Category Archives: Transhumanism

Sophie Robart

Professor Tom Beyer

FYSE 1286

11 November 2013

What is a Society of Posthumans?

Transhumanism is a field of philosophy that aspires to further the abilities of humans by utilizing opportunities of science and technology to enhance human life. Transhumanists see the human condition today as less than what it could or should be, and strive for society to become full of posthumans. These philosophers believe that the next few generations will belong to those who want to advance human life conditions, rather than act skeptically towards the idea of change. These Transhumanists hope that this change in society will stem from a generation that will have been raised and assimilated with the ideas of Transhumanism. While for Transhumanists the concept of changing mankind in order to eliminate disease and enhance intellectual capacity is solely to better the world, their concept of change has sparked uproar among bio-conservatives throughout the world. These bio-conservatives, religious ethicists and philosophical ethicists, agree on two major principles regarding Transhumanism: that boundaries were set to keep humans as humans, and to try and pass those boundaries is greedy.

Max More, one philosopher and futurist, defines Transhumanism as a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.[1] Max More, the Chief Executive Officer of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a world leading company in cryonics, proposed this definition of transhumanism in his essay: Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy. He also proclaims that we have achieved two of the three alchemists dreams: We have transmuted the elements and learned to fly. Immortality is next.

Three names, including Max More, stand out as leaders and innovators within the Transhumanist and post human movement. Fereidoun M. Esfandiary, more commonly known as FM-2030, distinguished himself inside of Transhumanism with Are You a Transhuman.[2] When asked about his name and identification, Esfandiary explained that In 2030 we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever. 2030 is a dream and a goal. FM-2030 died in 2000 and was placed in cryonic suspension at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Natasha Vita-More, often considered the first female philosopher of transhumanism, founded the Transhumanist Arts and Extropic Arts Movement in 1982: designed to provide insight into the future directions of art and creativity of the 21st Century as well as a brief history of Transhumanity, Transhumanist Arts, and Extropic Art.

The leaders of the Transhumanism movement claim that the idea and goal of enhancement are not new to the twenty-first centurythere are many texts written about the ideas of enhancement from before the 1800s. The French philosopher, Marquis de Condorcet, wrote in 1794 that no bounds have been fixed to the improvement of facultiesthe perfectibility of man is unlimited (Encyclopedia of Bioethics, p.2517). Kevin Warwicks claims in 2000 that, [he] was born a human. But this was an accident of fatea condition merely of time and place (Encyclopedia of Bioethics 2518).

Current Transhumanists express their beliefs in multiple different ways. Some people do not openly live a life supporting Transhumanism due to the social stigma that may be associated with the movement, but they do their part. Others actively fund and investigate the science that might eventually lead to a reality full of posthumans. One of the major goals of that Transhumanists is to advance the human nervous system to enhance the capability of intelligence, and subsequently strengthen the defense system against disease. Through the processes of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and cognitive science, Transhumanist scientists are attempting to further life span, eradicate diseases, and enhance intelligence.

Nanotechnology is a process in which scientists manipulate matter on a molecular level. A new piece of technology called the Nano-Bio Processor mimics responses of the human body and aids the development of corresponding treatments. Professor Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, believes that this technology offers the potential to alleviate human suffering. Professor Bostrom claims that the Nano-Bio Processor will improve human condition, and that humans have a fundamental right to develop this technology or many preventable deaths might occur as a result of not developing NBIC.

Scientists are also using biotechnology to investigate and further the Transhumanism movement. Biotechnology is the direct or indirect use of living organisms, or parts or products of living organisms, in their natural or modified forms. Biotechnology is one of the processes more apparent in society, which bio-conservatives happily feel limits some of the risky actions by lend[ing] credence to visions of transcendence and transformation (Lilley Part 1). Meanwhile, biotechnology is a technology that is backed by well financed research programs while corporations and nation states compete fiercely over them (Lilley Part 1). One of the current uses of biotechnology that Transhumanists use is DNA and related genetic structure manipulation (Lilley Part 1). Currently, stem cells are being coaxed from embryos, placentas, and skin and are being primed to promote regeneration (Lilley Part 1). Transhumanists see the completion of the rough draft of the human genome project, published in 2000, as a scientific milestone, and research is now focused on decoding the functions and interactions of all these different genes (Humanity+, Answer 23).

Other Transhumanist scientists are studying cognitive sciencehow information is processed in different ways including perception, language, and emotion. It is apparent that scientists hope this research will lead to the elimination of mental diseases, as well as a faster processing speed. These different technologies are quite controversial; Nancy Campbell claims that these different technologies in their development, deployment, and effects are unevenly distributed, differential, and more likely to be socially unjust than not (Lilley Part 1).

Transhumanists often argue with bio-conservatives about the ethics of these practices. Transhumanists maintain that changing the genetics and human practices will not change the humanity of people:

[we] read and write; we wear clothes; we live in cities; we earn money and buy food from the supermarket; we call people on the telephone, watch television, read newspapers, drive cars, file taxes, vote in national elections; women give birth in hospitals; life-expectancy is three times longer than in the Pleistocene[3]. (Bostrom Ethics)

Bostrom, a prominent Transhumanist, explains in the quote above that nothing about everyday life will change due to the changes that Transhumanists bring about. This idea that nothing will change is hard for bio-conservatives to understand because of the fear of unfair advantages that certain citizens will have over one another.

Transhumanists understand that bio-conservatives argue that these actions will change the dignity of moral status, as well as the quality of being worthy and honorable. In Stephen Lilleys book Transhumanism and Society, he claims that the difference in a transhumanist definition might be man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature (Lilley Part 2). Lilley supplements the argument for Transhumanism by claiming that, science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human (Lilley Part 2). While there is a line that bio-conservatives feel must not be crossed, because that line is not specifically defined, transhumanists often take this uncertainty into consideration when starting a new type of research (Chadwick 32).

Bio-conservatives believe in two major theories: there are some boundaries that keep humans the way they were made; and to try and pass these boundaries is greedy. One theorist claims that, to bring about such radical changes in humankindcan only be described as the death of the species(Goffi 8). They also believe that while medicine can be used for legitimate or illegitimate aims (Goffi 9), to enhance human life is an illegitimate use of medicine. Even Professor Goffi, however, understands that it is difficult to draw a sharp line between therapeutic and enhancing procedures (Goffi 10). Many theorists agree with M. Sandel that, although more health is better than less, at least within a certain range, it is not the kind of good than that can be maximized (Goffi 10). Ruth Chadwick, a distinguished research professor at Cardiff School of English, Communication, and Philosophy, claims that if intervention restores a person species-typical normal functioning it falls within the therapy category; otherwise it counts as enhancement (Chadwick 28). Most bio-conservatives believe that human enhancement will eventually dehumanize (Bostrom 2) people. Leon Kass, a prominent bio-conservative, claims that while biotechnology can produce better children, superior performance, ageless bodies, and happy souls, it might eventually be used as a substitute for virtue, hard work, study, or love in order to fulfill our deepest human desires. Overall, bio-conservatives believe that people have a common genetic endowmentand this implies, of course, a common set of genetic limitationsthat they have a common nature and a common set of rights (Goffi 11). Stephen Lilley warns against transgression, or a point of no return from which humanity will suffer a most grievous, irretrievable loss (Lilley Part 2).

While Transhumanists believe that they are advancing humans to a better point in life, one also might claim that advancing beyond a point can become dangerous to society. Paul Ramsey, author of Fabricated Man: The Ethics of Genetic Control, explains in his book that techno-theologians (Goffi 8) and supporters of neo-eugenics (Goffi 9) are willing to manipulate genetics, and reconstruct mankind, yet through this process they are subsequently putting the humanity of man (Goffi 9) at stake. Alan Padgett has a pessimistic view on this movement as well, claiming:

The dream of a happy and harmonious techno-secular future is based on false hopes in infinite energy, infinite human potential, infinite human progress, and complete human good will. Such a techno-secular dream, even if it comes about, will self-destruct after a few centuries, inevitably smashing on the rocks of our finitude and sin. (Lilley, Part 2)

Paul Ramsey explains that he sees transhumanist dreams as well-meaning but all the more dangerous attempt to raise human beings above their own condition. Both George Annas, chair of Bioethics and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, and Rosario Isasi, a health and human rights attorney, understand and explain that human cloning and genetic modification are both considered crimes against humanity (Bostrom, Ethics). Some scientists even argue that this genetic manipulation will cause a GATTACA-like society, or even the emergence of old fashioned eugenics (Goffi 11).

Not only do people criticize Transhumanism because of its threats to science and humanity, but there are also many religious objections that people find with the transhumanist movement. John Jefferson Davis, a Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, claims that, all of Gods creation, including the human body, is good (Gen. 1:31; Tim. 4:4) and as such is worth of care and respect (Lilley Part 2). Often Christians disapprove of Transhumanism because of the stance that most transhumanists take on cloning. Ironically, Transhumanism itself has been classified as a religion, and some of the rhetoric is often compared to Christian apologetics.

