[extropy-chat] Dante and transhumanism

[Amara Graps]

Giu1i0 Pri5c0 pgptag at gmail.com :
>So: Should we say Trasumanar or Transumanar (the first is Dante's
>original, the second is also used and definitely sounds better)? Should
>we welcome Dante as one of the founding fathers of transhumanism, in the
>sense of "aspiration to pass beyond humanity"?

Hmm. Dante is pretty new for tranhumanism thinking.

The transhumanist trail goes back much further, at least two
thousand years prior to Dante, to two papyri composed in Egypt around
the 4th century C.E. called the "Leiden and Stockholm papri" (for the
modern libraries, where they are stored). The papri state that "artificial
is at least as good as the natural for the purpose of humans, perhaps
better."

Perhaps you mean specifically the term "transhumanism". I think
it is more useful, however, to follow back in time the _ideas_.

Amara


-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, ITALIA
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson