Top Canadian science-fiction writers and futurists on transhumanism
Sun Media reporter Vivian Song speaks with top science-fiction writers, astrologists and futurists to explore what the next 50 years may hold for our newest Capricorns. Yes, Capricorns, and astrology - the article is very interested, but futurism is mixed with astrology. I suppose this is how they manage to sell newspapers these days. However, I think some horoscopes are a price worth paying for informing the public on what the future will bring.
Some interesting excerpts:
Given the rate of change during the past 40 years, ventures into space and computer-dependent immortality shouldn’t come as a shock, said Robert Sawyer, a futurist and frequent commentator for Discovery Channel Canada.
In their lifetime, children of the year 2007 will be forced to confront dilemmas their ancestors were able to evade. How do you reconcile immortality with the natural world, for instance? How will the human species respond to climate change that their predecessors set in motion? According to Sawyer, a prolific award-winning writer—he’s one of seven writers in history to win all three of science-fiction’s top honours for best novel of the year—by the time the child is 50, they will have the option of downloading their brain into an artificial android body and of living forever.
2028 - According to futurist consultant Richard Worzel, people can choose to have a personal computer embedded in their body, most likely under the arm, activated by body heat or drawing power from their blood supply. A microphone will be embedded in their tooth powered by bone conduction. Contact lenses will act as a computer monitor and users will be able to overlay reality with computer images.
2057 - Though their biological bodies may have worn out, the rich will be able to buy more time in an android body, Sawyer said. “Transhumanism. For a person born Jan. 1, 2007, they will have a choice at that point.”
Indeterminate life expectancies will also mean more people will draw more heavily and longer on the country’s health plan. How long will people be allowed to work? “You’re opening up social questions that have never had to be asked before . . . to which there’s been no need. The answers become urgent to which there are no precedents and people will fight for what they think they’re entitled to.” At the same time, Sawyer offered a sunny view of immortality, saying the potential to achieve unrivalled human brilliance and creativity is no longer hindered by the pesky passage of time.
Oh, I had forgotten. The ruling colours of Capricorn babies born in 2007 will be blue and black.
Posted by G.P. on 01/06 at 04:32 PM
Quotes from Seligman’s “The First Coming”
In his Edge article on The First Coming, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman defends the notion of a natural (as opposed to supernatural) God evolving with and within the universe. He bases his ideas on the general principle that evolution always favors complexity (described in Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright).
Excerpts:
I am optimistic that God may come at the end. I’ve never been able to choke down the idea of a supernatural God who stands outside of time, a God who designs and creates the Universe. There is, however, an alternate notion of God relevant to the secular community, the skeptical, evidence-minded community that believes only in nature.
The invisible hand of biological and cultural evolution ineluctably select for the complex over the simple because positive sum games have the survival and reproductive edge over zero sum games. A process that selects for more complexity is ultimately aimed at nothing less than omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness.
A God who is not supernatural, but who ultimately acquires omnipotence, omniscience and goodness. Perhaps, just perhaps, God comes at the end.
So I am optimistic that there may be in the fullness of time a First Coming. I am optimistic that this is the door through which meaning may enter our lives. A meaningful life is a life that joins with something larger than the self and the larger that something is, the more meaning. I am optimistic that as individuals we can choose to be a tiny part of this process. Partaking of a process that has as it ultimate end the bringing of a God, who is endowed with omniscience, omnipotence, and goodness joins our tiny, accidental lives to something enormously larger.
Posted by G.P. on 01/06 at 08:17 AM
Ingegneria Trascendente
Allora, ho finalmente cominciato a scrivere il mio libro, Ingegneria Trascendente, che spero di terminare per la fine del 2007. Nel libro cerchero’ di far vedere come le idee e i valori transumanisti possano essere usati per offrire un’ alternativa alla religione.
La decisione di scrivere questo libro e’ il risultato di anni di discussioni con molte persone che condividono pensieri simili, e molte persone che non li condividono, in conversazioni private e su mailing list di Internet. Siccome non voglio perdere tempo ed essere costretto ad accettare modifiche editoriali, ho deciso di pubblicare il libro con Lulu. Ma penso che i commenti e le critiche editoriali siano molto importanti per un autore, specialmente per uno che non scrive nella sua madrelingua, quindi chiedero’ ad alcuni amici fidati di fare la parte dell’ editore severo e inflessibile.
Le nostre idee possono dare un senso alla vita, una visione del nostro posto nell’ universo, e una grande pace e felicita’ interiore. Questa e’ stata la funzione storica delle grandi religioni che pero’, adesso, stanno finalmente cominciando a dare segni di stanchezza e presto saranno completamente incapaci di convincere persone sempre piu’ sofisticate culturalmente e abituate alla visione scientifica del mondo.
Il successo delle religioni e’ dovuto al fatto che queste offrono una risposta all’ incubo della morte. Si, i tuoi cari sono morti, e prima o poi morirai anche tu, ma vi rivedrete in paradiso. Questo e’ un meme *molto* potente come dimostra il successo delle religioni. Con l’ avvento, che tutti auspichiamo, di una visione del mondo laica e fondata sulla scienza, sembra impossibile continuare a prendere sul serio queste cose.
Ma e’ proprio cosi’? Forse no. Penso che tra gli esperimenti piu’ interessanti in atto nel movimento transumanista ci siano i tentativi di formulare “religioni transumaniste”, fondate sulla scienza, ma capaci di offrire la speranza in un’ “altra vita” perfino per quelli che sono gia’ morti. Alcune informazioni su questi tentativi sono nel mio articolo Engineering Transcendence, sul quale il libro e’ basato.
Pur considerandomi un razionalista scientifico “duro”, la mia visione scientifica del mondo e la mia fiducia nella nostra capacita’ di espansione tecnologica senza limiti mi spingono a considerare come plausibili alcuni scenari futuri nei quali la scienza, e solo la scienza, puo’ resuscitare i morti. Naturalmente simili scenari non possono, e non devono, essere considerati come certezze, ma solo come speranze basate su speculazioni che considero ragionevoli.
