Transumanar

Climbing Technological Mount Improbable, by Extropia DaSilva

This is the talk given by Extropia DaSilva at the seminar on Transhumanism and Religion in Second Life, on Sunday, April 29, 2007. Published with permission. Unfortunately time was too short for Extropia to answer all questions she received. Please ask her about Life, the Universe and Everything here.

More...

Posted by G.P. on 04/29 at 06:44 PM
English • Views • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Print

Seminar on H+ and Religion in SL

Seminar on Transhumanism and Religion in Second Life

Sunday, April 29, 2007, uvvy island in SL

The event was organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association.

Speakers:

Giulio Prisco, Executive Director, World Transhumanist Association (yours truly). I summarized my article/book precis Engineering Transcendence.

Extropia Dasilva, Fascinating and Mysterious Virtual Personality. Extropia is a “transhumanist avatar” who writes some of the best mind expanding stuff about first and second life, the universe and everything. Her talk Climbing Technological Mount Improbable is available online.

James Hughes, Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. James presented his paper “The Compatibility of Religious and Transhumanist Views of Metaphysics, Suffering, Virtue and Transcendence in an Enhanced Future” (link).

Lincoln Cannon, President, Mormon Transhumanist Association. Lincoln presented the fascinating blend of Mormonism and Transhumanism developed by the MTA.

My presentation started, as usual, with a personal introduction slide where I said that I am with the WTA but am now speaking on behalf of Giulio Prisco, Giulio Perhaps (my avatar in SL), Yours Truly, the Fat Ugly Guy here (my avatar again) and Myself. I presented my own views on transhumanism and religion, which are not and cannot be represented as official WTA views. I think the “cosmic” part of transhumanism *is* an alternative to religion, firmly based on the scientific worldview, but able to provide much of what most people search in a religion. My conclusion: “Our Manifest Destiny: our species will spread to the stars, merge with its technology, and acquire god-like powers. Uploading technology will permit cybernetic immortality with the safeguard of backup copies. With “future magic”, we may find a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived. This can be an alternative to religion, based on science, rationality and humanism. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to memetically engineer transhumanist alternatives to religion, based on science, but still able to offer hope in “another life” even for those who are already dead”.

Extropia gave, as usual, a very thoughtful and challenging presentation of current trends towards a Singularity and beyond. Her conclusion: “If the technological Singularity is not the summit of Mount Improbable after all, one might ask what is. Will science reveal the answer? Or maybe philosophy? Perhaps theology? Or should we conjecture that these are all manifestations of a grander overarching conceptual framework that we currently cannot comprehend, but may come to appreciate as we ascend to a state that might appropriately be defined as ‘God’? I like to think so!”.

James had a monster presentation of interfaces, similarities and differences, and possible cross-talks between transhumanism and religions. James is, of course, a smart politician who knows better than trying to be too explicit on whether transhumanism can or cannot be an alternative to religion. His conclusion: “Transhumanism is potentially compatible with many metaphysics, theodicies, soteriologies and eschatologies. Religious will incorporate the H+ project into their faiths to create trans-spiritualities. The future religious landscape will be much more interesting”. This concept of infecting religions with transhumanist memes is not so different from my concept of engineering religions based on transhumanism, and basically similar to an equivalent strategy, often discussed on the lists, to develop a transhumanist memetic presence in political movements.

Lincoln affirmed the basic compatibility between Mormonism and Transhumanism. He stated that the views of the MTA are received “with interest” by the larger Mormon community. His conclusions: “We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end”. This is, I believe, a perfect explanation of why, despite what fundamentalists may say, transhumanism is not at all incompatible with religion but, on the contrary, each of the two sets of sensibilities can boost the other in a positive feedback loop.

This was a very good event and I was especially pleased to see some of the newcomers join the Second Life Chapter of the WTA.

Technical notes:

All speakers with the exception of Extropia used audio streaming for presentations and answers to questions from the audience. James Hughes and Lincoln Cannon used the Shoutcast plugin for Winamp to stream to our Shoutcast server, and I used Nicecast on a Mac to do the same. The technical challenge was the coordination of sound streams coming from different remote locations (basically, the previous speaker has to stop broadcasting, the next speaker must start broadcasting, nobody must start broadcasting at any moment different from the scheduled moment, and an occasional restart of the Shoutcast server may be required). Audio worked very well for James and Lincoln (their voices were crystal clear). It worked very well also for me but with some interruptions (I had to restart broadcasting several times). This was due to a combination of other speakers starting their broadcast while mine was still on and the fact that my Internet connection was not so reliable yesterday.

