当科幻作家和未来学家想象遥远未来的人类时,他们绝不会认为我们的后代会和现在一模一样。 毕竟,我们将能够使用强大的工具将我们变成半机械改造人并破解DNA,因此我们可以无限制地重塑自身。
但是我们的后代会变得多奇怪呢? 以下是关于未来后人类的10个绝对最奇异的愿景。

When science fiction writers and futurists imagine humans of the far future, they never think our descendants are going to look exactly the same as we do now. After all, we'll have access to powerful tools to turn us into cyborgs and hack our DNA, so there's no limit to how we could reinvent ourselves.But just how weird could our progeny become? Here are 10 of the absolute strangest visions of our post-human future.

顶图由Dougal Dixon绘制,摘自1980年代的Omni杂志,内容是关于5000万年后人类可能的样子。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Top illustration drawn by Dougal Dixon and taken from a 1980s issue of Omni Magazine about what humans might look like in 50 million years.

1. 自愿退化

1. Voluntary devolution

比起考虑我们应该向后而不是向前迈出一大步的可能性,难道还有更好的开头来列出人类最奇怪愿景的前10名吗? 自愿退化认为我们应该重新设计人类物种直到人类不再先进到被认为是人类的程度。 这个愿景的基本前提是人类本质上就很糟糕,从进化的角度来看,我们有义务退化到无害状态。 通过退回前文明状态,我们将不再对我们自己、自然环境和地球本身构成威胁。 这种观点可以被看作一种矛盾的超级卢德主义,其中进步不是以人类能力的增加和完善来衡量的,而是基于其倒退来衡量的。 最终目标将是文明的终结和人类重返丛林。


What better way to start a top 10 list of the weirdest visions for humanity than by considering the possibility that we take a massive step backwards rather than forward? Voluntary devolution is the idea that we should re-engineer the human species to the point where we're no longer advanced enough to be considered human. The basic premise here is that humans basically suck, and we should take it upon ourselves to regress, from an evolutionary standpoint, to a state of harmlessness. By becoming pre-civilizational, we would stop being a threat to ourselves, the animal kingdom, and the planet itself. This perspective could be interpreted as a kind of oxymoronic uber-Luddism, where progress is measured not by the increase and refinement of human capacities, but instead by its regression. The ultimate goal would be the end of civilization and our return to the jungle.

2.人类自愿灭绝

2. Voluntary human extinction

但是,当你可以完全消灭人类物种时,为什么要止步于此——让每个人都自愿灭绝自己不是更好吗?这就是自愿人类灭绝运动 (VHEMT) 的目标,这是一个积极致力于逐步淘汰人类物种的激进运动,要求我们(非常礼貌地)停止繁殖。 VHEMT 的口号是“May we live long and die out”,其最终目标是让地球恢复到自然、健康的状态。 人类消失后,地球上所有剩余生物都可以自由地生存、死亡和进化。 人类自愿灭绝理论的拥护者坚称,他们并不是厌恶人类,只是想提供一种“激动人心的替代方案,以消除对地球生态的冷酷剥削和大规模破坏”。

But why stop there when you can eliminate the human species altogether — and better yet, do it in such a way that everybody buys into it? Such is the goal of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), an activist movement that is actively working to phase out the human species, by asking us (very politely) to stop breeding. Armed with the slogan, "May we live long and die out," VHEMT's eventual goal is to return the Earth to its natural, healthy state. With humanity gone, all the remaining creatures on Earth could be free to live, die, and evolve on their own. Adherents of the voluntary human extinction model maintain that they're not misanthropic, they're just providing an "encouraging alternative to the callous exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth's ecology."

