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Transhuman

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This article is about an evolutionary concept. For the ideology and movement, see transhumanism.

Transhuman is a term that has been defined and redefined many times in history.

One definition of Transhuman refers to an evolutionary transition from the human to the posthuman.[1]


History

Questioning the parameters of being human and its relationship with nature has 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 human nature and what is considered by many, especially in Western culture, to be natural.[2]

The etymology of the term "transhuman" goes back to Teilhard de Chardin, supporter Julian Huxley, and FM-2030.

"Liberty: that is to say, the chance offered to every man (by removing obstacles and placing the appropriate means at his disposal) of ‘trans-humanizing’ himself by developing his potentialities to the fullest extent." [3]

"In consequence one is the less disposed to reject as unscientific the idea that the critical point of planetary Reflection, the fruit of socialization, far from being a mere spark in the darkness, represents our passage, by Translation or dematerialization, to another sphere of the Universe: not an ending of the ultra-human but its accession to some sort of trans-humanity at the ultimate heart of things." -- [4]

"The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself —not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but trans­cending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. “I believe in transhumanism”: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Pekin man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny." -- [5]

futurist FM-2030 (born Fereidoun M. Esfandiary), while teaching new concepts of the human at The New School university in 1966, used "transhuman" 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, reconstructive 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]

FM-2030 used the concept of transhuman, as an evolutionary transition, outside the confines of academia in his contributing final chapter to the 1972 anthology Woman, Year 2000.[6] In the same year, Robert Ettinger contributed to conceptualization of "transhumanity" in his book Man into Superman.[7] In 1982, Natasha Vita-More authored the Transhuman Manifesto 1982: Transhumanist Arts Statement and outlined what she perceived as an emerging transhuman culture.[8]

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.[9]

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 the 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.”[10]

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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ More, Max (1999). "Letter to Mother Nature". Retrieved 16 February 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ Teilhard, Pierre (1949-02-02). "The Future of Mankind". Retrieved 13 January 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Teilhard, Pierre (1950-04-27). "The Future of Mankind". Retrieved 13 January 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ^ Huxley, Julian (1957). "Transhumanism". Retrieved 13 January 2011. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. ^ Vita-More, Natasha (2000). "FM-2030 One of the Spearheading Transhumanists". Retrieved 16 February 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ Ettinger, Robert (1974). Man into Superman. Avon. ISBN 0-380-00047-4.
  8. ^ Vita-More, Natasha (1982; revised 2003). "Tranhumanist Arts Statement". Retrieved 16 February 2006. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ Bostrom, Nick (2002–2005). "The Transhumanist FAQ" (PDF). World Transhumanist Association. Retrieved 27 August 2006. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: date format (link)
  10. ^ "Human evolution, radically reappraised". World Science. 27 March 2007. Retrieved 3 April 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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