LAUSR

Dr. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson has demonstrated great knowledge of the elusive and broad notion of the transhumanist movement by discussing everything from cryonics to singularity. Her paper is so well-written that it is not always obvious how to break it down to its constituent arguments. Thus, I would like to begin with a brief structural overview of her paper before proceeding to my own responses. This paper is divided into three general parts. The first part of this paper discusses what transhumanism is and why it is important. Transhumanism is defined as an evolutionary worldview with a common theme of the transformation of biological humanity to mechanical humanity. Transhumanism thus is in pursuit of perfection. In the second part of the paper, Hava questions whether the transhumanist pursuit of perfection is justified by evaluating Aristotelian notions of perfection as process and end in itself. With regard to transhumanist perfection as process, Hava argues that morphological freedom will not bring happiness because it has reduced happiness to materialistic happiness and it is highly individualistic. With regards to transhumanist perfection as an end, Hava argues that the worldview of the transhumanist singularity end is as idealistic as any social utopian worldview which largely describes the current sociocultural and philosophical concerns and aspirations. In the third part, Hava discusses how the transhumanist worldview is a product of the current postsecular desire to find transcendence in the absence of dichotomy between religion/secularism, science/religion, and immanence/transcendence itself. Hava then concludes that in transhumanism, the placing of spirituality and faith has shifted from the Wholly Other to technology due to existential angst in pursuit of transcendence. Ironically, using technology, transhumanism eliminates the humanity that it seeks to perfect in the very first place, rendering transhumanism as a misguided pursuit for perfection. Having extracted her main argument, I will raise three issues from each of the major part of the paper. First, I would like to question the fundamental premise that the transhumanist move from biological humanity to mechanical humanity will eliminate humanity itself. There are no reasons provided as to why this is the case. This is partly because Hava has not defined what she thinks humanity or human nature is. It seems that Hava has a substantialist notion of human nature, which would make her feel that technological transformation of humanity to silico-based will render humanity obsolete. Yet, it also seems that Hava has a relational notion of human nature where she argues that the transhumanist agenda is highly individualistic such that it will fail to bring happiness. Regardless of her presuppositions, there are two possible responses to Hava. First, contrary to what Hava presumes, transhumanists often see that technological advances, even singularity itself, will culminate to the ultimate connectedness and relationality in collective