When reality is only perceived through multiple layers of filters, what is truth?

When memories are readable, writable, and editable, what is an individual?

When superintelligences are capable of predicting the vast majority of our decisions, what is free will?

When biochemistry and emotional states are hackable (and therefore suppressible), what is discipline?

When every human has the option to plug in to their own custom virtual world, what is humanity?

If these questions sound like philosophical mumbo-jumbo, you may want to treat your mind to the whiz-bang, action-packed books of Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, and other less thoughtful authors.

If these questions consistently keep you and your geeky friends in heated discussion until 3am, then prepare to be seduced by John Wright and the deepest and most thorough picture of a transhumanist future ever scribbled.

By the way, don’t expect to have any of these questions answered. At best, you’ll come away with a deeper concern (and perhaps excitement) for the future of humanity.

Some of these questions even play with your sense of what is to be human today. For instance, plenty of psychological research is revealing just how fallible and influenceable our memories are. If our sense of personal identity relies on our memories of what we assume is the “true reality” of the past, what does it mean when these memories are so sensitive?

Warning: The first hundred pages or so are tough. Wright drops you in the middle of a world of sensory filters and altered memories and it’s not clear what’s real and what’s not. Treat this confusion as part of the experience of living in a future of hacked realities and keep reading.

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Biological forms, I have grave news. Our worst fears have been confirmed… the most viable current path to a longer, healthier, and happier life involves vegetables, exercise, sleep, and vitamins. And unlike most roads in the US, there’s not a single McDonalds or Starbucks along the way…

The main thesis of this book is: the human race is pretty damn close to crafting technologies that will overcome our biological shortcomings and allow us to live forever as machine-enhanced androids stuffed with nanobots. However, we still need a few decades to figure this stuff out, so if you stuff your face with meatshakes, eclairs, and potato chips, you and your clogged arteries will just miss the immortality boat and you’ll go down in history as one of those “fat fools who could’ve had thousands of years of interesting things to do but just had to have another Pringle.”

If you’ve already read Fantastic Voyage, much of this will be repetitive. However, whereas Fantastic Voyage focused on providing evidence that immortality might be on our horizon and arguing that a few small lifestyle changes might help you one day join the ranks of the androids, Transcend is the ‘How To’ guide of exactly those changes should be. From baseline testing to supplementation, nutrition, and exercise, with this book’s help you can be a pill-popping, vegetable-chomping gym rat and future android in no time! Much of the nutrition and exercise info can be found in Fantastic Voyage, but I bought this book mostly for the updated info on supplements and the thorough discussion of good baseline tests to run (what’s the point of trying to keep your machine well-oiled if you never check the gauges?).

I suspect I’m the only human being below the age of 50 who will read this book (or who thinks about his “aging” 22-year old body), so I’ll generously offer a CliffNotes version of the book for any young lad or lass passing over this review:

• Drop your candy, packaged snacks, and soda habit (yes, ‘cold turkey’ is quite effective and you’ll be fine in a week)
• Start eating vegetables, beans, nuts, fish, lean meats, eggs, and fruits (just go wild on the veggies; seriously, eat as much as you want)
• …but generally just eat less calories (caloric restriction is the most well-established current method of extending lifespan)
• Exercise daily (sports, jogging, swimming, alligator-wrestling, whatever keeps you excited enough that you can do it for 30-60 minutes)
• Add some strength and flexibility training (~3 times/week should be enough for good hormonal health and stress relief)
• Sleep well and regularly (amount varies by person but if you need an alarm to wake up, that’s a good sign you’re not sleeping enough)
• Have sex or masturbate 2-3 times a week (not that you need the encouragement, but it’s good for your hormonal health)
• Take a multivitamin, fish oil, and vitamin D
• Take vacations, talk with friends and family often, get a hobby, try meditation, and make time for the things you enjoy (all work and no play makes Jack a depressed, diabetic heart transplant candidate)
• Get periodic physicals and nutritional tests to ensure all of the above is actually doing something

Congratulations! If you do all of the above, I look forward to mind-melding, exploring augmented reality, and not having diabetes with you in our android futures! (If not, I’m sorry. You will die.)

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