Irish journalist reveals all about transhumanism – as people pay big bucks to be cryogenically frozen after death – The Irish Sun

The transhumanmovement believes that in the future we are going to be able to live forever through technology

IMMORTALITY may be closer than you think.

Irish journalist MARK OCONNOLLs fascinating new book To Be a Machine explores the relatively new phenomenon that is known as transhumanism.

This growing movement believes that in the future we are going to be able to live forever and its not a medical breakthrough that they are counting on but a technological one.

Some transhumanists are paying hundreds of thousands to be cryogenically frozen so, many years from now when technology advances, their brains can be scanned and uploaded and they will be able to live again as a computer.

Others reckon were on the way to becoming cyborgs and its only a matter of time before humanity and technology merge.

Here Mark, tells Fiona about some of the people, organisations and groups who believe sci-fi will soon become sci-fact.

TRANSHUMANISM is essentially a movement based on the conviction that we should and can ultimately use technology to become immortal and to otherwise push out the boundaries of the human condition to transcend the bodily condition.

I mean it sounds quite extreme, and it is, but there are a fair few influential figures in Silicon Valley who are heavily invested in this stuff and believe this is the future evolution of humankind.

When researching this I dealt with people who were, in most cases, very intelligent, scientifically grounded, rationally minded and able to rigorously argue their position.

It left me in a position where I had no grounds to disagree with this stuff but, from a basic human perspective, it sounds insane.

Not only are they afraid of dying but theyve convinced themselves that death is the greatest problem that the human species faces.

Notable transhumanist Aubrey de Gray calls it 30 September 11s every day. He frames dying of old age as a humanitarian crisis.

A lot of the people who are fully invested in this are already quite privileged, like PayPal co-founder and Donald Trump adviser Peter Thiel.

He is also convinced death from ageing is the biggest problem we face as a species.

But if the defeat of ageing becomes a possibility, who is going to benefit from it?

The obvious conclusion is the super rich, who can afford such therapies and technologies. And that will only exacerbate the vast social inequalities that already exist.

But Thiel insists one of the biggest inequalities is that between the living and the dead.

One of the strange things about writing a non-fiction book on this subject is that you come across ideas and people that, if youd written them as fictional characters, youd have to tone down.

At the Alcor Life Extension Foundations cryonics facility outside Phoenix, Arizona in the US, there are theories about what is the best way to die to preserve your body.

Cancer is good, but a heart attack is probably best because you die quickly and there is little cell damage.

Very quickly after the point of death, corpses are brought to the cryonics facility and a cocktail of substances are injected to prevent cell breakdown.

Then they are put in essentially giant Thermos flasks filled with liquid nitrogen and preserved until such time technology becomes sophisticated enough to bring them back. The idea is that were computer programs that can run on other software.

Most transhumanists are quite speculative they talk about future technology.

But these guys in Pittsburgh open source biotechnology startup Grindhouse Wetware talk about building tech to be implanted in their own bodies. They were the guinea pigs for the cyborg future.

They implanted themselves with stuff that would give them the ability to sense magnetic fields, to open the doors of their laboratories by waving their hands.

They say we are already cyborgs and our relationship with tech is so intimate. We just need to push it further.

My impetus for the book was never just to figure out how likely it all was, but to get a sense of those involved.

What gave them this level of faith around technology?

There were moments where I was almost convinced by this vision but ultimately Im still sceptical.

TO Be a Machine: Encounters With a Post-Human Future is in all good bookshops. See mark-oconnell.com.

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Irish journalist reveals all about transhumanism - as people pay big bucks to be cryogenically frozen after death - The Irish Sun