HUMAN AND IMMORTALITY IN THE VIEWS OF TRANSHUMANISTS

Abstract

With the development of science, a lot of people don’t believe in the afterlife, but believe in biotechnology and the ability to overcome death, or at least delay it as much as possible. At the same time, the revolution in medical technology has created the illusion of controlling death. In this study we will consider the impact of scientific progress on changing transhumanity’s vision of death. The aim of the article is a socio-philosophical review of the dynamics and changes in transhumanist ideas about obtaining human immortality from the ideas of cryonics to cybernetic modification of human nature. Research methods are comprehensive and based on philosophical-anthropological and philosophical-cultural analysis of transhumanist concepts of human immortality.Discussion. Comparing the arguments of transhumanists about overcoming death by various methods, it becomes clear that the possibility of obtaining immortality through cryonics technologies is no longer the subject of discussion by scientists and philosophers. The attention of philosophers N. Badmington, N. Bostrom, J.Wilsdon, YN Harari, A. Turchin and M. Bakhtin is focused on the possibility of modifying the human body into an eternal cyborg personality. Conclusion. Human modification for the sake of immortality or its cyborgization is the dominant idea of solving the problem of human mortality. The expansion of the boundaries of human nature and the same time of human existence is first of all a transition to a new qualitative level of existence. As a result it is the opportunity to transfer human thoughts, memories and consciousness into the digital form or to an artificial device. So transhumanists will be able to take refuge in digital immortality. And this immortality will depend only on the ability to build and store these devices.