The classic definition of Transhumanism
Transhumanism is 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.
Max Moore, Extropian Philosopher (1990)
Well, that is almost close enough.
If you are here now, then you likely will have some sort of basic or even advanced understanding of the concept of Transhumanism. But perhaps, you have not yet heard of it or are uncertain about some elements.
In the following section, you will get a refresher on "Transhumanism" and what it means to be "Transhuman" or to be a "Transhumanist"
So, what is Transhumanism ?
As a collection of philosophies and ideas, Transhumanism has been around since approximately the 1980's.
In some ways it is an extension of humanism, which puts the value of the individual human being into the center of its considerations and most transhuman thinkers also tend to lean towards libertarian guiding principles and ideas.
Transhumanist thinking embraces integration of mankind with technology and wants the species to achieve the potential, that lies beyond the limits of its biological evolution.
The eventual end goal of this process is to become a new species and to realize the posthuman condition. The posthuman condition would allow experiencing and manipulating the universe in novel ways, essentially those states of experience and manipulation, that are forever inaccessible to conventional human beings.
It is likely, that this posthuman condition will be a non-biological one - unless having a conscious experience of the world is unexpectedly tied to being a biological entity. We can not preclude this possibility as of yet and this issue might even be the central flaw of current transhumanist - and especially singularitarian - thinking.
Certain factors, such as the "visitation" of Earth by alien biological entities in the last few millenia (by now quite well-founded through numerous sighting reports and archaelogical coincidences), might indeed even point in this direction.
Why would biological alien entities visit this planet, if non-biological sentience is the superior form of existence ?
Only time might give an answer to this particular question.
Then what does being "Transhuman" mean ?
The original concept that defines the term "Transhuman" goes back to the Iranian-American futurist, philosopher & writer FM-2030, otherwise known as Fereidoun M. Estfandiary.
It is the abbreviated form of "transitional human", describing a human being that integrates itself with advanced technology to enhance its action potential beyond the biological limits of the current baseline human species (Homo Sapiens Sapiens).
By consciously making the decision to walk on the path of civilization & technology, modern man actually already left behind his natural baseline state and transitioned into a near-baseline human condition, becoming a so-called "High Human" (Homo Sapiens Sapiens Civilis), but FM-2030 did not take that into consideration back then.
What is the distinction between being a "Transhuman" and being a "Transhumanist" ?
A "Transhumanist" does not necessarily need to be a "Transhuman" - yet. Though it is likely, that at some point, the transhumanist wants to become transhuman. The transhumanist is not content with merely being a civilized High Human, the transhumanist strives to go beyond the limitations set by biology.
There might be different underlying motivations to set off on this path (see below), not every transhumanist is motivated by the same factors.
Ultimately the term "Transhumanist" describes a human being, that adheres to the principles of transhuman thinking and likely in most cases promotes the ideas of transhumanism among his social contacts or the greater public. This human being also experiments with integrating technology into its own existential framework to enhance its own capabilities.
At some point in the future we will need to re-examine some aspects concerning the conceptualization of the term "technology" itself, in order to further our understanding of the interplay between technology and the natural world.
For now, we will just assume that the term "technology" describes something which is created by intelligent human design to act as agent for manipulating man himself or the environment that man inhabits.
To summarize basic Transhumanism: A set of principles, philosophies and guiding ideas, that wants mankind to transcend its biological limitations through the utilization and integration of advanced technology, in order to move beyond the current developmental stage of the civilized High Human condition.
One can find different currents of thought within the domain of Transhumanism
Like every major school of thought among mankind, Transhumanism can be seperated into several sub-categories.
Extropianism:
Transhumanist thinking more or less started out as extropian thinking. While this term popped up first in the 1960's and 1970's, the transhuman connotation was coined by Tom Bell and Max More (who both founded the Extropy Institute) in their first version of the "Extropian Principles", published in 1988.
According to them, Extropy as a set of values represents the extent of a given system's intelligence, information content, structural order, vitality and capacity for improvement.
Extropian Transhumanists want to use accelerating technological integration in order to spread and enhance these aforementioned values among mankind.
Original Extropianism is founded on 7 principles: Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction and Rational Thinking
You can read more about this in the original 1995 version 3.0 of the Extropian Principles: http://mrob.com/pub/religion/extro_prin.html
In recent years, a new and slightly different type of Extropianism has evolved.
The 2010 Extropian Manifesto now lists these core principles: Endless eXtension, Transcending Restriction, Overcoming Property, Intelligence and Smart Machines.
You can read more about this in the original 2010 version of the new Extropian Manifesto for the 21st century: http://mrob.com/pub/religion/extro_manif.html
Singularitarianism:
The central pillar of singularitarian thinking is the concept of the "Technological Singularity".
The technological singularity is supposed to manifest at some point after artificial general intelligence (AGI) has become a reality in our world. This would be a form of above human level intelligence, by far.
AGI is supposed to be able to enhance itself exponentially if certain conditions are met, leading the world beyond a point in time (the Singularity), where no prediction as to the outcome can be made by conventional human thinking.
Singularitarian transhumanists work to bring about this form of AGI and also try to develop ethical frameworks for the conduct of contact with this form of synthetic hypersentience.
One prime example for a singularitarian transhumanist would be the american inventor and director of engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil.
Hedonistic Imperative Transhumanism:
This alternative approach to transhumanist thinking was mainly formed by British transhumanist philosopher David Pearce in his 1995 work "The Hedonistic Imperative". Pearce argues for "engineering paradise" and abolishing all forms of suffering and cruelty in the world through technological intervention.
In the short-term, Hedonistic Imperative Transhumanists want to enhance their emotional states through newly developed substances, in the long-term they want to completely redesign the human genome and also reform the global ecosystem into a world, where suffering is absent and eternal joy is an existential guarantee.
Hedonistic application of technologies is supposed to lead man into a world full of bliss and contentment.
According to Hedonistic Imperative Transhumanists, it would be immoral to have the technological capabilities to achieve this state of existence, but not use them.
Democratic Transhumanism:
This sub-category of transhumanist thinking more or less adopts the Extropian viewpoint of utilizing scientific advancements, but also sets its focus on issues such as legal equality, liberty and democratic representation of the transhuman context.
One example of democratic transhuman activity would be the debate about legal rights for sentient AI constructs. Another example would be the issue of making advanced anti-aging/rejuvenation treatments available to the general public.
You can see where this is going.
Theoretical Transhumanism:
This branch of transhumanist thinking tries to study the constraints, options and possible consequences of future trends in technological and human development.
Tools are borrowed from game theory, evolution theory or different economic schools and are utilized to create models to enhance mankinds understanding of transhumanism and the coming future.
Ethical and philosophical viewpoints are also being considered from a theoretical approach to general systems thinking.
Swedish Philosopher Nick Bostrom is one of the most prominent thinkers in this field.
Transhuman Eudaimonism:
The newest development in transhumanist thinking revives the ancient concept of "Eudaimonia" and brings it into a world, that is sorely in need of new solutions for its massive problems and at the same time yet has vast untapped potential for development.
The term "Eudaimonia" is slightly redefined with the memetic connotation of the term "to thrive", because recent western philosophy somewhat misunderstood the original meaning in the last few centuries.
The Transhuman Eudaimonist realizes the amorality of nature and utilizes technology as the primary agent to enhance his individual and also his societies action potential in order to establish & control a thriving symbiotic relationship between nature and conscious creation.
Transhuman Eudaimonism aims to move both mankind and nature beyond their respective biological limits.
Transhuman Eudaimonism furthermore redefines the conceptualization of the term "technology" itself, in order to categorize the whole sphere of conscious experience into different classes of technology (emergent technology, non-emergent technology, conceptual technology, etc...).
Through this new understanding of reality and the meaning of technology, questionable and harmful concepts like religion or spirituality are made redundant.
Integrating, improving and constantly creating new technological means is identified as being necessary to improve both sides of the symbiotic relationship between man & nature, because the inherent "evil" absence of moral within nature itself would otherwise destroy all that has been achieved by intelligent creation and civilization.
In an optimal transhuman eudaimonic world, the amoral natural order of that world is met by the enlightening flame of thriving civilization, allowing the utilization of the world's full positive potential beyond its original limitations.