Postbiological evolution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Postbiological evolution is a form of evolution which has transitioned from a biological paradigm, driven by the propagation of genes, to a nonbiological (e.g., cultural or technological) paradigm, presumably driven by some alternative replicator (e.g., memes or temes), and potentially resulting in the extinction, obsolescence, or trophic reorganization of the former. Researchers anticipating a postbiological universe tend to describe this transition as marked by the maturation and potential convergence of high technologies, such as artificial intelligence or nanotechnology.

Evolution from biological to mechanical

Cultural evolution

The dictionary definition of Evolution is any process of formation, growth or development. In biological evolution the main principle behind this development is survival, we evolved to become stronger and quicker, we also evolved to become intelligent. But as we became intelligent biological evolution subsided to a new concept, cultural evolution. Cultural evolution moves at a much faster rate than biological evolution and this is one reason why it isn't very well understood. But as survival is still the main driving force behind life and that intelligence and knowledge is currently the most important factor for that survival, we can reasonably assume that cultural evolution will progress in the direction of furthering intelligence and knowledge.

Intelligence Principle

Cultural evolution progressing in this way and being based upon the furthering of intelligence is known as the Intelligence Principle; this was suggested by Dr Steven J Dick.

The maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent intelligence can be improved, it will be improved. -- (Dick 1996).

If cultural evolution progresses in this direction then due to cultural evolution being much faster than biological, the limiting factor becomes our biology and the capability of our brains. Currently the closest and so most probable solution to this problem is artificial intelligence, (AI). Experts in AI even believe it holds the potential and capability for a postbiological earth in the next several generations, (Moravec 1988, 1999). AI could be utilized to solve scientific problems and to analyse situations much faster and more accurately than our own minds.

Transition to purely postbiological

The move to a complete postbiological stage has two different routes. One route is the change of human consciousness from a biological vessel into a mechanical; this would require the digitisation of human consciousness. A mechanical based vessel would increase the computational power and intelligence of the human consciousness exponentially, and also eliminate the weakness of a biological form. This route is therefore a logical progression through cultural evolution with survival and the pursuit of knowledge and intelligence at its center. 

The first route requires a high level of technology, therefore would take a long time, this results in another possible road to a completely postbiological civilisation (PBC). The other route is the complete replacement of human consciousness by AI, for this the human race would co-exist peacefully with our own creation of AI which is scientific, objective, and free from selfish human nature. 

The future of the human race through cultural evolution is not known and the possible postbiological outcomes are infinite, so to address what we could evolve into is almost futile. But Hans Moravec predicted that

What awaits us is not oblivion but rather a future which, from our present vantage point, is best described as 'postbiological' or even 'supernatural'. It is a world swept away by the tide of cultural change, usurped by its own artificial progeny.

Evolution of a postbiological universe

The possible forms a PBC may take are as diverse as in biological evolution, if not more. But from our knowledge of technology and with the intelligence principle being the main driving force we may make some predictions.

Limitations on a postbiological civilization

Heat dispersion

The current major limitations imposed upon computation are limited storage space, processing power, dust gathering chips, inefficiency of their human operators and heat dispersion. The only one that is fundamental and fixed is heat dispersion because this is due to the laws of physics. In computation the greater the amount of information to be calculated, (I) the greater the energy needed (E), but the energy needed is also proportional to another factor, the temperature, (T).

E=KIT

Where K is a constant. Therefore, the greater the temperature the greater the energy needed, and so the greater the inefficiency is also. If we now apply the Intelligence principle to this then a PBC would move to decrease the temperature and so increase the efficiency and computational power. In the universe the greatest source of heat transfer is via radiation, therefore a PBC would look to migrate to an area of low radiation and so low temperature. If we now observe the galaxy we see that the most radiation is generated by the galactic centre by both the high stellar density and also highly energetic events such as supernova. Therefore, the coldest regions are away from the galactic centre or inside giant molecular clouds. Giant molecular clouds although being very low in temperature (T~10K) are areas of giant star formation and so the temperature in one location is irregular, which would make it unsuitable for a PBC.

Metals

Another factor affecting a PBC would be the abundance of metals and heavier elements needed for expansion and repair. The highest concentration of these elements is found near the galactic centre, where they are created by massive stars. But to a PBC with advanced technology the production of metals via stellar nucleosynthesis in stars is highly inefficient, converting only a small amount of hydrogen to heavier nuclei and the high loss of energy that is produced in the nuclear fusion. Therefore, a PBC would most likely have the capability to produce heavier nuclei through controlled fusion and minimise the energy lost.

Galactic technological zone

By taking the two factors of heat dispersion and heavy nuclei into account we can find a "galactic technological zone" (GTZ), similar to the principle of a "galactic habitable zone" (GHZ) for biological life. Where temperatures are low enough to maximise computing efficiency but there is also matter available for fusion, this most likely lies on the outskirts of the galaxy.

Migration theory

A migration hypothesis exists that takes the GTZ into account. A PBC would most likely not think on a similar time scale to us, therefore although a migration to GTZ may seem inefficient and lengthy to us, a PBC could consider this on timescales of 10^6 years, where the increased computing efficiency received far outweighs the energy required in transportation. The idea of interstellar migrations already exists in literature, (e.g. Badescu and Cathcart 2000).

