Proto-Posthumanisms

Abstract

Western thinkers have long been fascinated by the possibility of creating new forms of organic and inorganic life. In Plato, Homer and Aristotle we read of the living bronze and gold statues modelled by the master craftsman Daedalus and the divine blacksmith Hephaestus, while in Ovid’s tales it is Pygmalion that fashions himself an ivory girl to love. Marking the beginnings of science fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein imbues a patchwork monster with the breath of life, a fictional Thomas Edison creates what he believes to be the perfect female android in Tomorrow’s Eve, and in Karel Čapek’s play from 1920, the Rossum factory churns out hundreds of thousands of robots that are indistinguishable from human beings. Influenced by Darwin’s revolutionary understanding of species and evolutionary change, other writers chose to turn their attention towards the human and began to reflect on the possible evolution of the human species into new forms of being. H. G. Wells contemplated the possible degeneration of man into creatures that descended from, but could no longer be recognised as, human, while in The Coming Race Edward Bulwer-Lytton created an elaborate fictional world in which mankind is succeeded by highly-technologized creatures whose capabilities far exceed those of Homo sapiens. [Excerpt]