Transhumanism has been slipping into my heart over the past month. I’m enamoured with the promises of improved physical, mental and spiritual capacities, even though I do still hold skepticism for the movement, especially the proposed timelines.

So what is Transhumanism, anyway?

Human enhancement is here now, and growing stronger. Already some of us are reshaping our bodies, both to maintain health and extend it. Neuro Pacemakers may soon help people suffering from severe depression and biosensors are monitoring patients after operations and could be internalized. Practical body modifications outside of the medical field, called body hacking, are emerging right now, with people already experimenting with magnetic vision, tooth implant audio, and other practical enhancements.

But you and I are likely already married to technology in an irreversible way. The internet is pervasive in our lives, we rely on our cellphones, our music players come with us, and older technologies provide our food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health and everything we take for granted. Much of transhumanism is a refinement of how we use technology. It is to become even more natural, more beneficial, more elegant and more beautiful.

One of my favourite visions of our future is at Human Upgrades, a mock site for a medical centre that offers upgrades of the sort many transhumanists (and myself) long for. The Simple Ear is purely sexy, no? I was seduced by it back in ’05.

Spirituality also can be enhanced through technology. Neurotheology has discovered many of the ways our brains physically house spiritual experiences (neurologically, an apple and godhead are both experienced as real), and this understanding is allowing neuromystics to more easily explore states thought of as spiritual. We will be able to experience exalted states normally reserved for dedicated mystics with the press of a button, opening ourselves to a more spiritual life. Already I am using binaural beats to safely enter into altered states of consciousness at least weekly. A specially made audio track is all I need to entrain my brain into states similar to those we only know in lucid dreaming, deep meditation or dreamless sleep. This is a valuable companion to meditation that has enhanced my spiritual practice significantly, and this is just the modest beginning of this technology to deepen our experience of the divine.

Not all proposals are so light. Genetic modification of our children will soon be possible and the debate over what is ethical in this field is complex. We must start to question how much we should enhance those too young to choose. “Homo Futurus: How radically should we remake ourselves – or our children?” is an example of the attention being given to this. And beyond that, we must reshape our cultures to embrace longer lives or immortality, which will have tremendous impact on every aspect of our lives and the well being of the world.

Some emerging worldviews, such as Conscious Evolution, are preparing us to live in a world where we set the pace of and decide the face of evolution. C4Chaos has proposed H++, a Transhumanism rooted in integral theory. Unlike the apparant mainstream of Transhumanism, these visions include spiritual, developmental and cultural considerations that are vital to a comprehensive stance. Only an integral approach, I believe, is adequate to respond to the increasingly complex dynamic we are entering into.

Technological and other advancements will perpetually unfold, giving us new tools that can allow us to increase our cognition, caring, beauty, and aptitude in all areas of life. Why would we choose not to benefit ourselves and others when we can safely do so? Transhumanism presents possibilities that could transform our world into a more radiant place, if we can rise to the occasion. There are real dangers, however, if we still hold pathologies and are not acting from ever higher altitudes.

Technology must be guided by cognitive, moral and other altitudes that are high enough to prevent catastrophy. In light of this, it is becoming ever more vital to our survival that we emerge into integral and higher stages. Anything else would be blind to dangers and most likely lead to our undoing.

There is no viable way to slow advancement without harming ourselves, so we must move forward with care, with great love and with an eye to the emerging potential that can help bring us into lives of more grace. We can direct our futures so they will be more Good, more Beautiful and more True, and we must step into that responsibility. Ken Wilber has imagined one future world that is worth becoming devoted to realizing, and I want to share it as a closing.

Lately I’ve had two primary sources of Transhumanist infusions; C4Chaos just wrapped up a Transhumanism Week and I’ve been faithfully reading Sentient Developments. Integral Options Cafe has also been pointing out some great transhumanist content. The art thumbed and linked to is via ~cyber-arts, ~whmurai and ~Onigoroshi on DeviantArt.I do owe the greatest debt to C4Chaos, as much of what I have recently learned in this field and shared here has been through his recent spree of blog posts.

A couple days ago Jean of Orchids and Violets and Sound Wisdom asked me to respond to the prompt of “5 Reasons Why I Blog“. Thanks for the tagging, Jean. So here I am finally getting around to it.

1. I believe there is some value to others in sharing the various things I discover and experience. Whether it’s a facinating link, an expanding practice, uplifting work of art or just a piece of my day, I hope that my sharing here is positive.
2. I have a lot of wonderful friends scattered across the globe, and keeping in touch with them is often best done online, with this blog being the best lense I can offer to what’s happening in my life. I also have been blessed to be introduced to friends and strangers through writing here that I would not have otherwise. Using this as a hub of communication has been rewarding for years.
3. “My blog is the extension of my personality, my voice, my thinking.” C4Chaos summed up my feelings on the intersection of personality and blogs concisely in his “We’re Natural-Born Spiritual Cyborgs” (more on his Transhumanist Week is coming soon). Blogging is the hub of my internet presence and identity, giving me an opportunity to convey my personality, my thoughts and my presence in digital form.
4. Blogging helps me clarify my own toughts and provides me with a valuable tool for exploring where I am and where I wish to go. It’s a mirror for my mental landscape, allowing me to take a better look at my interior.
5. I love writing. It’s one of my greatest passions and having a blog gives me a focus for my writing. I enjoy being in the process of composing a post, whether lengthy or not. More than all but the first reason, I think this is my biggest drive to blog.

I’m usually not one for tagging on with these, but I’d like to know reasons from Mark, Gwen, Pam, Ashley, Brian, Judy, Mandy and you.

I’ve decided to use this year to entrench some strong habits and really transform my patterns. I’ll dedicate each month to a daily task or practice that I want to continue with permanently. I started with a somewhat frivolous photo project in Project 365 for January and this month I’m working on daily resistance training, focusing on body weight resistance and altering my diet to include more foods for strength.I’ll essentially be doing “10 Days to a Better Life“. This approach splits the process of starting a new habit into three very managable sections and encourages experimentation.

I ‘m entirely enamoured with the process of becoming more capable of enacting and expressing the Good, the True and the Beautiful in as many capacities (self, culture and nature) as possible. Every addition to my Integral Life Practice, whether core features like the resistance training, or auxilary bits like my daily photography, offers a way to expand the scope of my responsibility and capability in the face of the future. It’s also tremendously fun to challenge myself toward greater authenticity through a lifestyle that is not partial.

I just discovered Bubbl.us and have used it to start mapping out the monthly new patterns I’ll be starting. It has an intuitive interface and makes really slick bubble charts. Mapping out my plans like this and using 43 Things to set goals are real assets in structuring the ways I’m improving my life. Since starting to make concrete planning routines, I’ve noticed a stark difference in my followthrough on tasks.