Skip to main content

Upgrade Me: our amazing journey to Human 2.0 – Brian Clegg ***

I’ve read a lot of books about evolution – but Brian Clegg’s book takes a startling look at the way we have gone beyond evolution. Far beyond. Upgrade Me is about the way that human beings have used our brains to exceed our basic capabilities. Tellingly, it’s not all about the high tech stuff that springs to mind when we think about enhanced humans. Clegg points out that part of the inspiration for the book was going on a long walk on a hot day. For an animal to evolve the capability to survive in a very dry environment with no water around for days, would take millions of years of evolution. We just go out and buy a water bottle.
Clegg’s thesis is that our urge to upgrade was inspired by the development of the ability to see beyond the present. It was the first time our ancestors could think about the future, and wonder ‘what if?’ From that came our awareness of what could go wrong and the inspiration to go much further than evolution, which biologists will tell you effectively stopped over 100,000 years ago, made possible. The main part of the book is divided into five sections, five applications of this urge. These are extending our life – once we realized we were going to die, cosmetic improvements to make us better at attracting a mate and to give social standing, improvements in our (very feeble) natural strength, enhancements to the brain that enabled us to upgrade ourselves in the first place, and repairs to failings in our body.
Generally the mood is very upbeat, and Clegg takes on those who see enhancement as being unnatural, making us something unhuman and undesirable, in a way that puts them firmly in their place. He also casts doubts on the ‘Singularity’ concept (see Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near) that implies that fairly soon in the future we will merge with electronics to become Human 2.0. That doubt arises from the fact that we are already far beyond version 1 – and though the enhancements described here do sometimes involve incorporating technology in the body, the extrapolation used to suggest the Singularity will soon be on us appears to be flawed.
If I have a negative comment it’s that once or twice there are just too many examples thrown at us of the different ways we have modified ourselves through history – I wasn’t too interested in the part on clothing, for example – but it serves to make the point.
Sometimes the best part is finding an unexpected application that takes you by surprise – seeing how dogs, one of our earliest technologies that is still in use, have become a significant human upgrade, for example. Or discovering the amazing possibilities from combining high technology with our bodies, whether in enhancing our senses or producing living, moving tattoos. All in all, a thought provoking and thoughtful read. Recommended.

Paperback:  
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Peet Morris
Please note, this title is written by the editor of the Popular Science website. Our review is still an honest opinion – and we could hardly omit the book – but do want to make the connection clear.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

The New Lunar Society - David Mindell *****

David Mindell's take on learning lessons for the present from the eighteenth century Lunar Society could easily have been a dull academic tome, but instead it was a delight to read. Mindell splits the book into a series of short essay-like chapters which includes details of the characters involved in and impact of the Lunar Society, which effectively kick-started the Industrial Revolution, interwoven with an analysis of the decline of industry in modern twentieth and twenty-first century America, plus the potential for taking a Lunar Society approach to revitalise industry for the future. We see how a group of men (they were all men back then) based in the English Midlands (though with a strong Scottish contingent) brought together science, engineering and artisan skills in a way that made the Industrial Revolution and its (eventual) impact on improving the lot of the masses possible. Interlaced with this, Mindell shows us how 'industrial' has become something of a dirty wo...