Category Archives: Transhumanism

by Gregg Prescott, M.S. Editor, In5D.com

While there are many movies that expose the globalist agenda, four movies particularly caught my attention.

There seems to be several agendas going on simultaneously, such as the alien agenda and the New World Order agenda, but one other agenda is being shoved down our collective throats for at least 30 years: The transhumanism agenda.

The premise of transhumanism dates as far back as mans first search for the elixir to immortality and in recent years has segued into glorifying the idea of combining man with machine.

IMDb describes Chappie as:

In the near future, crime is patrolled by an oppressive mechanized police force. But now, the people are fighting back. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. As powerful, destructive forces start to see Chappie as a danger to mankind and order, they will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo and ensure that Chappie is the last of his kind.

Chappie is glorifying the transhumanism agenda in conjunction with artificial intelligence where people will soon be offered to live as immortal gods in exchange for being hooked up to the matrix, which inevitably, will make these same people perpetual, subservient slaves.

We are starting to see the beginning of this through digital tattoos, smart tattoos, ingestible RFID chips, and nanoparticle RFIDs. Globalist shill Regina Dugan, former DARPA head who now leads advanced research for Motorola stated, It may be true that 10-20 year olds dont want to wear a watch on their wrists, but you can be sure that theyll be far more interested in wearing an electronic tattoo if only to piss off their parents.

For many people, The Matrix was just another science fiction movie but for even more people, this is the initial movie that truly woke the masses out of their collective stupor.

IMDb: A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night a hacker known as Neo. Neo has always questioned his reality, but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the police when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded a terrorist by the government. Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most of humanity have been captured by a race of machines that live off of the humans body heat and electrochemical energy and who imprison their minds within an artificial reality known as the Matrix. As a rebel against the machines, Neo must return to the Matrix and confront the agents: super-powerful computer programs devoted to snuffing out Neo and the entire human rebellion.

More and more people are beginning to realize the many truths in this movie which basically shows how we are living in a simulated reality while our bodies are living as an energy source for our overlords.

Similar to Chappie, transhumanism takes precedent as a means of going in and out of the matrix. While caught within the matrix, we all assume that this is real but relatively few people question why we need to work for money and cannot comprehend the premise behind the question, If there was no such thing as money, what would you be doing with your life? Weve been brainwashed for millennia about living in this false reality constructed to keep us living in subservience, control and conformity to a system designed to keep us living in fear as economic slaves.

When you look at it from this perspective, does it make sense to waste the majority of your life working some job that you hate for a boss whos an a*hole, only to get that 1 or 2 weeks off a year to enjoy as a vacation while your literally recharge your battery? Theres a reason we look forward to the weekend because by the weekend, we are weakened.

Mark Passio does an amazing job analyzing The Matrix trilogy:

IMDbs description of Network: A television network cynically exploits a deranged former anchors ravings and revelations about the news media for its own profit.

In the 1970s, terrorist violence is the stuff of networks nightly news programming and the corporate structure of the UBS Television Network is changing. Meanwhile, Howard Beale, the aging UBS news anchor, has lost his once strong ratings share and so the network fires him. Beale reacts in an unexpected way. We then see how this affects the fortunes of Beale, his coworkers (Max Schumacher and Diana Christensen), and the network.

The star of the film, Howard Beale, even hinted at transhumanism:

The whole world is becoming humanoid creatures that look human, but arent. The whole world, not just us.

The bottom line is how the nightly news influences and persuades public opinion, even through blatant lies. Youll never feel good after watching the nightly news. Why? Because when you live in the lower vibration of fear, you can be easily controlled and manipulated. The current terrorist agenda is the perfect ploy by the globalists because its a war that can never be won. Additionally, people will gladly give up their civil liberties and freedom in exchange for perceived protection by the government to fight these non-existent entities.

David Icke calls this Problem. Reaction. Solution in which the government creates a problem through false flags, we react by saying the government needs to address the problem and the government has a solution to the problem, which ALWAYS involves the loss of civil liberties and freedom.

We are just starting to see a group of disgruntled reporters leave the industry because they do not agree with how the news is scripted or the propaganda that is being pushed by the CIA in order to influence public opinion regarding everything from how well the economy is doing to why we should start yet another war. Unfortunately, there are plenty of buffoons in search of fame and notoriety (ego) who are willing to take the places of these reporters who have left the business, and they will conform to whatever their overlords desire, even if that means hurting their friends and family by reporting lies to the masses.

John Carpenters 1988 cult classic, They Live combines an alien agenda with how the mainstream media is brainwashing the masses.

IMDb describes the movie as A drifter discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth.

Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like Stay Asleep, No Imagination, Submit to Authority. Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

An intriguing part of the movie is when the aliens throw a party for their human collaborators who agree to push the alien agenda. This is very reminiscent of lobbyists who push agendas for Monsanto, Big Pharma, etc.. The bottom line is that if you support the alien agenda, you will be generously compensated to keep your mouth shut. Does this sound familiar to you?

The Terminator

IMDb:

A cyborg is sent from the future on a deadly mission. He has to kill Sarah Connor, a young woman whose life will have a great significance in years to come. Sarah has only one protector Kyle Reese also sent from the future. The Terminator uses his exceptional intelligence and strength to find Sarah, but is there any way to stop the seemingly indestructible cyborg?

Lucy

IMDb:

It was supposed to be a simple job. All Lucy had to do was deliver a mysterious briefcase to Mr. Jang. But immediately Lucy is caught up in a nightmarish deal where she is captured and turned into a drug mule for a new and powerful synthetic drug. When the bag she is carrying inside of her stomach leaks, Lucys body undergoes unimaginable changes that begins to unlock her minds full potential. With her new-found powers, Lucy turns into a merciless warrior intent on getting back at her captors. She receives invaluable help from Professor Norman, the leading authority on the human mind, and French police captain Pierre Del Rio.

While it may seem like a glamorous idea to have infinite knowledge, there will be a price to pay. For example:

Its not enough to expose these agendas. One needs to be cognizant of what is being forced upon us and be willing to make decisions that are proactive, such as refusing any RFID chip implantation or simply not buying into the false promises of how great your life will be as a cyborg. By choosing artificial intelligence, there is no spiritual progression for the soul, if any part of the soul remains.

The power of thought can also create the world you want to see. Try envisioning a world without transhumanism, money or globalist agendas. Replace the negative things in this world, such as nuclear energy, gas or coal, with free energy. We have the ability RIGHT NOW to create a world where everyone can live in abundance and prosperity without the need for economic subservience.

You were born as a PERFECT soul and upon returning to the Creator, you will remain in complete perfection without the need for artificial intelligence or transhumanism.

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About the Author: Gregg Prescott, M.S. is the founder and editor of In5D and BodyMindSoulSpirit. You can find his In5D Radio shows on the In5D Youtube channel. He is also a transformational speaker and promotes spiritual, metaphysical and esoteric conferences in the United States through In5dEvents. His love and faith for humanity motivates him to work in humanitys best interests 12-15+ hours a day, 365 days a year. Please like and follow In5D on Facebook as well as BodyMindSoulSpirit on Facebook!

Tags: agenda, artificial intelligence, chappie, gregg prescott, lucy, movie, movies, network, propaganda, RFID chip, the matrix, the terminator, they live, transhumanism, transhumanism agenda

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Hidden In Plain Sight 4 Movies That Expose The Globalist ...

by Adrian Calderone

Mr. Adrian Calderone provides a thorough explanation of transhumanism, which attempts to free mankind from its biological limitations by employing such methods as genetic engineering. Calderone traces its foundations back to secular humanism the modern religion of the Western world.

Homiletic & Pastoral Review

28 31 & 41 43

Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, June 2008

The political philosopher Francis Fukuyama called it the world's most dangerous idea.1 He was talking about transhumanism.

Just what is transhumanism and why is it so dangerous?

Like many other ideas, it can imply different things to different people. But generally, transhumanism refers to an attempt to free humanity from its biological limitations. Today, transhumanists advocate the use of various types of rapidly developing technology, especially bioengineering, to accomplish this purpose. Some transhumanists imagine the creation of a new type of human being. That is, a human being with biological features so far removed from natural human biology as to warrant classification as "post-human."

Transhumanists hold firmly to Darwinian materialism. We know that Darwinian evolution is predicated upon the assumptions of random variation and natural selection. But suppose, through genetic engineering, we can create our own genetic variations perhaps with inheritable traits. The transhumanists hope to achieve an artificial, human-guided evolution, at least on the level of microevolution, as well as the creation of "post humans."

Ask a person what he considers to be the most dangerous thing in the world and most probably the answer would be atomic weapons they can eradicate several hundred thousand human beings in a flash. But with transhumanism, you can displace nature with technology and subvert natural human biology.

Sir Julian Huxley is credited with coining the term transhumanism in 1957.2 He wrote:

As we shall see later, use of the term transhumanism predates Sir Julian Huxley by several centuries. Nevertheless, we can credit Sir Julian with putting the name to a modern movement that seeks to modify human beings through technological manipulation in order to transcend human biology. The technology can include genetic engineering and interfaces between the human body and machines.

One definition offered by the World Transhumanist Association3 is this:

Transhumanists see it as an ethical imperative to use technology to transcend physical barriers to human potentials, and to proceed with their project of humanly guided evolution.

What has happened in the past century is the development of science and technology at a pace so fast and in so many different specialties that one scarcely has the opportunity to understand one development before it is made obsolete by another development.

There are four areas especially in which we've seen such rapid advancement in the past twenty to thirty years: biotechnology, information technology, wireless technology and nanotechnology.

In biotechnology we see the genetic manipulation of life. In information technology we see the ever-expanding reach of digital information processing to the point where hardly any household in the developed world is without some type of personal computer. Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables computers to "learn" from experience and modify their own operational procedures without human intervention.

As for wireless, the Internet is accessible without land lines or physical hook-ups. Everywhere you turn there is someone talking on a cell phone. Nanotechnology deals with the manufacture and use of very small particles, which can include simple materials or even tiny machines with interacting parts machines, for example, that can be introduced into the human body to cut away arterial plaque or perform operations on a submicroscopic level. We still don't know all of the potentials of nanotechnology. Keep in mind, also, that these technologies can be merged.

These technologies enable us to do things inconceivable even a few decades ago. These new potentials present new dimensions of ethical dilemmas.

Suppose you can insert portions of the genetic material of one type of being into the genetic material of another type of being. In fact, this has been done. Who would have thought to introduce the genes of fireflies into a tobacco plant to create a plant that glows in the dark? Yet this was done over twenty years ago. The cloning of animals, transgenic plants and a host of other developments are historical events, not futuristic speculations. A U.S. patent application is on file detailing the creation of an artificial life form.4

Genetic engineering enables us to use living organisms bacteria for example as miniature drug factories to manufacture pharmaceuticals that otherwise could not be produced. Genetically modified viruses can be used to introduce modified DNA into target organisms.

But suppose one merges portions of human genetic material with portions of the genetic material of an animal an animal, say, with the genetic instructions for growth of human organs, or humans with animal features. What have we produced? And suppose that the chimerical being we've created can reproduce itself. What is the moral status of such beings? What is one to think about the deliberate creation of "subhuman beings" or "superhuman beings" through genetic engineering? We believe that the human soul does not arise from matter but that God creates and infuses a rational soul into a human being at conception. This is clear enough from human procreation. But what of the prospect of artificially assembling DNA, inserting that DNA into a cell, and letting that cell grow into an organism? How close do we have to be to the DNA characteristic of human beings for the organism to be considered human? Suppose a gorilla body can be combined with a human brain. Does God implant a human soul into it? How do we know unless we let the organism grow and see if it matures into a rational being? Does the possibility of salvation apply to homo artificialis as it does to homo Sapiens?

Yet genetic engineering can have legitimate therapeutic purposes, for example, to overcome naturally occurring genetic abnormalities, or to provide new cancer therapies.5 Genetic engineering and other technologies also might be used to enhance the genetic potential of healthy people, for example, to increase lifespan.

There is also now the possibility of implanting computer chips in the human brain. Neural implants, human-computer interfaces these are concepts that just a few years ago were the subjects of science fiction. Today, they are the subjects of U.S. patents.6 One should also consider the possibility of wireless communication between a neural computer implant and some remote control center. How do Catholic moral principles apply to such things? Until now, we've not had to think about a coherent moral position in the face of such possibilities. That's changed.

It's not only personal morality that needs to be addressed. We also have to think about social and political effects. One of the criticisms of all this genetic enhancement is that it will be available only to the wealthy. Will we have society stratified into classes of the "genetically enhanced" and the "genetically deprived"? What new weapons will be unleashed upon us in future wars?

As I stated earlier, Sir Julian was not the first person to conceive of a process of transhumanization. Let's go back several centuries. Before there was a Julian Huxley there was a Dante Alighieri. Dante expressed the idea of transhumanization in Canto I of Paradiso, written sometime in the early 1300s. Dante wrote, "Transhumanizing cannot be signified in words therefore let the example suffice him for whom grace reserves the experience."

Transhumanization is something ineffable, something beyond the ability of words to encompass. It can only be experienced, and that is a matter of grace. One can also refer to the Epistles, where St. Paul often talks about being a new creation in Christ and being sons of God through faith in Christ.7

Transhumanization is not a concept alien to Christianity. Quite the contrary, it is our Christian hope. But in Christianity transhumanization is a matter of God's grace. Although we can begin the process of transhumanization in this life by living in the state of God's grace, completion of the process is meant for a future life, an eternal life, of intimacy with God. In our present life in this world, grace does not destroy or change human nature, but works through human nature and perfects it. Through grace we are transformed into images of Christ. But we must await our resurrection for final transformation in the world to come. In the journey of our lives we must take as our companions the Christian virtues of patience and perseverance.

How, then, did we get from Christian transhumanization to biological transhumanism?

I want to offer a very cursory review of certain philosophical developments that have led up to secular humanism, which has become the de facto religion of the Western world. Transhumanism is an extension of secular humanism. If we use the image of a tree, secular humanism is the trunk, transhumanism one of the branches and the roots are planted in the soil of unbelief. This unbelief is not just ordinary atheist materialism. That's been around for millennia. Rather, it is something just a few centuries old. It is not so much a non-God view as it is an anti-God view. More particularly, it is an anti-Christianity percolating through modern culture.

First, let's turn to the Enlightenment, which is a foundation of modern secular humanism. The Enlightenment embraced a turning away from religion in general and Christianity in particular. The Enlightenment thinkers weren't all atheists. Many were deists who believed in a creator, but one not personally involved with creation on an ongoing basis.

However, the question arises: if you don't put your trust in a God who takes a personal interest in the world, then in what do you put your trust? Throughout history there runs the theme of salvation and the hope of it. In what do we place our trust? Where is our hope?

The Enlightenment thinker places his trust in the human potential to remake society by human reasoning and human will.8 The basis for hope is science and technology. Remember that the Enlightenment period of the 1700s was also a period of the rapid growth of scientific discovery. It must have been intoxicating. Here was the way to truth in the scientific method. One aspect, then, of the Enlightenment is positivism, a philosophy based upon sense experience and relying only on scientific observations for knowledge about the external world. Concomitantly, Enlightenment thought rejects tradition, the supernatural and revelation.

Now, social order cannot be achieved without values. So, where do values come from? The scientific method doesn't provide values, only data. Also, for some time philosophy in Europe had been turning inward, away from the objectively knowable external world into the subjective operations of the mind. Eventually, there came from this a subjectivity with respect to values, or moral relativism.

A post-Enlightenment philosopher, Nietzsche, saw inherent weaknesses in Enlightenment liberalism. But, instead of turning back to the pre-modern, common sense philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas, he followed the thread of modern philosophy to a logical end point. God is dead. What's more, according to Nietzsche, we killed him. God and religion became our enemies by limiting our freedom. In the end there is nothing but will to power. We are what we will to be.

The twentieth century atheistic philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre was very influential in promoting existentialism.9 He was not an optimistic person. The concluding observation in one of his plays was, "Hell is other people." Sartre defined existentialism by asserting the principle that existence precedes essence. This was the reversal of centuries of philosophical understanding that held that essence was first. This may seem like an academic issue of concern only to ivory tower philosophers, perhaps arguing over the matter at two o'clock in the morning in some cafe. But ideas have consequences, and one of the consequences of this idea is the slaughter of millions of unborn children each year.

Pro-lifers, for example, argue that the fertilized human ovum is, from the moment of conception, in essence, a human being. The attributes and powers we normally associate with fully developed humans a nervous system, the ability to move and think, self awareness, etc. are present in the human embryo as potentialities that, in the course of natural development, unfold or outwardly express themselves. In an ontological ordering essence precedes existence.

The pro-choice position, at least among some, is that an unborn child does not have the attributes and powers of a human being and is therefore not morally equivalent to a human being. In other words, existence precedes essence.

The dictum that existence precedes essence means that there is no human nature. According to Sartre, we invent and make ourselves. Sartre, like Aquinas, held that there can be no human nature unless there is a God who designs it. But Sartre took his atheism to its logical conclusion and denied the objective existence of human nature. If we do not believe that there is a human nature created by God, there is no level of dehumanization to which we cannot fall in our headlong rush to engineer human evolution.

We are running up against a wall of misconceptions, prejudices, faulty valuations and linguistic confusions firmly cemented together by existentialism. It takes great ingenuity and effort to render a population oblivious to common sense and reality. But our educational institutions, mass media and public officials have proven up to the task.

Modern humanism, founded upon Enlightenment thought and modified by the influence of Nietzsche and Sartre, has several important features.

Add to these features of secularism the powers given to us by technology, and the result is transhumanism. Transhumanism is the new face of eugenics, with this difference: in the older conception of eugenics human biological reproduction is limited by law or social pressure to those deemed to have the physical and intellectual qualifications defined by the ruling elite. It is like breeding horses or dogs. But the biology of reproduction remains natural. With transhumanism the biology is engineered.

The Church has begun to deal with transhumanism. The 2002 document of the International Theological Commission entitled Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God addresses some of the issues I have mentioned. This document warns against mankind usurping the role of God. "Neither science nor technology are ends in themselves; what is technically possible is not necessarily also reasonable or ethical."11 The document also deals with cloning, germ line genetic engineering, enhancement genetic engineering and therapeutic interventions.12

But there is an ethical labyrinth to journey through that becomes ever more complex. In trying to help students find their way through complex philosophical ideas, one philosophy teacher used the metaphor of the golden string given by Ariadne to Theseus to find his way through the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.'13

What's our golden thread? How do we find our way through the ethical labyrinth of transhumanism? It has to be the fundamental principles derived from our religion. What does it mean to be a human person? What is our mission and destiny as human beings? If you exclude God from consideration there is no way through the labyrinth, even for well-meaning secularist philosophers such as Fukuyama who do see the dangers ahead.

Through it all we have to remember that the world has lost sight of something precious a vision seen only through the eyes of faith the vision of something supernatural and eternal.14 There will always be a little flame of faith shining in the wilderness of this world. The spirits of darkness are afraid of it and try to snuff it out, because as long as it shines there is the potential for the world to catch fire and for the grace of God to illuminate everything. As Catholics we have to keep this vision always in sight for ourselves and continually present it to the world.

End Notes

Mr. Adrian Calderone graduated from Manhatten College with B. Ch. E. and M. E. degrees in chemical engineering. He spent more than three years living and traveling in Asia. Having earned his Juris Doctorate from New York Law School, he now practices intellectual property law. He and his wife Jo live in Brooklyn, New York and have three daughters. His last article in HPR appeared in October 2007.

Ignatius Press

This item 8384 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org

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Library : Transhumanism | Catholic Culture

transhumanism, n.

trans hu man ism

an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

Wikipedia

That's the definition of "transhumanism" the Web offers up. It's true in a sort of reductionist sense, but I'm not sure it's a terribly useful definition.

If I were to define transhumanism, I'd say that it's an idea whose premise is that human nature is not some fixed quantity, forever unalterable; it's something that is a consequence of our biology and our environment, and it can be changed. Furthermore, advances in technology and in our understanding of biology, chemistry, and physics, give us the power to change it as we wish--to take evolution from a blind, undirected process to a process that we can make choices about. It's predicated on the idea that we can, if we so desire, choose what it means to be human.

A great deal of conventional thought has always held on to the idea that "human nature" is something that's a fundamental part of who we are, forever unalterable. Certain aspects of the human condition, from mortality to aggression, from disease to territoriality, have always been thought of as fixtures of the human condition; no matter how our society changes, no matter what we learn, these things have been assumed to be an immutable part of us.

Transhumanist thought holds that this isn't so. We are physical entities, whose nature comes from an extraordinarily complex dance of biochemical processes happening in our bodies. The way we respond to stress, the way we behave, the way our bodies suffer gradually increasing debility, all these things are the consequence of the physical processes happening inside our bodies and brains.

And they can change. Improved diet has made us qualitatively different from our neolithic ancestors--taller, longer-lived. Thousands of generations living in large numbers have made us more able to function in complex social environments; we have, in a sense, domesticated ourselves.

Right now, advances in biotechnology offer to revolutionize our view of who we are. What if aging and death were no longer inevitable? What if we could invent ways to repair genetic disorders? What if the human brain, which is a physical organ, could be modeled inside a computer? What if we could develop techniques to make our brains operate more efficiently? These sound like science fiction to a lot of people, but every single one of them is the subject of active research in labs around the world right now.

Transhumanism is a highly rationalist idea. It rejects the notion that human beings are corrupt, doomed to suffer and die as a result of a fall from grace. Rather, it postulates that the things that make us who we are are knowable and comprehensible; that the state of being human is a fit subject for scientific inquiry; and that as we learn more about ourselves, our ability to shape who we are increases.

The implications of these ideas are deeply profound. Transhumanist philosophy is built from the notion that things like indefinite lifespan, brain modeling, and improvement of human physical and intellectual capacity are both possible and desirable. Transhumanism, therefore, is profoundly optimistic.

It is not, however, Utopian. Like all new technologies, these things all have potential consequences whose outlines we can't see clearly yet. Therefore, transhumanism tends to be concerned not only with the possibility of biomedical technology but also its ethics; the study of transhumanism is, in large part, the study of bioethics. Who controls the direction of new, disruptive biomedical technology? What does it mean to be a "person;" is an artificial intelligence a person? How should new biomedical technology be introduced into society? How can it be made available democratically, to everyone who wishes it? What role is available to people who for whatever reason don't choose to benefit from new advances in medical understanding?

At its core, transhumanism is deeply pragmatic. Since it seems likely that biotechnology is going to improve over time whether we think about the implications of it or not, transhumanists think about things like bioethics, immortality, and the nature of consciousness in concrete, real-world terms, rather than as philosophical exercises. One of the things I most like about transhumanism is its drive to ask questions like "How can we maximize the benefit of what we are learning while maintaining human agency, dignity, and the right to choose?" Transhumanists are invited to be skeptical about everything, including the premises of transhumanism. It is quite likely that whatever views of the future we dream up will be flawed, as most prognostication tends to be. But by getting into the habit of examining these ideas now, and of considering the moral and ethical dimensions of our accelerating understanding of biology, we can at least train ourselves to get into the habit of asking the right questions as new breakthroughs come.

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ThinkBeyond.us | What Is Transhumanism?

Many of the tropes of science fiction can be viewed as similar to the goals of transhumanism. Science fiction literature contains many positive depictions of technologically enhanced human life, occasionally set in utopian (especially techno-utopian) societies. However, science fiction's depictions of technologically enhanced humans or other posthuman beings frequently come with a cautionary twist. The more pessimistic scenarios include many dystopian tales of human bioengineering gone wrong.

Examples of "transhumanist fiction" include novels by Linda Nagata, Greg Egan, Zoltan Istvan, and Hannu Rajaniemi. Transhuman novels are often philosophical in nature, exploring the impact such technologies might have on human life. Nagata's novels, for example, explore the relationship between the natural and artificial, and suggest that while transhuman modifications of nature may be beneficial, they may also be hazardous, so should not be lightly undertaken.[1] Egan's Diaspora explores the nature of ideas such as reproduction and questions if they make sense in a post-human context. Istvan's novel The Transhumanist Wager explores how far one person would go to achieve an indefinite lifespan via science and technology.[2] Rajaniemi's novel, while more action oriented, still explores themes such as death and finitude in post-human life.

Fictional depictions of transhumanist scenarios are also seen in other media, such as movies (Transcendence), television series (the Ancients of Stargate SG-1), manga and anime (Ghost in the Shell), role-playing games (Rifts and Eclipse Phase) and video games (Deus Ex or BioShock).

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Transhumanism in fiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Vernor Vinge, Technological Singularity, 1983

Futurist and Inventor Ray Kurzweil has a plan: He wants to never die.

In order to achieve this goal, he currently takes over 150 supplements per day, eats a calorie restricted diet (a proven technique to prolong lifespan), drinks ionized water (a type of alkalinized water that supposedly protects against free radicals in the body), and exercises daily, all to promote the healthy functioning of his body; and at 60 years old, he reportedly has the physiology of a man 20 years younger.

But the human body, no matter how well you take care of it, is susceptible to illness, disease, and senescence the process of cellular change in the body that results in that little thing we all do called aging. (This cellular process is why humans are physiologically unable to live past the age of around 125 years old.) Kurzweil is well aware of this, but has a solution: he is just trying to live long enough in his human body until technology reaches the point where man can meld with machine, and he can survive as a cyborg with robotically enhanced features; survive, that is, until the day when he can eventually upload his consciousness onto a harddrive, enabling him to live forever as bits of information stored indefinitely; immortal, in a sense, as long as he has a copy of himself in case the computer fails.

What happens if these technological abilities dont come soon enough? Kurzweil has a back-up plan. If, for some reason, this mind-machine blend doesnt occur in his biological lifetime, Kurzweil is signed up at Alcor Life Extension Foundation to be cryonically frozen and kept in Scottsdale, Arizona, amongst approximately 900 other stored bodies (including famous baseball player Ted Williams) who are currently stored. There at Alcor, he will wait until the day when scientists discover the ability to reanimate life back into him and not too long, as Kurzweil believes this day will be in about 50 years.

Watch a video on Alcor and Cryonics here:

Ray Kurzweil is a fascinating and controversial figure, both famous and infamous for his technological predictions. He is a respected scientist and inventor, known for his accurate predictions of a number of technological events, and recently started The Singularity University here in Silicon Valley, an interdisciplinary program (funded in part by Google) aimed to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders around issues of accelerating technologies.

Ray Kurzweil

Kurzweils most well-known predictions are encapsulated in this event he forecasts called The Singularity, a period of time he predicts in the next few decades when artificial intelligence will exceed human intelligence, and technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and computer technology will radically transform human life, enabling mind, body and machine to become one.

He is also a pioneer of a movement called transhumanism, which is defined by this belief that technology will ultimately replace biology, and rid human beings of all the things that, well, make us human, like disease, aging, and you guessed itdeath. Why be human when you can be something better? When Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology comes around in the singularity, Kurzweil thinks, being biologically human will become obsolete. With cyborg features and enhanced cognitive capacities, we will have fewer deficiencies, and more capabilities; we will possess the ability to become more like machines, and well be better for it.

Watch A Preview For A Film About Kurzweil entitled Transcendent Man:

Kurzweil outlines his vision of our technological future in his article Reinventing Humanity: The Future of Machine-Human Intelligence for Futurist Magazine, which raises some juicy points to consider from the perspective of ethics and technology. He explains The Singularity, in his own words,:

We stand on the threshold of the most profound and transformative event in the history of humanity, the singularity.

What is the Singularity? From my perspective, the Singularity is a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching that human existence on this planet will be irreversibly altered. We will combine our brain powerthe knowledge, skills, and personality quirks that make us humanwith our computer power in order to think, reason, communicate, and create in ways we can scarcely even contemplate today.

This merger of man and machine, coupled with the sudden explosion in machine intelligence and rapid innovation in the fields of gene research as well as nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality. These technological revolutions will allow us to transcend our frail bodies with all their limitations. Illness, as we know it, will be eradicated. Through the use of nanotechnology, we will be able to manufacture almost any physical product upon demand, world hunger and poverty will be solved, and pollution will vanish. Human existence will undergo a quantum leap in evolution. We will be able to live as long as we choose. The coming into being of such a world is, in essence, the Singularity.

