Virtual Immortality - God, Evolution, and the Singularity in Post- and Transhumanism

In recent years, ideas of post- and transhumanism have been popularized by novels, TV series, and Hollywood movies. According to this radical perspective, humankind and all biological life have become obsolete. Traditional forms of life are inefficient at processing information and inept at crossing the high frontier: outer space. While humankind can expect to be replaced by their own artificial progeny, posthumanists assume that they will become an immortal part of a transcendent superintelligence. Krüger's award-winning study examines the historical and philosophical context of these futuristic promises by Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, Frank Tipler, and other posthumanist thinkers.

Oliver Krüger is professor for the Study of Religions at Fribourg University (Switzerland). His Ph.D. which he completed in 2002 at the University of Bonn was awarded by the German Association for the History of Religions. He then researched rituals of the Wicca movement as a postdoc at the University of Heidelberg. This was followed by a project at Princeton University on funeral rituals in the United States. Since 2007, Krüger has been teaching and researching at Fribourg University, primarily on sociology of religion and new media and science in relation to religion. He also served as president of the Swiss Society for the Study of Religions.

Ali Jones is a cultural historian and political theorist at Coventry University’s research Centre for Peace and Security. Her PhD at Cambridge University offered the first in-depth history and political philosophy of the autonomous movement in Hamburg’s squatted Rote Flora. She is currently conducting extensive oral histories with former armed guerillas in Germany, and runs the worldwide Antifascism Research Network.