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Digital İmmortality: Transhumanism in the Case of "Altered Carbon"

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Contents

Part I: International Perspectives on Digital Communication

Teresa de la Hera
Advertising through Digital Games: Looking Beyond
Simulations of Products and Services........................................................................21

Tamás BOKOR
From Digital Cradle To Virtual Grave Ethical Challenges In
The Real-Virtual World..................................................................................................33

Guido FRANZINETTI
Varieties of Communication in the Digitalised World...........................................41

Mari-Carmen CALDEIRO-PEDREIRA
Digital Literacy and Media Competence in Multi-Task Society..........................47

Dejana PRNAT
Communication in the Digitalized World: Some Trends and Challenges............ 51

Part II: Turkey's Perspectives on Digital Communication

Aslı FAVARO
Digital Culture: Fears, Hopes And Uncertainty About Artificial
Intelligence In Sci-Fi Movies........................................................................................61

Berna ARSLAN; Erhan ARSLAN; Taner SEZER

The Use of Corpus in Analysis of News in Digital Media.....................................81

Birol BÜYÜKDOĞAN
Azerbaijan Country Image in Context of International Public Relations:
Newspaper Websites....................................................................................................103

Can DİKER
Digital Technology, Attraction and Cinema...........................................................119
6 Contents

Senem Ayşe DURUEL ERKILIÇ; Recep ÜNAL

Digital Aspects of Memory: The Journey of Photography On Instagram.......... 131

Emre İDACITÜRK
Propaganda Approaches in the Media of Digital Games....................................151

Eda SEZERER ALBAYRAK

Women Characters in Turkish TV Series from Women’s Window:
“İstanbullu Gelin”��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������167

Fatma ÇAKMAK
Turkey and Perception Management in the Context of Turkish
Imagery and “The Promise” Film..............................................................................183

Gökhan EVECEN; İsmail Ayşad GÜDEKLİ

Digital Culture Groups and Memory: A Case Of Instagram..............................209

Gül Esra ATALAY

Netiquette in Online Communications: Youth Attitudes towards
Netiquette Rules on New Media................................................................................225

Hakkı AKGÜN
Reproduction Of Financial Literacy On Twitter As A Digital
Cultural Means..............................................................................................................239

İlknur AYDOĞDU KARAASLAN

The Design of Online Newspapers: A Comparative Analysis on
Online Newspapers......................................................................................................255

Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon”..........275

Meltem GÖNDEN
Literary Journalism as a Recipe for the Future of Journalism and
Journalism Education..................................................................................................291

Onur ERTÜRK
Witnessing the Birth of a New Power: ‘Voluntary Citizenship’
From La Boétie’s Perspective.....................................................................................313
 Contents 7

Özge UĞURLU AKBAŞ

Industrial Football and Public Relations: Emotional Attractiveness,
Reputation, and “Come To Beşiktaş”.........................................................................327

Perihan TAŞ ÖZ
Re-Constructing the Boundaries Of Film Narrative: Identification
Through Digital Filmmaking......................................................................................343

Şebnem SOYGÜDER BATURLAR

New Ways of Seeing: “New Self-Portraits (Selfies)” by “Photographers”
Behind Smartphones ...................................................................................................361

Ali Fikret AYDIN; Tülin ÇAKIR; Meryem SALAR

QR Code as a Corporate Marketing Tool................................................................379

Birgül TAŞDELEN; Ferihan AYAZ; Gözdenur COŞKUN

Social Media And Personal Branding: Journalists’ Preferences
For Brand-Shaping Practices .....................................................................................397

Mustafa Sami MENCET

Effect of Photo Verification Applications On Digital Manipulation:
“Afrin Operation” Case...............................................................................................415
 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN1; Ahmet OKTAN2

Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the

Case of “Altered Carbon”

Abstract: Humans have always been a desire for immortality. Due to the technological
developments, this desire has turned into a part of future fictions from the mythological
story, and the beliefs of “it’s possibility” have moved beyond being fantastic. The concept of
trans-humanism has emerged as the product of such a belief. This process is inevitable and
deserved in Transhumanism, which expresses the process that takes place until the “post-
human” phase, where the physical and mental limitations of human beings are exceeded,
machine-human convergence phased out the need for a body form.
In this study, the predictions for the future of mankind of transhumanism which represents
a radicalized dimension of humanism, were discussed on the basis of the “Altered Carbon”
series. This series, whose story tells a future time which human mind could be digitally
transmitted to artificially produced different bodies, allows the question of the threats of the
techno-cultural atmosphere that digital immortality could be possible as transhumanism de-
sires. The ten-episodes in the first season of the series that debuted at the beginning of 2018,
was analyzed in terms of the philosophical arguments such as “what mean of being human
is”, “how ethical norms associated with being human will evolve” and sociological considera-
tions about “how societal values such as equality, freedom and justice will transform while
humans develop physically and mentally”.
Keywords: Humanism, transhumanism, post-human, immortality, techno-culture

