Transhumanism (sometimes abbreviated >H or H+) is an intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to increase human physical and cognitive abilities and improve the human condition in unprecedented ways.

Transhumanism also refers to the academic study of the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies.

As an emergent philosophy, it falls within the general category of humanism.

Overview

Biologist Julian Huxley, brother of author Aldous Huxley, defined transhumanism in 1957 as "man remaining man, but trans­cending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature". Huxley's definition differs substantially from the one commonly in use since the 1980s.

In 1966, FM-2030 (formerly F.M. Esfandiary), an Iranian-American futurist who taught "new concepts of the Human" at The New School, began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and world views transitional to "posthumanity" as "transhuman" (short for "transitory human"). In 1972, Robert Ettinger contributed to the popularization of the concept of "transhumanity" in his book Man into Superman.

In 1990, Dr. Max More gave the emergent philosophy of transhumanism its modern definition: "Transhumanism is a class of philosophies that seek to guide us towards a posthuman condition. Transhumanism shares many elements of humanism, including a respect for reason and science, a commitment to progress, and a valuing of human (or transhuman) existence in this life. Transhumanism differs from humanism in recognizing and anticipating the radical alterations in the nature and possibilities of our lives resulting from various sciences and technologies ."

The Transhumanist FAQ, prepared by the World Transhumanist Association, gives two formal definitions:

1. 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.
2. 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.

Transhumanists are often concerned with methods of enhancing the human brain. Though some propose anatomical and peripheral nervous system enhancement, the brain is considered the common denominator of personhood and is thus a primary focus of transhumanist ambitions.

Transhumanism generally supports emerging and converging technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC), and hypothetical future technologies such as simulated reality, artificial intelligence, mind uploading and cryonics. Transhumanists believe that humans can and should use these technologies to become more than human.

Some observers, such as Ray Kurzweil, believe that the pace of technological evolution is accelerating and that the next 50 years may yield not only radical technological advances but possibly a technological singularity, which in turn may fundamentally change the nature of human beings.

Those transhumanists who foresee such massive technological change generally maintain that it is desirable. However, they also explore the possible dangers of extremely rapid technological change, and frequently propose options for ensuring that advanced technology is used responsibly. For example, Nick Bostrom has written extensively on existential risks to humanity's future welfare, including risks that could be created by emerging technologies.

Theory and practice

According to transhumanist theorists, 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 frequently denies the existence of "supernatural" forces that can 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 humanitarian principles and values.

Specifically, transhumanism seeks to apply reason, science and technology for the purposes of reducing poverty, disease, disability, malnutrition and oppressive 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.

Transhumanist philosophers argue that there not only exist an ethical imperative for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human condition but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a post-Darwinian phase of existence, in which humans are in control of their own evolution. In such a phase, natural evolution would be replaced with deliberate change.

To this end, transhumanists engage in interdisciplinary approaches to understanding and evaluating possibilities for overcoming biological limitations. They draw on futures studies and various fields or subfields of science, philosophy, economics, history, and sociology.

On a more practical level, as proponents of personal development and body modification, transhumanists tend to use existing technologies and techniques that supposedly improve cognitive and physical performance, while engaging in routines and lifestyles designed to improve health and longevity.

Transhumanists support

Depending on their age, some transhumanists worry that they will not live to reap the benefits of these future technologies. However, many have a great interest in life extension practices, and funding research in cryonics in order to make the latter a viable option of last resort rather than remaining an unproven method.

Regional and global transhumanist networks and communities exist to provide support and forums for discussion and working on collaborative projects.

History

Robert Ettinger, known widely as the "father of cryonics" due to his 1962 book The Prospect of Immortality, laid one of the foundations for modern transhumanism with his 1972 book Man Into Superman.

Early transhumanists met formally in the early 1980s at the University of California, Los Angeles, which became the central transhumanist hot spot. Here, FM-2030, who had articulated the Upwingers Manifesto in 1978, lectured on his "third way" futurist ideology. John Spencer at the Space Tourism Society organized many transhumanist space-related events. Natasha Vita-More exhibited "Breaking Away" at EZTV Mediaa venue for transhumanists and other futurists to meet.

FM-2030, Spencer, and Vita-More met and soon they began holding gatherings for transhumanists in Los Angeles, which included students from FM-2030's transhumanist courses and audiences from Vita-More's transhumanist artistic productions, as well as some from the space and astrophysics community.

In 1982, Vita-More authored the Transhumanist Arts Statement, and, six years later, produced the cable TV show "TransCentury UPdate" on transhumanity. This talk show reached over 100,000 viewers.