Posted by G.P. on 01/04 at 05:17 PM
Transcendent Engineering
So, I have finally started writing my book, Transcendent Engineering, which I hope to complete by the end of 2007. In the book I will try to show how transhumanist ideas and values can be used to offer an alternative to religion.
The decision to write this book is the result of years of discussions with many people who share similar thoughts, and many people who do not share them, in private conversations and on Internet mailing lists. Since I do not wish wasting time and being forced to accept editorial changes, I have decided to publish the book with Lulu. But I think criticism and editorial feedback are very important for an author, especially for one who is not writing in his mother language, so I will ask many trusted friends to act as severe and unforgiving reviewers.
The transhumanist worldview can give a sense of meaning of life, a vision of our place in the universe, peace and happiness. This has been the historic function of the world’s great religions that, on the other hand, are now finally beginning to show some fatigue and soon will be completely unable to persuade people more and more culturally sophisticated and used to the scientific worldview.
Religions’ success is due to the fact that they offer an answer to the nightmare of death. Yes, your loved one are dead, and sooner or later you will also die, but you will meet again in heaven. This is a *very* powerful meme as the penetration of religion demonstrates. With the coming of a secular worldview based on science, it seems impossible to continue taking religion seriously.
But is it really so? Perhaps not. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to create “transhumanist religions”, based on science, but still able to offer hope in “another life” even for those who are already dead. Some information on these experiments, links and my own thoughts can be found in my article Engineering Transcendence, on which the book is based.
While I consider myself as a a hard-core scientific rationalist, my scientific worldview and my belief in our potential for boundless expansion enabled by technology make me appreciate the plausibility of future scenarios where science, and science alone, can resurrect the dead. Of course such scenarios cannot, and should not, be taken as certainties but only as hopes based on, I think, reasonable speculations.
Posted by G.P. on 01/04 at 03:56 PM
Comments on the debate between Robin Hanson and James Hughes on the social implications of uploads
I have been invited to comment on the debate between Robin Hanson and James Hughes on the social implications of uploads. I am happy to do so as I often think about mind uploading technology and its impact once it is developed. Please read Robin Hanson’s paper ”If uploads come first” for a background.
I hope brain scanning technology of sufficient quality and resolution for future uploading will become available during my lifetime. If this does not happen, I hope to transport myself to a future time where mind uploading technology exists through cryonics. I want to see what interesting things will happen in the future, and one point on which I completely agree with both Robin Hanson and James Hughes is that operational uploading technology will have a huge impact on our world, including of course economics and politics.
So suppose you have a complete brain scan before you die, and you wake up in sometime in the future. You could wake up in another biologic body, in a robotic body, or as a conscious personality in a virtual world running on some future supercomputer. You may now be thinking of a virtual heaven, but you should think also of a virtual hell: you have been restored to be a slave in a future data processing farm - you are chained to a virtual metal chair that glows white hot as soon as you slow down - errors are punished with virtual torture. Or perhaps you are just tortured for fun. And this may be happening simultaneously to millions of parallel copies of you. Science fiction writer Richard K. Morgan has some particularly vivid descriptions of uploads tortured in virtual hells.
Unfortunately we have a history of practicing slavery for economic advantage whenever we can do so without consequences. Even in today’s world, there would be widespread slavery if we did not have anti-slavery laws and the means to enforce them. Actually, in today’s world there *is* slavery. I do not believe this basic fact - that there are always many people ready to do the most horrible things for money, and even a few people ready to do the most horrible things just for fun - may change anytime soon. So, it is clear that we will need laws and technologies to make sure uploads are not used as slaves. Perhaps the required technologies will be developed as an evolution of today’s Digital Rights Management technologies. But of course, there will be crackers who will find ways to work around DRM protections for uploads. This will be a *very* important and complex issue.
Leaving virtual hells aside, one central point in the debate between Robin Hanson and James Hughes on the social implications of uploads is how to modify economical and political systems to permit coping with a society split between “original humans” and uploads.
But I do not think future societies will be split between pure original humans and pure uploads (and, I should add, pure artificial intelligences). On the contrary, I think that with the development and deployment of mind copy/cut/paste technologies, the pure modes of existence for conscious minds will blend and merge. I imagine a typical person in such a world as a computational construct, spending most of ver (a blend of his and her - the notion of gender will become obsolete) time in virtual reality, using one or more physical bodies on a need basis, augmenting verself with AI subsystems, merging with others, spawning multiple copies, and copying/pasting ver memories and mental subsystems in all sorts of ways that we cannot even begin to imagine. Within the limits of our current imagination, a possible advanced future society is described in Greg Egan‘s Diaspora. The detailed fabric of economy and politics in such societies is probably completely beyond our understanding at this time.
But the first successful experiments in uploading may well take place before the end of this century, in a society relatively similar to ours. So current economic and political models will still apply during and after the initial deployment wave of uploading technology, and it is very important to start thinking of how we can cope with this very disruptive change.
Posted by G.P. on 01/04 at 06:17 AM
My reply to WJ Smith’s “Give Me That New Transhumanist Religion”
I had the honor to be quoted by Wesley J. Smith in a blog post titled ”Give Me That New Transhumanist Religion”, where he comments my ”Considerations on the development of the transhumanist movement”. This is only fair, as I quoted him. However, he tries using my post in support of his view of transhumanism as “a branch of scientism, that is, a quasi religion that seeks to use science in ways for which the great method is not meant”. So I left the comment below on his blog.
Dear Wesley,
I wish to thank you for quoting me, but also wish to reply to your comments which may give, I fear, a distorted view of what I try to say.
I have the highest respect for religion as search for meaning and wish to live a “good” life.
At the same time, and based not only on my scientific training but also on my common sense, I am just unable to *believe* in any religion.
I think, as you quote, that the success of religions is due to the fact that they offer an answer to the nightmare of death.
For previous generations, death was just something you cannot escape, so it is not surprising that so many persons have accepted supernatural answers in absence of scientific ones.
