The term superhuman refers to humans, humanoids or other beings with abilities and other qualities that exceed those naturally found in humans. These qualities may be acquired through natural ability, self-actualization or technological aids. The related concept of a super race refers to an entire category of beings with the same or varying superhuman characteristics, created from present-day human beings by deploying various means such as eugenics, euthenics, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and/or brain–computer interfacing to accelerate the process of human evolution.

Throughout history, the discussion of superhuman traits and the idea of the ideal human in physical, mental, or spiritual form has influenced politics, policy, philosophy, science and various social movements, as well as featuring prominently in culture. Groups advocating the deliberate pursuit of superhuman qualities for philosophical, political, or moral reasons are sometimes referred to as superhumanist.

Modern depictions of this have evolved and are shown in superhero fiction or through technologically aided people or cyborgs.

The Übermensch or "Superman" was postulated in the later writings of Friedrich Nietzsche as a type of supreme, ultra-aristocratic achievement which becomes possible in the transcendence of modernity, morals or nihilism. Nietzsche believed in creating the perfect human, or at least a definition of one, and achieving this perfection through the enhancement of individual and cultural health, creativity, and power, and that to be a successful human one would focus on the realities of our world, rather than the beyond world, or afterlife.

Nietzsche explores the idea of a superhuman in his work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which he discusses the reality of humans existing as just that, and their potential to be more, through risks taken to advance humanity. This belief focuses not on a man who is bettering oneself but instead establishes values which create a meaning to life greater than one person, and positively influencing the lives of others with an overarching goal of humanity. These goals help one overcome life's feeling of meaninglessness.^{[citation needed]}

In transhumanism and futurology, superhuman abilities are the technological aim either of human enhancement by genetic modification or cybernetic implants or of future superhuman artificial intelligence.

Human enhancement is an attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body through natural or artificial means. Human enhancement may be through the use of technological means to select or alter human characteristics and capacities, whether or not the alteration results in characteristics and capacities that lie beyond the existing human range.

Some bioethicists restrict the term to the non-therapeutic application of specific technologies—neuro-, cyber-, gene- and nano-technologies—to human biology.^{[page needed]}