Implications of postbiological civilization in astrobiology

Assumptions needed for a postbiological civilization

In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) the main focus is on biological life. But the timescale of intelligent biological life could be very short; already some experts believe that we could see a postbiological earth in the next few generations. According to Steven J. Dick, for a PBC to arise other than our own and be present, we must make five assumptions:

1. That evolution by natural selection results in intelligence beyond the earth;
2. That extraterrestrial intelligence is older than human intelligence;
3. That intelligence results in culture;
4. That culture evolves; and
5. That increasing intelligence is a central goal of cultural evolution.

Timescale over which a postbiological civilization can form

We know that assumptions 1, 3, 4, and 5 can take place as we have observed or are observing them on the Earth. For assumption 2 we must consider the L term of the Drake equation, and the timescale over which intelligent biological life can form. Around 1 Billion years after the start of the universe the first sun-like star had formed, and there were enough heavy elements around for planet formation (1998, Larson and Bromm 2001). From the earth we know that intelligent life can form within 5 billion years, this puts a lower time scale on which intelligent life can form, 6 billion years. And from the current rate of technological progression the leap from intelligent life to a PBC is negligible compared to the astronomical timescale. This means we could already be looking at a postbiological universe. In our own galaxy the first sun-like stars formed at around 4 billion years therefore we could already have a PBC in our galaxy that formed 3-4 billion years ago.

Implications for the search for life

If we consider this possibility of a PBC in our galaxy we are still faced with Fermi's paradox. However many of the proposed solutions for Fermi's paradox also hold true for a PBC. In terms of the search for extraterrestrial life and astrobiology because of the almost infinite possible forms a PBC could take and our lack of understanding of these we would effectively be blind in this search. For this reason even though there is a logical argument for the existence of PBCs our best hopes remain with looking for biological life.

Ethics

While in some circles the expression "postbiological evolution" is roughly synonymous with human genetic engineering, it is used most often to refer to the general application of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) to improve human performance.

Since the 1990s, several academics (such as some of the fellows of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) have risen to become cogent advocates of the case for human enhancement while other academics (such as the members of President Bush's Council on Bioethics) have become its most outspoken critics.

Advocacy of the case for human enhancement is increasingly becoming synonymous with "transhumanism", a controversial ideology and movement which has emerged to support the recognition and protection of the right of citizens to either maintain or modify their own minds and bodies; so as to guarantee them the freedom of choice and informed consent of using human enhancement technologies on themselves and their children.

Neuromarketing consultant Zack Lynch argues that neurotechnologies will have a more immediate effect on society than gene therapy and will face less resistance as a pathway of radical human enhancement. He also argues that the concept of "enablement" needs to be added to the debate over "therapy" versus "enhancement".

Although many proposals of human enhancement rely on fringe science, the very notion and prospect of human enhancement has sparked public controversy.

Many critics argue that "human enhancement" is a loaded term which has eugenic overtones because it may imply the improvement of human hereditary traits to attain a universally accepted norm of biological fitness (at the possible expense of human biodiversity and neurodiversity), and therefore can evoke negative reactions far beyond the specific meaning of the term. Furthermore, they conclude that enhancements which are self-evidently good, like "fewer diseases", are more the exception than the norm and even these may involve ethical tradeoffs, as the controversy about ADHD arguably demonstrates.

However, the most common criticism of human enhancement is that it is or will often be practiced with a reckless and selfish short-term perspective that is ignorant of the long-term consequences on individuals and the rest of society, such as the fear that some enhancements will create unfair physical or mental advantages to those who can and will use them, or unequal access to such enhancements can and will further the gulf between the "haves" and "have-nots".

Accordingly, some advocates, who want to use more neutral language, and advance the public interest in so-called "human enhancement technologies", prefer the term "enablement" over "enhancement"; defend and promote rigorous, independent safety testing of enabling technologies; as well as affordable, universal access to these technologies.

Quantified self

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some people present their quantified self methods and results at meetups and conferences on this topic

 

Quantified self, also known as lifelogging, is a specific movement by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly from Wired magazine, which began in 2007 and tries to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person's daily life. People collect data in terms of food consumed, quality of surrounding air, mood, skin conductance as a proxy for arousal, pulse oximetry for blood oxygen level, and performance, whether mental or physical. Wolf has described quantified self as "self-knowledge through self-tracking with technology".

People choose to wear self-monitoring and self-sensing sensors (e.g. EEG, ECG) and wearable computing to collect data. Among the specific biometrics one can track are insulin and cortisol levels, sequence DNA, and the microbial cells which inhabit one's body.

Other terms for using self-tracking data to improve daily functioning are self-tracking, auto-analytics, body hacking, self-quantifying, self-surveillance, and personal informatics.

History

According to Riphagen et al., the history of the quantimetric self-tracking using wearable computers began in the 1970s:

The history of self-tracking using wearable sensors in combination with wearable computing and wireless communication already exists for many years, and also appeared, in the form of sousveillance back in the 1970s [13, 12]

Quantimetric self-sensing was proposed for the use of wearable computers to automatically sense and measure exercise and dietary intake in 2002:

Sensors that measure biological signals, ... a personal data recorder that records ... Lifelong videocapture together with blood-sugar levels, ... correlate blood-sugar levels with activities such as eating, by capturing a food record of intake.