But today we are beginning to see how science and technology may be able, someday and perhaps soon, to defeat death. I prefer this practical engineering approach to blind belief in something that cannot be proven.
Of course, for most people, the scientific possibility of engineering immortality for future generation is not enough. I am one of these people. Many of my loved ones are dead and I wish to think that, perhaps, I will see them again.
This is just human. But I cannot blind my eyes to the fact that, according to the scientific worldview to which I subscribe, they are just gone.
Gone forever? Perhaps. And perhaps future science and technology may find a way to bring them back. I do not *believe* this: I do not believe in anything that I cannot prove. But I allow myself to contemplate this possibility because it is not, in my opinion, incompatible with the scientific worldview.
This is what I mean by offering hope to those who, like me, are unable to find hope in religion.
It is, I think, unfair to quote “[The] Raelian message is very similar to the transhumanist one” without the rest of my sentence: “with an extra layer of UFO nonsense”. Indeed, I think the Raelian message has the same weakness of religion: it requires blind faith in things that cannot be proven.
I prefer, on the contrary, to believe in ourselves and in our capability to improve our own condition. On the basis of our current understanding of reality, I am confident that someday we will achieve immortality through engineering. And later, perhaps, we will be able to do things even more amazing.
Posted by G.P. on 01/03 at 09:09 AM
Considerations on the development of the transhumanist movement
I have written a previous version of the the note below, in Italian, for a discussion on the Italian Transhumanist Association mailing list. This revised version includes feedback from the many people who participated in the discussion.
The T word is slowly but steadily penetrating the collective consciousness, and Fukuyama’s statement on transhumanism as “the most dangerous idea in the world”, as well as less sophisticated but perhaps more widely disseminated statements, for example by representatives of the world’s religions, ensure that more and more persons everywhere on the planet try to understand what transhumanism is about by reading the sources. I think transhumanism is still in a phase where “there is no such a thing as bad press” (well, almost), so I welcome almost any attack, even some delirious hate pieces, with some pleasure. Furthermore, sometimes enemies can be directly useful: I believe Fukuyama’s definition of transhumanism - “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 one of the best.
Of course the wave of attacks continue, for example Wesley J. Smith has recently stated that “we are out of our minds to follow [the transhumanist] course” in an article aptly titled ”Transhumanism on the March”. I am less optimist than Smith - I do not thinks we are seeing a Transhumanist March yet, but I hope we will see one soon.
I want our ideas to reach as many people as possible, in a clear and understandable way. Why? Because our worldview can give a sense of meaning of life, a vision of our place in the universe, peace and happiness. This has been the historic function of the world’s great religions and monolithic ideologies that, on the other hand, are now finally beginning to show some fatigue and soon will be completely unable to persuade people more and more culturally sophisticated and used to the scientific worldview. We should not forget that these are still a minority, but the trend is clear.
There are two things that I find very, very frustrating. One is that there are still few committed and declared transhumanists (The WTA has slightly more than hundred paying members), and the other is that we do not have sufficient resources (the current WTA’s yearly budget is less than 20.000 dollars). Comparing this with, for example, the Raelians, who have tens of thousands of paying members and a huge budget, it is clear that something is not working as it should. It is worth noting that the Raelian message is very similar to the transhumanist one, with an extra “value added” layer (I would say reduced), of UFO cr… nonsense. May the presence of this extra layer be what manages to capture people’s attention? Is there any lesson to learn? Without bothering aliens, there are so many bioluddite and fundamentalist groups (talibans of all religions) with deep pockets full of money donated by members and benefactors.
For example, the Center for Genetics and Society has an yearly budget of almost one million dollars and ten full time, paid managers and staff. Imagine what a transhumanist organization could achieve with such resources! There are many people in the world with plenty of disposable money, and wishing to see their money used to do something good. Of course, they donate according to their definition of “good”. Today there are certainly only few enlightened, “quasi-transhumanist” persons among the very rich, but there are some. I personally know some very wealthy persons who take transhumanist ideas seriously and would certainly at least consider a well targeted and justified funding request for specific programs, presented in a professional way. For each hundred persons who donate to fundamentalist religious or bioluddite sects there must be, say, five to ten who would donate to us. The challenge is identifying them, reaching them, and persuading them that we can use their money to do something good.
As far as fundraising is concerned, the most remarkable success stories in the transhumanist community are Aubrey de Grey‘s projects, with 8 millions dollars distributed between Mprize and SENS. This is certainly due to the fact that Aubrey and his team propose very well defined projects focused on the reduction and elimination of ageing, with measurable results. But there are many other transhumanist projects of this kind: first steps towards conscious artificial intelligence of (more than) human level, preliminary research on enabling technologies for uploading, the formulation of the transhumanist philosophical and ethical platform, etc., that should all be much better funded.
Nothing can be achieved without appropriate resources. Resources can be of two types: human, and financial. Until now the growth of the transhumanist movement has been mainly based on the unpaid work of activists, but what volunteers can do is limited, especially in view of the fact that they must also earn a living. A volunteer can contribute an occasional rush of highly creative work, but often not the long hours and the steady committment and availability that is required to get things done. Especially for the more routine tasks (probably 90% of the workload: writing and answering letters, maintain websites, identify and analyse important news, produce professional graphics and multimedia components, identify potential donors, write letters and comments to the press, etc.) we need paid employees and collaborators.
So I think fundraising is the top priority. We are working to create a transhumanist think tank in Europe, probably to be associated with the IEET. I hope the new think tank will be able to act as European fundraising central. Since it requires personal contact, fundraising is probably most effective on a local or at least regional basis. We will develop solid programs, visionary but realistic and with measurable objectives, and present them in a professional and appealing way to potential donors. As I have said above, the first task will be identifying the “quasi-transhumanists” among the very rich. I hope to see a spiral growth: the money will permit paying our collaborators, and their work will permit achieving the objectives of the programs, starting new programs, reaching more people and receiving more money, and so on in a positive feedback loop. If the initiative will succeed (no forget that - I wanted to say *when* the initiative will succeed), the European fundraising central will be able to support the WTA, national chapters such as the Italian Transhumanist Association, a European cryonics centre, and other worthy initiatives on a case by case basis. I consider this project among my personal top priorities in 2007. In January we will incorporate the new organization in Milan, Italy, as a registered non-profit.
