Category Archives: Transhumanist

Philosophical and spiritual question concerning the significance of living or existence in general

The meaning of life, or the answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?", pertains to the significance of living or existence in general. Many other related questions include: "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", or "What is the purpose of existence?" There have been many proposed answers to these questions from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The search for life's meaning has produced much philosophical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical speculation throughout history. Different people and cultures believe different things for the answer to this question.

The meaning of life can be derived from philosophical and religious contemplation of, and scientific inquiries about existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness. Many other issues are also involved, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, the existence of one or multiple gods, conceptions of God, the soul, and the afterlife. Scientific contributions focus primarily on describing related empirical facts about the universe, exploring the context and parameters concerning the "how" of life. Science also studies and can provide recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality. An alternative, humanistic approach poses the question, "What is the meaning of my life?"

Questions about the meaning of life have been expressed in a broad variety of ways, including:

These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and explications, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations...

Many members of the scientific community and philosophy of science communities think that science can provide the relevant context, and set of parameters necessary for dealing with topics related to the meaning of life. In their view, science can offer a wide range of insights on topics ranging from the science of happiness to death anxiety. Scientific inquiry facilitates this through nomological investigation into various aspects of life and reality, such as the Big Bang, the origin of life, and evolution, and by studying the objective factors which correlate with the subjective experience of meaning and happiness.

Researchers in positive psychology study empirical factors that lead to life satisfaction,[15] full engagement in activities,[16] making a fuller contribution by utilizing one's personal strengths,[17] and meaning based on investing in something larger than the self.[18] Large-data studies of flow experiences have consistently suggested that humans experience meaning and fulfillment when mastering challenging tasks and that the experience comes from the way tasks are approached and performed rather than the particular choice of task. For example, flow experiences can be obtained by prisoners in concentration camps with minimal facilities, and occur only slightly more often in billionaires. A classic example[16] is of two workers on an apparently boring production line in a factory. One treats the work as a tedious chore while the other turns it into a game to see how fast she can make each unit and achieves flow in the process.

Neuroscience describes reward, pleasure, and motivation in terms of neurotransmitter activity, especially in the limbic system and the ventral tegmental area in particular. If one believes that the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure and to ease general life, then this allows normative predictions about how to act to achieve this. Likewise, some ethical naturalists advocate a science of moralitythe empirical pursuit of flourishing for all conscious creatures.

Experimental philosophy and neuroethics research collects data about human ethical decisions in controlled scenarios such as trolley problems. It has shown that many types of ethical judgment are universal across cultures, suggesting that they may be innate, whilst others are culture-specific. The findings show actual human ethical reasoning to be at odds with most philosophical theories, for example consistently showing distinctions between action by cause and action by omission which would be absent from utility-based theories. Cognitive science has theorized about differences between conservative and liberal ethics and how they may be based on different metaphors from family life such as strong fathers vs nurturing mother models.

Neurotheology is a controversial field which tries to find neural correlates and mechanisms of religious experience. Some researchers have suggested that the human brain has innate mechanisms for such experiences and that living without using them for their evolved purposes may be a cause of imbalance. Studies have reported conflicting results on correlating happiness with religious belief and it is difficult to find unbiased meta-analyses.[19][20]

Sociology examines value at a social level using theoretical constructs such as value theory, norms, anomie, etc. One value system suggested by social psychologists, broadly called Terror Management Theory, states that human meaning is derived from a fundamental fear of death, and values are selected when they allow us to escape the mental reminder of death.

Alongside this, there are a number of theories about the way in which humans evaluate the positive and negative aspects of their existence and thus the value and meaning they place on their lives. For example, depressive realism posits an exaggerated positivity in all except those experiencing depressive disorders who see life as it truly is, and David Benatar theorises that more weight is generally given to positive experiences, providing bias towards an over-optimistic view of life.

Emerging research shows that meaning in life predicts better physical health outcomes. Greater meaning has been associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease,[21] reduced risk of heart attack among individuals with coronary heart disease,[22] reduced risk of stroke,[23] and increased longevity in both American and Japanese samples.[24] In 2014, the British National Health Service began recommending a five-step plan for mental well-being based on meaningful lives, whose steps are:[25]

The exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are unknown: notable hypotheses include the RNA world hypothesis (RNA-based replicators) and the iron-sulfur world hypothesis (metabolism without genetics). The process by which different lifeforms have developed throughout history via genetic mutation and natural selection is explained by evolution.[26] At the end of the 20th century, based upon insight gleaned from the gene-centered view of evolution, biologists George C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, and David Haig, among others, concluded that if there is a primary function to life, it is the replication of DNA and the survival of one's genes.[27][28] Responding to an interview question from Richard Dawkins about "what it is all for", James Watson stated "I don't think we're for anything. We're just the products of evolution."[29]

Though scientists have intensively studied life on Earth, defining life in unequivocal terms is still a challenge.[30][31] Physically, one may say that life "feeds on negative entropy"[32][33][34] which refers to the process by which living entities decrease their internal entropy at the expense of some form of energy taken in from the environment.[35][36][37] Biologists generally agree that lifeforms are self-organizing systems which regulate their internal environments as to maintain this organized state, metabolism serves to provide energy, and reproduction causes life to continue over a span of multiple generations. Typically, organisms are responsive to stimuli and genetic information changes from generation to generation, resulting in adaptation through evolution; this optimizes the chances of survival for the individual organism and its descendants respectively.[38]

Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are generally not considered to be organisms because they are incapable of independent reproduction or metabolism. This classification is problematic, though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are also incapable of independent life. Astrobiology studies the possibility of different forms of life on other worlds, including replicating structures made from materials other than DNA.

Though the Big Bang theory was met with much skepticism when first introduced, it has become well-supported by several independent observations.[39] However, current physics can only describe the early universe from 1043 seconds after the Big Bang (where zero time corresponds to infinite temperature); a theory of quantum gravity would be required to understand events before that time. Nevertheless, many physicists have speculated about what would have preceded this limit, and how the universe came into being.[40] For example, one interpretation is that the Big Bang occurred coincidentally, and when considering the anthropic principle, it is sometimes interpreted as implying the existence of a multiverse.[41]

The ultimate fate of the universe, and implicitly humanity, is hypothesized as one in which biological life will eventually become unsustainable, such as through a Big Freeze, Big Rip, or Big Crunch.

Theoretical cosmology studies many alternative speculative models for the origin and fate of the universe beyond the Big Bang theory. A recent trend has been models of the creation of 'baby universes' inside black holes, with our own Big Bang being a white hole on the inside of a black hole in another parent universe.[42] Many-worlds theories claim that every possibility of quantum mechanics is played out in parallel universes.

The nature and origin of consciousness and the mind itself are also widely debated in science. The explanatory gap is generally equated with the hard problem of consciousness, and the question of free will is also considered to be of fundamental importance. These subjects are mostly addressed in the fields of cognitive science, neuroscience (e.g. the neuroscience of free will) and philosophy of mind, though some evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists have also made several allusions to the subject.[43][44]

Reductionistic and eliminative materialistic approaches, for example the Multiple Drafts Model, hold that consciousness can be wholly explained by neuroscience through the workings of the brain and its neurons, thus adhering to biological naturalism.[44][45][46]

On the other hand, some scientists, like Andrei Linde, have considered that consciousness, like spacetime, might have its own intrinsic degrees of freedom, and that one's perceptions may be as real as (or even more real than) material objects.[47] Hypotheses of consciousness and spacetime explain consciousness in describing a "space of conscious elements",[47] often encompassing a number of extra dimensions.[48] Electromagnetic theories of consciousness solve the binding problem of consciousness in saying that the electromagnetic field generated by the brain is the actual carrier of conscious experience; there is however disagreement about the implementations of such a theory relating to other workings of the mind.[49][50] Quantum mind theories use quantum theory in explaining certain properties of the mind. Explaining the process of free will through quantum phenomena is a popular alternative to determinism.

Based on the premises of non-materialistic explanations of the mind, some have suggested the existence of a cosmic consciousness, asserting that consciousness is actually the "ground of all being".[9][51][52] Proponents of this view cite accounts of paranormal phenomena, primarily extrasensory perceptions and psychic powers, as evidence for an incorporeal higher consciousness. In hopes of proving the existence of these phenomena, parapsychologists have orchestrated various experiments, but successful results might be due to poor experimental controls and might have alternative explanations.[53][54][55][56]

Reker and Wong define personal meaning as the "cognizance of order, coherence and purpose in one's existence, the pursuit and attainment of worthwhile goals, and an accompanying sense of fulfillment" (p.221).[57] In 2016, Martela and Steger defined meaning as coherence, purpose, and significance.[58] In contrast, Wong has proposed a four-component solution to the question of meaning in life,[59][60] with the four components purpose, understanding, responsibility, and enjoyment (PURE):

Thus, a sense of significance permeates every dimension of meaning, rather than standing as a separate factor.

Although most psychology researchers consider meaning in life as a subjective feeling or judgment, most philosophers (e.g., Thaddeus Metz, Daniel Haybron) propose that there are also objective, concrete criteria for what constitutes meaning in life.[61][62] Wong has proposed that whether life is meaningful depends not only on subjective feelings but, more importantly, on whether a person's goal-striving and life as a whole is meaningful according to some objective normative standard.[60]

The philosophical perspectives on the meaning of life are those ideologies that explain life in terms of ideals or abstractions defined by humans.

