Grayson Quay joins Samantha Stephenson to expose the seductive logic of transhumanism—and the moral and spiritual cost of buying in. From AI and brain chips to synthetic immortality and gene editing, the push to “upgrade” the human experience promises power but may unravel what makes us human.
This conversation cuts through the hype to reveal what’s really at stake. Is transhumanism a scientific breakthrough or a new form of worship? What happens when we lose our reverence for the body and our humility before its limits?
Topics we cover:
– Why transhumanism is less science, more spiritual counterfeit
– The link between tech worship and ancient heresies
– What the push to overcome nature reveals about modern despair
– Whether enhancement is actually a form of self-erasure
Mentioned in this episode:
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00]
Samantha: Welcome to Brave New Us, where we explore what it means to be human in the age of biotechnology. I'm here today with Grayson Quay, journalist and ghost writer to talk about his new book, the Transhumanist Temptation, from neural implants to artificial wombs, cryonics to the dream of digital immortality, transhumanism promises to liberate us from the limits of the body, but at what cost. In this conversation, we are going to dig into the spiritual and philosophical roots of the transhumanist vision and why grace and argues it's more gnostic than scientific. What does it mean to be human, and what do we risk in trying to move beyond it? Grayson, welcome to Brave New Us.
Grayson: Thank you for having me.
Samantha: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work and how you came to be doing what you're doing?[00:01:00]
Grayson: Yeah. So I came to writing about transhumanism in kind of a roundabout way. I realized I was interested in all these things that I thought were separate, um, you know, biotech and, uh, reproductive issues and virtual reality and, uh, the sort of re-enchantment, uh, discussion, uh, in the religious space and, you know, political questions about what it would mean to have a, a society that aimed at, at the common good and focused less on maximizing individual autonomy and consumption and things like that.
Grayson: And I, you know, as I was trying to think of book pitches, I realized these are all kind of connected by this common thread of transhumanism.
Samantha: Yeah.
Grayson: which, you know, I would define as sort of a, a general rejection of, of an idea of natural law, of human nature.
Samantha: Yeah. So let's, um, let's back up a little bit because we're [00:02:00] talking about transhumanism and you gave it a loose definition there.
Samantha: And, uh, and you kind of in the introduction, I think you do a really great job of, um, kinda tracing the philosophical roots of this movement. And we'll get into that a little bit later in the conversation. But first, for somebody who's maybe, um, never heard the word transhumanist before or who has heard it, but just goes right past their head, like, what are we talking about here?
Grayson: Yeah. So usually you hear the term transhumanism in sort of a science fiction context, right? You know, some. Uh, or, or people who wanna make science fiction reality, you know, whether that's some kind of eccentric billionaire who's trying to biohack himself to, to live to a hundred, or someone who wants to upload his mind to, uh, the internet and live forever.
Grayson: Or, um, you know, someone who wants to use genetic engineering to create, uh, some kind of race of Superman or something like that. So these are, these are all elements [00:03:00] of transhumanism, but I try to, uh, in the book, I try to make this argument that I think that's just sort of the vanguard or the cutting edge of it.
Grayson: I think there's a transhumanist ideology or a transhumanist mindset that many people, probably most people in our society have bought into to one degree or another. Which rejects the old kind of classical and Christian idea that goes back to, to Plato and Aristotle and to the Hebrew Bible, that there's, um, you know, that there's a way to follow that.
Grayson: There's a, you know, the, the Bible says the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom and the book of Proverbs and wisdom is, you know, personified as this, um, soften, you know, equated in commentaries to the logos, uh, to Christ. But it's this, um, it's this wisdom of this logic that's kind of woven through all of creation, that it's up to us to seek it out and conform ourselves to it.
Grayson: Uh, that there's this underlying order, this transcendent [00:04:00] order of things. And Plato and Aristotle will say much the same thing, right? That, uh, for Aristotle, man has a particular nature. Um, he's aimed toward EU amenia or happiness, flourishing, uh, and that's his proper end or telos, right? So we say that, um.
Grayson: His conception of humanity is teleological, right? There's a goal or an end that should be aimed at the same way that, you know, the telos of an acorn is to grow into a tree. This was all sort of common sense. It was just in the water for most of human history or for much of human history, uh, especially in the, the western tradition.
Grayson: Uh, and this really started to change. Uh, it's difficult to say exactly when a lot of people date it to kind of the split between realism and nominalism in the middle ages. Uh, you could also, you trace it to certain strains of renaissance humanism or enlightenment thinking. There's a whole debate you could have over that, that I don't really get into in the [00:05:00] book necessarily, because it would've, uh, taken up a,
Samantha: book,
Grayson: yeah.
Samantha: book, but a different book.
Grayson: Yeah. Um. But basically we somehow ended up at this place where we don't believe in such a thing as human nature or a human telos anymore. We don't believe that there's some kind of order that we're supposed to conform ourselves to. We believe that the meaning of your life is to give your life a meaning.
Grayson: Um, so Charles Taylor, who's the, a Catholic philosopher, has, uh, kind of a good shorthand to talk about this, uh, which is, uh, it's the difference between, he says esis. So, you know, ESIS is like a mimicry or conforming oneself to something. So that's that. You know, humans have a proper, have a nature, and have a type of flourishing that's proper to that nature, and that's what we should aim at.
Grayson: Um, and then the opposite of my meis for Taylor is poiesis. Uh, so making, uh, like a poem is a, a made thing. [00:06:00] Um, and POAs is, you know, pure creativity. Uh, you know, you create the meaning of your life. You define. What it means to be you. What it mean, what you define, what it means to be a human. Um,
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Grayson: you know, you are, you just kind of are thrown into this world with no roadmap.
Grayson: Uh, and it's up to you to use this radical freedom however you want. And it's not freedom to, uh, pursue the flourishing property, human nature. It's the freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't, uh, restrict someone else's freedom.