Transhumanism is a larger part of the media than most people usually notice. Gattaca, the 1997 film staring Ethan Hawke and Jude Law, is a movie, based in a time where eugenics are common, about a genetically inferior man who assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel. This movie includes genetic manipulation, genetic discrimination, and unfair advantages due to these manipulations. This movie is a prime example of bio-conservatives fear for human society. Another example of transhumanism in the media is Dan Browns 2013 novel Inferno. This trilling fast pace novel incorporates the Zobrist, an active Transhumanist, who threatens an unknown plague upon the world. Finally, I am Legend is another movie with transhumanist values etched into it. A genetically engineered vaccine is created and distributed to people in order to cure cancer, and ends up spreading through the air and killing 90% of the population. This movie then turns into a post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film, in which the 588 million survivors become Darkseerers that prey on people immune to the virus. Clearly this movie shows some of the issues that bio-conservatives fearthe worry of creating viruses that manipulate human genes to a point of no return. Overall, these three examples show that Transhumanism is in our culture more than we notice or even understandsoon transhumanism will be completely immersed in our society without us even noticing.

Overall it is evident that there are multiple different opinions and views someone may have concerning the debate of Transhumanism and genetic manipulation. One may accept in part of the Transhumanist movement, some of its scientific methods but not others. Or one might reject any and all manipulation. Some people think that a genetically manipulated society will cause large differences in out society; but one might become more accepting, such enhancement as eradicating diseases. As the technology continues to develop even more areas of concern and disengagement are sure to arise between Transhumanists and bio-conservatives. But the fact that bio-engineering from vaccinations and flu shots to the potential eradication of aids is likely to find multiple points where one draws his or her No Trespassing Line!

Works Cited

Alcors Mission. Cryonics: Alcor Life Extension Foundation. 25 Sept. 2013 <http://www.alcor.org/>.

Cardiff School of English Communication and Philosophy. Professor Ruth Chadwick. 02 Nov. 2013 <http://cardiff.ac.uk/encap/contactsandpeople/profiles/chadwick-ruth.html>.

John Jefferson Davis. Wikipedia. 29 Nov. 2012. Wikimedia Foundation. 02 Nov. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jefferson_Davis>.

Leon Kass. Wikipedia. 24 Sept. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. Oct. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Kass>.

Max More. Wikipedia. 23 July 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. 26 Sept. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_More>.

Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno: Paradigm for the Future. H+ Magazine. 12 Feb. 2010. Oct. 2013 <http://hplusmagazine.com/2010/02/12/nano-bio-info-cogno-paradigm-future/>.

Nanotechnology. Credo Reference. 2005. Nov. 2013 <http://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/nanotechnology>.

Nanotechnology. Wikipedia. 25 Oct. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology>.

Outline of transhumanism. Wikipedia. 23 Oct. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. Oct. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_transhumanism>.

Rosario Isasi. Wikipedia. 22 Feb. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation. Oct. 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario_Isasi>.

School of Public Health. Boston University. Sept. 2013 <http://www.bu.edu/sph/?option=com_sphdir>.

Transhumanist FAQ. Humanity +. 22 Sept. 2013 <http://humanityplus.org/philsophy/transhumanist-faq/>.

Berger, Michael. Nanotechnology, Transhumanism and the Bionic Man. NanoWerk. 28 May 2008. Oct. 2013 <http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=5848.php>.

Bostrom, Nick. Home Page. Nick Bostrom. Oct. 2013 <http://www.nickbostrom.com/>.

Bostrom, Nick. In Defense of Posthuman Dignity. In Defense of Posthuman Dignity. 8 May 2007. Oct. 2013 <http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/dignity.html>.

Bostrom, Nick. Transhumanist Values. Transhumanist Values. May 2005. Oct. 2013 <http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.html>.

Goffi. Transhumanism & Bioconservatives. Transhumanism & Bioconservatives. Sept. 2013 <http://philosophie.ens.fr/IMG/GOFFI JEUD HPS ENS ULM S2 2012 2013.pdf>.

Gordijn, Bert, and Ruth F. Chadwick. Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity. [Dordrecht]: Springer, 2008.

Hook, Christopher. Transhumanism and Posthumanism. Yumpu. 1 Oct. 2013 <http://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/13072648/transhumanism-

and-posthumanism-gale>.

Lilley, Stephen. Transhumanism and society: The social debate over human enhancement. Dordrecht: Springer, 2013.

More, Max. The Extropian Principles 2.5. The Extropian Principles 2.5. July 1993. <http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Philosophy/princip.html>.

Sandberg, Anders. Definitions of Transhumanism. Definitions of Transhumanism. 22 Sept. 2013 <http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Intro/definitions.html>.

[2] Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Growth in a Rapidly Changing World (1989)

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Research Paper Transhumanism - Middlebury College

August 2015

Transhumanism

Lisa Renee

Dear Ascending Family,

We are standing at the precipice of a massive evolutionary transformation that impacts the future development of the human race on this planet. Will we evolve as organic living consciousness or potentially, be infected and hijacked by artificial dead intelligences? Many of us can sense the red carpets of AI, being rolled toward humanity from multiple angles now.

As you consider the challenging information contained in this newsletter, I want to remind you that nothing is more powerful than your eternal God spirit connection, and the strong committed relationship to develop and expand personal consciousness through the virtues of Loving Kindness, Compassion and Empathy. These are the higher heart based qualities that make a human a true human being. No person or thing can take your divinity or humanity away from you when you absolutely refuse to give it up.

This timeline is similar to the events that changed the course of history and radically digressed humanities consciousness evolution after World War II. Previous to and throughout World War II, advanced alien technologies were exchanged with high-ranking earth officials, which introduced these weapons to earth. Pacts were made for continued military exploitation and experimentation, aimed at controlling the public. This timeline trigger event marks when off planet aliens introduced advanced military-grade EMF weaponry to the main governmental powers on the earth, further manifesting into cooperative agreements with the military industrial complex, MILAB and Secret Space Programs.

Scientific research and development of nuclear weapons programs, such as the Manhattan Project, were the beginning stages of creating more black military operations, which became offshoots from the principle laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The war began the race for nuclear arms and the development of newly introduced alien advanced technologies. The competition for world domination and military supremacy eventually extended to off planet social experiments and expanded the diversity of exopolitic agendas. Additionally, the development of hidden militarized electromagnetic, radio waves (ELF), and microwave weaponry, commonly applied on the planet today in psychotronic warfare, began in earnest.

The first nuclear weapons were created by the United States during the time that technology trade agreements were being made with off planet civilizations. These trade agreements were hidden behind multinational corporations and government agencies that would be gradually assimilated into one global conglomerate of control, that extended to off planet activities, to enforce the veil of secrecy. Seventy years ago this month, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs on the two Japanese cities during the final stage of the Second World War. The planet has never been the same since, as these destructive events created grave consequences for the future timeline of the human race, as a result of these anti-human and barbaric actions. The planets protective magnetic force field and atmospheric functions for radiation balancing and its energy transfer processes were damaged. This further resulted in the creation of inorganic black holes and artificial wormholes that are littered throughout the planetary atmosphere.

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Currently on the earth, without common knowledge of theNAAagenda that uses many forms ofArtificial intelligence(AI) toMind Controlandimplant the public, there is much controversy when discussing the positive and negative results of AI. Artificial intelligence technology abuse is a growing threat to the planet, as well as a threat to human freedom and sovereignty. By running anAI Signalmimickingextremely low frequencies, artificial intelligenceparasitescan invade the central nervous system, to monitor a persons thought patterns so that they can mimic them. They monitor thought patterns and emotional behaviors and search for weaknesses within the human host's body, so they can aggressively use that weakness against the person to plummet them into very low frequency thoughts of thePredator Mind. When a person has weak spiritual-energetic development, weak moral character, along with a weak mind, this makes it much easier for the person to be vulnerable to the AI signal. TheAI Signalprepares the body to hostMetatronic Reversalsand the AI parasite technology, which is to control the human being and prepare the body for dark force control orImposter Spiritpossession. The AI parasite is also referred to as a Suppressor Parasite Entity (SPE). The AI signal is now beginning to be continually run in allController Pillars of Society, so a person who works in or has a profession in huge corporate, academic, medical, or government conglomerates, will be excessively exposed to AI signal transmission. Effectively, this is integrating AI technology and bioengineering to damage human DNA signals, as preparation for complete mind control and body snatching. The fundamental basis of theTranshumanismagenda is to take possession, by downloading AI into the human brain and neurology. TheNegative AliensandSatanicForces, in their quest to survive and achieve immortality, are attempting to hijack human consciousness and ultimately take possession of the human host's body.

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Reversal Networksare collecting life force from the collective fields of all earth inhabitants, and creating more black force andmiasmin the planet by sending energetic currents into reversal patterns and synthesizing them intoAImachinery on the planetary grid network. We can refer to that reversal pattern as an anti-life pattern, which also means the anti-Christ pattern. When collective life force is moving in the reversal patterns, it creates blockages that disconnect that person from the organic supply of eternal energy that is accessed within their own spiritual body. Instead, that life force energy is being collected and harvested for certain preferred groups on the earth, generally for those who keep the reversal networks running for theNAA. As an example, theNRGgrid is a harvesting station of global life force that exists in the center of the United Kingdom. As theAlbionbody awakens, it starts to disrupt the function of this specific reversal network and it gradually collapses sections of its operational structure. Additionally, there are many Black Heart Reversal Networks scattered in the main cities, generally the bigger cities on the planet throughout the earth. Black Heart Reversal Networks feed into other types ofalien architecturedesigned to oppress the collective consciousness, such as holding planetary crucifixion implants in a geometry pattern called the Rosy Cross.Reversal Networksare held on theplanetary gridbybi-wave geometry systems, that run on the low frequency energies that are generated in the masses.

