A New Paradigm of Human-Technology Symbiosis - Part I
Published on: Feb 18th 2025.
Author's Note
Researching and writing this took me somewhere unexpected. What began as an exploration of how humans interact with machines and technology has evolved into more serious questions about consciousness and evolution. The more I dug, the more I realized these ideas needed room to develop naturally. Each thread connected to others in ways that made a single essay feel limiting. In this first piece, I look at technology through a lens that changed how I understand what it means to be human. I want to share how this perspective reveals new possibilities for human evolution. Future pieces will explore what this means for human potential, consciousness, and our relationship with artificial systems.
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We are the experiment that nature ran on purpose, the universe's way of running recursive routines through protoplasmic poetry. Did you think we needed chrome when we're already cosmic?
The idea of merging with machines has long captivated our imagination and is often depicted in science fiction and futurist visions. Personally, I find this narrative too simplistic, reducing the complexity of our relationship with technology to a linear progression. Here's a (perhaps not so) wild thought: what if we humans already are the most advanced technology around? Not the cold, inorganic cyborgs of popular imagination but a more sophisticated, organic technology, way more complex and adaptable than any machine we've built.
Contemporary discourse often reduces technology to digital artifacts and artificial intelligence systems, but if we zoom out for a second a more nuanced understanding reveals technology as the manifestation of knowledge in service of problem-solving and possibility creation. This perspective reframes technology from something external to us to an intrinsic part of our being and the cosmos itself. At its core, it suggests that consciousness—the animating force behind biological organisms and human-made systems—bridges the organic and the engineered. Information becomes the universal currency of exchange and transformation, driving the emergent and self-organizing nature of complex systems. This challenges traditional dichotomies, revealing an interconnectedness that unites humans, machines, and the natural world.
“The opposition raised between the cultural and the technical and between man and machine is wrong and has no foundation. What lies behind it is mere ignorance or resentment. It uses a mask of facile humanism to blind us to a reality that is full of human striving and rich in natural forces. This reality is the technical reality... Culture has become a system of defense designed to safeguard man from technics. This is the result of the assumption that technical objects contain no human reality.”
— Gilbert Simondon "On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects"
Redefining Technology: From Tools to Living Systems
To understand this shift, we must first reconsider what we mean by technology. The word originates from the ancient Greek techne, meaning "art, skill, or craft." Today, we associate technology with gadgets, AI, and engineering feats. In essence, technology represents the application of knowledge to solve problems or create new possibilities. Seen through this lens, the human body and mind emerge as prime examples of organic technology—self-repairing, adaptive, and capable of extraordinary creativity and information processing.
“The human is nothing other than technical life. The human invents itself in the technical by inventing the tool—by becoming exteriorized techno-logically. The human is the technical life form... What we call 'human' is the living being which, by exteriorizing itself technically, pursuing its own evolution through means other than life, exists essentially as a process of exteriorization from the first flint tool to today's digital technologies."
— Bernard Stiegle "Technics and Time"
This view aligns with Aristotle's concept of entelechy, which signifies a state of completion or perfection. It suggests that all beings have an inherent potential they strive to realize. In this context, technology becomes a way of "revealing" the world and shaping our interaction with it, much like the function (ergon) of a capacity finding its fulfillment (telos).
Nick Bostrom's philosophical framework in The Transhumanist FAQ offers a compelling perspective on this transformation. While his transhumanist vision often focuses on technological enhancement, his deeper insights suggest a nuanced understanding of human potential. Bostrom introduces the concept of substrate independence—the idea that consciousness and intelligence aren't necessarily tied to biological wetware. While my interpretation of this concept departs from his primary transhumanist framework, I think examining it from a different angle uncovers something new about our biological nature. Where Bostrom uses substrate independence to argue for the possibility of non-biological consciousness, I suggest this same concept might help us recognize the sophisticated technological nature already present in our biological systems
This reframing of substrate independence reveals an essential insight into our biological nature: perhaps what we perceive as the need for external technological augmentation actually points to the untapped potential within our existing biological systems—a potential that awaits not enhancement but awakening. With its estimated 86 billion neurons and quadrillion synapses, the human brain already represents an incredibly sophisticated information-processing system that we've barely begun to understand. This biological complexity suggests that what we traditionally view as technological advancement is the progressive unveiling of our inherent capabilities.
While this reading of Bostrom raises deeper questions about consciousness and its relationship to physical reality, Steven Shaviro's work on speculative realism helps us explore these questions by examining how technology fundamentally shapes our experience of reality itself. In his philosophical investigations, particularly in Without Criteria, Shaviro builds on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, the influential 20th-century mathematician and philosopher who proposed that reality is composed not of static substances but of dynamic, interconnected processes. Whitehead's revolutionary vision suggested that even seemingly inert matter is alive with experience and potential—a view that deeply resonates with our understanding of technology as an inherent aspect of nature rather than something artificial or separate from it.
Drawing on Whitehead's process-based worldview, Shaviro explores how consciousness and technology are not separate entities but intertwined aspects of a continuous process of becoming. This view helps us understand technology as a medium through which we both experience and shape reality.
Shaviro's insights beautifully complement Bostrom's framework by revealing how our technological nature emerges from the sophisticated systems already present within our biology. The human body, through its complex immune system, neural networks, and cellular repair mechanisms, embodies a technological sophistication surpassing many artificial systems. Our capacity to process vast amounts of sensory information, generate novel ideas, and adapt to changing circumstances manifests as a form of organic technology beyond the current reach of artificial systems. This reframing suggests a deeper appreciation of our inherent capabilities rather than a need for external enhancement.
It also challenges us to look beyond the traditional narrative of technological enhancement. Instead of augmenting ourselves with external devices, we might focus on understanding and activating the sophisticated technological systems already present within our biology. This approach aligns with emerging research in epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and quantum biology, suggesting that our biological systems possess far greater adaptability and potential than previously recognized. We're naturally wired to organize ourselves in complex ways and share information, creating webs of relationships and understanding that become their own kind of living technology.
Anyway, there's still so much more to unpack... to be continued in Part 2.
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