Plato, a pupil of Socrates, was one of the earliest, most influential philosophers. His reputation comes from his idealism of believing in the existence of universals. His theory of forms proposes that universals do not physically exist, like objects, but as heavenly forms. In the dialogue of the Republic, the character of Socrates describes the Form of the Good. His theory on justice in the soul relates to the idea of happiness relevant to the question of the meaning of life.

In Platonism, the meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea (Form) of the Good, from which all good and just things derive utility and value.

Aristotle, an apprentice of Plato, was another early and influential philosopher, who argued that ethical knowledge is not certain knowledge (such as metaphysics and epistemology), but is general knowledge. Because it is not a theoretical discipline, a person had to study and practice in order to become "good"; thus if the person were to become virtuous, he could not simply study what virtue is, he had to be virtuous, via virtuous activities. To do this, Aristotle established what is virtuous:

Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly, every action and choice of action, is thought to have some good as its object. This is why the good has rightly been defined as the object of all endeavor [...]Everything is done with a goal, and that goal is "good".

Yet, if action A is done towards achieving goal B, then goal B also would have a goal, goal C, and goal C also would have a goal, and so would continue this pattern, until something stopped its infinite regression. Aristotle's solution is the Highest Good, which is desirable for its own sake. It is its own goal. The Highest Good is not desirable for the sake of achieving some other good, and all other "goods" desirable for its sake. This involves achieving eudaemonia, usually translated as "happiness", "well-being", "flourishing", and "excellence".

What is the highest good in all matters of action? To the name, there is an almost complete agreement; for uneducated and educated alike call it happiness, and make happiness identical with the good life and successful living. They disagree, however, about the meaning of happiness.

Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates, first outlined the themes of Cynicism, stating that the purpose of life is living a life of Virtue which agrees with Nature. Happiness depends upon being self-sufficient and master of one's mental attitude; suffering is the consequence of false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a concomitant vicious character.

The Cynical life rejects conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, by being free of the possessions acquired in pursuing the conventional.[63][64] As reasoning creatures, people could achieve happiness via rigorous training, by living in a way natural to human beings. The world equally belongs to everyone, so suffering is caused by false judgments of what is valuable and what is worthless per the customs and conventions of society.

Aristippus of Cyrene, a pupil of Socrates, founded an early Socratic school that emphasized only one side of Socrates's teachingsthat happiness is one of the ends of moral action and that pleasure is the supreme good; thus a hedonistic world view, wherein bodily gratification is more intense than mental pleasure. Cyrenaics prefer immediate gratification to the long-term gain of delayed gratification; denial is unpleasant unhappiness.[65][66]

Epicurus, a pupil of the Platonist Pamphilus of Samos, taught that the greatest good is in seeking modest pleasures, to attain tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia) via knowledge, friendship, and virtuous, temperate living; bodily pain (aponia) is absent through one's knowledge of the workings of the world and of the limits of one's desires. Combined, freedom from pain and freedom from fear are happiness in its highest form. Epicurus' lauded enjoyment of simple pleasures is quasi-ascetic "abstention" from sex and the appetites:

"When we say ... that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do, by some, through ignorance, prejudice or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure, we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish, and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul."[67]

The Epicurean meaning of life rejects immortality and mysticism; there is a soul, but it is as mortal as the body. There is no afterlife, yet, one need not fear death, because "Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us."[68]

Zeno of Citium, a pupil of Crates of Thebes, established the school which teaches that living according to reason and virtue is to be in harmony with the universe's divine order, entailed by one's recognition of the universal logos, or reason, an essential value of all people. The meaning of life is "freedom from suffering" through apatheia (Gr: ), that is, being objective and having "clear judgement", not indifference.

Stoicism's prime directives are virtue, reason, and natural law, abided to develop personal self-control and mental fortitude as means of overcoming destructive emotions. The Stoic does not seek to extinguish emotions, only to avoid emotional troubles, by developing clear judgment and inner calm through diligently practiced logic, reflection, and concentration.

The Stoic ethical foundation is that "good lies in the state of the soul", itself, exemplified in wisdom and self-control, thus improving one's spiritual well-being: "Virtue consists in a will which is in agreement with Nature."[68] The principle applies to one's personal relations thus: "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy".[68]

The Enlightenment and the colonial era both changed the nature of European philosophy and exported it worldwide. Devotion and subservience to God were largely replaced by notions of inalienable natural rights and the potentialities of reason, and universal ideals of love and compassion gave way to civic notions of freedom, equality, and citizenship. The meaning of life changed as well, focusing less on humankind's relationship to God and more on the relationship between individuals and their society. This era is filled with theories that equate meaningful existence with the social order.

Classical liberalism is a set of ideas that arose in the 17th and 18th centuries, out of conflicts between a growing, wealthy, propertied class and the established aristocratic and religious orders that dominated Europe. Liberalism cast humans as beings with inalienable natural rights (including the right to retain the wealth generated by one's own work), and sought out means to balance rights across society. Broadly speaking, it considers individual liberty to be the most important goal,[69] because only through ensured liberty are the other inherent rights protected.

There are many forms and derivations of liberalism, but their central conceptions of the meaning of life trace back to three main ideas. Early thinkers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith saw humankind beginning in the state of nature, then finding meaning for existence through labor and property, and using social contracts to create an environment that supports those efforts.

Kantianism is a philosophy based on the ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical works of Immanuel Kant. Kant is known for his deontological theory where there is a single moral obligation, the "Categorical Imperative", derived from the concept of duty. Kantians believe all actions are performed in accordance with some underlying maxim or principle, and for actions to be ethical, they must adhere to the categorical imperative.

Simply put, the test is that one must universalize the maxim (imagine that all people acted in this way) and then see if it would still be possible to perform the maxim in the world without contradiction. In Groundwork, Kant gives the example of a person who seeks to borrow money without intending to pay it back. This is a contradiction because if it were a universal action, no person would lend money anymore as he knows that he will never be paid back. The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability (and thus contradicts perfect duty).

Kant also denied that the consequences of an act in any way contribute to the moral worth of that act, his reasoning being that the physical world is outside one's full control and thus one cannot be held accountable for the events that occur in it.

The origins of utilitarianism can be traced back as far as Epicurus, but, as a school of thought, it is credited to Jeremy Bentham,[70] who found that "nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure"; then, from that moral insight, he derived the Rule of Utility: "that the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people". He defined the meaning of life as the "greatest happiness principle".

Jeremy Bentham's foremost proponent was James Mill, a significant philosopher in his day, and father of John Stuart Mill. The younger Mill was educated per Bentham's principles, including transcribing and summarizing much of his father's work.[71]

Nihilism suggests that life is without objective meaning.

Friedrich Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world, and especially human existence, of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, and essential value; succinctly, nihilism is the process of "the devaluing of the highest values".[72] Seeing the nihilist as a natural result of the idea that God is dead, and insisting it was something to overcome, his questioning of the nihilist's life-negating values returned meaning to the Earth.[73]

To Martin Heidegger, nihilism is the movement whereby "being" is forgotten, and is transformed into value, in other words, the reduction of being to exchange value.[72] Heidegger, in accordance with Nietzsche, saw in the so-called "death of God" a potential source for nihilism:

If God, as the supra-sensory ground and goal, of all reality, is dead; if the supra-sensory world of the Ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory, and above it, its vitalizing and up-building power, then nothing more remains to which Man can cling, and by which he can orient himself.[74]

The French philosopher Albert Camus asserts that the absurdity of the human condition is that people search for external values and meaning in a world which has none and is indifferent to them. Camus writes of value-nihilists such as Meursault,[75] but also of values in a nihilistic world, that people can instead strive to be "heroic nihilists", living with dignity in the face of absurdity, living with "secular saintliness", fraternal solidarity, and rebelling against and transcending the world's indifference.[76]

The current era has seen radical changes in both formal and popular conceptions of human nature. The knowledge disclosed by modern science has effectively rewritten the relationship of humankind to the natural world. Advances in medicine and technology have freed humans from significant limitations and ailments of previous eras;[77] and philosophyparticularly following the linguistic turnhas altered how the relationships people have with themselves and each other are conceived. Questions about the meaning of life have also seen radical changes, from attempts to reevaluate human existence in biological and scientific terms (as in pragmatism and logical positivism) to efforts to meta-theorize about meaning-making as a personal, individual-driven activity (existentialism, secular humanism).

Pragmatism originated in the late-19th-century US, concerning itself (mostly) with truth, and positing that "only in struggling with the environment" do data, and derived theories, have meaning, and that consequences, like utility and practicality, are also components of truth. Moreover, pragmatism posits that anything useful and practical is not always true, arguing that what most contributes to the most human good in the long course is true. In practice, theoretical claims must be practically verifiable, i.e. one should be able to predict and test claims, and, that, ultimately, the needs of humankind should guide human intellectual inquiry.

Pragmatic philosophers suggest that the practical, useful understanding of life is more important than searching for an impractical abstract truth about life. William James argued that truth could be made, but not sought.[78][79] To a pragmatist, the meaning of life is discoverable only via experience.

Theists believe God created the universe and that God had a purpose in doing so. Theists also hold the view that humans find their meaning and purpose for life in God's purpose in creating. Some theists further hold that if there were no God to give life ultimate meaning, value, and purpose, then life would be absurd.[80]

According to existentialism, each person creates the essence (meaning) of their life; life is not determined by a supernatural god or an earthly authority, one is free. As such, one's ethical prime directives are action, freedom, and decision, thus, existentialism opposes rationalism and positivism. In seeking meaning to life, the existentialist looks to where people find meaning in life, in course of which using only reason as a source of meaning is insufficient; this gives rise to the emotions of anxiety and dread, felt in considering one's free will, and the concomitant awareness of death. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, existence precedes essence; the (essence) of one's life arises only after one comes to existence.

