Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.[1] Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as study the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.[1] They predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".[1] Transhumanism is therefore viewed as a subset of philosophical "posthumanism".[2]
The contemporary meaning of the term "transhumanism" — which is now symbolized by H+ (previously >H[3]) and often used as a synonym for "human enhancement" — was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the Human" at The New School of New York City in the 1960s, when he began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and world views transitional to "posthumanity" as "transhuman".[4] This foresight would lay the intellectual groundwork for British philosopher Max More to begin articulating the principles of transhumanism as a futurist philosophy in 1990,[5] and organizing in California an intelligentsia that has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.[4]
The transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity, which is influenced by the techno-utopias depicted in some great works of science fiction, has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives.[4] Transhumanism has been condemned by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as the world's most dangerous idea,[6] while one proponent, Ronald Bailey, counters that it is the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity".[
see more, including the controversy surrounding this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism
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