A body lays on the cold metal table, her head is encircled by a plastic-looking structure—not unlike a bedpan in shape and size—which is glowing blue. She's dressed in what could be considered long-Johns or thermals. A child approaches the empty table beside the one the body occupies. This child, Marcy, has no hair, possibly because of chemo-therapy. She's about to take the first leap towards transhumanism by being digitally transferred from her frail, sick body into a synthetic, powerful one.
This is the beginning of a subplot in the new TV series, Alien Earth, and it is an exquisite exploration of humanity, self, and the consequences of technology interacting with both. No real spoilers here, so if you're still wanting to get started on the show (which I highly recommend if you can stand the gore and horror—none of which will be in this newsletter), you should be pretty safe to read on...
Hybrids
There are a range of humanoid beings in the Alien universe, and Alien Earth specifies three from the first frame of the entire show:
- Cyborgs: Humans with technological enhancements (human body and mind—mostly)
- Hybrids: Synthetic beings with human consciousness (previously human before downloading their consciousness into the new body)
- Synths: Synthetic beings with artificial intelligence (entirely non-human)
The hybrids in the show are the very first of their kind. They are the seemingly successful creations of a corporation called Prodigy, run by trillionaire man-child, Boy Kavalier. Boy's scientists and technologists created the synthetic bodies and to finish the experiment, they selected a small group of children with life-threatening diseases or debilitating conditions to undergo the transfer of consciousness from their bodies into their new "immortal" bodies.
It's an interesting concept: if it were possible to somehow duplicate your brain with some kind of series of snapshots that build the model of your consciousness in the digital realm, is a download all that is really needed at that point? I mean, if you, yourself, are simply a collection of memories and goals, then who knows? This could be a possibility in the distant future.
Ah, but here we have already come to the philosophical snag in the concept of hybrids: is that truly the entire self? Some musty, imperfect memories and a collection of weird impulses to pursue intellectually or physically? In addition to the concern that this is not all that creates our "self," there is the question of whether the process of transfer would remove our humanity. Meaning, is our humanity also linked to our human bodies? Are these hybrids still humans after the process? Are they even the same people that they were before, just in a different body?
Co-executive producer of Alien Earth, Migizi Pensoneau, shared some thoughts on the show's official podcast that are helpful. (Yes, my surprising and sudden obsession with this show runs deep...)
"My personal opinion on the humanity of a hybrid is that I just wrote them as humans...You're writing these characters not as the sort of synthetic bodies or the way that they're perceived, but you...melt that away and you get down to the fact that these are kids going through this new experience that nobody before them has ever been through."
Ok, so he seemed to see the humanity in these hybrid characters, and I would agree from the portrayal in the show. The hybrids pass the Turing test when Marcy's brother says she feels like his sister, though something like our HADD bias may still be at play, tricking us into seeing what we want to see.
Pensoneau adds one more variable to the complexity of this issue of humanity, that I think is particularly important:
...it's really our consciousness, our sense of self that makes a human human. And for me, I would take it one step further that it's not just our relationship to ourself or the awareness of us having a self, but instead it is a relationship to others and how we care for or how we feel about others. That connection to another person, another being, another creature or whatever...we are connected on some level to other beings around us. And I think that the hybrids, even though their bodies are synthetic, their consciousness is constantly reaching out towards others...that was enough for me to say they're human."
Self
The uncomfortable part of philosophizing about one's Self is that things get confusing (I blame Prototype Theory, in part). The moment we start drawing lines around concepts, the less we get out of the concepts. For example, if my Self, my consciousness, is wholly dependent upon my likes, dislikes, memories, goals, and even my autonomy, then how am I any different than a rat or a moth? Humans are social creatures, so it makes sense that part of our humanity would not just include our concept of Self, but also our relationships to others (human and non-human alike). As soon as we introduce other Selves, they start to influence my Self—so where is the line of my Self, separate from other Selves?
Maybe it's that fixation on trying to draw boundaries that is the root of the issue. We are not healthy in total isolation of others. We are made of the ancestors that came before, the contemporary humans we interact with, and our own Self also influences and interacts with our contemporaries and our genetic circumstances.
Reverend Elizabeth M. Edman wrote an excellent examination of the tension between our own Self and the Other in her book, Queer Virtue:
One way people get it wrong is by radicalizing the separation of Self and Other. Perhaps the worst version of this happens when the Other becomes cast not just as different, but despised...The Despised Other is someone who has become so alien to you that you stop being able to conceive of that person as human.
The inverse of the Despised Other would be the collapse of those categories as distinct at all. Co-opting the Other into one's Self can be a profoundly abusive act. Sometimes the collapse is the result of a kind of suffocating faux love. Sometimes it is born of privilege that simply fails to perceive that there are others present who are markedly different...Either way, as with the invention of the Despised Other, the end result is an erasure of the Other's humanity, rendering a person or community invisible or nonexistent.
These are extreme situations, to be sure, but the fundamental balancing act in navigating the relationship between Self and Other exists for all of us. You and I could come up with hundreds of daily, mundane situations in which clarity about Self and Other is something that you have to figure out, outcomes that affect your well-being or the well-being of another person. Understanding and negotiating one's sense of self and one's connection to others, drawing appropriate boundaries while maintaining necessary interconnection, is of vital importance. Getting it right, maybe the core ethical challenge of the human condition.
...and that's all with just plain old humans in human bodies.
While I love getting confounded by these philosophical puzzles, I also worry that we get distracted by science fiction as we argue about the humanity of some invented character in an invented world. I worry because I see it in myself: anger and injury leading me to deny the humanity of other humans—even the truly awful humans. I'd rather sit in a haze thinking about whether a consciousness keeps its initial humanity as it transfers to another body than reconsider how I am currently talking about a harmful public figure or politician.
So I echo Reverend Edman's words, if only to try and convince myself to remember: "Understanding and negotiating one's sense of self and one's connection to others, drawing appropriate boundaries while maintaining necessary interconnection, is of vital importance."
Cyborg
As actual science is catching up with science fiction, we find new applications for these metaphors. While we don't need to be overly concerned with hybrids in the real world right now, the idea of hybrids can still help us work out issues that we are facing right now.
The more I consider what makes hybrids human or not helps me work out my own humanity. What makes me human? What values do I want to express? What are the things I cannot lose, because their loss would remove my own humanity?
Interestingly enough, just like the squishy boundaries of considering Self and Other, as I consider humanity I find myself in a more expansive state that includes more than just humans. We are part of an environment with other life forms and my actions—even my existence—affect the world around me.
The implication in Alien Earth is that this transfer of consciousness only goes one way: one of the scientists remarks that worst case, they just killed a bunch of kids. Sometimes it feels like we are also going through this process of transfer as the digital realm continuously pulls us back to it. However, we have a unique option available to us with our current real-life technology. We can move to the digital environment, but we can also move back into our bodies and interact with the real world again.
We aren't trapped in the synthetic, altered state that corporations would prefer for us to be trapped in. Right now we can still make the choice to be embodied humans and enjoy what that means for good and bad, health and sickness. We can still make the choice to see the humanity in every human, even though the digital realm often encourages the opposite.
What makes up your humanity?