Transhumanism and Post-humanism

My favorite (novel) about transhumanism is Accellerando by Stross

Not that anyone's actually looking for science-fiction...sigh. I need some more coffee before I visit Veeky Forums.

Anyways, more from my folder.

Thanks! These are quite useful. I'm dealing with themes of post-humanism and post-singularity in a story that I'm finishing at this very moment.

No problem, was glad to contribute. Good luck with your story!

Thanks! I posted some of it on a "what are you working on" thread last night. It's been a great process, and the story seems to do everything I hoped it would.

Shilling for apotheism.org. It is very critical of technology while simultaneously very optimistic. See the article on Heidegger for example. It tries to take transhumanism to its logical conclusion

Nick Land shows how technology captialism and such can all go wrong but he sees this as a great thing because we deserve it or something.

Will check it out, thanks.

duh
transhumanism is just the blue pilled reddit verison of post-humanism

They're basically just aspects of the same thing, aren't they? Because we're currently regular human, "trans" would necessarily be "post"-present.

Please go on.

posthumanism is the complete abandonment of 'humanity' and most of what that entails
transhumanism is 'dude what if we had robot arms haha *hits blunt*

Transhumangender is my overall aim in life. It will be the patrician lifestyle of the future!

honestly man just google it
the only actual study I've done on post-humanism was like one week of a film studies unit

Ha. I like this distinction

If I wanted to Google it, I wouldn't be on Veeky Forums would I?

underrated

the problem with conceptualising post-humanism is that we, as humans, find it incredibly difficult to conceive of a world that we are not the centre of, it has never existed
the film 'Her' is in my opinion the best example of post-human film (again I studied this in film studies so)
the lecturer put forward 'Blade Runner' as the most post-human film but I disagreed with him strongly

Thanks, I'll check that. I'll drop some authors I read here, although in French/German as stated earlier. Also, I'm firmly against transhumanism so please acknowledge that before checking these.

Philosophical framework:

Jacques Ellul - La technique : l'enjeu du siècle
Translated as “The Technological Society”
Bernard Charbonneau - Le feu vert
Jürgen Habermas - Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie”
Translated as “Technology and Science as Ideology”
Jürgen Habermas - Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur
Translated as “The Future of Human Nature”
Norbert Elias - Über die Zeit
Translated as “An Essay on Time”
Martin Heidegger - Sein und Zeit
Translated as “Being and Time”
Herbert Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man
Jean-François Lyotard - L'Inhumain : causeries sur le temps
Translated as “he Inhuman: Reflections on Time”
Paul Ricœur - Temps et récit
Translated as “Time and Narrative”
Gilbert Hottois - La philosophie des technosciences
François Terrasson - La peur de la nature
Olivier Rey - Une question de taille
Pierre-André Taguieff - Du progrès

Less theoretical, more focused on transhumanism as a social phenomenon:

Pierre Guillaume de Roux - Les premières victimes du transhumanisme
Jacques Testart - Rêveries d'un chercheur solidaire
Daniel Cérézuelle - La technique et la chair
Frank Damour - La tentation transhumaniste
Maurice Weyembergh - Entre politique et technique : aspects de l'utopisme contemporain
Serge Latouche - Vers une société d'abondance frugale

I have more but it's less relevant to broadly cover transhumanism.

>mfw man is something that shall be overcome

>he film 'Her' is in my opinion the best example of post-human film (again I studied this in film studies so)
Agreed. The post-human phone consciousness gets bored with we humans, and leaves to pursue more interesting things.

A.I. sort of touched on this in the end sequence, but it was meant to "robotz scary." vs. thought provoking.

I think that's why it is such a fun topic. It is forcing us to imagine things beyond our own human limitations. Or more accurately, showing how our self-imposed human limitations are exactly that.
Technology has allowed to do so many things that were previously impossible, that we are becoming less and less recognizable to our ancestors. It will only become more magnified in the future for those who are willing to continue moving forward.

>See the article on Heidegger for example.
It lacked citations (not sure if that was a problem in this case) and remained vague, also too short for my liking.
I am looking for a long read, something more extensive and concrete.

I suppose such a thing isn't even possible for now.

Humanism is too deeply ingrained in the ideological fabric of western society.

At moments like these, one wishes he would have actually learned the foreign languages he is taught at school. I wouldn't even know English if it wasn't for the media, and the way I write it is still highly corrupted.
At least the German should be do-able.

