“Transcendent Man” – A crash course in transhumanism.
I recently had the chance to watch the documentary “Transcendent Man, ” which both summarizes the ideas and work of Ray Kurweil while simultaneously painting a bit of a background on his life and motivations. I have to say, that once the credits rolled, I walked away feeling rather sad but full of new thoughts on what’s coming down the road in the future. Kurzweil’s ideas and timelines are clearly motivated by a personal quest to never die (and even to resurrect the dead, in fact), which pushes him from a brilliant inventor into the realm of a pseudo-religious prophet of technological salvation. To put it bluntly, many consider him a “crackpot,” and while the film isn’t shy about Kurzweil’s critics, I would have enjoyed a greater effort in the film to dispel that notion. Regardless of whether his ideas are pure fantasy or accurate predictions, every time I read something he writes, or hear him speak, my mind and imagination open up; I consider things that I never would have before and it’s exciting. I feel that this is the reason that Kurzweil continues to fascinate people year after year. Even if you’re not willing to travel with him down the full path of his thought, he’s worth listening to because he changes the way you think about the future, about what it means to be human, and about how you will respond to the rapid changes that are defining our lives more and more.
While the film focuses on Kurzweil, I actually found the other people interviewed to be more interesting in a lot of cases. I particularly enjoyed the eccentricity with which “artificial brain builder” Hugo De Garris expressed his ideas, and the sober analysis of Wired Editor, Kevin Kelly. If you have never read any of Kurweil’s books, or are completely unfamiliar with ideas like Transhumanism, this doc is recommended as a crash course. For anyone with a passing knowledge of the subject there’s probably not much new for you here.
