[ExI] transhumanist as a philosophy

[Tom Nowell]

 Damien wrote: "In any event, the question I was raising was: what are the major texts of transhumanism?"

Well, Max and Natasha have mentioned links to core texts of transhumanism as a formal philosophy. For transhumanism as a movement, philosophy is probably the last place to look. If you ask many people on this list or at transhumanist conventions/meetings what inspired them to look into topics that led them to transhumanism, the number one source will probably be science fiction, closely followed by works of popular futurology that introduced a technology transhumanists hold dear and treated it seriously. Films and games also add media exposure to ideas outside of everyday society, and inspire people to look into what's behind the superficial idea.

Therefore, our routes into transhumanism are many and varied. As such, there are no "core texts", and "major texts" are only those read by a decent proportion of transhumanists in a given social circle. In order to determine the major texts, you're best off either running a survey asking which books people have read, or collecting people's stories as to how they discovered transhumanism.

Tom