The Transhumanist Reader is first overview of transhumanist thought
March 4, 2013
The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, edited by Max More and Natasha Vita-More, will be published April 29, 2013.
It is the “first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the origins and current state of transhumanist thinking, according to the editors, and the anthology includes a roster of leaders in transhumanist thought.
“The rapid pace of emerging technologies is playing an increasingly important role in overcoming fundamental human limitations,” say the editors.
Featuring core writings by seminal thinkers in the speculative possibilities of the posthuman condition, essays address key philosophical arguments for and against human enhancement, explore the inevitability of life extension, and consider possible solutions to the growing issues of social and ethical implications and concerns.
The book is edited by the internationally acclaimed founders of the philosophy and social movement of transhumanism, The Transhumanist Reader is “an indispensable guide to our current state of knowledge of the quest to expand the frontiers of human nature,” the editors say.
“We are in the process of upgrading the human species, so we might as well do it with deliberation and foresight. A good first step is this book, which collects the smartest thinking available concerning the inevitable conflicts, challenges and opportunities arising as we re-invent ourselves. It’s a core text for anyone making the future,” according to Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick for Wired.
Table of Contents
Part I Roots and Core Themes
1 The Philosophy of Transhumanism, Max More
2 Aesthetics: Bringing the Arts & Design into the Discussion of Transhumanism, Natasha Vita-More
3 Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up, Nick Bostrom
4 Transhumanist Declaration (2012), Various
5 Morphological Freedom – Why We Not Just Want It, but Need It, Anders Sandberg
Part II Human Enhancement: The Somatic Sphere
6 Welcome to the Future of Medicine, Robert A. Freitas Jr.
7 Life Expansion Media, Natasha Vita-More
8 The Hybronaut Affair: A Ménage of Art, Technology, and Science, Laura Beloff
9 Transavatars, William Sims Bainbridge
10 Alternative Biologies, Rachel Armstrong
Part III Human Enhancement: The Cognitive Sphere
11 Re-Inventing Ourselves: The Plasticity of Embodiment, Sensing, and Mind, Andy Clark
12 Artificial General Intelligence and the Future of Humanity, Ben Goertzel
13 Intelligent Information Filters and Enhanced Reality, Alexander “Sasha” Chislenko
14 Uploading to Substrate-Independent Minds, Randal A. Koene
15 Uploading, Ralph C. Merkle
Part IV Core Technologies
16 Why Freud Was the First Good AI Theorist, Marvin Minsky
17 Pigs in Cyberspace, Hans Moravec
18 Nanocomputers, J. Storrs Hall
19 Immortalist Fictions and Strategies, Michael R. Rose
20 Dialogue between Ray Kurzweil and Eric Drexler
Part V Engines of Life: Identity and Beyond Death
21 The Curate’s Egg of Anti-Anti-Aging Bioethics, Aubrey de Grey
22 Medical Time Travel, Brian Wowk
23 Transhumanism and Personal Identity, James Hughes
24 Transcendent Engineering, Giulio Prisco
Part VI Enhanced Decision-Making
25 Idea Futures: Encouraging an Honest Consensus, Robin Hanson
26 The Proactionary Principle: Optimizing Technological Outcomes, Max More
27 The Open Society and Its Media, Mark S. Miller, with E. Dean Tribble, Ravi Pandya, and Marc Stiegler
Part VII Biopolitics and Policy
28 Performance Enhancement and Legal Theory: An Interview with Professor Michael H. Shapiro
29 Justifying Human Enhancement: The Accumulation of Biocultural Capital, Andy Miah
30 The Battle for the Future, Gregory Stock
31 Mind is Deeper Than Matter: Transgenderism, Transhumanism, and the Freedom of Form, Martine Rothblatt
32 For Enhancing People, Ronald Bailey
33 Is Enhancement Worthy of Being a Right?, Patrick D. Hopkins
34 Freedom by Design: Transhumanist Values and Cognitive Liberty, Wrye Sententia
Part VIII Future Trajectories: Singularity
35 Technological Singularity, Vernor Vinge
36 An Overview of Models of Technological Singularity, Anders Sandberg
37 A Critical Discussion of Vinge’s Singularity Concept, David Brin, Damien Broderick, Nick Bostrom, Alexander “Sasha” Chislenko, Robin Hanson, Max More, Michael Nielsen, and Anders Sandberg
Part IX The World’s Most Dangerous Idea
38 The Great Transition: Ideas and Anxieties, Russell Blackford
39 Trans and Post, Damien Broderick
40 Back to Nature II: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century, Roy Ascott
41 A Letter to Mother Nature, Max More
42 Progress and Relinquishment, Ray Kurzweil
Comments (19)
by bcecil
There have been 2782 official gods in the history of mankind but only one mankind. So who is the real god = mankind, who can do whatever it wants to the universe over time if we survive
by Giulio Prisco
The Kindle version of the book is available now!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-ebook/dp/B00BQZK6MU/
by GatorALLin
…hate to come off too negative, but anyone else irritated the paperback copy with prime shipping is $28 and the kindle edition electronic copy is $31.99. Something wrong with experts about the future/technology/etc asking us to pay more for electronic version that costs more….. just saying… FAIL. Please ask them to study up on Seth Godin first….
