, he wants them to question the structure of the argument and whether the evidence supports the claim.

“I think those are skills that will probably be applicable in most of the subjects that they study in the rest of their time in school and will also set them up to be able to deal with issues that come up in their lives,” he says.

He says that he sees transhumanism as a good vehicle for teaching critical thinking skills because it’s less abstract. “I think the topics in the course are fascinating and orient first-year students to key questions about who they are and what aspects of themselves are essential to who they are,” Purpura says.

Students study both classical philosophers like René Descartes and contemporary thinkers like Nick Bostrum, who advocates for thinking about the ethics of human enhancement and the risks of superintelligence before the technology exists.

“My worry becomes that sometimes people are just into technology for its own sake, and then once it exists, it’s really hard to take away from people even if there are clear dangers,” Purpura says. But at the end of the day, he is optimistic, because he sees many people in the world who want to pause and ask questions about the best use of these technologies.