This video is a complete recording of the London Futurists event on 25th Oct 2014, “How human will posthumans be?”, featuring David Roden:

It is common to imagine posthumans as humans made superhumanly intelligent or resilient by future advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science. Many argue that these enhanced people might live better lives; others fear that tinkering with our nature will undermine our sense of our own humanity. Whoever is right, it is generally assumed that our technological successor will be an upgraded or degraded version of us: Human 2.0.

However, the recent book “Posthuman Life: Philosophy at the Edge of the Human” by David Roden argues that this enhancement debate projects a human face onto an empty screen. We actually do not know what will happen and, not being posthuman, cannot anticipate how posthumans will assess the world.

Posthuman Life develops a position called “speculative posthumanism” which the author distinguishes from both:

• “Critical Posthumanism” – which seeks to “deconstruct” the philosophical centrality of the human subject in epistemology, ethics and politics;
• Transhumanism – which proposes the technical enhancement of humans and their capacities.

Posthuman Life argues that only a truly speculative posthumanism can support an ethics that meets the challenge of the transformative potential of technology.

This London Futurists event featured the author of Posthuman Life, who addressed the question “How human will posthumans be?”.

For more details about the meeting, see http://www.meetup.com/London-Futurists/events/205113902/.

If it is more convenient, the audio from the meeting is available here:

To download a copy of this audio file, right click on this link.