Samantha: Yeah, I think that's, that, those are two really important things. So one is this question of is there, uh, an ideal human telos that we are or created to be fulfilling and that flourishing is defined in respect to? Or is it something that we create ourselves? And then depending on your answer to that, right, you'll have a very different definition of what freedom is.
Grayson: [00:07:00] Yeah.
Samantha: you talk a little bit about how, what the word freedom means in each of those, um, understandings of the human person? Yeah.
Grayson: Yeah. So just to, to go back to my, uh, acorn analogy from earlier, right? Uh, an acorn, um, an acorn is meant to grow into a tree, right? An, let's say an oak tree, right? It can't say I'd rather be a blueberry bush. That's not the kind of thing that it is. Um, so that's not a type of freedom it has or, you know, think of that, uh, the, the Monty Python skit where the, the, in the, the life of Brian, where the guy goes, I want to have babies.
Samantha: Right,
Grayson: they say, you can't have babies. And he goes, yeah, we're infringing on my freedoms.
Samantha: right,
Grayson: The idea that you could be free to be something other than what you are is just, is just nonsense, uh, from any kind of, uh, perspective that believes in human nature and a human telos. [00:08:00] But if you don't believe in those things, then you can, you know, with a straight face make an argument that if as a man you can't have babies, you're being oppressed.
Grayson: And in fact, we've started to see society adopt that idea. There's a, um, you know, there have been op-eds in the New York Times arguing for, uh, I think they call it reproductive equity, uh, which basically means that, um. Because, you know, a couples that consist of a man and a woman can have babies on their own without, uh, spending any money.
Grayson: Uh, that same sex couples should have access to taxpayer funded, uh, surrogacy so that they can also have babies at no cost to themselves because, uh, in this case, uh, you know, biology is literally unjust.
Samantha: Right.
Grayson: Um, yeah.
Samantha: That's a whole other conversation too. I've also heard, uh, people talking about, um, uterine transplants in not to restore functioning to a woman, which is a whole [00:09:00] conversation and of itself. But she was arguing, well, no, I had the first baby, so my husband should have a uterine transplant so that it's just. Defined purely as equal, but, uh, also a conversation maybe for another time. Um, I think that a lot of people hear this word transhumanism and think of those kind of crazy science fiction examples. Um, but you are arguing that it's much more mainstream and embedded and has been kind of a part of our evolving cultural consciousness for a a while.
Samantha: Um, so where are we already seeing transhumanist ideas shaping real life and culture?
Grayson: So I think one of the first places that we really saw transhumanist technology break into our society was with the birth control pill.
Samantha: Hmm,
Grayson: Um, and this isn't an original thought to me. Uh, I got this idea from Mary Harrington who wrote a great book called Feminism Against Progress that, uh, you should buy after you buy my book.
Grayson: Uh, [00:10:00] um,
Samantha: to both in the show notes.
Grayson: yeah, there you go. Um, but she says, uh, that. The birth control pill is really the first transhumanist technology because it takes something that's working properly and breaks it, right, or to look at it another way. It tries to fix something that isn't broken. Uh, you know, if I go to the doctor and, uh, my arm is broken, they'll set it because there's an idea of human flourishing.
Grayson: There's an idea of what a healthy human being looks like, and the purpose of medicine was thought to be, uh, restoring people to that, uh, to that standard or that norm of health and of human flourishing. Now, uh, if the birth control pill come along and it essentially disrupts or interrupts a normal monthly cycle for women, uh, right, it kind of sends your body this, this hormonal signal that you're pregnant all the time so that you, um, don't ovulate.
Grayson: And [00:11:00] that's a huge paradigm shift in what medicine is for.
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Grayson: It goes from this is what your body is, and we're going to try to restore it to its normal functioning, to a paradigm that says, this is what your will is, this is what your desire is, and we're going to bend your body to your will. Even if that means disrupting, its normal healthy,
Samantha: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Are are. Um, and I love the, um, the myth that you brought in where you were talking about, I think it was Greek mythology. Um, could you articulate that a little bit for, because I hadn't heard it before, reading
Grayson: oh yeah. This is a, this is great. Yeah. So the, I, one of my points that I make in this book is that transhumanism functions as a Sian bed. Um, so Cruses is this. A character from Greek mythology who has a kind of an in [00:12:00] or a hostile off the side of the road. And he invites travelers to come stay the night.
Grayson: And he only has one bed, and no one ever fits the bed quite perfectly, right? Everyone's either a little too taller or a little too short, and if they're too tall, he takes a saw and cuts off whatever, you know, hangs off the edge of the bed. And if they're too short, he kinda gets out a hammer and like hammers them out flat until they, uh, cover the whole bed and they, they all die, of course.
Grayson: And, uh, eventually, you know, a, uh, hero comes along and, and defeats him. But this idea of a crusty bed is basically the idea that you cut the wrong thing or you, or you fit the wrong thing to the wrong thing, right? So with regard to transhumanism, um. Instead of creating a society that's meant to fit human nature, uh, you can cut [00:13:00] human nature or reshape human nature in order to fit society.
Grayson: And what this does is it basically gives society permission to become more inhumane. Um, so if, you know, if the, you know, a society can only get so bad before people will, will revolt or will opt out, or things will just grind to a halt. But if you have technologies that can reshape someone's genetic code or their neurochemistry,
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Grayson: uh, then you can keep making things worse and just sort of, uh, placate people with these things.
Samantha: Right. Yeah. I think, and, and to the point that you already brought up about contraceptives, um, a lot of, um, feminist thinkers are objecting to the idea that the way to, uh, address perceived inequalities, um, between men and women in our society today is to reshape women's bodies to mimic that of men by making
Grayson: Yeah.
Samantha: longer bear children.
Samantha: And
Grayson: Yeah.
Samantha: [00:14:00] transhumanist in that way.
Grayson: I think women are hit harder by transhumanism than men are because it's built around this ideal of like the radically autonomous individual, um, who isn't held back by anything and is able to kind of fulfill and pursue his own desires. And that definition fits men better than it fits women.
