Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over The Edge

by Ed Regis

Enter the gray area between overheated imagination and overheated reality, and meet a network of scientists bent on creating artificial life forms, building time machines, hatching plans for dismantling the sun, enclosing the solar system in a cosmic eggshell, and faxing human minds to the far side of the galaxy. With Ed Regis as your guide, walk the fine line between science fact and fiction on this freewheeling and riotously funny tour through some of the most serious science there is.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Futurism, Technology

308 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Ed Regis holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from New York University and taught for many years at Howard University. He is now a full-time science writer, contributing to Scientific American, Harper's Magazine, Wired, Discover, and The New York Times, among other periodicals.

Reviews

[Kitap · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got depressed to tears reading Bill McKibben's Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age as part of my second brief and aborted posthumanism kick. In the interest of saving what remains of my sanity I put McKibben's book down and went in for something that approached post/trans-humanism with what I hoped was a lighter touch.

Luckily for me, Ed Regis' Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over the Edge fit the bill. It approaches fin-de-millennium technoscientific hubris with tongue well in cheek. The book begins with a vignette about the late Evel Knievel (!) and somehow manages to connect this famous exemplar of not-thinking -the-consequences-through—deftly, I should add—with contemporary (as of 1990) explorations of nanotechology, space colonization, artificial intelligence, uploading human consciousness, germline genetic engineering, and cosmic conquest. Regis exposes something maddeningly similar between Knievel's failed attempt to jump Snake River Canyon with a "Skycycle" and all the converging technoscientific innovations that threaten/promise to remake fundamentally the world we inhabit and which comprise the core of what is called "transhuman."

According to Regis, the "forward-looking" scientists discussed in this book want:

nothing less than reinventing Man and Nature. They wanted to re-create Creation. They wanted to make human beings immortal--or failing that, they wanted to convert humans into abstract spirits that were by nature deathless. They wanted to gain complete control over matter, and they wanted to extend mankind's rightful sovereignty out across the solar system, into the Galaxy, and out into the rest of the cosmos. (p.7)

Some of the thinkers described in this book "envisioned...a vast interstellar culture, a population of superintelligent robots and disembodied postbiological minds spread out across the stars and galaxies" (p. 7). Superintelligent robots? Disembodied post-biological minds? Spread out across the stars and galaxies? I leave it to you to decide whether this is aptly described as hubris.

And then we have Keith and Carolyn Henson, "a couple of extremely intelligent engineering types" who talk about life on earth as if it were passé:

"There isn't really much left to do here," said Keith. "The highest mountains and the lowest valleys have all been explored on earth. The opportunities are rather limited."

"In other words," Carolyn said, "we were worried about things getting very, very BORING if we stuck around on this planet for too long." (p. 58)

There isn't much left to do here?! Life on earth is boring?! I think the best response to this terrestrial ennui is found in Wendell Berry's Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition . Berry discusses the infinitesimal beauty of the living world and talks about being able to explore almost infinitely the details of a single tree in our own back yard. He advocates this sort of attention to particularity and to detail as an antidote to the depression and boredom of our contemporary late-capitalist, technoscientific worldview. I also wondered as I read this quote what type of pathological boredom afflicts one to the point where LIFE ON EARTH (the only type of life with which any of us is familiar) is boring? What is the psychology behind that? I know that I occasionally get bored with my current life circumstances, but to be bored with terrestrial existence itself seems a wee bit mental. Aren't there always more books to read, movies to see, conversations to have, foods to eat, beers to drink, friends to make? What's truly crazy is that these same people are talking about scientifically engineered immortality! Why?? If three-score-and-ten years leave you breathless with boredom, why shoot for a millennium-long lifespan? Hubris isn't a strong-enough word for this lunacy.

