By definition, however, posthumanism is relative. A posthuman originally begins with a basic human, be it in its lifetime or in its direct ancestral lifetime. The shape of the posthuman derives on the original form, evolved from the needs and wants of the human. Posthumanism responds to the mortal environment that the human is trapped in and works against the trivial nature of morality by eradicating disease and prolonging death. In all, it is the strive for perfection--something that mere human bodies are incapable of.

But at what point does the posthuman become accepted as 'human'?

Consider this analogy by Bostrom: "If your accustomed fare is bread and water, then a box of cookies can be a feast. But if every night you eat out at fancy restaurants, such fine fare will soon seem ordinary and normal; any lesser feast, such as a box of cookies, would be insulting by comparison" (Transhumanist FAQ 52). To a regular human, the amount of artificial machinery in the posthuman concept of the body can be strange, foreign, and even disturbing.

It has much to do with the Freudian concept of 'the uncanny'. First defined in 1906 by Ernst Jentsch, the uncanny "doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might be, in fact, animate" (Freud 1). Freud expands upon this definition by adding a more relative branch: 'the uncanny' is a sensation of revulsion, despite its familiarity. Cognitive dissonance is often created by the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. What exactly attracts and repels us about something uncanny usually only surfaces on the subconscious level--whether it be a slight flaw in the expression of a robotic face or a clammy look to a prosthetic limb, there is awareness and unawareness, repulsion and attraction. This is the unending paradox of the uncanny.

However, again--this paradox is relative. It is reliant on what is 'familiar' and 'normal' to us, as humans, to make the comparison to what disgusts us during the feeling of the uncanny. But if everyone in the world became more posthuman, at what point would their concept of the body become accepted as 'normal'?

Transmetropolian deals with the uncanny as a subject of posthumanism in a particular issue, "Boyfriend is a Virus", in which Channon's ex-boyfriend joins a Foglet community. Foglets are humans who have 'downloaded' their minds into an artificial cloud of nanomachine dust. Channon is convinced that this act of willingly removing the mind from the body is an act of suicide--he will not be "alive" anymore without his fleshy, human body. However, Spider feels quite differently about the subject--he will still be very much alive, just using a different medium of communication, so to speak. The synapse in viewpoints between Spider and Channon illustrates the relative, imprecise nature of being "alive" and being "dead":

Fig. 1: Transmetropolitan, page 5.
Warren Ellis (W) and Darick Robertson (I). "Boyfriend is a Virus". Transmetropolitan #7 (Feb 28, 1999), Vertigo [DC Comics].

Spider, however, knows otherwise. He believes humans are capable of still living in artificial bodies, though he has a great amount of contempt for them. He has Channon meet Tico, a long-time Foglet with a very distinct personality:

Fig. 2: Transmetropolitan, page 21.
Warren Ellis (W) and Darick Robertson (I). "Boyfriend is a Virus". Transmetropolitan #7 (Feb 28, 1999), Vertigo [DC Comics].

Author Arthur Seidel assures us that "post-humans would initially have 'a memory of having evolved, continuously or discontinuously, from humans,'" as philosophy professor Crystal L'Hote highlights in her review of Inhuman Thoughts. However, as Ellis hints at through Spider, the relative importance of those memories differ. Tico 'remembers' what it was like to be in a human body and associates it with all the negatives about being fully human. Yet, he still retains the human mindset and personality--perhaps, even exaggerated more now in his posthumanist body--but it is a negative appearance, despite what he 'gave up' for his posthuman freedom.