There and Back Again: Transhumanist Evangelism in Science Fiction and Popular Science
Popular science and science-fiction depictions of immortality through uploading minds are "authenticfakes": secular practices that do authentic religious workfor transhumanist communities. Although in the 1 980s sciencefiction departedfrom this practice and rejected transhuman promises of...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Equinox
[2011]
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| In: |
Implicit religion
Year: 2011, Volume: 14, Issue: 2, Pages: 141-172 |
| Further subjects: | B
Evangelistic work
B Arthur C. Clarke B Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom B Cory Doctorow B STROSS, Charles B DOCTOROW, Gory B Julian Huxley B Robert Ettinger B Charles Stross B Religion B JBS Haldane B FM-2030 B Secular Humanism B IMMORTALITY of the soul B Science Fiction B ACCELERANDO (Book) B Transhumanism B Cyberpunk B Max More B Extropianism B Accelerando B DOWN & out in the Magic Kingdom (Book) B Apocalyptic Al |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Popular science and science-fiction depictions of immortality through uploading minds are "authenticfakes": secular practices that do authentic religious workfor transhumanist communities. Although in the 1 980s sciencefiction departedfrom this practice and rejected transhuman promises of "mind-uploading"and immor- tality through technology, in the twenty-first century sciencefiction has rejoined pop science as a genre advocating transhumanist salvation. Accelerando by Charles Stross and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Gory Doctorow illustrate the powerful way in which science fiction once again normalizes radical visions ofourfuture, and thereby encourages belief in key transhuman concepts such as a scarcity-free economy, the Singularity, and an immortality obtained by uploading human consciousnesses into machines. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-1697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Implicit religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/imre.v14i2.141 |