About 60 persons attended, with a peak audience of 45. There was not too much lag despite uvvy island being only a Class 4 sim.

Extropia’s talk was disturbed by a griefer who, of course, was kicked out and banned from the region. He may even have been (you never know) one of the well known outspoken enemies of transhumanism. I can see his point - our ideas *are* a danger for the narrow, fundamentalist mentality they represent.

This page on the uvvy wiki has more pictures and will be updated with pictures, links, transcripts, audio and video clips as they become available.

Posted by G.P. on 04/29 at 05:05 AM
English • News • (4) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Print

Kevin Warwick’s talk in Second Life

Prof. Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, gave a presentation in Second Life on Monday, April 23, 2007. The event was organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association. When we look towards the capabilities of intelligent machines (AI) we can see that these hold some distinct advantages over human intelligence. Mathematical speed, memory, sensing range, multi-dimensional operation and respectable communication being examples. It seems sensible therefore for humans, if they wish, to benefit by directly linking their brain with that of an intelligent machine network. In this presentation Kevin looked at the possibilities, considered some of the experimental work presently going on around the world and described the practical experimentation he has already carried out.

Please see this page for pictures and technical details. The page will be updated with pointers to the press and media coverage, transcripts, audio track and videoclips in a few days. I gave a short introduction saying “we talk the talk, but Kevin walks the walk”. Of all the the transhumanist events we organized in Second Life so far, this was by far the most popular: the available space filled very soon and I was getting IM messages like “I cannot come because uvvy island is full, please do something”. So I had to raise the occupancy limit of the sim risking a crash (that did not happen). 70 persons in total attended the talk. The success of the event is certainly due to the fact that Kevin Warwick is a well known expert in a hot field, but also to the very professional preparation work done by Prof. Warwick’s staff and the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association, in particular VR Manoj.

Prof. Warwick gave a very good talk on current technology and its likely evolution. He stayed mostly on the practical side, but I am sure most people in the audience got the radical, transhumanist implications of Kevin’s cutting edge research in interface technologies.

The next event organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association will be the Seminar on Transhumanism and Religion on April 29.

Posted by G.P. on 04/25 at 03:51 AM
English • News • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Print

Manifest Destiny: To the stars and beyond

Manifest Destiny was a phrase that expressed the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). Manifest Destiny was always a general notion rather than a specific policy. The term combined a belief in expansionism with other popular ideas of the era, including American exceptionalism, Romantic nationalism, and a belief in the natural superiority of what was then called the “Anglo-Saxon race”. While many writers focus primarily upon American expansionism when discussing Manifest Destiny, others see in the term a broader expression of a belief in America’s “mission” in the world, which has meant different things to different people over the years.

Three key themes were usually touched upon by advocates of Manifest Destiny: 1. the virtue of the American people and their institutions; 2. the mission to spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and remaking the world in the image of the U.S.; and 3. the destiny under God to accomplish this work. The origin of the first theme, later known as American Exceptionalism, was often traced to America’s Puritan heritage, particularly John Winthrop’s famous “City upon a Hill” sermon of 1630, in which he called for the establishment of a virtuous community that would be a shining example to the Old World. In his influential 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, Thomas Paine echoed this notion, arguing that the American Revolution provided an opportunity to create a new, better society: We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand....

One may not always like everything about America, but there is no doubt that American culture has achieved a lot. Their gut belief in their Manifest Destiny, their own goodness, the superiority of their way of life, their mission to bring democracy to the world, and that their God is always on their side, has provided them with a single minded drive to overcome all obstacles on their way and conquer one frontier after another.

In President Kennedy’s words: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too”. A few years later, watching the first men walking on the moon, it was easy to believe in humanity’s Manifest Destiny in space.