3,生态型人类的兴起

3. The rise of the eco-human

一些具有环保意识的未来主义者不满足于看到人类退化或逐渐灭绝——但他们也不相信我们有能力应对气候变化和其他生态灾难。 因为他们认为解决这些问题的方法是让人类志愿改造自身以更好地与地球和谐相处。 在一篇题为“人类工程与气候变化”的论文中,哲学家S. Matthew Liao、Anders Sandberg和Rebecca Roache提出人类应该采取诸如药理诱导的肉类不耐受(肉类生产对环境的影响异常严重)、基因工程猫眼以减少我们对照明的需求、缩小我们的身体尺寸以减少我们的生态足迹(他们建议男性体重减少21%,女性体重减少25%)之类的措施。 他们还希望增强人类的意志力,认为这将改善我们的同情心和利他主义感受的外围效应。


Some environmentally conscious futurists aren't content to see humanity devolve or wither away into extinction — but they're also not convinced of our ability to address climate change and other ecological disasters. The solution to such problems, they argue, is to have humans voluntarily modify ourselves, to better live in harmony with the planet. In a paper titled "Human Engineering and Climate Change," philosophers S. Matthew Liao, Anders Sandberg, and Rebecca Roache make the case that humans should resort to such measures as pharmacologically induced meat intolerance (since meat production is exceptionally hard on the environment), genetically engineering cat-eyes to reduce our need for lighting, and reducing our physical size to lessen our ecological footprint (they recommend a 21% reduction in body mass for men, and 25% for women). They're also hoping to see us increase our will-power, which they argue will have the peripheral effect of improving our feelings of empathy and altruism.

4. 转基因人

4. Transgenic humans

但是,当我们可以从动物世界全盘借鉴基因时,为什么要局限于添加一些新特征呢? 允许人类和动物特征的基因混合的转基因技术可以创造几乎无穷无尽的“人-动物”杂交种。 我们的动物朋友也有很多让人羡慕的优点:狗的听觉和嗅觉比我们好得多,猫可以在黑暗中看到东西,一些灵长类动物的记忆能力比我们强,鸟类的视力非常好。 展望未来,我们可以对自己进行转基因改造,愿意变成超人的人都可获得鹰的眼睛、蜥蜴的鳞片或鲸类动物的适航性——想象一下与一群宽吻海豚一起嬉戏。


But, why limit ourselves to adding a few new traits, when we can borrow wholesale from the animal kingdom? Transgenic technologies, which allow for the genetic intermingling of human and animal characteristics, could allow for a nearly endless array of human-animal hybrids. There's plenty to envy among our non-human friends, too: Dogs hear and smell much better than we do, cats can see in the dark, some primates have better memorization skills than us, and birds have remarkably strong vision. Looking ahead to the day when we can apply transgenic modifications to ourselves, many would-be transhumans would like to acquire the eyes of a hawk, the scales of a lizard, or the seaworthiness of cetaceans — imagine being able to swim alongside a pod of bottlenosed dolphins.

5. 有脑无力

5. All brain, and no brawn

这是人类以牺牲身体为代价进化出巨大大脑的经典猜想。H.G.威尔斯在其1893年出版的晦涩小说《The Man of the Year Million》中提出了这样的观点:人类对技术的依赖最终将导致对体力的需求减少,对脑力的需求增加。威尔斯认为,即使是简单的刀和叉也使人的下巴变得多余。像机动交通这样的现代便利将导致腿部、躯干和几乎所有肌肉萎缩--因此我们的后代大概会成为靠手走路的巨大大脑。但这一猜想究竟有多现实?根据达尔文的原则,如果身体特征没有被持续的选择压力所强化,就会开始消失。人类的阑尾就是一个典型的例子--一个 "不使用它就失去它 "的典型案例。至于《星际迷航》中Talosians那种巨大的、球形的头盖骨则不太可能,鉴于大脑的体积与智力无关,以及我们正在逐步将我们的思维转移到外部设备上。


