Transhumanism

Abstract

Transhumanism has a paradoxical and largely overlooked history. In canonical accounts, the idea of a “superhuman” goes back at least to Nietzsche’s Übermensch, while the notion of a machine/human hybrid appeared in literature almost 200 years ago in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Contemporary Silicon Valley transhumanists, convinced that humans can only progress through technological enhancement, at times seem oblivious to both the historical lineage of transhumanism and the myriad alternative ways for human beings to consciously evolve.