Will it be posthumans rather than humans who explore the galaxy?

Question

By the time we develop the technologies necessary for travelling between stars, I think it is fairly likely that we would have already developed the technology to digitally augment, edit, and upload our minds. After that point, it's almost certain that transhumans are created, and posthumans shortly after that.

Is it more likely that the denizens of the Sol system that end up going out and exploring the galaxy will be humans or digitized posthumans?

Is there anything to prevent posthumanism from developing before we develop interstellar travel? Is it plausible to expect that human governments would impose legislation to prevent posthumanism, and the inevitable singularity afterward? If so, would such legislation even be effective?

Answer 1

Channeling the words of Charlie Stross humans basically aren't built for space.

We're human beings. We evolved to flourish in a very specific environment that covers perhaps 10% of our home planet's surface area. (Earth is 70% ocean, and while we can survive, with assistance, in extremely inhospitable terrain, be it arctic or desert or mountain, we aren't well-adapted to thriving there.) Space itself is a very poor environment for humans to live in. A simple pressure failure can kill a spaceship crew in minutes. And that's not the only threat. Cosmic radiation poses a serious risk to long duration interplanetary missions, and unlike solar radiation and radiation from coronal mass ejections the energies of the particles responsible make shielding astronauts extremely difficult. And finally, there's the travel time. Two and a half years to the Jupiter system; six months to Mars.

Admittedly Charlie was talking about interplanetary travel, and this applies in spades for interstellar travel. Stross says there are solutions to these problems, but as he suggests in his SF novel Saturn's Children (2008) robots and technological creatures are better suited for space travel. Information about the novel can be found here. A bit scant on his posthuman argument. But Stross himself gives more on the circumstances and background to Saturn's Children here. It's also an entertaining read.

One of the early versions of posthumans was proposed as a solution to the rigours of space travel by Manfred E Clynes and Nathan Kline. This concept was the cyborg.

"Space travel challenges mankind not only technologically but spiritually, in that it invites man to take an active part in his own biological evolution," the Astronautics paper began. "Scientific advances of the future may thus be utilized to permit man's existence in environments which differ radically from those provided by nature as we know it."

They criticized the idea of creating human-ready environments up in space, arguing humans should adapt themselves to extraterrestrial conditions, whatever those might be.

Clynes and Kline "coined the word "cyborg" to describe an emerging hybrid of man's machines and man himself. The word itself combined cybernetics, the then-emerging discipline of feedback and control, and organism." A fusion of human and machine as a creature fit for space travel.

Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space . . . Artifact-organism systems which would extend man’s unconscious, self-regulatory controls are one possibility

Their September 1960 paper, Cyborgs and space, in Astronautics can be found here.

Interstellar travel will be one of the biggest challenges for space travelling human beings. When all the problems taken together it becomes obvious that mere fragile biological humans could not survive interstellar space. Converting humans into cyborgs, uploaded minds in cybernetic systems or digitized constructs may be the only solution.

Effectively interstellar travel isn't feasible until humans become posthumans. It doesn't matter if the technology for interstellar travel precedes posthumanization, travel to the stars will take place once posthumans take the helm of our starships.

Posthumans and interstellar travel are made for each other.

Answer 2

In the short to medium term, we have far more understanding of the sorts of technologies conceptually needed to travel in interplanetary space and even nearby interstellar space than we do in even understanding how our minds work, so the idea of post humans spreading out among the planets and stars is a bit moot. Elon Musk will almost certainly be on Mars before anyone even has an inkling of how to do mind uploading.

So the real issue is how fast transhumanism will be developed.

Moving into exotic, strange and hostile environments like the moons and asteroids of the solar system will certainly give a boost to research which will lead in the directions of transhumanism and post humanism. Creating modifications (genetic or technological) to make humans more radiation resistant, more efficient in metabolizing food, capable of existing in more exotic atmospheres and so on makes humans more capable of living and working off planet.

Even if some governments on Earth are against modification, not everyone will be opposed (some governments might actually desire better people to work on their space projects). As well, the people in space, free from their governments on Earth, may choose to carry out programs of modification of their own to better survive the conditions in space.

