Studies in the Transhuman

Boy attends class via robot avatar

2011-02-04T19:02:00.000-08:00

Lyndon cannot attend class in person due to polycystic kidney disease, but his robot avatar still can!
Read and watch the video here:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/texas-student-lyndon-baty-vgo-robot_n_818884.html

Schopenhauer a Transhumanist?

2011-01-21T18:48:00.000-08:00

"Schopenhauer’s brand of transhumanism is rather different from the modern, progress-centred view of humanity. It is negative, emphasising the bad aspects of humanity from which we must escape."

Thomas James discusses a different reading of Schopenhauer here:
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/schopenhauer-transhumanist

Meh Transhumanism

2011-01-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

"I’m not so much against the main claims of these groups as I am against their concept of themselves as the main folks who care about the future."
For a critical discussion from Economist Robin Hanson follow the link-
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/meh-transhumanism.html

Vision for the Machines

2011-01-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

(Image Courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Microsoft Corporation's latest product 'Kinect' allows computers to see in three dimensions. Mark Pesce explores the possibilities-

http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2011/01/11/3110329.htm

A Reading Suggestion-

2011-01-09T19:06:00.000-08:00

In 2007 Agar (pictured) wrote a piece for the Hastings Centre- good as an introductory overview of Transhumanism and some of the debates in the field.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hastings_center_report/summary/v037/37.3agar.html

What is this thing H+?

2011-01-05T02:59:00.000-08:00

Transhumanism seems to be on the cusp of a leap in relevance and importance in a variety of scientific academic and social discourses. With the exponential increase in technological innovation powered by computing, and an ever more subtle knowledge of the human organism, the stage is set for what was once the domain of Sci-Fi writers like Asimov, to become a far more legitimate field of inquiry.
Transhumanism in a word is concerned with synthesis. Synthesis of biology and technology, the material and the virtual, the large and the microscopically small. Transhumanism (often symbolised H+) concerns itself with questions of what it is to be human, the impact of increasingly important virtual worlds which operate alongside our material ones, scientific advance, identity and the merging of technology and the human body. Transhumanism as a multidisciplinary field takes on thinkers from a range of perspectives and backgrounds like an English poor house takes in orphans- sociology, technology studies, psychology, philosophy...and proceeds to explore what it is to be human, and to imagine what humanity could be.
In common with thought movements like futurism (from which Transhumanism can trace some of its intellectual lineage) the polarities in the literature ranges from what could charitably be described as Star Trek through to discussions on here-and-now technologies such as bionic ears.
This Blog will explore those polarities and everything in between, and I hope in the process provide a smidgen of insight into this thing called H+.