Sren Kierkegaard spoke about a "leap", arguing that life is full of absurdity, and one must make his and her own values in an indifferent world. One can live meaningfully (free of despair and anxiety) in an unconditional commitment to something finite and devotes that meaningful life to the commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so.[81]

Arthur Schopenhauer answered: "What is the meaning of life?" by stating that one's life reflects one's will, and that the will (life) is an aimless, irrational, and painful drive. Salvation, deliverance, and escape from suffering are in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and asceticism.[82][83]

For Friedrich Nietzsche, life is worth living only if there are goals inspiring one to live. Accordingly, he saw nihilism ("all that happens is meaningless") as without goals. He stated that asceticism denies one's living in the world; stated that values are not objective facts, that are rationally necessary, universally binding commitments: our evaluations are interpretations, and not reflections of the world, as it is, in itself, and, therefore, all ideations take place from a particular perspective.[73]

"... in spite of or in defiance of the whole of existence he wills to be himself with it, to take it along, almost defying his torment. For to hope in the possibility of help, not to speak of help by virtue of the absurd, that for God all things are possibleno, that he will not do. And as for seeking help from any otherno, that he will not do for all the world; rather than seek the help he would prefer to be himselfwith all the tortures of hell if so it must be."

Sren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death[84]

In absurdist philosophy, the Absurd arises out of the fundamental disharmony between the individual's search for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe. As beings looking for meaning in a meaningless world, humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma. Kierkegaard and Camus describe the solutions in their works, The Sickness Unto Death (1849) and The Myth of Sisyphus (1942):

Per secular humanism, the human species came to be by reproducing successive generations in a progression of unguided evolution as an integral expression of nature, which is self-existing.[86][87] Human knowledge comes from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis (the scientific method), and not from supernatural sources; the nature of the universe is what people discern it to be.[86] Likewise, "values and realities" are determined "by means of intelligent inquiry"[86] and "are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience", that is, by critical intelligence.[88][89] "As far as we know, the total personality is [a function] of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context."[87]

People determine human purpose without supernatural influence; it is the human personality (general sense) that is the purpose of a human being's life which humanism seeks to develop and fulfill:[86] "Humanism affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity".[88] Humanism aims to promote enlightened self-interest and the common good for all people. It is based on the premises that the happiness of the individual person is inextricably linked to the well-being of all humanity, in part because humans are social animals who find meaning in personal relations and because cultural progress benefits everybody living in the culture.[87][88]

The philosophical subgenres posthumanism and transhumanism (sometimes used synonymously) are extensions of humanistic values. One should seek the advancement of humanity and of all life to the greatest degree feasible and seek to reconcile Renaissance humanism with the 21st century's technoscientific culture. In this light, every living creature has the right to determine its personal and social "meaning of life".[90]

From a humanism-psychotherapeutic point of view, the question of the meaning of life could be reinterpreted as "What is the meaning of my life?"[91] This approach emphasizes that the question is personaland avoids focusing on cosmic or religious questions about overarching purpose. There are many therapeutic responses to this question. For example, Viktor Frankl argues for "Dereflection", which translates largely as cease endlessly reflecting on the self; instead, engage in life. On the whole, the therapeutic response is that the question itselfwhat is the meaning of life?evaporates when one is fully engaged in life. (The question then morphs into more specific worries such as "What delusions am I under?"; "What is blocking my ability to enjoy things?"; "Why do I neglect loved-ones?".)[92]

Logical positivists ask: "What is the meaning of life?", "What is the meaning in asking?"[93][94] and "If there are no objective values, then, is life meaningless?"[95] Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists said:[citation needed] "Expressed in language, the question is meaningless"; because, in life the statement the "meaning of x", usually denotes the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or what is notable about x, etc., thus, when the meaning of life concept equals "x", in the statement the "meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive, and, therefore, nonsensical, or it might refer to the fact that biological life is essential to having a meaning in life.

The things (people, events) in the life of a person can have meaning (importance) as parts of a whole, but a discrete meaning of (the) life, itself, aside from those things, cannot be discerned. A person's life has meaning (for themselves, others) as the life events resulting from their achievements, legacy, family, etc., but, to say that life, itself, has meaning, is a misuse of language, since any note of significance, or of consequence, is relevant only in life (to the living), so rendering the statement erroneous. Bertrand Russell wrote that although he found that his distaste for torture was not like his distaste for broccoli, he found no satisfactory, empirical method of proving this:[68]

When we try to be definite, as to what we mean when we say that this or that is "the Good," we find ourselves involved in very great difficulties. Bentham's creed, that pleasure is the Good, roused furious opposition, and was said to be a pig's philosophy. Neither he nor his opponents could advance any argument. In a scientific question, evidence can be adduced on both sides, and, in the end, one side is seen to have the better caseor, if this does not happen, the question is left undecided. But in a question, as to whether this, or that, is the ultimate Good, there is no evidence, either way; each disputant can only appeal to his own emotions, and employ such rhetorical devices as shall arouse similar emotions in others ... Questions as to "values"that is to say, as to what is good or bad on its own account, independently of its effectslie outside the domain of science, as the defenders of religion emphatically assert. I think that, in this, they are right, but, I draw the further conclusion, which they do not draw, that questions as to "values" lie wholly outside the domain of knowledge. That is to say, when we assert that this, or that, has "value", we are giving expression to our own emotions, not to a fact, which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.[96]

Postmodernist thoughtbroadly speakingsees human nature as constructed by language, or by structures and institutions of human society. Unlike other forms of philosophy, postmodernism rarely seeks out a priori or innate meanings in human existence, but instead focuses on analyzing or critiquing given meanings in order to rationalize or reconstruct them. Anything resembling a "meaning of life", in postmodernist terms, can only be understood within a social and linguistic framework and must be pursued as an escape from the power structures that are already embedded in all forms of speech and interaction. As a rule, postmodernists see awareness of the constraints of language as necessary to escaping those constraints, but different theorists take different views on the nature of this process: from a radical reconstruction of meaning by individuals (as in deconstructionism) to theories in which individuals are primarily extensions of language and society, without real autonomy (as in poststructuralism).

According to naturalistic pantheism, the meaning of life is to care for and look after nature and the environment.

Embodied cognition uses the neurological basis of emotion, speech, and cognition to understand the nature of thought. Cognitive neuropsychology has identified brain areas necessary for these abilities, and genetic studies show that the gene FOXP2 affects neuroplasticity which underlies language fluency. George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive linguistics and philosophy, advances the view that metaphors are the usual basis of meaning, not the logic of verbal symbol manipulation.[citation needed] Computers use logic programming to effectively query databases but humans rely on a trained biological neural network. Postmodern philosophies that use the indeterminacy of symbolic language to deny definite meaning ignore those who feel they know what they mean and feel that their interlocutors know what they mean.[citation needed] Choosing the correct metaphor results in enough common understanding to pursue questions such as the meaning of life.[citation needed] Improved knowledge of brain function should result in better treatments producing healthier brains. When combined with more effective training, a sound personal assessment as to the meaning of one's life should be straightforward.[citation needed]

The Mohist philosophers believed that the purpose of life was universal, impartial love. Mohism promoted a philosophy of impartial caringa person should care equally for all other individuals, regardless of their actual relationship to him or her.[97] The expression of this indiscriminate caring is what makes a man a righteous being in Mohist thought. This advocacy of impartiality was a target of attack by the other Chinese philosophical schools, most notably the Confucians who believed that while love should be unconditional, it should not be indiscriminate. For example, children should hold a greater love for their parents than for random strangers.

Confucianism recognizes human nature in accordance with the need for discipline and education. Because humankind is driven by both positive and negative influences, Confucianists see a goal in achieving virtue through strong relationships and reasoning as well as minimizing the negative. This emphasis on normal living is seen in the Confucianist scholar Tu Wei-Ming's quote, "We can realize the ultimate meaning of life in ordinary human existence."[98]

The Legalists believed that finding the purpose of life was a meaningless effort. To the Legalists, only practical knowledge was valuable, especially as it related to the function and performance of the state.

The religious perspectives on the meaning of life are those ideologies that explain life in terms of an implicit purpose not defined by humans. According to the Charter for Compassion, signed by many of the world's leading religious and secular organizations, the core of religion is the golden rule of 'treat others as you would have them treat you'. The Charter's founder, Karen Armstrong, quotes the ancient Rabbi Hillel who suggested that 'the rest is commentary'. This is not to reduce the commentary's importance, and Armstrong considers that its study, interpretation, and ritual are the means by which religious people internalize and live the golden rule.

In the Judaic world view, the meaning of life is to elevate the physical world ('Olam HaZeh') and prepare it for the world to come ('Olam HaBa'), the messianic era. This is called Tikkun Olam ("Fixing the World"). Olam HaBa can also mean the spiritual afterlife, and there is debate concerning the eschatological order. However, Judaism is not focused on personal salvation, but on communal (between man and man) and individual (between man and God) spiritualised actions in this world.

Judaism's most important feature is the worship of a single, incomprehensible, transcendent, one, indivisible, absolute Being, who created and governs the universe. Closeness with the God of Israel is through a study of His Torah, and adherence to its mitzvot (divine laws). In traditional Judaism, God established a special covenant with a people, the people of Israel, at Mount Sinai, giving the Jewish commandments. Torah comprises the written Pentateuch and the transcribed oral tradition, further developed through the generations. The Jewish people are intended as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"[99] and a "light to the Nations", influencing the other peoples to keep their own religio-ethical Seven Laws of Noah. The messianic era is seen as the perfection of this dual path to God.