Of course, some of these thinkers aren't just possessed of hubris. Many also seem terminally clueless. Take for instance an author named Tom Heppenheimer who wrote in the book Colonies in Space that Native Americans would find in space colonies a new homeland to replace the one that white folks stole from them:

We may see the return of the Cherokee or Arapaho nation, not necessarily with a revival of the culture of prairie, horse, and buffalo, but in the founding of self-governing communities which reflect the distinctly Arapaho or Cherokee customs and attitudes toward man and nature. (73)

This is possibly the most transparent attempt on the part of technoscience to appeal to "liberal guilt" and utopian desires. Thankfully Dartmouth psychology prof Jack Baird pointed out the patent absurdity of this proposal:

To the Native Americans, land is especially sacred...and today it is the particular land of their ancestors they would dearly love to recover and preserve for future generations. Circling the earth in a mammoth space station would hardly qualify as a promising spot from which to revive and pay homage to the traditions of their forebears. (73-4)

By viewing particulars, whether particular geographical locations or particular embodied minds, as interchangeable generals, a living world of singularities is reduced to an inventory of parts. Thus nothing untoward is seen about proposals to REPLACE these organic particulars with mass-manufactured simulations.

And then there's other talk in this book that frightens me, in part I guess because it is so TOTAL in its scope. Regis calls this type of talk the "Bashful Confession of Omnipotence." It is the belief among some of these forward thinkers that we humans will soon be able to "make anything that is physically possible" (p. 120) by having "complete control over the structure of matter" (p. 123). This is, after all, the fundamental premise of nanotechnology which seeks to replicate nature's means of building stuff atom by atom. And of course, there are the concomitant appeals to utopianism: this sort of power will mean no more poverty, no more human labor, no more centralized control, no more disease, no more death. Will they change "human nature" nanotechnologically? After all, poverty and labor stem more from the need for some humans to be billionaires and to live off the sweat of others than from some fundamental lack of food and natural resources.

Then futurist Hans Moravec comes on the scene with his notions of uploading human consciousness and of making back-ups of people. While I certainly understand the appeal of backing-up those I love, at precisely the same time the implications horrify me. Don't I love my wife, daughter, family, and friends precisely because they are singular, irreplaceable, once-in-a-lifetime individuals? But for Moravec these issues are moot, since it is impossible for us to really determine whether or not we are live or Memorex (i.e., living in a simulation). I guess this is what happens when those midnight hookah circle discussions of being a brain in a jar go horribly awry. So is this hubris or solipsism?

Just when we think these scientists can get no more bizarre, we come to the ultimate example of hubris, in David Criswell's proposal to use the sun as a natural resource. Not a natural resource in terms of the light, warmth, and energy it supplies to the earth, but as raw material for absurd construction projects needed to support the trillions of people inhabiting the inside of the inevitable bubble around the solar system. And some folks are even wondering how on earth we humans will survive the heat death of the universe 10+ billions of years from now. Uh-huh. We can't even figure out how to live in peace with one another on the earth we share and how to feed every mouth with the food we already grow. Worrying about how we'll survive the end of the universe seems a bit premature if you ask me.

So do the ideas discussed herein constitute hubris or are they merely the inevitable march of technoscientific progress? That is the question left me by this book. Maybe the answer, chilling as it is, is both. Or maybe, just maybe, the seemingly imminent collapse of industrial society (read global warming + peak oil + peak water + peak population) will actually be a blessing in disguise, saving us from the futures outlined in books like this. That's a scary thought.

[ricardo (is) reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Should we give one party per galaxy? Or one on the far side of the Virgo cluster? How many centuries should we party? How much bean dip will we need?"

Any book that presents a group of people having fun whilst doing unspeakable acts of Learning Stuff and Performing Science is a good book in my book.

This has to be one of the most interesting, entertaining and weirdest science books I've ever read. And I enjoyed reading it so much.

Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition is, ostensibly, about fringe science, and all the cool, clever ideas that still seem more science fiction than fact. Mostly though, it is about the people behind said ideas. And that's really the interesting bit. The bulk of the book follows a handful of people who wanted to make the impossible, possible. People who wanted tomorrow to come today. People who wanted to be become test pilots of the future (to steal a phrase from fellow transhumanist Warren Ellis). Men and women who thought of the day after tomorrow and saw it as a bright, blazing, and beatific thing, and not at all dim and drab and dreary. The sort of people who looked at the nature of things and thought to themselves, Well, we could probably do better.