Grayson: Um, women's, you know, just by nature of their, their physical embodiment are much more. Embedded in kind of relationships of duty and dependence. Um, and so yeah, the, the conclusion, uh, which a lot of feminists reach, you know, famously, uh, uh, schul myth Firestone does, I think in the seventies, is that it's not actually society that's oppressive, it's biology that's oppressive, and we need to get around that.
Grayson: So her, you know, proposed solution is artificial wounds, uh, so that reproductive labor can be, uh, sort of just taken off the table or like uterine implants that [00:15:00] you mentioned.
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Grayson: and then even you see it in people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, where she made an argument in defending, you know, abortion and contraception, which was basically that if women don't have access to these things, they cannot participate, uh, as equal members of society.
Grayson: So yeah, you need to kind of do violence to your own body, to your own capacity to create life. To masculinize your body in these ways, or, uh, you are literally subhuman, you're a, you're a second class citizen. Um
Samantha: Well, to your point, like why? It's just, why don't we just build a better bed? Like
Grayson: mm-hmm.
Samantha: we, why are we asking women to reshape themselves to fit a society that doesn't seem to, um, adjust itself to women? Why can't we adjust society? If it doesn't fit, then let's, let's [00:16:00] reshape the system rather than reshaping ourselves.
Samantha: Uh, are there other ways besides contraception that you're seeing this play out?
Grayson: The Sian bed thing. Yeah.
Samantha: progress in bed or just transhumanism taking hold in ways that are maybe unexpected or that we wouldn't necessarily recognize as transhumanists Un unless we're following the thread that you're, um, recognizing and bringing to light in the book.
Grayson: Sure. Yeah. So I think another example of, uh, the crusty bed would be, you know, how it, uh, how transhumanism kind of reshapes, uh, dating life. Like, there's now an expectation, uh, that, that women are using contraception that really reshapes all our morays around dating. Uh, you could look at schools, uh, and how boys are treated in schools with being medicated for A DHD.
Grayson: Um, A DHD doesn't really have a diagnosable cause it seems [00:17:00] to just be, uh, a label. It gets applied to boys who are. Sort of toward one end of the bell curve and for, for hyperactivity. Um, and we could, you know, solve that problem at, to your point, by making schools different and making them more accommodating to little boys being restless.
Grayson: But instead we prefer to drug them, um, and, and alter their, their neurochemistry in this way. Uh, which I think is really, really dangerous and really frightening. Um.
Samantha: Yeah. So, um, are there any other technologies or, um, we can get more on, not on exactly what's embedded and being practiced, but where is this the trajectory going in terms of what are the developments and what's the push for the future of the transhumanist movement?
Grayson: So I think the immediate future, kind of on the big cutting edge is going to be embryo selection, [00:18:00] uh, embryo screening. There's a startup called Orchid that offers this, uh, service, and that's gotten a lot of media attention recently. It was kind of the last update I made in my book was to talk about this because it, uh, you know, just sort of burst onto the scene suddenly.
Grayson: But basically this, uh, it, it's really disturbing if you look at it because it, you know, you create a number of embryos through in future fertilization, and then it gives you a list of them and it'll like rank them in order of desirability and will flag for you if any of them have, you know, genetic disorders or, um, it'll flag which ones are boys and which ones are girls.
Grayson: It'll flag, um. You know, other, other traits that you might find desirable, uh, and you can just discard the ones you don't want. Uh, so this is how, you know, for example, this is how a lot of, uh, quote unquote developed countries have, uh, eliminated or almost eliminated down syndrome. [00:19:00] Um, they just do genetic screening and abort, uh, all of the babies that have down Syndrome, and it's one of the darker sides of that if it wasn't dark enough already, is that there's a failure rate, uh, for genetic screening for Down Syndrome.
Grayson: Like there's, uh, in about, uh, half a percent of cases, there's a false positive. I think it's about half a percent
Samantha: And
Grayson: false positive.
Samantha: for, uh, rare diseases. I think the New York Times, which, you know, not the source you'd be expecting, but the New York Times published one of the tests that they're giving, not, not embryos, um, and, but just prenatal babies. It's supposed to be a screening tool, but it's 93% false positives.
Samantha: So with those rare, rare disorders,
Grayson: Wow. So, yeah, you have to figure there's, at least, you know, there's at least several hundred, you know, babies being, being aborted every year based on healthy babies being aborted every year based on these false [00:20:00] positives for Down syndrome. Um, but the, the woman who started this, uh, this embryo screening startup really sees it as replacing kind of natural reproduction.
Grayson: Uh, one of her slogans is that Sex is for Fun and Embryo screening is for babies. So she wants, she's, you know, hoping for a future. She sees it as reckless to conceive a child in, in the normal way. Um,
Samantha: Yeah.
Grayson: this, you know, if this catches on, you reach a point where babies are just these kind of, uh, consumer products, uh, it really changes the nature of the relationship from kind of parent child to consumer and product.
Samantha: Hmm.
Grayson: Uh,
Samantha: For, for podcast listeners, we have an episode in depth, uh, earlier in this season with Emma Waters, where we talk about these, uh, sort of Silicon Valley elites and the eugenics startups like orchid nucleus genomics, that, that are really pushing this, um, new technology, but [00:21:00] same old philosophy of eugenics just being executed in a different way.
Grayson: yeah, that's why, that's what I talk, that's what I compare it to in my book is it's, um, you know, a lot of the, uh, Julian Huxley who, who coined the term transhumanism in its modern sense. Uh, was also president of the British Eugenics Society, um, thought that if you were unemployed for too long, you should be sterilized because clearly your genes were defective and you weren't, uh, contributing to the, the wellbeing of society or something like that.
Grayson: Um, you could take it even further back to ancient Rome where the, you know, the head of the family had this, this, um, power of the father, uh, pat Platas, where he was allowed to order the exposure of any child born into his household. So that could be his, his own children. It could, in some cases, I think, include even grandchildren, uh, who were living under his roof, and it could include any of the slaves that he owned, which could sometimes be hundreds.
