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En este trabajo se analiza la cuestión de si el volcado de la mente en una máquina (mind uploading), en caso de ser alguna vez tecnológicamente posible, mantendría o destruiría la identidad personal de quien experimentara el volcado. Se verá cómo podría contestarse a la cuestión en función de los criterios para el mantenimiento de la identidad personal que se asuman. No hay una respuesta única, puesto que la identidad personal se mantendría o no en función de los supuestos aceptados. No obstante, para la mayor parte de las concepciones filosóficas sobre la identidad personal, ésta no se mantendría en un proceso de volcado de la mente en una máquina. Si esto es así, habría que concluir que, desde diversos enfoques, dicho volcado sería equivalente a la desaparición del sujeto, es decir, a su muerte, y solo desde posiciones muy limitadas podría defenderse lo contrario., This paper explores the question of whether mind uploading, if ever technologically possible, would maintain or destroy the personal identity of whoever experienced the uploading. It will be explained how the question could be answered in different ways depending on the criteria for the maintenance of personal identity that are assumed. There is no single answer, since personal identity would be considered as maintained or not depending on the accepted assumptions. However, for most of the philosophical conceptions about personal identity, this would not be maintained in a process of uploading. This means, therefore, that this process would be equivalent to the disappearance of the subject, that is, to his death, and only from very limited positions could the opposite be defended., Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales

Agradezco los comentarios de Belén Liedo y Pablo García-Barranquero a una versión previa del manuscrito, así como a los revisores anónimos de la revista Isegoría y al público de Valencia, Santiago de Compostela y Málaga por sus aportaciones. Tanto el transhumanismo como el posthumanismo filosófico han prestado una atención especial a la corporalidad humana en relación al avance tecnológico. En el presente artículo, se comienza señalando cómo ambos movimientos difieren significativamente respecto a la herencia del humanismo. Posteriormente, se aborda la noción transhumanista de la ‘libertad morfológica’ de la mano de More, Sandberg y Bostrom. A continuación, se presentan casos paradigmáticos de modificaciones corporales mediante implantes cibernéticos. En último lugar, se problematizan las cuestiones de la identidad, la corporalidad y el desencuentro entre ambas corrientes respecto al ‘volcado de la mente’. Transhumanism and philosophical posthumanism have paid special attention to human corporeality in relation to technological breakthroughs. This article begins by pointing out how the two movements differ significantly about the inheritance of humanism. Subsequently, the transhumanist notion of ‘morphological freedom’ is addressed from the proposals of More, Sandberg, and Bostrom. Then, paradigmatic cases of body modifications through cybernetic implants are considered. Finally, the issues of identity, corporeality, and the disagreement between the two currents regarding ‘mind uploading’ are problematized. Proyecto Inteligencia artificial y biotecnología de la mejora moral. Aspectos éticos (FFI2016-79000-P), financiado por el Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad del Gobierno de España

The aim of the article was to present the influence of changes to the body-machine system, resulting from the application of innovative technologies and the strategy of cyborgization on the perception of and assignment of value to the human body in contemporary society. I apply two research approaches. On the one hand, the non-invasive functioning of the body-machine system as an expression of transgression; on the other one: the functioning of a machine connected with a body (exo-extension), the functioning of a machine in a body (endo-extension) and the functioning of a body in a machine (mind uploading), as an expression of transhumanism. Addressing the problem formulated in the title of this article, I postulated the hypothesis that undermining the natural status of the human body in postbiological society, favoured by cyborgization and the application of innovative technologies, resulting from a controlled social discourse and knowledge, changing the body-machine relations, changes the perception of and assignment of value to the human body. The hypothesis was confirmed. The article is analytical and descriptive. The research problem is analysed from the sociological perspective.

This paper addresses the greatest aspiration of the transhumanist movement: achieving immortal life through a procedure known as mind uploading. This procedure consists in keeping our minds fully a...

Elon Musk regularly advertises for the simulation argument, stressing that he regards it as highly likely that we live in a computer simulation. However, it must be noted that the argument can be reconstructed such that its line of thought can be rationally grasped. This, however, does not necessarily mean that it is a plausible argument. The argument presupposes the anthropology that human beings can be uploaded onto a hard drive, which is based upon the view that humans are nothing like a software running on our body which serves as our hardware. It is this understanding of the human species which has been employed by many transhumanists who stress that immortality is near. The author will explain the line of thought underlining the simulation argument while they will, at the same time, explain that it is neither highly likely that we live in a computer simulation, nor that we can upload our personalities onto a computer, and even if this was possible, it would not enable us to become immortal.