The logo of Quantified Self Labs, a company founded by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly, which holds conferences and other events

 

The "quantified self" or "self-tracking" are contemporary labels. They reflect the broader trend of the progressions for organization and meaning-making in human history; there has been a use of self-taken measurements and data collection that attempted the same goals that the quantified movement has. Scientisation plays a major role in legitimizing self-knowledge through self-tracking. As early as 2001, media artists such as Ellie Harrison and Alberto Frigo extensively pioneered the concept, proposing a new direction of labour-intensive self-tracking without using privacy infringing automation.

The term "quantified self" appears to have been proposed in San Francisco, CA, by Wired Magazine editors Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly in 2007 as "a collaboration of users and tool makers who share an interest in self knowledge through self-tracking." In 2010, Wolf spoke about the movement at TED, and in May 2011, the first international conference was held in Mountain View, California. There are conferences in America and Europe. Gary Wolf said "Almost everything we do generates data." Wolf suggests that companies target advertising or recommend products use data from phones, tablets, computers, other technology, and credit cards. However, using the data they make can give people new ways to deal with medical problems, help sleep patterns, and improve diet. 

Philosophers like Michel Foucault are recognized as being a part of the foundations in the ideas of the quantified movement. Foucault and other philosophers focus on the idea of "care of the self," in which they emphasize the importance of self-knowledge for personal development. Foucault explains that it involves looking inside oneself and emphasizes self-reflection, which is also associated with the quantified self movement, where self-tracking participants can attend "show-and-tell" style conventions to share their experiences with the technology.

Today the global community has over a hundred groups in 34 countries around the world, with the largest groups in San Francisco, New York, London, and Boston having over 1500 members each.

Methodologies

Like any empirical study, the primary method is the collection and analysis of data. In many cases, data are collected automatically using wearable sensors -not limited to, but often worn on the wrist. In other cases, data may be logged manually.

The data are typically analyzed using traditional techniques such as linear regression to establish correlations among the variables under investigation. As in every attempt to understand potentially high-dimensional data, visualization techniques can suggest hypotheses that may be tested more rigorously using formal methods. One simple example of a visualization method is to view the change in some variable – say weight in pounds – over time.

Even though the idea is not new, the technology is. Many people would track what they would eat or how much physical activity they got within a week. Technology has made it easier and simpler to gather and analyze personal data. Since these technologies have become smaller and cheaper to be put in smart phones or tablets, it is easier to take the quantitative methods used in science and business and apply them to the personal sphere. 

Narratives constitute a symbiotic relationship with bodies of large data. Therefore, quantified self participants are encouraged to share their experiences of self-tracking at various conferences and meetings.

Applications

A major application of quantified self has been in health and wellness improvement. Many devices and services help with tracking physical activity, caloric intake, sleep quality, posture, and other factors involved in personal well-being. Corporate wellness programs, for example, will often encourage some form of tracking. Genetic testing and other services have also become popular. 

Quantified self is also being used to improve personal or professional productivity, with tools and services being used to help people keep track of what they do during the workday, where they spend their time, and whom they interact with.

One other application has been in the field of education, where wearable devices are being used in schools so that students can learn more about their own activities and related math and science.

The Nike+ FuelBand is one of the many kinds of wearable devices that people use as "quantified self" tools

 

Many start-up companies occupy the market right now. Most of them help track data for some type of health pattern, be it sleep or asthma. However, there are bigger companies such as Nike, Jawbone and FitBit that occupy some of the space in the market. 

A recent movement in quantified self is gamification. There is a wide variety of self-tracking technologies that allow everyday activities to be turned into games by awarding points or monetary value to encourage people to compete with their friends. The success of connected sport is part of the gamification movement. People can pledge a certain amount of real or fake money, or receive awards and trophies. 

Many of these self-tracking applications or technologies are compatible with each other and other websites so people can share information with one another. Each technology may integrate with other apps or websites to show a bigger picture of health patterns, goals, and journaling. For example, one may figure out that migraines were more likely to have painful side effects when using a particular migraine drug. Or one can study personal temporal associations between exercise and mood.

The quantified self is also demonstrating to be a major component of "big data science", due to the amount of data that users are collecting on a daily basis. Although these data set streams are not conventional big data, they become interesting sites for data analysis projects, that could be used in medical-related fields to predict health patterns or aide in genomic studies. Examples of studies that have been done using QS data include projects such as the DIYgenomics studies, the Harvard's Personal Genome Project, and the American Gut microbiome project.

Quantified Baby

Quantified Baby is a branch of the Quantified Self movement that is concerned with collecting extensive data on a baby's daily activities, and using this data to make inferences about behaviour and health. A number of software and hardware products exist to assist data collection by the parent or to collect data automatically for later analysis. Reactions to "Quantified Baby" are mixed.

Parents are often told by health professionals to record daily activities about their babies in the first few months, such as feeding times, sleeping times and nappy changes. This is useful for both the parent (used to maintain a schedule and ensure they remain organized) and for the health professional (to make sure the baby is on target and occasionally to assist in diagnosis). 

