Category Archives: Posthuman

The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam's Dominion on Planet Earth

Known as the modern-day Indiana Jones, Timothy Alberino is a consummate explorer. His inquisitive mind and insatiable appetite for adventure have led him all over the planet in search of lost cities, lost civilizations, hidden treasures, and legendary creatures. He is also an avid researcher and published author whose scholarly pursuits are as daring as his expeditions. After years of rigorous study, Alberino has garnered an expansive knowledge base that enables him to dissertate with authority on a wide variety of esoteric topics, including theories on alternative history; ancient mythologies, megalithic architecture; giants, Bigfoot, and other cryptids; UFOs and alien abduction; transhumanism and emerging technologies; occult conspiracy; and Christian eschatology.

The earth and distant extraterrestrial worlds are reeling in the wake of war and ruin. A powerful insubordinate prince, personified as thedragon, thedevil, and thesatan, has mounted an unsuccessful insurrection against the kingdom of heaven in a battle of unimaginable destruction. The planets in our solar system, once teeming with life, have been laid waste and left to careen in their orbitstohu va-bohudesolate and empty. After untold eons of inundated oblivion, the time has finally come to restore the terrestrial realm and appoint a new regent to govern itAdam, the first man.

This is the preamble to the story of mankind. The offspring of Adam have forgotten who they are. Now faced with extinction at the hands of an alien adversary, it is time for them to remember.

In this revolutionary book, Timothy Alberino retraces the pages and reveals the secrets of the greatest story ever told, the one in which we are all inescapably embroiled. From the galactic rebellion in the pre-Adamic past to the creation of mankind on Planet Earth; the fall of the watchers in the pre-Flood world to the machinations of Luciferian forces in modern times; the unveiling of the alien presence to the final battle at Armageddon; Alberino unpacks the synchronicity of these events with scholarly precision and leaves you breathless on the brink of a posthuman apocalypse.

Lecture Series in English

Lecture Series in Spanish

Join Timothy Alberino and the GenSix Productions film crew as they head to the High Andean Plain (Altiplano) of Peru and Bolivia on the shores of legendary Lake Titicaca in search of evidence of the Watchers, their giant offspring, and the technology of the fallen.

Was there high technology in the forgotten world before the Flood of Noah? Who were the true builders of the megaliths? Why is there a deliberate conspiracy to conceal their origins? Discover the answers to these questions in True Legends: Technology of the Fallen!

Are the forbidden secrets of the prehistoric past linked to the forthcoming events of the prophetic future? Is there a hidden hand confiscating and concealing artifacts relating to the world before the Flood of Noah and the hybrid entities that inhabited it? Are living giants still walking the earth today? Is the Vatican preparing for the arrival of alien saviors? In this fast-paced episode, Steve Quayle, Timothy Alberino and Tom Horn unveil the surprising answers to these compelling questions.

An ancient conspiracy has been quietly burgeoning behind the bustle of the modern world. From the mounds of America, to the megalithic ruins on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea, the desiccated bones of dead giants are being systematically disentombed and secreted away to clandestine vaults for apocalyptic purposes. While occultists are attempting to harness the arcane necromancy of the Canaanites, genetic engineers are working feverishly to reconstitute the genomes of the giants, and resurrect the dreaded race of Rephaim in the earth.

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Timothy Alberino - Author, Explorer, Filmmaker

Each year, the Princeton Writing Program offers over 100 Writing Seminars of 12 students each on a wide variety of topics, from Your Life in Numbers and The Politics of Nostalgia to Contagion and The Posthuman. Student voices are at the center of each Writing Seminar community, where they practice not only how to write, but how to become generous and rigorous readers of each others work. In this way writing is understood as critical thinking that can be radically deepened and clarified through a process of feedback and revision.

First-year Writing Seminars are multidisciplinary and designed to emphasize transferable skills in critical inquiry, argument, and research methods. Every first-year student completes a Writing Seminar to fulfill the University writing requirement.

The practices, knowledge, and strategies to which students are introduced in their First-year Writing Seminars serve as a foundation for their ongoing development as sophomores, juniors, and seniors, guided by faculty across the university.

Additional seminars are sometimes offered in collaboration with departments for students beginning work in their concentrations to hone their research and writing skills in the discipline.

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The Writing Seminars | Princeton Writing Program

I grew up watching Doctor Who, Star Wars, and reading Spec Fic. Anything I could get my hands on, if it had a dragon on the cover or a spaceship, I was there. Which back in those days (the Eighties) meant books from the UK or the US. When I discovered that there were people writing Spec Fic in Australia, it blew my mind. It made me think that maybe I could have a crack at it as well.

Australian Spec Fic was extremely hard to find growing up in the Eighties, but these days its everywhere, and its weird and wild and wonderful. Here are five of my favourites, old and new.

This world first collection of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers is incredible. Editor Mykaela Saunders is a Lebanese and Koori writer, of Dharug descent, and she has gathered together a truly impressive anthology of stories. This is a retrospective as well as a showcase of new writers including Alexis Wright, Evelyn Araleun, John Morrissey, Hannah Donnelly, and Samuel Wagan Watson. The depth and breadth of stories here is stunning. There are hauntings, pandemics, AIs, and hurt your-guts-with-laughter satire in these pages

This All Come Back Now sits at the heart of a wave of First Nations Spec Fic and is as important and vital as Dangerous Visions was for the New Wave in the late sixties.

Were just at the beginning of the beginning of addressing the great problems and inequities of this country stolen from the oldest storytelling cultures on earth. These stories are an incredible, wild, and angry ride, and I loved every one of them.

I dont think you can talk about contemporary Australian Spec Fic without talking about Claire G. Coleman. A Noongar woman who has charged onto the science fiction and literary scene. Her stories dont hold back their punches, and why should they?

Perhaps the biggest fantasy to come out of Australia is Australia itself. Terra Nullius tackles the lie at the heart of colonial Australia: that the island continent belonged to no-one and was an uncontested land. Of course, it wasnt (and remains so), but that we need to constantly be reminded of this shows how all-pervasive this mind-set is.

What begins as a classic tale of Settlers, and subjugated Natives, becomes something very different. The hot dry land that Clair Coleman depicts isnt at all what we think it is. Ive had people tell me this isnt SF, but thats only because they havent hit the moment when everything changes. The story twists and turns, and along the way it works the great magic of SF, bringing us the shock of the world were living in now. Like J.G Ballard once said: Earth is the alien planet.

If you want to understand contemporary Australia, or the notion of Australia as an insidious fiction, Claire Colemans work is a great place to start, and she has a new Spec Fic book out called Enclave. You cant go wrong with any of her writing.

Ghost Bird is a YA horror thriller, and a powerful depiction of growing up in a small, dusty country town. While not strictly Spec Fic, using depictions of slightly-altered traditional creatures to avoid misappropriation, it will appeal very much to Spec Fic readers. It has truly scary monsters, and some of the worst of them are people. The book is masterful in its evocation of place. The landscape lives and breathes. We feel its menace, and anger at trespass, as a visceral thing. The dream sequences in this book are heart in your throat great, and I dont think I have looked at a tawny frogmouth (the ghost bird of the title) quite the same ever since.

When Staceys twin sister Laney goes missing its up to Stacey to find her, navigating a world of terrifying dreams and mystery. Its one of the best books I have read in the last few years. A story of community and secrets. The book pulls you in from the start and it doesnt let up.

Lisa is a Wuilli woman from Eidsvold, Queensland, also descended from Wakka Wakka and Gooreng Gooreng nations. She also has a short story in This All Come Back Now.

I love her work, not least because it gets me looking under the couch just in case something is hiding in the shadows.

Margo Lanagan writes the most beautiful prose and uses it to describe the darkest of places.

Tender Morsels is a magical, powerful book about pain and healing, and motherhood and sisters, and boys turning into bears. Margo reworks fairy tales and makes them her own, her characters sing and grumble in utterly striking and unique voices that are, still, strangely familiar. This story riffs off the tale of Snow White and Rose Red, and its the kind of no-nonsense but wildly beautiful telling of a classic tale remade that is endlessly appealing.

It is arguably one of the great works of Australian Fantasy, and Margo one of our greatest writers. Her short story Singing My Sister Down still makes me cry when I think about it.

Theres been quite a bit of novel-length Urban Fantasy written about Brisbane (Ive even dabbled), but not so much science fiction. This is pure and tricksy science fiction. We follow the life of Liv through a series of five novellas, each exploring the impact of technology on sexuality, while the world heats and changes in the background. There is a VR suit that flips the story of two lovers, a consciousness uploaded into jellyfish, a synthetic child, and even a journey into love in a posthuman world.

Its dark in places, and confronting, but Krissy is too clever and their touch too light to make it grim. Krissys novels often skirt the line between realism and spec fic, but this remains my favourite.

It ends in a moment of warmth and transcendence that takes it to the upper level of books that explore not just what it is to be human, but what it is to live post-humanly (hmm, is that even a word?).

Its a genuine Science Fiction classic.

***

Of course, we have many other fine writers in Australia including Greg Egan, Sean Williams, Ellen van Neerven, Shelley Parker-Chan (the first Australian to be shortlisted for a Hugo for best novel), Angela Slatter, Ben Peek, Freya Marske, James Bradley, Alan Baxter, Marianne de Pierres, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Rowena Cory Daniells, Kathleen Jennings, Shaun Tan, Kaaron Warren, Cat Sparks, Grace Dugan, and I could go on.

Unlike those early days of my reading, if youve a hankering to check out some Australian Spec Fic youre spoiled for choice, I reckon.

Trent Jamieson is a multi-award winning Australian novelist and short story writer. He is the author of The Stone Road, the Death Works series, and the Nightbound Land duology. When hes not writing, Trent works as a bookseller at Avid Reader in Brisbane.

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Five Brilliant Books of Aussie Spec Fic - tor.com

BEST ELECTRONIC The Best Electronic Music on Bandcamp: July 2022 By Joe Muggs July 25, 2022

There are landmark projects this month from some of the biggest names of the 21st century UK bass explosion: Mala, Kode9, and Kuedo. Each of these is hugely ambitious, creating entire worlds of their own that reward lengthy exploration. Theres even more science fiction world-building from Posthuman and JBS with Ambient Babe Station Meltdown. But dont worry, this isnt all about headphone voyages; each of these records has at least one foot on the dancefloor, and weve got plenty of bumping house, wriggling garage, infectious disco-punk, and sledgehammer-swinging industrial techno as well.

