It's not a new concept to me, it's actually one I've always thought of highly. I just never heard of this specific label before. I was reading over on Mr. Randi's boards (I lurk there like I do here), and came across a topic discussing transhumanism. I'm starting a post here, mostly because I want to pick the brains of you all here, and see what you think. This topic is extremely interesting to me, probably a bit more than astronomy is to me, even. The original poster for that thread on Randi's boards made the interesting point that it would be far more cost efficient and easier to alter human physiology to survive on other planets, than it would be to alter an entire planet to conform to our needs. What do you all think? (Question is about transhumanism in general, not necessarily restricted to just colonizing other worlds.)

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See Fred Pohl's Man Plus, or Jim Blish's Seedling Stars (esp. the story 'Surface Tension').

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Also Asimov's short story Stranger in Paradise.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

Robert Reed's Marrow is also a good one. The books are nice and all, but what do you think of altering the human form / dna / machine integration?

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I think that if something can be done, someone somewhere will try to do it. And, as with everything to do with messing with the human body, it'll probably be done wrong a lot more often than it's done right, at least in the beginning.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I, for one, would absolutely love to have a math co-processor plugged into my brain. A billion float point operations per second would be a decent start. And why not GPS and some kinda commo gear?

#EDIT: Come to think of it, I think the first thing I'd want done is to be infected with a supersplicer designed to rebuild my current DNA in every cell over and over again. I'd be immune from cancer and a lot of aging effects.

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Allow me to add another question to my OP:

If you could have any genetic / cybernetic / ect modofication done to you, what would you have done first and foremost?

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I would love to have "virtual vision" which features in some recent hard SF: data is sent directly into your optic nerve, and you perceive it as icons, pictures and/or text superimposed on what you actually see -- and you manipulate the icons with virtual "hand" or "pointer" that you move around by thought. When you have to pay close attention to real world, like running through the woods, you turn off most or all of that visual clutter.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

And Clarke's 'A Meeting with Medusa'. Or Anderson's 'Kings Who Die', or Joelle Ky in his novel 'The Avatar'.

If I could have a single improvement it would be an enhanced ability to transfer from short-term to long-term memory. I have associational abilities that I'm perfectly comfortable with, but all my life I've been hung up by the inability to remember stuff to work with it (the internet is not a bad substitute for this).

Plus, I would never lose my keys again

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

Like a brain-case flash memory drive, right, Mike? Instead of files it could be like mental snapshots... what you saw, heard, tasted, felt, ect, for a second or two of time. That'd be neat.

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The first technology that will come down the pipes, and soon, is human life extension. Say a life expectancy of about 150 years. And before those people die, they'll probably find another way to extend life. And again. And again.

Needless to say, I plan to live forever.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Same here, my Canadian buddy. I want to be around long enough to see whether or not proton death happens.

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See the comic Guardians of the Galaxy. That's where their superpowers come from, gen-engineered adaptations to aid colonization.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Conscious control of memory is probably the one I'd like the most.

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An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

And, as Steven Wright said, so far, my plan is working perfectly.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

I wonder if it would take more than just constant repair of DNA to eliminate aging. Any medical-types around and about that could touch on this part for us?

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Cybernetics: Mechanical muscle supplementation, an artificial heart with both wireless rechargable power as well as a kinetic recharge system built into my arms and legs, fingernail razors and palm contact tasers. I wouldn't mind replacing my teeth with implants that wouldn't decay. My eyes are fine for now, but I would consider upgrades. Ear implants which allow selective sound filtration andcontrollable augmentation. Skeletal reinforcement of the vertebrae and limbs.

Genetic/biological: Correction of genetic factors which increase my susceptibility to cancer, 10" x 2" external plumbing, reduced sensitivity of nerve receptors in my hands Nerve reinforcement in my wrists (carpal tunnel damageproofing). Improved blood filtration and replenishment.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Absolutely!
Some kind of augmented reality device would be my choice, too.
I would add an ultra-fast Internet connection.

Biggest challenge: how to process all this additional data.
An increased ability to work with independent 'subroutines' would be great.
For example being able to process several texts simultaneously...

Swift: That man is pefectly correct.

If you subscribe to this podcast by the people at the Long Now Foundation and listen to the one about prospects for human life extension, you'll find that the speaker, an expert in the field, says something very much like I did. Reset the genes, and you extend life expectancy to about 150 years.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

I'd go further. I'd want to be a brain-in-a-tank*, connected to vastly more computational power, which would also become me. Lots of robotic and semi-biological surrogates that I could control via radio.



*With bubbles, for no good reason.

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root, The Confusion
When I was a kid, if someone brandished a shrink gun he'd get a little bit of respect!-Myron Reducto, Harvey Birdman

I think I'd go down the nano-machines in the blood route, when and if that becomes available. Want to change hair colour? eye colour? Got it. Want little computers swimming around in your brain? Got it.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?