Category Archives: Transhumanist

Reg Lectures If the recent elections clash of centre right and a bit left leaves you cold, perhaps the prospect of libertarians versus transhumanists might make you sit up and take notice.

Those were just two of the alternatives Jamie Bartlett highlighted in his Register Lecture, covering his latest book, Radicals, which details two years of researching, and occasionally living with, a range individuals and groups proposing radically different ways to organise society.

Over the course of the talk, Jamie covered his experiences travelling with the US transhumanist party, reported from inside the echo chamber with groups like the EDL, and explained the reasons why a century-old border dispute between Serbia and Croatia could result in the worlds first ultra-libertarian state.

You can see the full lecture below.

Youtube Video

What you wont see is the Q&A, where topics like psychedelic and polyamorous communes were thrown into the mix - after the usual Reg lecture nibbles and top-ups break.

But dont worry. Were cooking up some more lectures that will run in the autumn. To ensure your space, watch this space.

In the mean time, check out our entire archive of Reg lectures here.

More here:
Reg Radicals lecture encompasses far right, libertarians, and mushrooms... - The Register

A new breed of human is on its way. Transhumanists are a group who seeks to accelerate the evolution of humanity through science and technology. Oliver Pickup investigates the movement, the implications for humankind and asks, is it morally wrong to augment humans?

The worlds preeminent cyborg artist, Neil Harbisson (pictured above), has been stopped several times a day, every single day, since March 22, 2004. Its impossible for him to forget the date: that Monday, 13 years ago, he had an antenna fixed to his skull in order to hear colour. The attention generated by the unique appendage can be really tiring, London-born Harbisson admits to Raconteur. But, he believes, such sights will be the norm, and sooner rather than later thanks to the inexorable march of technology.

Initially people questioned whether my antenna was a reading light, says the 34-year-old, who sees in grayscale but can sense colours (the majority of which are beyond the visual spectrum) 360 degrees around him through audible vibrations. By 2005 those who approached me thought it was a microphone; in 2007 most reckoned it was a hands-free device; and the following year a lot of them suggested it could be a GoPro camera. In 2012 the top guess was something to do with Google Glass, and more recently a selfie stick has been popular. Lately, people shout Pokmon atme.

Similarly, officials at Her Majestys Passport Office didnt quite know what to make of Harbissons antenna to begin with. On the photograph I submitted I argued that it was not electronic equipment but a new body part, and that I felt that I was a cyborg, a union between cybernetics and organism, he continues. Im not wearing technology; I am technology. It doesnt feel that Im wearing anything, its just an integrated part of my body; its merged with my skull so it is part of my skeleton. There is no difference between an arm, my nose, an ear, or my antenna. In the end, they agreed and allowed me to appear in my passport photograph with theantenna.

Harbisson had no real issue adjusting to sleeping with an antenna atop his head, but there were other teething problems. As I had become taller, at the beginning I would bump into doors upon entering cars, and get stuck in branches of trees, he says. And I would struggle to put jumpers on. I had to become used to the organ, the body part, as well as get used to the new sense, and it took a while. Having a new sense is something that most people have never experienced. It transforms your life because you perceive absolutely everything differently.

Moon Ribas, Harbissons Catalan partner and fellow cyborg artist who he met when the pair studied at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, has two implants in her arms that allow her to perceive the seismic activity of the Earth and the Moon. Formerly, she warped her vision for a three-month period by using kaleidoscope glasses, and would wear earrings that quivered depending on the velocity of people moving behindher.

For fun, the out-there couple enjoys linking to satellites using NASAs live feed from the International Space Station. Instead of using my eyes to see the images, I simply connect the antenna to the data that comes from the satellites, and then I receive vibrations in my head, depending on the colours, Harbisson says. They have so many sensors in space that are collecting data, but no-one is actually looking at it. I feel Im a sensestronaut or a mindstronaut because my senses are in space while my body is here onEarth.

Mindstronauting aside, its been a busy year for Harbisson, and a significant one for the future of humanity, with cyborgs in the ascendancy. At Marchs South by Southwest the annual conglomerate of film, interactive media, music festivals and conferences held in Austin, Texas Harbisson, Ribas, and BorgFest founder Rich MacKinnon presented a draft of the declaration of cyborg rights and also introduced an accompanying flag which you can only detect if you can senseinfrared.

We believe it should be a universal right for anyone to have a new sense or a new organ, argues Harbisson. Many people can identify strongly with cybernetics without having any type of implant, and there has been a lot of support. There may even be a cyborg pride parade in Austin nextyear.

Additionally, in February his startup Cyborg Nest, co-founded with Ribas in 2015, began shipping its first product, North Sense a $425 DIY embeddable device that gently vibrates when the user faces magnetic north. (Mind-boggling pipeline projects, kept under wraps, reportedly include silent communication using Bluetooth, a pollution-detecting device, and eyes in the back of thehead.)

Im not wearing technology; I am technology

Cyborg Nest is just one of a growing cluster of biohacker startups offering a variety of sense-augmenting implants, with body enhancements, prosthetics and genetic modifications are increasingly popular. Pittsburgh-based Grindhouse Wetware, for instance, has been developing implantables since 2012, such as Circadia, a device that sends biometric data wirelessly via Bluetooth to a phone or tablet, and Northstar, which allows gesture recognition and can detect magnetic north (as well as the rather gimmicky feature of mimicking bioluminescence with subdermal LEDs).

