Beyond Human

OMSLAG COLOPHON BINNENCONTENTS VOOR EDITED BY J.M. Kelder A. Mouret D. van Soest K. van den Wijngaard PHOTOGRAPHY Peter Akkermans p6 en p8 Richard Currier P10 04 –– 05 24 –– 27 Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast p14 ALEXANDER MOURET NEIL HARBISSON Jean-Marc Côté p17 Introduction & MOON RIBAS Robotic Engineering p19 The renaissance of humansw Lotje Sodderland p21 Lucymcrae.net p20 en 21 Ekso Bionics p22 06 –– 09 28 –– 35 Open Bionics, Eidos-Montréal and Razer p23 PETER AKKERMANS KOERT VAN MENSVOORT Daniel Gower p21 Back to the future or: how climate change Letter to humanity Julian Love p22 shaped society in ancient syria Justin Jay p24 en 27 Shutterstock p 28 en 44 Gist Croft, Alessia Deglincerti, and Ali H. Brivanlou/The Rockefeller University p41 10 –– 13 36 –– 39 Su-Chun Zhang p40 RICHARD CURRIER MASHYA BOON Blackberry p43 Humans and Symbolic Communication The science-fiction of the human self DESIGN Studio Fraaj, Rotterdam 14 –– 17 40 –– 43 PRINT GIDEON SHIMSHON ROBERT ZWIJNENBERG Twigt GrafiMedia, Moordrecht Build your own professor: The rise of the Whose is the human embryo? automated campus experience The dilemmas of human enhancement A BRAVE NEW WORLD PUBLICATION The copyright of the photographs and 18 –– 21 44 –– 46 illustrations rests with the various LUCY MCRAE MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN authors. The Publisher has endeavored The future evolution of humans to settle image rights in accordance with legal requirements. Any party who nevertheless deems they have 22 –– 23 claim to certain rights may apply KRISTIAN ESSER to the Publisher. Technolympics: how humans will become aware of the cyborg evolution LEIDEN TICKETS & INFO: STADSGEHOORZAAL WWW.BRAVENEWWORLD.NL LEIDEN TICKETS & INFO: STADSGEHOORZAAL WWW.BRAVENEWWORLD.NL LEIDEN TICKETS & INFO: STADSGEHOORZAAL WWW.BRAVENEWWORLD.NL LEIDEN TICKETS & INFO: STADSGEHOORZAAL WWW.BRAVENEWWORLD.NL INTRODUCTION BEYOND HUMAN ROOTS AND CAUSES OF A BRAVE NEW WORLD Where do we come from, and where see the world differently, to measure municator allowed it to become the have to think about the consequenc- and by looking not only towards the do we go? These basic questions it, conceptualize it and, eventually, world’s dominant species, to build es; about the ethical implications future, but also by looking back, we have driven humanity since prehisto- organize and alter it. Domestication, cities, and create civilizations. The of our drive to become, as Yuval hope to offer some ideas about the ry, and attempts to answer these the rise of agricultural societies and other, by Gideon Shimshon, explores Harari recently wrote, a Homo Deus. aforementioned questions, where do questions have resulted in myriad cities – the direct antecedents of our how natural limitations in our capac- Rob Zwijnenberg offers a thought come from, and where do we go. cultural expressions and scientific own society – were all enabled by ity to communicate and to teach may, provoking piece on precisely these As the director of Brave New World, breakthroughs. Man’s place in the that singular capacity to communi- in the near future, be overcome with ethical questions, whereas Mashya I sincerely hope that you enjoy both wider world, in our environment, cate, to talk. the aid of Artificial Intelligence. Boon explores another potential this publication and the conference, ALEXANDER MOURET was captured already by Homo implication of human enhancement participate in the discussions and Director of Sapiens — our own species — some The transference of ideas and Indeed, our species’ biological lim- and, in particular, human cloning: share our interest for the world of Brave New World 17,000 years ago: think of the rock viewpoints is a constant factor in the itations appear to become increas- how may these developments impact tomorrow, and all that it may bring. paintings at Lascaux (France), history of mankind, and even today, ingly irrelevant. We are now moving on our idea of identity – on who we for example, with its numerous we are thinking about better, more towards an age where the human are, and what we feel we ought to be. depictions of local fauna, such as efficient ways to transfer ideas to body can, and is, modified according But this publication also includes a wild bulls, horses and deer, and other groups and to the next gener- to our own wishes and requirements. call to embrace these developments, it is here, in a very visual and still ations, so that they may learn, and And we are not just talking plastic to see what innovations might bring recognizable form, that we may see learn again, as Constantine Cavafy surgery here, but about far more and improve on us – a call for the a glimpse of what makes our species would have it, from those who know. substantial modifications of our Technolympics; games for cyborgs. so special. One of the things that But we are now at a stage that even body. What to think about