Converging technologies: Visions, increased contingencies of the conditio humana, and search for orientation

Scientific and technological progress broadens humanity's options and decreases its dependency on the given. With the increase in contingency in the conditio humana associated with it, however, not only new freedom of choice, but also problems of orientation arise. This shows itself at present clearly in the debate on Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, in which the nature of the human body and mind increasingly appear to be formable. In this contribution, I will investigate the role of communication of the future against this background. On the one hand, it plays the role of a medium through which the increase of contingency takes place. On the other, visionary communication is also used in order to provide new orientation in view of this increase of contingency. This succeeds only if certain prerequisites are met. The analysis of these prerequisites leads to the identification of requirements on methodical elaboration in the field of prospective analysis, in particular, of technology assessment.