The human race will evolve into living wallets with implanted credit cards, connected to screens displaying the same abominable boring but expensive video over and over again.
Unless we do something to stop that development, of course. Then future humans will still be recognizable as humans, just like the romans would recognize us as humans.

I don't think many people will want to be something that looks unhuman and repulsive to others. Almost everyone wants to look more pleasing to others, and most people find a flawless human the most pleasing form to look at. Plastic surgeons make billions because of this.
On the other hand, there are lots of comics featuring cat-people...

Still, I think no matter how genetically and technologically enhanced future humans will be, we would still recognize them as the same species.

I think it's true the existence of a far superior group can lead to awful things. Actually, this group doesn't even have to be superior, they only have to believe they are. It's called racism, and we have seen too many examples of its horrors in the past and today.

Are enhanced humans really superior? It depends on what the word "superior" means to you. Does moving faster or knowing more give a right to feel superior? Does having any type of technology give a right to feel superior to those who don't? I don't really see a difference between "does have internet connected brain VS doesn't" and "does have internet VS doesn't have internet".

Idea for a poll:

What would you most like to evolve to?
- cyborg
- uploaded mind
- catboy/catgirl
- back to the past, a viking or something
- unisex human
- normal human (includes "star trek humans" with more advanced technology than our current technology)
- other...

And I'm sure there are many more options :-)

My theory is that the human race will evolve into what most people want to be.

Well, I like the idea of cyborg, but with only a few brain implants that enable access to huge amounts of exact memory (not faulty one like we already have) and to the future internet. Downside of a cyborg is non-eternal life, because cyborgs do have (human) bodies as a base for implants.

The uploaded mind idea practically enables illusion of existence in any form - you could be an uploaded mind that has a very real illusion of having human body and living in earth environment. Eternal life is possible here. At least until data corruption occurs, that is :-).

So my choice would probably be an uploaded mind that dreams it's a cyborg :-D.

Taco, that's a nice idea for a poll, so I threw it up there above the thread. :-)

I think I'd still like to just be a normal star trek like human.. It's not like they don't use technology to improve themselves in some way, at least indirectly, and with that kind of technology one looses a wish to "upgrade oneself and ones body directly..

Stojic, I wouldn't mind cyborgs either, but I would only want to subject myself to becoming one in some way if and when the technology is proven and stable enough for me to be able to feel safe that it wont be harming me anyhow. On the other hand, sometimes I'm in such a mood that I wouldn't mind being a test bunny for it. :-D

However, cyborgs sort of exist today already, in the simplest form at least. People who use peacemakers to stabilize their heart or thos using hearing enhancing devices are practically cyborgs, so the concept is already real to some extent in medicine, and perhaps elsewhere..

As for an uploaded mind, that's pretty fantastic. Sure, when the time comes to die I'd rather avoid it and become a self conscience "mind" then just vanish, but how can one upload a mind for it to be self conscience? That's pretty speculative and brings me to another debate I've witnessed: Can the human soul be transfered? I've seen people on one forum debating teleporation and its viability.. What teleportation basically has to be is dissasembling a human being from one place into a molecular stream and assembling it in another. In theory, it probably wouldn't even matter if the moleculs with which you'll be put back together would be the same ones you were dissasembled in, as precise information about your molecular structure should be enough to assemble you from any moleculs present at the target location. And all this theretically even sounds plausible until you bring in the subject of "soul". Can the soul be transfered? It is something we often associate with "life". If soul, or life can't be transfered like this, a teleported person, however perfectly reassebled, would be dead. Same question is valid for the mind upload..

Maybe a bit offtopic (this teleportation talk), but it's not completely unrelated with the topic I suppose..

Oh, and just to feed the discussion, here is a link to an article on CNet that may also be related to this topic: Intelligence in the Internet age

Thanks
Daniel

Well, I like the cyborg idea because we are becoming more and more dependant on the information technology and having a computer in our heads (or being able to access it with our thoughts) is the most convenient way to use it.

I read someone's opinion on this dependence recently, he said: "We don't remember anything anymore. But we don't have to.". I completely agree with him. Why would we remember raw data that we need in our lives when we can easily write it down into a handheld and read it later? Why not implanting that handheld and have that data even more accessible? Together with fast and convenient access to computing power for doing all sorts of calculations and to internet for fetching information.

About uploading mind: If mind is contained inside the brain (as sort of software or brain itelf) and doesn't have any ethereal parts such as soul, which I believe to be true, then uploading mind would be as simple as creating a virtual copy of the brain and simulate its proccesses. I believe that, with technology and our knowledge about brain advanced enough, it will be possible.

If mind is what I have described above, then there should be no problems with losing a soul during teleportation.

I've always been partial to post-apocalyptic fantasies, you know, a total destruction of most technologies...so the option for something from our past really appeals to me...I love my pc but something in me longs for the dark ages or rather long before the dark ages, when men weren't ashamed to be men, to be animals...

Well, we are men because we are not animals. We are different from animals in that we don't rely solely on our instincts and intuition, but our intelligence. This intelligence is what brought us to creation of technology. It was inevitable and progress is inevitable.

Also, I don't think that even if any apocalypse happens, presuming it wont be the one to destroy the whole planet in full, wouldn't wipe out all technology so easily because people have it in their mind. Sooner or later we'd just recreate technology. We wouldn't need to go through centuries or decades of breakthroughs for that because we already know alot of what we need to know to create technology from scratch if we need to. Besides that, if such an apocalypse leaves behind even ruins of anything technological, even if it is burned devices, chips and circuits, that alone can be a great base to kickstart technology again. People would hack on it.

So, like it we or not, tech is here to stay as long as we are.

Thanks
Daniel

But I see two votes for catboy/catgirl!

as long as I don't see the day of "unisex humans", goddamn I'd hate to see my favorite pasttime become nothing but masturbation!