Lincoln Cannon of the Mormon Transhumanist Association in Second Life, March 30
Lincoln Cannon of the Mormon Transhumanist Association gave a presentation and a Q/A session in Second Life, on March 30 at 10:00 PST, at the virtual headquarters of SL-Transhumanists.
Abstract: Transhumanism is compatible with at least some religious forms, as illustrated by parallels between basic Transhumanist ideas and an authentic interpretation of Mormon metaphysics, theodicy, eschatology and soteriology. These parallels also provide a basis from which to judge the relative compatibility of other religious forms, such as Christianity, with Transhumanism.
SL-Transhumanists @ extropia core - SLURL
Video clip (4 min) with parts of Lincoln’s presentation and Q/A
Full audio recording of Lincoln’s presentation and Q/A (47M, right click to download)
The Mormon Transhumanist Association promotes practical faith in human exaltation through charitable use of science and technology. The association was founded on 3 March 2006 and affiliated with the World Transhumanist Association on 6 July 2006. Read the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation: (1) We seek the spiritual and physical exaltation of individuals and their anatomies, as well as communities and their environments, according to their wills, desires and laws, to the extent they are not oppressive. (2) 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. (3) We feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.
Lincoln gave a talk last year at the Seminar on H+ and Religion in SL. His presentation is archived here. 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.
I did not know much (still don’t) about Mormonism before meeting the people of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. My mental image of Mormons was (still is) derived from movies: people living in Utah, always well dressed, very hardworking and much too serious (and men with many wives). But my image of the MTA is that of a community of smart and motivated transhumanists who see no conflict, but on the contrary mutual reinforcement, between transhumanism and their faith. And there must be something true in the images of Mormons as very serious and hardworking people, because the MTA website is by far the best transhumanist community site in terms of both IT implementation and content. I consider the MTA as a transhumanist success story that may be (I will ask Lincoln on Sunday) “exported” to other religions and Christian denominations.
Update: I did ask this question to Lincoln, and it appears that Mormonism has indeed some specificities that make it more compatible with transhumanism than other religions or Christian denominations - for example its lack of emphasis on metaphysics or a supernatural God. As far as I understand it (Lincoln please correct me if I am wrong), Mormonism is quite compatible with the idea of a God evolving in and with the universe and achieving its Godhead via a technology enabled evolutionary process.
I was quite pleased with Lincoln’s answer to one of my questions, about the possibility that some future civilization may find a way, by extracting all relevant information from the past, to resurrect us by “copying us to the future”. Lincoln answered that this technological resurrection option is an element of his faith, and also mentioned alternative scenarios based on Nick Bostrom’s simulation theory: perhaps those who are running us as simulations may choose to continue running us after our physical death. This answer is in the video clip.
I was very pleased to hear that non Mormons are welcome in the MTA if they agree with the Transhumanist Declaration and the Mormon Transhumanist Affirmation and that, since I agree with both and signed up on the MTA website, I am a member of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. I don’t believe in a “conventional” supernatural God but am quite open to the possibility of a “natural” God in the sense outlined above. I will certainly continue to participate in the MTA, which is one of the most active and vibrant transhumanist communities.
Test Your Techno Tolerance!
Interesting quiz: http://www.sagecrossroads.net/Quiz
Do you envision the future as a time when your physical body will no longer be the limit to your abilities? Does the idea of living forever tantalize your mind? On the flip side, would you like to revert back to a simple, down to earth agrarian lifestyle? Should the invention of the wheel - or at most the horse and buggy- have been the final frontier in technological advancement? Take this quiz to find out where you stand!
These questions should unearth your inner feelings about technological advancement and its role in our future. While answering the questions, assume that cost is not a barrier and that the technology is widely available. Also, if a question asks you about living a great long time, assume that your years will be spent happily on the shore of your favorite beach rather than in a hospital.
What’s your technological tolerance?