And indeed that sort of hubristic style of thinking is basically the main theme of the book. The scientists featured all came to the same conclusions: That we are not tailor-made for this universe. Nature works against us in a billion, billion ways. So if we can come up with ways to fix Nature, to improve upon it, to upgrade it, why not give it a go? Why shouldn't we play God, if it would ensure the survival of our species? It's an interesting set of questions, and I suspect that each reader will come out with a different set of answers.

The text itself reads very much like Tom Wolfe, which is to say that there are lots of Enthusiastic Exclamation Marks! And Emphasis! And So Much Hyperbole!!! Indeed, I thought the book as a whole pretty similar to Wolfe's own The Right Stuff. The primary difference being that this Mercury Team has replaced crew-cut polish with a fair bit of counter-culture flair.

Great Mambo Chicken was published in the early nineties, so I'm pretty sure most of the wilder theories expounded upon here have been proven wrong already (or, perhaps more likely, wilder, weirder theories have taken their place). But still -- it is always fun to imagine all the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. Just as it is still fun to imagine and hope for all the could-bes, because wouldn't that be something?

[Suman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was referenced in a semi-famous essay by Eliezer Yudkowsky called "Frequently Asked Questions about the Meaning of Life", which is why I picked it up. Reading Great Mambo Chicken involved a little bit of mental time travel, since it was published "way back" in 1990. It's funny to think about everyday inventions that weren't around back then - the internet, smartphones, generative AI platforms, etc.

In the book, Regis covers a number of scientific concepts that were on the cutting edge of thinking back then, including private space travel, space colonization, cryonics, and nano-technology. It's fascinating to consider the genesis of these ideas, and how they've played out in the last 30+ years (particularly with space travel, now that SpaceX and other companies have created reusable rockets). The book is very thoroughly researched with inputs from a wide range of scientists and engineers, but is still written in a slightly whacky way that is engaging and digestible.

Where I think Regis trips over himself is in the way that he tries to tie together all of these disparate inputs and ideas. Ostensibly, many of the main characters (particularly the infamous Hensons!) have broad, overlapping fields of expertise, which makes things tricky. However, I found the chapter organization and structure of the story-telling didn't simplify things, and in fact made it harder to track discrete concepts. In addition, I found that Regis repeated similar points over and over, particularly in the middle part of the book.

An interesting read, though I'm sure there are newer works that can give the reader a present-day view that is structured in a better way.

[Pat Cummings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although severely dated (with its theme of "cutting edge wierd sciences" from 30+ years ago), this is a fascinating book. Chapter 2, which covers the quest to build a backyard rocket launcher for space travel, was my favorite, but there are strange attractors aplenty in the rest of the book. If you're a fan of The Worm-Runners Digest, The Ig Noble Prize, or Ig Noble Prize 2: The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself, you'll want to check this out.

Like the latter two, these are tales of true endeavors, not something put together for the humor of it!

[Vikrant Varma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A funny introduction to why being merely human just isn't enough (broadly, transhumanism), and a reminder that serious science (and scientists) always seem crazy at the edges.

Read for the sections on Drexler (nanotechnology), Moravec (uploading consciousness) and Alcor (cryogenics), and all the bits about stellar engineering and travel.

[Julio Pino · Rating 5 out of 5]

"So, you ever do any of that time travel stuff?" Creating our own wormholes, designing human immortality, and nanotechnology to eradicate cancer are but a few of the topics, many strange, some already here, at least in embryo form, covered by Ed Regis. And, oh yeah, designer chickens for dinner. A must for those who believe that today's crackpots are tomorrow's geniuses.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend recommended this book...and I was sceptical. But it was absolutely worth the read, if only to hear about scientists severing their dead grandmothers' heads.