Jewish observances involve ethical and ritual, affirmative, and prohibitive injunctions. Modern Jewish denominations differ over the nature, relevance, and emphases of mitzvot. Jewish philosophy emphasises that God is not affected or benefited, but the individual and society benefit by drawing close to God. The rationalist Maimonides sees the ethical and ritual divine commandments as a necessary, but insufficient preparation for philosophical understanding of God, with its love and awe.[100] Among fundamental values in the Torah are pursuit of justice, compassion, peace, kindness, hard work, prosperity, humility, and education.[101][102] The world to come,[103] prepared in the present, elevates man to an everlasting connection with God.[104] Simeon the Righteous says, "The world stands on three things: on Torah, on worship, and on acts of loving kindness." The prayer book relates, "Blessed is our God who created us for his honor ... and planted within us everlasting life." Of this context, the Talmud states, "Everything that God does is for the good." including suffering.

The Jewish mystical Kabbalah gives complementary esoteric meanings of life. As well as Judaism providing an immanent relationship with God (personal theism), in Kabbalah the spiritual and physical creation is a paradoxical manifestation of the immanent aspects of God's Being (panentheism), related to the Shekhinah (Divine feminine). Jewish observance unites the sephirot (Divine attributes) on high, restoring harmony to creation. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the meaning of life is the messianic rectification of the shattered sparks of God's persona, exiled in physical existence (the Kelipot shells), through the actions of Jewish observance.[105] Through this, in Hasidic Judaism the ultimate essential "desire" of God is the revelation of the Omnipresent Divine essence through materiality, achieved by a man from within his limited physical realm when the body will give life to the soul.[106]

Christianity has its roots in Judaism, and shares much of the latter faith's ontology. Its central beliefs derive from the teachings of Jesus Christ as presented in the New Testament. Life's purpose in Christianity is to seek divine salvation through the grace of God and intercession of Christ.[108] The New Testament speaks of God wanting to have a relationship with humans both in this life and the life to come, which can happen only if one's sins are forgiven.[109]

In the Christian view, humankind was made in the Image of God and perfect, but the Fall of Man caused the progeny of the First Parents to inherit Original Sin and its consequences. Christ's passion, death and resurrection provide the means for transcending that impure state (Romans 6:23). The good news that this restoration from sin is now possible is called the gospel. The specific process of appropriating salvation through Christ and maintaining a relationship with God varies between different denominations of Christians, but all rely on faith in Christ and the gospel as the fundamental starting point. Salvation through faith in God is found in Ephesians 2:89 "[8]For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; [9]not as a result of works, that no one should boast." (NASB; 1973). The gospel maintains that through this belief, the barrier that sin has created between man and God is destroyed, thereby allowing believers to be regenerated by God and to instill in them a new heart after God's own will with the ability to live righteously before him. This is what the term saved almost always refer to.

In Reformed theology it is believed the purpose of life is to glorify God. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, an extremely important creed for Reformed Christians,[110] the first question is: "What is the chief end of Man?" (that is, "What is Man's main purpose?"). The answer is: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever". God requires one to obey the revealed moral law, saying: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself".[111] The Baltimore Catechism answers the question "Why did God make you?" by saying "God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven."[112]

The Apostle Paul also answers this question in his speech on the Areopagus in Athens: "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us."[113]

Catholicism's way of thinking is better expressed through the Principle and Foundation of St. Ignatius of Loyola: "The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord, and by doing so, to save his or her soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings in order to help them pursue the end for which they are created. It follows from this that one must use other created things, in so far as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them, in so far as they are obstacles to one's end. To do this, we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things, provided the matter is subject to our free choice and there is no other prohibition. Thus, as far as we are concerned, we should not want health more than illness, wealth more than poverty, fame more than disgrace, a-long life more than a short one, and similarly for all the rest, but we should desire and choose only what helps us more towards the end for which we are created."[114]

Mormonism teaches that the purpose of life on Earth is to gain knowledge and experience and to have joy.[115] Mormons believe that humans are literally the spirit children of God the Father, and thus have the potential to progress to become like Him. Mormons teach that God provided his children the choice to come to Earth, which is considered a crucial stage in their developmentwherein a mortal body, coupled with the freedom to choose, makes for an environment to learn and grow.[115] The Fall of Adam is not viewed as an unfortunate or unplanned cancellation of God's original plan for a paradise; rather, the opposition found in mortality is an essential element of God's plan because the process of enduring and overcoming challenges, difficulties, and temptations provides opportunities to gain wisdom and strength, thereby learning to appreciate and choose good and reject evil.[116][117] Because God is just, he allows those who were not taught the gospel during mortality to receive it after death in the spirit world,[118] so that all of his children have the opportunity to return to live with God, and reach their full potential.

A recent alternative Christian theological discourse interprets Jesus as revealing that the purpose of life is to elevate our compassionate response to human suffering;[119] nonetheless, the conventional Christian position is that people are justified by belief in the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus' death on the cross.

In Islam, humanity's ultimate purpose is to worship their creator, Allah (English: The God), through his signs, and be grateful to him through sincere love and devotion. This is practically shown by following the divine guidelines revealed in the Qur'an and the tradition of the Prophet (with the exception of Quranists). Earthly life is a test, determining one's position of closeness to Allah in the hereafter. A person will either be close to him and his love in Jannah (Paradise) or far away in Jahannam (Hell).

For Allah's satisfaction, via the Qur'an, all Muslims must believe in God, his revelations, his angels, his messengers, and in the "Day of Judgment".[120] The Qur'an describes the purpose of creation as follows: "Blessed be he in whose hand is the kingdom, he is powerful over all things, who created death and life that he might examine which of you is best in deeds, and he is the almighty, the forgiving." (Qur'an 67:12) and "And I (Allh) created not the jinn and mankind except that they should be obedient (to Allah)." (Qur'an 51:56). Obedience testifies to the oneness of God in his lordship, his names, and his attributes. Terrenal life is a test; how one acts (behaves) determines whether one's soul goes to Jannat (Heaven) or to Jahannam (Hell).[121][citation needed] However, on the day of Judgement the final decision is of Allah alone.[122]

The Five Pillars of Islam are duties incumbent to every Muslim; they are: Shahadah (profession of faith); Salat (ritual prayer); Zakat (charity); Sawm (fasting during Ramadan), and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).[123] They derive from the Hadith works, notably of Sahih Al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. The five pillars are not mentioned directly in the Quran.

Beliefs differ among the Kalam. The Sunni and the Ahmadiyya concept of pre-destination is divine decree;[124] likewise, the Shi'a concept of pre-destination is divine justice; in the esoteric view of the Sufis, the universe exists only for God's pleasure; Creation is a grand game, wherein Allah is the greatest prize.

The Sufi view of the meaning of life stems from the hadith qudsi that states "I (God) was a Hidden Treasure and loved to be known. Therefore I created the Creation that I might be known." One possible interpretation of this view is that the meaning of life for an individual is to know the nature of God, and the purpose of all of creation is to reveal that nature and to prove its value as the ultimate treasure, that is God. However, this hadith is stated in various forms and interpreted in various ways by people, such, as 'Abdu'l-Bah of the Bah Faith, and in Ibn'Arab's Fu al-ikam.[126]

The Bah Faith emphasizes the unity of humanity.[127] To Bahs, the purpose of life is focused on spiritual growth and service to humanity. Human beings are viewed as intrinsically spiritual beings. People's lives in this material world provide extended opportunities to grow, to develop divine qualities and virtues, and the prophets were sent by God to facilitate this.[128][129]

Hinduism is a religious category including many beliefs and traditions. Since Hinduism was the way of expressing meaningful living for a long time before there was a need for naming it as a separate religion, Hindu doctrines are supplementary and complementary in nature, generally non-exclusive, suggestive, and tolerant in content.[130] Most believe that the tman (spirit, soul)the person's true selfis eternal.[131] In part, this stems from Hindu beliefs that spiritual development occurs across many lifetimes, and goals should match the state of development of the individual. There are four possible aims to human life, known as the purusharthas (ordered from least to greatest): (i) Kma (wish, desire, love and sensual pleasure), (ii) Artha (wealth, prosperity, glory), (iii) Dharma (righteousness, duty, morality, virtue, ethics), encompassing notions such as ahimsa (non-violence) and satya (truth) and (iv) Moksha (liberation, i.e. liberation from Sasra, the cycle of reincarnation).[132][133][134]

In all schools of Hinduism, the meaning of life is tied up in the concepts of karma (causal action), sansara (the cycle of birth and rebirth), and moksha (liberation). Existence is conceived as the progression of the tman (similar to the western concept of a soul) across numerous lifetimes, and its ultimate progression towards liberation from karma. Particular goals for life are generally subsumed under broader yogas (practices) or dharma (correct living) which are intended to create more favorable reincarnations, though they are generally positive acts in this life as well. Traditional schools of Hinduism often worship Devas which are manifestations of Ishvara (a personal or chosen God); these Devas are taken as ideal forms to be identified with, as a form of spiritual improvement.

In short, the goal is to realize the fundamental truth about oneself. This thought is conveyed in the Mahvkyas ("Tat Tvam Asi" (thou art that), "Aham Brahmsmi", "Prajnam Brahma" and "Ayam tm Brahma" (This tman is Brahman)).

