Transhumanism
Transhumanism is an emergent school of speculative philosophy that is predicated on the idea that the human species is not confined to what biological evolution has thus far produced, and instead suggests that humanity has entered a new era, sometimes referred to as the post-Darwinian era, in which the species has the power to direct its own evolution.The term was coined by Julian Huxley in 1957, though the concept designated by him differs substantially from the one transhumanists have been using since the 1980s. The Transhumanist FAQ (2.1), one of the most authoritative transhumanist documents, formally defines transhumanism as follows:
- The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.
- The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.
The pace of technological development is steadily increasing, leading many forward-thinkers to speculate that the next 50 years will yield remarkable and radical technological advancements. Consequently, a new paradigm for thinking about humanity's future has begun to take shape. The "human condition," it holds, is not the constant it appeared to be, and future innovations will allow humans to shape their physical, emotional and cognitive characteristics as they see fit.
Transhumanism maintains that this is good and that humans can and should become more than human through the application of such technological innovations as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, neuropharmaceuticals, prosthetic enhancements and mind-machine interfaces.
"Transhumanism is more than just an abstract belief that we are about to transcend our biological limitations by means of technology; it is also an attempt to reevaluate the entire human predicament as traditionally conceived," says transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom. "And it is a bid to take a farsighted and constructive approach to our new situation."
Following in the tradition of Enlightenment-influenced 19th century political, moral and philosophical thought, transhumanism seeks to build upon the global knowledge base for the betterment of all humankind.
Derived in part from the philosophical traditions of secular humanism, transhumanism asserts that humans should be viewed as the "center" of the moral universe, and that there are no supernatural forces that guide humanity. While largely a grassroots and broadly based movement, transhumanism does tend toward rational arguments and empirical observations of natural phenomena; in many respects, transhumanists partake in a culture of science and reason, and are guided by life-promoting principles and values.
Specifically, transhumanism seeks to apply reason, science and technology for the purposes of reducing poverty, disease, disability, malnutrition and suppressive governments around the globe. Many transhumanists actively assess the potential for future technologies and innovative social systems to improve quality of all life, while seeking to make the material reality of the human condition fulfill the promise of legal and political equality by eliminating congenital mental and physical barriers.
There exists an ethical imperative for humans to strive for progress and improvement, argues transhumanism. If humanity enters into a post-Darwinian phase of existence in which humans are in control of evolution, random mutations will be replaced with rationally, morally and ethically guided change.
To this end, transhumanists engage in interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and evaluating possibilities for overcoming biological limitations. This includes the use of the various fields and subfields of science, philosophy, economics and natural and sociological history.
The very concept of transhumanism brings to mind a sense of overcoming odds. Since one of the largest and broadly based odds for humanity is many wars around the world and problems developed by and through religious dogmas and political strife, transhumanism seeks to move beyond such restrictions that bind us to the past. In this regard, transhumanists have an innate sense of spirituality, but for the most part, do not partake in religious protocol. In fact, some if not most transhumanists are either agnostics or atheists.
Herein, in many respects transhumanism seeks to actualize the goals and hopes traditionally espoused by religions. Many transhumanists describe themselves as being very spiritual. Further, a considerable number of transhumanists follow Eastern philosophical traditions.
As the revelant parts of the human brain are located through research in neurotheology, some transhumanists hope that in a couple of decades we will gain control of all states of consciousness, which are the basis for many religious beliefs and behaviors, and therefore be able to turn on and off so-called spiritual experiences in the pursuit of self-knowledge.
Rather than trusting in the existence of a transcendent soul, materialist transhumanists believe in the computational compatibility of biological minds with future machine minds—with the theoretical implication that human consciousness can someday be uploaded into alternative mediums. Consequently, most transhumanists subscribe to personhood bioethics.
Rather than believing that immortality can be achieved after death, transhumanists strive for immortality by not dying; through the development of radically advanced health technologies and anti-aging medical practices, transhumanists hope to establish an open-ended lifespan, to make death a purely voluntary decision.
And rather than hoping for eternal bliss in heaven, many transhumanists strive for a technological singularity, techno-utopia or, at the very least, a future world filled with much less suffering and strife than today's.
