News
First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft
William Sims Bainbridge has co-organized Convergence of the Real and the Virtual - The First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft. The conference was held May 9-11, 2008, inside World of Warcraft, devoted to research on WoW and on virtual worlds in general. It was proposed by John Bohannon, who creates the Gonzo Scientist feature for the AAAS journal Science. A VERY interesting event. See my reports:
First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft
Preparing for the First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft
Digital Civilizations and their challenges
I participated in a presentation and a round table on March 20 at the Librarie Mollat in Bordeaux, on “Les Civilisations Numériques : maîtriser leurs défis!” (Digital Civilizations: coping with their challenges), part of the Ci’NUM process. See also my article on CINUM 2007 - Digital Civilizations. The event has been described by GouvActu AdmiNet and has its own page on the Mollat website.
In the pictures, Daniel Kaplan, director of FING, Marcel Desvergne, president of AEC, Denis Mollat, owner of the Mollat Bookshop (now, this is a _really_ good bookshop where one can spend hours and days), and myself. The full audio recording of the event (in French) is available on the Mollat website (click Podcast). Marcel and Daniel provide a comprehensive background on the Ci’NUM process and ideas for a continuation of this very creative “participatory futurism” process. Denis adds very interesting comments, and I give my own impression and comments on the Ci’NUM process and the 7 challenges including environment, politics, technology, society, and of course transhumanism: the beautiful idea that our species is about to remake itself by merging with its technology. At the end, there are some very interesting questions asked by the audience on several issues including education, society, philosophy and transhumanism (for example the question on transhumanism and religion - in my reply I mention relevant initiatives, the Mormon Transhumanist Association and Lincoln Cannon’s talk in Second Life), and our answers and comments.
I look forward to continuing my participation in the Ci’NUM process, and will speak at the next event on May 15 at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. With my colleagues at Tendencias 21, I am participating in the organization of a Ci’NUM -like event in Spain in November (stay tuned).
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.
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”.
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.
ORANGE EXPLORES SL CULTURE!
I will participate tonight 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. This is a debate you won’t want to miss! Come to Orange Island tonight. See full article on metaXLR8.
First SL-Transhumanists workshop
The SL-Transhumanists group organizes scheduled events (don’t miss Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg on Morphological Freedom in Second Life, March 9), and more informal events at “office hours” (picture below). See the event calendar at Extropia Core for office hours.
At yesterday meeting we decided to organize a “First SL-Transhumanists workshop” in the second half of March in Second Life. The workshop will permit advancing towards the group’s objective of using virtual reality to overcome the fragmentation of transhumanists in brickspace, and build a cohesive-in-diversity community. The format of the workshop will be four talks of 15 min each (I answered the question “why four” with “why not?") by transhumanist speakers, each in support of a different trend or faction (ugly word, but clear), followed by a one hour round table led by a moderator and a Q/A session. The topic: transhumanist outreach and “marketing”: how to use all options available in VR and brickspace to ensure that our beautiful vision reaches as many people as possible.
We will contact the “obvious” four main speakers and a moderator soon, but please send your suggestions. We hope to produce a fun and interesting event for the audience. with a substantial debate (within the limits of civilized behavior, and humor-impaired readers please ignore the line below).
May the Robot God be with you and upload your immortal mindfile to the angelic techno-Heaven of True Believers!
Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg on Morphological Freedom in Second Life, March 9
Join us on March 9, 12:00-13:30 SLT (noon PST, 3pm EST, 9pm EU, 8pm UK) for a seminar on Morphological Freedom in Second Life, 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?
Both Natasha and Anders have spoken at previous events organized by the SL-Transhumanist group, of which Natasha was one of the founding members, and this will be one of the main events ever.
Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg
***
SUNDAY
MARCH, 9th
12:00-13:30 SLT
in Second Life
***
SL-Transhumanists@ extropia core
Natasha Vita More in Second Life on “Design Wars: Humanish vs. Postbiologicals (Singularity)”
Great talk of Natasha Vita-More in Second Life yesterday February 3rd, on “Design Wars: Humanish vs. Postbiologicals (Singularity)”. I am sure more pictures and transcripts will be posted soon to one of the SL-Transhumanists sites. See also this short video clip.
Natasha’s own announcement: This event is an open discussion. All SL-transhumanist participants’ ideas and/or humor will be credited/mentioned at the LABoral Industrial Design Institute conference in Spain. In the summer of 2008, LABoral Industrial Design Institute is hosting the “Homo Ludens Ludens” conference.
SL-Transhumanists are invited to have FUN with the content and context of the “Design Wars” of humanish vs. postbiologicals. A key consideration is the issue of species hierarchy and whether humanity ought to look biological as we merge with smarter-than-human intelligence. “In a perfect world, all species would learn to get along. Due to the Singularity, humanity learns they are not the only life form with consciousness and aesthetic taste”.
In this short video clip you can see the variety of body design styles of SL-Transhumanists, which was considered by Natasha as an example of things to come in brick-biospace. I was very pleased to see that the SL-Transhumanists group in Second Life has almost 100 members.
More and more SL-Transhumanists
Some curious people are beginning to show up at the SL-Transhumanists office hours in Second Life. I think after with relaunch of an active transhumanist presence Second Life will be a really effective outreach tool.
Yesterday there was another group meeting at Extropia Core. Some 20 people came even if the meeting had not been announced on the available channels. Next meetings should be announced one day before, with a reminder a few hours before, on the Second Life group, the Facebook group, the Second Life event board, the transhumanist mailing lists, the Extropia Core news and event boards, and the blogs. I will now begin to contact all the topguns who have agreed giving a talk and try to organize an event schedule for the next few months. This group must be a mercurial ever-changing and evolving community of adventurous souls.
K writes on the SL-Transhumanists blog: “Right now us transhumanists come together in a medium that, a generation ago, could hardly be defined in adequate words. Second Life, again something often met with outright hostility, denial, ridicule or blank stares. The purpose is to use a novel platform to discuss a message, spread a frame of thinking to those interested in listening and taking part in the greater discussion. Change is coming, faster and faster, as those dark icy waters ascend along the slopes of the here and now. We don’t know where this all will head, and we don’t know if we are capable of impressing the world in time that pretty soon childhood is over”. A good manifesto for transhumanist outreach in Second Life.
SL-Transhumanists office hours
One of the most interesting new initiatives of the SL-Transhumanists group in Second Life is to hold regular office hours. Description: Have you ever wondered what transhumanism is all about? Are you a transhumanist, extropian, singularitan, technoprogressive, or just interested in how technology will influence our future? Come join us for a Q&A. Next office hour is later today at 1-12 PST.
In the picture, Khannea is trying to convert a lost soul at one of the first office hours. I had to leave before the end so I don’t know how it went, but I assume the lost soul knelt before The One in tiplerian contemplation of the majesty of Jupiter Brains, and accepted The Robot God as personal savior. May the Eschaton upload his immortal mindfile to the meta Heaven.
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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
Most recent entries
- First Scientific Conference in World of Warcraft
- Digital Civilizations and their challenges
- Lincoln Cannon of the Mormon Transhumanist Association in Second Life, March 30
- Test Your Techno Tolerance!
- David Pearce in Second Life on Utopian Neuroscience, March 23
- Thank you, Sir Arthur
- Religion, Spirituality and the Avatar
- Next interesting events in Second Life
- Today: Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg on Morphological Freedom in Second Life
- We The Poopers?
- Review of Stefano Vaj’s Biopolitica
- Translook: new SL-Transhumanists website
- More on Digital Persons, Immersionism vs. Augmentationism
- The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists
- ORANGE EXPLORES SL CULTURE!
Categories
Monthly Archives
- May 2008
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- December 2006
- Complete Archives
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