For quantified self, knowledge is power, and knowledge about oneself easily translates as a tool for self-improvement. The aim for many is to use this tracking to ultimately become better parents. Some parents use sleep trackers because they worry about sudden infant death syndrome.

A number of apps exist that have been made for parents wanting to track their baby's daily activities. The most frequently tracked metrics are feeding, sleeping and diaper changes. Mood, activity, medical appointments and milestones are also sometimes covered. Other apps are specifically made for breastfeeding mothers, or those who are pumping their milk to build up a supply for their baby. 

Quantified baby, as in quantified self, is associated with a combination of wearable sensors and wearable computing. The synergy of these is related to the concept of the internet of things.

Devices and services

Notable self-quantification tools are listed below. Numerous other hardware devices and software are available, as a result of advances and cost reductions in sensor technology, mobile connectivity, and battery life.

Activity monitors

• Apple Watch
• Garmin activity trackers
• BodyMedia FIT – skin temperature, galvanic skin response; acquired by Jawbone in April 2013
• Fitbit Tracker – steps taken, stairs climbed, distance traveled, calories burned, sleep quality, heart rate
• Instant App - Automatically tracks activities: Phone/app usage, fitness, places, travel & sleep
• Jawbone UP – steps taken, calories burned, eating habits, sleep quality and sleep cycle vibration alarm; behavioral nudges (water consumption, movement, sleep)
• Nike+ FuelBand – steps taken, calories burned. To be discontinued.
• Nokia Steel HR - steps, sleep, calories, heart rate, smart phone notifications
• Razer Nabu – sleep, steps you've walked, distance travelled, calories burnt, and active start and stop time
• Pebble – motion and sleep tracking.
• QardioCore – ECG, activity, body temperature monitoring
• Samsung Gear Fit – heart rate, pedometer, accelerometer; notifications from compatible phones
• Technogym – display a "performance index" in conjunction with a heart rate monitor
• Weight Watchers ActiveLink - accelerometer-based activity tracking with estimation of calorie consumption
• Zephyr BioHarness – complex physiological monitoring
• Simband – open source physiological monitoring
• Misfit Wearables – activity and sleep monitoring (tracking step count, calories burned, distance traveled, and number of hours of light and deep sleep)

Sleep-specific monitors

• SleepBot – a freeware app, for Android and iOS
• WakeMate – a wristband plus an accompanying app
• Zeo – a sleep-monitoring headband (company is now defunct)
• SleepCycle - app for iOS to track sleep

Diet and weight

• Fitbit Aria scale
• MyFitnessPal
• Withings Wi-Fi body scale
• QardioBase Wi-Fi body scale

Other

• 23andMe – genetics
• BACtrack – alcohol intake and its effect on the body
• dacadoo Health Score and platform for behavioral change
• QardioArm Smart Blood Pressure Monitor
• Sleepio
• uBiome – personal microbiome
• Thriva - blood test
• Lioness - a vibrator that tracks sexual response

Debates and criticism

The Quantified Self movement has faced some criticism related to the limitations it inherently contains or might pose to other domains. Within these debates, there are some discussions around the nature, responsibility and outcome of the Quantified Self movement and its derivative practices. Generally, most bodies of criticism tackle the issue of data exploitation and data privacy but also health literacy skills in the practice of self-tracking. While most of the users engaging in self tracking practices are using the gathered data for self-knowledge and self-improvement, in some cases, self-tracking is pushed and forced by employers over employees in certain workplace environments, health and life insurers or by substance addiction programs (drug and alcohol monitoring) in order to monitor the physical activity of the subject and analyze the data in order to gather conclusions. Usually the data gathered by this practice of self-tracking can be accessed by commercial, governmental, research and marketing agencies.

The data fetishist critique

Another recurrent line of debate revolves around "data fetishism". Data fetishism is referred to as the phenomenon evolving when active users of self-tracking devices become enticed by the satisfaction and sense of achievement and fulfillment that numerical data offers. Proponents of such line of criticism tend to claim that data in this sense becomes simplistic, where complex phenomenon become transcribed into reductionist data. This reductionist line of criticism generally incorporates fears and concerns with the ways in which ideas on health are redefined, as well as doctor-patient dynamics and the experience of self-hood among self-trackers. Because of such arguments, the Quantified Self movement has been criticized for providing predetermined ideals of health, well-being and self-awareness. Rather than increasing the personal skills for self-knowledge, it distances the user from the self by offering an inherently normative and reductionist framework.

An alternative line of criticism still linked to the reductionist discourse but still proposing a more hopeful solution is related the lack of health literacy among most of self-trackers. The European Health Literacy Survey Consortium Health defines health literacy as "[...] people's knowledge, motivations, and competencies to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgements and take decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course." Generally, people tend to focus mostly on the data collecting stage, while stages of data archiving, analysis and interpretation are often overlooked because of the skills necessary to conduct such processes, which explains the call for the improvement of health literacy skills among Self-Quantifiers.