"Transhumans," the early transhumanists, were formally meeting in the early 1980s at the University of California, Los Angeles, which became the central watering hole for transhumanists. It was here that FM-2030 (formerly FM Esfandiary) lectured on the futurist ideology of "Upwingers". John Spencer at Space Tourism Society organized many transhuman space-related events. Natasha Vita-More (formerly Nancie Clark) exhibited "Breaking Away" at EZTV Media, a venue for transhumanists and other futurists to meet. FM, John and Natasha met and soon they began holding gatherings for transhumans in Los Angeles, which included students from FM-2030 transhuman courses and audiences from Natasha artistic transhuman productions and the space and astrophysics community.
Across the planet in Australia, Damien Broderick, science fiction author, wrote The Judas Mandala. In 1982, Natasha authored the Transhumanist Arts Manifesto, and later produced the cable TV show "TransCentury UPdate" on transhumanity. This boutique talking head show reached over 100,000 viewers.
In 1986, Dr. Eric Drexler's famed book on nanotechnology, Engines of Creation, was published in hardcover by Anchor Books. Alcor Foundation’s Southern California location became a nexus for futurist thinkers and Northern California’s tech-heads were carrying copies of Engines of Creation. Yet, not all activists who were interested in improving the human condition were involved in "transhumanism." Some didn’t know of the word "transhuman," although they were certainly pioneering in what is now transhumanism.
In 1987, Max More moved to Los Angeles from Oxford University in England, where he established the first European cryonics organization, known as Mizar Limited (later Alcor-UK), to work on his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Southern California. More met Tom Bell at the USC, and together they pursued ideas about the future. Tom coined the term "Extropy" to reflect these ideas and Max authored the philosophy of Extropy as "An evolving framework of values and standards for continuously improving the human condition."
In 1989, "Extropy: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought" was published, which formally brought together the most daring, futurist thinkers of the time to write about artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, superlongevity, uploading, Idea Futures, robotics, space exploration, politics and economics of transhumanism. Soon alternative media began reviewing the magazine and the magazine attracted interest from likeminded thinkers. Later, More and Bell co-founded Extropy Institute, a not-for-profit 501(c)3 educational organization. "'ExI" was formed as a networking and information center to use current scientific understanding along with critical and creative thinking to define a small set of principles or values that could help make sense of the confusing but potentially liberating and existentially enriching capabilities opening up to humanity."
By 1990, Extropy Institute’s email list had launched in 1991 and in 1992, began producing the first conferences on transhumanism, and affiliate members throughout the world who began organizing their own transhumanist groups. Extro Conferences, meetings, parties, on-line debates, and documentaries have continued to get the idea of the transhuman to the public. But the cyberculture across the Internet became the most fertile breeding ground for people interested in exploring new tools with websites such as Extropy Institute, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Foresight Institute, and Transhumanist Arts & Culture.
In the mid-1990s, transhumanity continued to spread on the Internet through the networking of Extropy Institute’s conferences. If LA was the spawning place of transhumanity, the Internet became the womb. From a few hundred people to many thousands of people, transhumanist ideas are spreading with the help of media awareness and continued hard work of all involved. Today there are other organizations that have joined Extropy Institute to further transhumanist ideas such as Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Foresight Institute, Transhumanist Arts & Culture, Aleph in Sweden, TransVision in Europe, and World Transhumanist Association, The Singularity Institute, and numerous other organizations currently being developed.
In 1997, Nick Bostrom and David Pearce co-founded the World Transhumanist Association, with a slightly different flavour from the Extropians. "It was to be an autonomous and more broadly based grouping that would share the technological liberatory concerns of the Extropians, but allow for more political and ideological diversity than tolerated by the Extropians," noted James Hughes, who became the WTA's secretary. The WTA brand of transhumanism has been dubbed Liberal Democratic Transhumanism.
The WTA quickly established the Journal of Transhumanism and began working toward the recognition of transhumanism as an academic discipline. More recently, it elected a board of directors, renamed its journal the Journal of Evolution and Technology and launched a webzine called Transhumanity.
Acting as an umbrella organization, the WTA has spawned a host of chapters around the world, including active chapters in New York, Toronto, Chicago. In total there are nearly two-dozen formed or forming local groups—one on virtually every continent. A dozen transhumanist groups in the US, Europe, South America and Asia have also formally affiliated with the WTA, including the Extropy Institute.