1. Introduction
Throughout history, the mankind has been struggling to overcome his limitations.
The most basic motivator for the purpose of self-transcendence is the “fear of death”.
The understanding of eternity, which prioritizes “spirit immortality” in religious-
gnostic teachings and finds identity more with the idea of life after death, has gained
a different dimension with the superiority of positive sciences against metaphysics
and the possibility of immortality in this world has begun to be discussed more and
more. Transhumanism has emerged as a philosophical (or cultural) movement in
which “immortality can be possible” and which represents the thought that the pur-
pose of human self-transcendence can be realized by modern science and technology.
Transhumanism is the result of the long history of humanity, even though it is
a concept emerging in the 21st century. It is a consequence of the characteristic of
man who is suspicious, curious and always on a quest. The religious and mythical
roots can be traced back to stories such as Adam and Eve’s expulsion from heaven,

1 Ondokuz Mayıs University

2 Ondokuz Mayıs University
276 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

Prometheus’ stealing fire from Gods for man’s development and questioning and
challenging point of views such as Platon’s imagining that there is a reality outside
the cave. Transhumanism, however, uses “Christian humanism”, in which Jesus-
Messiah embodiment places Human-God dualism to a hybrid axiom, as its main
basis (Mirenayat et al. 2017, p. 76–77). Another important reference point for the
philosophical basis of transhumanism is Renaissance and Enlightenment humanism.
For this reason, Simon Young (2005) associates transhumanism which approaches
science and technology with a utopian understanding to raise social welfare and
bring the social order to the most mature level possible, with the concept of “New
Enlightenment”. There is also a similar relationship between the debates about
the end of the utopianism of the Enlightenment and the criticisms directed at the
foresights of transhumanism. While some philosophers like Nancy Campbell (2005),
Francis Fukuyama (2003), Jasper Lassen and Andrew Jamison (2006) are sceptical
about the transhumanist perspective, “technological singularity”3 can reveal in-
dividuals enriched by biotechnology, nanotechnology, and neurotechnology, and
those with increased quality of life can contribute more to society by being more
intelligent, more talented, more productive according to the philosophers of World
Transhumanist Association like James Hughes (2004), Ray Kurzweil (2005), Nick
Bostrom (2005), Gregory Stock (2002). For example, James Huges emphasized the
need to utilize science and technology for secular humanism and collective good
in his book “Citizen Cyborg (2004)” and he pointed out that progressing towards a
more just, prosperous and peaceful world would be possible through making the
best of science and technology via democracies that encourage citizens to benefit
from safe and effective improvements in parallel with the idea of ​​the Enlighten-
ment. On the other hand, Carl Elliott (2003, p. 20) warns that the final discussion
area of the
​​ developed technologies will be the market; it is necessary to accept
that these technologies will be guided by the market, regardless of what is thought
about the ethics, and through these technologies the body and mind can be turned
into consumption objects in line with the targets of the market. In short, as in the
Enlightenment, the idea of “New Enlightenment” is embodied in a dialectic that
maintains both hopes and fears.
As the idea of transhumanism
​​ implies, it is linked to three technological ad-
vances: biotechnology, nanotechnology and neurotechnology. In these technologies,
the purpose is to increase the life span and quality of life, and in the next step, to
increase the machine-human convergence with the help of computer technology
to the extent that human beings can exist without the need for a form of body hav-
ing limitations. Such a techno-cultural atmosphere primarily requires a debate on

3 Singularity is a concept that has gained popularity with Kurzweil’s “The Singularity
is Near (2005)”. The concept of “technological singularity”, which has been incorpora-
ted into social sciences from the concept of “singularity” in Physics and Mathematics,
has been used to describe a time / period / situation in which technology progresses
rapidly at an unpredictable scale.
 Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon” 277

