Posthumanism in Postmodern Science Fiction

Abstract

This work examines one of the recent topics in the science of computers. It is about the change that technology has caused to the human race, when the human has become one of the electrodes that high technology has drawn its algorithmic programming on. In a more literary analytical process, the novella of “True Names” by Vernor Vinge investigates how postmodern science fiction portrays the human life after being simulated with computer technologies to become merely virtual beings that have no kinship with the boundaries the human body has made. It is a human that has denied its humanistic characteristics to live as cyborgs or precisely like posthuman beings. The posthuman is a creature that has emerged out of the integration between humans and machines. It is a being that has acquired great powers due to its new embodiment; when it can enjoy the virtual consciousness that exceeds that of normal humans due to its transcendentalist process. The posthuman notion has blossomed in the epoch of the postmodern science fiction, specifically in the spread of cyberpunk subgenre that has encompassed a lot of actualities like cyberspace and hypereality. In the shadow of these new contextualizations, the posthuman has adapted the suitable climate for its development. It is the manifestation of the humans‟ ever cherished wishes, to enjoy the eternal virtual consciousness freely.