I think it's more of an initial impression that the west wants to uphold.

A second or third foreign language course wouldn't teach you enough to grasp those books.
I also imagine they would be a bitch to acquire if you don't live in those particular countries.

I hope there were more to read in English. I don't know whether it is because the United States are usually keener on transhumanism and technologies, or that Jacques Ellul comes from Europe, but I feel French, Swiss and German are far more concerned about these issues. Anyway, I'll give as much as possible to share.

Generally blogposts for a general audience don't need many citations, especially when discussing something so theoretical.

The book the author was working from is most likely The Question Concerning Technology.

I would very much like to know how you arrived at that list.
It's not the particular subject that interests me, but how you compiled this selection.
I think it's safe to assume it wasn't just neatly provided in a wikipedia article you read.
Doing real research and finding relevant works when they don't necessarily fit the topic I'm interested is one of the hardest things for me to do.

Firmly against transhumanism? Do continue.

I've read some of the books on that very interesting list, but I'd like to hear your perspective. I don't think I have an iron in that fire myself, for or against. But I'd like to hear your thoughts and why you arrived at the conclusions you did.

Also contributing more writers to a cool thread.

>Transhumanism or Post-Humanism
Technology worship at its worst, peddled by people who reject religion because there's no proof for it but still want some higher meaning in their lives or are still scared out of their wits by the thought of their own death choose to put their faith in technology, specifically in the ideas that infinite technological progress is possible (if not inevitable), the ultimate goal of humanity, and the solution to every single problem there is.

You are thinking of Ray Kurzweil. The topic is actually more nuanced than that.

Technology has already solved many problems of disease and increased the human lifespan - why is it unreasonable, or to suggest that it might keep doing so? And what has "worship" got to do with it?

Well, it took years, and I haven't went through the list on that order. I started to read left-wing literature because I felt that capitalism was driving us, the human, to fight each other's like animals over wealth; competition over wages, cost-cutting wars, globalization, all converge to make us corporate slaves. Then, I applied this thought to technology, or, I should say, technologies start to get my attention. Google, especially, worried me. Connected glasses? What if it is hacked? Wait, this algorithm is stealing a job. Facebook requires little workforce, and Snapchat does with twenty people what Kodak did with 3,000 employees. This led me to think that technology was used—this word is important—by capitalists to fire more workers and optimize their return. The first blow I got was reading Jacques Ellul's “The Technological Society”, which completely changed my mind and had me to assume that capitalism is actually produced by technologies, and that technologies aren't a tool—thus the remark on “use”—we can freely work with. There are technologies that has an inherent will. They are out of control, and it is arrogant in the first place to think we are capable of making a right/wrong use of it, whichever technology it is. Why? The question of whether it is a rightful use is asked inside a configuration of the world which is precisely brought up by the object himself. We cannot think about how we're using money, because money already changed our mind and modified our comprehension. It's the same with many technologies, like social networks, or YouTube. I came to the conclusion it ss naive to consider all of them are tools, with no influence nor intention, free to be used rightly or wrongly.

Please wait a moment, my answers are longer than expected.

No worries. Besides, I've been waiting a long time to write 'are you me?' on Veeky Forums.

>Snapchat does with twenty people what Kodak did with 3,000 employees.
I like most everything you said, but Snapchat is built on the idea that everyone already has super advanced cameras in the pockets, which do, in fact, require 1,000's engineers from a range of companies working hard to get better resolutions under more adverse shooting conditions with easier interfaces. Snapchat is not a camera company. It is just another social media company parasiting off the hardware and infrastructure of the mobile internet device industry.

We are racing into the abyss, no doubt, and transhumanism seems to offer one possible flashlight to navigate the way. It is certainly more useful than those who just say "turn back, dude, the future is too scary for me."