“humanism”. As Demircan (2016) expresses, the human being of transhumanism

who wants to reach the post-human is no longer homo sapiens or biological be-
ing but a techno-biological (cyborg) entity. This provides a basis for a discussion
involving paradoxes about what it means to be “human” in a cultural perspective
which uses “humanism” as its basis. Questions like “Can the idea built on the un-
derstanding of man’s remediation and development continue to be human-centered
by encouraging the transformation of man into another form of existence?” or “Can
the human being exposed to the aforementioned transformation be still described as
human?” are at the focus of this debate. It is yet another subject of discussion how
to deal with the philosophical approach of “I” to the identity process when machine-
human convergence and immortality through digital transmission are at stake. On
the other hand; the anti-humanist challenge directed at the arrogant perspectives
of humanism being at the service of human beings is discussed in the transhuman-
ist point of view. Thinkers grounding on anti-humanism such as Donna Haraway
(2006) and Rosi Braidotti (2014), similar to transhumanists, tend to see this potential
of technology within the context of forming a relational network, holistic space
among all beings such as humans, animals, plants, machines, etc. rather than seeing
this potential as “human”-oriented (and even “male human” oriented as the West-
ern metaphysics treats) although they attribute a utopian potential to technology.
These discussion topics briefly discussed with regard to transhumanism will be
addressed in more detail with the example of the “Altered Carbon” series. Within
the scope of the research, ten episodes / one season broadcast to date have been
analyzed. The series has been examined on the axis of the themes such as “existence
and eternity”, “commercial immortality”, “eugenic otherness”, “hyper-humanism”
and “being simulation”.
The series was adapted from Richard K. Morgan’s novel of the same name. The
story universe of the series is a conception of future in which technology is the solu-
tion to the finiteness of the human being, just as the expectations of transhumanists.
People can transfer their minds to different bodies through chips (called “stacks”)
implanted into their spine and live for many years as long as the chip is not dam-
aged. However, the series reflects not the utopian perspective of transhumanists,
but the dystrophic concerns about the development of technology. The story of the
series begins with the reincarnation and rejuvenation of an “ambassador (a guerrilla-
like warrior)” called “Takeshi Kovacs” who lived 250 years ago and whose memory
was kept under state control after his death in a battle. Raurens Bancroft, a wealthy
businessman, brings him back to life to solve his murder. Bancroft’s memory is
backed up remotely, 48 hours a day, against any unexpected damage, which is only
peculiar to the privileged class. Since Bancroft cannot remember the time between
his last backup and his death, he needs Kovacs to solve the secret behind his death.
Although he hesitates first, Kovacs accepts this offer and begins a research process
accompanied by his own revenges of his past life.
278 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

2. Existence And Eternity

There are two types of death in the social order of the Altered Carbon series: the
death of the body and digital death. The death of the body is not considered as a
real death. People do not really die unless their brains or magnetic chips which are
the recorders of the signals in the mind are damaged. There is a fiction in which the
state of “mind uploading” is presented by transhumanism as a solution for extending
the life span and immortality gains reality. In this fiction, a person without a body
does not die, but continues to live on a digital platform. Whether describing this
process as “life” or not requires reconsidering philosophical debates on the basis
of “being”. For example, in Eastern philosophy, “motion” is placed in the center of
life. “Motion deprivation” is associated with death. Molla Sadra suggests that the
death phenomenon absorbs the motion and turns the body into a motionless object
(Heidegger 2008, p. 251). Seen as motionlessness, death includes different indicators
of motionlessness. Although motionlessness does not exist, it is also in contact with
various surfaces of the absence. For example, the end of the motion also means
silence. Since ancient Greece, death is manifested when the motion, which is the
most basic indicator of life, ends. The petrified body is an indicator that the resist-
ance to survive is lost (Alanka 2012, p. 82).
In the sense of the series and transhumanism, “life” is coded as a function of
the mind. Treating the being as entity is a condition related to the existence of
“memory”. Since the relationship between the body and motion is cut off when the
relationship between the entity and the body is cut off, the dualistic understanding
that relates the relationship between death and life with motion and motionlessness
is also reversed. In the series, it is seen that people who do not have a body can be
communicated in digital media. In this case, while it is impossible to talk about a
motion in this process of interaction that does not take place in a physical world, life
can be mentioned. On the other hand, the emphasis that the main structure creating
individuality is the mind leads to a new dichotomy: the mind-body dichotomy which
almost disables the body in identity formation. While the body is positioned as an
important factor in the construction of “I” as an entity in the relation of being to the
motion, the mortal body, the immortal memory formulation is established when it
comes to a digital existence. The statement “your body is not your real identity, you
can change it like a snake sheds its skin” (Original phrase: We shed our bodies like
a snake sheds its skin) which is used while giving information about the process
of re-sleeving (reincarnation) in the series, reveals the necessity to think about the
body-mind dichotomy.
Craig Nagoshi and Julie Nagoshi (2012, p. 303), who combine psychology and
gender studies, criticize the Cartesian duality in which the suggestion of mind-
uploading to artificial intelligence machines unveils. According to them, this ap-
proach creates a mind-body duality through seeing the body as a defective machine
coordinated with a personal, voluntary conscious. On the contrary, Nagoshi and
Nagoshi claim that the experience of being conscious and free is the essence of being
human, and that this personality is inseparably connected to the body throughout
 Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon” 279