So in the short to medium term, humans will be spreading through the solar system, but as time passes, a larger and larger percentage of people in space become transhumans. Martians might not be visually different from humans, but microscopic investigation will show modified bone structure, glandular changes to control bone density, red blood cell production and other modifications to adapt to Martian conditions.

With the uncertainty surrounding the idea of digitally uploaded humans, trying to predict the timeframe of when this will happen isn't really something that can be predicted accurately. One thing which might seem counterintuitive is digital post humans might not even want to travel in space. Since electronic signals are faster than electrochemical signals in the brain by a factor of 1,000,000, the 1.3 second light lag between the Earth and the Moon would seem like a subjective week for such a being. The time lag for more distant planets becomes increasingly more arduous for uploaded beings, and the months or years of realtime travel between planets would seem to take centuries for an upload. If it takes a thousand years to get to Alpha Centauri using a solar sail, an upload would be stuck for subjective eons.

Digital uploads might have other means of dealing wth this (including changing their perception of time or modifying their clock speed, or simply living in Matryoshka brain living in a simulated universe. Post human futures will be virtually unknowable to people like us.

Answer 3

This is something I've often wondered about myself! And the biggest deciding factor, I'll have to say, is technology. Specifically, can humans achieve FTL travel, and/or terraform. So here are two possibilities I can consider.

1. Star Trek-Style
   If FTL travel is discovered, and humans can reach nearby systems in relatively short times, then it's not likely humans will evolve too much. The basic human form will be able to manage their own environments to fit their needs; therefore, there's need to alter the design. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Humans may be able to advance their brains' wiring (I.e., able to process thoughts better, etc.), but as far as physical alterations, it'd be fairly consistent.

2. All-Tomorrow's Way
   Assuming FTL travel isn't possible (or, more likely, takes a really long time), then some evolution would occur when colonizing new worlds. Even considering terraforming technologies, gravity and sunlight exposure will definitely play big effects on human physiology.
   For example, Human Martians wouldn't need to be as bulky or short to live on such a world. They'd probably end up looking taller and more spindly than their Earthling counterparts. Humans out near the further reaches of the solar system might end up copying the Neanderthals body plan - short, stocky, built to keep warm.

As for digital augmentation or digital humans...that's harder to say. It depends on the path of technological development. I think it's something to consider for inter-galactic travel, but as far as anything within the solar system, or maybe even within our section of the Milky Way, I'm skeptical.

Answer 4

I think that the first people who make use of mind uploading will be the very rich and powerful. They will lobby to ensure that it is available to them to live on past their mortal meat existence, and get to keep their wealth, influence, and civil rights.

See this question for thoughts on the timeline driven by economics: it will be open only to the wealthy at first and will gradually become possible for middle class etc.

Eventually the uploaded will outnumber the “living”. But long before that, they will be the oligarchs, plutocrats, billionaires, and heads of state from the previous century and the dominant holder of wealth and power.

In order for the luddites to stop them, even at an early stage, would require a movement of the scope and size that topples nation states. Imagine someone who controls a personal fortune of billions and directs corporate assets on the scale of half a trillion; he’s used to making government inquiries against him simply go away, and controlling public opinion not just on products he’s selling but towards his personal positions.

How could the population possibly come together to stop him? In a free republic he controls the masses through advertising and spin, and in a different kind of regime he simply pays off the government (if the government isn’t already the puppet of him and others like him).

Now this is happening to all the aging or ailing über-riche, all over the planet, so the right kind of situation such as a religious backlash or a powerful leader making him or his money “go away” would be a one-off solution for a specific case or culture—you need to stop all of them. As for the one-off, he might get out of that too, defecting to another country that eagerly harbors him (and his money) for a fee; or disappear into the underworld.

So you don’t just have to topple the power base of a nation, but of every nation, with different cultures and styles of government, and prevent it from happening covertly.

In short, you have to prevent advanced technology from existing on a global basis. It has to be cut off at a point where it would require “obvious” infrastructure to build, like chip fabs.

Or, you need a pervasive surveillance state across all nations, to prevent anyone from doing that (and anything else you want to outlaw).

I think, barring the collapse of civilization before that, that it cannot be stopped.