What does it mean to be human? The answering of this existential puzzler has powered progression for millennia, but now, as nascent technologies fuse physical, digital and biological worlds, it has never been more complex, and critical, to define the age-old question. Alarmingly, we are hurtling inexorably towards the singularity a hypothetical point when artificial intelligence advances so much that humanity will be irreversibly disrupted. But, in fact, the migration from man to machine has alreadystarted.

Entering Sir Tim Berners-Lee the Briton who created the World Wide Web 28 years ago into a Google search throws up almost 400,000 results. That figure is almost six times fewer than transhumanism, a movement few have heard of, yet one which is beating the heart of progress, albeit beneath theradar.

The touchstone definition from a 1990 essay by Dr. Max More, the Oxford University-educated chief executive officer of Arizona-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation, states: Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles andvalues.

The benefits would be even broader across the whole of society if everybody got a little bitsmarter

A raft of tech billionaires are considered either de facto transhumanists or are fully signed up to the movement. Luminaries include Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and Facebooks first professional investor worth an estimated $2.7 billion by Forbes, Elon Musk, of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX fame, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and according to H+Pedia (an online resource that aims to spread accurate, accessible, non-sensational information about transhumanism) Facebooks CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Dr. Anders Sandberg, a research fellow at Oxford Universitys Future of Humanity Institute, suggests that transhumanism questions the human condition, and tells Raconteur: It is in many ways a continuation of the humanist project, seeing human flourishing as a goal, but recognising that human nature is not fixed. Rather than assume it is all going to be an entropic mess, transhumanism suggests that many serious problems can be solved and that we do have a chance for a greatfuture.

There are practical, utilitarian, reasons why submitting ones body to technology makes sense at least to Dr. Sandberg and his fellow transhumanists. Consider that the Government spends 85.2 billion on education every year; even a slight improvement of the results would either be a huge saving or enable much better outcomes, he continues. One intelligence quotient (IQ) point gives you about a two per cent income increase, although the benefits would be even broader across the whole of society if everybody got a little bitsmarter.

Childhood intelligence also predicts better health in later life, longer lives, less risk of being a victim of crime, more long-term oriented and altruistic planning controlling for socioeconomic status, etc. Intelligence does not make us happier, but it does prevent a fair number of bad things from divorce to suicide and unhappiness.

While Dr. Sandberg suggests that the aforementioned DIY grinder self-surgery movement problematic he is firmly in favour of self-experimentation and bodyhacking. He flags up the apparent triumph of Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of Seattle-based BioViva, who in September 2015 underwent what her company labelled the first gene therapy successful against human ageing; it was claimed that the treatment had reversed the biological age of Parrishs immune cells by 20years.

The Swede is also optimistic about the prospect of mind uploading, or whole-brain emulation, as he prefers to call it. He acknowledges that the enabling technology is decades away but believes we could become software people with fantastic benefits: no ageing; customisable bodies; backups in case something went wrong; space travel via radio or laser transmission; and existing as multiplecopies.

Little surprise, then, that Dr. Sandberg is keen on cryonics the deep-freezing of recently deceased people in the belief that scientific advances will revive them and is fully signed up for Dr. Mores Alcor, the largest of the worlds four cryopreservation facilities. It currently houses 117 patients, who are considered suspended, rather than deceased: detained in some liminal stasis between this world and whatever follows it, or does not, Irish author Mark OConnell writes in To Be a Machine on the subject of humans of thefuture.

For Dr. Sandberg, the $200,000 cost of whole-body perseveration is justifiable as it would be irrational not to take the negligible odds that technologic advances will revive him, at some point. Sure, the chance of it working is small say five per cent but that is still worth it to me, he says. And after all, to truly be a human is to be a self-changing creature.

David Wood, chairman of London Futurists, counters that question by firing a cluster of his own, asking Raconteur: Is it morally wrong to teach people to read, or vaccinate people? Is it morally wrong to extend peoples lives by using new medical treatments, or seek a cure for motor neurone disease, or cancer, or Alzheimers? They are all forms of augmentations.

Having warmed up the Scot, who boasts two degrees from Cambridge University (his thesis for the second was entitled Philosophy in the wake of quantum mechanics), launches his next salvo. Recall the initial moral repugnance expressed by people when heart transplants first took place, he continues. Or when test-tube babies were created, or when transgender operations were introduced. This moral repugnance has, thankfully, largely subsided. It will be the same, in due course, for most of the other enhancements foreseen by transhumanists.

Wood, a science-fiction lover from childhood, was switched on to transhumanism in the early 2000s, after reading The Age of Spiritual Machines, a seminal book written by futurist Ray Kurzweil, who would later be personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page to bring natural language understanding to the organisation. Famously, the American author has predicted that the singularity is on course to happen in 2045,though many critics dismiss his forecast as fanciful anddogmatic.

We could become software people with fantastic benefits

Regardless, transhumanism is on the rise in Britain. The UK Transhumanist Association (UKTA) used to half-jokingly refer to themselves as six men in a pub, says Wood, who in July 2015 co-founded H+Pedia The UKTA was superseded, in stages, by London Futurists which covers a wider range of topics and we now have over 6,000 members in our Meetup group.

So, what does the near future hold forhumanity?

We can envision ever larger gaps in capability between enhanced humans and unenhanced humans, adds Wood. This will be like the difference between literate and illiterate humans, except that the difference will be orders of magnitude larger.

Transhumanists anticipate transcending the limitations which have been characteristics of human experience since the beginnings of Prehistory: ageing; death; and deep flaws in reasoning. Maybe once that happens, the resulting beings will no longer be calledhumans.

