Transhuman

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For the ideology and movement, see transhumanism

Transhuman is a term that refers to an evolutionary transition from the human to the posthuman.[1]

[edit] History

Questioning the parameters of being human and the relationship with nature have been of philosophical interest before and since Socrates. Questioning the future of the human brings to light moral, religious and philosophical belief systems and, especially, ethical concerns regarding tampering with nature and what is considered by many, especially in western culture, to be natural.[2]

The etymology of the term "transhuman" goes back to futurist FM-2030 (born F. M. Esfandiary) who, while teaching new concepts of the human at The New School university in 1966, introduced it as shorthand for "transitory human". Calling transhumans the "earliest manifestation of new evolutionary beings," FM argued that signs of transhumans included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, plastic surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny, mediated reproduction (such as in vitro fertilisation), absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values.[1]

The concept of transhuman, as an evolutionary transition, was first expressed by FM-2030 outside the confines of academia in his contributing final chapter in the 1972 anthology Woman, Year 2000.[3]In the same year, Robert Ettinger contributed to conceptualization of "transhumanity" in his book Man into Superman.[4] In 1982, Natasha Vita-More authored the Transhuman Manifesto 1982: Transhumanist Arts Statement and outlined what she perceived as an emerging transhuman culture.[5]

Many thinkers today do not consider FM-2030's characteristics to be essential attributes of a transhuman. However, analyzing the possible transitional nature of the human species has been and continues to be of primary interest to anthropologists and philosophers within and outside the intellectual movement of transhumanism.[6]

In March 2007, Greg­o­ry Coch­ran of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, and John Hawks of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Ma­d­i­son published a study, along­side oth­er recent re­search on which it builds, which amounts to a radical re­ap­prais­al of tra­di­tion­al views, which tended to as­sume that hu­mans have reached an ev­o­lu­tion­ary end­point. Jef­frey Mc­Kee of Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty said the new find­ings of ac­ce­l­er­ated evolution bear out pre­dic­tions he made in a 2000 book The Rid­dled Chain. Based on com­put­er mod­els, he ar­gued that ev­o­lu­tion should speed up as a pop­u­la­tion grows be­cause pop­u­la­tion growth cre­ates more op­por­tu­ni­ties for new mu­ta­tions; and the ex­pand­ed pop­u­la­tion oc­cu­pies new en­vi­ron­men­tal niches, which would drive ev­o­lu­tion in new di­rec­tions. What­ever the imp­li­ca­tions of the recent findings, McKee concludes that they high­light a ubiq­ui­tous point about ev­o­lu­tion: “every spe­cies is a tran­si­tion­al spe­cies.”[7]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b FM-2030 (1989). Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of Growth in a Rapidly Changing World. Viking Adult. ISBN 0-446-38806-8. 
  2. ^ More, Max (1999). "Letter to Mother Nature". Retrieved on 2007-02-16.
  3. ^ Vita-More, Natasha (2000). "FM-2030 One of the Spearheading Transhumanists". Retrieved on 2007-02-16.
  4. ^ Ettinger, Robert (1974). Man into Superman (HTML), Avon. ISBN 0-380-00047-4. 
  5. ^ Vita-More, Natasha (1982; revised 2003). "Tranhumanist arts statement". Retrieved on 2006-02-16.
  6. ^ World Transhumanist Association (2002-2005). "The transhumanist FAQ". Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  7. ^ World Science (2007). "Human evolution, radically reappraised". Retrieved on 2007-04-03.

[edit] External links

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