Transhumanism is fully entering the political sphere. This is especially visible in Italy, also because of the attacks and stigmatisation of the catholic church. The core transhumanist meme can, as it is well known, infect a wide range of philosophical and political platforms - right, center, left, globalist, localist, materialist, spiritual etc. It will thus be possible (with hard and careful work) creating transhumanist groups and caucases inside most political parties and opinion movements. This process, up to a certain extent, is already ongoing in some countries such as Italy. We need to keep on and export the model.
But it is also important to analyse why we don’t seem to be managing to “reach the masses”. This has been partly due to insufficient media exposure, and after some high visibility appearances on the press and the media, such as the recent documentary on Italian national channel RAI 3, we have seen the “miracles” that television can do. But perhaps past difficulties in outreach have not only been due to insufficient media exposure, but also to a certain incapacity to communicate effectively. There is a very interesting discussion thread on Michael Anassimov’s blog, were the discussing has moved from the small number of transhumanist women to the central issue of communication skills. In part I agree with the comment by PJ Manney “The problem with most H+ers is that none of you spend much time with people outside of the intellectual/hi-tech world”. This has certainly been an actual problem in the past but will, I hope, fade out with the appearance os a new wave of transhumanists, much more diversified in terms of gender and educational-professional background, in much better touch with the zeitgeist, and on a global scale instead of North American only. I hope this new wave will facilitate reaching “the masses”. PJ Manney said more on her blog: “The real discussion is about how H+ ideals are communicated to all people, everywhere”.
We cannot deny that the great world’s religions have managed, and quite well, to reach the masses. Religions’ success is due to the fact that they offer an answer to the nightmare of death. Yes, your loved one are dead, and sooner or later you will also die, but you will meet again in heaven. This is a *very* powerful meme as the penetration of religion demonstrates. With the coming of a secular worldview based on science, it seems impossible to continue taking religion seriously. But is it really so? Perhaps not. I am very interested in the current experimental activities to create “transhumanist religions”, based on science, but still able to offer hope in “another life” even for those who are already dead. Some information on these experiments, links and my own toughts can be found in my article Engineering Transcendence, on which my forthcoming book Transcendent Engineering is based.
Needless to say, while the vast majority of those who participated in the discussion on the mailing list agreed with all previous points, this last point has generated a steamy debate and outraged some hard-core rationalists. It has been difficult to explain with clear words that, while I *am* a hard-core rationalist myself, my scientific worldview and my belief in our potential for boundless expansion enabled by technology make me appreciate the plausibility of, for example, omega-point-like scenarios where science, and science alone, can resurrect the dead. Perhaps the communication problem lies in using the world “religion” which has a very negative connotation for some. Maybe “spirituality” would work better. Of course, these ideas would generate even stronger debates in conventional religious circles. I think I have a clear vision of the point I am trying to make here, and know that other transhumanists share a similar vision, but I can see that it is a difficult vision to communicate.
Posted by G.P. on 12/31 at 11:52 AM
Online magazine Jim Baen’s Universe teams with award-winning H+ podcast The Future And You
Press Release: Steven Euin Cobb’s Award winning transhumanist-friendly podcast, ”The Future and You” has become a regular feature of Jim Baen’s Universe magazine, and vice versa in an innovative partnering agreement between the unique online magazine and the highly listened-to podcast series.
The Future and You is an award-winning podcast about the future which you may download for free. Each episode contains several interviews with authors, scientists, celebrities and innovators about what they expect in the future. These forward-thinking people describe their widely differing ideas of the future and often go beyond what they expect into what they hope and what they fear. The podcast won the 2006 Parsec Award for “Best Speculative Fiction News”. Recent guests have included Mike Treder. Subjects have included: nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing, computers wired directly into the human brain, cryonics, exoplanets, faster-than-light travel, wormholes and black holes, cloning and stem cell research, global warming and the current interglacial period, genetic engineering of humans and other biotechnology, as well as transhumanism and the technology of living more-or-less forever. Stephen Euin Cobb is a Hard SF author, futurist and the host of the award-winning podcast “The Future And You.” He is also an artist, essayist and transhumanist.
I am now listening to the CC-licensed December 1 episode in streaming MP3. The quality of the MP3 stream is very good. In the December episode Cobb describes his views of the future, with more amazing things coming than he previously thought possible and a possible singularity in a few decades, and interviews, among others, Toni Weisskopf (the new head of Baen Books) on the singularity and technological immortality. I would describe “The Future and You” as a transhumanist-friendly and “moderately transhumanist” show, a less radical version of IEET’s Changesurfer Radio produced by James Hughes, targeted mainly to younger people and science fiction fans. This show is one more example of the penetration of transhumanist ideas into popular culture.
Posted by G.P. on 12/31 at 07:22 AM
Paddling my own canoe
My holidays changed to be psychologically much richer than what I planned some weeks ago when I told my friends, “this year I must stay home and work on proposals”. Instead, due to an unfortunate series of events on my friend’s side, my holidays were spent with one of the most can-do humans I know. Spending those days talking and walking and sharing (and helping when he’d let me) such a person was a knock-on-the-head for what humans can do when their life philosophy is No Limits. Therefore, I’d like to follow up Giulio’s book suggestion for teens and girls with another book suggestion of my own that encapsulates a No Limits philosophy. Teen years are often an angst-ridden time when the young person flounders and flails and despair that they ‘cannot do anything’. But, Au contraire! You CAN.