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Meaning of life - Wikipedia

Take years off your age: this Israeli expert says its all up to you  Haaretz

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Take years off your age: this Israeli expert says its all up to you - Haaretz

Biological evolution takes place over generations. But imagine if it could be expedited beyond the incremental change envisaged by Darwin to a matter of individual experience. Such things are dreamt of by so-called transhumanists. Transhumanism has come to connote different things to different people, from a belief system to a cultural movement, a field of study to a technological fantasy. You cant get a degree in transhumanism, but you can subscribe to it, invest in it, research its actors, and act on its tenets.

So what is it? The term transhumanism gained widespread currency in 1990, following its formal inauguration by Max More, the CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation. It refers to an optimistic belief in the enhancement of the human condition through technology in all its forms. Its advocates believe in fundamentally enhancing the human condition through applied reason and a corporeal embrace of new technologies.

It is rooted in the belief that humans can and will be enhanced by the genetic engineering and information technology of today, as well as anticipated advances, such as bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and molecular nanotechnology. The result is an iteration of Homo sapiens enhanced or augmented, but still fundamentally human.

The central premise of transhumanism, then, is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process. This was the kernel of Mores founding definition in 1990. Article two of the periodically updated, multi-authored transhumanist declaration continues to assert the point: We favor morphological freedom the right to modify and enhance ones body, cognition and emotions.

To date, areas to improve on include natural ageing (including, for die-hards, the cessation of involuntary death) as well as physical, intellectual and psychological capacities. Some distinguished scientists, such as Hans Moravec and Raymond Kurzweil, even advocate a posthuman condition: the end of humanitys reliance on our congenital bodies by transforming our frail version 1.0 human bodies into their far more durable and capable version 2.0 counterparts.

The push back against such unchecked optimism is emphatic. Some find the rhetoric distasteful in its assumptions about the desire for a prosthetic future.

And potential ethical problems, in particular, are raised. Tattoos, piercings and cosmetic surgery remain a matter of individual choice, and amputations a matter of medical necessity. But if augmented sensory capacity, for instance, were to become normative in a particular field, it might coerce others to make similar changes to their bodies in order to compete. As Isaiah Berlin once put it: Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.

In order to really get to grips with the meaning of all this, though, an example is needed. Take the hypothetical augmentation of human hearing, something I am researching within a broader project on sound and materialism. Within discussions of transhumanism, ears are not typically among the sense organs figured for enhancement.

But human hearing is already being augmented. Algorithms for transposing auditory frequencies already exist (common to most speech processors in cochlear implants and hearing aids). Research into the regeneration of cilia hairs in the cochlear duct is also ongoing. Following this logic, augmenting unimpaired hearing need be no different, in principle, to correcting impaired hearing.

What next? Acoustic sound vibrations sit alongside the vast, inaudible electromagnetic spectrum, and various animals access different portions of this acoustic space, portions to which we as humans have no access. Could this change?

If it does, this may well alter the identity of sound itself. Speculations as to whether what is visible as light might under other circumstances be perceivable as sound have arisen at various points over the past two centuries. This raises heady questions about the very definition of sound. Must it be perceived by a human ear to constitute sound? By a sentient animal? Can a machine hear sufficiently to define sound beyond the human auditory range? What about aesthetics? Aesthetics itself as the (human) study of the beautiful may no longer even be applicable.

The technologies for broaching such questions are arguably already at hand. Examples of auditory sense augmentation (broadly conceived) include Norbert Wieners so-called hearing glove, which stimulated the finger of a deaf person with electromagnetic vibrations; an implanted colour sensor that for its colour-blind recipient, Neil Harbisson converts the colour spectrum into sounds, including ultraviolet and infrared signals; and a cochlear implant that streams sounds wirelessly from Apples mass market devices directly to the auditory nerve of its recipients.

The discussion is not entirely hypothetical, in other words. So what does all this mean?

There is a famous scene in the film The Matrix in which Morpheus asks Neo whether he wants to take the blue pill or the red pill. One returns him unawares to his life of total physical and mental enslavement within the simulation programme of the Matrix, the other gives him access to the real world with all its brutal challenges. But after experiencing this, he can never go back to life within the Matrix, and must survive outside it.

Advocates of transhumanism face a similar choice today. One option is to take advantage of the advances in nanotechnologies, genetic engineering and other medical sciences to enhance the biological and mental functioning of human beings (never to go back). The other is to legislate to prevent these artificial changes from becoming an entrenched part of humanity, with all the implied coercive bio-medicine that would entail for the species.

Of course, the reality of this debate is more complex. Holding our scepticism in abeyance, it still supersedes individual choice. Hence the question of agency remains: who should have the right to decide?

Editors note: this article was updated on March 29 to clarify that acoustic sound is not part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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Transhumanism: advances in technology could already put evolution into ...

If anyone needed proof that the powers pushing the levers behind the mindless moron who sits in the Oval Office are fully on board with the World Economic Forum/United Nations agenda of biomedical tyranny and transhumanism, look no further than theexecutive order that Joe Biden signed on Monday, September 12.

This by Leo Hohmann on thegatewaypundit.com.

By quietly getting Bidens signature on this document, his handlers may have given us the most ominous sign yet that we stand on the threshold of a technocratic one-world beast system.

This documents Orwellian title,Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy, will assure that its significance will fly right over the heads of 99 percent of the media, even the conservative media. They will read it and yawn.

Because of the arcane scientific language in which this document is written, even most of those who take the time to read and study it (I assure you Biden did not) will not fully grasp what is being ordered by the White House.

Thats where we strive to help.

Karen Kingston, a former Pfizer employee and current analyst for the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries, helps us decipher whats going on in this executive order.

Kingston stated in a Twitter post:

Let me read between the lines for the America.

Bidens Sept. 12, 2022, executive order declares that Americans must surrender all human rights that stand in the way of transhumanism.

Clinical trial safety standards and informed consent will be eradicated as they stand in the way of universally unleashing gene-editing technologies needed to merge humans with A.I.

In order to achieve the societal goals of the New World Order, crimes against humanity are not only legal, but mandatory.

Patrick Wood, an economist and author of several books on technocracy, has been following the transhumanist and global technocracy movements for four decades. He told me that Kingston is not overstating the issue.

He said:

[T]his executive order is proof that the executive branch is now owned lock, stock and barrel by the biomedical/pharmaceutical industry. It will be Katy bar the door from here on out.

Wood stated:

The transhumanists within Big Pharma have completely taken over government policy and taxpayer funds to promote their own anti-human agenda of hacking the software of life.

It also clearly demonstrates who has the power, and who sets the policies in America.

The mRNA injections that have already gone into the bodies of at least 70 percent of adults in the U.S. mark the gateway to transhumanism. We have been told this by Kingston as well as by the late Dr. Zev Zelenko and Dr. Robert Malone, a co-inventor of the mRNA platform.

LeoHohmann.com was one of the first sites to blow the whistle on Modernas former chief medical officer, Tal Zaks, who told the world straight up in December 2017:

We have hacked the software of life, and this mRNA gene-editing biotechnology would be incorporated into vaccines to treat and prevent all manner of illnesses.

Weve seen how well they work, with millions getting sick and even dying after getting two or more doses of the Covid injections offered up by Moderna and Pfizer.

With the FDA and CDC now totally on board, this mRNA technology is being included in scores of other vaccines, including flu shots.

The September 12 executive order was no doubt put in place as back up for the continued experimentation on the human population, and I expect the vaccine industry will exploit it to the max.

Soon we will see the return of vax mandates, this time more ferociously policed and enforced than before.

This E.O. may also have been timed at least partly in anticipation of the new pandemic treaty that the Obiden Regime is hoping to get passed through the United Nations World Health Organization next year. This treaty will transfer sovereignty over matters of health emergencies from the national level to the WHO.

Wood said:

[T]he E.O.s intended consequences is to push the frontier of genetic modification of all living things and especially humans. He believes this will ultimately spark the biggest public backlash in modern history.

Wood wrote:

Biden pledges not only funding but an all-of-government transformation to support this anti-human scheme from top to bottom.

It also automatically blocks any agency or department from dissent.

Below are just a few of the highlights quoted directly from the document:

What this means is that human beings will be data mined for their most personal possession, their DNA and genomic properties, and the government will offer no protection.

It will actually be encouraged and seen as a green light for biomedical practitioners worldwide.

It is the goal of the technocratic proprietors of Agenda 2030 to catalogue, map out, and monitor every living thing on earth.

This was spelled out in the early 2000s by the late researcher Rosa Koire and put into book form in 2011 with Behind the Green Mask: U.N. Agenda 21.

Koire was a [d]emocrat, but she understood that the takedown of America and indeed every nation of the formerly free world, would not be accomplished by the left or the right but by supranational globalists with an allegiance to no nation. In fact, these globalists detest the nation-state model that has dominated the world for thousands of years.

Their goal is a global governance, and they say it out loud in their own documents.

Now what, Def-Con News readers?

Well, we must not be intimidated and we must not be overcome with fear.

We must believe humanity will prevail against these anti-human eugenicist monsters.

The goal of Patriots currently working on humanitys behalf is to expose the sinister transhumanist agenda that these globalist predators did their best to keep hidden within a scientific vernacular that they know will wow and mystify the average person.

What they are doing has been decoded in this article from two of the best experts on the topic available in the world todayKaren Kingston and Patrick Wood.

Let us maintain our faith that We the People will overcome this current Regime from Hell and regain our Constitutional Republic.

God speed to Conservatism.

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Bidens Executive Order Designed to Release Transhumanist Hell on ...

