The most succinct definition of transhumanism that i have found thus far is this:
“Transhuman is a term that refers to an evolutionary transition from the human to the posthuman.“
While that may seem a bit on the cryptic side, it is an accurate representation of what the essence of the movement is, without compromising the differences in ideologies and methods present within the community. At a base level there are two types of transhumanists: practitioners, and theorists. Practitioners are a rare breed that actually try out new technologies to further transhumanism. They are the early adopters that actually want to reach a “better” state. They want to push the boundaries of what is normal, what is accepted, even what is human. This is in contrast to the theorists who just write about and hypothesise about what is transhumanism or what emerging technologies that could be used to achieve that state. In my mind, that removes the entire point of calling oneself a transhumanist. Why claim membership of a group that you are unwilling to join completely? what do you have to gain by intellectually thinking something is a good idea but not working personally to further that goal? In many ways, this is what makes transhumanism close to another topic that is of interest to me: anarchy. Anarchy has the same problem of people voting for it in the abstract but not being willing to actually practice it or push for it.
To me, the value of transhumanism is not in the end game, the becoming “post human”. For me the value is in the immediate applicability to our everyday lives and situations. Its ability to change and enhance the way we work, think, play and even exist. I am an info junkie. I love the Internet for the simple fact that anything i am interested in i can look up whenever i want and start learning. For me this trend started when i was 10 and taught myself HTML using only the Internet and my local library. After that i snowballed, I went on to learn CSS and javascript and then even more: ASP, PHP, Perl, Python, C, C++ and more. As soon as i have an interest in something, i look it up and start learning my way. The Internet has been a huge enabler for me to do that. It provides an endless wealth of information that i can access any time. The transhumanist side of that is that with some of the possible technological advances, this could be possible in an even faster and more accessible way. Instead of pulling out my laptop and finding wifi, or even pulling out my iPhone and checking over the 3G network, i could have a display integrated into a pair of glasses or goggles (or even in the not to distant future, contacts.) That would make it possible to look up data without pulling out a device, without changing the way that you interact with the outside world (more of less).
(Part two is coming soon. Part two will cover pharma Vs. electronic changes to humans and how to go from transhumanist theory to practice.)
