spacer1

Is the technologization of Man inevitable?

By this I mean that our organic bodies will be replaced by more efficient and durable "man"-made parts. This process can be seen as occurring in piecemeal fashion, dependent upon technological breakthroughs.

The above rests on the assumption of some form of natural evolution, whereby that which offers one an advantage, or more genrally, a better chance of survival, including the survival of one's genes into the future, will be subjectively favoured over the status quo.

Considering a foreseeable world where artificial organs and body parts do become more efficient and durable than their organic counterparts, mankind's technologization does seem inevitable, assuming that the majority of people favour these better, technologized parts.

Such a progression also seems to indicate a secondary form of self-replication, with childbirth being the primary, natural form. In this (secondary) case, we are recreating ourselves in our own images, not through our children, but through our technology.

Of course, it could be argued that such a progression has already been underway for millenia. Could we stop it, even if we wanted to?

Doubting Didymus

Despite the fact that the word 'evolution' can be used to simply mean 'progress', the 'evolution' your talking about here isn't really anything to do with the theory of biological evolution, which is this forums topic. It's the fault of whomever named the theory, really, as 'evolution' isn't the best term to describe evolution. Next stop, science and scepticism.

Godot

Bloody Darwin should've known better *grumble, grumble*


spacer1:One of the greatest limitations for what you are proposing is the ability of the body to adapt and accept these new technologies. One of the greatest risks in organ transplants is that the host body may choose to reject the new tissue unless this response is suppressed by really, really, heapum good drugs.
Same goes for artificial limbs/parts/tissues. Your body is quite finicky; foreign bodies don't fare too well.

So no, I don't see anything of the sort occuring in the foreseeable future without some magnificently large leaps in biomedical science practices.

secular-knight 69

Check out the philosophy of transhumanism.

Entropic_Gnosis

[borg] you will be assimilated[/borg]