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2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

1. Stairways to the Sky

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Abstract

Overcoming the limitations of our short lives has always being among the deepest, most heartfelt of human desires, no matter how arrogant this may sound. And, by the way, just look at the original Latin root of the verb “desire,” a combination of “de,” which indicates “lack of something,” and “sidus,” that is, “star.” To desire literally means “to miss the stars,” to feel a need for them. Transhumanists, like many others, want to fulfill this “human, too human” desire to reach for the stars, and in a quite literal sense. Reaching the stars, living among them, becoming like Gods, and, of course, living forever, without ever having to meet the Grim Reaper.

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Footnotes
1
Linguistically speaking, Dante was the first to use a term similar to “Transhumanism.” In the “Divina Commedia – Paradiso,” he uses the verb “transumanar,” that is, “to transcend the human condition.” After reaching Heaven, the “father of the Italian language” meets Beatrice and, looking into her eyes, is “transhumanized,” that is, he gets purified and transcends his human limitations. In the Twentieth Century, we find a similar term in Thomas Stearns Eliot’s 1949 play “The Cocktail Party,” in which the author speaks of the human efforts to reach enlightenment as a process in which the human is “transhumanized.”
 
2
Cf. N. Bostrom, A history of transhumanist thought, in: «Journal of Evolution and Technology», Vol 14, n.1, 2005 http://​www.​nickbostrom.​com/​papers/​history.​pdf
 
3
G. Dvorsky, Revisiting the proto-transhumanists: Diderot and Condorcet, https://​ieet.​org/​index.​php/​IEET2/​more/​dvorsky20101111
 
4
J. Habermas, Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik?, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2001, p. 43.
 
5
S. L. Sorgner, Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism, «Journal of Evolution and Technology», Vol. 20 n. 1 – March 2009 – pages 29–42, http://​jetpress.​org/​v20/​sorgner.​htm
 
6
M. More, The Overhuman in the Transhuman, «Journal of Evolution and Technology» – Vol. 21 n. 1, January 2010, http://​jetpress.​org/​more.​htm
 
7
N. Bostrom, Op. cit.
 
8
B. Hibbard, Nietzsche’s Overhuman is an Ideal Whereas Posthumans Will be Real, «Journal of Evolution and Technology» – Vol. 2, n. 1, January 2010 – pages 9–12, http://​jetpress.​org/​v21/​hibbard.​htm
 
9
K. Ansell Pearson, The Future is Superhuman: Nietzsche’s Gift, in: «The Agonist», Vol. IV, n. 2, Fall 2011.
 
10
K. Ansell Pearson, Viroid Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition, Routledge, New York 1997.
 
11
B. Babich, Nietzsche’s Post-Human Imperative: On the “All-too-Human” Dream of Transhumanism, in: «The Agonist», Vol. IV, n. 2, Fall 2011.
 
12
P. S. Loeb, Nietzsche’s Transhumanism, in: «The Agonist», Vol. IV, n. 2, Fall 2011.
 
13
S. L. Sorgner, Zarathustra 2.0 and Beyond. Further Remarks on the Complex Relationship between Nietzsche and Transhumanism, in: «The Agonist», Vol. IV, n. 2, Fall 2011.
 
14
Y. Tuncel (ed.), Nietzsche and Transhumanism: Precursor or Enemy?, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge 2017, p. 37.
 
15
R. Campa, Trattato di filosofia futurista, Avanguardia 21 Edizioni, Rome 2012.
 
16
F. T. Marinetti, Fondazione e Manifesto del futurismo, in Various authors, I manifesti del futurismo, Edizioni di «Lacerba», Florence 1914.
 
17
To have an accurate portrait of the cultural origins of Cosmism, cf.: G. M. Young, The Russian Cosmists. The esoteric futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and his followers, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012.
 
18
For a good introduction to Fedorov and his relationship with his contemporaries, see: G. M. Young, Nikolai F. Fedorov: An Introduction, Nordland Publishing Company, Belmont 1979.
 
19
Ibid. p. 13.
 
20
G. M. Young, Nikolai F. Fedorov: An Introduction, Nordland Publishing Company, Belmont 1979, p. 31.
 
21
Cf: G. M. Young, Op. Cit., Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, p. 8.
 
22
Cf the interesting article by R. Campa, L’utopia di Trotsky: un socialismo dal volto postumano, in: «Divenire. Rassegna di studi interdisciplinari sulla tecnica e il postumano», n. 1/2008, Sestante Edizioni, Bergamo 2008, pages 55–74.
 
24
Stanislaw Lem, Summa Technologiae, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 2013,
 
25
Eric Steinhart, Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism, «Journal of Evolution and Technology», Vol. 20 Issue 1 –December 2008 – pages 1–22. http://​jetpress.​org/​v20/​steinhart.​htm
 
26
J. B. S. Haldane, Daedalus, or Science and the Future, E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., New York 1924.
 
27
J. Huxley, Transhumanism, in: Religion without revelation, E. Benn, Londra 1927. Revised edition in: New Bottles for New Wine, Chatto & Windus, Londra 1957, pp. 13–17. https://​web.​archive.​org/​web/​20110522082157/​http://​www.​transhumanism.​org/​index.​php/​WTA/​more/​huxley
 
29
Cfr. A. B. Newberg, Principles of Neurotheology, Ashgate Publishing, Farnham 2010.
 
30
Cfr. M. Persinger, Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs, Praeger, Westport 1987.
 
31
Thomas Hugues, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870–1970, Penguin, New York 1989, p. 1.
 
32
Ibid. p. 3.
 
Metadata
Title
Stairways to the Sky
Author
Roberto Manzocco
Copyright Year
2019
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04958-4_1

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