My (predictable) results:
You Score as a Transhumanist-Biotech
Transhumanists believe that humanity can and should strive to attain higher levels of physical, mental, and social achievement through the use of technology. They seek to extend human capabilities and improve the human condition through technology- supporting the quest for immortality, the conquering of death and disease, the amplification of human intelligence, and the capabilities of the human body.
Transhumanists recognize that over time and with technological advancements, man will realize new possibilities for society and human nature and achieve a posthuman condition (becoming more than human). Societal change is an important consequence of technological progress.
Because of this passionate trust in technological advancement, transhumanists generally see all technologies, as long as they don’t jeopardize the non-corporeal consciousness of a person, as being beneficial both to society and to the happiness and advancement of the person. Transhumanists see benefit not only in technologies that address medical necessities, but also aesthetic or recreational demands. They support advances in cybernetics, genetic engineering in clinical settings, embryo design, and other technologies that allow individuals to take control of their biology, and the human species to take control of evolution.
Transhumanists can be either hard-technology oriented--more inclined to add microchips and machines to their lifestyle--or bio-technology oriented--preferring the softer, more natural advancements and modifications that are made available.
David Pearce in Second Life on Utopian Neuroscience, March 23
David Pearce, co-founder of the WTA and creator of HedWeb (The Hedonistic Imperative), gave a talk and a Q/A session in Second Life yesterday March 23, 10am SLT, on Utopian Neuroscience. A summary of David’s talk is on his website Superhappiness.
David promotes nothing less than the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. He argues that the abolition of suffering can be accomplished through Paradise Engineering (The Hedonistic Imperative). David will try to distinguish between the Abolitionist Project -i.e. getting rid of suffering, from a much more controversial claim: “I predict that our superintelligent descendants will be animated by gradients of bliss orders of magnitude richer than anything physiologically accessible today”.
About 35 transhumanists attended the presentation and asked many question on utopian neuroscience, the meaning of happiness, the place of superhappiness among transhumanist goals, existing and available ways to enhance mood and happiness, future developments, and transhumanism in general. There was no time to answer all questions but Dave promised to show up at one of the next SL-Transhumanists office hours to discuss more.
Wikipedia: “David Pearce is a British philosopher and negative utilitarian. He promotes the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. His book-length internet manifesto The Hedonistic Imperative[1] details how he believes the abolition of suffering can be accomplished through “paradise engineering”. A transhumanist vegan, Pearce also calls for the elimination of cruelty to animals. Among his websites, there are many devoted to the plight of animals”.
Video clip of parts of Dave’s talk and Q/A
The next speaker will be Lincoln Cannon of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, on March 30. Starting from this next event we wish to record the full audio of presentations and Q/A sessions and making them available on the web and in SL as mp3 audio podcasts, please get in touch with us if you wish to help.
SL-Transhumanists @ Extropia Core
Thank you, Sir Arthur
New York Times - Arthur C. Clarke, 90, Science Fiction Writer, Dies: “Arthur C. Clarke, a writer whose seamless blend of scientific expertise and poetic imagination helped usher in the space age, died early Wednesday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was 90… Mr. Clarke’s reputation as a prophet of the space age rests on more than a few accurate predictions. His visions helped bring about the future he longed to see”. The images above and below are taken from Sir Arthur’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the movie that made so many of us interested in our future in space.
Of course I was very strongly impressed by 2001, especially by the passage below. I have been a transhumanist ever since. Sir Arthur:
Call it the Star Gate.
For three million years, it had circled Saturn, waiting for a moment of destiny that might never come. In its making, a moon had been shattered, and the debris of its creation orbited still.
Now the long wait was ending. On yet another world, intelligence had been born and was escaping from its planetary cradle. An ancient experiment was about to reach its climax.
Those who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been men - or even remotely human. But they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across the deeps of space, they had felt awe, and wonder, and loneliness. As soon as they possessed the power, they set forth for the stars.
In their explorations, they encountered life in many forms, and watched the workings of evolution on a thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence flickered and died in the cosmic night.
And because, in all the galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped.
And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.
The great dinosaurs had long since perished when the survey ship entered the Solar System after a voyage that had already lasted a thousand years. It swept past the frozen outer planets, paused briefly above the deserts of dying Mars, and presently looked down on Earth.