This is for the general framework. Martin Heidegger, who I've never read before, brought a concrete reflection on it, along with his usual tailored terminology. From this point, all the others authors came and aggregated to the core. Norbert Elias was a second, minor revolution in my mindset; he connected technologies with time. Until I read him, the conception of time was out of the equation, and I'd never bothered about that. I discovered that it was deeply tied to the mean of communication, and that a busy, living London banker, having to deal with his smartphone, messages, calls, emails, increasingly Skype and the such, conceives time differently than, say, an Pakistani farmer. I reached two new conclusions. First, time differs according to the density, frequency and amount of communication. The more you have information, the faster it comes, the more you have devices to obtain it, defines how you will interact with time. We don't all have the same twenty-four hours a day. The second conclusion is a grave one. You don't have a direct obligation to fit in this scheme, because you have—for now—the individual liberty to give it up. You're not compelled to own a smartphone. However, this means you're excluded from the society. You're more or less abruptly put aside, and disconnected against your will from the others. Are you going to get a job without a smartphone? With no presence on Facebook or LinkedIn? How will you maintain a proper relationship with people if you don't interact on Facebook? Are you going to be invited to parties? To which extend will they keep making concession to fit your choices before they abandon you? This second thought is nothing new. Jacques Ellul said so. I knew it before. Technologies increase the division between people; the more you're connected, the worse it will be to refuse the progress.

You're right, it wasn't a proper example, but you see the point. See Uber, Airbnb or any other application that takes on an existing profession. I'll come back later on sharing economy and its perverse effects. Or, if you prefer, Foxconn using robots, automated machines in banks and rail stations, and so on.

So that's how I got to the main idea. Technology accelerates the inequalities amongst men and it modifies the structure in which we think about technologies, and thus negatively weakens our ability to critically examine it. That's the two biggest issues. This spanned over two years. Meanwhile, I grew hostile towards sciences. I've read Ted Kaczynski's manifesto, that I admire for its terseness but disagree with on the violent outcome, and the issues he highlighted with left-wing politics as well as Paul Feyerabend's “Against Method: Outline of an Anarchist Theory of Knowledge”, both discernible and “edgy”. Unfortunately. Anyway, I discovered on websites, including Veeky Forums, that people increasingly relied on studies to make a point in a discussion. Each conversation couldn't end in anything but a war over references. So I read on the perception of sciences, and so-called “scientism”. This was along a reconciliation with faith and arguments over atheism, but I'll leave that out. I slowly ceased to read the news when it comes to sciences, and read studies and articles alone. Ironically, you may say, some scientists I knew—notice that many writers I've talked of are themselves scientists—were as concerned as I was about the growing technical ideology.

I don't know if I should speak of my attraction towards primitivism, I feel it's irrelevant. I'll take on the second question.

Confirmed, we are us. Of course, it helps when somebody has done the reading and can articulate as well as you have.

There's a shitload to talk about there. The liberty to give up technology is a big thought that I have spent some time dwelling on as well. Just to give one example, the only people I know who feel free to leave their cell phones at home are mainly baby-boomer retirees who say they prefer to be left alone. Understandably, of course, but these are increasingly liberties that are going to become antiquated, I suspect. Most of the rest of the world is not going to have that option and are going to need to be on call and receptive to signals if they want to keep up with things - signals that increasingly technologize them more or less unconsciously. This is part of a process that is, as well you know, a very large one.

However, I don't want to get off topic with my own anecdotes and such just yet. I'm vastly more interested in hearing the rest of your thought, or as much as you are prepared to share.

Heidegger is a big deal in about 14 different ways. Granted, so is the 20C. Planet Technology is where we are headed. My place right now is in mimesis and violence, but I got here through several years of hair-greying continental philosophy and all things capitalism. I've read Heidegger up and down, but I don't speak French or German so I've mostly had to make do with translations. Working on trying to get Nick Land's neurotoxin out of my system at the moment but he's just too germane to conversations like these to let go of all the way.

Anyways. Yeah. There's a lot going on.

You're not the only one who was attracted to primitivism, btw. This was one of the major books I read along the way.

I can relate to this struggle. I don't simply read on these issues, I also tried to disconnect as much as possible, and I've done quite a lot. As we speak, I have no smartphone, no presence on social networks nor any digital footprint, no television, no car. I'm still far from living alone in the forest but this is enough to lose friends and several opportunities. On the other side, I discovered a childish serenity I thought I wouldn't know again. Also, the technologies aren't in the devices alone, and that was a major point according to Jacques Ellul. It is a mindset, too. The way we're having politics with polling, organized “debates” or Twitter is a technology. Using metrics and software to write a novel, or to lose weight, is a technology, too. It goes beyond the actual machine and is likely to makes its way into culture, language (an emoticon, for example), arts, politics, economy (as a field), sex (hooking up) and so on.