The first actual transhumanist declaration was authored by FM-2030 in his "Upwingers Manifesto," (1978) as an optimistic view of the future and a reference to the political idea that neither right nor left will bring about the changes needed for a positive future.
Another manifesto or "Transhumanist Statement" was authored by Natasha Vita-More in 1983, which pertained to the growing culture of transhumans and written as an arts manifesto.
As proponents of personal evolution and self-creation, transhumanists tend to utilize technologies and techniques that improve cognitive and physical performance, while engaging in specific routines and lifestyles designed to extend health and prolong life.
Many transhumanists seek to become posthuman, the next significant evolutionary step for the human species. It is supposed that specific biotechnological and nanotechnological innovations will facilitate such a leap by the midpoint of the 21st century. Depending on their age, some transhumanists worry that they will not live to reap the benefits of these future technologies, however. Accordingly, they have a great interest in life-extension practices and, as a last resort, cryonic suspension.
Transhumanists are also forming regional and global networks and communities to provide support and forums for discussion.
A role-playing game called Transhuman Space is written by David L. Pulver, illustrated by Christopher Shy, published by Steve Jackson Games and is part of the "Powered by GURPS" line. [1]
The Ousters of the Hyperion saga are an example of transhumanity, even verging into the posthuman. Instead of "clinging to rocks" like the rest of humanity (which hated and feared them as barbarians), they headed for deep space, adapted themselves to that environment with nanotechnology, and entered into a symbiotic relationship with their technology.
Transhumanists may characterize their opposition as Luddites, and point to such notorious examples as Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who was convicted of sending parcel bombs to prominent people in key technology industries, killing three people and severely wounding two others. Although he published a long manifesto that critiqued the ideal of giving up human powers to machines, it should be noted that Kaczynski wrote in his private journals "I believe in nothing, I don't even believe in the cult of nature-worshipers or wilderness-worshipers." His doctrine was itself mostly a negation, and his actions did not demonstrate any great breakthrough in ethics.
A more notable critic, if not opponent, is Bill Joy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who argued in his essay "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"[1] that human beings would guarantee their own extinction by transhuman means.
British Astronomer Royal Martin Rees cautions in his book Our Final Hour that advanced science and technology brings as much risk of disaster as opportunity for progress. Rees does not advocate a halt to scientific progress, but tighter security and perhaps an end to traditional scientific openness.
Advocates of the precautionary principle, such as the Green movement, favor slow, thorough progress or a halt in potentially dangerous areas.
The conservative political economist Francis Fukuyama wrote in the book Our Posthuman Future that transhumanism (and posthumanism) may critically damage the progressive ideas of transhumanists including the many political systems that are open to making the future a better place for humanity through the alteration of human nature and human equality.
A proponent of transhumanism who shares most of Bill Joy's analysis but not his fears is Hugo De Garis, who nonetheless predicts "a gigadeath war" in which those who seek to remain humans or remain safe as unaugmented humans will fight to the death to destroy the proponents of transhumanism, e.g., wave after wave of smarter Unabombers killing every last AI researcher. According to De Garis, however, the transhuman program is so appealing that it will ultimately survive, and triumph, regardless of violent opposition. Many, however, disagree that such a conflict would be worth the benefits of transhumanism.
Further opposition to transhumanism come from critics who point to subjectivity in the use of concepts such as "enhance" and "limitations", seeing Nazi master race ideologies as a warning of what transhumanism may bring. Others speak of man's inherent lack of competence to direct their own evolution, whilst still more extreme opposition hold that any attempt to alter the natural state of man (such as cloning, genetic modification) is implicitly unethical.
Enlightenment and humanistic roots
Beyond humanism
Transhumanist spirituality
History of Transhumanism in Current Times
Transhumanist Declaration
In 1990 more concretized and formal code for transhumanists is in the form of the Transhumanist Principles of Extropy. They are in brief:
In 1999, with help from such contributors as Nick Bostrom, David Pearce, Max More, Anders Sandberg, and Kathryn Aegis, the WTA compiled the Transhumanist Declaration. It declares the following:
Transhumanism has no rigid doctrines, but the Transhumanist Declaration is a good summary of its core ideas.Contemporary Transhumanist Culture
Fictional depictions of Transhumanism
Opponents and Critics of Transhumanism
Related Articles
External links
There are several transhumanist organizations in existence, including:
Good transhumanist portal sites include
Transhumanist blogs:
Other related links: