eBook - The Transhumanist Reader : Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future
Available Exclusively as an eBook | Part of the AI eBook Collection | Only for Institutional Purchase | Publication Year: 2013
Description
The Transhumanist Reader is a comprehensive collection of essays exploring the origins, philosophy, science, and technology of transhumanism. It covers human enhancement, life extension, ethical and social implications, and future trajectories like the technological singularity, offering foundational insights into expanding human nature through emerging technologies.
Table of Contents
Part I Roots and Core Themes
1 The Philosophy of Transhumanism
2 Aesthetics: Bringing the Arts & Design into the Discussion of Transhumanism
3 Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up
4 Transhumanist Declaration (2012)
5 Morphological Freedom – Why We Not Just Want It, but Need It
Part II Human Enhancement: The Somatic Sphere
6 Welcome to the Future of Medicine
7 Life Expansion Media
8 The Hybronaut Affair: A Ménage of Art, Technology, and Science
9 Transavatars
10 Alternative Biologies
Part III Human Enhancement: The Cognitive Sphere
11 Re-Inventing Ourselves: The Plasticity of Embodiment, Sensing, and Mind
12 Artificial General Intelligence and the Future of Humanity
13 Intelligent Information Filters and Enhanced Reality
14 Uploading to Substrate-Independent Minds
15 Uploading
Part IV Core Technologies
16 Why Freud Was the First Good AI Theorist
17 Pigs in Cyberspace
18 Nanocomputers
19 Immortalist Fictions and Strategies
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
22 Medical Time Travel
23 Transhumanism and Personal Identity
24 Transcendent Engineering
Part VI Enhanced Decision-Making
25 Idea Futures: Encouraging an Honest Consensus
26 The Proactionary Principle: Optimizing Technological Outcomes
27 The Open Society and Its Media
Part VII Biopolitics and Policy
28 Performance Enhancement and Legal Theory
29 Justifying Human Enhancement: The Accumulation of Biocultural Capital
30 The Battle for the Future
31 Mind is Deeper Than Matter: Transgenderism, Transhumanism, and the Freedom of Form
32 For Enhancing People
33 Is Enhancement Worthy of Being a Right?
34 Freedom by Design: Transhumanist Values and Cognitive Liberty
Part VIII Future Trajectories: Singularity
35 Technological Singularity
36 An Overview of Models of Technological Singularity
37 A Critical Discussion of Vinge’s Singularity Concept
Part IX The World’s Most Dangerous Idea
38 The Great Transition: Ideas and Anxieties
39 Trans and Post
40 Back to Nature II: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century
41 A Letter to Mother Nature
42 Progress and Relinquishment