It's well known that we have lost touch with Nature. It is not so much that Nature has retreated, or that we have dismissed it, destroyed it, or denied it. It is simply that the metaphors it has long supported no longer hold. Nature is, of course, all metaphor: the good, the pure, the unadulterated, the whole. It speaks of innocence, a kind of blessed naivety, as well as the wild, the unspoilt, and the instinctive. We should perhaps first agree that it has never as such existed, or that it has existed in different ways for different societies. It is the first virtual reality -in which the pure data of an undifferentiated wholeness is programmed, shaped, and categorized according to our language, fears, and desires. We have always placed it in opposition -to culture, the city, technology. Its strength has lain in this opposition, as much a refuge as a force. But now, the binary opposition of town and country, for example, is disappearing. With the ubiquity of telematic networks, the city is no longer the necessary site of commerce, learning, or entertainment, while the advance of artificial systems of synthesis and replication in biological sciences means that the country can no longer claim a hegemony of pure and authentic natural process. The country was the environment within which or against which the city was set, but with high technology as the environment, neither country nor city can be distinguished as objects to be foregrounded or privileged. As we move into the twenty-first century we shall need to create new metaphors to house the complex interacting systems of biological, technological, and social life which we are developing.
The shelf life of all metaphors, great and small, is limited, and Nature seems to be past its sellby date. It has served us well in many respects -the ultimate appeal, for example, in questions of justice, human behavior, as in those of representation and figuration in the arts has always been -is it natural? Thus the popular icon of the visual culture of the epoch has been Van Gogh

The Transhumanist Reader : Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future

Max More; Natasha Vita-More

John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated

Wiley & Sons, Limited, John

Verlag nicht ermittelbar

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Chichester, West Sussex, UK, 2013

First edition, Chichester, West Sussex, UK, 2013

Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar, 2013

United States, United States of America

1.publ, Chichester, West Sussex, 2013

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"The first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the origins and current state of transhumanist thinking The rapid pace of emerging technologies is playing an increasingly important role in overcoming fundamental human limitations. Featuring core writings by seminal thinkers in the speculative possibilities of the posthuman condition, essays address key philosophical arguments for and against human enhancement, explore the inevitability of life extension, and consider possible solutions to the growing issues of social and ethical implications and concerns. Edited by the internationally acclaimed founders of the philosophy and social movement of transhumanism, The Transhumanist Reader is an indispensable guide to our current state of knowledge of the quest to expand the frontiers of human nature. Editors: Max More, PhD is President and CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, the world's leading cryonics organization. An internationally acclaimed strategic philosopher, Dr. More is recognized for his thinking on the philosophical and cultural implications of emerging technologies. Natasha Vita-More, PhD is a leading expert on human enhancement and emerging and speculative technologies and is a Professor at the University of Advancing Technology, Tempe Ariz. Dr. Vita-More's writings have appeared in Technoetic Arts: Journal of Speculative Research, Metaverse Creativity and The Global Spiral. She has appeared in numerous televised documentaries on media design, culture, and the future."--[source inconnue]

The rapid pace of emerging technologies is playing an increasingly important role in overcoming fundamental human limitations. Featuring core writings by seminal thinkers in the speculative possibilities of the posthuman condition, essays address key philosophical arguments for and against human enhancement, explore the inevitability of life extension, and consider possible solutions to the growing issues of social and ethical implications and concerns. Edited by the internationally acclaimed founders of the philosophy and social movement of transhumanism, The Transhumanist Reader is an indispensable guide to our current state of knowledge of the quest to expand the frontiers of human nature. -- Provided by publisher

Roots And Core Themes -- Human Enhancement : The Somatic Sphere -- Human Enhancement : The Cognitive Sphere -- Core Technologies -- Engines Of Life : Identity And Beyond Death -- Enhanced Decision-making -- Biopolitics And Policy -- Futute Trajectories : Singularity -- The World's Most Dangerous Ideas. Edited By Max More And Natasha Vita-more. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.