one’s entire life. From this point of view, life cannot be separated from experience,
interpretation and explanation of experience. Experience necessarily transforms
both body and mind into inseparable parts of identity formation.
The relation between motion and life is explained with the concept of “time” by
Aristotle. According to Aristotle, the raw material of human consciousness, namely
human knowledge, is the senses and perceiving the information our sensory organs
transmit to us and the objects that are subject to these information depend on a
time that does not exist in reality. Understanding time is possible through motion
and change. As time is the measure of the motion that produces it, the motion
also exists within a time. In short, the appearance of time is related to motion and
change (Duralı 1987, p. 102). On the axis of this discussion, it seems unclear how
the position and function of “time” will be in a digital existence like the one in the
series. Is it possible to talk about a certain time when the relation of existence to
body and motion breaks down? How can the position of this time and the position
of existence within this time be described? In all cases, it would be speculative to do
such a discussion today. Because when looked through today’s perspective, “death”
and “immortality” are concepts beyond perception.
According to Bauman, “death is the greatest defeat of the mind, since the mind
cannot think of death – not how we know death –, death is a contradiction in the
context of the term and it has to remain a contradiction”. Merleau-Ponty, Sigmund
Freud, Edgar Morin, etc., have similar views on “the impossibility of imagining,
dreaming, perceiving death”. For example, Morin notes that “the idea of death
​​ does
not have a content” (Bauman 2012, p. 25). On the other hand, death is portrayed
as a phenomenon that is repeatedly experienced in the series. In the first episode,
the off-voice says that “coming back from the dead is a bitch, every single time.”
As can be understood, every incarnation is an experience of death. This process is
described as a painful and undesirable process. It is as impossible perceiving death as
imagining how thinking about existence with a mind that perceived death, let alone
such a description of arising from the dead is a product of a thought that cannot
perceive death. But the fact that death is becoming an experienced phenomenon,
as in the series, can be seen from a Heideggerian perspective, opening doors to
different debates about existence.
Heidegger (2008, p. 251) associates the completion of his existence with death,
which he sees as the basis and means of existence. As a mortal being, it is never
possible for a human to complete himself. Because the purification of dasein from
its deficiencies can be achieved with death, and these two will never be in the same
place at the same time. The existence of dasein means that it is absent at the same
time. Its reaching to its completeness requires the loss of its presence.
Existence is surrounded and limited by both future and death. Both being born
and dying exist in the presence of being, and both are out of perception. According
to Heidegger (2008, p. 253), dasein is an “entity thrown” into the possibility that
every moment in which it occurs may be an end. This means that it is “being-for-
death”. The being-for-death thought raises dasein a consciousness about life and
280 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

anxiety about confronting death leads it to be a being-for-the world (Akarsu 1994,

p. 224).
From the perspective of Heidegger, it can be thought that what experiencing the
death repeatedly would tell about the existentially incomplete nature of the dasein,
which finds its identity with death. If death becomes a part of consciousness as a
memorable experience, can it be said that dasein has reached its completeness, or
is it necessary to talk about a dasein that finds its identity in digital death at a level
of being digital?
Immortality is often thought of as a self-thing located outside of human con-
sciousness. For Deleuze, immortality is a phenomenon that does not surround man,
but surrounded by man. According to him, immortality is a void created by the
thought itself since there is actually no provable fact of thinking about immortal-
ity. The act of thinking, in this case, means taking a break in the death process
and creating gaps implying immortality. In the philosophy of Deleuze, infinity is
associated with a level of consciousness that can perceive infinity in the mental
sense, not in the physical sense of immortality (Erdem 2009, p. 164–166). This point
of view deals with immortality in a very different space from the perspective of
transhumanism. While transhumanists base their immortality more in the context
of the development of mind capacity and the extension of the existence process,
Deleuzian way of thinking relates it to a different and abstract cognitive maturity
beyond efficiency and temporality.
“Altered Carbon” creates a perceptual opposition between the immortality of the
soul and the immortality of the body and mind. In many religious teachings, eternity
is a phenomenon attributed to after death, and the immortality of the soul requires
the death of the body. While being mortal and being imperfect is described as the
most basic element that makes man “human”, the concepts of eternity, perfection
are interpreted with reference to the creator (or god).The transhumanist view of the
series, the desire of man for eternity is regarded as emulating God and portrayed
by the protests of religious groups called “Spirit Savers” and “After-Lifers”, whose
slogans are “spirits not sleeves / make resleeving illegal”. For them, to imitate God
means to get away from him, so they show their response by saying “you will never
be forgiven”. This can be thought of as the symbolic expression of the tension be-
tween transhumanism, a radical supporter of positive science, and metaphysics. On
the other hand, C. Christopher Hook thinks that transhumanist thinking supports
gnostic explanations with some of its aspects. According to him, seeing the body
as a replaceable prosthesis is a new incarnation of Gnosticism. Because the body
is the first prosthesis people learn to manipulate. Unlike the Gnostics, Christians
reject the claim that the human body is evil. To them, incarnation is the foundation
of the identity that God designed and it was also sanctified by Him. Transhumanists
differ from the Gnostics by rejecting the soul concept and replacing it with the idea
of ​​information model (Lilley 2013, p. 30).
Apart from Hook’s approach, a similarity can be established between transhu-
manism and Gnosticism with regard to pre-assumptions on the basis of “equality”.
Just as Gnosticism is based on the belief that all people are equally distant to God
 Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon” 281

and that the soul of God will be a part of every flesh regardless of its being woman,
man, rich, or poor, transhumanism includes the presumption that every person is
equally distant to science and technology which will carry himself to immortality.
Promising the “development of mankind” and that such a development will bring
peace and prosperity, reflects a perspective ignoring all warnings assuming that all
humans will evolve to the same extent, and that such a technological revolution
can further increase the gap between class differences. It seems inevitable that the
control of technological opportunities needed for immortality would be in the hands
of the market considering that the liberal economy and technology which feed each
other in terms of development would grow together.