This is the classic vision of a humanity that has evolved a massive brain at the expense of its body. In his obscure 1893 story, "The Man of the Year Million," H.G. Wells posited the idea that humanity's dependence on technology will ultimately result in a decreased reliance on the body, and more on the brain. Even the simple knife and fork, argued Wells, would eventually make the human jaw redundant. Modern conveniences like motorised transportation woud result in the withering away of legs, torsos, and practically all muscles — so our descendants would essentially become huge brains that walk around on their hands. But just how realistic is this vision? According to Darwinian principles, physical characteristics will in fact start to disappear if they're not continually reinforced by sextional pressures. The human appendix is a prime example — a classic case of "use it or lose it." As for massive, bulbous craniums like the ones displayed by theTalosians of Star Trek, that's probably unlikely, given that brain size is not correlated with intelligence, and the fact that we're progressively offloading our thinking to external devices.

6. 蜂群思维

6. The Hive Mind

蜂群思维,就像弗兰克-赫伯特的《Hellstrom's Hive》中的昆虫人或《星际迷航》中知名的博格人那样,也是一种可能的未来人类状态,其中人类的社会组织已经升级到类似蚂蚁或蜜蜂的超级有机体形式。在这种状态下,个人的意志在很大程度上被集体的要求所压倒,或者被某种总体性的中央智慧或集体意志所压倒。展望未来,我们很容易想象出国家再次努力控制民众的思想和行动的可怕前景--通过一些无处不在的监控和精神控制技术(如纳米机器人或赛博大脑骇入)。但是,新兴的蜂群思维也可以被看作是人类交流和社会组织的积极进化--一些人称之为全球大脑或智能圈。然而,关键问题是,在一个开放的意识互相竞争的思想海洋中,个人意志能保留多少?


The hive mind, as portrayed by the insectoid-humans of Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive or the infamous Borg of Star Trek, is a possible future state in which human social organization has taken on the form of a superorganism much like ants or bees. In such a state, individual human will is largely trumped by the demands of the collective, or some kind of overarching central intelligence or modus operandi. But looking to the future, it's easy to imagine the frightening prospect of renewed state efforts to control the thoughts and actions of the populace — using such things as ubiquitous surveillance and mind-controlling technologies (like nanobots or cyber-brain hacking). But an emerging hive mind could also be seen as a positive step forward in human communication and social organization — what some have referred to as the global brain or Noosphere. The big question to ask, however, is how much of the individual can be retained in an open sea of competing conscious thoughts?

7.后性别人类

7. Postgendered humans

先进的生殖和控制论技术将对我们的生物本质产生深远影响。 目前受有性生殖的束缚,人类是性别二元物种,雌性和雄性。 但考虑到机械化改造的潜力和体外子宫等技术的发展,我们可能不再成为传统意义上的生物有机体。 未来的人类,或后人类,可以选择后性别化,即他们不再有固定的某种生物性别,而是可以获得任何性别的最佳性状(一种技术赋能的雄性化)。未来的人类也可以选择完全摒弃性别特征,成为无性人。 更激进的是可以创造全新的生物性别或可以随心所欲改变的无定形性别特征。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处



Advanced reproductive and cybernetic technologies will have a profound impact on our biological nature. Currently bound by sexual reproduction, we are a binary species, consisting of females and males. But given the potential for cyborgization and such developments as exosomatic wombs, we may cease to become biological organisms in the traditional sense. Future humans, or what would really be posthumans at this point,could choose to be postgendered in the sense that they wouldn't be tied to one particular biological sex, instead acquring the best characteristics that each has to offer (a kind of technologically-enabled androgenization). Future humans could also choose to discard gendered traits altogether and become asexual. Even more radical is the possibility of creating brand new biological sexes, or amorphous gendered traits that could be altered on the fly.

