ANALYSIS OF REARING PRACTICES AND TRANSHUMANISM 13
A Magical Pathway towards Immortality:
Comparative Analysis on Initiation and Merit of
Human Rearing Practices and Transhumanism
Abstract
In this paper, the analogy of initiation and merit of human rearing practices and transhumanism are discussed by analyzing several published scholar journals, based on which we concluded the of the controversy and multifaceted nature of the current transhumanism issue and are to argue how traditional childrearing practices and human enhancement possess resemblance in the initiation but differ in the aspects of the entailing conducts in reality.
Keywords: transhumanism, rearing practices, initiation, consequences, posthuman.
Comparative Analysis on Initiation and Merit of
Human Rearing Practices and Transhumanism
Human rearing practices obviously have a long and successive history by the nature of natural selection and survivability, yet the tremendous sacrifice needed by parents makes philosophers contemplate about the spiritual stimulation of the practice. In The Symposium, Socrates, the classical Greek philosopher who was credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, mentioned his reflect on the practice directly:
And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality. Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children—this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future.
The quote of Socrates sharply conveyed the connection of the mortality of human beings and our preference and unending love of eternity. Beauty, on the other hand, is also an unlimited pursuit of human in their earthly life. Chasing after both, human beings are devoting themselves to the rearing practices of the posterity.
Typical human rearing practices is a parental practice that aims to enhance the survivability or to protect of their offspring in a diversified community. We classify this typical parental rearing practice, here, as an essential type of traditional human enhancement. In contrast to this terminology is the transhumanism, which seems to be similar to traditional human enhancement in the goals and initiatives of such practices but varies from their ethical and operational perspectives.
Transhumanism can be expressed as a pathway of enhancing embryos in a wide aspect of human capabilities of different tasks using GNR (Genetics, Neurotechnology, and Robotics) and interventions that “transcend their limitations by harnessing the power of science and technology (Rectenwald & Carl 434)”. It can also be regarded as human enhancement because of its enhancing nature. However, the significance difference lying between...