genetically Brave New World was founded with may cause modern people, homo the extraordinary natural capacities altering a human embryo so that the aim to bring together academics, sapiens, to stand apart from other of our species to pass on knowledge it may avoid contracting a deadly artists, story-tellers and anyone who animals, is our ability to communi- may be superseded by the qualities disease when it grows up? And if this feels they have a claim on develop- cate efficiently, most notably through of our creation, of Artificial Intelli- is ok, what should we then think of ments that may trouble or benefit us linguistic and visual symbolism. It is gence. This publication includes two the logical next step; the improve- tomorrow. It is a conference about our ability to talk, to tell stories, that essays that touch on aspects of our ment of humans not in order to avoid what dreams may come, how we allows us, for example, to tell the species’ capacity to communicate, genetically inherent diseases, but to ought to deal with radical new de- time, to transfer an idea from one and our desire to improve this skill boost its natural capacities: to make velopments, whether we should be person to another or, indeed, from even further. One, by Richard Currier, it stronger, taller, quicker, more intel- wary or embrace new opportunities, one group of people to other groups. offers a breathtaking overview of ligent? Biotechnological innovations new discoveries and new technolog- And this capacity enabled men to how Homo Sapiens’ skills as a com- are rapidly gaining pace, and we ical advances. With this publication, 4 5 PETER AKKERMANS BEYOND HUMAN Most people will associate Syria with the catastroph- was a period of major change and innovations, most ic Civil War that currently rages there, and with the notably the introduction of pottery and the rise of the savagery of Islamic State, and envision an inhospitable first villages; of sedentary life. Syria, it seems, was well country, with deserted villages set amidst a barren on its way towards ‘civilization’. INTERVIEW BACK desert. But this wasn’t always the case. In fact, much of By 6,200 BC, however, the picture had radical- what we, in the West, nowadays consider as ‘normal’ ly different changed. Many, though (and this needs —a settled life, with flourishing towns and cities— was emphasizing, not all) of the hamlets and villages that TO THE FUTURE OR: first pioneered in Syria and the region around it. From had dotted the landscape appear to have been used the 10th millennium BC onwards, humans appear to as temporary (perhaps seasonal?) stopovers, or were inleidig HOW CLIMATE CHANGE have gradually given up on their hitherto mobile life, ex- abandoned altogether. Archaeologists were left baffled changing a life as hunter-gatherer for one of agriculture. by this apparent regression: why would people who had It is still debated why people decided to give up on their inhabited a village for several generations, apparently SHAPED SOCIETY IN old and quite successful ways of life, but climate change quite suddenly, desert their village and ancestral lands? has been a popular explanation —in this case, the end It was long thought that climate change, in this of the last Ice Age (the so-called Younger Dryas). Rising case a particularly abrupt case climate change, was the ANCIENT SYRIA temperatures and increased rainfall would have made culprit, but a team of archaeologist is now challenging dry-farming an attractive way of life, and small groups this scenario. There certainly is good evidence for major of people, often no more than a family or so, started to climatic change around this time. “We are talking a tilt the lands. Barley, peas, lentils and bitter vetch and significant drop in temperature of some 2°C over the PETER chickpeas appear to have been staple crops to the first course of perhaps as little as a generation”, says Peter AKKERMANS farming communities, thus laying the foundations of Akkermans, professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at some of the things that we today hold most dear: beer Leiden University. At Tell Sabi Abyad, a Neolithic settle- is Full Professor of Near and falafel. ment hill north of Raqqa, Akkermans and his team saw Eastern Archaeology at the effects of this sudden cooling of the climate. “Where Leiden University. He has there previously had been several clusters of habita- been intensively involved in tion, with houses that may have been in use for several archaeological field projects generations, we noticed that several of these clusters in Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, were left abandoned around 6200 BC. Only in one part Syria and Jordan for over 30 of the Tell did we find evidence for continued human years. He is director of one habitation –but in a completely different way and at a of the largest archaeological different place on the hill from what had gone before”.

Load more