Review of “More Than Human” at Metapsychology
Metapsychology has a fairly good review of Ramez Naam's More Than Human. From the review it seems that the book is fairly concise in terms of bringing out the important issues and concerns related to transhumanism. Naam brings out the important point that is most cases there is not a clear cut distiction between finding a cure for some disease via genetic engineering and enhancing human beings. In some cases the distinction is almost non-existant because the same technologies can be used for curing a defect and enhancing human beings. This is in effect equivalent to stating that once we start out on the path of using such technologies for cure there is not turning back the clock of enhancement. Naam does not think that the post-human future will not be a techno-utopia but we can improve our condition. A lot of critics of transhumanism hold that humans are to be defined by their limits but Naam argues to the contrary that we are defined by going over out limits. These arguments were reminicent of Andy Clark's arguments in Natural Born Cyborgs.
