Aggregated News

For three days in June, scholars, computer programmers, scientists, social theorists, and bioethicists gathered at Yale University for Transvision USA, a conference sponsored by the World Transhumanist Association (WTA). This year's event, the first Transvision conference to be held in North America, was an attempt to promote transhumanism among mainstream scholars and scientists in the United States. Approximately 130 people from around the world attended.

What is transhumanism and why all the fuss?

Transhumanism is a recent intellectual and cultural movement that argues that technology can and should be used to overcome the limitations of the human body. The term "transhuman"—short for "transitional human"—typically refers to an intermediary form between human and "posthuman." Since posthumanity has yet to be achieved, it's difficult to define exactly what a posthuman is, although the term is loosely defined as an entity whose capabilities so radically exceed those of humans that they constitute a new being. According to the WTA website, a posthuman could be a completely synthetic artificial intelligence or even an information pattern.

The transhumanist movement grew out of the predominantly male...