The book: Paddling my Own Canoe is about a woman, the author Audrey Sutherland, who has a goal to reach a a particular inaccessible beach on the island of Moloka’i in Hawai’i. Because of the cliffed terrain surrounding that particular beach, the only access point is by sea, which is the Moloka’i Channel, one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the Pacific Ocean, due to its strong undercurrents.
Starting her successful trials in 1958, she spent some days to a week every year improving her methods of travel to that beach, first swimming from one ocean-entry point on the island (after being dropped there by plane), and dragging her survival gear in waterproof containers that she built, and later by building small rafts/canoes and paddling there (hence the name of the book). As the years passed, and she became more skilled, she eventually upgraded her goal to build a small house on that beach, completeing that task, as well.
This 130 page monologue lets you listen while she talks to herself, trying to understand what went wrong on a particular action and how she might fix the problem so the action will work better next time. You hear how she breaks down a large task into many managable pieces and then tries and tests each of those pieces until she reaches success. You are with her when she is planning, trying, thinking, researching, and forever improving how to do something. This is a book that not only shows how to solve big problems by breaking them down into manageable pieces, but demonstrates thinking for oneself and how to live with grace and humor and courage and diligence. For example: much of her equipment she built or devised on her own because there didn’t exist the kind of expedition equipment (lightweight, sturdy, waterproof) that she needed at the time in the 1950s and 1960s. She is also very modest, often chiding herself, and she has a wonderfully funny sense of humor.
Some quotes from the book:
“I peeled down to the high-topped tennis shoes and clumped off to the river with the dirty dishes. Alone and content among the trees at the water’s edge, I stood like Daphne, bewitched there in the forest. Daphne, ha! Where’s Apollo, you dirty, salty female? I knelt by the pool and scrubbed, composing a derisive haiku, as did Basho and Issa in Japan long ago.
Goddess by the stream
Tall, bare, proud ... laughs at dreams, and
Squats to wash the pots. “
and
“What I really need is for some scientist to develop a dehydrated or freeze-dried wine. Please forgive such sacrilege, Monsieur Lichine and Mr. Balzer and you other connoisseurs, but I do enjoy wine with my meals, and seven half-bottles, a week’s supply, weigh ten pack-sagging pounds. Table wines are twelve percent alcohol and perhaps two percent grape residue. Perfect a dehydration method and I could carry a fifth of that lovely wine, Louis Martini’s Moscato Amabile, in a container holding four ounces. Develop further; freeze-dry the alchohol. Then I could buy foil packets of a powdered Beaulieu Cabernet Sauvignon, or, for Franco-oenophiles, a Chateau LaMission Haut Brion, add water, display the packet label with a flourish, and pour with a drip-stopping wrist twist- into a Sierra Club cup. “But listen, Aud”, say my scientific friends. “If you really want concentrated wine, it’s already been done. It’s called brandy.” “
and
“I had to go back again. To be that terrified of anything, that incompetent, survive by that small a margin - I’d better analyze, practice,then return and do it right. “
and (my favorite quote of the book):
“And why did I always come alone to Moloka’i? I know why, but the telling is hard. Daily we are on trial, to do a job, to make a marriage good, to find depth, serenity, and meaning in a complex, deterioating world of politics, false values, and trivia. But rarely are we deeply challenged physically or alone. We rely on friends, on family, on a committee, on community agencies outside ourselves. To have actual survival, living or dying, depends on our own ingenuity, skill, or stamina- this is a core question we seldom face. We rarely find out if we like having only our own mind as company for days or weeks at a time. How many people have ever been total isolated, ten miles from the nearest other human, for even two days?
Alone, you are more aware of surroundings, wary as an animal to danger, limp and relaxed when the sun, the brown earth, or the deep grass say, “Rest now.” Alone you stand at night, alert, poised, hearing through ears and open mouth and fingertips. Alone, you do not worry whether someone else is tired or hungry or needing. You push yourself hard or quit for the day, reveling in the luxury of solitude. And being unconcerned with human needs, you become as a fish, a boulder, a tree- a part of the world around you.
I stood once in midstream, balanced on a rock. A scarlet leaf fluttered, spiraled down. I watched it, became a wind-blown leaf, swayed, fell into the water with a giant human splash, then soddenly crawled out, laughing uproariously.
The process of daily living is often intense and whimsical. The joy of it, and the compassion, we can share, but in pain we are ultimately alone. The only real antidote is inside. The only real security is not insurance or money or a job, not a house and furniture paid for, or a retirement fund, and never is it another person. It is the skill and humor and courage within, the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace.
On a solo trip you may discover these, or try to build them, and life becomes simple and deeply satisfying. The confidence and strength remain and are brought back and applied to the rest of your life.”
Happy Holidays All!
Posted by amaragraps on 12/29 at 10:58 AM
Future-friendly YA novel: I Was A Teenage Popsicle
Anne Corwin’s Existence is Wonderful blog signals the novel I Was A Teenage Popsicle by Bev Katz Rosenbaum: ”I am no stranger to the subject of suspended animation - however, it is odd and strangely compelling to see this subject pop up in something so far removed from sci-fi as the bubblegum world of novels written for an audience of eighth-grade girls. Could it be that the cryonics meme is, in fact, propagating through mainstream culture?”.
The book has received very good reviews and has been featured by a lot of magazines for girls and teens. I think popular “light” literature with a positive approach to human enhancement and, even more, future-friendly TV serials and movies, can really achieve a deep penetration of transhumanist memes in popular culture.
The author Bev Katz Rosenbaum has a very nice, clean and professional website on her ”Fiction for Tweens and Teens”. See also her page on Myspace, where she introduces herself as a a former fiction and magazine editor, now working as a full time YA writer.