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September 12, 2022, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy

Specified in that order is the development of genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers, as well as genetic technologies to unlock the power of biological data using computing tools and artificial intelligence

This executive order establishes a fast-tracked pipeline of mRNA shots and other gene therapies that will further the transhumanist agenda to create augmented humans and bring us into a post-human world

Drug makers have clearly expected this free-for-all as they have loads of mRNA candidates in their pipelines. September 14, 2022, Pfizer initiated a Phase 3 study that will test a quadrivalent mRNA-based flu shot on 25,000 American adults

Moderna began its Phase 3 mRNA flu jab trial in early June 2022. Ultimately, Moderna wants to create an annual mRNA shot that covers all of the top 10 viruses that result in hospitalizations each year

*

September 12, 2022, President Biden signed the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe and Secure American Bioeconomy.1

Specified in that order is the development of genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers, as well as genetic technologies to unlock the power of biological data using computing tools and artificial intelligence.

Additionally, obstacles for commercialization will be reduced so that innovative technologies and products can reach markets faster. What we have here is, in a nutshell, the creation of a fast-tracked mRNA pipeline.

When, in June 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quietly implemented a Future Framework scheme2 to deliver reformulated COVID boosters without additional testing, I predicted that this no testing required formula would spread beyond COVID shots. And, according to this executive order, thats exactly whats about to happen.

In early September 2022, the FDA also put out medically false and misleading COVID booster campaign messages that prove weve officially entered the era of transhumanism:

Its time to install that update! #UpdateYourAntibodies with a new #COVID19 booster.3Dont be shocked! You can now #RechargeYourImmunity with an updated #COVID19 booster.4

Over the past three years, Ive written several articles exploring the transhumanist agenda, which all these mRNA shots and genetic technologies are part and parcel of. Basically, the goal of the transhumanist movement is to transcend biology through technology, and to meld human biology with technology and artificial intelligence.

In September 2020, I posted a video with Dr. Carrie Madej (above), in which she suggested we were standing at the crossroads of transhumanism, thanks to the fast approaching release of mRNA COVID-19 shots.

One reason why its important to know whether synthetic RNA creates permanent changes in the genome is because synthetic genes are patented. If they cause permanent changes, humans will contain patented genes, and that brings up very serious questions, seeing how patents have owners, and owners have patent rights.

Since these shots are designed to manipulate your biology, they have the potential to also alter the biology of the entire human race. Nearly two years later, we still dont know the extent to which they might be doing that, yet more fast-tracked and untested gene therapies are on the way.

One reason why its important to know for certain whether synthetic RNA ends up creating permanent changes in the genome is because synthetic genes are patented. If they cause permanent changes, humans will contain patented genes, and that brings up very serious questions, seeing how patents have owners, and owners have patent rights.

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Biden's Executive Order Advances Biotech-Transhumanist Agenda ...

Elon Musks brain-chip company Neuralink is facing a legal challenge from an animal rights group that has accused the company of subjecting monkeys to extreme suffering during years of gruesome experiments.

Neuralinks brain chips which Musk claims will one day make humans hyper-intelligent and let paralyzed people walk again were implanted in monkeys brains during a series of tests at the University of California, Davis from 2017 to 2020, according to a compliant from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed with the the US Department of Agriculture on Thursday.

In one example, a monkey was allegedly found missing some of its fingers and toes possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma. The monkey was later killed during a terminal procedure, the group said in a copy of the complaint shared with The Post.

In another case, a monkey had holes drilled in its skull and electrodes implanted into its brain, then allegedly developed a bloody skin infection and had to be euthanized, according to the complaint.

In a third instance, a female macaque monkey had electrodes implanted into its brain, then was overcome with vomiting, retching and gasping. Days later, researchers wrote that the animal appeared to collapse from exhaustion/fatigue and was subsequently euthanized. An autopsy then showed the monkey had suffered from a brain hemorrhage, according to the report.

The experiments involved 23 monkeys in all. At least 15 of them died or were euthanized by 2020, according to the group, which based the report on records released through Californias open records law.

Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered from pretty debilitating health effects, Jeremy Beckham, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicines research advocacy director, told The Post. They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals.

The macabre report comes as Neuralink plans to begin its first human tests. Musk said in December that he wants to start human trials for the devices in 2022 and the company posted a job listing for a clinical trial director this January.

The group behind the report, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, advocates for veganism and alternatives to animal testing positions that have sometimes put the group at odds with the American Medical Association. It has also previously received funding from controversial animal rights group PETA, The Guardian reported.

The group doesnt currently have any relationship with PETA but sometimes works on overlapping issues, Beckham said.

The organization is accusing Neuralink and UC Davis of nine violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act a federal measure designed to reduce suffering during animal experiments.

Many, if not all, of the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments, which were performed in pursuit of developing what Neuralink and Elon Musk have publicly described as a brain-machine interface, the group wrote in its complaint to the USDA.

These highly invasive implants and their associated hardware, which are inserted in the brain after drilling holes in the animals skulls, have produced recurring infections in the animals, significantly compromising their health, as well as the integrity of the research.

The group is also suing UC Davis in an attempt to make them release more photos, videos and information about the monkeys under Californias public records laws.

The alleged abuses come in stark contrast to publicly shared materials from Neuralink. In a video posted on YouTube last April, the company showed a healthy and happy-seeming monkey playing the video game Pong with its brain.

A UC Davis spokesperson told The Post that its work with Neuralink ended in 2020 and that the universitys Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee had thoroughly reviewed and approved its project with Neuralink.

We strive to provide the best possible care to animals in our charge, the spokesperson added. Animal research is strictly regulated, and UC Davis follows all applicable laws and regulations including those of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Neuralink didnt immediately return a request for comment from The Post.

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Elon Musks Neuralink allegedly subjected monkeys to extreme suffering

Douglas Rushkoffs newest book, Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, grew out of a brilliant 2018 Medium article of the same name, which went viral and had people (aka his US editor) clamouring for a full-length treatment.

Review: Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires Douglas Rushkoff (Scribe Publications)

In both pieces, Rushkoff recounts being invited to speak about the future of technology, only to find himself at a luxury desert resort in an undisclosed location, speaking to a select audience of five unnamed hedge fund billionaires. Within minutes, the conversation takes on a distinctly prepper-ish tone. One of the CEOs tells Rushkoff about his newly completed underground shelter, then asks, How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?

Rushkoff is bemused, but also grimly amused by it all. Here they were, asking a Marxist media theorist for advice on where and how to configure their doomsday bunkers, he writes. Thats when it hit me: at least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology.

Read more: With threats of nuclear war and climate disaster growing, America's 'bunker fantasy' is woefully inadequate

So far, so head-spinningly good. Unfortunately, however, Rushkoff moves away from the billionaires and their intriguingly delusional self-preservation tactics, into a realm of high ideas.

Over the next 12 and a half chapters, Rushkoff offers a Grand Unified Theory of tech billionaire ideology. Inspired by a 1995 article, The Californian Ideology, he chooses to call this The Mindset a frustratingly vague term that doesnt really clarify things.

At times, The Mindset is roughly synonymous with the ideology of libertarianism; at others, it is much more amorphous referring to everything from growth-based capitalism, to colonialism, to narcissism. And as Hugo Rifkind notes in The Times, while the Mindset is interesting, its not nearly as interesting as the bonkers escape plans to which it leads.

If youre after a primer on the various ills of late capitalism, then strap yourself in and enjoy this wide-ranging, freewheeling romp by one of the USs most entertaining digital culture raconteurs.

His subjects include but not are not limited to monopolies, financialisation, behavioural science, scientism (Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker et al.) and the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. Theres the 1980s business savvy of General Electric CEO Jack Welch and the Western, linear drive towards progress. Our estrangement from nature. The persistence of Aristotelian plot structures. And even Western language systems, which tend to be more noun-based than many of their counterparts.

Rushkoff is an accessible, pithy writer, with no shortage of examples, analogies and anecdotes to string together. That said, his relentless synthesising and breathless proclamations also make the book feel a bit shambolic, a bit over-reachy. (For instance, The Mindset prefers straight lines, linear progress and infinite expansion over the ebbs and flows in the real world.)

This is especially so if youre searching for the what-it-says-on-the-label bits the tech bros and their bizarre survival plans.

Case in point: Rushkoff tells a quite-long story about arguing with Richard Dawkins about morality at a Manhattan dinner party in the 1990s. Great. He then claims that Stephen Pinker and Daniel Dennett believe the brain is mere hardware and humans are just robots running programs. Sure. Next, he points out that Dawkins, Pinker and Dennett were all photographed on Jeffrey Epsteins private jet on their way to a TED talk. Guilt by association fallacy, but okay. As a finale, Epstein is described as truly the model, self-sovereign, transhumanist billionaire prepper.

Heres the problem: while Jeffrey Epstein was a lot of terrible things, he wasnt a prepper, in the proper sense of that word. Theres no record of him saying he thought society was about to collapse, or that he was making any just-in-case plans. More generally, none of the aforementioned four are Silicon Valley titans, or billionaires theyre three scientists and one multimillionaire Wall Street financier/paedophile. And theyre only tangentially relevant to the matter at hand.

Read more: How to survive a tactical nuclear bomb? Defence experts explain

Also, given how much other ground is covered, it is a little surprising that Rushkoff doesnt name check that ur-text of cyber libertarianism, The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State (1997), by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg.

Davidson and Rees-Mogg dream of a time when individuals will be freed from the shackles of government, fiat currency (government-issued paper money, not backed by a commodity such as gold) and law in general. (William Rees-Moggs son, UK politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, was one of the most vocal cheerleaders for Brexit.)