3 Commercial Immortality And Eugenic Otherness

The commercialization of immortality, its transformation into a commodity in line
with the interests of the market is not only a matter for the future. According to
Bauman (2012, p. 72), the assurance of immortality is one of the most prominent
features of modern society. Societies have to give assurances to their members about
immortality. Immortality is presented as a reward, depending on the values that
​​ the
deceased wants to preserve or maintain the sovereignty of the community he or
she belongs to. In the context of social rituals, all members are immortal, but some
are more immortal than others. Society promises immortality, but this promise is
presented as the gain of a finite life lived according to the rules of society. In this
sense, the political economy of immortality is nothing but stratification politics.
Bauman believes that the idea of ​​immortality infiltrates everywhere, but it is
non-permanent. Despite the continuous flow of time, the cursor has been lost.
Every moment is the same with the next one. In Bauman’s words; “If modernity
deconstructed death into a bagful of unpleasant, but tameable, illnesses, so that in
the hubbub of disease-fighting which followed mortality could be forgotten and
not worried about – in the society that emerged at the far end of the modern era it
is the majestic yet distant immortal bliss that is being deconstructed into a sackful
of bigger or smaller, but always within reach, satisfactions, so that in the ecstasy
of enjoyment the likeness of the ultimate perfection may dissolve and vanish from
view” (Bauman 2012, p. 202). Considering the attitude of the transhumanist point
of view supporting the capitalist economy, it can be considered that a social strati-
fication that is tamed by the motivation of “happiness”, even in the case of being
mentally and physically immortal, will maintain its validity.
In the era of technological singularity, where the transhumanist perspective
ignores in the example of Altered Carbon, “human rights, equality and justice” are
being addressed. The fact that the reincarnation is described as a right that peo-
ple can obtain in terms of their material sufficiency draws attention to the fact of
“inequality”. For example, Bancroft and his family have countless bodies of their
clones, but since his family’s insurance policy is inadequate, a child’s memory can
be integrated into the body of an elderly woman in stock. Moreover, revival in dif-
ferent bodies is depicted as a process that destroys mind. On the other hand, while
282 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

the ones who are not “meth”4 like Bancroft do not have the chance to back up their
memory remotely, the influential people can survive even if the digital disc to which
the mind is transmitted is damaged.
Nancy Campbell (2005, p. 375) joins the transhumanist debates with her concerns
in which she claims that the developments she defines as “suspicious technologies”
are unequally distributed, diverged, and promote social injustice. Similarly, Francis
Fukuyama (2003, p. 104) argues that if technologies are given unlimited freedom of
practice, genetic engineering can increase the advantages of the strongest families
and thus strengthen the aristocracy. According to him, the current developments
in biotechnology, although not yet having the ability to change human nature con-
siderably, have the risk of challenging the concepts of human equality, developing
new techniques to control the citizens of societies, changing the understanding of
identity, and influencing intellectual, material and political developments.
The primary objectives of transhumanism in the process of reaching the post-
human stage and immortality are aimed at the field of biotechnology. According
to the transhumanists, genetic science must be developed in all aspects to improve
physical and cognitive abilities of human beings and extend the life span. However,
all efforts to develop genetic science have brought about eugenic threats.
Eugenie is, at a simple level, “to educate people consciously to produce the kind
of generation desired to develop a selected hereditary character”. The term of eug-
enie was coined by Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton. In the late nineteenth
century and in the beginning of the twentieth century, it was quite surprising that
state-sponsored eugenic programs received the support of many governments. In
addition to Social Darwinists, names such as Beatrice and Sidney Webb and George
Bernard Shaw of the Fabian Socialists, communists like J.B.S. Haldane and J. D. Ber-
nal and feminists like Margaret Sanger have been supporters of eugenic programs.
In some other “Western” countries, especially in the United States, individuals who
have genetic deficiencies in intelligence and the like have been encouraged to get
sterilized without receiving their consent and to have children from those who are
approved genetically through creating and enforcing legislations on eugenics. The
Nazis, who applied policies such as the removal of an entire population and medi-
cal experiments on genetically inferior people, are one of the most widespread and
terrifying examples of this matter (Fukuyama 2003, pp. 105–106).
It has historically been experienced that eugenic policies can bring structures
that create otherness in society into a more radical dimension. One of the biggest
handicaps of the transhumanist perspective is related to this subject. The genetic
science utilized in the development of human abilities can be used to expose vari-
ous races, classes, or individuals to discriminatory policies through turning them
into materials of power and power relations. Such anxiety is also touched upon in
the Altered Carbon series. The most qualified practices unique to eugenie science
in the series are offered to the service of rich people. For example, the bodies of

