Five - Decoding the Self

Summary

Chapter 5 explores transhumanist conceptions of the self. Transhumanist conceptions of the self have been variously described as “informatic,” “quantified,” or “data-based,” and a number of scholars have shown how these conceptions of the self have emerged from a cross-fertilization between the fields of neuro-science, computer science, and artificial intelligence. However, in this chapter, I put transhumanist conceptions of the self in conversation with Alfred Irving Hallowell's work on “The Ojibiwa Self and its Behavioral Enviornment.” In so doing, the chapter provides some new insights into the way transhumanists conceive of the self and the future behavioral enviornments in which posthuman descendants will dwell. The chapter argues that like the Ojibiwa, transhumanists also envision a future in which personhood will not be the sole domain of humanity, but rather, distributed among an array of “other-than-human” powerful beings.