In 1986, Dr. Eric Drexler published his famed book on nanotechnology and molecular assemblers, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, and founded the Foresight Institute.

Although the Southern California offices of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation became a nexus for futurist thinkers and technologists who all shared an optimistic yet rational technophilia, not all activists who were interested in improving the human condition were involved in "transhumanism". Most did not know of the word, although some were certainly pioneering in what would later become known as transhumanism.

In 1988, philosopher Max More founded the Extropy Institute and was the main contributor to a formal doctrine for apolitical transhumanists which took the form of the Principles of Extropy in 1990.

In 1998, philosophers Nick Bostrom and David Pearce founded the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), whose members are mainly centrists convinced of the importance of preserving, yet improving, liberal democracy. In 1999, the WTA drafted and adopted The Transhumanist Declaration.

Today, the Extropy Institute and the World Transhumanist Association are among the largest transhumanist organizations.

For a roster of individuals who have identified themselves or been identified by others as advocates of transhumanism, see the list of transhumanists.

Currents

There is a variety of opinion within transhumanist thought. Many of the leading transhumanist thinkers hold complex and subtle views that are under constant revision and development. Some distinctive currents of transhumanism are identified and listed here in alphabetical order:

• Anarcho-transhumanism, a political philosophy synthesizing post-scarcity anarchism and transhumanism.
• Christian transhumanism, a religious philosophy synthesizing liberal Christianity and transhumanism.
• Democratic transhumanism, a political philosophy synthesizing liberal democracy, social democracy, radical democracy and transhumanism.
• Extropianism. An early school of transhumanism characterized by a set of principles regarding extropy.
• Hedonistic Imperative, a moral philosophy based upon the belief in the necessity of using technology to eliminate suffering in all sentient life.
• Posthumanism, a philosophy that seeks to transcend the principles of Renaissance humanism to correspond more closely to the 21st century's ideas of scientific knowledge.
• Singularitarianism, a moral philosophy based upon the belief that a technological singularity is possible, advocating deliberate action to effect and ensure its safety.
• Technogaianism, a moral philosophy based upon the belief that advanced technology can help restore Earth's environment, and that developing such technology should therefore be an important goal of environmentalists.
• Transhumanist socialism, a political philosophy synthesizing democratic socialism and transhumanism.

Transhumanism and spirituality

According to surveys conducted by the WTA, although some transhumanists report a strong sense of spirituality, they are for the most part secular. In fact, many transhumanists are either agnostics or atheists. There are, however, a number who follow liberal forms of Eastern philosophical traditions, while a minority have merged their beliefs with established religions such as Christian transhumanists.

Despite the prevailing secular attitude, some transhumanists pursue hopes traditionally espoused by religions, such as immortality. However, some thinkers associated with the transhumanist movement emphasize that they merely wish to support the use of technology to help achieve longer and healthier lives. Some transhumanists hope that future understanding of neurotheology will enable humans to achieve control of altered states of consciousness and thus "spiritual" experiences.

Materialist transhumanists do not believe in a transcendent human soul. They often believe in the compatibility of human minds with computer hardware, with the theoretical implication that human consciousness may someday be transfered to alternative media. Most materialist transhumanists subscribe to some version of personhood theory or at least judge as speciesist ethical theories that give overriding importance to membership in a biological species.

Criticisms

Criticisms of transhumanism can be divided into two main categories: those objecting to likelihood of transhumanist goals being achieved (practical criticisms); and those objecting to the moral principles of transhumanism (ethical criticisms).

Practical criticisms

Geneticist and science writer Steve Jones argues that humanity does

In his 1992 book Futurehype: The Tyranny of Prophecy, sociologist Max Dublin points out many failed predictions of the past technological progress and argues that modern futurist predictions will prove similarly inaccurate. He also objects to what he sees as scientific reductionism, fanaticism and nihilism in advancing transhumanist causes, and writes that historical parallels exist to millenarian religions and Marxist ideologies.

Transhumanists concede that predictions of pending technological developments have often been inaccurate or premature. However, they respond that pronouncements that any particular technological advance is "impossible" have also been proven wrong with embarrassing frequency. Artificial cloning of adult mammals has been one of many examples. Transhumanists also reject the charge of fanaticism and nihilism, seeing it as inconsistent with the core rationalism of the movement.

