Movie Review – Avatar (How will future humans evolve to be more like the Na’vi?)

The human race of the future will evolve into beings that share sensations and thoughts through neural connections, with technologically enhanced vision, hearing, and muscle strength. This evolution will go beyond physical improvements to profound changes in personal identity and social relationships. Humanity will become a new civilization, a race more advanced than the Na’vi in the movie Avatar.

 

The movie “Avatar” was released in 2009 and tells the story of the Na’vi, intelligent creatures living on the alien planet “Pandora,” and the Earthlings who visit the planet. In the film, which takes place about 150 years from now, the Earthlings have a highly developed scientific civilization, but are portrayed as physically frail compared to the Na’vi, who have blue bodies, superior sensory abilities, and strong arms and legs. Will humanity really be as fragile as it is now in 150 years? Yuval Harari’s Homo sapiens presents a different picture of humans from the biotechnological, cyborg engineering, and non-organic engineering perspectives. Of these three perspectives, the cyborg engineering perspective suggests that the human race of the future will evolve into a race more similar to the movie’s Na’vi than to Homo sapiens. The end of Homo sapiens will not be brought about by alien “butterflies” like in the movie, but when all human beings evolve into new “butterflies,” Homo sapiens will come to an end, that is, evolution, and we will follow this evolution step by step.

 

 

The beginning of this evolution is very accessible. It started with eyeglasses, which were invented hundreds of years ago and are still used by millions of people around us today. Glasses improve our vision by correcting conditions such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. This tool was originally only aimed at restoring normal vision, but humans wanted to get more out of it, so they invented microscopes to see the tiniest things that the average person couldn’t see, and telescopes to see things too far away for the average person to see. Eyeglasses, in the form of lenses, were merged with electronics and continued to evolve to suit their respective purposes, with smartphone cameras, for example, becoming thinner and smaller to match the size of our pupils. These advances are not limited to visual tools, but are being applied to a variety of sensory organs. For example, hearing aids give the hearing impaired the ability to hear sound again, and cochlear implants provide a more precise hearing experience. In the future, these technologies will become more advanced and fully integrated with the human body.
But so far, they’re just “tools” and not yet part of the body. The last thing they need is a nerve connection to become part of the body. This difference can be likened to the difference between flying an airplane and paragliding. When you fly in an airplane, you look out the window and feel the sky and the swaying of the seat and imagine that you’re flying, whereas when you paraglide, you feel the wind on your skin and the small surface of the earth beneath your feet, and you know you’re flying. If we can connect the camera’s image of the world directly to our nerves in this way, we are no longer looking at it with an instrument, but directly with our bodies. This research is also ongoing, and people with vision loss have been able to connect their nerves to cameras and distinguish between orientation and shape.
Research is also underway to improve human muscle strength. “Power suits,” which are robots that can be worn on the outside of clothing to increase muscle strength, are being developed as a solution for military, logistics, and disaster preparedness. There are also miniaturized versions of these tools that fit inside the body, such as the “power knee” from Icelandic company Osur, which uses a motor in the joint and sensors in the shoe to help you climb stairs or hills. Research is also underway to link muscle-building aids to nerves, as in the case of vision. A Chicago rehabilitation center built new arms for Jesse Sullivan, who lost both of his arms in an accident. These arms recognize electrical signals from his brain and allow him to move them as he wishes, giving him the neural connections he lacked. These technologies are also greatly improving the quality of life for humans. They allow us to overcome various physical limitations and open up the possibility of pushing the limits of our physical capabilities.
Are we closer to becoming “butterflies” with better body awareness, stronger muscles, and improved physical abilities? Unfortunately, for now, we’re still just superior Homo sapiens. The main way in which alien life on the planet Pandora differs from life on Earth is the ability to connect nerves. By connecting nerves in different parts of their bodies, they can share sensations, movements, and thoughts with each other. This could be possible in the future. If we can connect external information to the brain in the same way that we can connect a camera to a brain, or move an artificial arm, we can connect information from one brain to another. In this way, one person’s thoughts, memories, and emotions could be transmitted unfiltered to another, and Yuval Harari sees a point where “all the concepts that give meaning to our world – me, you, man, woman, love, hate – become completely irrelevant.” These technological advances will not just improve our physical capabilities, but will also profoundly alter the social and psychological fabric of humanity. Personal identity and social relationships will be defined in a new way, marking a major turning point in human civilization.

 

 

In the movie “Avatar,” the protagonist eventually acquires the body of a “Na’vi” through various hardships. He abandons his fragile Homo sapiens body and gains a body with superior senses, strength, and neural communication. The protagonist seems to have changed for the better, but 150 years in the future, we are already a much more advanced species than the Na’vi, with Na’vi bodies that share not only sensation and behavior, but also thought and mind itself. As we advance physically and mentally with the development of various technologies, we are on the path to the end of Homo sapiens and the evolution of a new species. Eventually, humanity will overcome its own limitations and continue to evolve, transforming into something completely different from what we are today. It shows us what we are capable of, and gives us deep insight into our future.