4 A concept used in the series to describe those in the upper class.

 Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon” 283

Bencroft’s family are equipped with genetically unusual features. People who have
bodies created with the greatest possibilities of genetic science are in a privileged
position in the social life.
Transhumanism is implicit in the super-human imagination both morally and
with physical and mental development. However, even if the human evolution
process has reached immortality, it cannot be guaranteed that it would be a just,
compassionate and happy entity. If we consider all the worries that have been men-
tioned up to this point, it is possible that people become much more cruel, selfish,
unjust and so on and the potential of evil, which is the subject together with oneself,
increases. Aside from whether technological singularity offers great opportuni-
ties for human beings or irresistible threats, there are also opinions based on the
antithesis of humanism that the “human” centered man himself is problematical.

4. Hyper-Humanism
Elaine Graham (2006) warns that transhumanism is “hyper-humanism”. Accord-
ing to her, this kind of a viewpoint of people as living creatures that can influence
their own development, which they themselves create with their own technology,
produces the arrogant belief that mankind alone is in control of history which can
be called as “hyper-humanism”.
“We anticipate the possibility of aging, cognitive deficiencies, involuntary an-
guish, and expanding human potential by means of overcoming our contribution to
planet Earth. New technologies that enable everyone to enjoy better minds, better
bodies and better life … In other words, we want people to be ‘good’” (Lilley 2013,
p. 1). This statement of World Transhumanist Association clearly reveals their “hu-
man” focused viewpoints. Some thinkers, such as Haraway (2006) and Braidotti
(2014), who used anti-humanism as their basis, attempted to rescue the potential
of reformation and liberation of science and technology from the domination of
“human” centrality. In both of them, the liberation movements of postmodern era
initiated and fuelled by “others” are at the root of anti-humanism. According to
Braidotti (2014, p. 48), women’s rights movements, anti-racism and anti-colonial
movements, anti-nuclear and environmental movements (2014, p. 48) have pointed
out the crisis regarding the dominant status of humanity as the structural others
of modernity.
Haraway’s feminist anti-humanism is based on the power of challenge to the
dualities of technology culture, the product of the Western tradition, such as the
self / the other, the mind / body, culture / nature, male / female, human / animal,
civil / primitive, reality / illusion, God / man. For Haraway (2006, p. 67), cyborg
imagery is the way out of the labyrinth of all the dualities we use as references to
describe our bodies and identities. According to her (2006, p. 65), these dualities’
acquiring an ambiguous content means, “entering into a dialect of apocalypse with
the other”. Through being the other, it ceases to be one and becomes plural (multi-
vocal signifier) without essence.
284 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

Humanism is one of the most fundamental themes of the Altered Carbon series.
The arrogant rationale of the human-focused viewpoint is particularly emphasized
in the dialogue between Kovacs and Bancroft. Upon Kovacs’ telling Bancroft that
there is a natural sequence of birth and death, and that they had broken this se-
quence, Bancroft replied, “God died, we took his place.” This dialogue, on the one
hand, challenges God-human dualism, but on the other hand it attributes a power
and value to all living things. However, the “human” in question does not cover all
human beings as a general category, but becomes a subject of a two-faced human-
ism, which makes some people more privileged within a class structure.
Similar to Haraway, Braidotti’s aspect of anti-humanism is related to the rejec-
tion of the holistic identities that are attached to the ideal of the Eurocentric and
normative humanist “male person”. According to Braidotti (2014, p. 61), post-human
ethics requires a wide range of interdependence with every existent, including the
non-human, namely, “others” belonging to earth, through standing against self-
centered individualism. This commitment implies a global commitment among all
living organisms, including non-humans, and it refers to expanding the life form
into being non-human beings -to “zoe”5 based on the ethics of being. This kind of
network relation is described by Hardt and Negry (2001, p. 215) as “anthropologi-
cal migration”, in other words, the hybridization of species. With anthropological
emigration, the borders between male human and other species are destroyed, and it
becomes possible to be liberated from the “master-slave” relation that the humanist
tradition built through the integration of people with different races, languages and
religions, animals6, plants, natural environment, in short, of everything in a cosmos.
In the third episode of the Altered Carbon series, a party is held in Bancroft’s
house where only “meths” are invited. In the party, the guests present a historical or
qualitatively meaningful object to the other guests, respectively. At this gathering,
having a show-off purpose, one of the guests presents a cobra. The characteristic
of the snake is that it has a memory of a human. The guest says that although pro-
hibited by law, he wondered about how to transfer the memory of a human to an
animal body and so he uploaded the memory of a person who had been tried for rape
charges to this snake. The results of this experiment were maddening for the person
whose memory had been transferred to the body of a snake. This contemplation in
the series, attracts attention to human-animal dichotomy in the humanism-focused
debate. The “animal” species is depicted categorically inferior to humans, with the
assumption that the human memory’s being loaded to an animal would result with
maddening as well as the integration of a human mind into the animal’s body is
presented as a punishment.

5 Braidotti’s concept of “vital force involving human, animal, nature and all non-
human intelligence”.
6 Haraway describe animals as “comrade species” in his “The Companion Species
Manifesto. Dogs, People and Significant Otherness” (2003).
 Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon” 285

One of the most notable elements of humanism in the science fiction narratives
is that the machines, robots are depicted as artifacts that emulate humans. For
example; in the film Ex-Machina (2015), the robot emulates a “woman”, not just
a human being, and at the end of the film the robot gets involved in social life by
wearing women’s clothes. A similar approach in the Altered Carbon series is the
virtual character “Poe”, the manager of the “Hotel Raven”, known as an artificial
intelligence hotel7. The character programmed for unlimited service to the clients
shows emotional characteristics specific to human beings. This situation brings
forward the debates regarding what distinguishes human beings from machines
or “what makes people human” in many fictions like Blade Runner (1982/2049),
Artificial Intelligence (2001), Wall-E (2008) or how to define the subject of goodness
and evil. It can also be considered as a critical contact to humanist perspective.
On the other hand, the design of robots or virtual characters in human form
can often be interpreted as a product of the “humanist” understanding. Braidotti
(2014, p. 56) believes that a nostalgic longing for the humanist past in relation to
the role of technology is to be abandoned, and new prospective perspectives must
be developed by new forms of subjectivity. Because according to him, technologies
normatively have a neutral structure, and it is pointless to put an intrinsic human-
istic agency on them.
Another theorist, Deleuze, who believes in the necessity of developing an anti-
humanist understanding think that the structures that dominate the nature should
be abandoned. According to him, such a liberation might be possible through be-
coming free from an understanding that isolates animal, woman, homosexual, black
man, crazy, etc. from the idea of an
​​ absolute humanity (Batukan 2016a, p. 54). Such
a liberation means seeing life and thought as a flow. According to Deleuze, the
entity affirms itself with “beings” and will re-affirm life as the person frees himself
or liberates his mind in the cosmos (e.g. to the extent that being-animal makes it
possible) (Batukan 2016b, p. 84).

5. Becoming Simulation
Deleuzian philosophy is based on the ethics of “being”. An existence from which
the body wants to escape … This existence is related to body’s entering into a
process where it eludes human organizing and where it does not exist anymore.
This process, in which it does not exist, but also nothing else exists and in which
it becomes more than it is, opens the self to another person and makes him feel
the desire to be the other. The person experiences the state of being “together”
with being “hybrid” together (Deleuze 2007, pp. 10, 84). In other words, “being” in
Deleuzian thought is the process of creating different potentials of life in one’s own
self, through escaping from our established selves constructed by the society. The

7 This character is a simulation of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, known as the
creator of crime fiction.
286 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

process of being does not mean equalization among relationships, as well as it is

not an emulation, imitation, or identification (Deleuze and Guattari 2005, p. 239).
It is a process of changing and expanding to be more than the being is. Braidotti’s
concept of “zoe” and Hardt’s and Negri’s “anthropological emigration” are closely
related to Deleuzian ethics of existence.
Being blocks such as being animal, being female, being nomadic are an exten-
sion of Deleuze’s understanding that “immortality is a phenomenon that does not
surround man but surrounded by man”8. One can multiply himself in countless
ways and experience infinity through these being blocks. In the context of social
structure in the series, people’s experiences of being transferred to digital media
through technology can be considered as a process of “being digital”9.
When considered as such, this being-digital process, which removes machine-
human dualism and enriches human life to different forms of being, represents
a dimension of the desire to escape from the body. The other side is the virtual
character Poe and the psychological problems of Lizzie character’s dialogue in the
digital environment; it can be regarded as a bi-directional network of creation and
emancipation, in which human being experiences digital-formation and digital one
experiences human-being.
Since Poe character is a simulation of a person who has existed in the past and
reflects human-specific virtues in his character, the being-simulation is presented
as a kind expanding it in the being-human line. The erasure, destruction of artifi-
cial intelligence Poe can be interpreted as a process in which a person is associ-
ated with suffering in a manner similar to the process of experiencing death, and
his saying “you do not deserve to be called a human” can also be evaluated as a
being-simulation that replicates itself towards being-human. The concept of “being-
simulation” is considered as a concept that can be incorporated into the building
blocks of Deleuze. Along with the concept of being digital, this concept is pushing
the boundaries of different existences on the axis of technology.