I Was A Teenage Popsicle (Floe Ryan was frozen--well, ‘vitrified’--when she was sixteen. She’s just been thawed, and guess what, it’s ten years in the future and she’s still a teenager. And her parents are still, shall we say, chilling out. Floe’s little sister is now her older sister (and guardian!), and payback’s a beyotch. On top of that, Floe has to get used to a new school, new technology, and a zillion other new things that happened while she was napping in the freezer. Luckily, she has Taz Taber--the hottie sk8er boy who used to make her melt before she was frozen--to reintegrate with. But now they’re trying to close the Venice Beach Cryonics Center-with Floe’s parents still in it! Now that’s cold. It’s up to Floe to save the clinic and her parents--so she can finally have a chance at a somewhat normal life…) has received very good reviews (check the Amazon page and the Press section of the author’s website) and was chosen as a Girl’s Life Magazine ‘Big Book Giveaway’ in September ‘06.
The sequel Beyond Cool (Floe Ryan was frozen (well, vitrified) for ten years because of a rare disease. Now she’s been thawed back to her normal self, but absolutely everything else has changed. Just when she starts warming up to this new scene, everything falls apart…. Her boyfriend is giving her the cold shoulder, and there are all these cliques she can’t fit into--high school can be a cold place. Worse yet, Dr. Dixon at the Cryonics Center tells her that those who were frozen are more susceptible to illnesses and the one doctor who can cure this immune system weakness has gone AWOL. Now it’s up to Floe and her brainy friend Sophie to find him. But they’re not the only ones looking for him--and this time, Floe could be iced for good…) will be published in 2007.
Posted by G.P. on 12/29 at 07:41 AM
El Club de los Astronautas: a transhumanist space agency founded by artists and musicians
El Club de los Astronautas, “the worlds first space agency founded by artists and musicians”, is a cultural, musical and artistic collective in Barcelona that was founded to promote and communicate the idea of a manned, interstellar voyage. For it’s implementation the Club suggests the construction of a space ship called Mare Nostrum. Its major task is to find and debate strategies that could lead into this final goal. The Club’s work is a very interesting mix of scientific ideas, artistic and musical experimentation. Following inspirations taken from Transhumanism and Second Life, the Mare Nostrum space ship is crewed by uploaded human personalities inhabiting a virtual reality simulation. Don’t miss Chapters 5 and 6 of the radio play, covering Transhumanism, Second Life, uvvy island, mind uploading, the Omega Point, Nick Bostrom’s simulation arguments, artificial intelligence, neurotechnology, brain-computer interfacing, and the possibility to “move” via uploading to VR simulations running on future supercomputers.
Most of the people of the Club, including its founder David Apfel, come from an artistic background and were not trained as scientists and engineers. However, they have made an effort to understand and digest the complex scientific and technical concepts that may lead to transhumanity, as well as the philosophical and ethical foundations of transhumanism. Their artistic background will make it easier for them, I believe, communicating the transhumanist worldview in such a way as to appeal to artistic sensibilities beyond the geeky image, perhaps too cold and aseptic, that transhumanism still has. I would not go as far as saying that they *are* transhumanists, but certainly they take transhumanism seriously and can help us to communicate better.
I was first in touch with ”El Club of the Astronautas” in April, when they invited me to give a talk on transhumanism at their festival “26 000 años luz” in Barcelona. I could not travel to Barcelona on that day, so I proposed to give the talk from the virtual reality of Second Life. My talk was one the first live “mixed-reality” presentations given from virtual reality to the live audience of a festival in brickspace, and the first presentation on transhumanism given in Second Life.
David Apfel came to see me in Second Life, and I gave a power point -like presentation with audio via Skype. I had a few interesting questions - the most interesting were “haven’t you any curiosity to experience death?”, to which I replied “about as much as to visit the dentist next week”, and about the concept of “living in VR”: uploading to a VR world and living there. The guy in the picture below is asking about the possibility of virtual life after death.
They are planning another, more ambitious festival in 2007, and I look forward to continuing the collaboration with them.
Posted by G.P. on 12/25 at 08:32 AM
Digital Life: E’ l’ora del post-human
Digital Life: E’ l’ora del post-human - Una lunga intervista condotta da Alex Roggero del Sole 24 ore a Riccardo Campa, direttore della World Transhumanist Association (l’ associazione mondiale dei transumanisti), spiega cos’è il Transumanesimo e perché per alcuni è auspicabile un’umanità 2.0.
Si tratta di un’ ottima intervista che offre una spiegazione chiara ed esauriente della visione del mondo transumanista.
Interessante la spiegazione di Riccardo delle tendenze politiche principali all’ interno del movimento transumanista: estropici, tecnoprogressisti (transumanisti democratici), neofuturisti (o sovrumanisti), e “upwinger”.
Il “manifesto” di Riccardo: “Sogniamo una nuova fase eroica per la specie superumana, l’apertura di una nuova frontiera… noi abbiamo un progetto. Qui non si tratta di vivere squallidamente una vita un po’ più lunga. Si tratta appunto di dare alla specie umana una scossa, uno scopo eroico, titanico, prometeico. Espandiamo la vita cosciente nell’universo ed eleviamone il livello per rispondere alle domande fondamentali dell’uomo”.
L’ Italia e il mondo: “In soli otto o nove anni le città cinesi sono diventate metropoli avveniristiche, mentre Palermo è sempre la stessa, Vicenza è sempre la stessa. Non si può cambiare nulla senza chiedere mille autorizzazioni. Abbiamo paura di cambiare, perché crediamo di essere il centro del mondo. Recentemente, il presidente indiano Abdul Kalam, in occasione dell’evento inaugurale della costruzione del International Institute of Information Technology a Bhubaneswar, ha pronunciato un discorso sulla “Convergenza Tecnologica” in cui abbraccia apertamente alcune idee transumaniste. Quando arriveranno i transumani cinesi e indiani alla frontiera, anche solo per commerciare, capiremo che siamo noi il terzo mondo. Loro potenziati a livello di intelligenza, forza e longevità, noi sempre gli stessi. Non potremo che lavorare per loro”.