Spread out beneath them, the explorers saw a world swarming with life. For years they studied, collected, catalogued. When they had learned all that they could, they began to modify. They tinkered with the destiny of many species, on land and in the ocean. But which of their experiments would succeed they could not know for at least a million years.
They were patient, but they were not yet immortal. There was so much to do in this universe of a hundred billion suns, and other worlds were calling. So they set out once more into the abyss, knowing that they would never come this way again.
Nor was there any need. The servants they had left behind would do the rest.
On Earth, the glaciers came and went, while above them the changeless Moon still carried its secret. With a yet slower rhythm than the polar ice, the tides of civilization ebbed and flowed across the galaxy. Strange and beautiful and terrible empires rose and fell, and passed on their knowledge to their successors. Earth was not forgotten, but another visit would serve little purpose. It was one of a million silent worlds, few of which would ever speak.
And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of plastic.
In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships.
But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.
Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds, the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rusty
Now they were lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea.
And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago.
Religion, Spirituality and the Avatar
Sophrosyne’s Saturday Salon: Religion, Spirituality and the Avatar
From the announcement on Soph’s blog: Next week’s Salon kicks off a cycle of several months of absolutely fascinating guests. On Saturday, March 15, from 1-3pm at the Central Nexus in Extropia Core, our Salon Spotlight Guest will be Soren Ferlinghetti (Robert M Geraci). Robert M. Geraci is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College in New York City. He studies the interactions of religion, science and technology with particular emphasis upon robotics, artificial intelligence and (more recently) online gaming. he has conducted fieldwork at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and in Second Life through discussions and interviews. In addition to publishing a number of essays on religion and robotics, he has just finished a book on the subject (tentatively titled _Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality_) and is planning a new book about religion and online games.
Soren and I have spoken occasionally over many months about spirituality and identity in the digital world. We have profoundly different perspectives, and attitudes towards technology in general, but I’ve always found him curious, open-minded, warm-hearted and fascinating. Soren’s work was recently covered in New World Notes:
The Soul Of Second Life: In SL Spirituality Survey, 48% Open To Mind Upload, 62% To New SL-Based Religions
Thanks to Hamlet Au, we not only got Soren’s remarkable conclusions (more people go to church in SL than have sex, what?!), but the raw data supporting them. At the Salon we’ll discuss Soren’s research, the interplay between spirituality and identity in the digital world, the evolution of religion, and many more fascinating topics sparked by his work. This one’s a must-see!
I could not stay until the end but added Soren / Robert to the friends list and will get in touch with him soon. Until I left, there were two parallel talk / discussion threads. One about sociology: Second Life as a communication and outreach tool for traditional religions, Second Life as an incubator and breeding ground for new religions or spitirual movements, the attitude of SL users towards spirituality, the interfaces and communications between new religions born in the metaverse and traditional ones, the impact that new spiritual trends facilitated by VR worlds can (and should?) have on traditional ones. Robert thinks that the appeal of Second Life ("I think that SL is popular in large measure because it is a sacred space, one that has been separated out from the profane everyday… people are finding _meaning_ not just entertainment, in SL… an astonishing fact that demonstrates how attractive this world is for people… that very clearly means it is something a good deal more than escapism” may facilitate the creation of and hold together new movements that will have an impact on brickspace churches: “people in SL want some real influence upon their world. This is going to upend traditional religious hierarchies”.
Another discussion thread was about religion and spirituality proper (the sort of things discussed in last year’s Seminar on H+ and Religion in SL), and digital life in Second Life (and tomorrow much more sophisticated virtual realities) AS a spiritual experience. Robert says: “there’s a sense in which practice in VR is becoming all by itself a religious experience for people”, and “one aspect of this is the idea of mind uploading, which answers many of the same questions as do other religious groups. I was actually suprrised to find that more than 1/4 of respondents believe that uploading definitely or probably would be an attractve alternative to earthly life. That’s a lot of people! and I think it represents a kind of general mindset in which virtual life is more meaningful than earthly life”.
