What Remains? Transhumanism’s Excarnate Future and Medieval Past

ABSTRACT: Transhumanism posits humanity’s evolution by technological means. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, nano-technology, and genetics have shifted it toward the center of academic discourse and mainstream culture. Embraced by Silicon Valley billionaires as well as scholars, transhumanism comprises a full-blown movement. It shares features with Christian soteriology and is sometimes called a “techno-religion” or “secular theology.” It rejects the supernatural, however, arguing that technology will deliver humanity from death. An aggressively futurist mode of thought, transhumanism nevertheless has origins in the medieval past. In seeking to disavow these roots, it has inadvertently defined itself against them.