Grayson: Uh, so any [00:22:00] child considered defective could be, could be left out to die. So it's really, you know, it's, it's off, it takes place off stage now, I guess it's not as gruesome as leaving a, a screaming newborn out with last night's trash. Um, but it's, it's ultimately the same thing.
Samantha: it's less brutal in practice, but in principle, you're right. It's the, it's the same philosophy and has the same end.
Grayson: Yeah. Little more gender equality too, I guess, this time around, but yeah, it's, it's the same principle of like, I get to have the children that I want to have and kill the ones I don't want.
Samantha: Uh, I'm forgetting what page this is on, but thinking about these, um, embryos, abandoned embryos, embryos as, uh, human property, and, um, have compared it to slavery. I, I don't have the page number in front of me, but you are discussing how, actually it's not, it's, it's not so [00:23:00] crazy to talk about them as, uh, these embryos as being a form of enslavement or human trafficking.
Samantha: It's actually a comparison that's being made and legal precedent being sent. Is that right?
Grayson: Yeah. Yeah. Like this isn't, you know, I bring that up in the, in the book, and then I say like, this isn't me just comparing my, uh, opponents in a debate to slave owners to score kind of a chief rhetorical point, like this is coming from, from their side. There was a, a ju there was a judge who, uh, there was a case that involved a custody dispute, uh, between a divorcing couple over their frozen embryos.
Grayson: And the legal question was sort of like, well, is this a child custody dispute or is this a question of, you know, dividing property and, you know, dividing goods and chattels? And, you know, one of the lawyers said, well, we should treat this like a child custody dispute. And the judge said, well, no, these are, these are.
Grayson: You know, these are goods and [00:24:00] chats. And they said, well, they're, they're human embryos. And he said, yeah, well, there is legal precedent for treating humans as goods and chats look, and he points to slavery. Uh, so these, you know, these embryos truly have like the legal status of slaves in some sense.
Samantha: That's just
Grayson: Uh,
Samantha: to me that you would look to that as an example of how
Grayson: yeah.
Samantha: ought to be governed.
Grayson: Yeah. Although, I mean, at least with, with slavery, there were at least some laws to protect them against just being, uh, killed, uh, on a whim, which embryos don't enjoy that protection. And in fact, uh, you know, there was the case in Alabama just, uh, about a year ago where a family sued a clinic for kind of negligently or accidentally destroying some of their embryos.
Grayson: They tried to sue them for wrongful death under Alabama's law, which, you know, basically states that. If, you know, if you're pregnant and are in a car accident and you miscarry, you can [00:25:00] file a wrongful death lawsuit, uh, for your unborn child against the person who hit you, for example. Uh, so this family tried to apply that to the, uh, fertility clinic and the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in their favor, uh, and said yes, like these are human beings.
Grayson: Uh, you know, if, if given the proper environment, uh, and not inhibited in any way, they'll continue developing into, uh, full term babies and grow to adult humans. Um, so yes, this qualifies as a, a wrongful death lawsuit. And the blowback was immediate and incredibly fierce, even from people who describe themselves as pro-life.
Grayson: Um. Alabama has a pretty strict abortion ban on the books. It has a Republican super majority in the legislature, uh, most of whom consider themselves pro-life. It has a, a pro-life Republican governor, but just within probably a week or two, they [00:26:00] had rushed through a bill saying, no, uh, fertility clinics cannot be sued for mishandling, uh, and accidentally destroying embryos.
Grayson: Um, it was, it was a truly kind of outsized reaction for what was actually a pretty modest ruling. Uh, like I don't think it was too much to ask to just like, don't, you know, stumble around the lab and smash all the test tubes by accident. Uh, but, you know, from the, the left's response was, you know, handmaid's tail dystopia, which you kind of expect.
Grayson: But what's depressing is the degree to which even self-described pro-life conservatives fall for it. Um.
Samantha: Yeah, no kidding. I think there's more, uh, more outcry to protect IVF than there is to
Grayson: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: the embryos.
Grayson: Yeah, you saw, I mean, you saw a lot of, uh, a lot of prominent, uh, Republicans again, who had campaigned his pro-lifers on the, on the national stage, uh, [00:27:00] talk, start talking suddenly about the miracle of IVF. Uh, and it was, yeah, there's, there's just no political will whatsoever to restrict this practice in any way at all.
Grayson: And I think that's a real indication of how far we've, uh, adopted a transhumanist mindset, uh, toward these things and rejected, um, an idea of human nature and human teleology.
Samantha: So some will describe transhumanism as a kind of religion unto itself. How do you see it challenging or replacing traditional belief systems? On that note?
Grayson: Yeah, so my, my original title for the book was actually The Serpent's Promise, because I think that, uh, in many ways Transhumanism was invented in the Garden of Eden, uh, when when the Serpent tells Eve You, you'll be as Gods. Um, the interesting thing about that is I think that the two are, uh, you know, transhumanism and Christianity are in many ways, uh, kind of indirect competition.
Grayson: They're making very [00:28:00] similar claims in a way because this, so this is interesting. Uh, Julian Huxley is the one who coins the term in English. Uh, you know, transhuman, but it's actually much older. In Italian. It shows up in Dante's, uh, divine comedy. It shows up in the paradise, uh, the line, something like Trus significant car.
Grayson: So I. I could not express trans humanize in words. Uh, I could not, I could not express the idea of being trans humanized in words. It's something like that, and it's something that, you know, the pilgrim narrator character says as he's being lifted up into heaven, you know, as he's experiencing. Theosis is the Greek word, right?
Grayson: Demonization coming to be a partaker of the divine nature, uh, Saint Peter said, or a son of God equal to the angels as, as Christ says in the Gospels. Um, so when Satan says you shall be as gods, it's not really a lie per se, that is humanity's destiny. Uh, [00:29:00] that's what we have to look forward to, uh, as Christians.