Conclusion
It is possible to find traces of human immortality in many different cultures. In
tales, literature, sacred texts, mythology, epics, these traces are seen. In the Epic
of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s risking a long and complicated journey to look for the
immortality upon his brother’s death, Genghis Khan’s chasing up the elixir of im-
mortality, Luqman the Wise’s losing the river of life in spite of finding it at first

8 It was mentioned under the title of being and eternity.

9 This concept was used in Suzanne Keene’s article “Becoming Digital (1997)”, but in
this study, in terms of the forms of relating the concept to Deleuze philosophy; Filiz
Erdoğan Tuğran and Aytaç Hakan Tuğran’s articles “Tron and Tron Legacy, Flight
Lines of Reality: Deterritorialization of Human Beings From Places to Spaces” have
been the main inspiration.
 Digital Immortality: Transhumanism in the Case of “Altered Carbon” 287

show that “the attempt to become immortal has become one of the oldest and most
established quests in human history” (Kaku 2016, p. 192).
Progressive science and technology have taken discourses about this quest from
mystical references and carried to a dimension claiming secularity. Transhumanism,
the product of such an understanding, points to a new post human stage in the evo-
lution of the human kind. It systematizes the belief that people will live longer, have
new physical and cognitive abilities, and will be saved from pain and suffering due
to diseases. It can be said that the post-human era is not the one that is controlled
by nature, but the continuation of transhumanism, the ideology of enlightenment,
with the people who control nature.
The Altered Carbon series touches on the subjects that reflect the transhumanist
point of view, with a futuristic conception that the human mind is transmitted to
the digital medium and can survive indefinitely by changing the body. Philosophi-
cal arguments about what it means to be “human” in a world where immortality
is possible are brought to the agenda in the series. One aspect of the discussion is
the thought that what makes a human a human being is related to its being a finite
being. Heidegger’s views on the concept of “dasein” are based on the fact that man
existentially gains identity with death According to him, dasein is surrounded by
both future and death, and it is always lacking for this reason. It is possible to reach
completeness through death.
One of those who think that it is not possible to think humans as entities inde-
pendent of death is Bauman. According to him (2012, p. 17), assigning a meaning
to existence, the classification of objects as meaningful or meaningless, are related
to the fact that a person is a mortal being and has a consciousness of mortality.
Human beings cannot be considered independent of the culture in which they ex-
ist, and his being a mortal creature is the greatest part of the formation of culture,
history, and in the embodiment of his world of meaning. In the words of Bauman,
“Without mortality, history, culture and humanity are absent. Mortality has cre-
ated the ordinary: Everything else has been created by people who are aware that
they are mortal”.
In the 7th episode of Altered Carbon series, discussions regarding existence are
pointed out with these words of Quell, the leader of the Envoys: “We are fighting
with immortality. The creation of stacks was a miracle and the beginning of the
destruction of our species. A hundred years from now, a thousand, I can see what
we will become. And it’s not human. A new class of people so wealthy and powerful,
they answer to no one and cannot die. Death was the ultimate safeguard against the
darkest angels of our nature. Now the monsters among us will own everything, –
consume everything, control everything. They will make themselves gods and us
slaves”. As the conversation continues, Kovach’s sister says, “You’re asking us to
die”, to which Quell replies, “I’m asking you to embrace being human.”
This dialogue links being human with an “ethical” rather than biological and
mental existence. The assumption is that human ethical responsibility is related to
death consciousness. On the other hand, this dialogue encourages to think about
the potential of a future to transform immortality into a commercial commodity,
288 Kevser AKYOL OKTAN; Ahmet OKTAN

to strengthen the mechanisms of power, to increase the distance among classes to

an unpredictable extent, and to give direction to separatist policies as the transhu-
manist perspective foresees.
It is of course paradoxical to carry out a future-oriented debate with today’s
concepts and theories, especially with reference to the “beings” of an existential
debate. When immortality is possible, just like in the series, whether questions about
attempts to make sense of existence that have been asked to date will come to the
fore or new questions and new answers will be needed cannot be known today.
Perhaps this new existence (it can be said so) may follow a process that does not
give rise to any question or render the endeavor to ask question and make sense
meaningless. However, in the case of Altered Carbon, and in all other dystopian sci-fi
works, the aim is often based on understanding and judging the present rather than
the future. In this study, it was aimed to discuss the intellectual atmosphere with
the theme of “immortality” being specific to the concept of transhumanism, which
mentions future but is mainly hodiernal. Since the possibility of the immortality of
the body or mind is not sighted on the horizon, the thought that must be pursued
can be encircling immortality within our self through maturing and liberating our
identity with different “beings” in Deleuze’ien sense. Different beings will provide
multiplication through incorporating all others’ existence to their own existence
and eluding through creating a “multiple existence” from the arrogant nature of the
humanist view. Thus, we can grasp the infinity in the intellectual space (may be not
in the temporal space) and re-establish our existence countlessly.

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