Agradezco los comentarios de Belén Liedo y Pablo García-Barranquero a una versión previa del manuscrito, así como a los revisores anónimos de la revista Isegoría y al público de Valencia, Santiago de Compostela y Málaga por sus aportaciones., Tanto el transhumanismo como el posthumanismo filosófico han prestado una atención especial a la corporalidad humana en relación al avance tecnológico. En el presente artículo, se comienza señalando cómo ambos movimientos difieren significativamente respecto a la herencia del humanismo. Posteriormente, se aborda la noción transhumanista de la ‘libertad morfológica’ de la mano de More, Sandberg y Bostrom. A continuación, se presentan casos paradigmáticos de modificaciones corporales mediante implantes cibernéticos. En último lugar, se problematizan las cuestiones de la identidad, la corporalidad y el desencuentro entre ambas corrientes respecto al ‘volcado de la mente’., Transhumanism and philosophical posthumanism have paid special attention to human corporeality in relation to technological breakthroughs. This article begins by pointing out how the two movements differ significantly about the inheritance of humanism. Subsequently, the transhumanist notion of ‘morphological freedom’ is addressed from the proposals of More, Sandberg, and Bostrom. Then, paradigmatic cases of body modifications through cybernetic implants are considered. Finally, the issues of identity, corporeality, and the disagreement between the two currents regarding ‘mind uploading’ are problematized., Proyecto Inteligencia artificial y biotecnología de la mejora moral. Aspectos éticos (FFI2016-79000-P), financiado por el Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad del Gobierno de España

According to the intellectual and cultural movement of transhumanism, human beings are in the early stages of development, and it encourages the use of modern science to radically enhance physical, intellectual, psychological, and moral capacities. This paper offers an overview of transhumanism by outlining its historical roots and some current debates within this movement. This paper will further describe several theological responses to transhumanist ambitions and predictions about the future. As will be seen in this paper, how one understands “salvation” affects whether the relationship between Christianity and transhumanism can be framed in terms of a conflict or cautious friendship. The paper will end by showing the ways in which transhumanism itself gives rise to both soteriological and eschatological beliefs about human nature and the wider cosmos. Publisher PDF

International audience; Transhumanist ideas and, in particular, the quest for immortality, find a definite echo in our Western societies where death and aging are less and less considered part of the natural order of things. It is important that the Law should now take up the questions, certainly still prospective, raised by such a dream.; Les idées transhumanistes et, notamment, la quête de l’immortalité, trouvent un écho certain dans nos sociétés occidentales où la mort et le vieillissement sont de moins en moins considérés comme faisant partie de l’ordre naturel des choses. Il importe que le Droit se saisisse dès à présent des questions, certes encore prospectives, soulevées par un tel rêve.

Transhumanism is a philosophy and a contemporary movement dedicated to improving the human condition in various ways. This thesis explores how the transhumanist movement contributes to the contemporary conceptualization or reconceptualization of the human body and the human condition. Furthermore, this thesis discusses three transhumanist key concepts, namely Mind Uploading, Cryonics, and the Primo Posthuman, and how these ideas might affect the research participants’ understanding and enactment of the human body and the human condition. By relying on ethnographic methods, including semi-structured interviews and participant observations from a 12-week fieldwork in Arizona, the ethnographic material is then discussed with the use of Annemarie Mol’s body multiple theory. In addition to this, the material is also analyzed with literature discussing the three main themes of this thesis, namely the re-conceptualization of the body, the mind, and body dualism, and the redefinition of death and the dying body. The ethnographic material and the accounts made from the research participants illustrate that the body is enacted and understood as insufficient and fragile, cartesian, a current vehicle readable and quantifiable through numbers and graphs, and a body whose mind can be uploaded into a computational substrate by the transhumanist community. It also describes how the body can be enacted as alive, an anatomical object, and a body with agency and personhood. Furthermore, the thesis concludes that the transhumanist movement contributes to the contemporary conceptualization and reconceptualization of the human body and the human condition by enacting multiple bodies as well as discussing and imagining new possible human conditions and human bodies. Lastly, this thesis does not only address important anthropological questions regarding ontology and the enactment of the human body. It also discusses relevant questions about humans and technology, as well as questions regarding death and imagination.

Transhumanism is an international movement which es­pouses the idea that any human organ, function, sense, ability, can be augmented and ameliorated with the judicious use of technology. The ethical, cultural, social, biological, economic implications for this view are far-reaching and point to a number of complex ques­tions whose solution eludes researchers so far. One of the possible sources for answers to these is found in science fiction. While trans­humanism is a relatively recent phenomenon (last 25 years or so), science fiction published in English that mirrors some of its issues and ideas has been flourishing for at least as long. In Italy, science fiction is starting to enjoy popularity and critical depth in no small measure due to the untiring abilities of a number of authors. This article analyzes the intersections between human and machine as they are portrayed in Francesco Verso’s Nexhuman. Francesco Verso has published 4 award-winning science fiction novels and a number of short stories. Nexhuman offers a considerable narrative construct which paints a dystopian future where trash is formed and re-formed, sold and reworked; however, strong emotions are not absent, since love may flourish in this “kipple”-laden setting, as well as violence and obsession. Transhumanist ideas explicitly dealt with in the novel include the end of death, the question of the soul, mind uploading, limb prosthesis, the co-existence of humans with mind-uploaded be­ings. The amalgam between human and machine does away with the Self and the Other(s) as separate entities and constructs a completely different Weltanschauung. Nexhuman is not only a transhumanist trailblazer within the flourishing arena of Italian science fiction, but also a springboard for deeper understanding of what makes us human and the extent to which binary categories need to be overcome in order to create a more accommodating world.

