Biologically, human beings haven’t changed in 100,000 years but thanks to our amazing brains we can upgrade ourselves to add capabilities that took other creatures millions of years to evolve. Thanks to this unnatural” evolution we are already Human 2.0. In the effort to stay alive, reproduce and make more of brains, we have transformed ourselves. Now with a better understanding of the mechanisms of the body, cloning, gene therapy, bionics, and other technologies, our rate of change is getting ever faster. This process of upgrading is nothing new. It has been around for millennia, and it raises some provocative questions. What will the future hold? Will our drive to upgrade continue to give positive benefits, or will it result in destruction? Where is our evolutionary survival heading? Sure to cause much debate, UPGRADE ME is science journalist Brian Clegg's ambitious and brilliant account of humanity's need to upgrade Brian Clegg is the author of The God Effect, A Brief History of Infinity, The First Scientist: A Life of Roger Bacon, and Light Years: The Extraordinary Story of Mankind's Fascination with Light. He lives in Wiltshire, England, with his wife and two children. Biologically, human beings haven’t changed in 100,000 yearsbut thanks to our amazing brains we can upgrade ourselves to add capabilities that took other creatures millions of years to evolve. Thanks to this unnatural” evolution we are already Human 2.0. In the effort to stay alive, reproduce and make more of brains, we have transformed ourselves. Now with a better understanding of the mechanisms of the body, cloning, gene therapy, bionics, and other technologies, our rate of change is getting ever faster. This process of upgrading is nothing new. It has been around for millennia, and it raises some provocative questions: What will the future hold? Will our drive to upgrade continue to give positive benefits, or will it result in destruction? Where is our evolutionary survival heading? Sure to cause much debate, Upgrade Me is science journalist Brian Clegg's account of humanity's need to upgrade The biologists tell us that we are no different from the original humans a hundred thousand years ago. This remarkable book shows how we have become much more than Human 1.0.”Dr. Peet Morris, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Human enhancement is nothing new, declares this British science writer; it began almost as soon as our ancestors came out of the trees. People have been improving on biology since the days of stone tools, posits Clegg. The imperatives of staying alive, reproducing, defending themselves, improving their brains and healing injuries led our ancestors to adopt various strategies that separated them from animals. Clegg devotes a chapter to each imperative. Cheating death began with the use of cave shelters and fire to keep predators at bay. Now, if the predictions of Ray Kurzweil are valid, indefinitely long life spans may be within our reach through genetic manipulation and the use of microbots to repair our bodies from within. Making ourselves attractive to the opposite sex leads from simple cosmetics to complex bodily modifications; cosmetic surgery is only the beginning. Sticks and stones extend our reach and power, but almost as long as we've been human we've also been using subtler tools: language, fire, domestic animals. Brain enhancement can be as simple as the morning coffee that gives us the ability to concentrate. Less obvious memory-enhancement techniques include visualization; down the road, we may be able to absorb knowledge directly, like loading software on a computer. Medicine has come a long way, but such aids to the injured as crutches date to ancient times, eyeglasses at least to the Renaissance. In time, we may be able to use mechanical aids on a much more radical level, making ourselves amalgams of organism and computer. Clegg is skeptical of radical predictions such as the Singularity, that point at which unmodified humans become obsolete, replaced by more advanced computerized brains. Nonetheless, he persuasively argues that enhancement is inevitable, and in fact one of the most central characteristics of our species. Human 2.0 is already here.”Kirkus Reviews |
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