Steven Paul Leiva reviews The Transhumanist Reader

Steven Paul Leiva has a review of The Transhumanist Reader (ed. Max More and Natasha Vita-More) in Neworld Review. Check it out. At one point, Leiva says: “In the past Transhumanism was more often found in the pages of science fiction, and  there are some contributors here known for their science fiction, such as David  Brin, Vernor Vinge, and Russell Blackford. But these gentlemen are PhDs and  workers in the groves of academia, so the turns of their minds they reveal here are not just fanciful musings on wild concepts, but thoughtful considerations  of concepts wild to some, obvious to others.”

He concludes:

“Transhumanism is not simple (and certainly  not simple-minded). Human enhancement for a longer, livelier life extending out  into the universe sounds fine; a dream come true, in fact, even if we evolve  into another Homo species. But  signing our own execution order and giving ‘birth’ to non-biological mental  entities who may find it embarrassing to think of whence they came, if they  think of us at all…?

“All of  this is covered in The Transhumanist  Reader, and needs to be. For the technology to allow any of these scenarios  to happen is coming, cannot be stopped, and so must be given intelligent  consideration. Not just by the writers of the essays here, such leaders in the  field as Max More, Marvin Minsky, and Ray Kurzweil among others, but by those  now studying in major universities around the world who will be there in the  future, and by interested members of the public, those in positions of power  and those who just vote, who might be called upon to comment, decide, and  prepare for whatever lies across the Transhumanist bridge.”