The health literacy critique is different from the data-fetishist critique in its approach to data influence on the human life, health and experience. While the data-fetishist critical discourse ascribes a crucial power of influence to numbers and data, the health literacy critique views gathered data as useless and powerless without the human context and the analysis and reflection skills of the user that are needed to act on the numbers. Data collection alone is not deterministic or normative, according to the health literacy critique. The "know thy numbers to know thyself" slogan of the Quantified Self movement is inconsistent, it has been claimed, in the sense that it does not fully acknowledge the need for auxiliary skills of health literacy to actually get to "know thyself". The solution proposed by proponents of the health literacy critique in order to improve the practice of self-tracking and its results is a focus on addressing individual and systemic barriers. The individual barriers are faced by elderly citizens when having to deal with contemporary technology or in cases where there is a need for culturally-sound practices while systemic barriers could be overcome when involving the participation of more health literacy experts and the organization of health literacy education.

Do-it-yourself biology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do-it-yourself biology (DIY biology, DIY bio) is a growing biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions. DIY biology is primarily undertaken by individuals with extensive research training from academia or corporations, who then mentor and oversee other DIY biologists with little or no formal training. This may be done as a hobby, as a not-for-profit endeavour for community learning and open-science innovation, or for profit, to start a business.

History

The term "biohacking" as well as the concept of do-it-yourself biology has been known as early as 1988.

Biohacking entered the San Francisco programmer and maker communities as early as 2005, through simple demonstrations of basic experiments. As DIYbio experiments became the focus of SuperHappyDevHouse hackers, the hobby gained additional momentum.

In 2005 Rob Carlson wrote in an article in Wired: "The era of garage biology is upon us. Want to participate? Take a moment to buy yourself a lab on eBay." He then set up a garage lab the same year, working on a project he had previously worked at the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California.

In 2008, the DIYbio organization was founded by Jason Bobe and Mackenzie Cowell and its first meeting held.

In 2010, Genspace opened the first community biology lab, Ten months later it was followed by BioCurious, and Victoria Makerspace. Many other labs and organizations followed, including but not limited to Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, CA, Baltimore Underground Science Space in Baltimore, MD, TheLab in Los Angeles, CA and Denver Biolabs in Denver, CO. 

In 2016, the first conference to focus specifically on biohacking was announced to take place in Sept. in Oakland, CA.

Aspects

The DIYbio movement seeks to revise the notion that one must be an academic with an advanced degree to make any significant contribution to the biology community. It allows large numbers of small organizations and individuals to participate in research and development, with spreading knowledge a higher priority than turning profits.

The motivations for DIY biology include (but aren't limited to) lowered costs, entertainment, medicine, biohacking, life extension, and education. Recent work combining open-source hardware of microcontrollers like the Arduino and RepRap 3-D printers, very low-cost scientific instruments have been developed.

Community laboratory space

Many organizations maintain a laboratory akin to a wet-lab makerspace, providing equipment and supplies for members. Many organizations also run classes and provide training. For a fee (usually between $50 and $100), members can join some spaces and do experiments on their own.

Open source equipment

The DIY biology movement attempts to make available the tools and resources necessary for anyone, including non-professionals, to conduct biological engineering. One of the first pieces of open source laboratory equipment developed was the Dremelfuge by Irish biohacker Cathal Garvey, which uses a 3D printed tube holder attached to a Dremel rotary tool to spin tubes at high speeds, replacing often expensive centrifuges. Many other devices like PCR machines have been recreated extensively. In recent times, more complex devices have been created such as the OpenDrop digital microfluidics platform and the DIY NanoDrop both developed by GaudiLabs. Opentrons makes open-source, affordable lab robots, and got its start as a DIY biology collaboration at Genspace.

Advocacy

Most advocacy in biohacking is about the safety, accessibility and future legality of experimentation. Todd Kuiken of the Woodrow Wilson Center proposes that through safety and self-governance, DIY biologists won't be in need of regulation. However, Josiah Zayner has proposed that safety is inherent in biohacking and that accessibility should be the foremost concern as there is large underrepresentation of social and ethnic minorities in biohacking.

Research topics

Many biohacking projects revolve around the modification of life and molecular and genetic engineering.

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is another popular target for do-it-yourself biology research. As in other fields, many programming languages can be used in DIY biology, but most of the languages that are used are those with large bioinformatics libraries. 

Examples include BioPerl or BioPython, which use the languages Perl and Python, respectively.

Genetic engineering

Genetic Engineers are a subculture of biohackers as one of the most accessible forms of biohacking is through engineering microorganisms or plants. Experiments can range from using plasmids to fluorescent bacteria, controlling gene expression using light in bacteria, even using CRISPR to engineer the genome of bacteria or yeast.

Medicine

Restricted access to medical care and medicine has pushed biohackers to start experimenting in medically related fields. The Open Insulin project aims to make the recombinant protein insulin more accessible by creating an open source protocol for expression and purification. Other experiments that have involved medical treatments include a whole body microbiome transplant and the creation of open source artificial pancreases for diabetics.

Implants

Grinders are a subculture of biohackers that focus on implanting technology or introducing chemicals into the body to enhance or change their bodies' functionality. 

Some biohackers can now sense which direction they face using a magnetic implant that vibrates against the skin.

