Transumanar

The former Executive Director of the WTA is not going to Transvision 2007

I will not be able to attend Transvision 2007 in Chicago due to a combination of time and financial pressure. As founder and director of a growing but still struggling company, I really need to dedicate all my time and resources to the business.

Moreover, I have recently resigned as Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association. This decision was partly motivated by the reason stated above. Another reason is that I do have opinions, and at times strong opinions, about some of the issues frequently discussed on the public lists. It has been suggested that the Executive Director should be above the parts and refrain from supporting one or the other side in a public debate, since his words could be constructed as official positions of the WTA. I basically agree with this interpretation, and I do not intend to refrain from expressing my ideas and opinions. So I remain a Board member of the WTA, but am no longer its ED. I have some concerns about how the transhumanist movement is developing, and will take some thinking, reading and writing time before resuming my previous level of involvement in organized transhumanism.

I feel closer and closer to the radical “lunatic fringe” of transhumanists who take wild ideas like immortality and uploading seriously, and do not wish to see transhumanism becoming a lukewarm, spiceless soup of boredom and political correctness.

I think that Fukuyama’s:

“For the last several decades, a strange liberation movement has grown within the developed world. Its crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gayrights advocates. They want nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints. As “transhumanists” see it, humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolution’s blind process of random variation and adaptation and move to the next stage as a species”

is the best short description of transhumanism that I have ever seen. If I had never heard of transhumanism before, I would start a google search immediately after reading these words, find one or another transhumanist network and join it.

Some bioluddites have a quite good understanding of what transhumanism is ultimately about. They say, with clear plain simple and understandable words, things similar to Fukuyama’s definition above. And I have known people whose reaction was “but wait a minute, this is something good. Let’s learn more...”.

I believe we have become far too much concerned with acceptability and political correctness. Let’s take example from our critics and state, in the simplest possible way and without any ambiguity, that transhumanism is about leaving all limits behind, including mortality and biological constrains, and move on to a cosmic destiny. Some people will hate it, and some people will love it.

Anyway. I will be writing more than enough on this in the next few months. Back to Transvision 2007.

I am very sorry not to go to Chicago, because this promises to be the most interesting Transvision ever. Besides seeing many old friends and making many new ones, I wanted to meet in person, for the first time, three exceptional thinkers and doers.

Ray Kurzweil‘s writings and books, e.g. The Singularity is Near, offer a very optimistic vision of our mid and long term future. Is he over-optimistic? Probably. Do I believe that his visions of boundless empowerment, immortality and merging with ultra technologies will come true before the end of the century? Not really. Does this matter? Not at all. Ray’s vision is a roadmap for something that will not happen spontaneously, but that we must achieve. Of course there will be interruptions and roadblocks, and we will have to find suitable workarounds. I find Ray’s optimism very refreshing compared to the endless hair-splitting, caveats and “ethical” qualifications that have become so common in transhumanist literature.

Philip Rosedale is the creator of Second Life. I have helped persuading him to come to Transvision, and I believe Second Life is very relevant for transhumanism. Why? For three reasons. One is that the routine magic of teleporting, flying, IMing, changing gender and body shape, etc., that we have in Second Life may well become part of our everyday reality according to the vision of Kurzweil. Another is that Second Life is a very good community building, outreach and recruiting platform for transhumanists. Last year we organized a mixed-reality Transvision 2006 event in Second Life, and I really hope another will be organized this year. The third (and most important) reason is that once mind uploading technology becomes an operational reality many persons may choose to be based in virtual reality, perhaps taking up a physical body on occasions, so what we are doing in Second Life can be seen as building our future home.

I have recently received my Amazon order of The Intelligent Universe and Biocosm by James Gardner, and read them cover to cover. You should also read these books: they will put your mind on fire. James’ cosmic vision is that intelligent life may become the force that steers the development of the Cosmos towards its destiny, acquiring awesome powers and eventually spawning new universes where conscious life may continue its endless journey. This is a vision that permits finding some meaning in our everyday lives on our little blue planet, even more so if it were to include some hint at a possibility of indefinite preservation of an individual consciousness stream (yes, you). I really wanted to discuss this with James.

Posted by on 07/15 at 07:41 AM

I do not know the details of our decision but I understand your concerns. I felt disengaged and distraught over some currents when the political bantering and positioning became accusatory, misinterpreted and used to alienate people if there were not y or x, regardless of the simple fact that they all shared the same basic concerns and values. There is greater worth in investigating what works and what does not work when predetermined judgments are left outside the porthole and participants relish an environment of mental acuity, fostered with inquisitive discourse. Moreover, the degrees of separation between the political-party based or single-track ideological adherents within transhumanism are not so far when you consider how far we all are from the religious fanatics.

Please let us all engage in and practice dialectics and to get out of the small mental cubicals that lack ergonomics.

On another note, I wish you much success in your endeavors and look foward to future collaborations.

Posted by Natasha Vita-More on 07/15 at 05:22 PM
Thanks Natasha,
I also look forward to future collaborations.
Better indeed investigating what works and what does not work when predetermined judgments are left outside.
G.

Posted by Giulio Prisco on 07/29 at 10:32 AM
Why limit oneself to one body (and mind). If I make it to escape velocity, and get my personal chance to kick this miserable state humanity has been trapped in, I would have several minds and bodies, with distinct identities, all heritage of the original source.

In fact I intend to fully dissolve between those identities, each of them distinctly superhuman. I have no sentimental attachment to the original at all.

Posted by on 08/06 at 08:28 PM