by kevin
Your observations are totally correct,it makes no sense at all.
by Giulio Prisco
I especially appreciated Max and Natasha’s affirmation of the bold, daring, visionary and politically incorrect spirit of early transhumanism. Current transhumanism, Max says at about minute 27 in the video, “is overly concerned with risks. And now it’s all existential risks and ‘Oh, we might cause the end of the world!’. Bill Joy has won, basically, a large part of Transhumanism is focused on that.” I totally agree, recently we see a very unhealthy obsession with caution and “existential risks,” whatever that means, which indicates a dangerous ossification. Let’s stop sounding like old people afraid of their own shadow, and let’s embrace again the fresh, solar, energetic, irreverent and optimistic spirit of early transhumanism.
In the same spirit, I resigned from the Board of Humanity+ (then WTA) in 2008 in protest against a trend toward “de-transhumanization”. Here is an excerpt from a letter that I sent to the Board in 2008: “Too much maturity, too much sobriety, too much ethics, too much responsibility, not enough vision, not enough experimentation, and last but not least not enough fun. Let’s not sound like advocates of the precautionary principle or, like Albert Einstein said, young whores who become old bigots. This interpretation of transhumanism is about as exciting as a 1000 page book of tax regulations. I have no doubts that it will permit attracting many more fat assed bureaucrats, nanny state advocates and persons afraid of their own shadow, but are those really the people we want to attract?”
by Nick
Why is this only available as hardcopy- get into the 21st centuary here I want my ebook
by beatriz valdes
Crossing my fingers many of the positive changes, i.e. in life extension and cures for illnesses, will reach lay people much sooner; given the rapidly exponential improvement of computers.
by Richard Steven Hack
I’m pretty sure this won’t cover MY line of RADICAL Transhuman thought! :-)
by SmartAndSober
RE Gorden Russell : There will be monumental scientific and technological breakthroughs every few nanoseconds.
Let’s hope the AIs release (and take time to explain) what they discover/invent, or else we (MOSHs) will live in constant confusion.
Do you read papers from the ArXiv? I do. I enjoy reading extremely technical papers.
by Giulio Prisco
@SmartAndSober, do you take time to explain your very technical ArXiv papers to your doggy, or cat? I don’t think so. Similarly, I am afraid the AIs won’t take time to explain their discoveries to us (MOSHs, Mostly Original Substrate Humans), because it would be a waste of time — we wouldn’t be able to understand anything.
We have another option though: we can choose not to remain MOSHs and merge with the AIs.
Mind uploading will permit a fusion of organic and machine intelligences. Once uploading technology is developed humans and artificial intelligences will co-evolve, merging and blending so tightly that it will be impossible to say which is which, and nobody will care. Mind uploading will give us the means to join our mind children in their adventures.
by Kristoph77
“…merging and blending so tightly that it will be impossible to say which is which, and nobody will care.” ….
People will care, a part (perhaps a significant part) of society will take issue with this, much like the Amish take issue with electricity. Tranhumanism thought leaders should be dealing with the aspect of cohabitation with the un-enhanced; being able to communiacate advancements effectively & reassurenly, could prevent conflict between the 2 parties.
by SmartAndSober
That would involve having the “transhumanist thought leaders” themselves enhanced. A MOSH cannot just *negotiate* with an AI.
The only thing MOSHs can do with the AIs and the benevolent “leaders” (who strives to maintain the primitivist lifestyle of the MOSHs) would be blind trust. (As the “techno-gaians” want
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/technogaianism/ )
I personally cannot accept blind trust and will enhance/upload if I can.
by Derek
So you’re saying A.I.s won’t want to jump into the MOSH pit? Well, then at least they’ll never replace rock stars….
by C
I love ArXiv papers. Astrophysics my fav.
by Gorden Russell
People can spend a lot of time talking about it now, but the Singularity is still a black hole for the imagination. You can try to shine your ideas at it, but nothing comes back, the escape velocity is too great.
All you can be sure of, is that after A.D. 2046, things are going to start happening real fast. There will be monumental scientific and technological breakthroughs every few nanoseconds.
by Brian Kelly
0 AS (After Singularity)
by SmartAndSober
Also try AT (After Tranquility):
Wikipedia on Tranquility Calendar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquility_Calendar
Orion’s Arm SF on the Calendar
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48c6d4c3d54cf
by GatorALLin
..so as a clever take off from the End of the world Mayan Calendar silly fear stuff… there was this comment that indeed the end of the human race as we know it did actually end on 12/21/2012… they would look back in time and start the calendar from that date on the Human 2.0 when things first started to change or be available for change of the new human race or civilization as we know it to be for Human 2.0. When we first started to take control of our DNA and life extension, etc… silly but I still liked the clever twist to it…
by Khannea Suntzu
Ambitious.