Grayson: But what Satan offers, the big difference here is that it's on humanities terms and on humanities timetable. It's that you can have this demonization, you can be a God without a relationship with your Lord and creator. Um. Even in defiance of him. And so I think that in many ways, yeah, you're, we're kind of facing the choice between two transhumanisms, uh, one that we try to achieve on our own, and one that requires us to live and suffer, as, you know, embodied human beings.
Grayson: Uh, and, uh, to show some humility, uh, in that way. And I think that there's also a strong overlap between transhumanism and uh, satanism. You know, most, most satanists in America don't say they don't believe in a [00:30:00] literal devil. Um, I don't think he necessarily cares if they literally believe in him or not, but they believe in him as this sort of avatar of rebellion against authority, especially divine authority.
Grayson: And as, uh. You know, an assertion of kind of radical individual autonomy and the the individual will, which is really the same attitude and perspective that underlies transhumanism and people have written about these, these overlaps between these two belief systems.
Samantha: Yeah, it seems like that the, some of the common threads in these different transhumanist thrusts is this rejection of the body in general, and then and rejection of our innate human limitations as, uh, something that there's somehow something morally wrong with having limitations as opposed to something morally informative about what those limitations mean for us. What do you think is at stake [00:31:00] spiritually, culturally, as these transhumanist technologies become more accepted? What are we losing, uh, what are we ostensibly gaining, and then what are we losing in the process?
Grayson: Well, the, what we're ostensibly gaining is just kind of convenience or power or the ability to make ourselves into what we want to be. Um, I think what we're losing, there's, gosh, there's a lot, uh, going on with this. So one thing I think right away is that there will be a, a lot of pressure to adopt these technologies and that those two kind of hang back or refuse to do so, will find themselves increasingly pushed out of society.
Grayson: Um, this isn't, you know, a fully kind of transhumanist thing, but, you know, bear with me on this. Think about QR codes on menus. Uh, you know, there's many restaurants now that,
Samantha: a menu.
Grayson: yeah, this, no, yeah. That became a thing during COVID. [00:32:00] Uh, and now a lot of places don't have menus, like it's just the QR code on the table, um, which essentially that functions as a kind of sign that can't be read by the human eye.
Grayson: You need to bring this sort of, you know, prosthetic eye with you, uh, or this, this, uh, kind of artificial organ that you carry around that, that, uh, interfaces with the, the sort of digital ecosystem. And if you don't have a smartphone, you just can't access that. Uh, so eating in restaurants is more, you know, if you are, if you are merely human, if you do not possess the technologically augmented capacity to, uh, read QR codes and to access the wider infor like digital information sphere, uh, you are in some sense excluded from, from that aspect of society.
Grayson: Uh. And, you know, your smartphone is a, a tool in the sense that it's not integrated into your biology yet. But, uh, that's coming. You [00:33:00] know, it's, uh, we already have smart glasses and pretty soon it'll probably be, uh, brain implants. Um, you could also see that happening with something like augmented reality where, uh, right now it's pretty rudimentary where you will, you know, an early example was the game Pokemon Go.
Grayson: If you or any of your listeners ever played that, but you would, you know, hold up your phone camera and it would kind of superimposed these little, little Pokemon creatures on the, the actual landscape that you were looking at through your camera. Uh, and it wasn't very good, but it's a harbinger of what's to come.
Grayson: If you think about how you could apply that technology with, uh, smart glasses, for example, you know, all signage, uh, could potentially be done through augmented reality. It would be much quicker and cheaper for people to kind of just. You know, edit a text box on an app and have that show up on all their signs, then it would be to physically alter the signage.
Grayson: But now, if you don't have those glasses on, you [00:34:00] can't read the signs. You can't participate in society. So now suddenly the, the literal physical world that you're perceiving with your, or the, or the world that you're perceiving with your senses, not the physical world, but the world that you're receiving with your senses is now, uh, mediated, uh, or determined, mediated through, or determined by, uh, this technology.
Samantha: Right.
Grayson: you don't actually get to see the world as it is. You see the world as they choose to show it to you.
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Grayson: Um, and you can take glasses off, but I imagine it's probably, uh, not so easy to remove an implant from your brain and those of you able to turn it off. I mean, get ready to have, uh, get ready to have popup ads in your peripheral vision too.
Grayson: That'll be real fun.
Samantha: And you could take the glasses off as long as you're willing to be left out of whatever is happening, that the point that you're making about technology having as, as it gets adopted, it inevitably almost becomes coercive. Um, Barbara Kotz Rothman makes that point in a book and [00:35:00] she was talking about, um, amniocentesis and sort of this
Grayson: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: conditional aspect to pregnancy that maybe didn't exist before this technology and how once something adopted, it makes abstaining much more difficult. And she was just talking about technologies in general. She says, look at how, how can you think about right now the world that we have it? Can you think about going back to your horse and buggy unless you're Amish and you actually choose to live in this community of people who have opted out of the technology?
Samantha: No, you can't because you can't. You could choose to live in, um, you know, a where it's very walkable, but our, we have adopted the car. We have freeways. You can't take your horse on the freeway. That's not you. existence and widespread adoption of the technology has made it very
Grayson: Yeah.
Samantha: to opt out.
Samantha: And the same thing I think is true of the smartphone. If you wanna have a dumb phone, then there's like 15 apps that I have to have to do [00:36:00] things with my kids, you know, their teams and their, uh, co-ops and things. And people are like, well, we communicate with this group app. Well, we communicate with this group app. It's like, if you
Grayson: Right.
Samantha: you have to have the app or you're going to miss out on these conversations. And, you know, with some things like social media, it's pretty easy to opt out of that. I mean, it's pretty easy to, to delete and not miss out on things. It's not easy
Grayson: Yeah.
Samantha: because of this, the way that they hijack our attention.