[Swati · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me revisit and question my opinions about immortality. It was a very enjoyable read. Only thing I felt it missed was the multiverse theory.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about hope

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chickens trained in + 1 gravity conditions to have super-strong, roided up leg muscles; heads held in cryonic suspended animation for years, perhaps centuries, before being thawed (or perhaps uploaded then downloaded into immortal bodies); the universe itself being turned into a conscious entity, or at least an organism composed of feedback loops that approximate life, like James Lovelock’s Gaia.
All that and more is contained in this book whose subtitle promises “Science Slightly Over the Edge.” A lot of it frankly seems quaint at this point, so much so that considering the “frightening” implications of it just makes one yawn. We’ve been hearing about sentient robots for decades now and seen them stumble again and again. Ditto for the cryonic immortalists who’ve perfected freezing, but continue to fail at thawing without killing the cells.
One could be forgiven—in the early nineties—for ignoring the old saw about “trees not growing to the sky.” Computer processing speed in general—and Moore’s Law specifically—proved that trees could grow to the moon, figuratively speaking of course.
Great Mambo Chicken & the Transhuman Condition catches the zeitgeist at just that moment where everything seemed possible, both in a dangerous and in a hopeful sense. Golden Age science fiction posited man as eventual master of the universe, while that of the 50s offered a sober counter-vision of man as destroyer of worlds, and himself.
This book is very much a schizophrenic synthesis of those two currents in science fiction, but to be fair, many of the scientists interviewed in its pages are sort of crazy, too. Brilliant at times, granted, autodidacts capable of building rockets in their garages and working out astrophysical calculations on post-its, but nutty, nonetheless.
The freewheeling book is light reading, with a breezy, conversational style, and yet occasionally does give one pause, and food for thought. Its exuberance is counterbalanced by the perspective of various naysayers and devil’s advocates who many times caution to slow down and consider the implications of such drastic potential actions. The promethean impulse—to encroach on God’s territory—is as human as the need for oxygen—but the mythic drive must be counterbalanced by healthy fear instilled by the tale of Pandora’s Box.
Practically every idea treated in brief here is treated at length and in its own book-length work elsewhere. This is especially true for the O’Neil cylinder space colonies and the Dyson sphere, proposed as a way to harness the fusion of hydrogen into helium inside the sun. If you’ve read enough on those subjects, Great Mambo may feel a little too cursory, and elicit more of a shrug than a smile. If you haven’t, though, then this is a good place to start if you want to know about science at the frontier.
It's just a shame that most of this stuff—which seemed on the verge of being applied decades ago—seems as much like SF now as then. NASA, for instance, is bragging about going to the Moon soon, again, as if that were some new frontier to conquer. Meanwhile Elon Musk is merely cluttering up near-space with cube-sats and other space junk, while other “space barons” like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are either launching low orbit hotels or crafts suspiciously shaped like dildos.
And I’m still waiting on my hoverboard.

[David Layton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ed Regis writes a pop journalism account of several of the most "out there" trends in the US sciences in the late 20th century. The subjects are cryonics, DIY spaceflight, nanotechnology, transcendence of the human body, human migration to the stars, and beating the heat death of the universe. Because this is pop journalism, Regis is not all that concerned about the actual science, and while he does write about the central ideas and the major objections to these ideas, the scientific details are pretty much absent so as not to disrupt the swift narrative flow Regis is trying to create. Indeed, Regis seems more interested in the people who come up with the ideas than he is with the ideas themselves. Thus, the theme of the book is not the science, but what he calls, always in italics, fin-de-siècle hubristic mania. Indeed, I found Regis's overuse of italics, all caps, and exclamation marks to gin up excitement a little annoying, like those self-help books that try to use typography to convince the reader that the worst ideas in them are the best. Nevertheless, Regis writes a brisk, low-demand, entertaining variety of pop science journalism. He does not seem to have a thesis, just some interesting stories connected in strange ways. Interesting to this reader is that some of the ideas that were "out there" in 1990 when the book was published are now almost generally accepted as inevitable, especially AI and nanotechnology. Given the prognostications made by their advocates in the 1980s, these technologies should be commonplace and humanity should be well on its way to transcendence. So, where are they? For all the promise of nanotechnology, there is still virtually no working form of it. The possibility of artificial brains that could store and read out an entire human consciousness is nowhere near imminence, even though there is a widespread consensus that inevitably these technologies will happen. Just look at all the science fiction that features these technologies as so common that no one considers them more extraordinary than an automobile. Regis, therefore, may be on to a truth when he calls such visions from the words of scientists a kind of "hubristic mania." In total, the book is entertaining and probably well worth reading for the person who likes science in general, but knows little about it in particular.

