Alien and Transhumanism

Figure 1: Alien Film Poster (1979)

 This review will be exploring Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) while looking at the evolution of transhumanism and transhumanist theories. Transhumanism is the theory and belief that humans can evolve beyond current limitations with the use of upcoming technology and science, a term that has been developing since 1312 and has its own declaration! This idea ties nicely into Ridley Scott's Alien with all the crazy uses of science and technology pushing the limitations of what humans can do- and even what the alien in the film is capable of.                                                                                           

Alien is a 1979 sci-fi horror directed by Ridley Scott about a crew of astronauts bringing goods back to earth, but when the explore another planet on their way back one of the crew members is attacked by a strange creature. This creature then feeds off of him and grows a new life inside of him, which then escapes his body to continue growing and taking over the ship, leaving the crew no choice but to evacuate and abandon the mission. But only one strong woman (Ripley) makes it far enough to survive. 









When looking at Alien, the first thing to look at in terms of transhumanism is the alien itself. When presented with the alien, the crew are immediately interested by it and when they try to take a closer look at it. When they do take a look at it, they see that the embryo of the alien attaches itself to a major artery of its host in order to sustain itself. It feeds off of the host (in this case, crew member Kane) to take on the DNA of its host as well as grow inside of them, taking on new DNA and mixing the blood types together, it is unconfirmed in science how this may have affected the alien. 

Figure 2: Alien Concept Art by H.R. Giger

Once the alien grows, it is increasingly hard to kill, the blood it sheds is acid and the being is too smart to be caught. This pushes the crew, mainly Ash- to be spoken about later- to keep reminding the crew that life forms must be returned to earth for further investigations and studying. Mankind are always in the quest for power, even if humans are not sure what to do with what they find, they always want to be on top and ahead of all other species to 'transhumanize' themselves to become smarter and more powerful. Nothing stops the human race from constantly wanting to be the highest of species, not only on earth but in the universe as well. 'Transhumanists are trying to escape ageing — and its inevitable symptom, death — because we actually acknowledge it for what it is: a horror.' (Pigliucci, M. 2009) This quote itself proves how humans are aware of the transhumanist group trying to push themselves further and further, almost in a state of denial.

Figure 3: Ash, Film Still (1979)

This leads on for us to look at the character: Ash. Once we get to the critical point of the film, we finally see who Ash really is. Ash is a synthetic robot. There is a scene once the Alien has taken over the mothership where he says 'This is the first time that we've encountered a species like this. It has to go back. All sorts of tests have to be made' (Alien, 1979). This shows that Ash has no true indications of real human emotions, despite being such an incredible robot with some human emotion, he does not truly care for the wellbeing of his team onboard the ship as he is not actually alive. His role onboard the ship is purely to follow the orders in which he has been programmed with. This is another example of a product of transhumanism: a humanoid robot. This is a new technology that we can see coming to light in today's society, almost like the film is predicting what could happen. Artificial general intelligence could be used to benefit the human race as a whole, 'Artifical intelligence is a branch of computer science where machines can sense, learn, reason, act and adapt to the real world, amplifying human capabilities and automating tedious or dangerous tasks.' (Richardson, 2017) Science is constantly moving towards this field, it is seen in everyday life, at school, at home and in films like Alien. It is becoming more and more common for artificial intelligence to integrate its way into normal life. Ash is a fantastic example of what could go wrong with it, it can become too realistic and cause problems for everyone. Ash was incredibly strong and convincing which caused him to be even tougher to destroy; he is a very real issue and fear among many people in society as his 'character' is extremely representative of true ongoings in technology today.

Overall, it is clear to say that Alien was ahead of its time in how accurate it was about transhumanism aspects today. The film tackles many different parts of transhumanism, from the alien being a spectacle for science to take advantage of with its incredible abilities beyond that of a human, to the way Ash is a demonised robot following corrupt orders with lack of sympathy or concerns for his crew members. It's scary to think about how realistic it is that humans want to test everything in order to understand things further and be able to enhance themselves to be the most genetically perfect, strong, powerful race in the universe. Transhumanism is most likely going to continue to progress as humans get smarter and smarter over time. Alien does a remarkable job of showing this ideal. 


Illustrations:
Fig 1: Alien Film Poster (1979) [Online] [Poster] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/ (Accessed on 12 November 2018)
Fig 2: Alien, the alien (xenomorph) Concept Art [Online] At: https://imgur.com/gallery/WdYwA (Accessed on 13 November 2018)
Fig 3: Ash The Android (1979) [Film Still] At: http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Ash (Accessed on: 13 November 2018)


Bibliography: Alien. (1979). [film] Directed by R. Scott.
Pigliucci, M. (2009) The Problems with Transhumanism [Online] (Accessed on: 13 November 2018)
Richardson, J. (2017) Three Ways Artificial Intelligence is Good For Society [Online] At: https://iq.intel.com/artificial-intelligence-is-good-for-society/ (Accessed on: 12 November 2018)