Continued here:
Humans of the near future - Raconteur

Editors note: This post is related toThe Enhancing Life Project, funded by theJohn Templeton Foundation.The project is comprised of an interdisciplinary group of scholars who examine aspirations that move individuals and communities into the future, and the intersection between spirituality and technology.

If youre like most people, you may associate the phrase eternal life with religion: The promise that we can live forever if we just believe in God. You probably dont associate the phrase with an image of scientists working in a lab, peering at worms through microscopes or mice skittering through boxes. But you should.

The quest for eternal life has only recently begun to step out from behind the pews and into the petri dish.

I recently discussed the increasing feasibility of the transhumanist vision due to continuing advancements in biotech, gene- and cell-therapies. These emerging technologies, however, dont erase the fact that religion not science has always been our salve for confronting deaths inevitability. For believers, religion provides an enduring mechanism (belief and virtue) behind the perpetuity of existence, and shushes our otherwise frantic inability to grasp: How can I, as a person, just end?

The Mormon transhumanist Lincoln Cannon argues that science, rather than religion, offers a tangible solution to this most basic existential dilemma. He points out that it is no longer tenable to believe in eternal life as only available in heaven, requiring the death of our earthly bodies before becoming eternal, celestial beings.

Would a rational person choose to believe in an uncertain, spiritual afterlife over the tangible persistence of ones own familiar body and the comforting security of relationships weve fostered over a lifetime of meaningful interactions?

From a secular perspective, the choice seems obvious. But from a religious perspective, weighing faith and science is not as clear. Its not even clear whether a choice must be made.

If youre Mormon, for example, you believe that humans should and will become Gods themselves, a view consistent with transhumanist ambitions to take human capabilities and nature into their own hands.

From a Christian perspective, too, there is no inherent contradiction between religious principles and the use of science to extend our life spans or change who and what we fundamentally are. Francis Schaeffer, credited with launching evangelicals and fundamentalists into politics in the late 1970s, said that if he were offered a pill to stop aging, he would take it in a heartbeat. Because mankinds duty is as much as its within our power to undo the work of The Fall, he said.

Schaeffer was referring to Adam and Eves rebellion and subsequent fall from divine grace in the Garden of Eden, an event believed by evangelicals to be the cause of all death, disease and suffering in the world.

Enhancing human capability and putting a stop to aging buys us more time to reverse original sin and do Gods work more effectively. Spreading compassion and love to our fellow human beings and pursuing the moral virtues extolled in the scriptures may require better tools, greater reach, and radically longer timeframes.

Perhaps youll be surprised to hear that the Catholic Church strongly supports extending life and health, citing Jesuss commandment to disciples to go forth and heal the sick, even raise the dead, in his name. Some Lutherans, too, might see no essential contradiction between religious principles and the quest for earthly longevity.

Ted Anton, who wrote a book about the science and business behind longevity research, has long been head usher at his Christian Lutheran Church. He told us, Whatever created [our technological] capabilities is endlessly interesting, beautiful, complex, and probably holds a moral requirement that we are children of God. We owe it to each other to research to the very best of our ability, with a goal of helping those who need the help first.

The futurist, Ted Peters, a professor at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, said that his religiosity encourages rather than prohibits his support for even controversial technologies, like emotional bio-enhancements. A neuro-enhancement for compassion? A genetic fix for selfishness?

Peters said, Bioethicists want to defend human freedom, so they dont want us [bio-enhancing] against our will. He continued, But I myself would be happy to give up my freedom if my heart would be sanctified so that Im loving all day long. If you could do that with a hypodermic needle, give me a shot. Ill take it.

Loving all day long doesnt sound so bad. Still, the policy implications of an emotionally bio-enhanced populace spark fear somewhere deep in my gut. Does everyone get to sit and love all day? Or will we love in shifts, to make sure someone is running the nation, or constructing our roads? Is it possible to love while driving effectively in LA traffic? Youd never get anywhere, letting everyone pass in front.

Part of me feels lucky not having any religious beliefs to reconcile with the engine of science which, to me, just seems like it will keep running faster and faster until the wheels fly off and we begin to fly. But other times I think, what deep satisfaction people must have to understand the commotion of scientific progress within a framework that provides meaning and context for our goals and concepts of self. Without these, anticipating the future is like a vase giving shape to emptiness, to use Michael Wests poetic description.

While science may be heralded as a new religion, it is by definition devoid of values. Its a method more than a system of meaning. If we admit that meaning and discovery provide fundamentally different enhancements to the human (or post-human) experience, perhaps there is room for both in our increasingly long futures.

-ByKristin Kostick, Ph.D., research associate in theCenter for Medical Ethics and Health Policyat Baylor College of Medicine

Link:
Engineering Eden: The quest for eternal life - Baylor College of Medicine News (press release) (blog)

Killing off death will require research and clinical trials. But these may be difficult to do ethically, as a controversial attempt to reanimate brain-dead patients suggests.

Philadelphia-based biotech firmBioquark told STAT that it plans to begin a trial somewhere in Latin America within months. The idea is to inject the patients own stem cells into the spinal cord to stimulate the growth of neurons. Other therapies could accompany this -- an injected blend of peptides, electrical nerve stimulation, and laser therapy for the brain.

As STAT points out, a description of the trial begs many questions. Who decides whether the patient is actually brain dead? How can a dead person participate in a trial? What happens if they do recover and are significantly impaired? Are the researches toying the hopes of families? Even in Latin America, will they get ethical approval?

Scientists and bioethicists are sceptical. Last year bioethicist Art Caplan and neuroscientist Ariane Lewis wrote a blunt editorial denouncing the Bioquark trial as quackery.