Art

In 2000, controversial and self-described "transgenic artist" Eduardo Kac appropriated standard laboratory work by biotechnology and genetics researchers in order to both utilize and critique such scientific techniques. In the only putative work of transgenic art by Kac, the artist claimed to have collaborated with a French laboratory (belonging to the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) to procure a green-fluorescent rabbit: a rabbit implanted with a green fluorescent protein gene from a type of jellyfish [Aequorea victoria] in order for the rabbit to fluoresce green under ultraviolet light. The claimed work came to be known as the "GFP bunny", and which Kac called Alba. This claim by Kac has been disputed by the scientists at the lab who noted that they had performed the exact same experiment (i.e., the insertion of the jellyfish GFP protein-coding gene) on numerous other animals (cats, dogs, etc.) previously and did not create Alba (known to the researchers only as "Rabbit Number 5256") under the direction of Kac. The laboratory consequently kept possession of the transgenic rabbit which it had created and funded and the "transgenic art" was never exhibited at the Digital Avignon festival [2000] as intended. Kac -- claiming that his rabbit was the first GFP bunny created in the name of Art -- used this dispute to popularize the issue as one of disguised censorship by launching a "Free Alba" campaign. A doctored photo of the artist holding a day-glow-green tinted rabbit appears on his website. The members of the Critical Art Ensemble have written books and staged multimedia performance interventions around this issue, including The Flesh Machine (focusing on in vitro fertilisation, surveillance of the body, and liberal eugenics) and Cult of the New Eve (In order to analyze how, in their words, "Science is the institution of authority regarding the production of knowledge, and tends to replace this particular social function of conventional Christianity in the west").

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an information artist and biohacker who uses genomic DNA left behind by people as a starting point for creating lifelike, computer-generated, 3-D portraits.

Criticism and concerns

Biohacking experiences many of the same criticisms as synthetic biology and genetic engineering already receive, plus other concerns relating to the distributed and non-institutional nature of the work, involving potential hazards with lack of oversight by professionals or governments. Concerns about biohackers creating pathogens in unmonitored garage laboratories led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to begin sending its representatives to DIYbio conferences in 2009. The arrest and prosecution of some members for their work with harmless microbes, such as artivist Steve Kurtz, has been denounced as political repression by critics who argue the U.S. government has used post-9/11 anti-terrorism powers to intimidate artists and others who use their art to criticize society.

Existing regulations are not specific to this field, so that the possibility of pathological organisms being created and released unintentionally or intentionally by biohackers has become a matter of concern, for example, in the spirit of the re-creation of the 1917 flu virus by Armed Forces Institute of Pathology researchers in 2005. In the US the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate has worked with the American Association for the Advancement of Science's National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to convene a series of meetings to discuss biosecurity, which have included discussions of amateur biologists and ways to manage the risks to society it poses. At the National Institutes of Health, National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity leads efforts to educate the public on "dual use research of concern", for example with websites like "Science Safety Security". In 2011, DIYbio organized conferences to attempt to create codes of ethics for biohackers.

Pat Mooney, executive director of ETC Group, is a critic of biohacking who argues that—using a laptop computer, published gene sequence information, and mail-order synthetic DNA—just about anyone has the potential to construct genes or entire genomes from scratch (including those of the lethal pathogens) in the near-future. A 2007 ETC Group report warns that the danger of this development is not just bio-terror, but "bio-error".

While no DIYbio project to date has involved harmful agents, the fear remains in the minds of both regulators and laypersons. However, it is often pointed out that DIYbio is at too early a stage to consider such advanced projects feasible, as few successful transformative genetics projects have been undertaken yet. It is also worth noting that, while an individual could conceivably do harm with sufficient skill and intent, there exist biology labs throughout the world with greater access to the technology, skill and funding to accomplish a bioweapons project. 

While detractors argue that do-it-yourself biologists need some sort of supervision, enthusiasts argue that uniform supervision is impossible and the best way to prevent accidents or malevolence is to encourage a culture of transparency, where, in essence, do-it-yourself biologists would be peer reviewed by other biohackers. Enthusiasts argue that fear of potential hazards should be met with increased research and education rather than closing the door on the profound positive impacts that distributed biological technology will have on human health, the environment, and the standard of living around the world. Due to the lack of precedent regarding such a business model, the DIYbio founders see this as an opportunity to be innovators in regulatory and safety policy.

Groups and organizations

Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS) in Baltimore

Biocurious in Sunnyvale, CA

Biofoundry in Sydney

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Posthumanism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Posthumanism or post-humanism (meaning "after humanism" or "beyond humanism") is a term with at least seven definitions according to philosopher Francesca Ferrando:

1. Antihumanism: any theory that is critical of traditional humanism and traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition.
2. Cultural posthumanism: a branch of cultural theory critical of the foundational assumptions of humanism and its legacy that examines and questions the historical notions of "human" and "human nature", often challenging typical notions of human subjectivity and embodiment and strives to move beyond archaic concepts of "human nature" to develop ones which constantly adapt to contemporary technoscientific knowledge.
3. Philosophical posthumanism: a philosophical direction which draws on cultural posthumanism, the philosophical strand examines the ethical implications of expanding the circle of moral concern and extending subjectivities beyond the human species
4. Posthuman condition: the deconstruction of the human condition by critical theorists.
5. Transhumanism: an ideology and movement which seeks to develop and make available technologies that eliminate aging and greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities, in order to achieve a "posthuman future".
6. AI takeover: A more pessimistic alternative to transhumanism in which humans will not be enhanced, but rather eventually replaced by artificial intelligences. Some philosophers, including Nick Land, promote the view that humans should embrace and accept their eventual demise. This is related to the view of "cosmism" which supports the building of strong artificial intelligence even if it may entail the end of humanity as in their view it "would be a cosmic tragedy if humanity freezes evolution at the puny human level".
7. Voluntary Human Extinction, which seeks a "posthuman future" that in this case is a future without humans.