In this thrilling new age, a cognitive elite will be able to rule or ignore the rest of the world, as they see fit. The Sovereign Individual is a hugely influential text in the start-up world; early Facebook backer, Paypal co-founder and conservative libertarian Peter Thiel, who is infamous in New Zealand for buying his citizenship and attempting to build luxury bunkers in the wilderness wrote the foreword to the 2020 reprint.

Survival of the Richest contains an excellent anecdote about Rushkoff being in a Zoom meeting with some tech developers on 6 January 2021, which is derailed by the breaking news of an attempted coup at the Capitol building (if you think thats bad, wait till you hear how the programmers react!).

Theres this jaw-dropping factoid:

Jeff Bezos has a yacht with a helipad that serves as a companion yacht to his main yacht, which has large sails that would get in the way of his helicopter during takeoff and landing.

There are some extremely sharp reflections on artificial intelligence:

Whether AI will develop human and superhuman abilities in the next decade, century, millennium, if ever, may matter less right now than AIs grip over the tech elite, and what this obsession tells us about The Mindset.

Regarding the prospect of artificial intelligence putting millions of people out of work in the near future, entrepreneurs such as Reid Hoffmann (LinkedIn CEO) and Mark Cuban (startup dude, billionaire) are worried that unemployed humans might coalesce into vengeful, billionaire-resenting mobs and attack them. Though theyre not worried about ruining all those peoples lives in the first place.

But and this is a little ironic theres precious little biographical detail about Mark Cuban, or Reid Hoffmann, or any of the other bros in the book. Their function is purely as symbols of rapacious greed: embodiments of The Mindset. They are not examined as deeply flawed, but nonetheless complex human beings.

Read more: What do we owe future generations? And what can we do to make their world a better place?

In some ways, this is a question of method, and access. While Rushkoff mixes in some pretty wild company on his global speaking gigs, and has serendipitous encounters with some outlandish figures, hes not doing any journalistic or enthnographic legwork here.

In short: he hasnt interviewed any of tech billionaires he writes about. He doesnt really know what motivates them or at least, not all of it. When it comes to these wealthy, selfish peoples strategies to survive the event, Rushkoff is dismissive rather than curious. He is adamant that a billionaires prepper scheme any scheme just wont work.

In Chapter One, he contends that the probability of a fortified bunker actually protecting its occupants from the reality of, well, reality, is very slim, because the closed ecosystems of underground facilities are preposterously brittle. If your underground hydroponic garden is overrun by mould or bacteria, theres no do-over; youll just die.

Similarly,

small islands are utterly dependent on air and sea deliveries for basic staples [] the billionaires who reside in such locales are more, not less, dependent on complex supply chains than those of us embedded in industrial civilization.

Seasteading the libertarian idea of building autonomous, floating mini-states, which operate outside of state control is mentioned, but not discussed in any detail. And the modest proposals of Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos et al. to commercialise space travel and colonise Mars are rejected with the observation only trillionaires will actually make it to space to terraform planets, anyway.

This might be true enough but its also the ostensible subject of the book, and as such, perhaps worth spending a bit more time on.

For Rushkoff, then, the billionaire bunker strategy is less a viable strategy for apocalypse than a metaphor for this disconnected way of life a canny insight, to be sure. But those bunkers arent only metaphorical; theyre also very real, and large, and expensive, and fascinating in their logistic intricacies and (im)possibilities.

If Survival of the Richest had told us more about this insane infrastructure, and about the people who dreamed it up, we might be able to better understand the unmistakably phallic spaceships as symbols, too.

Readers with specific interest in doomsday bunkers, and what they might represent in ideological terms, should seek out Bradley Garretts Bunker: Building for the End Times (2020). Mark OConnell writes insightfully about Peter Thiels New Zealand boltholes as a symptom of extreme libertarian misanthropy in Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back (2020).

Those wishing to learn more personal details about the computer nerds and venture captial bros who hold such outsized sway in contemporary life should read Max Chafkins 2021 biography The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valleys Pursuit of Power, or Ashlee Vances 2015 book Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Is Shaping Our Future, as well as David Runciman and John Lanchesters incisive essays about Thiel and Musk respectively in the London Review of Books.

Or, what the hell, rewatch The Social Network.

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Doomsday bunkers, Mars and 'The Mindset': the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world - The Conversation Indonesia

A new understanding of the fundamental connection between mind and body explains phenomena such as phantom limbs, and has surprising implications

By Mo Costandi / The Observer

In 2018, billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman paid a startup called Nectome US$10,000 to preserve his brain after he dies and, when the technology to do so becomes available, to upload his memories and consciousness to the cloud.

This prospect, which was recently popularized in Amazon Primes sci-fi comedy series Upload, has long been entertained by transhumanists. Although theoretically possible, it is rooted in the flawed idea that the brain is separate from the body, and can function without it.

The idea that the mind and brain are separate from each other is usually attributed to the 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes, who believed that the body is made of matter, and the mind of some other, non-physical substance.

Modern brain research rejects the distinction between the physical and the mental. Most neuroscientists agree that what we call the mind is made of matter. The mind is hard to define, but the consensus now is that it emerges from the complex networks of cells in the brain.

But most people still view the mind and brain as being distinct from the body. In 2016, four prominent brain researchers published an article summarizing what we know about consciousness. It begins: Being conscious means that one is having an experience to see an image, hear a sound, think a thought or feel an emotion.

It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that the mind/brain and body are intimately linked, and that the body influences our thoughts and emotions. Being conscious does not just mean having awareness of the outside world. It means being aware of ones self within ones surroundings. The way we experience our body is central to how we perceive our self.

PHANTOM LIMBS

Phantom limbs are a striking demonstration of the importance of the body for self-consciousness. They were described in the mid-16th century by the barber-surgeon Ambroise Pare, who reportedly amputated several hundred limbs a day during the Italian war of 1542-46.

Verily it is a thing wondrous, strange and prodigious, he wrote. The patients who have many months after the cutting away of the leg grievously complained that they yet felt exceeding great pain of that leg cut off. At that time, however, few survived the operation, so the phenomenon was seen only rarely, and dismissed as a delusion.

Advances in medicine and military technology changed this. The invention of a bullet called the Minie ball with its greater accuracy, range and muzzle velocity, increased the number of amputations, while the introduction of anesthetics and antiseptics improved the survival rates of soldiers who went under the knife.

And so it was that the neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell, who amputated countless arms and legs on the battlefields of the American civil war, came to see that phantom limbs are the rule rather than an exception, experienced by the vast majority of amputees.

The medical community was still skeptical of the phenomenon, however, so Mitchell initially described his observations as a short story, The Case of George Dedlow, published in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1866. The fictional titular character was a composite of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who were maimed and mutilated during the conflict. He lost all four limbs, one by one, to become a useless torso, more like some strange larval creature than anything of human shape, reduced to [a] fraction of a man.

Mitchells story was so vivid that readers took it as factual, and believed that he was a real patient being treated at Philadelphias South Street Stump hospital. Many wrote him letters of support, some tried to visit him and some even raised money for his care. But the story played a large part in bringing the phenomenon into the realms of medical science, and Mitchell went on to become the first elected president of the American Neurological Association.

Mitchell recognized phantom limbs as a disturbance of bodily self-consciousness, in which the amputee retains awareness of the missing limb, and feels as if it is still attached to their body. In some amputees, the phantom disappears within weeks or months of amputation. In others, it persists for decades.

Phantoms do not appear only in the form of missing limbs. Women may experience phantom breasts after mastectomy; men can experience phantom erections after amputation of a cancerous penis; and there are reports of phantom eyes, noses, teeth and even phantom haemorrhoids, bowel movements and gas after surgical removal of the rectum.

BODY INTEGRITY IDENTITY DISORDER

Phantom sensations occur because the brain creates a dynamic model of the body by integrating tactile and visual information with limb position signals from the muscles and tendons. This model, variously called the body schema or body image, is crucial for both the perception and control of the body. But when a limb or other body part is removed, the schema is not properly updated, and so it retains an imprint of the missing part. As a result, the individual remains conscious of the missing part often, even more so than of their existing body parts.

Most of us could imagine few things worse than having a limb amputated. But some people want nothing more.

Take Australian Robert Vickers. Before I was 10 years old I knew my left leg somehow didnt belong, Vickers told ABC Radio National in 2009, and that my body would not be as I felt it should be until I had the leg amputated precisely halfway up the thigh.

Vickers harbored this strange desire, and suffered in silence, for more than 30 years. It made him severely depressed, and he received psychotherapy. He was prescribed antidepressants, tranquillizers, and antipsychotics, and received electroconvulsive therapy, but to no avail. He tried, without success, to damage his leg in various ways, in order to force an amputation.

Then, at 41, he submerged the unwanted limb in dry ice until the pain became unbearable. His wife drove him to hospital, where he received the amputation he had wanted for so long.

I left hospital two weeks later with my desired stump, and life changed for the better from that day. In the 24 years since, I only regret not doing it sooner.

Vickers is perhaps the best documented case of body integrity identity disorder (BIID), an extremely rare condition, of which fewer than 500 other cases have been reported to date. For most of his life, Vickers believed his experience to be unique, but others suffering from the condition describe it in similar terms.

All report a fascination with amputees, and a desire to amputate, from an early age. The desire usually becomes obsessive, to the extent that they will try self-amputation. Use of dry ice appears to be the most common method, and some have used homemade guillotines or shotguns. In another well-documented case, a 79-year-old New Yorker traveled to Mexico and paid an unqualified doctor US$10,000 to amputate his leg. He died of gangrene a week later.

