Members of the materialist religious denomination of futurists, often known as transhumanists, are having a bit of a tussle. No, it isn’t an argument over how many non-souls can fit into a computer server array, but about nomenclature. From the Slate story:

These are all terms thrown around trying to describe a future in which mind uploading, indefinite lifespans, artificial intelligence, and bionic augmentation may (and I think will) help us to become far more than just human. They are words you hear in a MIT robotics laboratory, or on a launch site of SpaceX, or on Reddit’s Futurology channel.

This word war is a clash of intellectual ideals. It goes something like this: The singularity people (many at Singularity University) don’t like the term transhumanism. Transhumanists don’t like posthumanism. Posthumanists don’t like cyborgism. And cyborgism advocates don’t like the life extension tag. If you arrange the groups in any order, the same enmity occurs. All sides are wary of others, fearing they might lose ground in bringing the future closer in precisely their way.

I’ll settle this. I know the perfect word to describe the goals and aspirations of this rather sad and desperate movement: Fiction.

Image credit: John Greenaway/Flickr.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.