Talk:Posthuman

What Posthuman Isn't

"Posthuman" does not denote just anything that happens to come after the human era, nor does it have anything to do with the "posthumous". In particular, it does not imply that there are no humans anymore. A posthumanist, on the other hand, is simply someone who advocates posthumanism.

This sentence keeps being removed by Karl Bunker I have and will continue readding it because I think it is useful information to counter the confusion many people have regarding the terms 'posthuman', 'poshumanist' and 'posthumanism'. --Loremaster 16:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that. The second time I remove it, it was because we were editing at the same time, and the easiest way to resolve the conflict was to stomp on your edit, and frankly, I was hoping you wouldn't notice. However, I don't think there's much merit in keeping two of these three clarifications. Anyone who isn't clear that "posthumous" is a different word from "posthuman" simply doesn't know how to read, and this isn't supposed to be a reading instruction manual. And the fact that "posthuman" in this context doesn't refer to "what comes after humans are extinct" is completely obvious from the article. OTOH, I do think there should be a note that clarifies that "posthumanism" doesn't relate to "posthuman" as it's used in this article.

So I propose that the following be removed:

"Posthuman" does not denote just anything that happens to come after the human era, nor does it have anything to do with the "posthumous". In particular, it does not imply that there are no humans anymore.

and the sentence that comes after that be changed to:

"Posthuman" should not be confused with "posthumanism," which is a European philosophical extension of humanism.

My apologies again for stomping on your edit. KarlBunker 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although I disagree with your argument since many Wikipedia often provide instructional manual-like information to both help and inform readers, I will rephrase the first sentence rather then removing it. --Loremaster 17:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to rewrite a sentence, which is currently:

It is a common error for social commentators to use "posthuman" to denote just anything that happens to come after the human era or imply that there will be no humans anymore.

I think saying that this is a "common error" is questionable, since it's perfectly valid to use "post-human" to refer to a future where humans are extinct, and leaving out the hyphen doesn't necessarily constitute an error. Furthermore, "just anything that happens to come after the human era or imply that there will be no humans anymore" is awkward and unclear writing.

I agree. This wasn't my writing. I was simply working with the content already on this page. However, I deleted the line The term "post-human" would be more correct for this because I don't this distinction is tenable or accurate. --Loremaster 21:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]