[Fin Moorhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gonzo history of the first half or so of the history of transhumanism. The major threads being cryonics (Alcor), nanotech (Drexler), digital minds (Moravec), space travel and engineering (Freeman Dyson and many others).

The tone is half bemusment and half amusement; tongue lodged in cheek. That leaves Regis' own attitudes to the transhumanist project sneakily ambiguous. I read him as a true believer, just milquetoast enough to assume the role of journalist.

Though you couldn't write a serious, or preachy, version of this book if you tried. Too many details are too preposterous to play straight.

Two more things I have reason to believe: (1) that at least one character in GMC regrets the effect of the book on their work and on the transhumanist project; and (2) if there were a book about the next and most recent chapter in the history of transhumanism, at least one character would feature because they read GMC.

[Alvaro de Menard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun pot-pourri of hubristic futurist ideas (cryonics, space habitats, interstellar travel, and so on), and the wild eccentrics who come up with them (Bob Truax, Hans Moravec, Freeman Dyson). Interesting people with interesting views of the future. Unfortunately the book is repetitive, disorganized, and not very well written.

It's cool how before the internet niche communities would organize around specialist magazines. Feels like we may have lost something when these went away.

Also, I tried to find books on OTRAG (a German rocket company with a base in Zaire!) and apparently they do not exist? That's kinda weird.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was really hoping it would be surprisingly interesting (as the Asimov essays I read last year were) but alas. It was a lot of rocket science which I'm just not super interested in, as well a lot of conjectural science that has still yet to prove anything other than that (the book was written 30+ years ago)

[Jack Reifenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

80% of the people mentioned here sound like Rogan guests. Was nice to see Dyson mentioned so much. The transhuman condition is certainly an interesting one, and this was a more enjoyable if less substantive read that The Singularity.

[Bharat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun, irreverent pop sci book. A bit too long winded for my taste. Would have appreciated it a lot more if I read it when I was younger.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here’s a thought: the problem with teaching non-fiction in schools is that as a culture we value story, even it its most cliched forms, over memorization. The great wave of edutainment hitting us now is trying to meet this need, merging story (the “Mario” adventure, in a nutshell, is a fairy tale in which it is man, or plumber as the case may be, vs. nature, albeit a very twisted view of nature, to rescue his true love) with facts. While the grooters are tied to the tube wonking on flying turtles, they have to solve puzzles that actually contain meaning.

Story and facts have been merged into one for years. There’s some speculation that the Bible was preserved to retain warnings for behavior (food choices, ethics), while histories are basically the story of the past written by the winners. Today we get our non-fiction in a multitude of forms, but I have to admit that I prefer a well-done story version as in Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown and here in Ed Regis’ take on wacky (but plausible) science.