Ethical criticisms

Critics or opponents of transhumanist views often see threats to human values or even human survival in transhumanist's goals. Some also argue that strong advocacy of a transhumanist approach to improving the human condition might divert attention and resources from social solutions. As most transhumanists support non-technological changes to society, such as the spread of political liberty and procreative liberty, and most critics of transhumanism support technological advances in areas such as communications and healthcare, the difference is often a matter of emphasis. Sometimes, however, there are strong disagreements about the very principles involved, with divergent views on humanity, human nature, and the morality of transhumanist aspirations.

Terminator argument

A notable critic of transhumanist hubris is Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who argued in his essay Why the future doesn't need us, that human beings would likely guarantee their own extinction by developing the technologies favored by transhumanists. He evokes, for example, the "grey goo scenario" where out-of-control self-replicating nanorobots could consume entire ecosystems, resulting in global ecophagy.

This concern was voiced earlier by neo-luddite and bio-luddite militants, such as Theodore Kaczynski and Kalle Lasn, who claim that humanity has an inherent lack of competence to direct its own evolution and should therefore completely relinquish technology development.

British Astronomer Royal Martin Rees argues, 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 primacy of the precautionary principle, such as the Green movement, also favor slow, careful progress or a halt in potentially dangerous areas. Some precautionists believe humanity's collective intelligence should organize first and thus be ready to overcome any dangers from Skynet- or VIKI-like artificial intelligences that do not share human morality.

Transhumanists do not necessarily rule out specific restrictions on emerging technologies so as to lessen the prospect of existential risk. Generally, however, they counter that some of the proposals of Joy, Lasn, Rees, and precautionist Greens are not realistic and sometimes are even counter-productive. The common transhumanist view is that society should take deliberate action to ensure the early, yet safe, arrival of the benefits of emerging technologies rather than contributing to technophobia and the Frankenstein complex.

One transhumanist solution proposed by Nick Bostrom is differential technological development, in which we would seek to influence the sequence in which technologies developed. On this approach, we would strive to retard the development of harmful technologies and their applications, while accelerating the development of beneficial technologies, especially those that offer protection against the harmful ones.

Brave New World argument

Various arguments have been put to the effect that a society with human enhancement technologies would resemble the dystopia depicted in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Sometimes, as in the writings of Leon Kass, the fear is that various institutions and practices, they judge as fundamental to civilized society, would be destroyed or greatly altered.

In his book Our Posthuman Future and in a Foreign Policy magazine article, neoconservative political economist Francis Fukuyama asserts that transhumanism is currently "the world's most dangerous idea" because it may undermine the progressive ideals of liberal democracy that it ostensibly favours, through a fundamental alteration of "human nature" and an erosion of human equality.

Bioconservatives, like Kass and Fukuyama, hold that any attempt to alter the natural human state (such as human cloning and human genetic engineering) is not only inherently immoral but that it could be a threat to traditional family values and social order.

In one of his Reason Online articles, libertarian science journalist Ronald Bailey has contested these claims by arguing that political equality has never rested on the facts of human biology. In fact, liberalism is already the solution to the issue of human and posthuman rights since, in liberal societies, the law is meant to apply equally to all, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless, educated or ignorant, enhanced or unenhanced.

Some thinkers who are sympathetic to transhumanist ideas, such as Russell Blackford, have objected to the appeal to traditionalism, and what they see as fear-mongering, involved in Brave New World-type arguments.

Enough argument

In his book Enough, environmentalist Bill McKibben has argued at length against many of the technologies that are postulated or supported by transhumanists, including germline gene therapy and radical life extension. He claims that it is wrong to tamper with fundamental aspects of ourselves (or our children), such as our vulnerability to aging and death and our genetic potentials for certain limited levels of physical and cognitive ability. Attempts to "improve" ourselves through such tampering would remove limitations that provide a necessary context for the experience of meaningful human choice. McKibben claims that human lives would no longer seem meaningful in a world where such limitations can be overcome technologically. Furthermore, even the goal of using germline genetic modification for clearly therapeutic purposes should be relinquished, since it would inevitably tempt us to tamper with such things as cognitive capacities.

Transhumanists and other supporters of emerging technologies, such as Bailey, reject the claim that life would be experienced as meaningless in a world with such technologies. They suggest, for example, that a person with greater abilities would tackle more advanced and difficult projects and continue to find meaning in the struggle to achieve excellence.

Gattaca argument

McKibben also advances one of the most widespread criticisms of (libertarian) transhumanism: that emerging human enhancement technologies (HET) would be disproportionately available to those of greater financial resources, thereby exacerbating gaps between wealthy and poor and creating a "biotech divide" (see the film Gattaca for a fictional depiction of this scenario).

