(Untitled)

[tinomenwprlock]

Anyone know any good books on transhumanism?

Comments

[derekcfpegritz]

Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity Is Near are the "bibles" of most transhumanists, though they read more like popular-science works. Ramez Naam's More Than Human is a great work concerning bioengineering and cybernetic augmentation; Joel Garreau's Radical Evolution is prettymuch the same, as is Gregory Stock's Redesigning Humans. All can be found for great prices on Amazon.

Also, check out http://www.transhumanism.org, the HQ of the World Transhumanist Association (of which I'm a member) as well as Anders Sandberg's transhumanist pages at http://www.aleph.se/Trans/. I have about 10,000 further links as well, so if you need anymore, just ask.

[mr_sunyata]

You amaze me! What a great question. What aspect of transhumanism interests you?

I recommend a science fiction book by Vernor Vinge "Rainbow's End." It's really fun to read, and explores the possibilities of ubiquitous computing, where the user is integrated into the global net 24/7. Very realistic, too.

For old school artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky's "The Society of Mind" is great reading. It examines what it is to be human in our thinking. The author heads MIT's Artificial Intelligence lab.

[tinomenwprlock]

I honestly think it would be worth looking into replacing flesh and bone parts with cybernetic parts being that it would most likely lead to not having to have other surgeries to replace those parts (oh so helpful in my situation), plus it could also help those who are paralyzed and may want to move independantly and what not.

[mr_sunyata]

I wonder if, for the short term, research into stem cells could turn out to help you the most?

[tinomenwprlock]

being that I have no original liver cells of my own, probably not.