In our planet today, we have levels of geometric architecture that are based onbi-wave geometry, that have been installed in theplanetary brainto create staticNETsand reversal fields. TheArtificial intelligencearchitecture is synthesized into the planetary field in order to collect energy, harvest it, and sends it to off-planet sources, or to their preferred people here on planet Earth that are carrying out their control agenda. So those energies are collected and basically given, with preference, to humans or nonhumans that serve the control and enslavement agenda. As Reversal Networks are gradually taken offline, the feedline of the parasitized energy throughout the food chain stops, essentially starving them by denying them access to the collective human power source. Although this is very positive for the planet and the collective human consciousness, it escalates the forces of chaos in the field from desperate entities.[1]

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Splitter Techis a type ofAIencoding that run as aMind Controlscript that is embedded into a variety of types of media, such as written words, spoken words of an infected individual, video or audio recordings, that can pass on that same scripted code to another person that resonates with that same frequency or information. It reveals a profile that is commonly observed in very academic or intellectually developed people, and tends to be attached to highly mentalized persons with dominatingNegative Egos, judgmental perceptions and little to no heart opening. When a person is aware of theNAAand is also aware of the fact thatControllerforces have aPsychopathicpersonality, this means they haveLack of Empathy, and no true developedCompassionfor others, as they do not have aSoul, and thus cannot experience any higher emotional spectrum. They are indeed, heart-less, and unable to feel emotions and ruled by instinctual forces.

To a coherent, clear and energetically balanced person, when reading words or being exposed toSplitter Techscript, it feels like your brain is getting scrambled and thoughts are scattering, and maintaining clear focus is nearly impossible. It also is sprayed as implants to divert attention and focus within a group environment, as one person may be a booby trap withSplitter Techthat is used to disrupt or divide and conquer the entire group objectives. Patterns include runningAIinduced embedded code through a "signal" that may influence a splitting effect, also known as 'bi-polar' orBi-Wave Influencesto align the target or subject toMetatronic Reversal,Metatronic SpiralorEntropicSystems of energy.

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It is a mind slide program where human beings completely ignore unapproved words, terms or issues that involve their enslavement or torture, even if they come face to face with it.Mind Slidesare a form ofMind Controlthat can be implemented throughRadio Wavesthat form frequencies that transmit into the personsUnconscious Mindin their bio-energetic field.

A mind slide is aHolographic Insertplaced in thePlanetary Logosthat erases or changes the meaning of a "unapproved word", "unapproved phrase" when it is exposed to a person that has been implanted byNAAArtificial Machinery.

An example is when people talk about "Aliens" "abduction" orSRAor other methods ofDark Force Manipulation Methods, they are ridiculed, persecuted, defamed, shamed and promoted as lunatics to other human beings that have been ' mind slided".

This is how theVictim-Victimizersoftware of theNAAprogram works.

It is virally loaded into our mental bodies so that we enforce this insanity and its delusion upon our own race. It is a type of denial mind slide and corruption so that we will not look at or explore topics we find hard to cope with, explain, deal with or change. As a consequence of this complacency, we essentially do nothing while we watch people of our own race be ridiculed for bringing truth, tortured, starved, killed or mutilated for no reason.[1]

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Transhumanism and AI - Energetic Synthesis

Oh my. Two of contemporary societys most prominent anti-human utopian movements radical environmentalism and materialistic transhumanism appear on the verge of a bitter showdown.

When you think about it, that makes sense. Both movements see themselves as the futures only hope. But their core purposes are incompatible. Radical environmentalists nature rights activists, deep ecologists, Gaia theorists, and their fellow travelers that elevate nature above humanity hijacked and refashioned traditional environmentalism into a mystical neo-earth religion that disdains homo Sapiensas a parasitical species afflicting the earth. These radicals hope to thwart our thriving off the land in order to save the planet. Indeed, I sometimes believe that if they could, they would forcibly revert our species to hunter/gatherers without the hunting part.

In contrast, transhumanism denigrates both the natural world and normal human life as irredeemably limited, and worst of all, ending in death! They yearn to possess extraordinary capacities without having to work to attain them. Rather than pursue virtue, transhumanism expects to overcome human nature through applied technology. Indeed, movement prophets predict the coming of Singularity a discreet moment in time when unstoppable cascading technology will enable transhumanists to seize control of human evolution and reengineer themselves into an immortal post-human species.

The intellectual peace between these competing social movements was recently breached by Zoltan Istvan, one of transhumanisms most creative apologists, who ran for president in 2016 on a plank of defeating death and garnered scads of earned media by touring the country in a bus fashioned to look like a coffin. In an all-out frontal assault on the hallowed presumption of contemporary environmentalism, Istvan not only writes that nature isnt sacred (can you hear the gasping?), but he committed an even worse anti-environmentalist sin by arguing that we should replace it.

Istvans essay effectively flays the misanthropy of contemporary environmentalism. He writes:

Starting with the good-intentioned people at Greenpeace in the 1970s but overtaken recently with enviro-socialists who often seem to want to control every aspect of our lives, environmentalism has taken over political and philosophical discourse and direction at the most powerful levels of society. Green believers want to make you think humans are destroying our only home, Planet Earth and that this terrible action of ours is the most important issue of our time. They have sounded a call to save the earth by trying to stomp out capitalism and dramatically downsizing our carbon footprint.

Istvan worries about contemporary environmental challenges (some of which, I think he also exaggerates). But he slaps green ideology square in the face by writing, the last thing we need to do is put the brakes on consumption, procreation and progress. Even more heretically, he writes: Salvation is in science and progress, not sustainability or preserving the Earth. To argue or do otherwise is to be sadistic and act immorally against humanitys well-being.

Istvan clearly understands that prosperity attained through free market enterprise is far more likely to bring about a cleaner and more humane world than fanatically stifling human thriving as radical environmentalists propose (for example, by promoting human-style rights for nature). He writes:

The tools transhumanists use science, technology, and reason to accomplish its watershed aims rely on thriving economies, free markets, and innovation. These mostly come from competitive countries trying to become powerful and make money a lot of it. Increased economic output is nearly always responsible for raising the standard of living, something that has been going up a lot in the last 50 years for just about every nation on Earth. But that could change quickly as governments increasingly enforce strict pro-environmental regulation which slows down industry and commerce. When you force companies to operate inefficiently for lofty ideals, it hurts their bottom lines, and that in turn hurts workers and everyday people.

Yes. Thats precisely what too many greens seek, a poorer world in which the rights of nature are given at least equal consideration to the needs of people.

Istvan also gets that environmentalism has become a means of stifling freedom through centralized control:

Modern environmentalism is a fabricated deceit of and for the rich and powerful. Its especially prominent in liberal places like New York City and my home town San Francisco. Sadly, environmentalism is often just a terrible tool to wield power over those of lesser means. Despite the imperfections of capitalism, I continue to support it because it remains the best hope for the poor to improve their standard of life because at least the individually poor can work hard, be smart, and eventually become rich themselves. This rags to riches phenomenon is not something that can happen in socialist or communist environments, where nearly everyone loses (except the corrupt) and those losses often lead to starvation and eventual civil war.

If Istvan had left it there, there would be little to contest. Alas, Istvan is a religious fanatic attacking the religious fanaticism of a competing faith. His transhumanism cure is, in many ways, worse than the radical environmentalist disease against which he inveighs.

Transhumanism ideology is based on the abject terror of death and an impotent rage against the all that is natural. Thus, Istvan writes:

Transhumanists first and foremost want to live indefinitely, and they are outraged at the fact their bodies age and are destined to die. They blame their biological nature, and dream of a day when DNA is replaced with silicon and data.

Their enmity of biology goes further than just their bodies. They see Mother Earth as a hostile space where every living creature be it a tree, insect, mammal, or virus is out for itself. Everything is part of the food chain, and subject to natural law: consumption by violent murder in the preponderance of cases. Life is vicious. It makes me think of pet dogs and cats, and how its reported they sometimes start eating their owner after theyve died.

Where radical environmentalists unduly romanticize the natural world, transhumanism nihilistically scorns it:

I dont believe in evil, per se, but if there was such a thing, it would be nature a monster of arbitrary living entities consuming and devouring each other simply to survive. No omnipotent person would ever have the hate in them to create a system where everything wants and needs to sting, eat, and outdo everything else just to live. And yet, thats essentially what the environment is to all living entities. Environmentalists want you to believe nature is sacred and a perfect balance of living things thriving off one another. Nonsense its a world war of all life fighting agony and loss of fight or flight, of death today or death tomorrow for you and your offspring.

Good grief. Tennyson may have been right that nature is red in tooth and claw, but it is also the fount of life, the underpinning of beauty, and the source of artistic inspiration in the face of which we can only stand in awe. As Van Gogh stated so well, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

Where radical greens would impede human thriving to save the planet, Istvan longs for an indefinite and, one must say, depressingly sterile existence. Transhumanists want to rid their worlds of biology, he explains. They favor concrete, steel, and code.

[A]s we become transhumans, with perfectly functioning ageless bionic organs and implants in our brains connecting us to the cloud lets create new environments that fit our modern needs. These will be virtual, synthetic, and machines worlds. These new worlds will be far more moral and humanitarian than that of nature. They will be like our homes, cars, and apartments, where everything in it is inanimate or no longer living, and thats why we find sanctuary and comfort in it.

Good grief, no thank you. Give me a golden sunset, the song of birds, the scent of a rose, the soft kiss of my beloved, and the sure knowledge of my eventual end that inspires me make the most of every precious moment!

Enough. Radical environmentalism and transhumanism appear to be mirror opposites, but they are really varying symptoms of the same decadent disease. i.e., the rejection of human exceptionalism. The former identifies us merely as animals, of no greater value than any other species, and hence, they would willingly sacrifice our thriving on the great green altar. The latter denigrates us as so many meat machines, allowing them to hubristically presume the right technologically remake us into a better species essentially, high tech eugenics. Both social projects reject the time-tested road in which we thrive from natures bounty andprotect its preciousness in the humble understanding that as transitory beings, environmental stewardship conserves our descendants heritage as our continuing prosperity enables our posterity to one future day do the same.

Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism.

Excerpt from:
Radical Environmentalism and Transhumanism: Symptoms of the ...

Do Jehovah Witnesses Believe in Resurrection or Transhumanism?

#JehovahWitness#Resurrection#SharingJesusWithTheCults

THE RESURRECTION, TRANSHUMANISM AND THE SINGULARITY - By Paul McGuire - http://www.newswithviews.com/McGuire/...

The science of Transhumanism has entered into the mainstream through Hollywood movies like Transcendence, Divergent, Avatar, Captain America, Interstellar, and countless other films. Ray Kurzweil of Google, whom many call the father of the modern Transhumanist movement, has introduced the concept that death, disease, and aging can be overcome through new scientific breakthroughs. Transhumanism is the new religion of The Singularity, which offers Man a technological resurrection from death and entrance into an artificial heaven called the World Brain or the Hive Mind.

Transhumanism, which does offer on varying levels real potential benefits to Mankind, in the end becomes a technological alternative to Jesus Christs offer to Mankind of a real resurrection from death and true eternal life. The question is, can Transhumanism truly offer a viable resurrection from death and real eternal life, and not just a virtual one?

New generations of men and women do not want their bodies and minds to grow old like their parents and grandparents and are looking to the science of Transhumanism to grant them a Transhumanist immortality. Growing numbers of people around the world are demanding that their governments start massive funding for anti-aging research. Who would not want the governments of the world to stop spending money on bloated bureaucracies and wars and start funding anti-aging technologies?

Anti-aging sciences and technologies which would include nutrition, exercise, vitamins, herbs, hormonal therapies, meditation, brain wave research, genetics, DNA, drugs, computers, computer-brain interfaces, uploading human consciousness from a dying body into a new cloned body, and interspecies breeding of animal/human and some believe Nephilim DNA in order to create super human beings is just the tip of the Transhumanist revolution. A great deal of this research is good and there is no reason that any of us should age, get sick, and die prematurely. But in addition to the moral and ethical problems of some areas of research, the idea that an artificial immortality can be achieved through Transhumanist science and technology enters into a theological domain that the proponents of Transhumanism do not fully understand.

Ideally, when we deal with science we should be dealing with empirical evidence and scientific fact. The question has to be asked, Why is it that men and women age get sick and die? On one level it could be said that the problem exists in their DNA coding and with things like nutrition.

A recent Transhumanism conference featured both new and seasoned experts. The conference was sponsored by the nonprofit organization Brighter Brains Institute, which held the first major US transhumanism conference of the year, located in San Jose, California, entitled Transhuman Strategies.

Again, although many of the goals of Transhumanism may be admirable, Transhumanism is looked upon as the way Man can achieve immortality and a kind of resurrection from death through science and technology. The problem with this approach is that Transhumanism denies fundamental scientific realities, including the primary reason why men and women age, get sick, and die. Although there are powerful genetic, nutritional, and other factors which cause death, disease, and dying, the primary reason is spiritual. If we view the Bible not as a manmade myth, parable, or fairy tale, but as an accurate scientific, holographic, genetic, multi-dimensional, biological, and historical record, we discover that the Bible gives us the real scientific reason for disease, aging, and death.

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Do Jehovah Witnesses Believe in Resurrection or Transhumanism?

A new generation of transhumanists is emerging. You can feel it in handshakes at transhumanist meet-ups. You can see it when checking in to transhumanist groups in social media. You can read it in the hundreds of transhumanist-themed blogs. This is not the same bunch of older, mostly male academics that have slowly moved the movement forward during the last few decades. This is a dynamic group of younger people from varying backgrounds: Asians, Blacks, Middle Easterners, Caucasians, and Latinos. Many are females, some are LGBT, and others have disabilities. Many are atheist, while others are spiritual or even formally religious. Their politics run the gamut, from liberals to conservatives to anarchists. Their professions vary widely, from artists to physical laborers to programmers. Whatever their background, preferences, or professions, they have recently tripled the population of transhumanists in just the last 12 months.

"Three years ago, we had only around 400 members, but today we have over 10,000 members," says Amanda Stoel, co-founder and chief administrator of Facebook group Singularity Network, one of the largest of hundreds of transhumanist-themed groups on the web.

Transhumanism is becoming so popular that even the comic strip Dilbert, which appears online and in 2000 newspapers, recently made jokes about it.

Despite its growing popularity, many people around the world still don't know what "transhuman" means. Transhuman literally means beyond human. Transhumanists consist of life extensionists, techno-optimists, Singularitarians, biohackers, roboticists, AI proponents, and futurists who embrace radical science and technology to improve the human condition. The most important aim for many transhumanists is to overcome human mortality, a goal some believe is achievable by 2045.

Transhumanism has been around for nearly 30 years and was first heavily influenced by science fiction. Today, transhumanism is increasingly being influenced by actual science and technological innovation, much of it being created by people under the age of 40. It's also become a very international movement, with many formal groups in dozens of countries.

Despite the movement's growth, its potential is being challenged by some older transhumanists who snub the younger generation and their ideas. These old-school futurists dismiss activist philosophies and radicalism, and even prefer some younger writers and speakers not have their voices heard. Additionally, transhumanism's Wikipedia page -- the most viewed online document of the movement -- is protected by a vigilant posse, deleting additions or changes that don't support a bland academic view of transhumanism.

Inevitably, this Wikipedia page misses the vibrancy and happenings of the burgeoning movement. The real status and information of transhumanism and its philosophies can be found in public transhumanist gatherings and festivities, in popular student groups like the Stanford University Transhumanist Association, and in social media where tens of thousands of scientists and technologists hang out and discuss the transhuman future.

Jet-setting personality Maria Konovalenko, a 29-year-old Russian molecular biophysicist whose public demonstrations supporting radical life extension have made international news, is a prime example.

"We must do more for transhumanism and life extension," says Konovalenko, who serves as vice president of Moscow-based Science for Life Extension Foundation. "This is our lives and our futures we're talking about. To sit back and and just watch the 21st Century roll by will not accomplish our goals. We must take our message to the people in the streets and strive to make real change."

Transhumanist celebrities like Konovalenko are changing the way the movement gets its message across to the public. Gauging by the rapidly increasing number of transhumanists, it's working.

A primary goal of many transhumanists is to convince the public that embracing radical technology and science is in the species' best interest. In a mostly religious world where much of society still believes in heavenly afterlives, some people are skeptical about whether significantly extending human lifespans is philosophically and morally correct. Transhumanists believe the more people that support transhumanism, the more private and government resources will end up in the hands of organizations and companies that aim to improve human lives and bring mortality to an end.

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A New Generation of Transhumanists Is Emerging | HuffPost

by Adrian Calderone

Mr. Adrian Calderone provides a thorough explanation of transhumanism, which attempts to free mankind from its biological limitations by employing such methods as genetic engineering. Calderone traces its foundations back to secular humanism the modern religion of the Western world.

Homiletic & Pastoral Review

28 31 & 41 43

Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, June 2008

The political philosopher Francis Fukuyama called it the world's most dangerous idea.1 He was talking about transhumanism.

Just what is transhumanism and why is it so dangerous?

Like many other ideas, it can imply different things to different people. But generally, transhumanism refers to an attempt to free humanity from its biological limitations. Today, transhumanists advocate the use of various types of rapidly developing technology, especially bioengineering, to accomplish this purpose. Some transhumanists imagine the creation of a new type of human being. That is, a human being with biological features so far removed from natural human biology as to warrant classification as "post-human."

Transhumanists hold firmly to Darwinian materialism. We know that Darwinian evolution is predicated upon the assumptions of random variation and natural selection. But suppose, through genetic engineering, we can create our own genetic variations perhaps with inheritable traits. The transhumanists hope to achieve an artificial, human-guided evolution, at least on the level of microevolution, as well as the creation of "post humans."

Ask a person what he considers to be the most dangerous thing in the world and most probably the answer would be atomic weapons they can eradicate several hundred thousand human beings in a flash. But with transhumanism, you can displace nature with technology and subvert natural human biology.