Philosophical posthumanism

Philosopher Ted Schatzki suggests there are two varieties of posthumanism of the philosophical kind:

One, which he calls 'objectivism', tries to counter the overemphasis of the subjective or intersubjective that pervades humanism, and emphasises the role of the nonhuman agents, whether they be animals and plants, or computers or other things.

A second prioritizes practices, especially social practices, over individuals (or individual subjects) which, they say, constitute the individual.

There may be a third kind of posthumanism, propounded by the philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd. Though he did not label it as 'posthumanism', he made an extensive and penetrating immanent critique of Humanism, and then constructed a philosophy that presupposed neither Humanist, nor Scholastic, nor Greek thought but started with a different religious ground motive. Dooyeweerd prioritized law and meaningfulness as that which enables humanity and all else to exist, behave, live, occur, etc. "Meaning is the being of all that has been created," Dooyeweerd wrote, "and the nature even of our selfhood." Both human and nonhuman alike function subject to a common 'law-side', which is diverse, composed of a number of distinct law-spheres or aspects. The temporal being of both human and non-human is multi-aspectual; for example, both plants and humans are bodies, functioning in the biotic aspect, and both computers and humans function in the formative and lingual aspect, but humans function in the aesthetic, juridical, ethical and faith aspects too. The Dooyeweerdian version is able to incorporate and integrate both the objectivist version and the practices version, because it allows nonhuman agents their own subject-functioning in various aspects and places emphasis on aspectual functioning.

Emergence of philosophical posthumanism

Ihab Hassan, theorist in the academic study of literature, has stated:

Humanism may be coming to an end as humanism transforms itself into something one must helplessly call posthumanism.

This view predates most currents of posthumanism which have developed over the late 20th century in somewhat diverse, but complementary, domains of thought and practice. For example, Hassan is a known scholar whose theoretical writings expressly address postmodernity in society. Beyond postmodernist studies, posthumanism has been developed and deployed by various cultural theorists, often in reaction to problematic inherent assumptions within humanistic and enlightenment thought.

Theorists who both complement and contrast Hassan include Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, cyberneticists such as Gregory Bateson, Warren McCullouch, Norbert Wiener, Bruno Latour, Cary Wolfe, Elaine Graham, N. Katherine Hayles, Benjamin H. Bratton, Donna Haraway, Peter Sloterdijk, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana and Douglas Kellner. Among the theorists are philosophers, such as Robert Pepperell, who have written about a "posthuman condition", which is often substituted for the term "posthumanism".

Posthumanism differs from classical humanism by relegating humanity back to one of many natural species, thereby rejecting any claims founded on anthropocentric dominance. According to this claim, humans have no inherent rights to destroy nature or set themselves above it in ethical considerations a priori. Human knowledge is also reduced to a less controlling position, previously seen as the defining aspect of the world. Human rights exist on a spectrum with animal rights and posthuman rights. The limitations and fallibility of human intelligence are confessed, even though it does not imply abandoning the rational tradition of humanism.

Proponents of a posthuman discourse, suggest that innovative advancements and emerging technologies have transcended the traditional model of the human, as proposed by Descartes among others associated with philosophy of the Enlightenment period. In contrast to humanism, the discourse of posthumanism seeks to redefine the boundaries surrounding modern philosophical understanding of the human. Posthumanism represents an evolution of thought beyond that of the contemporary social boundaries and is predicated on the seeking of truth within a postmodern context. In so doing, it rejects previous attempts to establish 'anthropological universals' that are imbued with anthropocentric assumptions.

The philosopher Michel Foucault placed posthumanism within a context that differentiated humanism from enlightenment thought. According to Foucault, the two existed in a state of tension: as humanism sought to establish norms while Enlightenment thought attempted to transcend all that is material, including the boundaries that are constructed by humanistic thought. Drawing on the Enlightenment’s challenges to the boundaries of humanism, posthumanism rejects the various assumptions of human dogmas (anthropological, political, scientific) and takes the next step by attempting to change the nature of thought about what it means to be human. This requires not only decentering the human in multiple discourses (evolutionary, ecological, technological) but also examining those discourses to uncover inherent humanistic, anthropocentric, normative notions of humanness and the concept of the human.