This was well received by the audience. We must of course acknowledge that yesterday’s audience is certainly not a representative sample of SL users, let alone the population at large. In particular, there were many “Digital Persons” like Soph, Khannea, Extropia and Galatea (I haven’t seen Argent, but there were more than 50 avatars and perhaps she was there): those who identify with a SL avatar instead of the person behind the avatar for whom SL is a primary reality and, while acknowledging a relation with a “primary” (Extropia) or “atomic person” (Soph) in the brickspace reality, think that this relation is tenuous and irrelevant (Soph) or even temporary (Extropia). Argent’s article Taking a Stand is often considered as a DP manifesto. I like and respect my Digital Friends and try to accept them on their terms instead of speculating about their life stories the life stories of their “other personalities”.
In a comment to Gwyneth Llewelyn’s Immersionism and Augmentationism Revisited, Extropia says: “an avatar is a particular pattern of information and there are no end of technologies in the pipeline that could copy and run that pattern. So long as A) the pattern of information that describes us is deemed valuable enough to preserve and B) there is some kind of information processing capability in place to seamlessly take over the job of modelling our thoughts and feelings, each and every avatar would have a life that went way beyond some meatbag’s”. A reply to her comment, with which I basically agree, says “As things stand at present, and for the foreseeable future, the avatar will simply be a superficial representation of a person - a means of communication, no more embodying the individual’s personality than her or his telephone or pen… Your vision may indeed come true in the extreme distant future (or, alternatively, it might not), but the theoretical possibility of such a distant advance in technology is not by itself something that has a significant effect on a significant number of people’s behaviour in virtual worlds”.
I am more optimist - I would say “far away” but not “extremely far away”, and I think we may see some significant development in the first half of this century - but basically agree. At the same time I defend the right of my sweet Digital Friends to exist and think Digital Persons are pioneers who are taking (or at least considering) the first baby steps towards decoupling lives from bodies. I am not too persuaded by the current experiments in “extreme lifelogging” as a means to generate mindfiles than can be later brought to life by human-equivalent computing (this is the most interesting experiment that I am aware of), in such a way as to ensure the continuity of consciousness. I am not persuaded by these experiments because I think the volume and texture of information that can be practically acquired and stored with today’s primitive and low bandwidth interface technologies is much too low. But things may change quite radically with fully immersive VR worlds able to generate a complete sensorial experience, and high bandwidth interface technologies based on direct neural coupling. The current brain to computer interfacing (BCI) experimental technologies, which are already finding their way to consumer videogames (see also First steps to neural interfacing for consumers) and even to Second Life, demonstrate the plausibility, and perhaps mid term feasibility, of very high bandwidth BCI technologies able to transfer high bandwidth, high volume mental information (thoughts, memories, emotions...) to machines for storage and processing. High performance BCI-based lifelogging could conceivably permit saving enough information about a person to convert the digital personhood dream to reality.
As far as the continuity of consciousness is concerned, I think after uploading (like after every significant change), I am still me if and only if both the previous me and the future me are willing to accept the future me as a valid continuation of the previous me. This is the most convincing approach that I can think of and, I think, is the reason why we think we are still ourselves when we wake up.
Next interesting events in Second Life
After Natasha’s and Anders’ talk last week, there will be three not-to-miss events in Second Life:
The first will take place Saturday:
Sophrosyne’s Saturday Salon: Religion, Spirituality and the Avatar
From Soph’s blog: Next week’s Salon kicks off a cycle of several months of absolutely fascinating guests. On Saturday, March 15, from 1-3pm at the Central Nexus in Extropia Core, our Salon Spotlight Guest will be Soren Ferlinghetti (Robert M Geraci). Robert M. Geraci is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College in New York City. He studies the interactions of religion, science and technology with particular emphasis upon robotics, artificial intelligence and (more recently) online gaming. he has conducted fieldwork at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and in Second Life through discussions and interviews. In addition to publishing a number of essays on religion and robotics, he has just finished a book on the subject (tentatively titled _Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality_) and is planning a new book about religion and online games.
