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Technology promises to boost humanity.
It might refashion us into a new breed.
Nick Bostrom
"Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up"
I. Introduction
(the 'Abstract' in another version)
We currently have a limited range of means to enhance human capacities. Nutrient supplements or performance drugs are primitive technologies compared to the high-tech scientific breakthroughs on the horizon. They promise to raise human abilities far beyond anything we can even imagine. We can expect humanity to change by such bounds in the coming decades that we may no longer recognize the species. And our species may no longer recognize us, its primitive forbears that it left behind. Such a future breed of humanity is no longer human. It is posthuman. This term is not well-established yet. So Bostrom will first clarify the terminology. Then he will argue two things:
1) we should develop and adopt some posthuman technologies, and
2) all humans would benefit from these advances.
[Bostrom uses terminology here that he explains later. So we define it then. Here is writes specifically: "First, some posthuman modes of being would be very worthwhile. Second, it could be very good for human beings to become posthuman."]
Nick Bostrom. "Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up." Forthcoming in Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity, eds. Bert Gordijn and Ruth Chadwick (Springer), 2007.
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