Table of Contents
Contributor Biographies ix
Part I Roots and Core Themes 1
1 The Philosophy of Transhumanism 3 Max More
2 Aesthetics: Bringing the Arts & Design into the Discussion of Transhumanism 18 Natasha Vita-More
3 Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up 28 Nick Bostrom
4 Transhumanist Declaration (2012) 54 Various
5 Morphological Freedom – Why We Not Just Want It, but Need It 56 Anders Sandberg
Part II Human Enhancement: The Somatic Sphere 65
6 Welcome to the Future of Medicine 67 Robert A. Freitas Jr.
7 Life Expansion Media 73 Natasha Vita-More
8 The Hybronaut Affair: A Ménage of Art, Technology, and Science 83 Laura Beloff
9 Transavatars 91 William Sims Bainbridge
10 Alternative Biologies 100 Rachel Armstrong
Part III Human Enhancement: The Cognitive Sphere 111
11 Re-Inventing Ourselves: The Plasticity of Embodiment, Sensing, and Mind 113 Andy Clark
12 Artificial General Intelligence and the Future of Humanity 128 Ben Goertzel
13 Intelligent Information Filters and Enhanced Reality 138 Alexander “Sasha” Chislenko
14 Uploading to Substrate-Independent Minds 146 Randal A. Koene
15 Uploading 157 Ralph C. Merkle
Part IV Core Technologies 165
16 Why Freud Was the First Good AI Theorist 167 Marvin Minsky
17 Pigs in Cyberspace 177 Hans Moravec
18 Nanocomputers 182 J. Storrs Hall
19 Immortalist Fictions and Strategies 196 Michael R. Rose
20 Dialogue between Ray Kurzweil and Eric Drexler 205
Part V Engines of Life: Identity and Beyond Death 213
21 The Curate’s Egg of Anti-Anti-Aging Bioethics 215 Aubrey de Grey
22 Medical Time Travel 220 Brian Wowk
23 Transhumanism and Personal Identity 227 James Hughes
24 Transcendent Engineering 234 Giulio Prisco
Part VI Enhanced Decision-Making 241
25 Idea Futures: Encouraging an Honest Consensus 243 Robin Hanson
26 The Proactionary Principle: Optimizing Technological Outcomes 258 Max More
27 The Open Society and Its Media 268 Mark S. Miller, with E. Dean Tribble, Ravi Pandya, and Marc Stiegler
Part VII Biopolitics and Policy 279
28 Performance Enhancement and Legal Theory: An Interview with Professor Michael H. Shapiro 281
29 Justifying Human Enhancement: The Accumulation of Biocultural Capital 291 Andy Miah
30 The Battle for the Future 302 Gregory Stock
31 Mind is Deeper Than Matter: Transgenderism, Transhumanism, and the Freedom of Form 317 Martine Rothblatt
32 For Enhancing People 327 Ronald Bailey
33 Is Enhancement Worthy of Being a Right? 345 Patrick D. Hopkins
34 Freedom by Design: Transhumanist Values and Cognitive Liberty 355 Wrye Sententia
Part VIII Future Trajectories: Singularity 361
35 Technological Singularity 365 Vernor Vinge
36 An Overview of Models of Technological Singularity 376 Anders Sandberg
37 A Critical Discussion of Vinge’s Singularity Concept 395 David Brin, Damien Broderick, Nick Bostrom, Alexander “Sasha” Chislenko, Robin Hanson, Max More, Michael Nielsen, and Anders Sandberg
Part IX The World’s Most Dangerous Idea 419
38 The Great Transition: Ideas and Anxieties 421 Russell Blackford
39 Trans and Post 430 Damien Broderick
40 Back to Nature II: Art and Technology in the Twenty-First Century 438 Roy Ascott
41 A Letter to Mother Nature 449 Max More
42 Progress and Relinquishment 451 Ray Kurzweil
Index 454