Julian Huxley is debatably the first man to write about Transhumanism. Ironically, his brother Aldous Huxley wrote the novel Brave New World. Julian Huxley’s book New Bottles for New Wine was published in 1957, and had multiple references to what would become Transhumanist thought. The first essay (and the one this post is about) is aptly titled Transhumanism.
Transhumanism is a short, 4-page outline that is the first paper to describe Transhumanist theory and ideas in the context of Transhumanism (seriously if you’re a Transhumanist, please read this. You can knock it out in 10 minutes and it is foundational to Transhumanism). It discusses many ideas that would come to be essential to transhumanism, such as: Science and Technology uplifting our species, transcending our limits with technology, mankind as the director of evolution, and advancing away from a primitive past.
To make one thing clear, Huxley makes it very clear that Transhumanism isn’t about body augmentation at this point. As Huxley said, “We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.” (P. 17). Huxley believed that while humanity will fundamentally change into something else “as different as ours as we are compared to Peking man”, we will still remain human. What makes humanity Transhumans according to Huxley is Humanity becoming the director of its own evolution, and using science and technology to transcend their problems and achieve limitless possibilities.
Key Concepts covered:
The Universe becoming self-aware
The interesting thing about intelligent life according to Huxley is the fact that we are capable of understanding the universe. Since we are part of the universe, humans and other intelligent lifeforms are in a sense; the universe being conscious of itself. Humans are the climax of thousands of millions of years of evolution. From the first viroids to primitive animals. Eventually, humans were the final current result. We represent a turning point because we are the first species that can understand the universe and control our destiny. This is the precursor to the later idea that Humans represent a sort of biological singularity event.
Anthropocentric Determinism
Anthropocentric Determinism is the idea that Humanity will naturally drive evolution of both itself and other animals, and change the Earth itself. Humanity does this because it’s influence will always fundamentally change any environment that it is apart of. And as humanity becomes more educated, it will be able to purposefully drive evolutionary changes.
Huxley believes that because of Humanity’s sentience and intelligence; they have been forced into the role of director of evolution, their own and all evolution on Earth. And furthermore, we don’t have a choice in the matter because no matter what we do, it will impact the world. It is our inescapable destiny to direct evolution on Earth, and the sooner we come to this realization according to Huxley, the better. That is why our current era is called the Anthropocene for instance.
The unlimited possibilities of Individuals
During the mid-20th century when Huxley wrote this during a time when the world was beginning to rapidly develop during the post-war world. During this time, the quality of life was rapidly rising for people across the globe, due to previous major advances in science and technology. Western agriculture for example heavily reduced famines, and technology like automobiles, phones, radio, refrigeration, etc. allowed previously-undeveloped people to develop extremely rapidly.
Huxley believed that this revolution in technology had shown the possibilities of a higher-quality life to the global poor. Thanks to science, people were now understanding that they didn’t have to be chronically underfed and diseased. This revelation shifted the baseline of expectations for people on what a “high quality” life truly is. Huxley believed that this was the start, and that more and more scientific and technological development could exponentially expand our horizon of possibilities, and that we can have true satisfaction.
Science and Technology increasing possibilities
For humanity to prepare for its role as a driver of progress, we have to first find our limits and what possibilities are open to us. For example; we have finished exploring the globe, but now humans should extend their horizons to space. In that framing, we may have explored the world and that may look like a huge accomplishment to early humanity. But we have countless worlds to explore, and what we thought was the edge of humanity’s potential ended up only being a molecule of realized possibilities in an endless ocean of worlds waiting for their explorer. And if we can travel to different universes; that is an endless amount of endless oceans of uncountable worlds.
This applies to humans themselves too. The geniuses and athletes of the past have shown us how smart and strong a human could be without enhancement. With improved medical advancements, we can make people so much smarter and stronger. It is well known that Huxley was a eugenicist, so he definitely touches on that here.
Creating a new social environment
Huxley believed that to best achieve this great future that is laid out for Humanity, we have to create an ideal institutional and social environment to create the best people. Huxley was very concerned about overpopulation and thought it had the potential to derail humanity. Huxley believed that we should focus on the quality of people instead of the quantity of them (hence his being a Eugenicist). He believed that new methods of education and self-education should be deployed en masse to educate the population. This idea of self-education and technology to improve education would be a major theme in later Transhumanist thought.
Huxley also believed that because humanity is on the other to progress, that people are in a constant state of overturning old institutions that stand in the way of a higher quality of life. Once people understand that progress leads to a higher quality of life by seeing it in other countries, they will tear-down the institutions that stand in the way. This view was somewhat vindicated by the collapse of the USSR.
Humanity transcending itself (Transhumanism)
Huxley believed that Humanity would transcend as a collective instead of as individuals. More like Transhumanity instead of individual Transhumans. He believed that once enough people embraced the viewpoint of driving progress, that we will be a fundamentally new type of Humanity; Transhumans. Even though Transhumans are still biologically humans, they’re fundamentally different than the humans that came before, like how modern humans are to Peking Man (according to him).
