So, to help us and get us going, I have collected open access material to help us
Transhumanism/Posthumanism, where to start…
My book has a sort of survey of the various positions, and here is a reproduction of a few pages of that…
![](https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/davidrose/files/2024/01/61YtAkxgFXL._SY342_.jpg)
Rose, D. E. (2021). Our Posthuman Past: Transhumanism, Posthumanism and Ethical Futures. Schwabe Verlag (Basel). Pp. 11–37.
Websites
A very useful website with a collection of concepts, definitions and genealogy is:
https://criticalposthumanism.net/
Similarly, the Transhuman Terminology page:
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Words/
Philosophical Articles
Bostrom, N. (2003). The transhumanist FAQ. Readings in the Philosophy of Technology, 2(4), 355-360.
Bostom, N. (2008a). Letter from utopia. Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology, 2(1).
Bostrom, N. (2008b). Why I want to be a posthuman when I grow up. In Medical enhancement and posthumanity (pp. 107-136). Springer, Dordrecht.
Ferrando, F. (2013). “Posthumanism, transhumanism, antihumanism, metahumanism, and new materialisms.” Existenz, 8(2 ): 26–32.
Huxley, J. (1959). New Bottles for the New Wine: Essays. London: Chatto & Windus.
Russell, B. (1924). “Icarus, or The Future of Science.” Transcribed by C Shalizi.
Popular Content
Apologies that these tend to come from one newspaper at the moment, but here are some of the issues I think show where emerging technologies have an impact on how we understand ourselves:
Smart drugs and education How do we deal with drugs that improve performance but are not equally distributed? Is it different from the existence of private education anyway?
Artificial intelligence and writing academic essays The greatest worry for educational institutions. If AI writes an essay, then the assumption that the individual is to be rewarded for talent, labour and effort is put under the microscope.
Artificial intelligence and artistic creativity Surely the one area of production that is properly human, isn’t it?
Communication, relationships and social media Who owns shared pictures and music when a break up happens?
Future of gaming and virtual existence Death in games, make it worth something?
New, emerging persons (robots) Right for robots? Holiday pay?
Here is an odd one. Predicting technology in the future is speculative, look at 1960s sci go films to see how it can be so wrong. Driverless cars, yes, but an e-bike with chatgpt integrated?