This criticism is also voiced by democratic transhumanists, such as techno-progressive bioethicist James Hughes. Hughes, in his book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, argues that biopoliticians must articulate and implement public policies (such as universal health care vouchers which cover HET) in order to attenuate this problem, rather than trying to ban human enhancement technologies, which may actually worsen it by making HET only available to the wealthy on the local black market or overseas in countries where such a ban is not enforced.

Frankenstein argument

Like most precautionists, bioconservative activist Jeremy Rifkin and biologist Stuart Newman argue against the genetic engineering of human beings. These thinkers fear the blurring of the boundary between human and artifact. In the extreme this could lead to the manufacturing and enslavement of "monsters" such as human clones, designer babies, human-animal hybrids or even zombies (see Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau and Resident Evil for fictional depictions of these scenarios), but even lesser dislocations of humans and nonhumans from social and ecological systems are seen as problematic. They propose that strict measures be implemented to prevent these potentially dehumanizing projects from ever happening, usually in the form of an international ban on human genetic engineering.

One reply made by transhumanists and non-anthropocentric personhood theorists, such as Hughes, is that, if they are sentient, all these creations would still be unique persons deserving of respect, dignity, rights and citizenship as any other person. Furthermore, they suggest that an uplifted animal, such as a gorilla genetically enhanced to gain human-like intelligence, could become the most effective spokesperson for the animal condition and animal rights. They conclude that the coming ethical issue which must be dealt with is not the creation of monsters but what they view as the "yuck factor" and "human-racism" that would judge and treat these creations as monsters.

Eugenics Wars argument

A trenchant argument against transhumanism comes from critics who allege subjectivity and biological determinism in the use of concepts such as "limitations" and "enhancement", even seeing eugenic or "Übermensch" ideologies and programs of the past as warnings of what transhumanism might unintentionally encourage, as evidenced by a small cabal of crypto-nazis unsuccessfully trying to gain entry into the movement.

Health law professor George Annas is perhaps the most high-profile and forceful advocate of the position that the use of genetic enhancement technologies by national, ethnic, racial or religious groups at war with each other could lead to new forms of genocide.

Some transhumanists do advocate forms of liberal eugenics, but many others distance themselves from this term (preferring "reprogenetics") to avoid mistaken associations with the pseudoscientific and authoritarian practices of early-20th-century eugenic movements.

Modern transhumanism essentially developed out of an American civil libertarian cyberculture. The idea of equating that culture's position on genetic therapy and enhancement with the eugenic policy of Nazi Germany or the impetus for a hypothetical future "Eugenics Wars" is rejected as logically fallacious by transhumanists and many non-transhumanists.

Notes and references

Notes

1.   Huxley 1957
2.   FM-2030 1989
3.  
4.  
5.  
6.   Walker 2002
7.   Ramez 2005
8.   Kurzweil 2005
9.   Bostrom 2002
10.  
11.   Kurzweil 1993
12.  
13.   Kurzweil 2005
14.   Kurzweil 2004
15.  
16.  
17.  
18.  
19.  
20.  
21.  
22.   Hughes, 2005
23.  
24.   Hughes, 2005
25.   Hughes, 2003
26.  
27.   Dublin 1992
28.  
29.  
30.   Rees 2003
31.   Bostrom 2002
32.   Fukuyama 2002
33.  
34.   Bailey 2004
35.  
36.   McKibben 2003
37.   Hughes, 2004
38.  
39.   Newman 2003
40.  
41.   Hughes 2004
42.   Hughes 2002
43.  
44.  
45.   Silver 1998
46.   Hughes 2002

References

• Bailey, Ronald (2004).
• Bostrom, Nick (2002). "" URL accessed on February 21, 2006
• Gleen, Linda MacDonald (2003). "" URL accessed on March 3, 2006
• Hughes, James (2002). "" URL accessed on February 26, 2006.
• Hughes, James (2003). "" URL accessed on March 3, 2006.
• Hughes, James (2005). "" URL accessed on February 26, 2006.
• Huxley, Julian (1957). "" URL accessed on February 24, 2006.
• Kurzweil, Raymond (1993). The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life
• Naam, Ramez (2005). . Broadway Press. ISBN 0767918436
• Newman, Stuart A. (2003).
• Walker, Mark Alan (2002). "" URL accessed on March 2, 2006

See also

• Bioconservatism
• Cryonics
• Cosmism (Russian)
• Futures studies
• Human enhancement
• Life extension
• NBIC
• Morphological freedom

Organizations

Portals and on-line articles

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Blogs

• Transhumanismus Transhumanismus Transhumanismo ترابشریت

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