Posted by G.P. on 12/24 at 01:13 PM
The Sigma Scan: a database of future issues and trends
The Sigma Scan is a collection of future issues and trends developed by the Outsights-Ipsos MORI partnership, commissioned by the UK Government’s Horizon Scanning Centre at the DTI Office of Science and Innovation. The database containis a number of trends, emerging issues and developments which may influence the course of events over the next 50 years and thereby shape the future of the UK and the world at large. The basic unit of the Sigma Scan is the Issue Paper. Each of these 146 Issue Papers provides a brief description of a particular trend or development and a projection of how, given a range of possible conditions, it may unfold in the future. The topic areas represented in the Scan are diverse, spanning the classic futures PESTE categories: Politics, Economics, Society, Science/Technology and the Environment.
An example that has made the headlines is the Issue Paper on ”Robo-rights: Utopian dream or rise of the machines?”, covered as ”Robots could demand legal rights” by BBC News and flamed by Wesley J. Smith as ”Transhumanism on the March”. Two Issue Papers that mention transhumanism are ”The Extended Self: better than well”: ”Technological development has tended to focus on altering and improving our external physical environment. However, over the next 50 years, the opportunities to focus innovation inwardly and remake our minds and bodies in fundamental ways look likely to increase. These opportunities will arise from advances in biotechnology, neuroscience, information technology, and robotics - and the synergisms between them. The potential to extend the mental and physical hand that nature has dealt us has developed into a more extreme view of the future: “transhumanism,” the idea that our descendants could be quite different from us, even, to an extent, by 2050”, and ”Technology for the Body and Mind”: ”The formidable forces of computation, genetics, molecular biology, imaging and nanotechnology look likely to combine to transform our understanding of the body and brain. The increasingly profound understanding of the human genome, for example, could open up multiple new ways of both repairing and enhancing the body”. This is especially interesting in view of the mainstream nature of this database commissioned by the UK Government.
Posted by G.P. on 12/22 at 09:17 AM
Robot rights: Transhumanism on the March
In sober and matter-of-factly language, the Financial Times reports that “Far from being extracts from the extreme end of science fiction, the idea that we may one day give sentient machines the kind of rights traditionally reserved for humans is raised in a British government-commissioned report which claims to be an extensive look into the future”.
“Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans’ rights to be extended to them”. What is interesting is the assumption that artificial intelligence will probably become ubiquitous, and produce sentient machines, and the conclusion that once we have created sentient machines the only reasonable course of action will be considering them fully human and giving them humans’ rights. If granted full rights, states will be obligated to provide full social benefits to them including income support, housing and possibly robo-healthcare to fix the machines over time. The report argues that if ‘correctly managed’, this new world of robots’ rights could lead to increased labour output and greater prosperity. Very transhumanist statements, coming from UK government officers. What I always admired of the Brits is that they are very pragmatic people, and do not often let whishful thinking blind their eyes to facts.
This is VERY good news and means that transhumanist ideas are definitely moving from the realm of science fiction to mainstream policy making. Of course it is very bad news for those who wish to keep us un the middle ages, and (of course), Wesley J. Smith has already stated that “we are out of our minds to follow this course” in an article aptly titled ”Transhumanism on the March”: “Third, and most importantly, this is the kind of speculation that the transhumanists want us to pursue. Because if machines can have “human” rights, it means that there is nothing particularly exceptional about being human”.
Smith has found his luddite niche and must be true to his image, but I am sure he understands that similar words have already been said and forgotten, e.g. “if women can have “manly” rights, it means that there is nothing particularly exceptional about being a man”.
Posted by G.P. on 12/20 at 08:14 AM
Considerazioni sullo sviluppo del movimento transumanista
Pensieri sciolti che spero di elaborare in qualcosa di piu’ organico, da sottomettere alla WTA come documento di riflessione. Commenti benvenuti.
La parola T sta penetrando lentamente ma inesorabilmente nella coscienza collettiva, e le dichiarazioni di Fukuyama sul transumanismo come idea piu’ pericolosa del mondo, o le dichiarazioni di esponenti della chiesa, meno sofisticate culturalmente e intellettualmente ma forse piu’ pubblicizzate, fanno in modo che sempre piu’ persone cerchino di capire di che si tratta risalendo alle fonti. Penso che il transumanismo sia ancora nella fase in cui ogni tipo di pubblicita’ e’ utile ("there is no such a thing as bad press"), quindi accolgo gli attacchi, anche quelli farneticanti, con un certo piacere. Oltretutto, a volte gli antagonisti possono essere utili direttamente: penso che la definizione di transumanismo di Fukuyama - “uno strano movimento di liberazione” i cui “sostenitori mirano molto più in alto degli attivisti per i diritti umani, delle femministe, o dei sostenitori dei diritti dei gay”. Questo movimento desidera “nientemeno che la liberazione della la razza umana dai propri vincoli biologici.” - sia una delle migliori (traduzione di Estropico).
Voglio che le nostre idee arrivino a quanta piu’ gente possibile e in maniera comprensibile a tutti. Perche’? Ma perche’ le nostre idee possono dare un senso alla vita, una visione del nostro posto nell’ universo, e una grande pace e felicita’ interiore. Questa e’ stata la funzione storica delle grandi religioni e ideologie monolitiche che pero’, adesso, stanno finalmente cominciando a dare segni di stanchezza e presto saranno completamente incapaci di convincere persone sempre piu’ sofisticate culturalmente e abituate alla visione scientifica del mondo. Non bisogna dimenticare che queste sono ancora una minoranza, ma la tendenza e’ chiara.
Ci sono due cose che trovo molto frustranti. Una e’ che ci sono pochi transumanisti convinti e dichiarati (la WTA ha poco piu’ di cento membri paganti), e l’ altra e’ che non abbiamo soldi (il budget della WTA e’ attualmente inferiore a 20.000 dollari). Facendo un paragone con, per esempio, i Raeliani, che hanno decine di migliaia di membri paganti e un budget enorme, e’ chiaro che qualcosa non funziona come dovrebbe. E’ importante notare che il messaggio Raeliano e’ molto simile a quello transumanista, con uno strato supplementare a “valore aggiunto” (direi ridotto), di str… stupidaggini sugli extraterrestri. Forse e’ proprio la presenza di questo strato a “catturare” l’ attenzione? C’ e’ una lezione da imparare? Senza scomodare gli extraterrestri, ci sono tanti gruppi neoludditi e fondamentalisti (taliban di tutte le religioni, inclusa la cristiana) con le tasche piene di soldi donati da membri e benefattori.
Per esempio, il Center for Genetics and Society ha un budget annuale di quasi un milione di dollari e una decina di dirigenti e collaboratori a tempo pieno (pagati). Immaginate i risultati che un organizzazione transumanista potrebbe raggiungere con queste risorse! Si, ci sono meno ricchi illuminati che ricchi taliban, ma qualcuno c’ e’. Io personalmente conosco alcune persone molto ricche che prendono sul serio alcune delle idee transumaniste e che certamente prenderebbero in considerazione una richiesta di fondi ben motivata, per programmi specifici, presentata in modo serio e professionale.
Per quanto riguarda il fundraising, le success story piu’ notevoli nel mondo transumanista sono i progetti di Aubrey de Grey, con 8 milioni di dollari distribuiti tra Mprize e SENS. Questo e’ certamente dovuto al fatto che Aubrey e i suoi collaboratori propongono progetti molto ben definiti e focalizzati sulla riduzione ed eliminazione dell’ invecchiamento, con risultati misurabili. Ma ci sono molti altri progetti transumanisti di questo tipo: intelligenza artificiale cosciente di livello umano, ricerche preliminari sull’ uploading, formulazione della piattaforma etica e filosofica, etc., che dovrebbero disporre di molte piu’ risorse.
Senza risorse non si puo’ fare un cazzo. Le risorse possono essere di due tipi: umane o finanziarie. Finora la crescita del movimento transumanista si e’ basata principalmente su lavoro volontario di attivisti, ma ci sono limiti a quello che i volontari possono fare, specialmente considerando che devono anche guadagnarsi da vivere. Per i compiti piu’ di routine (probabilmente il 90% del lavoro totale: scrivere e rispondere a lettere, mantenere i websites, individuare e analizzare le notizie importanti, produrre grafica ed elementi multimedia di livello professionale, individuare possibili donatori, scrivere lettere e commenti ai giornali, etc.) ci vogliono dipendenti e collaboratori pagati.
Quindi penso che il fundraising sia la priorita’ numero uno. Stiamo creando la filiale europea dell’ IEET, un think tank che, spero, potra’ funzionare come centrale europea di fundraising. E’ importante dotare IEET Europe di programmi solidi, visionari ma realistici e con obiettivi misurabili, e presentarli in modo professionale e attrattivo a possibili donatori. Spero ci sia una crescita a spirale: i soldi daranno la possibilita’ di retribuire i collaboratori, ed il lavoro di questi rendera’ possibile raggiungere gli obiettivi dei programmi, iniziare nuovi programmi, raggiungere piu’ gente ed avere piu’ soldi, e cosi’ via con un effetto valanga. Se l’ iniziativa avra’ successo IEET Europe potra’ anche finanziare la WTA, l’ AIT, un eventuale centro crionico europeo, e altre iniziative meritevoli.
Il transumanismo sta entrando in pieno nel dibattito politico. Questo e’ particolarmente visibile in Italia, anche grazie alle condanne e anatemi della chiesa. Il meme centrale transumanista puo’, come e’ ben noto, contagiare uno spettro molto ampio di piattaforme filosofiche e politiche di destra, di centro, di sinistra, globaliste, localiste, materialiste, spirituali etc. Sara’ possibile quindi (facendo le cose per bene e tirandosi su le maniche) creare gruppi transumanisti e “correnti” all’ interno di quasi tutti i partiti politici e movimenti di opinione. Questo, in una certa misura e specialmente in Italia, e’ gia’ in atto. Bisogna continuare ed esportare il modello.
Ma e’ anche necessario riflettere sul perche’ non riusciamo a far recepire il messaggio transumanista alle “masse”. Questo e’ stato, in parte, dovuto all’ insufficiente esposizione mediatica, e dopo il recente documentario su RAI 3 abbiamo visto i “miracoli” che puo’ fare la televisione. Ma forse i passati insuccessi non sono stati dovuti soltanto alla poca esposizione mediatica, ma anche a una certa incapacita’ di comunicare in modo efficace. C’ e’ un thread molto interessante sul blog di Michael Anassimov, dove inizialmente ci si chiede perche’ ci siano poche donne transumaniste, per arrivare alla “capacita’ di comunicare”. Ed e’ molto interessante il commento “The problem with most H+ers is that none of you spend much time with people outside of the intellectual/hi-tech world”. Questa critica e’ stata certamente piu’ che fondata in passato, ma lo sara’ molto meno con l’ arrivo nel movimento transumaniste di una new wave di partecipanti molto piu’ diversificati, in miglior sintonia con lo zeitgeist, e su scala mondiale piuttosto che nordamericana. Spero che questa new wave ci dia la capacita’ di raggiungere “le masse”.
Non si puo’ negare che le grandi religioni siano riuscite, e molto bene, a raggiungere le masse. Il successo delle religioni e’ dovuto al fatto che queste offrono una risposta all’ incubo della morte. Si, i tuoi cari sono morti, e prima o poi morirai anche tu, ma vi rivedrete in paradiso. Questo e’ un meme *molto* potente come dimostra il successo delle religioni. Con l’ avvento, che tutti auspichiamo, di una visione del mondo laica e fondata sulla scienza, sembra impossibile continuare a prendere sul serio queste cose. Ma e’ proprio cosi’? Forse no. Penso che tra gli esperimenti piu’ interessanti in atto nel movimento transumanista ci siano i tentativi di formulare una “religione transumanista”, fondata sulla scienza, ma capace di offrire la speranza in un’ “altra vita”. Alcune informazioni su questi tentativi sono nel mio articolo ”Engineering Transcendence”, che progetto di aggiornare ed espandere forse perfino in forma di libro.
Posted by G.P. on 12/17 at 11:13 AM