[ExI] transhumanist as a philosophy

[natasha at natasha.cc]

Quoting Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>:

> On 6/16/2010 6:23 PM, natasha at natasha.cc wrote:
>
>> For me, it is a philosophy with principles and is definitely a movement.
>
> Leaving aside the movement aspect for a moment:
>
> a perspective, a set of interpretative principles and principles of
> action, tends be regarded as a *formal philosophy* only after it has
> been canonized in one or more major texts.

Extropy.

> What are these in the case of Transhumanism? FM-2030's books, for
> example, do not seem to be embraced, studied, taught, disputed by many
> people. THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR is not a philosophy text.

FM was not a philosopher and did not write about "transhumanism."  He  
was not interested in a "movement".

> It might be argued that looking for *books* in the 21st century is
> entirely missing the point--that >H or H+ is articulated sufficiently
> in the discussions and colloquia associated with, say, the Extropy
> Institute of old and its listserv, and the various groups naming
> themselves as such like the World Transhumanist Association or
> Humanityplus...
>
> But I'm not sure that's sufficient. I seem to recall various efforts to
> pull together a text titled TRANSHUMANISM, and that some such volumes
> already exist in Italian (and are fought over vehemently and even
> poisonously there), but I don't know of any canonical text in English.
> Is there one (or more)?  Amazon lists *Designer Evolution: A
> Transhumanist Manifesto* (2005, Prometheus) by Simon Young, which has
> as Part 3 "Transhumanism as a Totalized Philosophical System." Anyone
> here read it? And there's dear old *Great Mambo Chicken*, which is very
> much less than a philosophy although it was a hell of a ride way back
> in the day.

_Great Mombo Chicken And the Transhuman Condition_ was not a book  
about the philosophy of transhumanism. Regis’ scope was focused on  
Ettinger, cryonicists and Silicon Valley, Keith Henson and Dora's  
head, etc.  But since it was published in 1991, he was fully aware of  
_The Journal of Transhumanist Thought_, and what he didn’t want to  
focus on.  He didn't even want to because he had his journalism was  
focused on a specific story.

I am not a fan of this book and find it a cheap shot at trying to  
propose a culture that was already formed.  FM didn't like it either.  
In fact he was pretty darn pissed at Regis for a numer of reasons.

Natasha