Sir Julian Huxley is credited with coining the term transhumanism in 1957.2 He wrote:

As we shall see later, use of the term transhumanism predates Sir Julian Huxley by several centuries. Nevertheless, we can credit Sir Julian with putting the name to a modern movement that seeks to modify human beings through technological manipulation in order to transcend human biology. The technology can include genetic engineering and interfaces between the human body and machines.

One definition offered by the World Transhumanist Association3 is this:

Transhumanists see it as an ethical imperative to use technology to transcend physical barriers to human potentials, and to proceed with their project of humanly guided evolution.

What has happened in the past century is the development of science and technology at a pace so fast and in so many different specialties that one scarcely has the opportunity to understand one development before it is made obsolete by another development.

There are four areas especially in which we've seen such rapid advancement in the past twenty to thirty years: biotechnology, information technology, wireless technology and nanotechnology.

In biotechnology we see the genetic manipulation of life. In information technology we see the ever-expanding reach of digital information processing to the point where hardly any household in the developed world is without some type of personal computer. Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables computers to "learn" from experience and modify their own operational procedures without human intervention.

As for wireless, the Internet is accessible without land lines or physical hook-ups. Everywhere you turn there is someone talking on a cell phone. Nanotechnology deals with the manufacture and use of very small particles, which can include simple materials or even tiny machines with interacting parts machines, for example, that can be introduced into the human body to cut away arterial plaque or perform operations on a submicroscopic level. We still don't know all of the potentials of nanotechnology. Keep in mind, also, that these technologies can be merged.

These technologies enable us to do things inconceivable even a few decades ago. These new potentials present new dimensions of ethical dilemmas.

Suppose you can insert portions of the genetic material of one type of being into the genetic material of another type of being. In fact, this has been done. Who would have thought to introduce the genes of fireflies into a tobacco plant to create a plant that glows in the dark? Yet this was done over twenty years ago. The cloning of animals, transgenic plants and a host of other developments are historical events, not futuristic speculations. A U.S. patent application is on file detailing the creation of an artificial life form.4

Genetic engineering enables us to use living organisms bacteria for example as miniature drug factories to manufacture pharmaceuticals that otherwise could not be produced. Genetically modified viruses can be used to introduce modified DNA into target organisms.

But suppose one merges portions of human genetic material with portions of the genetic material of an animal an animal, say, with the genetic instructions for growth of human organs, or humans with animal features. What have we produced? And suppose that the chimerical being we've created can reproduce itself. What is the moral status of such beings? What is one to think about the deliberate creation of "subhuman beings" or "superhuman beings" through genetic engineering? We believe that the human soul does not arise from matter but that God creates and infuses a rational soul into a human being at conception. This is clear enough from human procreation. But what of the prospect of artificially assembling DNA, inserting that DNA into a cell, and letting that cell grow into an organism? How close do we have to be to the DNA characteristic of human beings for the organism to be considered human? Suppose a gorilla body can be combined with a human brain. Does God implant a human soul into it? How do we know unless we let the organism grow and see if it matures into a rational being? Does the possibility of salvation apply to homo artificialis as it does to homo Sapiens?

Yet genetic engineering can have legitimate therapeutic purposes, for example, to overcome naturally occurring genetic abnormalities, or to provide new cancer therapies.5 Genetic engineering and other technologies also might be used to enhance the genetic potential of healthy people, for example, to increase lifespan.

There is also now the possibility of implanting computer chips in the human brain. Neural implants, human-computer interfaces these are concepts that just a few years ago were the subjects of science fiction. Today, they are the subjects of U.S. patents.6 One should also consider the possibility of wireless communication between a neural computer implant and some remote control center. How do Catholic moral principles apply to such things? Until now, we've not had to think about a coherent moral position in the face of such possibilities. That's changed.

It's not only personal morality that needs to be addressed. We also have to think about social and political effects. One of the criticisms of all this genetic enhancement is that it will be available only to the wealthy. Will we have society stratified into classes of the "genetically enhanced" and the "genetically deprived"? What new weapons will be unleashed upon us in future wars?

As I stated earlier, Sir Julian was not the first person to conceive of a process of transhumanization. Let's go back several centuries. Before there was a Julian Huxley there was a Dante Alighieri. Dante expressed the idea of transhumanization in Canto I of Paradiso, written sometime in the early 1300s. Dante wrote, "Transhumanizing cannot be signified in words therefore let the example suffice him for whom grace reserves the experience."

Transhumanization is something ineffable, something beyond the ability of words to encompass. It can only be experienced, and that is a matter of grace. One can also refer to the Epistles, where St. Paul often talks about being a new creation in Christ and being sons of God through faith in Christ.7

Transhumanization is not a concept alien to Christianity. Quite the contrary, it is our Christian hope. But in Christianity transhumanization is a matter of God's grace. Although we can begin the process of transhumanization in this life by living in the state of God's grace, completion of the process is meant for a future life, an eternal life, of intimacy with God. In our present life in this world, grace does not destroy or change human nature, but works through human nature and perfects it. Through grace we are transformed into images of Christ. But we must await our resurrection for final transformation in the world to come. In the journey of our lives we must take as our companions the Christian virtues of patience and perseverance.

How, then, did we get from Christian transhumanization to biological transhumanism?

I want to offer a very cursory review of certain philosophical developments that have led up to secular humanism, which has become the de facto religion of the Western world. Transhumanism is an extension of secular humanism. If we use the image of a tree, secular humanism is the trunk, transhumanism one of the branches and the roots are planted in the soil of unbelief. This unbelief is not just ordinary atheist materialism. That's been around for millennia. Rather, it is something just a few centuries old. It is not so much a non-God view as it is an anti-God view. More particularly, it is an anti-Christianity percolating through modern culture.

First, let's turn to the Enlightenment, which is a foundation of modern secular humanism. The Enlightenment embraced a turning away from religion in general and Christianity in particular. The Enlightenment thinkers weren't all atheists. Many were deists who believed in a creator, but one not personally involved with creation on an ongoing basis.

However, the question arises: if you don't put your trust in a God who takes a personal interest in the world, then in what do you put your trust? Throughout history there runs the theme of salvation and the hope of it. In what do we place our trust? Where is our hope?

The Enlightenment thinker places his trust in the human potential to remake society by human reasoning and human will.8 The basis for hope is science and technology. Remember that the Enlightenment period of the 1700s was also a period of the rapid growth of scientific discovery. It must have been intoxicating. Here was the way to truth in the scientific method. One aspect, then, of the Enlightenment is positivism, a philosophy based upon sense experience and relying only on scientific observations for knowledge about the external world. Concomitantly, Enlightenment thought rejects tradition, the supernatural and revelation.

Now, social order cannot be achieved without values. So, where do values come from? The scientific method doesn't provide values, only data. Also, for some time philosophy in Europe had been turning inward, away from the objectively knowable external world into the subjective operations of the mind. Eventually, there came from this a subjectivity with respect to values, or moral relativism.

A post-Enlightenment philosopher, Nietzsche, saw inherent weaknesses in Enlightenment liberalism. But, instead of turning back to the pre-modern, common sense philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas, he followed the thread of modern philosophy to a logical end point. God is dead. What's more, according to Nietzsche, we killed him. God and religion became our enemies by limiting our freedom. In the end there is nothing but will to power. We are what we will to be.

The twentieth century atheistic philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was very influential in promoting existentialism.9 He was not an optimistic person. The concluding observation in one of his plays was, "Hell is other people." Sartre defined existentialism by asserting the principle that existence precedes essence. This was the reversal of centuries of philosophical understanding that held that essence was first. This may seem like an academic issue of concern only to ivory tower philosophers, perhaps arguing over the matter at two o'clock in the morning in some cafe. But ideas have consequences, and one of the consequences of this idea is the slaughter of millions of unborn children each year.

Pro-lifers, for example, argue that the fertilized human ovum is, from the moment of conception, in essence, a human being. The attributes and powers we normally associate with fully developed humans a nervous system, the ability to move and think, self awareness, etc. are present in the human embryo as potentialities that, in the course of natural development, unfold or outwardly express themselves. In an ontological ordering essence precedes existence.

The pro-choice position, at least among some, is that an unborn child does not have the attributes and powers of a human being and is therefore not morally equivalent to a human being. In other words, existence precedes essence.

The dictum that existence precedes essence means that there is no human nature. According to Sartre, we invent and make ourselves. Sartre, like Aquinas, held that there can be no human nature unless there is a God who designs it. But Sartre took his atheism to its logical conclusion and denied the objective existence of human nature. If we do not believe that there is a human nature created by God, there is no level of dehumanization to which we cannot fall in our headlong rush to engineer human evolution.

We are running up against a wall of misconceptions, prejudices, faulty valuations and linguistic confusions firmly cemented together by existentialism. It takes great ingenuity and effort to render a population oblivious to common sense and reality. But our educational institutions, mass media and public officials have proven up to the task.

Modern humanism, founded upon Enlightenment thought and modified by the influence of Nietzsche and Sartre, has several important features.

Add to these features of secularism the powers given to us by technology, and the result is transhumanism. Transhumanism is the new face of eugenics, with this difference: in the older conception of eugenics human biological reproduction is limited by law or social pressure to those deemed to have the physical and intellectual qualifications defined by the ruling elite. It is like breeding horses or dogs. But the biology of reproduction remains natural. With transhumanism the biology is engineered.

The Church has begun to deal with transhumanism. The 2002 document of the International Theological Commission entitled Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God addresses some of the issues I have mentioned. This document warns against mankind usurping the role of God. "Neither science nor technology are ends in themselves; what is technically possible is not necessarily also reasonable or ethical."11 The document also deals with cloning, germ line genetic engineering, enhancement genetic engineering and therapeutic interventions.12

But there is an ethical labyrinth to journey through that becomes ever more complex. In trying to help students find their way through complex philosophical ideas, one philosophy teacher used the metaphor of the golden string given by Ariadne to Theseus to find his way through the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.'13

What's our golden thread? How do we find our way through the ethical labyrinth of transhumanism? It has to be the fundamental principles derived from our religion. What does it mean to be a human person? What is our mission and destiny as human beings? If you exclude God from consideration there is no way through the labyrinth, even for well-meaning secularist philosophers such as Fukuyama who do see the dangers ahead.

Through it all we have to remember that the world has lost sight of something precious a vision seen only through the eyes of faith the vision of something supernatural and eternal.14 There will always be a little flame of faith shining in the wilderness of this world. The spirits of darkness are afraid of it and try to snuff it out, because as long as it shines there is the potential for the world to catch fire and for the grace of God to illuminate everything. As Catholics we have to keep this vision always in sight for ourselves and continually present it to the world.

End Notes

Mr. Adrian Calderone graduated from Manhatten College with B. Ch. E. and M. E. degrees in chemical engineering. He spent more than three years living and traveling in Asia. Having earned his Juris Doctorate from New York Law School, he now practices intellectual property law. He and his wife Jo live in Brooklyn, New York and have three daughters. His last article in HPR appeared in October 2007.

Ignatius Press

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Part 5:Belief in Progress vs. Rational Uncertainty

The Enlightenment, with its confident efforts to fashion a science of man, was archetypal of the belief and quest that humankind will eventually achieve lasting peace and happiness. In what some interpret as a reformulation of Christianitys teleological salvation history in which the People of God will be redeemed at the end of days and with the Kingdom of Heaven established on Earth, most Enlightenment thinkers believed in the inevitability of human political and technological progress, secularizing the Christian conception of history and eschatology into a conviction that humanity would, using a system of thought built on reason and science, be able to continually improve itself. As portrayed by Carl Becker in his 1933 book The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, the philosophies demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials. Whether this Enlightenment humanist view of progress amounted merely to a recapitulation of the Christian teleological vision of history, or if Enlightenment beliefs in continual, linear political, intellectual, and material improvement reflected, asJames Hughesposits, a clear difference from the dominant Christian historical narrative in which little would change until the End Times and Christs return, the notion, in any case, of a collective progress towards a definitive end-point was one that remained unsupported by the scientific worldview. The scientific worldview, as Hughes reminds us in the opening paragraph of this essay within his series, does not support historical inevitability, only uncertainty. We may annihilate ourselves or regress, he says, and Even the normative judgment of what progress is, and whether we have made any, is open to empirical skepticism.

Hereby, we are introduced to a conflict that exists, at least since after the Enlightenment, between a view of progressive optimism and that of radical uncertainty. Building on the Enlightenments faith in the inevitability of political and scientific progress, the idea of an end-point, salvation moment for humankind fuelled all the great Enlightenment ideologies that followed, flowing down, as Hughes traces, through Comtes positivism and Marxist theories of historical determinism to neoconservative triumphalism about the end of history in democratic capitalism. Communists envisaged that end-point as a post-capitalist utopia that would finally resolve the class struggle which they conceived as the true engine of history. This vision also contained the 20th-century project to build the Soviet Man, one of extra-human capacities, for as Trotsky had predicted, after the Revolution, the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise, whereas for 20th-century free-market liberals, this End of History had arrived with the final triumph of liberal democracy, with the entire world bound to be swept in its course. Events though, especially so far in the 21st century, appear to prove this view wrong.

This belief moreover, as Hughes would convincingly argue, in the historical inevitability of progress has also always been locked in conflict with the rationalist, scientific observation that humanity could regress or disappear altogether. Enlightenment pessimism, or at least realism, has, over the centuries, proven a stubborn resistance and constraint of Enlightenment optimism. Hughes, citing Henry Vyberg, reminds us that there were, after all, even French Enlightenment thinkers within that same era who rejected the belief in linear historical progress, but proposed historical cycles or even decadence instead. That aside, contemporary commentators like John Gray would even argue that the efforts themselves of the Enlightenment on the quest for progress unfortunately issued in, for example, the racist pseudo-science of Voltaire and Hume, while all endeavours to establish the rule of reason have resulted in bloody fanaticisms, from Jacobinism to Bolshevism, which equaled the worst atrocities attributable to religious believers. Horrendous acts like racism and anti-Semitism, in the verdict of Gray: .are not incidental defects in Enlightenment thinking. They flow from some of the Enlightenments central beliefs.

Even Darwinisms theory of natural selection was, according to Hughes, suborned by the progressive optimistic thinking of the Enlightenment and its successors to the doctrine of inevitable progress, aided in part by Darwins own teleological interpretation. Problem, however, is that from the scientific worldview, there is no support for progress as to be found provided by the theory of natural selection, only that humanity, Hughes plainly states, like all creatures, is on a random walk through a mine field, that human intelligence is only an accident, and that we could easily go extinct as many species have done. Gray, for example, rebukes Darwin, who wrote: As natural selection works solely for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress to perfection. Natural selection, however, does not work solely for the good of each being, a fact Darwin himself elsewhere acknowledged. Nonetheless, it has continually proven rather difficult for people to resist the impulse to identify evolution with progress, with an extended downside to this attitude being equally difficult to resist the temptation to apply evolution in the rationalization of views as dangerous as Social Darwinism and acts as horrible as eugenics.

Many skeptics therefore hold, rationally, that scientific utopias and promises to transform the human condition deserve the deepest suspicion. Reason is but a frail reed, all events of moral and political progress are and will always remain subject to reversal, and civilization could as well just collapse, eventually. Historical events and experiences have therefore caused faith in the inevitability of progress to wax and wane over time. Hughes notes that among several Millenarian movements and New Age beliefs, such faith could still be found that the world is headed for a millennial age, just as it exists in techno-optimist futurism. Nevertheless, he makes us see that since the rise and fall of fascism and communism, and the mounting evidence of the dangers and unintended consequences of technology, there are few groups that still hold fast to an Enlightenment belief in the inevitability of conjoined scientific and political progress. Within the transhumanist community, however, the possession of such faith in progress can still be found as held by many, albeit signifying a camp in the continuation therefore of the Enlightenment-bequeathed conflict as manifested between transhumanist optimism in contradiction with views of future uncertainty.

As with several occasions in the past, humanity is, again, currently being spun yet another End of History narrative: one of a posthuman future. Yuval Harari, for instance, in Homo Deus argues that emerging technologies and new scientific discoveries are undermining the foundations of Enlightenment humanism, although as he proceeds with his presentation he also proves himself unable to avoid one of the defining tropes of Enlightenment humanist thinking, i.e., that deeply entrenched tendency to conceive human history in teleological terms: fundamentally as a matter of collective progress towards a definitive end-point. This time, though, our eras End of History glorious salvation moment is to be ushered in, not by a politico-economic system, but by a nascent techno-elite with a base in Silicon Valley, USA, a cluster steeped in a predominant tech-utopianism which has at its core the idea that the new technologies emerging there can steer humanity towards a definitive break-point in our history, the Singularity. Among believers in this coming Singularity, transhumanists, as it were, having inherited the tension between Enlightenment convictions in the inevitability of progress, and, in Hughes words, Enlightenments scientific, rational realism that human progress or even civilization may fail, now struggle with a renewed contradiction. And here the contrast as Hughes intends to portray gains sharpness, for as such, transhumanists today are torn between their Enlightenment faith in inevitable progress toward posthuman transcension and utopian Singularities on the one hand, and, on the other, their rational awareness of the possibility that each new technology may have as many risks as benefits and that humanity may not have a future.

The risks of new technologies, even if not necessarily one that threatens the survival of humanity as a species with extinction, may yet be of an undesirable impact on the mode and trajectory of our extant civilization. Henry Kissinger, in his 2018 article How the Enlightenment Ends, expressed his perception that technology, which is rooted in Enlightenment thought, is now superseding the very philosophy that is its fundamental principle. The universal values proposed by the Enlightenment philosophes, as Kissinger points out, could be spread worldwide only through modern technology, but at the same time, such technology has ended or accomplished the Enlightenment and is now going its own way, creating the need for a new guiding philosophy. Kissinger argues specifically that AI may spell the end of the Enlightenment itself, and issues grave warnings about the consequences of AI and the end of Enlightenment and human reasoning, this as a consequence of an AI-led technological revolution whose culmination may be a world relying on machines powered by data and algorithms and ungoverned by ethical or philosophical norms. By way of analogy to how the printing press allowed the Age of Reason to supplant the Age of Religion, he buttresses his proposal that the modern counterpart of this revolutionary process is the rise of intelligent AI that will supersede human ability and put an end to the Enlightenment. Kissinger further outlines his three areas of concern regarding the trajectory of artificial intelligence research: AI may achieve unintended results; in achieving intended goals, AI may change human thought processes and human values, and AI may reach intended goals, but be unable to explain the rationale for its conclusions. Kissingers thesis, of course, has not gone without both support and criticisms attracted from different quarters. Reacting to Kissinger, Yuk Hui, for example, in What Begins After the End of the Enlightenment? maintained that Kissinger is wrongthe Enlightenment has not ended. Rather, modern technologythe support structure of Enlightenment philosophyhas become its own philosophy, with the universalizing force of technology becoming itself the political project of the Enlightenment.