The 80s revivalism present in Manchester/Ibiza producer Ruf Dugs Balearic street soulall ultra-clean synths and insistent melodyis really easy to get wrong, resulting in facile kitsch. Crucially, RD understands both the production sophistication needed to keep the sounds from being cheesy, as well as how to inject real emotional depth into compositions. Singer Private Joy adds Sade-style richnessin both the street soul and the reggae versionsand its also worth copping RDs instrumentals, where the subtlety of his marimba licks and synthetic horns really shine.

Parisian singer-songwriter Lonie Pernets single is a fantastic, politicized bit of shoegaze/dreampop, but Jennifer Cardini and Damon Jees vocal remix and dub are something else. They keep the dreamy drift and high drama of Pernets melody, but weave them into a six-minute electropop-disco-punk epic that takes us back to the 00s glory days when DFA used to turn indie rock into dancefloor gold on a weekly basis.

Jamie Teasdale is a master of joining the dots in electronic music. With Roly Porter in Vexd, he created fearsome dubstep-rave hybrids; in his solo work as Kuedo, he has found natural points of connection between footwork, grime, trap, ambient, and the most dramatic of sci-fi scores. In the six years since his last album Slow Knife, hes been doing a lot of work in actual soundtracksand, unsurprisingly, that dominates here. There is less darkness and discord here than on Slow Knife, and more sense of exotic worlds to explore. Which is not to say its free of existential terror; but theres a lushness that makes it a delight to immerse in.

UK duo Posthuman are capable of creating some slamming acid tracks, but when it comes to long-form music they tend to go more meditativeas this new album demonstrates. Harking back to mid/late 90s electronicathink Artificial Intelligence compilations, Pete Namlooks deep space ambient, the eerie drift of Boards of CanadaEcho Almaz East creates some fantastically moody atmospherics. It might not have the express narrative concepts of previous PH albums like Mutant City Acid, but it absolutely matches them in compelling world-creation.

There arent many in the game delivering the pure essence of deep house music in its original sense like Baltimore-via-Detroit producer LADYMONIX. As ever in her work, this EP delivers bumping beats with sampled jazz licks and warm, synthetic chords. But each track is so full of character that it never feels cookie-cutter. Highlights include the hugely hopeful funk synths of Big Beat and the masterful interweaving of Robert Owens-like vocal snippets with gurgling acid in Blow Your Mind.

New dark swing is what bloggers called it back around the turn of the millennium: The stripped-bare, crisply produced, bass-heavy UK garage which would mutate in short order into dubstep. It was short-lived but pivotal sound, and now Danish producer Adam Schierbeckhere on a Manchester no-nonsense club music labelrecreates it with glorious gloss and menace. The five tracks here glide through the night like a blacked-out BMW, showing that the futurist vision of 20 years ago is still very much viable.

Morwell calls this emotional soundsystem music, and thats as good a description as any. The title track pulls the classic Burial trick of looping an androgynous voice over a two-step beat; but unlike Burial, Morwell makes it hyper-present, its swelling strings and shivering chimes speaking of the heat of the middle of the dancefloor, even as they are shot through with sadness. Guide and Protect is funkier, but also moodier, bouncing on its heels as it assesses the dangers and pleasures of hot evenings.

Hyperdub founder, academic, and general polymath Steve Kode9 Goodman is known for his grand conceptualism. But his approach is visionary as it is intellectual. His latest album is part of a wider audio-visual-fictional sci-fi project called Astro-Darien, and it really feels like a future world unto itself. Fragments and bursts of ambiance and rhythm join together to take you somewhere thats very confusing but also very vivid. Theres plenty here to make you think, and even more that works directly on the senses.

Recorded in Berlin in 1993 from an abandoned trailer-turned-mobile recording studio, when the notorious Spiral Tribe soundsystem decamped to the city, this LP is a high water mark of illegal rave music. The furious industrial techno and gabber doesnt have a single clean line on it: everything is raw, rusted, dangerous, and punk as fuck. Incredibly, it still sounds fresh nowmaybe its the sense of impending apocalypse in the zeitgeist, but this remains thrilling and galvanizing from start to end.

Digitial Mystik/DMZ deep bass mastermind Mala has gradually expanded his work with live musicians over the years, but this collaboration with the keyboard superstar of the new London jazz generation is something else. Over five tracks, Joe Armon-Joness soul synths and liquid piano licks are blended into the heaviest of heavyweight dub in the most delightful of ways. It never feels like genre fusion, more like a true meeting of mindsand, as the artwork suggests, creates a feeling of sanctuary in its sound.

Canadian-in-Tokyo Zefan Sramek has found his perfect musical home with L.A. label 100% Silk. Everything about his fusion of house, New Age, ambient, and 80s funkmade to sound zoned-out and simple, when in fact its devilishly well finessed and complexdovetails perfectly with the labels aesthetic. The music here is instantly pleasing, but it also lingers with you, commanding you to come back to it again and again.

Canadian singer-songwriter-producer Rhiannon Bouvier has a distinctive way with slacker trip-hop and R&B. Here, as on her debut album and last years collaborative EPs with Telemachus, her voice is deadpan to the point of being sinister, and the beats capture the mixture of jitter and slow flow of the very best trap productionwith the addition of an extra shimmer of field recordings and abstract micro samples. As ever with her EPs, she offers up instrumentals of all three tracks, all of which are well worth the attention of bass music DJs of various tempos.

South London collective GD4YAs mission to dissolve the boundaries between UK garage and jazz continues apace. Both original tracks here have an Afrobeat roll to their live drums; but where Twin Carbon is densely packed with sound and topped with a piercing mono synth solo, Incognito is sultry and full of dub space, with chords floating elegantly through it. The former is remixed into a tough four-to-the-floor garage slammer by young duo Y U QT, while ZeroFG twists the latter into a sultry dream of a two-step groover.

Multiple generations of Bristolian talent combine dubstep, grime, and other soundsystem innovationsalong with the most staggeringly huge bass youll hear this month. The original track is a deep dubstep classic from 2009 by RSDaka Rob SmithSmith & Mighty and More Rockers, whose foundational place in UK bass culture starts way back in the 80s. Multi-genre master Sam Binga has tweaked it brilliantly with a bit of grime lurch and warble, and along with his instrumental take, hes made a vocal version featuring Bristol MC Sylla. All proceeds go to South Bristol youth charities.

Theres mystery, sleaze, conspiracy and magic in the four collaborative pieces between producer JBS and Ambient Babestation Meltdownbest known as a DJ, but here delivering tricky, insinuating, mind-dissolving ASMR-whispered narratives and recitations. Between them, they somehow manage to combine every kind of alley-creeping, neon-lit, smoky-backroom electronic sound of the past 40 years. You can hear deep dubstep, Chris & Cosey, Belgian new beat, Californian beanbags-and-fractals ambient, and a whole lot more. But you may not even note any of that, so swept up will you be in this enveloping sci-fi-noir soundworld.

We may be beset by drought, fire, war, and economic chaos, but dance musics capacity for optimism even in times of trauma abides. These four modular, synth-heavy tracks from Berliner Fantastic Man unashamedly hark back to years gone by: Underground Resistance techno in Gondwana Dance; The Orb-adjacent dub house in Low World Order and Party Rug; and mellow, sunrise acid-and-pianos rave on the self-explanatory By 1990-91. But theyre not wistful throwbacks. Each bubbles with the same determined yearning for better times these sounds always had.

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The Best Electronic Music on Bandcamp: July 2022 - bandcamp.com

Para Site is proud to present a unique off-site exhibition Post-Human NarrativesIn the Name of Scientific Witcheryat the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences featuring all-new commissions by Betty Apple, Ho Sin Tung, Mayumi Hosokura, Hui Serene Sze Lok, Florence Lam, Liv Tsim, Hou Lam Tsui, Ice Wong Kei Suet, and Bobby Yu Shuk Pui, curated by Kobe Ko.

The exhibition features nine women artists from Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan, whose all-new commissions engage with practices in the medical and scientific establishments throughout history that are often considered controversial or unorthodoxfrom genetic engineering to xenotransplantation, dream analysis, sound healing, and ritualistic performance. Taking place outside of Para Sites space, Post-Human NarrativesIn the Name of Scientific Witcheryunfolds in the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, in Sheung Wan, a unique and historically charged setting where the exhibition seeks to reconfigure new speculative narratives around science, magic, and witchcraft.

Part of an ongoing project titled Post-Human Narratives, the exhibition marks the third iteration of a collective series of onsite and online initiatives using posthumanist thinking as a departure point. Focusing on the porous boundary between dichotomies such as nature versus human, human versus machine, and the empirical world versus the supernatural, the exhibition aims at centring peripheral histories of the mythical and magical as a way to challenge prevailing narratives centred on scientific rationality.

The exhibition title Scientific Witcherycomes from the lyrics of a fantasy anime track, a reference that implies an ambivalent relationship among science, magic, and witchcraftprior to the advent and spread of Western medicine, witch doctorsor shamans in various cultures often perform the role of healer. The participating artists are invited to respond to the fluidity and contradictions evoked by these connections through video, performance, sound, objects, and photography. Displayed in conversation with the historical exhibits in the museum, the audience is invited to contemplate what constitutes canonical scientificknowledge in a posthuman world.

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Post-Human NarrativesIn the Name of Scientific Witchery - Announcements - E-Flux

In the blink of an eye on the evolutionary timescale, humans climbed down the trees, changed the landscape of this planet like no species before, and left their footprint in space. At each stage in the evolution of modern humans, we have strived to break free from the limits imposed upon us by biology. A major part of the human journey has been the development of new technologies, a phenomenon that has grown exponentially over the last century.

Transhumanism is an intellectual and technological paradigm that seeks to leverage this progress to further enhance the human condition. It cultivates a belief wherein by freeing the human body and mind of their biological limitations, humanity will transcend into a future unconstrained by death.

What does transhumanism look like? Its proponents promise a world where lifespan-extending breakthroughs allow us to live longer. Transhumanism will push research toward anti-aging treatments that let us stay healthy for a greater proportion of our longer lives. Mind-controlled prosthetics will offer disabled people the opportunity to regain control of their limbs.

Indeed, much of this is already happening. For instance, cochlear implants restore a sense of hearing, and pacemakers can add decades to patients lifespans. Recently, surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center transplanted a pig heart into a patient. Through genetic engineering, the scientists subdued the immune responses that would have otherwise made the patients body reject the organ. (Unfortunately, he later died.) In the future, transhumanists claim, we may be able to regenerate our organs, including hearts and brains, such that they never grow old.

But transhumanism proponents often go far beyond these breakthroughs. Many in the movement suggest that a singularity is the inescapable outcome of exponential technological progress. In such a future, they claim, it would be possible for humans to upload their minds to a computer and live forever in the digital realm. Some are signing up now to be frozen until such a time arrives that they can be revived.

So, on the one hand, we have technologies that are lengthening and improving the quality of our lives. But on the other hand, we are promised a techno-optimistic future where humans are immortal. History is rife with con artists promising the elixir of life. Is transhumanism any different? Is transhumanism the savior of humanity or a false prophecy?

Credit: Glenn Harvey / Big Think

In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a fanfiction novel by Eliezer Yodkowsky, Professor Quirrell tells Harry of a distant future when humanity would migrate from one solar system to another. He says that humans then wont tell the children about the history of Ancient Earth until theyre old enough to bear it; and when they learn theyll weep to hear that such a thing as Death had ever once existed!

Death, indeed, is the most profound of limitations that biology imposes on us. While immortality is more fiction than fact at the moment, radical improvements in longevity are already underway.

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Over the last few decades, the growth of omics technologies has made it possible to understand how genes contribute to phenotypes. Research in various model organisms has revealed that several genes involved in stress resistance, the length of telomeres (the ends of chromosomes that shorten with aging), and cellular division are linked to the aging process. In the last few years, longevity companies have begun exploring their mechanisms of action to develop anti-aging drugs.

Indeed, some of this research shows promise. But the underlying assumption is that aging is simply a disease like any other that can be cured. Is that true?

One important limitation to keep in mind is that much of this research is being done in mice. Thats fine, but unlike mice in laboratory settings, humans dont live in highly protected spaces, a luxury that is arguably a major factor in increasing lifespans. Also, the physiology of mice and men are too different to claim that any effects seen in the former will be seen in the latter. Poor translation from mice to humans remains a challenge for nearly all anti-aging drugs under development, as well as biomedical research in general.

Longevity researchers often see aging as a disease that can be cured. The hypothesized cures often involve restoring vitality by reversing the biological clock. Regenerative medicine technologies are generating a lot of interest, especially following Shinya Yamanakas work in inducing specialized cells to turn back into stem cells upon the introduction of a few transcription factors, molecules that regulate gene expression.

However, this area too is filled with overhyped studies. Telomeres are unreliable aging clocks, and finding a cure for aging is tricky if it cannot be accurately measured. After all, anti-aging drugs are tested by their ability to slow down these aging clocks. But, if these clocks arent true indicators of biological age, then studies based upon them are not producing reliable information. Likewise, using research on stem cells ability to rejuvenate our bodies is benchmarked by how well they rewind the biological clock. Worse, unproven stem cell therapies can lead to serious side effects, including blindness and cancers. One womans botched stem cell treatment led to bone fragments growing around her eye.

The Nobel Prize-winning CRISPR technique, which allows researchers to make precise edits in the genome, is incredibly powerful. Undoubtedly, it will make scientific research faster and lead to world-changing breakthroughs. Last year, the technology was used to cure a patient of sickle cell anemia, an inherited blood disorder that was previously incurable.

However, diseases that are caused by single genes, such as sickle cell anemia, are incredibly rare. For example, cardiovascular diseases that constitute the leading cause of death globally are shaped by a complex interplay of multiple genetic and environmental factors. Most likely, genetic engineering will not be able to cure diseases with complex etiologies. For the same reason, this is why the concept of designer babies with pre-selected traits like athletic ability and high intelligence are mostly a fantasy. Many of the characteristics we care about are controlled by hundreds, if not thousands, of genes.

Genetic engineering is also unlikely to be used to cure babies of various illnesses or conditions before they are born. If the objective is to avoid birth defects, pre-implantation screening and embryo selection can achieve that without the need for genetic manipulation.

Credit: Glenn Harvey / Big Think

Ensuring our bodies survive indefinitely through regeneration isnt the only route to immortality. As many sci-fi enthusiasts will vouch, one day, we might upload our minds into vast supercomputers. And like many other technologies touted by transhumanists, there are genuine advances in brain-computer interfaces. For example, some patients in a vegetative state can now communicate thanks to advances in neuroscience. Thus, transhumanists see uploading our minds as the zenith of a trend already underway. But this argument is dominated by hype rather than science.

A major and necessary milestone on the pathway to replicating the human brain in silico is understanding how the brain works. Indeed, we cannot build a conscious entity from scratch if we dont know how consciousness originates. We currently do not and can barely even define it. As most neuroscientists (but perhaps few AI engineers) will admit, we know astonishingly little about how the human brain works. It is still mostly a black box.

Why? The human brain has 1,000 trillion connections between neurons. Properly replicating a brain in other words, you would require precisely reproducing these connections and the information that they contain. (How the brain actually stores information is yet another basic thing we dont understand.) The sheer amount of information needed to reproduce one brain is roughly equivalent to the size of the internet (the 2016 version of the internet, anyway). And the computing power necessary to operate a single computerized brain in real-time is unimaginable at the moment.

Even if we had the necessary computing power, scientists have no idea how the brains structure and function translate to subjective, conscious experience. The sensation of eating chocolate is not something we can reproduce.Additionally, the entire notion that the brain or consciousness is uploadable is dubious. It stems in large part from the belief that our brains are like computers. However, that comparison is not correct. The brain as a computer is just a useful metaphor comparing the complexity of brains to that of humanitys most sophisticated invention; it is not biologically accurate. The brain does not operate like a computer.

Ultimately, all these objections to transhumanism are rooted in a critique of reductionism. Biological systems cannot be reduced to interactions between cells and genes. Cellular systems cannot be reduced to interactions between chemicals. Chemical systems cannot be reduced to interactions between atoms. And quantum mechanics shows us that even atoms cannot be reduced to simple interactions between protons and electrons. But transhumanists seem to believe that this is how the Universe operates, a view that is increasingly out of step with 21st-century science, which is holistic and systems-oriented.

Today, we know that many phenomena are emergent in nature. This means that their properties arise as a consequence of the interactions between their parts. For instance, the biological law of natural selection is not the direct result of the laws of physics. Instead, it emerges from the interactions of countless organisms. Simply knowing how protons and electrons interact does not yield any insight into the emergent phenomenon of biological evolution. Similarly, imitating the interactions of a quadrillion neurons in a computer almost certainly will not allow us to reproduce the emergent phenomenon of the mind. As Susan Lewis writes in her book Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism, The viability of transhumanists dream depends on a compartmentalization of the mind and brain that scientific findings increasingly supersede.

In an essay on emergence, 13.8 columnist Adam Frank wrote:

If you know the fundamental entities and their laws, you can, in principle, predict everything that will or can happen. All of future history, all of evolution, is just a rearrangement of those electrons and quarks. In the reductionist view, you, your dog, your love for your dog, and the doggie love it feels for you are all nothing but arrangements and rearrangements of atoms. End of story.

Obviously, nobody really believes that. Yet, this sort of thing has to be true for the biggest promises of transhumanism to work. The problem is that it isnt true.

Therefore, instead of focusing on a distant future where sci-fi somehow becomes reality, transhumanists ought to redirect their energy to improving the human condition today. Many of the technologies upon which transhumanists base their aspirations can make a real difference here and now.

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Transhumanism: Savior of humanity or false prophecy? - Big Think

Image credit: Wendelin Jacober, via Flickr (cropped).

Matrixfans, take heed: Dartmouth College physicistMarcelo Gleiserisnota fan of the idea that we are all living in a giant simulation created by intelligent aliens. He takes issue with it forethical reasonsas well as physics ones: It is little more than a fancy excuse for escapist fantasizing.

Well, some prominent people in our world are escapists! That would include science broadcasterNeil deGrasse Tyson,driverless car entrepreneurElon Musk,and former Astronomer RoyalMartin Rees.

Gleiser, author ofThe Island of Knowledge(2014), traces the idea that our universe is a computer simulation by advanced aliens to an influential 2003paperby Oxford philosopherNick Bostrom,director of theFuture of Humanity Instituteand author ofSuperintelligence:Paths, Strategies, Dangers(2014).

Heres the papershypothesis:

This paper argues thatat least oneof the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

There are some glitcheswith Bostroms whole approach,Gleiser notes:

One such glitch is that there is no reason to stop the simulation at one super-advanced posthuman (or alien) species. It could very well be that our simulators are being simulated by even more advanced simulators, and those by even more advanced ones, ad infinitum. Who is the First Simulator?

Assuming that the regression does not continue endlessly, only the First Simulator is real. But then, why do any simulators even bother?

For Bostroms argument to work, a key assumption is that advanced intelligences will have an interest in simulating their ancestors in this case, us. Why would they, exactly? Would they expect to gain some new information about their reality by looking at their evolutionary past? It seems to me that being so advanced, they would have collected enough knowledge about their past to leave them with little interest in this kind of simulation. Looking forward will interest them much more. They may have virtual reality museums, where they could go and experience the lives and tribulations of their ancestors. But a full-fledged, resource-consuming simulation of an entire Universe? This sounds like a colossal waste of time and energy.

Of course, really advanced simulators may have a nearly infinite number of demo universes to play with

At root, though, Gleiser just doesnt think that the notion (sometimes called theplanetarium hypothesis) that we are an advance aliens simulation is good for us.

Read the rest at Mind Matters News, published by Discovery Institutes Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

See the article here:

Physicist: Why the Alien Simulation Hypothesis Is Bunk - Discovery Institute

The first of the month is always a great time to check out new content. There are 125 excellent arrives on Prime Video on July 1.

Its the time of the month when we get the large drop of releases. Of course, Prime Video doesnt expect you to get through everything in a day. There just isnt enough time. Theres not even enough time to get through everything on the weekend, even though this is a long weekend.

Instead, this is to get you through the quieter parts of the month. However, there are going to be some shows and movies youll want to watch right away.

We have to start with the new Prime Original Series,The Terminal List. Starring Chris Pratt, the series follows James Reece, a SEAL who returns home after an ambush on his platoon. Hes the only surviving member of the platoon, but its soon clear that theres some big conspiracy going on.

If you prefer an older movie ith plenty of emotion and action, youll want to turn toGladiator. This movie is popular with many for the quality acting, the great storyline, and the battle choreography. This is the best Roman Empire movie youll ever watch.

How about going back to Matt Damons earlier days.The Talented Mr. Ripley is one of the movies dropping today. Damon plays the title character, a man who craves the blue waters and idyllic landscape of 1950s Italy. He heads out there in search for Dickie Greenleaf, played by Jude Law, whose father wants him back k in America. However, Ripley wants to make Dickies lifestyle his own.

Series

Alternatino With Arturo Castro S1 (2019)The Terminal List (2022)*Very Cavallari (2018)Top Gear America: Season 2+Liga MX Apertura 2022+

Movies

16-Love (2012)1UP (2022)52 Pick-Up (1986)A Feral World (2020)A Hologram for the King (2016)A Very Brady Sequel (1996)Adventure Boyz (2020)Aeon Flux (2005)Ali (2001)Ali Directors Cut (2001)All Roads to Pearla (2019)As Long as We Both Shall Live (2016)Attack of the Unknown (2020)Awaken The Shadowman (2017)Barry Munday (2010)Betrayed (1988)Blown Away (1994)Blue Jay (2016)Body of Evidence (1993)Breakfast at Tiffanys (1961)Broadway Danny Rose (1984)Cadillac Man (1990)Call of the Wolf (2017)Cedar Rapids (2011)Changeland (2019)Chasing Molly (2019)Clueless (1995)Coffy (1973)Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)Coyotaje (2019)Criminal Law (1988)Cruel Hearts (2020)Cruiser (2020)Dark Blue (2003)Dark Waters (2019)Dave Made A Maze (2017)DC Noir (2019)Dead Ringers (1988)Drillbit Taylor (2008)Easy Does It (2020)Europa Report (2013)Eye Of The Needle (1981)Four Feathers (2002)Forev (2014)French Postcards (1979)Frisky (2015)Futureworld (1976)Ginos Wife (2016)Gladiator (2000)Good Neighbors (2011)Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)Here Comes the Devil (2012)High-Rise (2016)Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)Hot DogThe Movie (1984)Hot Fuzz (2007)In Action (2021)Infinitum: Subject Unknown (2021)Internal Affairs (1990)Into the Blue (2005)Iris Warriors (2022)Jacobs Ladder (1990)Jamie Marks Is Dead (2014)Jennifers Body (2009)Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)John Dies at the End (2012)Kiltro (2006)Lincoln (2012)Little Man Tate (1991)Loves Spell (2020)Lust For Love (2014)Mandela (1997)Midnight in Paris (2011)Moments in Spacetime (2001)No Way to Live (2017)Party With Me (2021)Patriot Games (1992)Pieces of April (2003)Play the Game (2009)Pretty Ugly People (2008)Racing With The Moon (1984)Raging Bull (1980)Revolutionary Road (2009)Rosemarys Baby (1968)Runner (2018)Say Your Prayers (2021)Slash (2016)Son of God (2014)Speed (1994)Stay (2021)Stuff (2017)Sunset Song (2016)Swiped (2018)Switchback (1997)The Arbors (2020)The Fighter (2010)The Fighting Temptations (2003)The Generals Daughter (1999)The Gospel According to Andre (2018)The Honor Farm (2017)The Hunted (2003)The Italian Job (2003)The Mongolian Connection (2019)The Pirates! Band Of Misfits (2012)The Posthuman Project (2014)The Queen of Versailles (2012)The Republic of Two (2014)The Rest of Us (2020)The Sum of All Fears (2002)The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)The Time Machine (2002)Tucked (2018)Unicorn City (2012)Venus and Serena (2012)Virtuosity (1995)Wargames (1983)We Love You, Sally Carmichael! (2017)We Take The Low Road (2020)When Icarus Fell (2018)Yentl (1984)

What are you streaming on Prime Video today? What are you saving for later this month? Let us know in the comments below.

Watch thousands of shows and movies on Amazon with a 30-day free trial of Prime Video.

Here is the original post:

More than 120 titles are coming to Prime Video today (July 1) - Amazon Adviser

As part of the renaming, Phenomenons Detroit-based growth marketing arm is being rebranded as Posthuman and will continue to be led by its founder, Shane Bliemaster, now president of Posthuman.

Human Standard focuses on strategy, branding and design but has evolved to offer other services such as advertising, content, growth marketing and more. The agency has created work for brands such as DC Entertainment, The Nature Conservancy, American Express and Stash Tea.

Organic has hired Danielle Aldrich, as senior VP of partnerships, a new position at the Omnicom Group agency. She will report to CEO Cathy Butler. Aldrich will lead business development while also building the Organic brand. Prior to coming to the agency, Aldrich worked at independent Circus Maximus and Stagwell Group's Crispin Porter Bogusky.

Ogilvy PR has named Rahul Titus as the first global head of influence. He will report to Ogilvy PR Global CEO Julianna Richter. Titus has worked with the agencys influence team in the United Kingdom since 2017. In his new role, he will continue to help Ogilvy scale its capabilities across the agencys global network.

Creative agency Laundry Service has hired Del Credle as head of strategy and media, a new position at the agency. He will report to agency head Jordan Fox. Credle will oversee strategy and paid media across all clients and be based out of the agencys L.A. office. He joins after three years as head of strategy for IW Group.

Independent agency Marcus Thomas has acquired Cincinnati-based analytics firm ROInsights to bolster its data and analytics offerings. The acquisition was led by the agencys Chief Operating Officer Scott Chapin. ROI is a 10-person company and will work with Marcus Thomas current analytics team and report to Co-Founders Nathan Bauer and Patrick Koman.

Newly created media content and production company SuperBloom House hired Adam Milano and Gregg Hirschorn as head of content development and head of content strategy, respectively. The two new hires will lead branded content for their clients. Milano has worked for Syco Entertainment, Sony Pictures and Live Nation and Hirschorn joins after a stint as group connections strategy director at 72andSunny.

