I mentioned last time that Jeff Gerke's nascent print-on-demand publishing house, Marcher Lord Press (hereafter MLP), has some impressive titles. They deal with important, timely issues such as transhumanism.
A friend of mine asked me a while back what the next step was, since gay rights hasn't had much true resistance lately. I said the transgendered movement was next, but the ultimate goal was transhumanism.
Then I got to explain what that was.
I would have been easier to simply loan him a copy of The Personifid Invasion by R. E. Bartlett, a novel that explores the ultimate triumph or tragedy of transhumanism: people uploading their consciousness to a kind of android, thereby shedding their human weaknesses, including mortality. That's a pretty Faustian deal, and the price is going to be steep.
Now, at the risk of spoiling my own plots, since I pursue the same topic in the "League of Superheroes" origin series, I don't think this is possible. To transfer one's consciousness would mean that it was nothing more than a collection of physical phenomena--electrical patterns, for example. That's the atheist worldview, where everything is ultimately just physics, no spiritual phenomena allowed. One of the fundamental concepts of Christianity is that there are phenomena from outside the physical realm, and our consciousness is among them.
However, we may view this as a mere plot device so that the transhumanist idea may be explored in some detail.
Bartlett also provides a spiritual phenomenon as counterpoint: "interterrestrials," also known to us superstitious types as demons. Apparently their existence is accepted by the people who push personifids as the secular version of the Resurrection. That sounds about right: Screwtape's "materialist magician" has arrived.
In any case, the question of what humanity really is has become a very practical, vital question today, and some people are too quick to ignore the fact that God gave us our bodies as the proper interface with his creation. I doubt we can improve on his design: all attempts to overcome design limitations (and those brought about by the Fall) will surely just move us further out of touch with both Creation and Creator. If The Personifid Invasion helps get that point across, it will have served us well.
Well, let's see what everyone else on the CSFF tour has to say...
Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Courtney
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Kameron M. Franklin
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Tina Kulesa
Mike Lynch
Terri Main
Margaret
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Greg Slade
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise
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4 comments:
Great post! I am very excited about this new publishing company and the books that it will produce!
Blessings on your blog,
Merrie
have to say I agree with you full heartedly, Steve, though I managed not to go on and on about that (I can't promise I didn't go on and on about anything else, though because of course I did!)
I hadn't really considered the whole transgender issue in connection with The Personifid Invasion, but it totally parallels Bartlett's storyline. Scary thought, in one respect, but an everyday phenomenon in reality. I wonder if an unbiased study has ever been done on the long-term psychological and emotional consequences of the transgender surgery / lifestyle.
There's a definite sequence: if we can disregard God's intention for male and female in general (thus homosexuality), we can defy it in our individual case (transgenderism). And as long as we're up, why not branch out and defy his design in general (transhumanism)?
But God is not mocked--at least not successfully--so bad results arise when we try to reverse-engineer the omniscient Designer's work. (And you can void your warranty, too.)
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