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Thursday, November 4, 2010

Sentient Developments: Revisiting the proto-transhumanists: Diderot and Condorcet

Sentient Developments: Revisiting the proto-transhumanists: Diderot and Condorcet: "Think transhumanism is a relatively new social and intellectual phenomenon? Guess again.

Many of the ideas characteristic of the movement have already been bantered about for literally hundreds of years—whether it be such things as radical life extension or the construction of machine minds. The Enlightenment period in particular was a fruitful time for these ideas to take flight, mostly on account of the new sciences, the rise of rationalism and secular humanism, and the waning influence of religion. Two thinkers that best exemplified Enlightenment-era proto-transhumanism were Denis Diderot and Marquis de Condorcet, and their early contributions are worth revisiting."

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