Man of the Million Year

In 1893, H. G. Wells wrote an article titled "Man of the Million Year", in which he speculated on the possible outcome evolution of humans by the year 1,000,000 AD. He thought that as technology became more and more advanced, it would replace the functions of the body, placing more importance on the brain. This would basically have the end result of all muscles becoming useless, leaving humans as huge brains which walk on hands, and developing machines which digest food. This results in the digestive system devolving into little more than an intestinal parasite which absorbs nutrients from liquid.


Interestingly, this is similar to the way Wells described the Martians in his classic novel "War of the Worlds", which are also implied to have evolve from humanoid forms.



This is an intriguing possibility for human evolution; evolving to the point where you are essentially nothing but a massive brain. Would they still count as humans? A radical change of form would seem to mean a departure from being a human. But what about the way they think? I don't think it's a particularly great assumption that a greatly increased brain size would result in drastic changes to the way their view and interact with the environment. At what point in their evolution would they be distinct enough from as we are now to be called a different species?


If their brains get that big, is it possible that some sort of telepathic communication method could evolve, or would they still use their mouths/vocal cords? Would they use hand signals? Or some other method that we don't use now?

This has definitely born some thought on possible paths I can take for my posthuman.