TransVision 2014 - Natasha Vita-More, "Informed Radical Life Extension, by Design"
Channel: Association Française Transhumaniste
Date: 24/11/2014

Navigating the many paths formed by technological advances and scientific discovery about health and longevity challenge all society. While many of the advances are detectable, some are untrodden, speculative and indeterminate, only to be realized at an uncertain time in the near or distant future. Instinctively, people who challenge values or principles regarded as universally valid, often realize that there may be a different way of understanding the world. This tendency has driven society forward; otherwise, this world would not have overcome false premise or technological progress. However, each person needs to consider what core elements hold value and if he can actively participate in an unknown future. To understand how these challenges could affect life extension, there needs to be interconnects between the force of new information, evolving social narratives, and our innate human instincts. Society has become data driven, and people are implementing a take charge, do-it-yourself (DIY) maker-sensibility. Worldwide, people are joining online communities to talk about their medical circumstances and state of health, which have caused a shift in emotional coping processes and in historical narratives. Wearable enhancement fitness and bio-monitors, along with devices such as smart watches, phone rings, and GPS tracking locators, and integrated display glasses are cultivating awareness about essential relationships between our bodies, our actions, and the environment. Human enhancement is no longer just about augmenting biology, it is a continuous device driven information transmission forming exo-nervous systems extending beyond the body. My work in the field of human enhancement designs and implements practice-based, informed radical life extension, as an adaptive process. The Meta challenge, in my view, is not just about high-tech enhancement or radically extending life; it concerns the ability to sniff out and track reliable information that is doable today for living longer tomorrow and to build positive narratives that inform others to gain keener knowledge about a most precious asset—his health.