I've been a Transhumanist for about 6 years now (and also attended and spoke at the TransVision 03 conf. at Yale), but the movement only really became active on a global, grass-roots level two years ago when the WTA (World Transhumanist Association) opened public discussion lists and encouraged members to establish local chapters. Extropy Institute really pioneered the movement, but it was centered in the west coast.
For a primer on THsm, check out these links (there are a number of recognized THst organizations):
http://www.transhumanism.org http://www.transhumanism.org/declaration.htm http://www.transhumanism.org/resources/faq.html http://www.transhumanism.org/resources/resources.htm
I agree with White Rice and Stephen Hawking, we will *need* to merge with our technology and improve our own capabilities in order to retain our relative evolutionary position once strong AI systems with recursive self-enhancement come along (there are some great recent threads on this topic on
http://www.MURG.org ).
I agree with Logic Lunatic that we need to approach some of these ideas with caution. For instance, there is a prevalent misconception Hilary Putnam referred to as "MIT Mentalism" that mental states = identity. While they are certainly necessary and contribute to it (they collect and integrate our experience and habits), mere replication of mental states does not transmit the original perspective of an intelligent living entity onto the new substrate. Such a form of (usually destructive) "uploading" is best described as "mental cloning" that results an a separate entity with the same mental states. I've begun a group to discuss a gradual process I've been developing called "Meta Brain Growth" on Tribe.Net if anyone's interested:
http://www.MetaBrainGrowthProcess.tribe.net
'What is a human being, then?'
'A seed.'
'A... seed?'
'An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree'
David Zindell, The Broken God
http://www.aleph.se/Trans
And if you are a Student, please join the Transhumanist Student Network:
http://www.transhumanism.org/campus
(and our small informal yahoo group)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wta-campus
Best,
Ben