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1 results

  • Two - Ancestors and Avatars

  • Jennifer Huberman, University of Missouri, Kansas City
  • Book:
    Transhumanism
    Published online:
    10 December 2020
    Print publication:
    17 December 2020, pp 47-67

  • Summary

    Chapter 2 explores how the transhumanist attempt to achieve immortality in avatar form through the technology of mind cloning, compares and contrasts with the many attempts our species has made to achieve immortality in ancestral form. It asks: what are the conditions that make certain modes of immortality conceivable and desirable? What kind of practices, understandings, and forms of self-discipline are these modes of immortality predicated upon? What kinds of experiences do, and might, these modes of immortality give rise to? Why are these modes of immortality meaningful to the people who pursue them. By juxtaposing the ubiquitous making of ancestors with the making of avatars among transhumanists, the chapter further illuminates the values and beliefs that animate the transhumanist technological imagination, and once again demonstrates that thinking comparatively can sharpen our abilities to grasp the features of a given social phenomenon.