Samantha: But you're right, that, uh, technology as it gets adopted, it will be a fight
Grayson: Yeah, and I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not necessarily just kind of anti-technology across the board. I think it becomes especially disturbing when those technologies are specifically coming for your, um, you know, your genetic code or your, um, kind of faculties of perception, right? Sort of these things that make you human and are like trying to reshape them.
Grayson: You know? I mean, just think about, uh, you know, maybe two generations down the line, if [00:37:00] embryo screening really picks up, you know, your, any child that isn't screened will be at a much greater disadvantage.
Samantha: Right.
Grayson: you know, your kids, uh, will become a, you know, could potentially become a huge liability. You know, if everyone's iq, you know, if everyone's IQ is 40 points higher in the future, um, now suddenly your child requires special educational resources or.
Grayson: Um, can't compete in the job market and is being left behind in all these ways. Uh, and I think there will be a great deal of resentment, uh, toward, uh, people who are late adopters. Uh,
Samantha: see that when, because when people are eliminating communities of people who have Down syndrome,
Grayson: yeah.
Samantha: society has even less incentive to adopt itself and to make a better bed
Grayson: Yes.
Samantha: uh, than
Grayson: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: more people. And so the, the more people who use the technologies, the fewer people there are, um, that there's an incentive or community push to adapt society to become [00:38:00] more humane
Grayson: We're also, we're also just not very good at, uh, drawing lines when it comes to the use of technology. So something like artificial wounds is actually potentially a very, uh, a very good piece of technology. Um, so if you are. You know, if you are 18 weeks pregnant and suddenly go into labor, uh, and your child is, has to be delivered, uh, right now, you know, that child has a no chance of surviving.
Grayson: Right? That's just a, a miscarriage. But if there were some kind of artificial wound, you could save that baby's life. Um, there's actually a kind of, when, when there's, when they first started testing artificial wounds on, on animals, there was some outcry from feminist groups because they were saying like, oh, this is gonna be used to justify banning abortion.
Grayson: Uh, you know, they'll say that like, oh, if you, um, you know, if you take a, an abortion drug, uh, or go get a procedure to, um, just sort of expel the, the [00:39:00] fetus, then you have to put it in an artificial womb to continue gestating. And, and this will infringe on women's bodily autonomy, which really shows you that it's not necessarily just
Samantha: that at that point, it's not about bodily autonomy that isn't just
Grayson: you.
Samantha: trying to avoid parenthood.
Grayson: Yes, exactly. Um, yeah, 'cause like, oh, there's your bodily autonomy. Good. Like, well, no, it's, yeah, exactly. Uh, so there's, yeah, there's a sense in which these technologies kind of will take us all the way that they can take us, uh, 'cause we're not very good at, at limiting them. Another, I think another example would be something like augmented reality, where there's a ton of really good potential applications for that.
Grayson: Uh, you know, it could be used in education for skilled trades, for example, uh, or, or arts. Like if you wanted to learn to sculpt, uh, it would be very expensive to pay for materials. But if you could have kind of a digital block of marble in front of you and wear glo wear kind of haptic sensor gloves that, [00:40:00] that,
Samantha: Hmm.
Grayson: you know, gave you feedback as if you were touching something physical.
Grayson: And you could use kind of a smart chisel on that, you know, it would, it would feel as though you were doing it. You could, you could get the tactile sensation, but you wouldn't be going through expensive materials. Um, so that would be one example, or, you know, in medicine, uh, a doctor could kind of see a patient's charts floating in, uh, floating above that patient, uh, and really save time and potentially avoid mix ups with charts that could lead to, um, the prescriptions of wrong medications and things like that.
Grayson: The problem is this, you know, we know this will, this will very quickly become, uh, it'll be marketed with those, right? Like, oh, look how great this technology is saving lives. But it'll immediately become just kind of the general purpose technology. So our doctor's not going to, you know, take off his smart glasses and go home.
Grayson: Uh, he's gonna go home and keep his smart glasses on and, you know, have his home decorated with, with digital art and, you know, be playing Tetris on his, [00:41:00] you know, invisible display in front of him while his kids are trying to get his attention and on and on.
Samantha: Yeah. We don't, we don't even need the smart glasses for that. That's already
Grayson: Exactly.
Samantha: to ourselves. Um, all already. So to your point earlier, uh, critics of transhumanism often are accused of being anti-science or anti-innovation. Um, how do you respond to the ideas that one, rejecting transhumanism is rejecting technological progress?
Samantha: And two, rejecting innovation is futile anyway, because technology's going to progress with whether you like it or not, with or without your permission, this is happening. So why are you, why fight?
Grayson: So, I mean, I think we can, uh, I think we can use the power of the, of the state to restrict, uh, certain technologies. You know, we already do it in some ways. Um, but in terms of the question of being against technology, I think there's, I, I, I really want more technological [00:42:00] innovation. I just want it to be channeled in ways that don't undermine our own humanity.
Grayson: CS Lewis talks about how, you know, this conquest of nature, right? The scientific project was inevitably going to turn around. The conquest of nature was inevitably, inevitably going to become the conquest of human nature by humanity.
Samantha: Right.
Grayson: At which point what is humanity like? The concept is no longer meaningful because we are determining what it is.
Grayson: So it's just a, an infinite kind of regress that, uh, leaves you in this transhumanist dystopia that Lewis describes very presciently in the, in the 1940s. Um, you know, that's, that's kind of a black pill. That's, that's not very encouraging. I'd like to think that there's a way in which we could continue, uh, creating technological innovations that respect an idea of, of a human telo sub, of an unchanging human nature.
Grayson: Um, you know, if, uh, humans have always used tools, right from the, [00:43:00] the first, uh, the first human who picked up a stick. Uh, and, and, you know, whack something with it, right? We've always used tools and I don't think that a spaceship is meaningfully different from, you know, a stick in that sense. Uh, we are, we're creatures that use tools.