Soren and I have spoken occasionally over many months about spirituality and identity in the digital world. We have profoundly different perspectives, and attitudes towards technology in general, but I’ve always found him curious, open-minded, warm-hearted and fascinating. Soren’s work was recently covered in New World Notes:
The Soul Of Second Life: In SL Spirituality Survey, 48% Open To Mind Upload, 62% To New SL-Based Religions
Thanks to Hamlet Au, we not only got Soren’s remarkable conclusions (more people go to church in SL than have sex, what?!), but the raw data supporting them. At the Salon we’ll discuss Soren’s research, the interplay between spirituality and identity in the digital world, the evolution of religion, and many more fascinating topics sparked by his work. This one’s a must-see!
The SL Spirituality Survey is very interesting. In the comment thread there is a discussion on the feasibility and possible timeline of mind uploading with, of course, a very wide range of opinions. My comments: Of course when mind uploading technology is perfected (I would say, minimum 2050 and it could be much much longer), Second Life will not be today’s Second Life and probably will not be called Second Life. At that moment there will be fully immersive, 100% realistic interfaces based on direct neural stimulation and a sort of instant telepathy between different users and groups. The concept of uploading to the metaverse is certainly interesting. Is what we are really doing in Second Life the preparation of a future home? To all those who are planning to upload to SL next week: unfortunately this technology is _very_ far in the future: some experts say 50 years, some experts say hundreds of years, some experts say never.
The next two events will be organized by the SL-Transhumanists group. Dave Pearce (yes, Dave, the hidden founder of the WTA and one of the most interesting transhumanist thinkers, will give a talk and a Q/A session on Utopian Neuroscience on Sunday March 23. Then Lincoln Cannon of the Mormon Transhumanist Association will give a talk on Transfigurism (the very interesting mix of Transhumanism and Mormonism of the MTA) and also discuss whether and how the “MTA model” could or should be used by transhumanists of other Christian denominations. Lincoln’s talk is scheduled for Sunday March 30 (to be confirmed). Watch translook.com for announcements.
Today: Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg on Morphological Freedom in Second Life
Updated after the event - yesterday March 9 there has been a very interesting seminar on Morphological Freedom in Second Life, organized by the SL-Transhumanists group, by Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg: Do individual humans have a natural right to Morphological Freedom - the right to seek augmentation and enhancement - and the right not to be coerced to augment and enhance?
Natasha and Anders are two of the principal transhumanist thinkers. Natasha has given a good definition of transhumanism in a recent interview: “Transhumanism is a set of ideas which represents a worldview to improve the current situation that we as humanity are facing, which includes short lifespan, limited cognitive abilities, limited sensoral abilities, erratic emotions…starvation, lack of housing, or lack of, basically, getting any of the necessary fundamental needs met. We look ardently at how technologies, including the NBIC technologies—nanoscience, bioscience, information science, and cognitive science – can possibly be used to help solve some of the problems in the world that address humans being stuck in a state of stasis.” See also Anders’ recent list of top genetic enhancements that have already been done in mammals (and hence could presumbaly be done in humans).
It was a good seminar of a couple of hours with about 40 participants. Natasha and Anders gave their talks with voice and switched to text for the long Q/A session - I hope the chatlog will be available soon. I have posted a 7 min video clip of some parts of the talks and hope somebody has recorded a the full seminar in video or audio. Some Europeans missed the beginning of the seminar because we were not aware of the hour change in the US. I almost missed it myself. During the talk, in parallel, I was trading insults in almost realtime with Dale Carrico on his blog (the fun thing is that I am still doing this _now_ in another browser window). Dale seems _wants_ to think that all transhumanists are fascists who want to enforce one or another body modification norm on the rest of humanity, but at some point he concedes that “this seminar you’ve advertized about morphological freedom may be a step in the right direction, depending on its seriousness”. I must have written hundreds of times that I think an enhancement is whatever the person concerned considers as an enhancement, but of course Dale prefers to ignore facts (facts have the annoying habit of getting in the way of serious rethorics). I hope the chatlog of the seminar will be published soon, as both the question asked and the replies of Natasha and Anders will show that Dale’s allegations are _very far_ from the truth.
During the seminar our tireless super organizer Khannea Suntzu issued this call for volunteers: “After our recent successes, we’d love to expand our SL-Transhumanists endeavor, and for that purpose we’d like to see volunteers. If you have the urgency to spread this viral meme around a bit do join us. Start by joining the SL-Transhumanists group (!!) and have a look at our online resources. We have regular office hours and we’d love to increase our coverage in that. Additionally expect a sizeable increase in the number of big events like today’s”.
We The Poopers?
I reacted to this Amor Mundi post with this comment: “Yet another apology of the body defined in terms of its mortality and vulnerability. You are beginning to sound like one of those preachers who tell people that they should be happy in their misery because we are born to suffer. Or like those Victorian writers who exalted the lives of the poor, while of course their masters accumulated wealth and they, like all good lackeys, got some crumbs of their masters’ wealth. I never considered myself as a rugged individualist, but if a rugged individualist is defined as someone who deals with things and achieves his objectives, then I am happy to be one. You claim to be a person of the Left - did you ever read Marx?”, and triggered a wave of anti-transhumanist posts, one of which personally dedicated to me.
Of course there are the usual personal insults: “idiot, bullshit, jackass...” and even a new word that I had to look up in a dictionary: “doofus”. But I am impermeable to Carrico’s insults, for which as usual the best policy is one-ear-in, other-ear-out. What I find interesting, instead, is that he is defining humanity in terms of shit.
Yes, shit. In his passionate defense of the body: “it is true that life is lived in bodies, and that bodies are various and vulnerable and mortal and hungry for connection, and that embracing embodied life demands an embrace of all this about bodies. To deny their variation, their vulnerability, their mortality, their sociability is to deny the body”, he makes references to the alleged body-loathing of “Transhumanists who want to talk about living forever in computers and not having bodies that have to poop”. I and other transhumanists are “dispirited at the prospect of continuing to have to poop or whatever it is that freaks you out so much about bodily life”.
My reply was:
“This is your second reference to poop in a few days and, to make things clear, I will state that I actually enjoy pooping. When I was a student I even wrote a poem about poop for a literature class and, while the teacher did not appreciate it too much (he wanted some loooong essay with biiiiig words), the other students appreciated it immensely and wrote parts of it on the walls.
On the reading table next to my WC (I am one of those who like to read while pooping) I have a nice little book titled “What’s Your Poo Telling You?” It is very refreshing to read this little book, whose intellectual content is certainly higher than some examples of poo (aka crap) disguised as deep insightful thinking.
The book begins with: “Not unlike a snowflake, each bowel movement has a uniqueness that should be regarded with wondrous appreciation”.
And I do appreciate it. When the Robot God will upload me to an angelic immortal body in Cyber Heaven, I think every now and then I will enter a VR simulation of a physical body taking a good crap.
This is to say that I am no enemy of poop. On the contrary, I am actually a friend of poop.
But somehow I do not consider it as a central defining feature of my identity as some people seem to do”.
Yes, I Shit. I Belch. I Fart. When I was in high school I won many farting contests, and I am as proud of this as of other sporting achievements. But if I had to choose between never farting again and never reading Shakespeare again, I think I would go for Shakespeare. I do not define human nature in terms of farts. I prefer to define it in terms of curiosity for reality, overcoming limits, and love for others. And I believe these things would survive the transition to an enhanced biological body or a uploaded consciousness.
To all those who define their human identity in terms of shit: please feel free to do so. I will feel free to define my human identity in terms of other things.
Review of Stefano Vaj’s Biopolitica
I became aware of Stefano Vaj’s writings, and in particular his book Biopolitica (http://www.biopolitica.it/), in the summer of 2006 lurking on Italian transhumanist lists. I did not have much time and did not really read posts carefully, but could not help noticing that there was a flame war triggered by Stefano’s book, with some posters enthusiastically endorsing it and others attacking it as fascism. The same discussion has more recently taken place on the global transhumanist lists. Since the book is not available in English I am often asked to provide information, and this is why I am posting here this review adapted from a post to a transhumanist mailing list.
I am as far from fascism as one can be, but am not afraid to consider ideas different from my own. Moreover, I am acutely aware that history is always written by the winners. So I decided to actually read the book with my own eyes and brain. I discussed it at length with Riccardo Campa, the founder of the Italian Transhumanist Association and a former WTA Board member who writes on left-wing magazines and cannot be accused of fascist leanings, and asked many questions to Stefano.
Here are the conclusions that I reached:
1) The “flavor” of the book, as defined by the choice of words and quotes and the general “atmosphere”, does indeed show that the author was strongly influenced by sensibilities that belong, as well, to some components of European neo-fascism.
2) The book does not contain a single endorsement of anything that I would consider as a fascist policy. No exhortations to burn people and attack cities and states, no proposals to enforce social order by means of a police state, no support for repressing deviance, no hate for or proposed actions against “inferior races”, etc.
3) The main ideas are:
a) A radical flavor of transhumanism where achieving superhumanity is seen as what our species _must_ do at this stage of its evolution. Check. Note: the word “superman” has been, indeed, used by nazis. But they also used the word “potato” I believe. And don’t forget that your favorite cartoon hero was “Superman”.
b) A strong endorsement of the self-determination of communities and the preservation of their own culture and chosen way of life against global pressure. Check. This is, I believe, a necessary condition for the transition to posthumanity. Do we want to let a fundamentalist administration in a superpower impose a ban on human enhancement upon the rest of the world? Or is it better to leave other communities free to choose their own approach?
c) “Rights” are recognized as a cultural product. Check. This is, I believe, the only mature way to talk of rights. Unless, of course, we prefer to believe in “God´s given”, “natural” rights.
4) There are many references to Nietsche and the Italian Futurist movement of the early 20th century. Both have been accused to be precursors of fascism, which is historically and philosophically not correct. Both support striving to transcend current limits with no reverence for God’s or Nature’s will. Check. This bold approach to taking control of our lives as individuals and as a species, with a certain sense of a cosmic destiny is, I think, exactly what the transhumanist movement needs at this moment.
Translook: new SL-Transhumanists website
Translook is a transhumanist website run by the SL-Transhumanists group. It is a site for transhumanist projects and events organized by SL-Transhumanists, transhumanist news and views, and a reference site on transhumanism. Translook = Transhumanism + SL + outlook. The SL-Transhumanists group organizes scheduled events and more informal events at office hours to offer an introduction to transhumanism to interested visitors.
Editorial policy: this is to be very simple - no policy, all relevant content is welcome. We give write access to a trusted few, who write whatever they like. Full articles and reports are welcome, but also quick pointers to other websites and blogs.
The Translook site is built on Mediawiki (the platform developed and used by Wikipedia). This platform is very fast, efficient and easy to use for both readers and editors. Unfortunately it is vulnerable to spam, so we have disabled account creation - please request an account if you are a SL-Transhumanists member. We have also disabled edit privileges for non sysop user - please request write-edit privileges if you wish to contribute to the website. Known and trusted transhumanists will get write-edit privileges immediately, for the others it may take a little more work.
All relevant content from the uvvy website, the first website for transhumanists in SL, has been copied to Translook.
More on Digital Persons, Immersionism vs. Augmentationism
I participated in this interesting debate on Immersionism vs. Augmentationism. Topic: These deep thinkers, all fairly well-known for their positions on immersion vs augmentation, will have an energetic debate about their differences in opinion. Expect the conversation to touch on issues such as avatar rights, voice verification, and avatars as legal entities. See ORANGE EXPLORES SL CULTURE! for background.
This discussion is always interesting. I was representing the attitude of “augmentationists”, for whom Second Life is a videoconferencing environment (a better phone call). Sophrosyne Stenvaag concisely states the issue as “is SL for you a place or a tool? Everything else, from standards of identity and trust to “A/S/L,” follows from that”, and quotes a post by Argent Bury on Digital Persons for whom SL is a place different from the atomic world, aka RL. In the debate Soph said “Giulio and I share a “live and let live” approach, the only difference between us really is the locus of our identities, I’m *here*, and he’s visiting from elsewhere”. And Gwyneth asked me “did you ever cry or laugh out loud when you read a book?” and welcomed me to immersionism when I answered yes.
Well. I can have emotional reactions to _good_ books, but I don’t consider Second Life that good yet. I don’t consider SL as a place because, for example, places have a distinctive smell and SL has none. Miami is hot and humid, Amsterdam is cold and humid, Madrid has hot dry summers, it is very nice to walk in the snow in Budapest. These are all places where I have _lived_ and know well. In Napoli, the city where I was born, the characteristic smell in the air is actually one of rubbish (!!!) but the food tastes like nowhere else. The point I am making of course is that the atomic world is sensorially rich while in Second Life the sensorial environment is very poor: pixels on a screen and poor audio with statics.
This will change with better virtual reality technology. Some day VR will offer a fully immersive environment, with stimulation of the five senses via direct brain to computer, brain to network and brain to brain links and sensorial experiences indistinguishable from physical reality. In my interview on The Future and You podcast I speculate on immersive neural interfaces to VR worlds and place them 20 years in the future. At that moment I will take virtual worlds as “places”, but now I see them only as advanced communication tools.
But I think the mini-trend toward immersionism and digital personhood is very important, and positive. Those who are psychologically able to really _be_ in a VR world even with the primitive VR technology of today are doing terribly important experiments with the very concept of identity, and I think we will soon need the results of their experiments and some practical guidelines for managing personal and social relations in a world that becomes more and more complex. One of the first results is there is room for more than one person in a brain.
One very important thing that digital personhood can facilitate is tolerance of diversity. Diversity is GOOD - how boring would be a world where everyone looks, thinks and acts the same. Let millions of flowers bloom, in virtual and real worlds. Live and let live, everyone should be free to do absolutely whatever she wishes as long as she does not do concrete harm to anyone else, victimless crimes are not crimes, and one should enjoy his own favorite lifestyle instead of criticizing the lifestyle of others.
Transhumanists talk of augmenting life in very radical terms. We want to merge biology with technology and eliminate disease, suffering, aging and death. Yes, death. Our generation may be among the last mortal generations, and by the end of the century our children may live in the Metaverse as disembodied software beings. Let’s call this Life 3.0: escaping the prison of the flesh and moving on. This will be a _very_ radical change of the nature of the game, and will bring much more diversity in human societies. It is important that we learn, now, to live with it. Of course there will be those who will prefer to stay in the old comfortable game instead of embracing change and moving on, but many others will run at full speed toward a speciation with the full range between organic humans 1.0 and conscious software beings in synthetic realities. It is going to be interesting, dangerous and fun. Let us consider our tiny, primitive and unstable SL as a workbench for first experiments and baby steps toward future humanity. To Gwyn, Soph and Argent: I will be an immersionist and a digital person (or many digital persons) then.
Perhaps the most interesting observation in the debate, by Aldon Huffhines, was about “the self as existing at the intersection of our inner neural networks and our external social networks”. Aldon Hynes/Huffhines has then expanded this very interesting point in his blog on The Virtual Self and R.
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World Transhumanist Association
Associazione Italiana Transumanisti
Transumanar is a transhumanist blog - online magazine on science, technology, politics and culture, edited by Giulio Prisco. See About (English) and Introduzione (Italiano).
Transumanar e' un blog - rivista online transumanista di scienza, tecnologia, politica e cultura, curato da Giulio Prisco. Vedi Introduzione (Italiano) e About (English).
SL-Transhumanists, a group for transhumanists in Second Life
metaXLR8 - acceleration in the metaverse
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- Thank you, Sir Arthur
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- More on Digital Persons, Immersionism vs. Augmentationism
- The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists
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