Introduction to Transhumanism: Who wants to live forever?

source
Transhumanism is a topic that has gained so much attention in recent time owing to the issues and concepts that it treats. Literally, in an attempt to decipher the meaning of the word 'Transhumanism' it can be divided into three fragments - 'trans', humans and 'ism'. In other words, the base word of 'Transhumanism' is 'Human' which is attached to a prefix (trans) and suffix (ism) respectively.

The prefix 'trans' is associated with words that have the quality of changing from one state to another or in some cases have already changed. The base word 'human' is used to describe any specie that belongs to the class homo sapiens - man or woman. 'ism' simply emphasis on a moment, ideology, philosophy as well as practice of a group of people. The definition of the concept of Transhumanism should be a bit clear having elucidated on the three segments.

source

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
-William S. Burroughs
source

I'd like to shed more light on the complexity of the term HUMAN. Humans are homo sapiens that are either male or female, they have the ability to walk upright, have a complex brain, they feed their young ones with milk at the tender age etc. It is believed in the Evolution Theory that human at a point transformed from being a ape to human as we are now. As it is nowadays, there are some qualities peculiar to humans and may render human beings abnormal if it is absent. For instance, a normal human being must posses the ability to be emphatic, ability to procreate by the coming together of a man and woman through sex. It would be abnormal to say one is human when his/her head is attached to that of a robot even when the brain is still there. It is normal for human to speak and others will understand, right? But, don't be surprised if the reverse is the case in few years to come with the speedy technological and biomedcine advancements that has rocked the world.

source
What is Transhumanism?
Transhumanism is an ideological movement that believes that the state of human beings should not be constant but be improved and enhanced through the advancements in science and technology. Transhumanists opines that the current state of human beings is not the end of our growth and development but a stage that makes up the span of our life. They do not believe that human development is complete yet, but the fact that we can use technology to achieve things that are ordinarily beyond "human". In other words, through cloning, nanotechnology, etc, man could possess the ability to live forever without dying.

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
-Vernor Vinge
source

Living on earth without dying seems interesting, right? No one likes the feeling or mood that accompanies death. But the fact remains that if we don't die, the world will be overpopulated due to lack of regulation. In addition, there would be dramatic shortage of social amenities when people don't die. This could be curbed when we refuse to procreate - stop giving birth. It's alarming that in a world without birth and death there would be a high level of stagnancy.

source/Zoltan Istvan Gyurko
One of the famous advocate for Transhumanism is Zoltan Istvan Gyurko. He is an American transhumanist and journalist. He wants to live for over 10,000 years.

In my subsequent post I shall deal on the benefits and dangers of Transhumanism.

Thanks for reading.