Transhuman Existentialism: Purpose in the Changing Human

Transhuman Existentialism: Purpose in the Changing Human is an exploration of the mostly unventured intersection between transhumanism and Sartre’s existentialism, ultimately working towards a model of Sartrean existentialism modified constructively to account for the transhuman subject for whom conventional existential assumptions of the universal human condition and facticity might not apply. The transhumanism implied within this ‘transhuman existentialism’ is idealised and generalised, though the particulars of the popular transhumanism supported by thinkers such as Nick Bostrom are also commented on. The text analyses the existential implications of speculative transhuman futures and the transhumans of potential science fiction-resembling scenarios, including those resulting from genetic enhancement, cybernetic augmentation, and digital consciousness translation. Virtual humans in particular are considered in regards to their unconventional manner of being, the sort of which Sartre had little practical context for when he wrote his works and the existential implications it has on the transhumans’ facticity, embodiment, and limitedness. Additionally, in light of Bostrom’s transhumanism’s preoccupation with it, various modes of transhuman ‘immortality’ and their attached contexts are analysed in light of their existential implications for an immortality-indifferent transhuman existentialism. The work also engages with previous works in the transhuman-existential literature, primarily those that used existential ideas to critique the aforementioned variety of Bostrom-inspired transhumanism as it is usually practised (what I call ‘prescriptive transhumanism’), to investigate the points of agreement and the potential discontinuities that exist between the two philosophies.