Grayson: I just wanna make sure that we stay ourselves and use the, and use the tools ourselves. Not that we use our technologies, uh, to make ourselves into something we aren't. You know, there's, uh, I don't have a problem if, you know, on the construction site you wanna plug a set of robotic arm, a four robotic arms into your brain stem and use them to carry around big, uh, big heavy girders.
Grayson: I just want you to unplug those and go home. I don't want you to move through life as a six armed, uh, transhuman cyborg.
Samantha: Do you think that there so a lot of times people will say technology is neutral. It's all about how you use [00:44:00] technology. And I think by and large, most examples, that's true. But do you think there are some technologies that in and of themselves are not neutral, that their use is. Um, and, and maybe this is a defining factor of transhumanism, that the using them and of itself for whatever it does is not morally neutral, like this technology is, is something that has carries in itself a, a moral value.
Grayson: Yeah, that's hard to say. Um, you know, I think the example of artificial wounds is a good one. Where there is, is a way that you could use them that would be positive. Um, I'd struggle to think of a, a, you know, a good application of, of IVF, for example. I think that, you know, at least, uh, from a Catholic perspective, um, you can say pretty much across the board that, you know, fertilizing an embryo outside of, uh.
Grayson: You know, a marital, uh, [00:45:00] uh, love that, that, that's going to be out of bounds, for example. Um, I think that in general though, I'm not sure it's the case that technology, sort of capital t writ large is morally neutral. Uh, I think that's a, I think there's a pattern we see in, in scripture, and I talk about this in the last section of my book.
Grayson: Uh, if you go into the book of Enoch, which is kind of a, a sort of extended telling of the, the pre-flood narrative. Um, you get all this detail where the, in Genesis six it taught, there's this mysterious passage about the, the sons of God and the daughters of men interbreeding and creating this race of giants.
Grayson: Uh, and most early commentators kind of saw that as, as fallen angels and humans creating offspring. Together. These giants are called the Nephilim in the text, and they're associated with the line of cane, you know, the [00:46:00] line of eth and the line of cane. And in the book of Enoch, you get a lot more detail about what's going on there, where these fallen angels, you know, father, these, these hybrid children, uh, and then sort of serve as almost familiars or spiritual guides to them and give them technology, right?
Grayson: They, this is why in, you know, the book of Genesis, it talks about like tubal can is the first to smelt bronze or something like that. And another Kane's descendants is the first to create musical instruments and all these other things. Um, it's sort of not super clear in the original text of Genesis, but like the, the book of Enoch sort of clarifies this is, this is about.
Grayson: Them being given technologies that they can use to increase their power, enslave their fellow men, and eventually destroy creation. Um, they're being, they're being given technologies that they're not ready for and that they'll use to destroy themselves because that's what, uh, that's what the demons [00:47:00] want us to do, is to destroy ourselves.
Grayson: Um, and so the flood is God sort of setting back the clock on that. Um, and sort of rescuing his creation from, its from humans technological, uh, exploitation and domination of, of creation end of one another. And then I think you see something similar with the Tower of Babel, where there's sort of a, a human ach, an achievement of human technology, uh, in building this tower, uh, that God sort of looks down and feels the need to intervene and set the clock back once again in some way, uh, by confusing their languages there and, and scattering them.
Grayson: So I think there's, uh. This is sort of where the, the climate, the, the very end of the book. I, I kind of grapple with these ideas, but I think there's these processes that work in history where we are being given technologies that we can use to destroy ourselves. And I think that [00:48:00] transhumanist technologies might be the ultimate example of that because we can really use it to erase or destroy our own human nature, which it's, you know, it in, in most kind of definitions of what's going on with salvation.
Grayson: It's sharing, it, it's the, the, um, the coming together of divine and human nature in the person of Christ that that plays a major role in our, in our salvation. So if you place yourself outside of human nature in that sense, I don't, I don't know where that leaves you.
Samantha: Right. Um, okay. So a couple, a couple of questions. mentioned a and talked about a few specific technologies. Are there any that we haven't talked about that are sort of wants to keep an eye on as we go, go through the next few years and what's in development? I.
Grayson: I think AI is another big one. Um, because I think that, you know, there's, there's a lot of people who talk about wanting us to merge with ai, uh, for example, to kind of, um, you know, [00:49:00] not only integrate it into all our decision making processes, which, you know, takes a lot of things out of human hands, but also to.
Grayson: Kind of use it to literally upgrade ourselves in certain ways.
Samantha: Yeah.
Grayson: think just more generally, like you, you don't even need to look to the future. I think you're already seeing one transhumanist aspect of ai, which is that kind of by its very existence, it raises this question that you see in like the Turing test.
Grayson: Uh, for example, uh, you know, Ellen Turn came up with this idea that like if a computer, if you're talking to a computer, uh, just by like typing back and forth and you can't see it and it can convince you that it's a human, that it's actually thinking, uh, who are you to say that it's not? Um, right. Like aren't humans and computers sort of the same thing.
Grayson: It's just one of us has carbon hardware and one of us has silicon hardware. Uh, you know what really is, uh, consciousness anyway.
Samantha: Oh, well that's, that's just silly.[00:50:00]
Grayson: Yeah. Well I think that.
Samantha: if, if you, uh, if you're blind and, uh, let's go back to the Bible here. And you have two sons and one of 'em convinces you that he's the other son and he gets the birth right of the other son. 'cause he, he's, it's still a kid. Case of mistaken identity. Just 'cause you can trick somebody doesn't make it real.
Grayson: Sure. But the larger question is like, is it all just information processing and is consciousness just kind of an emergent property of information processing, uh, in some sense?
Samantha: a reduc, not a, not a glorification of what AI is doing, but just a reduction of what the human mind is doing.
Grayson: Yeah, exactly. It, it, it erases the idea that there's anything special about humanity. Um, and I think you're already seeing people forming these weird relationships with ai. You've already seen people, you know, commit murders or take their own lives,
Samantha: Yeah.
Grayson: you know, in, in a, uh, sort of less tra uh, less dramatic, but I think no less tragic sense.