Regis’ idea on science goes something like this: there’s always been science that people thought a little strange if not laughable (tiny living organisms that carry disease?), so what’s the current wacky science, is it really plausible and why, and where’s it heading. But he tells us this through the lives of the scientists (and I may be using that term loosely for some of these people). People like Eric Drexler (nanotechnology), Hans Moravec (downloading brains), Dave Criswell (stars for energy), and Michael Darwin (cryogenics). What they have in common with each other and such people as Robert Heinlein, Timothy Leary, Evil Knieval, and Richard Feynman illustrates the heady stuff of science on the edge. If at times it seems science fictional, then that’s probably because SF writers make it their job to keep up with fringe elements such as these.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy crap but there are some weird folks out there doing some weird science - and this book chronicles some real doozies. I found myself chuckling at a lot of it - the poor chickens stuck in the centrifuge (simulating a monster gravity environment) for months who come out looking like steroid-enhanced body builders (Great Mambo Chicken!) was one such example. The fellow who wanted to download his consciousness into several hundred "Bush-Robot" bodies (so-called because they look like a big bush with eyes at the end of every branch - all the better for seeing/feeling/exploring you, my dear) was the thing that made me laugh the hardest (very reminiscent of Mycroft Ward in The Raw Shark Texts). A fun read.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

2007/04 - bought. Started 6 Oct 2008; finished 19 Oct 2008

The book starts with a discussion of cryonics & nanotech & meanders through a series of related topics, while staying mostly focused on the idea of "the transhuman condition" - whether thru cryonics, space colonies or artificial intelligence.

Not quite as humorous as I had expected from the title; more on the philisophical side , but an intriguing read.

[Florian Blümm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book shows it's age a lot. Everyone has heard about cryonics and avatars nowadays. And for people who are a bit more interested in the future of humanity, no concept in this book will be new.

That said, it is a nice indicator, that we actually did make some progress in the past 20 years. And while the title overpromises on the fun factor of this book, it is still a more humorous introduction to transhumanism than fighting through Kurzweil's diagrams...

[Byrne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, remember when gene-editing, space travel, and ultra-realistic computer simulations seemed right around the corner? And then nothing happened for like two decades, and then it all came true?

Relive the glory days of the 60s through 80s, when people were still wildly optimistic about the transformative impact of technology.

(Note that lots of the people and projects were dead ends, but many of the basic ideas are now reality.)

[Tamas Kalman · Rating 5 out of 5]

It wasn’t the best idea to read this book on an airplane, especially since the section about the otherwise hilarious rocket experiments was a little disturbing. All in all, it’s a very entertaining book about crazy – but also very interesting – inventors and their experiments, transhumanist approaches, and theories.

[Kevin Heldermon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one about 10 or 15 years ago. It gave me hope that there were other scientists out there trying to benefit and advance the human condition. With the decommissioning of the space shuttle and the lack of any form of space colony after more than 50 years of space flight, I'm beginning to doubt that it will ever be more than a dream to a few scientists labeled by society as whack jobs.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hilarious look at the ideas and people on the "cutting edge" of science - that edge has been pushed back somewhat in the 25 years since this was released, and some of the ideas discussed have since collapsed under their own weight, but there are still ideas and proposals in this book that scientists are working toward every day.

[Jonpaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learn how to peel your brain, layer by layer, like an onion, and reconstruct it inside another vessel. But when you make it there are you still you? Does it really matter if you don't know the difference?

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good general overview of the beginnings of the Transhumanist movement and its beginings in cryonics . Though by today's standards the book is very dated (written in 1992). The style is an approachable journalistic one , which it proves an easy read. That is somewhat lacking in sources.

[Mark Sanchez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the topics, but that's pretty much it. The book neither went into depth technically (which is fine), nor into depth analyzing the people it discusses. It just recounts stories superficially. It's 'people have hubris but can back it up with science, awesome! ' theme gets very redundant.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining jaunt along the boundary between science fiction and science possibility, and an introduction to some really interesting people developing even more interesting, even outlandish, ideas.
The author is a little too fond of the term "hubris", even if he might be, well, right.

[Mollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was excellent little bits of information on multiple areas of science (or science-almost-fiction). it left me wanting to know more, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I feel like a narrower focus and more depth might have been better?

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. Vignettes about half-baked, sci-fi plans and inventions and the crackpots behind them.
Hard to find in print. Check the used books sold through Amazon.