The cyberpunk genre is heavily influenced by transhumanism, generally criticizing the use of technology to improve human life by showing the consequences resulting in its misuse. The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau both involve scientific men whose failed experiments in tampering with nature result in the story's conflict. Following Mary Shelley's work, several of the stories by H. The moral of the story is that man should not try to play God, serving as a criticism of the values of the transhumanist ideology that science and technology can be used to overcome the human condition. Victor himself is an early transhumanist character, attempting to overcome death through chemistry. Transhumanist literature History Īmong the earliest works to portray transhumanism is the story of Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus.
Rajaniemi's novel, while more action oriented, still explores themes such as death and finitude in post-human life.įictional depictions of transhumanist scenarios are also seen in other media, such as movies ( Transcendence), television series (the Ancients of Stargate SG-1), manga and anime ( Ghost in the Shell), role-playing games ( Rifts and Eclipse Phase) and video games ( Deus Ex or BioShock). Egan's Diaspora explores the nature of ideas such as reproduction and questions if they make sense in a post-human context. Nagata's novels, for example, explore the relationship between the natural and artificial, and suggest that while transhuman modifications of nature may be beneficial, they may also be hazardous, so should not be lightly undertaken. Transhuman novels are often philosophical in nature, exploring the impact such technologies might have on human life. The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.Įxamples of "transhumanist fiction" include novels by Linda Nagata, Greg Egan, and Hannu Rajaniemi. However, science fiction's depictions of technologically enhanced humans or other posthuman beings frequently come with a cautionary twist. Science fiction literature contains many positive depictions of technologically enhanced human life, occasionally set in utopian (especially techno-utopian) societies.
Many of the tropes of science fiction can be viewed as similar to the goals of transhumanism.
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