Grayson: You've seen [00:51:00] people. You know, uh, there's AI kind of dating simulators where they'll, they'll genuinely feel that they're in love with this, this, this construct. Um, and I think that's something that's really sad where we now live in, in a world, uh, and, and I think increasingly will where you have to kind of perform this term test a million times a day where, you know, especially if you're online, you'll, you'll never be quite sure
Samantha: Right.
Grayson: what you're interacting with is a real human or not.
Grayson: And that in of that, in and of itself, puts us into a transhumanist uh, society, I think in a very real way.
Samantha: Yeah, no kidding. So if someone's listening and thinking, okay, this is wild, but what can I do about it? What do you say? How do everyday people respond to this cultural wave of transhumanist thinking, urging us to abandon what we are and become something better?
Grayson: Well, I think that [00:52:00] one thing you can do is just try to be intentional about your use of technology. Uh, there's a great book called The Tech Wise Family by Andy Crouch, uh, that has a lot of really good pointers for that. Uh, although I'll confess that I've read the book and have not been great about implementing all of them.
Samantha: Uh, it's one thing to know what you should do. It's another thing to actually
Grayson: Exactly. Uh,
Samantha: and getting it done.
Grayson: but on one hand I think it, it is, it, there's only so much you can do as an individual. Uh, we're really facing a. We're really facing, uh, um, asymmetric warfare here, right? Where, you know, think about apps, uh, you know, social media apps, for example, that, you know, these exist to disin incarnate, uh, their users really to kind of drag you away from your physical environment and from, you know, your family and your friends who are physically with you, and [00:53:00] to draw you into this digital world.
Grayson: And, uh, profit from your attention. Just really kind of strip mine your, your attention span and your dopamine receptors for ad revenue. Uh, and so it's, it's that, uh, versus just your average family. You know, parents are maybe tired from working all day. Uh, you might not have the energy necessarily to do some kind of activity with their kids.
Grayson: Um, and so the kids just end up scrolling, and I think it's unfair to pit those two against each other, uh, which is why in the book I advocate really strongly for bans, uh, on miners being on social media, for bans on miners own smartphones altogether. Uh, I think those are both really, uh, important things we could do because the, you know, there's, there's sort of a libertarian argument that like, oh, I don't want the state telling me how to parent, but I think that's the wrong way to frame it.
Grayson: I think in this case, [00:54:00] um, you know, the state has a, a valid role to step in and kind of shield the family from the market because I promise you these tech companies, uh, these, you know, programmers who are paid millions of dollars a year to know exactly how to hack your kids' dopamine receptors, they don't care about human nature or human telos or authentic human flourishing, or, uh, human embodiment or any of these things they care about.
Grayson: Next quarter's profits. Um,
Samantha: right,
Grayson: so,
Samantha: does tell you how to parent in that you can't give your kids heroin. They
Grayson: yeah.
Samantha: go out and buy alcohol. They are not gonna be smoking. Like they're,
Grayson: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: be in a casino. Uh, but then they get a digital casino that's It's crazy.
Grayson: Yeah. So I think we need to get over this phobia. We have of enshrining an idea of human flourishing in our, in our political system and in our economic policy. You know, we should say, we should be able to say, [00:55:00] you know, entrepreneurship freedom, uh, individual autonomy. These are all good things so far as they go, but that doesn't mean that all choices are equally valid and that all life paths are equally valid.
Grayson: We actually want people to fall in love, get married, have children, raise those children. We want those children to have normal, healthy childhoods where they go outside and play and their brains aren't turned into mashed potatoes by the time they're eight years old. Uh, and this isn't an issue of, of government restricting your freedom.
Grayson: This is an issue of giving you authentic freedom and protecting you against people and, and entities that want to take it away.
Samantha: Mm-hmm.
Grayson: Um, and I, I don't think, I think that that's what we think of today as, as liberalism or, uh, you know, as a democratic society, right? That what it's come to mean is this sort of radical indifference as to ultimate goods, right?
Grayson: That, that society has to be officially neutral on what the good life looks like. And that's not [00:56:00] how this country was founded. Even. Um, if you go back and you just read the Founding Fathers, they all believe in natural law. Um, they all believe that there's such a thing as human nature and the type of flourishing property of that nature, and we've really, really gotten away with that.
Grayson: And the same thing. In the economic sphere where there's this focus on just increasing consumption, uh, and on increasing personal autonomy. Um, whereas no, it's like maybe we can, uh, maybe we can sacrifice a little bit of GB GDP growth if it makes it easier for, uh, people to get married and buy homes and raise families on one income.
Grayson: Uh, have, you know, real good dignified work. Uh, these are all, you know, important questions of public policy. And I think that one thing we can do to fight transhumanism is kind of organize around those principles. Um, but in terms of an individual, um, you know, I think the best you can do is really try to be intentional about how you [00:57:00] use technology and really try to embed yourself in real life communities, you know, especially your church.
Samantha: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so one final question that I ask all our guests is, uh, who is one person alive or dead, real or fictional, who you believe exemplifies the very best of being human?
Grayson: The very best of being human. Goodness. Uh, well, by, by definition Jesus of of Nazareth, right? The very best.
Samantha: to that. So, uh, where can listeners connect with you? Find your work, follow your work by the book?
Grayson: yes. You can buy the book at Sophia Institute press's website. That's sophia institute.com/transhuman. Uh, the book's also available on Amazon. It's called the Transhumanist Temptation. In case you forgot. Uh, it's available is a Kindle and as an audiobook too. The narrator, I think, did a [00:58:00] very good job. So, uh, you can enjoy it as an audiobook.
Samantha: Awesome.
Grayson: then if you wanna follow me, I'm on X Twitter at, uh, hemming Q is my handle. H-E-M-I-N-G-Q-U-A-Y.
Samantha: I like that. That's a good, that's a good one. Thank you so much for your time. I.
Grayson: Thank you for having me.
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