Transhumanists, as mentioned already, reflect the continuity of some of those contradictions between belief in progress and uncertainty about human future. Hughes shows us nonetheless that there are some interesting historical turns suggesting further directions that this mood has taken. In the 1990s, Hughes recalls, transhumanists were full of exuberant Enlightenment optimism about unending progress. As an example, Hughes cites Max Mores 1998 Extropian Principles which defined Perpetual Progress as the first precept of their brand of transhumanism. Over time, however, Hughes communicates how More himself has had cause to temper this optimism, stressing rather this driving principle as one of desirability and more a normative goal than a faith in historical inevitability. History, More would say in 2002, since the Enlightenment makes me wary of all arguments to inevitability

Rational uncertainty among transhumanists hence make many of them refrain from an argument for the inevitability of transhumanism as a matter of progress. Further, there are indeed several possible factors which could deter the transhumanist idea and drive for progress from translating to reality: A neo-Luddite revolution, a turn and rise in preference for rural life, mass disenchantment with technological addiction and increased option for digital detox, nostalgia, disillusionment with modern civilization and a return-to-innocence counter-cultural movement, neo-Romanticism, a pop-culture allure and longing for a Tolkien-esque world, cyclical thinking, conservatism, traditionalism, etc. The alternative, backlash, and antagonistic forces are myriad. Even within transhumanism, the anti-democratic and socially conservative Neoreactionary movement, with its rejection of the view that history shows inevitable progression towards greater liberty and enlightenment, is gradually (and rather disturbingly) growing a contingent. Hughes talks, as another point for rational uncertainty, about the three critiques: futurological, historical, and anthropological, of transhumanist and Enlightenment faith in progress that Phillipe Verdoux offers, and in which the anthropological argument holds that pre-moderns were probably as happy or happier than we moderns. After all, Rousseau, himself a French Enlightenment thinker, is generally seen as having believed in the superiority of the savage over the civilized. Perspectives like these could stir anti-modern, anti-progress sentiments in peoples hearts and minds.

Demonstrating still why transhumanists must not be obstinate over the idea of inevitability, Hughes refers to Greg Burchs 2001 work Progress, Counter-Progress, and Counter-Counter-Progress in which the latter expounded on the Enlightenment and transhumanist commitment to progress as to a political program, fully cognizant that there are many powerful enemies of progress and that victory was not inevitable. Moreover, the possible failure in realizing goals of progress might not even result from the actions of enemies in that antagonistic sense of the word, for there is also that likely scenario, as the 2006 movie Idiocracy depicts, of a future dystopian society based on dysgenics, one in which, going by expectations and trends of the 21st century, the most intelligent humans decrease in reproduction and eventually fail to have children while the least intelligent reproduce prolifically. As such, through the process of natural selection, generations are created that collectively become increasingly dumber and more virile with each passing century, leading to a future world plagued by anti-intellectualism, bereft of intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, coherence in notions of justice and human rights, and manifesting several other traits of degeneration in culture. This is yet a possibility for our future world.

So while for many extropians and transhumanists, nonetheless, perpetual progress was an unstoppable train, responding to which one either got on board for transcension or consigned oneself to the graveyard, other transhumanists, however, Hughes comments, especially in response to certain historical experiences (the 2000 dot-com crash, for example), have seen reason to increasingly temper their expectations about progress. In Hughess appraisal, while, therefore, some transhumanists still press for technological innovation on all fronts and oppose all regulation, others are focusing on reducing the civilization-ending potentials of asteroid strikes, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. Some realism hence need be in place to keep under constant check the excesses of contemporary secular technomillennialism as contained in some transhumanist strains.

Hughes presents Nick Bostroms 2001 essay Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards as one influential example of this anti-millennial realism, a text in which Bostrom, following his outline of scenarios that could either end the existence of the human species or have us evolve into dead-ends, then addressed not just how we can avoid extinction and ensure that there are descendants of humanity, but also how we can ensure that we will be proud to claim them. Subsequently, Bostrom has been able to produce work on catastrophic risk estimation at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. Hughes seems to favour this approach, for he ensures to indicate that this has also been adopted as a programmatic focus for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) which he directs, and as well for the transhumanist non-profit, the Lifeboat Foundation. Transhumanists who listen to Bostrom, as we could deduce from Hughes, are being urged to take a more critical approach concerning technological progress.

With the availability of this rather cautious attitude, a new tension, Hughes reports, now plays out between eschatological certainty and pessimistic risk assessment. This has taken place mainly concerning the debate over the Singularity. For the likes of Ray Kurzweil (2005), representing the camp of a rather technomillennial, eschatological certainty, his patterns of accelerating trendlines towards a utopian merger of enhanced humanity and godlike artificial intelligence is one of unstoppability, and this Kurzweil supports by referring to the steady exponential march of technological progress through (and despite) wars and depressions. Dystopian and apocalyptic predictions of how humanity might fare under superintelligent machines (extinction, inferiority, and the likes) are, in the assessment of Hughes, but minimally entertained by Kurzweil, since to the techno-prophet we are bound to eventually integrate with these machines into apotheosis.

The platform, IEET, thus has taken a responsibility of serving as a site for teasing out this tension between technoprogressive optimism of the will and pessimism of the intellect, as Hughes echoes Antonio Gramsci. On the one hand, Hughes explains, we have championed the possibility of, and evidence of, human progress. By adopting the term technoprogressivism as our outlook, we have placed ourselves on the side of Enlightenment political and technological progress.And yet on the other hand, he continues, we have promoted technoprogressivism precisely in order to critique uncritical techno-libertarian and futurist ideas about the inevitability of progress. We have consistently emphasized the negative effects that unregulated, unaccountable, and inequitably distributed technological development could have on society (one feels tempted to call out Landian accelerationism at this point). Technoprogressivism, the guiding philosophy of IEET, avails as a principle which insists that technological progress needs to be consistently conjoined with, and dependent on, political progress, whilst recognizing that neither are inevitable.

In charting the essay towards a close, Hughes mentions his and a number of IEET-led technoprogresive publications, among which we have Verdoux who, despite his futurological, historical, and anthropological critique of transhumanism, yet goes ahead to argue for transhumanism on moral grounds (free from the language of Marxisms historical inevitabilism or utopianism, and cautious of the tragic history of communism), and as a less dangerous course than any attempt at relinquishing technological development, but only after the naive faith in progress has been set aside. Unfortunately, however, the rational capitulationism to the transhumanist future that Verdoux offers, according to Hughes, is not something that stirs mens souls. Hughes hence, while admitting to our need to embrace these critical, pessimistic voices and perspectives, yet calls on us to likewise heed to the need to also re-discover our capacity for vision and hope. This need for optimism that humans can collectively exercise foresight and invention, and peacefully deliberate our way to a better future, rather than yielding to narratives that would lead us into the traps of utopian and apocalyptic fatalism, has been one of the motivations behind the creation of the technoprogressive brand. The brand, Hughes presents, has been of help in distinguishing necessarily Enlightenment optimism about the possibility of human political, technological and moral progress from millennialist techno-utopian inevitabilism.

Presumably, upon this technoprogressive philosophy, the new version of the Transhumanist Declaration, adopted by Humanity+ in 2009, indicated a shift from some of the language of the 1998 version, and conveyed a more reflective, critical, realistic, utilitarian, proceed with caution and act with wisdom tone with respect to the transhumanist vision for humanitys progress. This version of the declaration, though relatively sobered, remains equally inspiring nonetheless. Hughes closes the essay with a reminder on our need to stay aware of the diverse ways by which our indifferent universe threatens our existence, how our growing powers come with unintended consequences, and why applying mindfulness on our part in all actions remains the best approach for navigating our way towards progress in our radically uncertain future.

Conclusively, following Hughes objectives in this series, it can be suggested that more studies on the Enlightenment (European and global) are desirable especially for its potential to furnish us with richer understanding into a number of problems within contemporary transhumanism as sprouting from its roots deep in the Enlightenment. Interest and scholarship in Enlightenment studies, fortunately, seems to be experiencing some current revival, and even so with increasing diversity in perspective, thereby presenting transhumanism with a variety of paths through which to explore and gain context for connected issues. Seeking insight thence into some foundations of transhumanisms problems could take the path, among others: of an examination of internal contradictions within the Enlightenment, of the approach of Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adornos Dialectic of Enlightenment; of assessing opponents of the Enlightenment as found, for example, in Isaiah Berlins notion of Counter Enlightenment; of investigating a rather radical strain of the Enlightenment as presented in Jonathan Israels Radical Enlightenment, and as well in grappling with the nature of the relationships between transhumanism and other heirs both of the Enlightenment and the Counter-Enlightenment today. Again, and significantly, serious attention need be paid now and going forwards in jealously guarding transhumanism against ultimately falling into the hands of the Dark Enlightenment.

