# Nick Bostrom – Transhumanist Essays (space-relevant) ## Overview - Work_type:: non-fiction philosophy and technology foresight - Setting:: Future where enhancement, AI, and uploading become possible - Scale:: Interplanetary to interstellar via digital civilizations ## Trans-human form - Transhuman_type:: digital - Mechanism:: Gradual enhancement → potential whole-brain emulation and substrate-independent minds - Degree_of_change:: Extreme; humans may be replaced or subsumed by vastly more capable digital descendants ## Survival logic - Survival_strategy:: Create long-lived, highly capable post-human agents that can survive deep time and harsh environments - Key_technologies:: Superintelligence, whole-brain emulation, high-density computation, advanced space infrastructure - Main_constraints_addressed:: Biological mortality, limited cognition, and environmental fragility ## View on baseline humanity - View_on_baseline:: mixed - Attitude:: Baselines are morally important but may be outcompeted or transformed; emphasis on preserving “value” not specific biology - Identity_question:: Focus on continuity of preferences and value structures more than bodily continuity ## Notes - Themes:: Astronomical value of the far future, existential risk, moral weight of post-human futures - Open_questions:: Can digital descendants still be meaningfully “us”? How to align them with human values? - Links:: [[Trans-human Space Survival Schema]]