Stagwell creative agency Yamamoto has restructured its creative department with four new promotions. Shawn Pals, formerly the agencys group creative director, has been elevated to executive creative director; Vince Koci and Carrie Whalen, formerly associate creative directors, are both now creative directors; and Sarah Koster has been promoted to the role of design director.

See the rest here:

Ad agency news you need to know July 1, 2022 - AdAge.com

Conspiracy theories are nothing new on TikTok, and another one of them has gone viral, offering alleged proof we are all living in a simulated universe created and controlled by some unknown power we have no ability to grasp.

Many people get excited about this theory because it would mean there is something greater for us to discover beyond the universe we think we know. Others, however, are frightened because it would potentially mean we are all being watched 24/7, (which we already know is partially true considering our phones are listening to us much of the time).

But is it true?

Simulation theory, also known as the simulation hypothesis, is the theory that we're actually all living in a computer-simulated reality meaning the reality we think we think we know is entirely artificial, sort of like the concept behind the 1998 Jim Carrey film "The Truman Show" or Keanu Reeves infamous 1999 classic "The Matrix."

The theory recently caught on renewed fire after TikToker Heidi Wong shared the argument presented by Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom in a 2003 paper titled "Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?"

According to Bostrom, there's a roughly 50/50 chance that we're living in a simulation.

"This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true," his abstract begins. "(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation."

The reasoning behind Bostrum's theory is what's known as a trilemma, a complex problem with three potential solutions.

As Anil Ananthaswamy explained in Scientific American, the simulation argument goes like this:

"Bostrom imagined a technologically adept civilization that possesses immense computing power and needs a fraction of that power to simulate new realities with conscious beings in them. Given this scenario ... at least one proposition in the following trilemma must be true: First, humans almost always go extinct before reaching the simulation-savvy stage. Second, even if humans make it to that stage, they are unlikely to be interested in simulating their own ancestral past. And third, the probability that we are living in a simulation is close to one."

Basically, if we believe that some advanced civilization is likely to be capable of creating a simulated reality that is like existence as we know it, chances are good that we are already living in one.

RELATED:According To TikTok, Einstein Thought We're Already Dead And It May Be True

TikTok videos regarding simulation theory have since garnered millions of views. And many of them contain at least somewhat believable theories and raise good questions about whether or not we may be in living in a simulation.

In 2020, astronomer David Kipping of Columbia University offered his own analysis of Bostrom's theory in which he agreed there is about a 50-50 chance we either live in a base reality where no simulations occur, or that we are living in a simulation.

Using a mathematical estimation and prediction method known as Bayesian model averaging, Kipping says "the probability that we are sims is in fact less than 50%."

However, he furthers the original argument by explaining that once humans create a simulation that harbors conscious beings, the chances shift so that "you are only left with the simulation hypothesis."

"The day we invent that technology, it flips the odds from a little bit better than 5050 that we are real to almost certainly we are not real, according to these calculations," Kipping says.

If you take a look at the quality of the video games humans have created over just the past couple of decades, it doesn't seem all that outrageous to believe these characters could someday soon be conscious beings.

Honestly, this does make sense if you think about how realistic video games are getting day by day and all the little glitches you see in the world that are unexplainable would make sense behind this theory, TikToker Nikki Jain says.

When TikTokers refer to glitches in the matrix they are referring to videos and pictures of captured things that are either unexplainable or that seem impossible.

This may mean cars hitting invisible objects, planes staying in one place in the sky, dogs randomly appearing, as referred to in Jains second simulation theory video.

RELATED:Why Some People Think We're Actually Living In The Year 1725

TikToker Scarlett Mills shared a series videos detailing the history of this theory, noting that notable scientific minds like Elon Musk and late physicist Stephen Hawking have spoken about their belief in the plausibility of simulation theory.

During a panel discussion at the 2016 Code Conference, SpaceX founder and Techno King of Tesla Musk stated that "the odds that we are in base reality is one in billions."

"And actually, I mean arguably we should hope that that's true," Musk continues, "because otherwise, if civilization stops advancing, then that may be due to some calamitous event that erases civilization. So maybe we should be hopeful that this is a simulation because otherwise ... either we're going to create simulations that are indistinguishable from reality or civilization will cease to exist. Those are the two options."

In 2021, Wade McKenzie, one of the metal artists behind the monolith that popped up in California back in December of 2020, coined the term "simulization," which he defines on Urban Dictionary under the handle McHiram as "Civilization existing within the realm of a simulated reality."

This label seems apt if used to describe our civilization as Musk refers to it if simulation theory is, indeed, correct.

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TikToker Ashley Lanese agrees with Musk's assessment, comparing humans to Sims but asserting that even though the Sims are part of a game, they are able to make their own decisions.

If life is a simulation, then that means to me, that we have more choice, more chance to choose the life that we desire, she says.

According to philosopher David Chalmers, there is certainly a possibility that we're living in a simulation. But that shouldn't change anything.

"If we discovered were in a simulation, that would change some things. We might want to escape the simulation and get beyond it. At the very least, maybe wed want to try and communicate with the simulators," he says in an interview.

"But I think that simulation or no simulation, life is still perfectly meaningful."

RELATED:There's An Alternate Reality Theory On TikTok That Claims The World Really Ended In 2012, And It Makes Sense

Megan Hatch is a writer who covers celebrity and entertainment news and loves internet pop culture. Follow her on Instagram and on Twitter for artsy and funny content.

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'Proof' We're Living In A Computer Simulation, According To TikTok And Elon Musk - YourTango