Dead means dead. Proposing that DNC may not be final openly challenges the medical-legal definition of death, creates room for the exploitation of grieving family and friends and falsely suggests science where none exists.

Dr Charles Cox, a pediatric surgeon in Houston who works with stem cells, was even more sceptical. I think [someone reviving] would technically be a miracle, he said. I think the pope would technically call that a miracle.

However, Bioquarks CEO, Ira Pastor, responded that the idea was daring, but possible. He points out that there are dozens of cases of patients, mostly young one, who recovered after being brain-dead. Such cases highlight that things are not always black or white in our understanding of the severe disorders of consciousness.

The experiment is part of Pastors Reanima project, which he describes in transhumanist terms on various websites.

It is now time to take the necessary steps to provide new possibilities of hope, in order to counter the pain, sorrow, and grief that is all too pervasive in the world when we experience a loved ones unexpected or untimely death, due to lesions which might be potentially reversible with the application of promising neuro-regeneration and neuro-reanimation technologies and therapies.

Original post:
Controversial trial to test transhumanist theories - BioEdge

Environmentalists protest in Medellin, Colombia, in March, after authorities declared an emergency due to high pollution levels. Photograph: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images

Its often been said that most nonfiction books are really magazine articles blown up to enable publication. But that analysis is increasingly anachronistic. Magazines, with a few honourable exceptions, no longer run the kind of articles that form the basis for expansion to book-size.

Jamie Bartletts new book is a case in point its a collection of disparate pieces that could, in a previous era, have been published as long magazine articles. In fact, some of them have appeared in newspapers and magazines in much shorter versions, but the only way to do them justice nowadays is in a book.

Bartletts uniting theme, as his title suggests, is radical approaches to life today. To this end, the author hangs out in Las Vegas with transhumanists those who seek a hugely extended life expectancy by upgrading the human body with technology with free love evangelicals in Portugal, anti-Islam protesters in England and Germany, and psychedelic drug users in Holland, among several other groups who dont conform to mainstream thinking.

Bartlett defines these very different groups as radicals because theyre all looking for an alternative path in politics and life. Im not sure that this is a particularly helpful definition, simply because in theory it includes everyone from animal rights advocates to Salafi jihadists, from Mormons to neo-Nazis. Which is to say that it provides such a broad umbrella as to be almost meaningless, except, perhaps, for enabling some kind of comparative study of the type of personalities that are drawn to reject social norms.

As Bartlett demonstrated in his previous book, The Dark Net, which examined the illicit world of the web, he is an accomplished journalist: careful, dispassionate and willing to put the time in. And once again he does the work, spending time with people whom less committed reporters might wish to avoid. And he does so with a degree of sympathy that is as impressive as it is rare.

However, hes not a great stylist when it comes to bringing people alive. This is partly, I suspect, because he wants to be fair. When other writers might be tempted to mock or create comic caricatures, Bartlett takes a gentler, more open approach. Staying at Tamera, a German polyamorous commune in Portugal, he nobly resists several golden opportunities to satirise the oddball behaviour of some of the inhabitants. Instead, he allows the absurdity to speak largely for itself.

It pays dividends up to a point, particularly with Heike, a caretaker of the commune, who believes herselfable, like Doctor Dolittle, to talkto the animals. She is so convincedby her fantasies that its just a matter of recording her speech accurately. But elsewhere this passive stance falls victim to narrative inertia. The book opens with Bartlett joining abus carrying a gang of transhumanists from California to Vegas. It was a selfconscious nod by the organisers to the legendary road trip made by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, immortalised by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. But nothingmuch happens on this trip thats worth reporting. Ostensibly, thejourney is to promote the self-styled transhumanist leader Zoltan Istvans (illegal) bid to become US president in breach of the countrys arduous Federal Electoral Commission criteria. But Istvan is an underwhelming figure everywhere but in his own head.

You can almost feel Bartlett willing something interesting to take place. But its at moments like this that the reporter has to find other ways to tell the story, otherwise the material is only as strong as the events it describes. And everything Istvan and his hapless followers do is a failure. In the hands of a younger Martin Amis or a Geoff Dyer this could make for a hysterical odyssey of disappointment. Here, as things pan out, you wonder why Bartlett chose it as his opening chapter.

That said, all of the chapters contain thoughtful and intelligent reflections on the position of outsiders who, as Bartlett reminds us, could well be proven by history to be ahead of their time. After all, he argues, the past is littered with people who seemed mad or mavericks in their own era, but by todays norms would seem conventional. Its also worth remembering that history is full of fruitcakes who have grown no less nutty with the judgment of time.

Bartlett started writing the book in 2014. Since then, the world has changed quite a bit: Brexit and Donald Trump were once marginal cases that didnt fit into the Overton Window of acceptable ideas. So were Brexiters and Trump supporters radicals who have now shifted to take control of popular terrain? Although these unexpected outcomes help make Bartletts book more timely, they also expose the problems in collecting non-mainstream beliefs in such a seemingly random manner.

Neither Trump nor Farage are radicals in any meaningful sense of the word: theyre opportunists whose particular reactionary agendas happen,for various reasons, to be enjoying theirday in the sun. By the same token, most of the subjects of Bartletts notebook, including the egregious Tommy Robinson, founder of the EDL, as wellas the short-lived Pegida UK, are not promoting political beliefs that have any real shelf life in a fast-changing world.

You sense that Bartlett knows this, and its the touching futility rather than any pragmatic utility of their beliefs in which he is most interested. I wish hed focused more on the deluded and desperate aspects of what drives people away from mainstream ideas. Because if true radicals inherit the future, then too many of the occupants of these pages are haplessly trying to recreate an idealised past.

Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World by Jamie Bartlett is published by William Heinemann (20). To order a copy for 15 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99

See the rest here:
Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World by Jamie Bartlett review - The Guardian

If youre a Mormon, you should be a transhumanist.

So wrote Lincoln Cannon first in a blog post, Mormonism mandates transhumanism. He proceeded to offer Mormon scripture for his assumptions that God wants us to use ordained means to participate in Gods work, science and technology are among the means ordained of God, Gods work is to help each other attain godhood, and an essential attribute of godhood is a glorified immortal body.

Therefore, God wants humankind to use science and technology to attain godhood and a glorified, immortal body, Cannon wrote.

The conclusion is at once a religious mandate, he remarked, and a description of the transhumanist project.

Related is the eight-statementTranshumanist Declaration. Cannon co-founded the Mormon Transhumanist Association and it has a six-statementMormon Transhumanist Affirmation. If folks support them (even broadly, Cannon said), they can be a part of the MTA, whether they be Mormon or non-Mormon, practicing or not. And anyone was invited to their annual conference in April.

The purpose of the MTA is to advocate both creeds and that advocacy is the ethical use of technically and religion to extend human abilities, Cannon said.

Cannon also told the author that he and others sought an expression of their belief of a seriousness in the works part of the faith-and-works relationship with Mormonism and their trust in the visions that their religion offers.

That was the common idea among the (MTA) founders, Cannon said.

Then he added: We hadnt heard about transhumanism when we set out to make this organization.

But while Cannon, MTA Chief Operating Officer Carl Youngblood and other Aug. 2006 originators of the nonprofit were doing the research and trying to determine the specifics of the organization to create, Cannon explained, we came across transhumanism.

Its philosophies struck them immediately to the point that they didnt find any reason to re-invent the wheel in terms of creating an organization entirely different from the World Transhumanist Association (now Humanity+), whose creation saw the Transhumanist Declaration come with it. In Oct. 2010, the MTA renewed its affiliation with the WTA after the WTA board voted to accept the MTA.

That led us to (realize) that we had always been transhumanistsor had been for a long time, Cannon noted.

Today, with more than 600 members, the MTA is the largest organization in the world for the ethical use of technology and religion to extend human abilities.

Today, with more than 600 members, the MTA is the largest organization in the world for the ethical use of technology and religion to extend human abilities. It is also the largest religiously-affiliated transhumanist organization, Cannon said. Jon Bialecki, a University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Science fellow, is studying the group.

Being present

Before what will be a half-dozen consecutive annual MTA conferences, the organization participated in the2010 Transhumanism and Spiritualityand2009 Mormonism and Engineeringconferences. Richard Bushman, author of the relatively well-known biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, was one of two keynote speakers for thesecond of the MTA-branded conferences. This years theme is Evolving Gods and its top-featured speakers are Steven Peck and Robin Hanson. (Each conference sees two keynoters, ones address oriented around religion and the others, transhumanism.)

Peck is a biology professor at Brigham Young University who boasts more than 40 scientific articles in major publications. His research in theoretical and insect populations have been recognized by the National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations for helping in combating insect-borne illness.

Hanson is an economics professor at George Mason University and researcher at Oxford University. He has pioneered prediction markets for 29 years, was a principal architect of many markets and developed new technologies for trading. His book, The Age of Em, is about what Earth will be like when ruled by robots that are brain simulations, or ems.

Other speakers include George Handley, a BYU humanities associate dean; Michelle Glauser, founder of a tuition-free technology training and job placement program; and Ben Blair, creator of a platform to de-institutionalize education.

Chris Bradford, MTA president, expects a highlight for him to be the keynoters.

Steven Peck is a really great thinker and author and Ive recently been reading Robin Hansons book, he said.

Youngblood anticipates the Mormon transhumanist barber quartet performing again, an idea made reality in conferences after it was merely joked about a few years ago.

In November, Blaire Ostler was appointed CEO of the MTA. She is looking forward to furthering initiatives at the conference that include more constructive monthly meetups, a curriculum and a semi-annual family social.

The northern Utah meetups have been held monthly and entailed philosophical discussions.

The curriculum is being developed to be easily-digestible small lessons or discussions and are going to coincide with our local meetup groups, Ostler said.

Im trying to make Mormon transhumanism more accessible, she remarked, and palatable to people who dont have a degree in philosophy or consider themselves techno-philes or have a degree in computer science.

Ostler also is developing the material to be presented in gender- and race-neutral perspectives.

A lot of times, religious messages get through a stereotypical lensmaybe the white male-default lens, she said. Like brotherhood and Heavenly Father, not Heavenly Parents.

The social is planned for the fall, she added.

Im particularly excited about this conference because we will shake things up, Ostler said. Sometimes Mormon transhumanism and transhumanism in general is big and abstract, but it can have a sense of communitywe personalize it.

Its a next step after the initial one was reaching out to Mormons generally. The MTA first did that when it presented at Sunstone and then was the cover story forthe symposiums March 2007 magazine issue(that and another placement,in The New Yorkerin April of last year, were all-time MTA highlights for Youngblood). Then the nonprofit presented for other organizations that were related to technology, including Second Life.

In the beginning

Cannon and Youngblood first met after elders quorum, a mens organization that meets on Sundays as part of LDS church attendance. Youngblood met Bryan Johnson, who knew Cannon from a previous Mormon congregation and later introduced Youngblood to Cannon. (After selling a successful company, Johnson created an investment fund for the purpose of doing transhumanist-related research.) WTA board members when the organization accepted the MTA, who became friends with Cannon, included Nick Bostrom, an Oxford philosopher and leading formulator of the simulation argument; James Hughes, a Trinity College bioethics professor and Buddhist; Michael LaTorra, an advocate of Buddhist transhumanism; and Giulio Prisco, an Italian information technology virtual reality consultant who came out as a believer in Catholicism, the faith of his youth, while keynoting the 2012 MTA conference, Cannon said.

Prisco was not the only person who it appears identified positivity with their spiritual heritage due to transhumanist associations with Cannon.

We tried to convince a black, Jewish female (to be CEO) and had to settle on a white but at least got a woman, he joked.

Lincoln could explore things in a way I felt safe about with my Mormon faith, said Youngblood, whose great-great-grandfather painted Salt Lake Temple murals after studying Impressionism in Paris after Brigham Youngs approval. A lot of us were involved in technology-related things we discovered a movement called transhumanism, which, in a lot of ways, is sort of a techno-utopia and a paradise on Earth. And Mormonism, being a restorationist movement and fairly recent, has many of the millenarian visions intact. (Transhumanism) was a little more close to us in (our) thinking about Zion and the renewal of the Earth and living to the age of a tree and lots of ideas (about) the Millennium.

That got us thinking, Youngblood continued, that maybe (scientific and technological) improvements not seen by our religion are things that are a cooperative effort between humanity and God. And maybe some of these (Mormon) things arent going to happen without us doing anything. And we realized the Mormon conception of salvation itselffamily history research to redeem the dead, saviors on Mount Zion and theology being work and effortits sort of a cooperation with God and angels.

At that point, it was a matter of formally organizing, with nonprofit registration with the Internal Revenue Service, elected officers and a board of directors.

Youngblood, who came to the interview between 8 and 9 p.m. directly from having delivered conference fliers on BYUs campus, also called the MTA a really strong support group.

One of the most significant of my lifea core group, he added. Its more of a safe place to explore and challenge things, but its ecumenical in a way that is bridge-building and doesnt create animosity between different groups.

The (MTAs) future is female

To further (the MTAs) pursuit of demographics, Ostler was selected as CEO, Cannon said.

We tried to convince a black, Jewish female (to be CEO) and had to settle on a white but at least got a woman, he joked.

Ostler, who is also bisexual, was apprehensive three years ago to join the MTA because it was dominated by white males, she said. But she was invited to blog for the organization, and then to join the board, and then to be the CEO.

This shows me that while there might be blind spots, it shows me a sincere and earnest desire for diverse perspectives and diverse interpretations, she said.

A main goal of Ostlers is to find ways to diversify (the MTAs) demographic.

Everyone needs to know that Mormon transhumanism is definitely for them, she said. Thats what drew me because thats the type of Mormonism I want.

Sixty-two percent of MTA members said they were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 59 percent identified as theists. On social policy, 53 percent identified as progressive, 20 percent as conservative and 18 percent as moderate. On economic policy, 32 percent identified as moderate, 32 percent as progressive and 29 percent as conservative, according to a 2014 survey.

Providing answers

Cannon acknowledged that his Mormon-mandates-transhumanism opinion is controversial; the final part of a five-part series on the Rational Faiths blog,written by Bradford, responded to criticisms of the philosophy. He responded to questions such as Is the idea of Christ as community compatible with the idea of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? (answer: Of course. Just ask Paulor Jesus) and What is the role of Jesus in Mormon Transhumanism? (Answer: Jesus is the great example of what it means to be a son or daughter of God, who has walked, pointed out, and opened the way for us to become like God.)

Do we take him seriously? he asked. I dont know how to raise the dead, but Ive got medicine and maybe we can approach it that way.

A repeated criticism is a comparison of the MTAs efforts with those in the biblical account of building their Tower of Babel in an effort to get to heaven.Wrote Cannon: Today, as in the mythical days of Babel, we find ourselves at risk. Accelerating technological change has increased our destructive capacity faster than our defensive capacity. And yet, though our vices are many, our survival and progress so far are testimony to the extent of our virtues. We have proven ourselves at least benevolent enough to have attained an extent of heaven, however primitive, within the context of means provided by the grace of God. Have we reached our limits? Will we soon succumb to hubris? That depends in part on how we manage to proceed from here.

Ethical progress is not Babel.

Cannon noted that the word Babel appears in the Bible just twice and that The Book of Mormon references the tower in four chapters, without much additional insight into the moral of the story.

MTA leaders also pointed the author to technology God uses for his purposes in scripture. Among other devices, Cannon mentioned Noahs ark and Ostler brought up The Book of Mormons Liahona. Cannon also noted that Jesus said to raise the dead.

Do we take him seriously? he asked. I dont know how to raise the dead, but Ive got medicine and maybe we can approach it that way.

Cannon also referenced quotes from church prophets Joseph Smith and John Taylor. Smith, after marveling at skyscrapers in New York City, wrote: seeking these works are calculated to make men comfortable wise and happy, therefore, not for the works can the Lord be displeased; only against man is the anger of the Lord kindled because they give him not the glory. Taylor wrote: if we have any knowledge of electricity, we thank God for it. If we have any knowledge of the power of steam, we will say its from God. If we possess any other scientific information about the earth whereon we stand, or of the elements with which we are surrounded, we will thank God for the information, and say he has inspired men from time to time to understand them, and we will go on and grasp more intelligence, light and information, until we comprehend as we are comprehended of God.