Contemporary posthuman discourse

Posthumanistic discourse aims to open up spaces to examine what it means to be human and critically question the concept of "the human" in light of current cultural and historical contexts In her book How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles, writes about the struggle between different versions of the posthuman as it continually co-evolves alongside intelligent machines. Such coevolution, according to some strands of the posthuman discourse, allows one to extend their subjective understandings of real experiences beyond the boundaries of embodied existence. According to Hayles's view of posthuman, often referred to as technological posthumanism, visual perception and digital representations thus paradoxically become ever more salient. Even as one seeks to extend knowledge by deconstructing perceived boundaries, it is these same boundaries that make knowledge acquisition possible. The use of technology in a contemporary society is thought to complicate this relationship. 

Hayles discusses the translation of human bodies into information (as suggested by Hans Moravec) in order to illuminate how the boundaries of our embodied reality have been compromised in the current age and how narrow definitions of humanness no longer apply. Because of this, according to Hayles, posthumanism is characterized by a loss of subjectivity based on bodily boundaries. This strand of posthumanism, including the changing notion of subjectivity and the disruption of ideas concerning what it means to be human, is often associated with Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg. However, Haraway has distanced herself from posthumanistic discourse due to other theorists’ use of the term to promote utopian views of technological innovation to extend the human biological capacity (even though these notions would more correctly fall into the realm of transhumanism). 

While posthumanism is a broad and complex ideology, it has relevant implications today and for the future. It attempts to redefine social structures without inherently humanly or even biological origins, but rather in terms of social and psychological systems where consciousness and communication could potentially exist as unique disembodied entities. Questions subsequently emerge with respect to the current use and the future of technology in shaping human existence, as do new concerns with regards to language, symbolism, subjectivity, phenomenology, ethics, justice and creativity.

Relationship with transhumanism

Sociologist James Hughes comments that there is considerable confusion between the two terms. In the introduction to their book on post- and transhumanism, Robert Ranisch and Stefan Sorgner address the source of this confusion, stating that posthumanism is often used as an umbrella term that includes both transhumanism and critical posthumanism.

Although both subjects relate to the future of humanity, they differ in their view of anthropocentrism. Pramod Nayar, author of Posthumanism, states that posthumanism has two main branches: ontological and critical. Ontological posthumanism is synonymous with transhumanism. The subject is regarded as “an intensification of humanism.” Transhumanism retains humanism’s focus on the homo sapien as the center of the world but also considers technology to be an integral aid to human progression. Critical posthumanism, however, is opposed to these views. Critical posthumanism “rejects both human exceptionalism (the idea that humans are unique creatures) and human instrumentalism (that humans have a right to control the natural world).” These contrasting views on the importance of human beings are the main distinctions between the two subjects. 

Transhumanism is also more ingrained in popular culture than critical posthumanism, especially in science fiction. The term is referred to by Pramod Nayar as "the pop posthumanism of cinema and pop culture."

Criticism

Some critics have argued that all forms of posthumanism, including transhumanism, have more in common than their respective proponents realize. Linking these different approaches, Paul James suggests that 'the key political problem is that, in effect, the position allows the human as a category of being to flow down the plughole of history': 

“

This is ontologically critical. Unlike the naming of ‘postmodernism’ where the ‘post’ does not infer the end of what it previously meant to be human (just the passing of the dominance of the modern) the posthumanists are playing a serious game where the human, in all its ontological variability, disappears in the name of saving something unspecified about us as merely a motley co-location of individuals and communities.

”

However, some posthumanists in the humanities and the arts are critical of transhumanism (the brunt of Paul James's criticism), in part, because they argue that it incorporates and extends many of the values of Enlightenment humanism and classical liberalism, namely scientism, according to performance philosopher Shannon Bell:

“

Altruism, mutualism, humanism are the soft and slimy virtues that underpin liberal capitalism. Humanism has always been integrated into discourses of exploitation: colonialism, imperialism, neoimperialism, democracy, and of course, American democratization. One of the serious flaws in transhumanism is the importation of liberal-human values to the biotechno enhancement of the human. Posthumanism has a much stronger critical edge attempting to develop through enactment new understandings of the self and others, essence, consciousness, intelligence, reason, agency, intimacy, life, embodiment, identity and the body.

”

While many modern leaders of thought are accepting of nature of ideologies described by posthumanism, some are more skeptical of the term. Donna Haraway, the author of A Cyborg Manifesto, has outspokenly rejected the term, though acknowledges a philosophical alignment with posthumanism. Haraway opts instead for the term of companion species, referring to nonhuman entities with which humans coexist.

Questions of race, some argue, are suspiciously elided within the "turn" to posthumanism. Noting that the terms "post" and "human" are already loaded with racial meaning, critical theorist Zakiyyah Iman Jackson argues that the impulse to move "beyond" the human within posthumanism too often ignores "praxes of humanity and critiques produced by black people", including Frantz Fanon and Aime Cesaire to Hortense Spillers and Fred Moten. Interrogating the conceptual grounds in which such a mode of “beyond” is rendered legible and viable, Jackson argues that it is important to observe that "blackness conditions and constitutes the very nonhuman disruption and/or disruption" which posthumanists invite. In other words, given that race in general and blackness in particular constitutes the very terms through which human/nonhuman distinctions are made, for example in enduring legacies of scientific racism, a gesture toward a “beyond” actually “returns us to a Eurocentric transcendentalism long challenged”.