Ojochogwu Abdulis the founder of the Transhumanist Enlightenment Caf (TEC), is the co-founder of the Enlightenment Transhumanist Forum of Nigeria (H+ Nigeria), and currently serves as a Foreign Ambassador for the U.S. Transhumanist Party in Nigeria.

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U.S. Transhumanist Party PUTTING SCIENCE, HEALTH ...

Cryogenic pods. Computer illustration of people in cryogenic pods. Their bodies are being preserved by storing them at very low temperatures. They will remain frozen until a time when the technology might exist to resurrect the dead, a technique known as cryonics. Alternatively a new body may be cloned from their tissue. Some companies offer to store dead peoples bodies.

Transhumanism (also abbreviated as H+) is a philosophical movement which advocates for technology not only enhancing human life, but to take over human life by merging human and machine. The idea is that in one future day, humans will be vastly more intelligent, healthy, and physically powerful. In fact, much of this movement is based upon the notion that death is not an option with a focus to improve the somatic body and make humans immortal.

Certainly, there are those in the movement who espouse the most extreme virtues of transhumanism such as replacing perfectly healthy body parts with artificial limbs. But medical ethicists raise this and other issues as the reason why transhumanism is so dangerous to humans when what is considered acceptable life-enhancement has virtually no checks and balances over who gets a say when we go too far. For instance, Kevin Warwick of Coventry University, a cybernetics expert, asked the Guardian, What is wrong with replacing imperfect bits of your body with artificial parts that will allow you to perform better or which might allow you to live longer? while another doctor stated that he would have no part in such surgeries. There is, after all, a difference between placing a pacemaker or performing laser eye surgery on the body to prolong human life and lend a greater degree of quality to human life, and that of treating the human body as a tabula rasa upon which to rewrite what is, effectively, the natural course of human life.

A largely intellectual movement whose aim is to transform humanity through the development of a panoply of technologies which ostensibly enhance human intellect, physiology, and the very legal status of what being human means, transhumanism is a social project whose inspiration can be dated back to 19th century continental European philosophy and later through the writings of J. B. S. Haldane, a British scientist and Marxist, who in 1923 delivered a speech at the Heretics Society, an intellectual club at Cambridge University, entitled Daedalus or, Science and the Future which foretold the future of the end of ofcoalfor power generation in Britain while proposing a network of windmills which would be used for the electrolytic decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen (they would generate hydrogen). According to many transhumanists, this is one of the founding projects of the movement. To read this one might think this was a precursor to the contemporary ecological movement.

The philosophical tenets, academic theories, and institutional practices of transhumanism are well-known.Max More, a British philosopher and leader of the extropian movement claims that transhumanism is the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values. This very definition, however, is a paradox since the ethos of this movement is to promote life through that which is not life, even by removing pieces of life, to create something billed as meta-life. Indeed, it is clear that transhumanism banks on its own contradiction: that life is deficient as is, yet can be bettered by prolonging life even to the detriment of life.

Stefan Lorenz Sorgneris a German philosopher and bioethicist who has written widely on the ethical implications of transhumanism to include writings on cryonics and longevity of human life, all of which which go against most ecological principles given the amount of resources needed to keep a body in suspended animation post-death. At the heart of Sorgners writings, like those of Kyle Munkittrick, invoke an almost nave rejection of death, noting that death is neither natural nor a part of human evolution. In fact, much of the writings on transhumanism take a radical approach to technology: anyone who dare question that cutting off healthy limbs to make make way for a super-Olympian sportsperson would be called a Luddite, anti-technology. But that is a false dichotomy since most critics of transhumanism are not against all technology, but question the ethics of any technology that interferes with the human rights of humans.

Take for instance the recent push by many on the ostensible Left who favor surrogacy as a step on the transhumanist ladder, with many publications on this subject, none so far which address the human rights of women who are not only part of this equation, but whose bodies are being used in the this faux-futurist vision of life without the mention of female bodies. Versos publication of a troubling piece by Sophie Lewis earlier this year, aptly titled Gestators of All Genders Unite speaks to the lack of ethics in a field that seems to be grasping at straws in removing the very mention of the bodies which reproduce and give birth to human life: females. In eliminating the specificity of the female body, Lewis attempts to stitch together a utopian future where genders are having children, even though the reality of reproduction across the Mammalia class demonstrates that sex, not gender, determines where life is gestated and birthed. What Lewis attempts in fictionalizing a world of dreamy hopefulness actually resembles more an episode of The Handmaids Tale where this writer has lost sense of any irony. Of course pregnancy is not about gender. It is uniquely about sex and the class of gestators are females under erasure by this dystopian movement anxious to pursue a vision of a world without women.

While many transhumanist ideals remain purely theoretical in scope, what is clear is that females are the class of humans who are being theorised out of social and political discourse. Indeed, much of the social philosophy surrounding transhumanist projects sets out to eliminate genderin the human species through the application of advanced biotechnology andassisted reproductive technologies, ultimately inspired by Shulamith Firestone'sThe Dialectic of Sex and much of Donna Haraways writing on cyborgs. From parthenogenesisto the creation ofartificial wombs, this movement seeks to remove the specificity of not gender, but sex, through the elision of medical terminology and procedures which portend to advance a technological human-cyborg built on the ideals of a post-sex model.

The problem, however, is that women are quite aware that sex-based inequality has zilch to do with anything other than their somatic sex. And nothing transhumanist theories can propose will wash away the reality of the sexed human body upon which social stereotypes are plied.

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The Ethics Of Transhumanism And The Cult Of Futurist Biotech

What does it mean to be human in a technologically enhanced world? Humanity+ is a 501(c)3 international nonprofit membership organization that advocates the ethical use of technology, such as artificial intelligence, to expand human capacities. In other words, we want people to be better than well. This is the goal of transhumanism.

Humannity+ Advocates for Safe and Ethical Use: Technologies that intervene with human physiology for curing disease and repairing injury have accelerated to a point in which they also can increase human performance outside the realms of what is considered to be normal for humans. These technologies are referred to as emerging and speculative and include artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, nanomedicine, biotechnology, genetic engineering, stem cell cloning, and transgenesis, for example. Other technologies that could extend and expand human capabilities outside physiology include artificial intelligence, artificial general intelligence, robotics, and brain-computer integration, which form the domain of bionics, uploading, and could be used for developing whole body prosthetics. Because these technologies, and their respective sciences and strategic models, such as blockchain, would take the human beyond the normal state of existence, society, including bioethicists and others who advocate the safe use of technology, have shown concern and uncertainties about the downside of these technologies and possible problematic and dangerous outcomes for our species.

CURRENT PROJECTS: Humanity+ @ Beijing Conference; Blockchain Prize; Humanity+ @ The Assemblage New York City; TransVision 2018 Madrid, Spain.

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Elevating the Human Condition - Humanity+ What does it mean ...

The title of this years True Legends Conference is Transhumanism and the Hybrid Age. For the followers of Steve Quayle, Timothy Alberino and Tom Horn, these might be familiar terms, but the importance of the topic deserves a clear understanding by all. So what exactly is transhumanism? And for that matter, what is a hybrid?

Transhumanism is defined as the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology. Of course, this sounds admirable. Who among us does not want to move toward the goal of eliminating human pain with ever increasing intelligence? But transhumanism is much more than that. With the unending surge in biological know-how, we now have the ability to redefine what it means to be human. Through tools like artificial intelligence, robotics and especially genetics, science is playing a very high-stakes game in the homo sapien sandbox. The end result of this game will have massive implications for future generations.

A quick internet search of the term transhumanism reveals a host of good intentions. Phrases such as broadening human potential, overcoming aging and cognitive shortcomings, and eliminating suffering decorate articles highlighting the possibilities at our fingertips. Breakthroughs like thought-controlled robotic limbsor even regrowing natural limbsseem to make the decision to proceed a no-brainer. If we can do it, we must, as long as were careful, they say. An obligatory word of warning is usually inserted somewhere among the celebratory jargon about how we must never misuse these technologiesas if mankind would ever do such a thing? The question is; Are those who rule over us responsible enough to wield such power?

The power of our technology is being concentrated into the hands of the technocratic elite, and there is more at stake than the Terminator scenarios portrayed in Hollywood. There are deeper spiritual consequences underlying the transhumanist agenda, consequences that can have eternal ramifications. And this is why Steve Quayle and Timothy Alberino have decided to address the topic of Transhumanism and the Hybrid Age in this years True Legends Conference.

This raises another question: What exactly is a hybrid? The official definition reads as follows: a thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture. In our current context, would having a robotic arm make you a hybrid? Would this be a bad thing? I would not want to tell people needing a limb that they cannot have it for either their own good or the good of mankind. Nor deny the blind sight, or the diseased a cure via some amazing biotechnological breakthrough. Thats what makes this such a sticky issue. The cryptic phraseology in Genesis concerning Noah being perfect in his generations also gives me great pause. How is it that all flesh became corrupt in the pre-flood world? Was the rest of the worlds population a hybrid mix of some kind, an unholy amalgamation of beast, man and tech?

We are fast approaching an irreversible tipping point that will radically change society as we know it, and fundamentally redefine what it means to be a human being.

Darrin GeisingerTrue Legends 2018 Conference Coordinator

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What is Transhumanism? - GenSix Productions