TRANSHUMANISM AS A TECHNOLOGY TO IMMORTALITY: HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL RAMIFICATIONS
Authors: Koss Andrii 
Published: April 2024

In the article analytical-systemic, anthropological, conceptual, comparative-empathic, historical-chronological, historical-comparative and other approaches are used that allow us to rely on the terms: theohumanism, classical humanism, mechanistic-functional humanism, posthumanism, neohumanism. During the ancient period, different sources and approaches to understanding man as a natural being began to appear. There are a variety of origins and currents of understanding humanism. At that time, there was a slave system in which slaves were viewed as tools of labor with the ability to speak, in contrast to oxen, carts, spades and plows. Such relationships cannot be called empathic relationships, but at the same time, slave owners showed empathy for equals in their social class. In the Middle Ages, humanism emerged as based on the essence of some kind of deification a person as a god, his relationships with his own kind and the world through the prism of theocentrism. This approach formed the theory of theohumanism, on the basis of which theotranshumanism was formed, which used religious and spiritual technologies to improve the soul. At this evolutionary stage of humanism, the body is seen as a source of brute egoistic desires and sins. Theotranshumanism opens the way to immortality through deliverance from sinful thoughts and actions, and relationships between people are based on love through the divine spark in each individual. During the Renaissance, there was a return to human naturalness, but on a biological basis. This humanism is based on anthropoempathy and uses body-oriented technologies to improve the individual. Anthropohumanism, in contrast to theohumanism, considers human bodily needs not as a sinful nature, but as a source that allows one to conquer animals and the nature of one’s will. This evolutionary stage of humanism is based on anthropocentrism and anthropoempathy and sees human improvement through body-oriented technologies. Thanks to the active development of a variety of technologies plants and factories appear, emphasis is placed on the need to meet the ever-growing needs of society, and man begins to be viewed as a naturally functioning phenomenon. Mechanistic humanism emerges, within which the individual is identified with a mechanism, a clock and a perpetual motion machine, and uses the features of the operation of machine tools, machines and other mechanisms to improve his physicality. The use of mechanistic technologies makes it possible to increase the functional capabilities of a person, and physicality acts as a spatio-temporal limitation. At this stage, posthumanistic tendencies emerge. While mechanistic humanism considers technologies to improve functioning processes, posthumanism applies them in the aspect of improving the quality of the bodily container, which is the limit of human existence. There is a deeper understanding of the possibilities of human functioning and the prospect of realizing humanity's ancient dream of achieving immortality. Within the framework of posthumanism, the problem of establishing the boundaries of human existence arises. After all, their techno-transhumanistic violation leads to deformation of anthropocentrism and leads to the leading positions of technology and egoism. Within the framework of posthumanism, a new attitude to understanding man as a biologically artificial phenomenon is being formed. When using bioethics, the limit of human understanding is constantly changing and depends on the progress of science and technology. All this leads to the formation of a new evolutionary stage of humanism – neohumanism, based on anthropobiocentrism and bioanthropoempathy, and influences the formation of the modern planetary worldview.