Too bad space “did not happen”. It will happen someday I hope, but reading the news it is evident that today’s world is a complex, interconnected and difficult place on its way to becoming even more so. It is evident that no part of humanity can march toward its destiny leaving other parts behind. Kennedy’s Moon speech was intended to energize citizens with a 20th century grand vision of Americans’ destiny in space but, as it is now evident, a single nation is not going to make it. We can only move onward as a whole, or else.

Where is a grand vision for the Manifest Destiny of all humanity, that can energize all persons on the planet and provide the drive to move onward as a whole? I think Transhumanism could be the answer.

The background of the image above is taken from a painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American Progress, an allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. Here Columbia, a personification of the United States, leads civilization westward. I replaced Columbia with the picture of one of my best friends in Second Life, a young, energetic and very bright person. I do not have the faintest idea of her looks in real life, but her avatar’s looks suggest a sexy, high-tech vision of a radically democratic future.

I believe a sexy, high-tech radically democratic future for all humanity is our Manifest Destiny. It will not lead to holy wars against infidels, but rather to a Holy War against the limitations of being humans 1.0: disease, mortality, stupidity, unhappiness, lack of empathy and understanding, and being confined on our little planet. This is the first paragraph of the Transhumanist Declaration: ”Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth”.

We must find new and better ways to communicate this beautiful vision to everyone. We have often failed to do so in the past: transhumanists are often far too aseptic, over-intellectual and out of touch with “the people” to communicate effectively. We should not forget that we are *still* biological beings, and rationality without emotions is often not enough to provide motivation and drive -we also need some chemical and hormonal fire in our blood. This is the challenge ahead: formulating transhumanism as a strong belief that can energize people with emotional fire, without giving up our roots in rationalism and scientific thinking. Besides scholarly works we need more novels, movies, series. We also need good communicators able to explain transhumanism in everyday language and generate a positive emotional response.

Religion has been, and is, important for Americans. This is sometimes difficult to understand for most of us us Europeans, used to considering religion as something largely irrelevant and with no place in public life. But religion was an important part of the Manifest Destiny meme, and still is a powerful factor in American policies. In fact, this short article was inspired by a discussion about religious belief in the US and Europe on the wta-talk mailing list of the World Transhumanist Association. Thanks to all those who contributed to the discussion, and especially to PJ Manney.

Religion is certainly a powerful enabler for memetic engineering. When criticizing the extremes of religion, and there are many very sad examples in history, it is important to bear in mind that religion has also fueled many worth initiatives and provided peace of mind to countless believers. The key question if how to keep the good things of religion (sense of community, happiness, and a hopeful vision of our place and purpose in the universe) without the bad things (bigotry, fundamentalism, intolerance, holy wars, burning heretics and infidels). Here again I think transhumanism, and especially its “cosmic” face aimed at achieving superhumanity and spreading to the stars and beyond, may provide a modern, energizing but tolerant alternative to religion rooted in the scientific worldview.

Posted by G.P. on 04/05 at 11:26 AM
English • Views • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Print

Transhumanism is taking common sense seriously

I just found on the Mprize site a very good short article on, and definition of transhumanism. This is the kind if explanations I prefer: no big words difficult to understand, but plain simple common sense.

When they start with their crap about reverence for nature, respect for our limits, value of suffering, mortality as a defining feature of being human, and similar BS, just remind them of plain old common sense: health is good, disease is no good; happiness is good, suffering is no good; being alive is good, being dead is no good; Etc. etc. Transhumanism is taking common sense seriously.

Full text by Reason (original here):

On the day it comes to you that living a longer, healthier life is something you’d like to do, that an extra year or ten of good health (or hell, why not more?) would be just peachy keen, think of the transhumanists - because you just became one. You saw a limit in the human condition, thought about what life would be like with that limit removed, and liked it.

Welcome to the party!

Transhumanism, make no mistake, is just a fancy name for common sense. Change for the better is good, right? Common sense. It’s what we humans do in our scattered finer moments - we work to change things for the better. It’s common sense to fetch in the harvest on wheels rather than on foot, and it’s common sense to repair the biomolecular damage of Alzheimer’s before the mind begins to rot. It’s common sense to build perfect immune systems from nanomedical robots, and it’s common sense to develop the technologies of regenerative medicine to their logical end.

It takes work, but what is work compared to a world of suffering? Choosing not to attain these goals makes about as much sense as standing out in the rain to spite yourself.