The LDS church has been asked but not made a statement about the MTA. The church has a history of disciplining or excommunicating folks for publicly expressing unorthodox views. But no MTA member is known to have yet been disciplined by the church for their transhumanist beliefs, Cannon said.

Photo: Getty Images

More:
A Case for Why Every Mormon Should be a Transhumanist - The Good Men Project (blog)

Reg Lecture Politics and society is about to get stranger and we're not even talking about what's going on in Westminster.

There's a host of secretive, influential, and tech-enabled movements coming your way whose plans to redesign society make Brexit look like tinkering around the edges.

Luckily for you Jamie Bartlett author of The Dark Net will be joining us on 23 May to talk about his upcoming book Radicals, which details the two years he spent embedded with the innovators, disruptors, idealists and extremists who think society is broken, and believe they know how to fix it.

The book, and Jamie's lecture, spans some of the most secretive and influential movements today: the US Transhumanist Party, far-right groups seeking to close the borders, militant environmentalists striving to save the planet's natural resources by any means possible, libertarian movements founding new countries, autonomous co-operatives in self-sustaining micro-societies, and psychedelic pioneers attempting to heal society with the help of powerful hallucinogens.

If you're interested in where society is heading, and how technology is helping it get there, you'll want to join us at the Yorkshire Grey on Theobalds Road, London, on 23 May. The doors will be open from 6pm, with the talk proper kicking off at 7. And yes, there'll be refreshments, both liquid and solid, on hand.

As always, we'll break for a drink and a bite after the talk, before opening the floor to questions, giving you the opportunity to really work out whether these new movements are chasing a dream, or dragging us all into a nightmare.

We'd love you to join us. You can buy your ticket here.

You can read more about Radicals, and place advanced orders, here.

And if you need reminding what a compelling speaker Jamie is, you can check out his last Reg lecture, when he discussed the Dark Net.

More here:
Think politics is tumultuous now? Wait till the transhumanists join in... - The Register

Transhumanism is a movement which uses technology to help humans surpass their limitations. Kyle Forgit, a junior English major, presented a paper titled The Problem with Utopia: Socioeconomic Implications of the Transhumanist Movement at Mind Over Major, Saint Anselm Colleges annual interdisciplinary undergraduate conference.

Transhumanism already occurs through gene editing and prosthetics. Forgit argues that these technological advancements are expensive. and a self-aggravating process where the rich will become richer, stronger, and faster while the poor are left behind.

Forgit told The Crier that although innovative and expensive technology does filter down to people in poverty transhumanism will leave lower socioeconomic classes behind the curve. The gulf between the socio economic classes will become even more exaggerated when the rich are able to artificially surpass their biology.

He gave the example of prosthetic limbs, which can cost $5,000 to $50,000 and must be replaced every three to five years. These costs are unaffordable to many people without insurance and certainly the millions of people worldwide living below the poverty line. He states that prosthetics are not a particularly self-aggravating technology because they cannot currently outperform human limbs.

However, the question then becomes: what if prosthetic limbs do become more efficient or powerful than our natural ones? Forgit tells The Crier that this could raise questions about the rights of athletes with these prosthetics.

In his paper, Forgit discussed at length the ethical issues of transhumanism. He quotes Francis Fukuyama: If we start transforming ourselves into something superior, what rights will these enhanced creatures claim? If some move ahead, can any afford not to follow?

Forgit states that in a society where transhumanism is realized lower socioeconomic status also means an objective inferiority in capability; no unenhanced human brain could compete with the calculative might of a cybernetic supercomputer.

He claims that transhumanism is happening whether we want it to or not. To prevent the social injustice of transhumanism could create we need to begin bringing the socioeconomic gap that already exists today. Admitting the complexity of solutions to closing the gap, he suggests the proliferation of transhumanistic technologies such as medical techniques and products.

Forgit claims that in some ways, the eradication of poverty is as much a transhumanistic goal as is the development of a cybernetic super brain. In his medical example, he states that access to modern medicine would cause the human species to flourish. This fits with the goal of transhumanism; the use of technology for humans to enhance themselves beyond biological limits.

Forgit became interested in transhumanism through the works of Arthur C. Clark and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. He wrote the paper for his Honors Colloquium Science and Society, taught by Dr. Brian Penney from the Department of Biology.

He was one of three students, including Mina Alrais 17 and Courtney Puccio 17, who presented during the Science: Theories and Applications panel at Mind Over Major. Forgit told The Crier that he decided to present at this colloquium because The topic of transhumanism is not commonly discussed in public forums and I wanted to bring attention to its pressing relevance.

See original here:
Kyle Forgit '18 presents paper on transhumanism at Mind Over Major - The Saint Anselm Crier

Perhaps the most potent argument against suicide in modern secular societies is that it constitutes wastage of the agents own life and commits at the very least indirect harm to the lives of others who in various ways have depended on the agent. However, the force of this argument could be mitigated if the suicide occurred in the context of experimentation, including self-experimentation, with very risky treatments that aim to extend the human condition. Suicides in these cases could be quite informative and hence significantly advance the prospects of the rest of humanity. The suicide agents life would most certainly not have been in vain.

Much if not most of the cutting edge enhancement research is currently conducted on non-humans and/or simulated on computers. Regardless of the promise of such research, it is generally agreed that the real epistemic step change will come from monitoring human usage of the relevant enhancement treatments. But as long as research ethics codes for human subjects continue to dwell in the shadow of the Nuremberg Trials, a very high bar will be set on what counts as informed consent. Nowadays, more than seventy years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the only obvious reason for such a high bar is the insurance premiums that universities and other research institutes would need to bear if they liberalized the terms on which subjects could offer themselves in service of risky enhancement research.

