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Transhumanism and Gnosticism in TV Series

Transhumanism and Gnosticism in TV Series

Last updated on: September 2, 2026 at 2:53 pm by Roger E. Olson

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Transhumanism and Gnosticism in TV Series 2026-09-02T14:53:06-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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I recently viewed two TV mini-series about transhumanism. Both are British. One is Years and Years and is on Amazon Prime Video in the US. The other one is Humans and is on HBO/Max in the US. Both deal with futures where transhumanism is real.

The symbol that accompanies this post is the universal symbol of transhumanism.

Years and Years is the better of the two. It is fiction but raises thought-provoking questions about the future of technology and also about theology. I don’t know if raising questions was the film makers’ intentions, but it does that.

Years and Years also involves Gnosticism. Again, I have no idea if the film makers thought of it as Gnosticism. But I recognize it as such.

A teen girl wants to be free of her body but remain conscious and she thinks she knows of a cutting-edge technology that can do that—upload her consciousness into the cloud and let her body go. At the end of the series a dying woman does exactly that. The teen girls is not ill; she just wants to be free of her body.

The series includes much about where technology may be in ten and more years. Some it is hopeful but there is always a down side. Some of it is downright frightening. The over riding theme is the search and hope for the transhuman—a situation in which people and computer technology can merge to form a new species. The ultimate goal is “the singularity.”

The second series, Humans, is about a future in which “synths,” synthetic humans, robots, can be purchased and owned as slaves. Are they mere machines or more? That is the question the series raises. Do they have rights? Another question.

Both series are entertaining especially if you like science fiction and futurism. I don’t like science fiction unless it is hilariously funny as in the Back to the Future franchise. However, these two mini-series are thought-provoking.

There are groups of people, no only individuals, who want the freedom to transcend humanity using technology. That means more than mere “bionic man” phenomenon as in the old TV series The Six Million Dollar Man. It means a person becoming more than human via technology, especially now virtual reality technology. An example would be a “person” who lives in virtual reality making him or her omnipresent.

That would be, of course, a fairly extreme example. It’s hard to come up with less extreme examples because the line between being merely bionic and transhuman is not clear. A bionic person has powers implanted or attached by technology. A transhuman would be, well, something more or other than human but beginning with human.

In Years and Years a teen girl goes on board a mysterious ship and undergoes an “operation” that results in her sight being placed in cyberspace. She can then see scenes, including people, via computers or special vision glasses that can access the cloud.

Plus, the implication is that “the cloud” will at some time become non-physical. That is, there will be no need of data centers. The cloud will be literally in the atmosphere. There will then be no need of physical computers. We will all be attached, as it were, to everyone and everything. The singularity.

All of that, of course, elevates consciousness over physical reality. Once the singularity arrives, there will be no need of physical reality. Gnosticism.

*Note: If you choose to comment, make sure your comment is no more than 100 words in length, on topic, addressed to me, civil and respectful, not hostile or argumentative, and devoid of pictures or links.*

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