New technology cannot set slaves free, remove poverty brought of corruption, make the willfully blind see, or the unhappy bring themselves to good cheer of their own free will ... but it can remove the limits placed upon us by evolution, and it will one day give us all much, much more time in health and life to work on our other, very human issues. You can’t rid the world of poverty when you’re sick, decrepit and aged to death. The limits to our lives that we cannot negotiate away by talk and travel are the most confining, don’t you agree?

Transhumanism, common sense with a slick name, is really simple humanism - which is also really no more than a name for common sense. It is only humanist to work to give people the choice to live without suffering, and without death. To live, for without life, there is nothing.

Posted by G.P. on 04/04 at 04:53 AM
English • Views • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Print

DIY cancer therapy

From Nature News - Cancer patients opt for unapproved drug - Internet trade pre-empts clinical trial. DCA has seemingly remarkable anticancer properties. It seems to leave healthy cells untouched, has been relatively safe in human trials, can be taken by mouth and easily penetrates tissues. DCA blocks an enzyme in mitochondria - the energy-production centres in cells - causing more glucose to be metabolized in the mitochondria rather than by a different pathway in the cytoplasm. The compound has been in clinical trials for years as a treatment for certain mitochondrial diseases, but it has not yet been approved. Mitochondria also control cell suicide, and DCA might reactivate the mechanism of cell suicide that becomes inactive in cancer cells. After the first experiments with rats earlier this year, DCA was hailed as a “magic bullet” against all types of cancer.

Because DCA has been around for years, its structure can’t be patented and pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested in developing the drug (drug development, including years of clinical trials, cost a lot of money). So the scientist who reported the first promising results in rats is raising money and hopes to start his own small clinical trial within the next few months. In the meantime, a team of chemists have found a cost-effective way to synthesize the compound and started selling it (as a veterinary drug to work around FDA regulations) from the website buydca.com. They also set up the website thedcasite.com to collect the reports of cancer patients who decided to try this DIY cancer therapy.

Of course, this unconventional procedure has caused the outrage of the medical community. They insist that the correct procedure must be based on conventional clinical trials. But of course some patients, who are dying of cancer and do not have the luxury of waiting years to be admitted in a trial where they only have a 50% probability of being given the drug, have decided to buy DCA and just see what happens. If the reports are positive (too early to say atm), they could become a big wave.

We have seen all that before. My mother was one of those who decided to try an “alternative” cancer therapy and the results were, unfortunately, no good. But I hope the results of the DIY DCA trials will be good. I will follow the reports on thedcasite.com, and hope to see positive reports. None of the magic bullets against cancer proposed so far really worked. But sooner or later one that works will be found. I hope it will be something like DCA, not patentable and cheap to produce. In this case, as soon as the results of the first tests will be made public, patients will launch spontaneously a huge, open source clinical trial to see if it works. Is this happening now? I don’t know, but I really hope so.

Would I take DCA if I had 6 months to live? But of course I would - what the hell would I have to lose? And what harm would I do to others? I think that, regardless of the outcome of the DIY trial, I would be contributing useful data that can help others making their own decisions on their own health. To my knowledge, nobody has ever done a clinical trial for orange juice, with the control group taking perhaps machine oil, but the wisdom of crowds says that drinking orange juice is good and drinking machine oil is bad. Nobody has ever formally studied the benefits of eating healthy and working out while forcing a control group to spend years in front of the television drinking beer, smoking and eating French fries with mayonnaise. It just works.

Nobody has any right to prevent dying patients to experiment on their own health at their own cost and without damaging others. Not so much “ethics” please, and some more compassion and especially common sense. People have been experimenting with their own health for centuries, and often developed open source medicine that worked. But I fear DCA will be made illegal without any reason, just to “give an example” and to protect the dictatorship of the medical establishment. As soon there are indications that this might happen, they should move manufacturing and marketing abroad, to many different countries to avoid being hostages of a single national health system.

I am in favor of a strong and democratic public administration. But there are lines not to be crossed, beyond which a strong state becomes a dictatorship and democracy becomes a politically correct way to oppress minorities. For the sake of democracy, we must not let this happen.

Posted by G.P. on 04/02 at 04:45 AM
English • News • (1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Print