I'm glad to see that! I have no utopia in mind, I simply encourage people to softly disconnect and discover back the pleasures and happiness of a simple life.

In general response to the conversation ongoing.

I believe it's impossible to halt the process that is beginning, Nick Land is right about hat, but the process may not be entirely bad to us. Only one human has to make it to the post-human stage to safeguard the future for eternity. We will achieve absolute freedom when we and the process become one and the same.

It will all come down to who is in the drivers seat when the critical point is reached.

The operation will be successful but we will all die.

Right about *that

Baudrillard was actually a big motivator for my own writing.

My novel begins with this quote.

I wonder why he isn't discuss more on the chans, or is it just "Matrix lol"

This implies we would equally profit from this state. The question isn't who is going to be a transhuman, but who isn't. What would happen to this person? Assume there's a chip to boost your memory, and it is marketed $400,000. What does a farmer will do? What his son could do? No reason to go to college, since companies prefer to recruit—another place technologies are creating trouble—naturally enhanced candidates. He would stay a farmer, like his father, a farmer that has no need of his memory. Any progress will be secured by the richest, and worsen the inequalities between people.

No, I did not mean that that, I was saying that in the very grand scheme, when things as we know it begin to collapse, things are bright for the humans or post humans. The issue is making sure as many people as possible become post humans and are not destroyed by inequality.

I'm very very worried about the transition, but what comes after will be the greatest thing to ever happen to us. What we must do is make the best of a botched job. Is that more clear?

Very well said. Based childish serenity go go go.

Part of my recent interest in mimesis relates to what we've been talking about, because 'deconstruction' really has to give way today to the realities of simulation, reflection, and refraction. We really are all becoming part of something much more interconnected and interesting, but also potentially ruinous as well. I do want to respect the parameters of the thread and not take this off-topic into my own stuff, but I can put up a couple of books that are kinda/sorta related to this. I seem to have a penchant for authors that are on the margins. Besides the works by Pepperell and Chu, I can suggest a few others. And by a few, I mean, trying to consciously limit myself to a few. transhumanism can go a lot of different directions.

Howard Bloom - Global Brain
Guy Metzinger - Being No One
Hans Moravec - Mind Children
Peter Russell - Global Brain

The first and fourth books actually do have the time titles, but are two different books. It's definitely an eclectic bunch, and while I might not want to cite them on an academic paper they're definitely interesting to read.

Anyways...the pleasures and happiness of a simple life. I thought it was interesting how popular Stardew Valley was on Steam. We live in interesting times.

Anyways, can I just give you a righteous meta-technological bro-fist?

Co-sign.

This was my wallpaper for the longest time.

Adding to this, growing class divides must be limited, we have to do everything in our power to do this if only to secure our own survival. We don't even have until posthuman tech to secure our survival, large scale automation will smash capitalism, but in favor of the capitalists if we are not wise.

We can't halt this process, just go faster or slower, this is the lesson of the Soviet Union, fascism, and reactionary movements. Anything in the way of capital is run over.

Though I am not by any means an Evola supporter, his metaphor holds here. We need to ride the tiger.

precisely this

>dude the machines are going to like make coddling us their priority

fucking leddit

"The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night."
I know this is a translation from French, but those are some really concise images. I wonder what a proper Baudrillard science fiction story would be like.

>growing class divides must be limited,
>We need to ride the tiger.
But user, not everyone is capable of riding the tiger. It's hard enough riding it, without holding onto figurative retards as well.

OP here, thank you everyone for the recommendations,

I think one of the issues with transhumanism and post-humanism is that they are increasingly depicted with a romanticised view focused only upon the aesthetics that have become associated with the concepts (cyberpunk etc). Not that these can't provide merit (or enjoyment, I do adore Deus Ex) but it's frustrating so little has been written about it from a critical point of view.

>Are there any essential works on either Transhumanism or Post-Humanism?
my diary desu

:333

That may be, but it does not follow that we should not try and limit the suffering that occurs. The least we can do is find a nicer way to let those who will be left behind die.

It's pure self interest for most of us to try and limit the class divide as we are very likely to be on the wrong end.

Zoltan Istvan's idea of a transhuman bill of rights may be a step in the right direction but there may be nothing we can do to have an entirely peaceful transition. We must do what we can, then suffer what we must. It will be an era of pure chaos, yet almost total stability.

Me too. I'd sure as hell read it. I used to think writing novels would be easy, and that's how I wound up in philosophy-land. Maybe because I was getting more of a kick out of reading Baudrillard than sci-fi. The first time I read him seriously I felt myself needing to hold on to the book with both hands. Like this.

Still though. Philosophy and speculative fiction have awesome chemistry. Just look at Frank Herbert, he knew the score. More recently I'm starting to think that post-apoc has more to say about the world today than science fiction, mainly because I feel that post-apoc handles this notion of a *failed* science really well, the feeling for the disaster and so on. Baudrillard - I love reading him - is all about the hyperbolic, the extreme, the impossible paradox, stuff like this. He became a much more interesting writer after he moved away from Marxism and into Nietzsche. But yeah.

There's also this funny relationship between philosophers and artists, too. Heidegger and Holderlin, Nietzsche and Wagner, Nick Land and William Gibson (and how big do you want that asterisk?). I actually don't know if Baudrillard had a guy like this, now that I think about it, someone who's work he actually liked.

I must also include this outrageously Baudrillardian tumblr, in the event that you or some other writes that very novel.

rekall.me

Jean Baudrillard notoriously liked Jorge Luis Borges.

>I actually don't know if Baudrillard had a guy like this, now that I think about it, someone who's work he actually liked.
That's an interesting question, maybe he had to not like anything too much, lest is start to erode his whole deal.

I like that he publicly denounced The Matrix, despite that movie having helped sell more copies of S&S than any other channel. Classic Baurdrillard.

>despite that movie having helped sell more copies of S&S than any other channel

I am not sure about that. He is a highly respected scholar, here, and accordingly bought and discussed.

That makes sense.

Also this.

He was such a misunderstood, fascinating man. Quietly one of my heroes, I think. He had the balls to be hated without claiming that he was being misunderstood. I wrote something like this on a thread some time ago, that he has this reputation for being the poster child for obscurantist rhetoric, but I will continue to argue that he was in fact one of postmodernity's most tortured and prescient observers.

I think in fact the difference between a guy like him and say, Nick Land, is that he never really abandoned his humanity. NL really doesn't care when the end-times come, and you can kind of understand why. He's exhausted and burned-out, as most of us are. I think JB had a harder job and never really gave up the ship (even if it was a doomed Marxist ship). You get a different vibe from reading him than you do the modern ultra-right. But that's just me, and I'm no scholar. I'm a fucking recluse and I try not to leave the house unless it's mission-critical, like running out of cigarettes.

I don't know about politics anymore, the alt-right, any of that stuff. I really don't. I thought I did, for a while. Now I have no fucking idea.

I was referring to normie Ameriplebs who wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to his work. The influence of The Matrix cannot be exaggerated. I am just speculating, though.

Stuff like this. He knew the deal.

kek

>Technology has already solved many problems of disease
Vaccination played its part, but it had more to do with hygiene than technology.
>and increased the human lifespan
Yet people are sicker. Most medication just supresses symptoms instead of actually healing you (see Why we get sick as example).

This book "Why we get sick" and some others I can't remember, also mention how some medication or treatment makes things worse.

Nassim Taleb also talks about this in Antifragile. It is called iatrogenics.

You are the reason I remain skeptical of transhumanism, because people like you lack critical thinking. At least, this single post of yours suggests that.

I imagine you see only progress, while I see it as part progress, part non-progress. In your defense, I might lean more towards the opposite extreme of pessimism.

If I look at how big cooperations manipulate the public and even science (nutrition, climate change) and make some of their products have a short-life (such as Apple), I can't help but think how more powerful technology can be misused, and considering the past and present: will be.

Ghost in the shell

>If I look at how big cooperations manipulate the public and even science (nutrition, climate change) and make some of their products have a short-life (such as Apple), I can't help but think how more powerful technology can be misused, and considering the past and present: will be.

This x 1,000,000

Robopocalypse

i'm by no means an expert on this, but Rosi Braidotti wrote an enlightning book called The Post-Human on this

Somewhat more complicated on that.

I'd like to keep this thread going.

I'll start by throwing around some tasty/fuckhead generalizations and other stuff like this.

Are we all becoming a hive-mind species of an automatic planet?
What's wrong with that?
How do you feel about your new AI overlords?
Is the history of the earth simply the history of technology/technological determinism?
What does being trans/posthuman mean?
Define 'capitalism,' etc.
When does deep ecology become sexy, if ever?

>muh Marx
>muh Nietzsche
>muh Heidegger

Post cool music, films, etc related to this.

Transhumans are just irrationally hopeful fags that think it makes sense to hook computers up to our brain and even think this will happen before stand alone computers will transcend us in intelligence.

It makes no sense that the first AGI breakthrough involve slow sloppy wetware.

Or, better yet, ask far more interesting questions than those, which I just came up with off the top of my head, as is plainly obvious.

Democracy and Capitalism are doomed to divorce.

Certainly looks that way. It's either that or the kids grow up completely insane...oh wait, that's already happening.

And yet, maybe this is just a phase, a kind of a figuring out that the consumer society is what survives and exceeds the old national model, and we're moving into a new world order or planetary cosmopolis run from Davos. Capitalism is the revolution that succeeds, but it changes the way the whole planet thinks about itself...

Kind of depends also on whether you think the whole thing will melt down, needs to melt down, melts down anyways no matter what we do...

Or not. But I tend towards the apocalyptic.

This subject is too wide to be discussed properly and extensively, that's why I don't reply.

I actually want to share one cool anecdote about this. It came from, of all places, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

It had to do with how you can influence the planetary council by paying members of the council to vote your way. The first time you click on the button, leader X says, okay, well, I'll vote your way but it will cost you Y credits. And you go, ah, I see, you're a fucking shady bastard. And then you click on another leader, and they say the same thing. Different number, but the same thing. And it made me think - when everyone's votes for sale, it's a question of money...and that really is democracy in action once you strip everything else out (albeit in a completely altered form). When everyone's vote is for sale, suddenly it's this whole new thing. I just thought that was interesting.

Fair enough. Just figured I would give it a shot.

If anything capitalism and future capitalism will create a bigger divide between social castes. Too bad the masses are more concerned about issues of the "Selfie" than anything else.

>rekall.me
This is high quality.

That's it. I think Varoufakis said this, that posting selfies on Facebook was like a life-long painting of one's own bizarre obituary. Meanwhile, the Marvel Comics Universe keeps bringing out one smash hit after another...

Yeah. Might be the best tumblr-thing I've seen. There are some people out there with good taste, for sure, esp in the cyberpunk stuff...but yeah, whoever is taking care of that one has it going on.

I always liked this enigmatic little guy. He's not from rekall but he's got things to say about all this.

demxntia.tumblr.com/

more aesthetics

Helaeon is also dope af.

helaeon.tumblr.com

Bump

Thus Spoke Zarathustra — Nietzsche
A Thousand Plateaus — Deleuze & Guattari
(You don't need to read the entirety of this book, but there's some helpful chapters in that can help orient you toward what you might be looking for, specifically the chapter that goes about discussing the concept of 'Becoming-Woman'
What is Posthumanism — Cary Wolfe
Zoontologies — Cary Wolfe
Death of the PostHuman — Claire Colebrook

Dear users, I invite you to our Discord channel to discuss this subject amongst other things. This is a writing channel that also houses a decent literature and philosophy community. Note that I,
as well as
are members.

Please find the invitation link here:

discord.gg/GK9AP

watch GATTACA

I don't watch television.

If this is still ongoing, could you resubmit the invitation link? I'd be interested in joining that discussion but the link has expired.

I'm

discord.gg/HtfQM
The discussion is over, but it'll most likely start again at some point.

Cool, thanks.

Steven Shaviro's Discognition - recently came out. Looks at issues of posthumanism through the lens of recent science fiction stories dealing with the nature of consciousness, and the like. Covers Peter Watts, Scott Bakker, and Michael Swanwick, for example. Shaviro's previous book covered speculative realism, which is pretty evident in the sources he cites some times. Many of the texts he analyses are worth reading too.

Been reading a bit on posthumanism lately, but most of what I've read has already been posted. But since we're throwing stuff related to technology too, let me just note Jaron Lanier's You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto and Who Owns the Future. Start with the former, since it covers his philosophical critique of dudes like Dennett and Kurzweil. Who Owns the Future is more muddled and reads more like science fiction, and it's basically a sequel to the former anyway.