**6. Discussion**

The realisation of superhumans with significant powers over and above those of regular humans presents enormous questions that affect all aspects of human society and culture. When attempting to consider the possibilities, a plethora of positives and negatives appear. What is clear, however, is that standing still is not an option. On the one hand, if humans opted by some global agreemen<sup>t</sup> for a non-superhuman future (if that were possible), could the end result actually be an intelligent machine superculture as described in [16,17], leading to the handing over of control on earth to intelligent machines? On the other hand, if humans globally opted for a superhuman future, could society and culture cope with such a distinct nonlinearity in evolution? Maybe we should not worry about it anyway, as it would be a superhuman culture that faced the nonlinearity.

It could be felt that humankind is itself at stake [18]. A viewpoint can then be taken that either it is perfectly acceptable to upgrade humans, turning them into superhumans, with all the enhanced capabilities that this offers, or it could be considered that humankind is OK as it is and should not be so tampered with. Realistically though, humans have always gone for progress—indeed, it is part of our nature, possibly even in our genetic make-up. How would the not-for-progress humans, who want us all to remain as humans, be able to prevent the progress in any case?

As we have discussed in this paper, the most important issue is that we are considering a completely di fferent basis on which the superhuman brain operates—part-human and part-machine. When the nature of the brain itself is altered, the situation is complex and goes far beyond anything encountered with mere physical extensions, such as the ability to fly in an airplane. Such a superhuman would have a di fferent foundation on which any of their thoughts would be conceived in the first place. From an individualistic viewpoint, therefore, as long as I am myself a superhuman, I am very happy with the situation. Those who wish to remain ordinary humans, however, may not be so happy.

With a brain which is part-human, part-machine, superhumans would have some links to their human background, but their view on life, what is possible and what is not, would be very much di fferent from that of a human. Of course, this would all depend on the newly acquired abilities and what e ffects these have on the mixed consciousness. Would all superhumans have similar abilities, or would it be a case of picking and choosing? Importantly, each individual's values would relate to their own life, and ordinary humans may not figure too highly. Di fferent superhumans would most likely exhibit very di fferent abilities. Some, such as thought communication, would be highly desirable, whereas others might be OK for some but not for others. Just how these di fferences pan out is impossible to say at this stage.

One aspect is that superhumans would have brains, which are not standalone but rather are connected to each other directly via a network. A question is, therefore: Is it acceptable for humans to give up their individuality and become mere nodes on an intelligent machine network? Or is it purely a case of individual freedom, i.e., if an individual wants to so upgrade, then why not? Would the network become the most important aspect with each node being of little value? It must be remembered here that we are looking at an intelligent network. Would there, as a result, be some sort of network consciousness?

Some questions are obvious. Should every human have the right to be upgraded? If an individual does not want to upgrade, should they be allowed to defer, thereby taking on a role in relation to superhumans, perhaps something like a chimpanzee's relationship with a human today? How will the values of superhumans relate to those of humans? Will humans be of any consequence to superhumans other than something of an awkward pain to be removed if possible [19]?

It is sensible to be clear that with extra memory, high-powered mathematical capabilities, including the ability to conceive in many dimensions, the ability to sense the world in di fferent ways, communication by thought signals alone and having a networked body, superhumans will be far more powerful, intellectually, than regular humans. It would be di fficult to imagine that superhumans would want to voluntarily give up their powers in order to satisfy the grumbles of mere humans. Indeed, why would superhumans, who can communicate just by thinking with each other, pay any heed to the trivial utterances of humans, based on serially modulated sound waves—very slow, very simple and highly error-prone?

The fundamental philosophy that underpins the concept of the future relationship between superhumans and humans comes straight from Nietzsche [20]. We need to look no further than humans' present-day relationship with other animals. Humans cage them, destroy their habitat and treat them as captives, slaves or pets. Thus, if we look to the future, the best that a human could hope for might be that they become the pet of a superhuman.

**Funding:** The implant studies described were supported in part by Nortel Networks, Maidenhead, England; Tumbleweed Communications, Twyford, England; Computer Associates, Slough, England and Fujitsu (ICL), Bracknell, England. The neuron culturing described was supported in full by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under gran<sup>t</sup> number EP/D080134/1.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
