{"id":42537,"date":"2018-02-20T12:35:03","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T20:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=42537"},"modified":"2018-02-20T12:35:03","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T20:35:03","slug":"altered-carbon-not-future-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/altered-carbon-not-future-science-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Altered Carbon is not about the future \u2013 and nor is any other science fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The hopes and dreams of the technological movement known as \u201ctranshumanism\u201d have been brought into the\u00a0media spotlight<\/a>\u00a0thanks to Netflix\u2019s new science fiction series,\u00a0Altered Carbon<\/a>\u00a0(based on Richard Morgan\u2019s 2001 novel).<\/p>\n

Transhumanists<\/a>\u00a0believe that our species will soon undergo a technological evolution into a new and superior form. While there is no single template for transhumanism\u2019s imagined future, there are a number of recurring motifs, such as enhanced cognition, improved bodies and extended lifespans. Sometimes the emphasis is on enhanced biology; sometimes on the supplementation or replacement of the body by technology.<\/p>\n

Altered Carbon plays with the ingredients of one transhumanist vision in particular. This is personal immortality through the transferal of the individual human mind into a computer program, which may then be indefinitely preserved and duplicated through a succession of different bodies. And so one could easily think of Altered Carbon as simply an elaboration of the transhumanist worldview \u2013 a prophecy of the near future presented in popular entertainment for a mass audience. This assumption is certainly encouraged by\u00a0promotional coverage<\/a>, which invites cast members to predict technological developments of the next 200 years.<\/p>\n