The aim of the article was to present the influence of changes to the body-machine system, resulting from the application of innovative technologies and the strategy of cyborgization on the perception of and assignment of value to the human body in contemporary society. I apply two research approaches. On the one hand, the non-invasive functioning of the body-machine system as an expression of transgression; on the other one: the functioning of a machine connected with a body (exo-extension), the functioning of a machine in a body (endo-extension) and the functioning of a body in a machine (mind uploading), as an expression of transhumanism. Addressing the problem formulated in the title of this article, I postulated the hypothesis that undermining the natural status of the human body in postbiological society, favoured by cyborgization and the application of innovative technologies, resulting from a controlled social discourse and knowledge, changing the body-machine relations, changes the perception of and assignment of value to the human body. The hypothesis was confirmed. The article is analytical and descriptive. The research problem is analysed from the sociological perspective. Celem artykułu było ukazanie wpływu zmian w systemie: ciało-maszyna, będących skutkiem zastosowania innowacyjnych technologii i strategii cyborgizacji na postrzeganie i wartościowanie ciała ludzkiego we współczesnym społeczeństwie. Zastosowałam dwie perspektywy badawcze. Z jednej strony nieinwazyjne działanie systemu ciało-maszyna jako przejaw transgresji; z drugiej: funkcjonowanie maszyny połączonej z ciałem (egzorozszerzenia), funkcjonowanie maszyny w ciele (endorozszerzenia) oraz funkcjonowanie ciała w maszynie (mind uploading), jako przejaw transhumanizmu. Podejmując problem sformułowany w tytule artykułu, przyjęłam hipotezę, iż podważanie naturalnego statusu ciała ludzkiego w społeczeństwie postbiologicznym, któremu sprzyja cyborgizacja i zastosowanie innowacyjnych technologii, będące wynikiem kontrolowanego dyskursu społecznego i wiedzy, zmieniając relacje ciało-maszyna, zmienia postrzeganie i wartościowanie ciała ludzkiego, w kierunku przedmiotowego traktowania. Hipoteza została potwierdzona. Artykuł ma charakter analityczno-opisowy. Problem badawczy analizowany jest z perspektywy socjologicznej.

Transhumanists desire the improvement of the human condition. They argue that through the use of technology we could extend our lives, and improve our capacities, especially our cognitive capacities, beyond human norms. Transhumanists argue that doing so would improve our well-being, and in the case of some particularly radical enhancements, such as mind uploading, could open up the possibility of new experiences and modes of living. The transhumanist project has drawn many social, ethical, and political challenges.

Eighty years ago, Nicholas Berdyaev cautioned that new technological problems needed to be addressed with a new philosophical anthropology. Today, the transhumanist goal of mind uploading is perceived by many theologians and philosophers to be dangerous due to its violation of the human person. I contrast transhumanist “patternist” views of the person with Brent Waters’s Augustinian view of the technological pilgrim, Celia Deane-Drummond’s evolutionary Thomistic view of humanity, and Francis Fukuyama’s insistence on the inviolability of “Factor X”. These latter three thinkers all disagree with the patternist position, but their views are also discordant with each other. This disagreement constitutes a challenge for people of faith confronting transhumanism—which view is to be taken right? I contend that Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies can enrich our understanding of the debates by highlighting the transmutation of philosophical view into scientific theory and the intermingled nature of our forms of knowledge. Furthermore, I contend that STS helps Christians understand the evolution of their own anthropologies and suggests some prospects for future theological anthropology.

Mormonism mandates transhumanism based on four premises that reflect the Mormon authoritative tradition. First, God commands us to use prescribed means to participate in God’s work. Second, science and technology are among the means prescribed by God. Third, God’s work is to help each other attain Godhood. And fourth, an essential attribute of Godhood is a glorified immortal body. Thus, God commands us to use science and technology to help each other attain a glorified immortal body, which qualifies as transhumanism. This mandate is consistent with Mormon accounts of the Tower of Babel, as well as with Mormon positions that inform assessment of technologies commonly advocated by transhumanists, such as cryonics and mind uploading.

The progressing cyborgization of the human body reaches its completion point when the entire body can be replaced by uploading individual minds to a less vulnerable and limited substrate, thus achieving "digital immortality" for the uploaded self. The paper questions the philosophical assumptions that are being made when mind-uploading is thought a realistic possibility. I will argue that we have little reason to suppose that an exact functional copy of the brain will actually produce similar phenomenological effects (if any at all), and even less reason to believe that the uploaded mind, even if similar, will be the same self as the one on whose brain it was modeled.

In this paper, we explore from several angles the possibility, and practicality, of one of the major tenets of the transhumanist movement — the intention to upload human minds to computers. The first part of the paper assumes that mind-uploading is possible and will become quite commonplace in the near (21st century) future a la Ray Kurzweil and cohorts. This assumption allows us to explore several of its problematic implications for personal identity, especially the effects it will have on questions of duty, responsibility, interpersonal relationships, and culpability in the case of crime. In the second part of the paper, we take a deeper and more critical look at whether mind-uploading is indeed metaphysically possible, and offer some neurobiologically-inspired arguments against its feasibility.