10/25/2016
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XIII. Opponents

The environmental movement has taught us humility and respect for the integrity of nonhuman nature. We need a similar humility concerning our human nature. If we do not develop it soon, we may unwittingly invite the transhumanists to deface humanity with their genetic bulldozers and psychotropic shopping malls. – Francis Fukuyama Many enthusiasts applaud transhumanism, but the movement has also provoked a major wave of criticism. American political scientist Francis Fukuyama even pointed it out as one of the most […]
10/18/2016
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XII. Singularity

We’ll get to a point where technical progress will be so fast that unenhanced human intelligence will be unable to follow it. That will mark the Singularity. – Ray Kurzweil What timespan are we talking about before AI outstrips human intelligence? Influential transhumanist thinker Ray Kurzweil (in his books The Age of Spiritual Machines, 1999, and The Singularity Is Near, 2005) says that the age of cyborgs and conscious machines is surprisingly near. Even though today’s machines are nowhere near […]
10/11/2016
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XI. The “Cloning” of Minds

With today’s technology the copy of one’s conscious essence would reside in a computer system.  This means that mind cloning results in software that thinks of itself as a human being when running on an appropriate computer. – Martine Rothblatt Working with the mind and human consciousness is one of the greatest transhumanist ambitions. Creative transformation of the human brain has many advantages – from effective help for victims of various mental disabilities to the ability to create backup copies […]
10/04/2016
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X. New Bodies and New Machines

Transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase. - World Transhumanist Association Western medicine has already taken the first steps toward a radical transformation of the human body. Vaccinations, medications, and calming/stimulating substances already represent a form of body alteration. However, this approach is far too transitory for the transhumanists. Much […]