“Perhaps We Are Already ‘Trans’ With Respect To Our Forebears”

In a Reddit AMA, philosopher A.C. Grayling has an interesting take on the Transhumanist Age, believing we might already be living in its embryonic stage. An excerpt:

Question:

Was wondering your thoughts on Transhumanism? At what point do we cease being human when we start giving ourselves synthetic upgrades?

AC Grayling:

Interesting question! – but perhaps we are already “trans” with respect to our forebears, given the way we modify ourselves, survive and flourish as a result of surgery, antibiotics, the survival and reproduction of people who in earlier times would have died in childhood, medical prostheses, airplanes and electronic communications. Of course you mean (say) brain implants and intelligence-enhancing drugs, in vitro selection of superior genetic endowments, electronic replacements for organs and muscles…well, at a certain point we will have crossed a grey area between human beings as we now know them, and something more electronic or genetically modified than that: and perhaps those future beings will have a clearer grasp (because they will be far smarter!) than we do about where the line lay.•

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