Of course, the actual outcomes of such experiments need not be death, just as the actual outcomes of suicide attempts are often not death. Nevertheless, the agent would be treating the prospect of suicide in the spirit of self-sacrifice, not so very different from citizens who volunteer to join military service, knowing full well that they may need to give up their life at some point. In this way, the moral stigma surrounding suicide would be removed. Indeed, in a truly progressive society, this route to suicide may come to be seen as a legitimate lifestyle choice one that might even become popular if/when death comes to be medically reversible.

My inspiration for this line of thought, which I have been pursuing from The New Sociological Imagination (2006) to The Proactionary Imperative (2014), is the great 1906 lecture by the US pragmatist philosopher-psychologist William James, The Moral Equivalent of War. There James acknowledged that there is something of value in people willingly risking their lives in war a sense of self-transcendence -- which nevertheless needed to be channelled in a more productive fashion. My modest proposal is that the taboos on suicide be lifted such that potential experimental subjects who are told that their chances of survival are very uncertain may nevertheless agree to participate with limited liability borne by the institution conducting the research.

To be sure, there remain many questions to be solved such as who bears the liability of a subject severely harmed but not killed as a result of an experiment. In addition, the usual concerns about the potential exploitation of economically vulnerable subjects apply, and may even be intensified. However, the bottom line is that individuals should be presumed capable until proven otherwise of setting the level of risk which they are willing to tolerate, even including a level that implies a much higher likelihood of death thanmost people would tolerate. Such people have the makings of becoming the true of heroes of the transhumanist movement.

Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK. Originally trained in history and philosophy of science, Fuller is best known for his foundational work in the field of social epistemology, which is concerned with the normative grounds of organized inquiry. He has most recently authored (with Veronika Lipinska) The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism (2013).

Here is the original post:
A Modest Proposal for Suicide as a Facilitator of Transhumanism - Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

The transhumanmovement believes that in the future we are going to be able to live forever through technology

IMMORTALITY may be closer than you think.

Irish journalist MARK OCONNOLLs fascinating new book To Be a Machine explores the relatively new phenomenon that is known as transhumanism.

This growing movement believes that in the future we are going to be able to live forever and its not a medical breakthrough that they are counting on but a technological one.

Some transhumanists are paying hundreds of thousands to be cryogenically frozen so, many years from now when technology advances, their brains can be scanned and uploaded and they will be able to live again as a computer.

Others reckon were on the way to becoming cyborgs and its only a matter of time before humanity and technology merge.

Here Mark, tells Fiona about some of the people, organisations and groups who believe sci-fi will soon become sci-fact.

TRANSHUMANISM is essentially a movement based on the conviction that we should and can ultimately use technology to become immortal and to otherwise push out the boundaries of the human condition to transcend the bodily condition.

I mean it sounds quite extreme, and it is, but there are a fair few influential figures in Silicon Valley who are heavily invested in this stuff and believe this is the future evolution of humankind.

When researching this I dealt with people who were, in most cases, very intelligent, scientifically grounded, rationally minded and able to rigorously argue their position.

It left me in a position where I had no grounds to disagree with this stuff but, from a basic human perspective, it sounds insane.

Not only are they afraid of dying but theyve convinced themselves that death is the greatest problem that the human species faces.

Notable transhumanist Aubrey de Gray calls it 30 September 11s every day. He frames dying of old age as a humanitarian crisis.

A lot of the people who are fully invested in this are already quite privileged, like PayPal co-founder and Donald Trump adviser Peter Thiel.

He is also convinced death from ageing is the biggest problem we face as a species.

But if the defeat of ageing becomes a possibility, who is going to benefit from it?

The obvious conclusion is the super rich, who can afford such therapies and technologies. And that will only exacerbate the vast social inequalities that already exist.

But Thiel insists one of the biggest inequalities is that between the living and the dead.

One of the strange things about writing a non-fiction book on this subject is that you come across ideas and people that, if youd written them as fictional characters, youd have to tone down.

At the Alcor Life Extension Foundations cryonics facility outside Phoenix, Arizona in the US, there are theories about what is the best way to die to preserve your body.

Cancer is good, but a heart attack is probably best because you die quickly and there is little cell damage.

Very quickly after the point of death, corpses are brought to the cryonics facility and a cocktail of substances are injected to prevent cell breakdown.

Then they are put in essentially giant Thermos flasks filled with liquid nitrogen and preserved until such time technology becomes sophisticated enough to bring them back. The idea is that were computer programs that can run on other software.

Most transhumanists are quite speculative they talk about future technology.

But these guys in Pittsburgh open source biotechnology startup Grindhouse Wetware talk about building tech to be implanted in their own bodies. They were the guinea pigs for the cyborg future.

They implanted themselves with stuff that would give them the ability to sense magnetic fields, to open the doors of their laboratories by waving their hands.

They say we are already cyborgs and our relationship with tech is so intimate. We just need to push it further.

My impetus for the book was never just to figure out how likely it all was, but to get a sense of those involved.

What gave them this level of faith around technology?

There were moments where I was almost convinced by this vision but ultimately Im still sceptical.

TO Be a Machine: Encounters With a Post-Human Future is in all good bookshops. See mark-oconnell.com.

More here:
Irish journalist reveals all about transhumanism - as people pay big bucks to be cryogenically frozen after death - The Irish Sun