8. 失控的形态学军备竞赛

8. Out of control morphological arms races

像基因组学这样的辅助性生殖技术将允许未来的夫妇选择人类性状,也被称为 "设计婴儿"。先进的体细胞基因疗法也让个人可以在出生后很好地修改和增强他们的遗传体质。但是,一些身体天赋可以令人们在某些领域获得优势,从而激起一种 "军备竞赛"。以体育为例。篮球运动员比拼的是身高,而游泳运动员比拼的是四肢的长度。今天,运动员必须依靠自己的自然特征,但在未来,那些希望获得身体优势的人可以额外修改基因组以满足自己的目的(或某些父母执意要看到他们的孩子在某项运动中取得成功)。这种修改可能超越自然界以往所有生物,导致一些奇怪和极端的身体形式。


Assistive reproductive technologies like genomics will allow future couples to partake in the practice of human trait sextion, or what is more commonly referred to as "designer babies." It's also possible that advanced somatic gene therapy will allow individuals to modify and enhance their genetic constitutions well after they're born. But a number of physical endowments could be used by people to gain an advantage in certain domains, thus instigating a kind of "arms race". Take sports, for example. Basketball players are competing for height, while swimmers are competing for the length of their limbs. Today, athletes have to come by these characteristics naturally, but in the future, those looking to gain a physical edge could take the extra step of seeing their genome modified to suit (or by parents hell-bent on seeing their child succeed at a particular sport). The modifications could exceed anything seen before by nature, leading to some bizarre and extreme physical forms.

9. 为太空而改造人类
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


9. Humans modified for space

众所周知,目前形态的人类不能适应太空。 零重力和太阳辐射的长期影响对我们这种脆弱生物来说非常恶劣。 但这并没有阻止一些人猜测如何改造人类以承受太空的严酷考验——解决方案很微妙。 纳米技术专家罗伯特·弗雷塔斯 (Robert Freitas) 概述了一项消除肺部的计划,使人类不必呼吸空气。Ray Kurzweil推测未来的人类将不需要食物,取而代之的是配备可以为我们的细胞提供能量的纳米机器人。 甚至 Craig Venter也呼吁开发一种先进的内耳使人们摆脱晕动症,开发令骨骼再生的基因,以及抗辐射的DNA修复。他还建议我们创造一种身材矮小、能量利用率更高 、没有毛且皮肤更新较慢的人。 还有一些人推测将人类改造为瘦长的章鱼状生物将使人更适合在零重力环境中活动。


It's no secret that humans in their current form have no business being in space. The long term effects of zero gravity and solar radiation make it a poor environment for the fragile creatures that we are. But this hasn't stopped some from speculating about how humans could be modified to withstand the rigours of space — and their solutions are anything but subtle. Nanotechnology expert Robert Freitas has outlined a plan for the elimination of lungs, making breathable air unnecessary. Ray Kurzweil has speculated that future humans won't require food, equipped instead with nanobots that can energize our cells. And even Craig Venter has chimed in, putting out the call to develop an advanced inner ear that can allow people to escape motion sickness, genes for bone regeneration, and DNA repair for radiation He's also suggested that we develop a small stature, higher energy utilization, hairlessness, and slower skin turnover. And yet others have speculated about transforming humans into gangly octopus-like creatures who would be far more adapted to slithering around in zero gravity environments.

10. 上传意识

10. Uploads

虽然将人类意识上传到超级计算机的想法本身就很奇怪,但一些关于上传后生活的设想更奇怪。以Hansonian Uploads为例--被上传的思想可能会自行创造无限的自身副本以便在艰难的经济市场中竞争。这种猜想的前提是复制意识将是快速和廉价的,导致上传意识的爆炸性增加。另一种情况是,被上传的意识会调整其相对虚拟时钟速度。比如说,如果设定的虚拟时钟速度足够慢,一个被上传的意识就可以实实在在地观看地质事件的全过程,如山脉的上升和下降。被上传的意识也可以从一个机器人身体转移到另一个机器人身体,永远改变自己在现实世界中的物理形态。另一种迷人的可能性是改变计算机生成的环境的基本参数。这可能导致一些远远超出人类理解的东西,无论是在物理空间方面(如增加尺寸或改变环境的物理学)还是在心理和主观意识本身的性质方面。