Prominent in the annals of grimdark transhumanism is the notion of digital metempsychosis; the virtual reincarnation of the soul into a novel, engineered host body. Nowhere in Warhammer 40K lore is this more prominent than the continued efforts of Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl to fully resurrect his friend and companion, Tech-Priest Friedisch Adum Silip Qvo, minting eighty-eight biological clones over ten thousand years while continuously augmenting a tortured psyche he remains convinced, per Genefather (Haley, 2023), will eventually give place to not merely a perfect copy, but the literal, restored animus of the original Friedisch, marking a complete transmigration of personality and soul.
Although Cawl, as a figure, operates somewhat outside the prescribed limits of Adeptus Mechanicus doctrine, this notion of the return of a spiritual presence to a physical body via a mechanical process is perhaps the apotheosis of Cult Mechanicus religiosity—and the greatest form of empirical proof for a Machine God—as it is only devout conviction and dedication to technology that can assure spiritual salvation and reincarnation for the faithful. Such a process would also explain Cawl’s obsession with Necrons, who maintain their personality and memories in the form of encoded ngrams, despite having lost their souls to C’tan consumption during biotransference. Nevertheless, despite retention of their sense of self, The Infinite and the Divine (Rath, 2020) explores why the loss of the soul is highly lamented by key figures like Overlord Trazyn the Infinite and Cryptek Orikan the Diviner.
Taken together, Warhammer 40K lore echoes an important debate in contemporary, IRL transhuman philosophy: to what extent is transhumanism a necessary adhesion of technological advancement and religious faith, two seemingly juxtaposed priorities? If, as Warhammer 40K canon suggests, spirituality cannot be decoupled from the pursuit of machine-driven immortality (or any other posthuman pursuit), what are the ramifications for future development of present transformative technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning-based human augmentation?
Author bio
Hi, there. My name is LJ DeGraffenreid. I am a professional rhetorician and machine learning scholar who studies trans and posthuman rhetoric. I earned my doctorate at the University of Nevada Reno, and am currently pursuing an additional masters in artificial intelligence studies.
