Re: Defining Transhumanism

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Tue, 20 Oct 1998 20:24:14 -0500

Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>
> I think I'd consider someone who thinks humans might reasonbly
> exceed human limits only sometime after this person's death a
> proto-transhumanist or one interested in transhuman topics,
> but not a transhumanist.

I normally agree with this; however, if a person believes that transhumanity is greatly desirable and argues/works toward that end, even if ve does not expect to live to see it, I would consider ver a transhumanist. In fact, I consider this to be the key requirement of transhumanism. The only reason why near-future time periods correlate is that a person is more likely to get involved in something ve believes is achievable in vis lifetime.

-- 
        sentience@pobox.com         Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
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