AMPUTATION LOVE

BIID first appeared in medical literature in a 1977 study published in the Journal of Sex Research. The authors of this study including Greg Furth, himself a wannabe amputee described the condition as a paraphilia, or an abnormal sexual behavior, in which the stump is fetishized because it resembles a phallus, and named it apotemnophilia, meaning amputation love.

Some BIID sufferers do indeed report a sexual aspect to their desire to amputate. But they invariably describe their experience in terms of self-identity. One participant in Melody Gilberts 2003 documentary Whole says that he finally became a person late in life after blowing his own leg off with a shotgun. Another participant told the film-makers that by taking the leg away, Im actually more of a person than I was before Ive corrected the body that was wrong.

Vickers has stated that he felt incomplete with his left leg, and that he only became whole after its removal.

The condition was renamed body integrity identity disorder to reflect this. BIID is a disturbance of bodily self-consciousness with a neurological basis, as are phantom limbs. There is evidence to suggest that it occurs because the affected limb is not incorporated into the body schema as it develops in early childhood. Amputation is not offered as a treatment for BIID sufferers, but it could be argued that making it available to them would minimize their risk of self-harm.

NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Research into bodily awareness is leading us to rethink the nature of consciousness. Our understanding of how the brain works will progress only when we stop observing the brain in isolation, and start thinking of it as one part of a system that includes the body and its environment.

An understanding of how brain and body interact is critical for understanding the phenomena of phantom limbs and BIID. Such interactions also play a key role in mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, and in eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. All of these conditions cause symptoms in the body that may be accompanied by disturbances in how the brain interprets those symptoms.

Yet the links between the brain and body are still under-appreciated. Only by taking the body into consideration will we gain a better understanding of these conditions and, it is to be hoped, develop effective treatments for them.

The new understanding of bodily self-consciousness leads us to some surprising conclusions. If bodily awareness is the basis of self-consciousness, then it follows that bumblebees, and even robots, may possess basic consciousness.

A study published in 2020 by researchers in Germany showed that bees can accurately judge gaps between obstacles relative to their wingspan, and reorient their bodies accordingly to avoid inflight collisions. Researchers at Columbia Universitys Creative Machines Lab have developed a starfish-shaped robot with an in-built body schema, which can adjust its gait after having a limb removed. The latest version of this robot creates its own body schema from experience.

If self-consciousness is based in bodily awareness, then it is unlikely that a lab-grown mini-brain could ever become conscious, as some ethicists have claimed. By the same token, transhumanists claim that we will one day gain immortality by uploading our brains to supercomputers will probably always be science fiction.

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Is the body key to understanding consciousness? -

There is a lot of work going into creating the next generation of the web. Most of it is focused on the concept that, rather than traditional web pages, well have a very different experience that is far more immersive. Lets call it Web 3D.

I had a chance to talk with Nvidias CEO Jensen Huang who shared his view of Web 3D. While it blends elements of the metaverse, its tied more to the AI implementation that will front-end the next generation of the web than it is to the emulation of reality increasingly fund on that new web.

Confused? You arent alone, let me try to untangle the concept.

Then well look at my product of the week, a very different Amazon Kindle called Scribe. It shows promise but needs a couple of tweaks to become a great product.

Interestingly, I think Microsofts Halo game series got this right to begin with because Cortana, Microsofts fictional AI universal interface, is closest to what Huang indicated was his vision of the future web.

In the game and TV series Halo, Cortana is what Master Chief interacts with to access the technology around him. Sadly, even though prototypes like the one in this YouTube video were built, Microsoft hasnt yet taken Cortana to where it could be.

Right now, Cortana lags behind both Siri, Apples digital assistant, and Google Assistant.

Huang envisions that an AI front end will become reality with the next generation of the web. Youll be able to design your AI interface or likely license an already created image and personality from different providers as they step up to this opportunity.

For instance, if you wanted the AI to look like your perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, you could initially describe what you want to an interface and the AI would design one based on what you trained that AI to look for.

Alternatively and this isnt mutually exclusive it could design it based on your known interests, pulling from the cookies and web posts youve made during your life. Or you could choose a character from a movie or an actor, which would come with a recurring charge, that would, in character, become that personal interface.

Imagine having Black Widow or Thor as your personal guide to the world of information. Theyd behave just as they do in the Avenger movies while getting you to the information youre looking for. Rather than seeing a web page, youd see your chosen digital assistant which would magically bring up metaverse elements to address your questions.

Search as we know it would change as well.

For instance, when looking for a new car, you might go to different manufacturers web sites and explore the options. But in the future, you might instead say what car should I now buy? and, based on what the AI knows about you, or how you answer questions about your lifestyle, it would then provide its recommendation and pull you into a metaverse experience where you virtually test drive the car that is based on the options the AI thinks youll want.

During this virtual drive, it will add other options that you might like, and youll be able to convey your interest, or lack thereof, to come to a final choice. Finally, it will recommend where you should buy your car, faving whatever outlook optimized to whether you valued things like low price or good service more. These options would include both new and used offerings depending again on what the AI knows about your preferences.

Time and effort spent on the project would be massively reduced while your satisfaction, assuming the information the AI has on you is accurate, is maximized. Over time, this Web 3D interface would become more of a companion and trusted friend than anything youve seen on the web so far.

Once it reaches critical mass, care will need to be taken to assure it isnt compromised to favor the interests of a political party, vendor, or bad actor.

This last is important. It may turn out that instead of being free like browsers are today, the interface ends up being a paid service to make sure no other entity can take advantage of your trust, because there is a substantial opportunity to use this new interface against you. Assuring that wont happen should be getting more focus than it is currently.

According to Huang, the future of this front end call it the next generation browser is an increasingly photorealistic avatar that is based on your personal preferences and interests; one that can behave in character when needed; and one that will provide more focused choices and a far more personalized web experience.

Perhaps we should be talking less about the next generation of the web in terms of its visual aspects, the 3D part, and more about its behavioral aspects, the Transhumanist Web. Something to noodle on this week.

Ive been using Kindles since they were first released. Mine had both a keyboard and a free cellular connection.

Theyve proven to be interesting products when traveling, have days-long battery life, and perform better in the sun than LCD-based tablets or smartphones. Some are water resistant, allowing you to use them during water recreation activities. For instance, when I float on the river near my home, Ill bring my water-resistant Kindle with me so that I can read during the boring parts (for me, the entire float is the boring part).

But they have always been limited to being able to read books and certain digital files (you could email .pdf files to Amazon to put on your Kindle). That just changed with the new Kindle Scribe. Its similar in size to the 10-inch Amazon Fire tablet and allows you to mark up the documents and books you are reading.

While the Kindle Scribe is still a reading-focused product, this latest version has optional pens that can be used to draw or annotate things you are reviewing and it will, as most similar products do, allow you to draw pictures if that is your interest.

Kindle Scribe (Image Credit: Amazon)

As with all Kindles, it leads with the e-paper display that works well in the sun, and the large size means that you can better adjust the font to address sight problems, potentially removing the need for reading glasses for folks who have only slight vision loss.

Shortcomings that limit the product are that it currently doesnt support magazine or newspaper subscriptions, it doesnt play music (probably better left to your smartphone anyway), and, as noted, the refresh rate on the technology is too low for video. It doesnt currently do email either.

It has a web browser, but that browser doesnt display web pages as intended. Instead, it lists the stories vertically like a small-screened smartphone might. In fact, using it, you get a lot of page load problems. For instance, I was not able to bring up Office 365 or Outlook web sites.

Finally, it doesnt support handwriting conversion to text, making it less useful for note taking than products that have this functionality, but I expect this will improve as the product matures.

The person that will most appreciate this product is someone who wants a bigger reader and occasionally needs to markup documents as part of an editing or review process. If you want a more capable tablet, the Amazon Fire tablet remains one of the best values in the market, but it wont work as well outside, nor does it have battery life anywhere near what the Kindle Scribe provides.

For the right person, the Kindle Scribe could be a godsend. But for most, the Amazon Fire tablet is likely the better overall choice. In any case, the new Kindle Scribe tablet is my product of the week. At $339, its a good value that I expect will get better over time.

Kindle Scribe will be released Nov. 30. You can pre-order it now at Amazon.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.

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Nvidia and the 3D Future of the Internet - TechNewsWorld

Were you red pilled on Saturday?

For months, some social media channels (Im looking at you, TikTok), were pushing the idea that 7% of us were going to exit the Matrix. Specifically, all would supposedly be revealed to those who saw the code 001011 in their social media feeds.

This was (allegedly) some kind of activation codea numerical Red Pillthat was distributed to people ready to go all trans-humanist, It all had something to do with digital immortality. The anointed were told to expect a man in a red coat who would scream words of truth at them, And then aliens were supposed to figure into everything. Sure, Perfect.

If youre reading this, its because you were not part of the chosen 7%. And for those who were digitally raptured, theyre probably too busy dealing with their new plane of existence to bother with those left behind in the simulation.

Once again, I must emphasize that everything I know about 0010110 story has come from TikTok, easily the most reliable source of information in the known universe.

If you can provide any further light on the mattersay, one of your friends has suddenly disappeared and become their own singularitylet us know in the comments section.

Its all quite the mystery. At the very least, itll give Matt Bellamy something more to write about for the next Muse album.

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I have to ask: Did anything happen to you with the 0010110 social media mystery? Are you still with us? - Alan Cross - A Journal of Musical Things