The details of the coming Singularity, Kurzweil outlines, will occur in three areas: The genetic revolution, the nanotech revolution, and strong AI: which means, essentially, machines that are smarter than humans.

The first he describes is the nanotechnology revolution, which refers to a type of technology that manipulates matter on an atomic and molecular scale, potentially allowing us to reassemble matter in a variety of ways. Kurzweil believes nanotechnology will give us the capability to create atomic size robots that can clean our blood cells and eradicate disease; he also thinks nanotechnology will allow us to create essentially anything by assembling it through nanobots (for example, he thinks that nanotechnology will enable us to e-mail physical things like clothing, much like we can currently e-mail audio-files). He explains:

The nanotechnology revolution will enable us to redesign and rebuildmolecule by moleculeour bodies and brains and the world with which we interact, going far beyond the limitations of biology.

In the future, nanoscale devices will run hundreds of tests simultaneously on tiny samples of a given substance. These devices will allow extensive tests to be conducted on nearly invisible samples of blood.

In the area of treatment, a particularly exciting application of this technology is the harnessing of nanoparticles to deliver medication to specific sites in the body. Nanoparticles can guide drugs into cell walls and through the blood-brain barrier. Nanoscale packages can be designed to hold drugs, protect them through the gastrointestinal tract, ferry them to specific locations, and then release them in sophisticated ways that can be influenced and controlled, wirelessly, from outside the body.

In regards to AI, Kurzweil envisions what will eventually become a post-human future, where we upload our consciousness to computers and live forever as stored information:

The implementation of artificial intelligence in our biological systems will mark an evolutionary leap forward for humanity, but
it also implies we will indeed become more machine than human. Billions of nanobots will travel through the bloodstream in our bodies and brains. In our bodies, they will destroy pathogens, correct DNA errors, eliminate toxins, and perform many other tasks to enhance our physical well-being. As a result, we will be able to live indefinitely without aging.

Despite the wonderful future potential of medicine, real human longevity will only be attained when we move away from our biological bodies entirely. As we move toward a software-based existence, we will gain the means of backing ourselves up (storing the key patterns underlying our knowledge, skills, and personality in a digital setting) thereby enabling a virtual immortality. Thanks to nanotechnology, we will have bodies that we can not just modify but change into new forms at will. We will be able to quickly change our bodies in full-immersion virtual-reality environments incorporating all of the senses during the 2020s and in real reality in the 2040s.

Now, the idea of becoming nanobot driven robots is hard to wrap ones head around, particurlaly living in a time when people struggle to get their blue-tooths to work correctly. But even though to most people, these predictions seem very extreme, Kurzweil explains why he thinks these changes are coming fast, even if we cant conceive of them now. He explains that, in the vein of Moores law (which describes how the density of transistors on computer chips has doubled every two years since its invention), technology develops exponentially and thus the rate of change is rapidly increasing in the modern day:

We wont experience 100 years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress

How is it possible we could be so close to this enormous change and not see it? The answer is the quickening nature of technological innovation. In thinking about the future, few people take into consideration the fact that human scientific progress is exponential

In other words, the twentieth century was gradually speeding up to todays rate of progress; its achievements, therefore, were equivalent to about 20 years of progress at the rate of 2000. Well make another 20 years of progress in just 14 years (by 2014), and then do the same again in only seven years. To express this another way, we wont experience 100 years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress (again, when measured by todays progress rate), or progress on a level of about 1,000 times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century.

Reflections

There are so many questions to ask, its hard to know where to start. Considering The Singularity, many questions arise (the first, which youre probably thinking, is Is this really possible?!) But that question put temporarily aside, some questions seem to be: what are the promise and perils of nanotechnology, and how can we approach them responsibly?What types of genetic engineering, if any, should we pursue, and what types should we avoid? If we really could live forever, should weparticularly if it meant living no longer as humans, but as machines? And what happens to who we are as human beings our beliefs, our religions and faiths, our thoughts about our purpose if we pursue this type of future?

Each of these topics is rife with ethical and existential questions; and discussion of many of them requires scientific knowledge that extends beyond my ability to represent them here. But contemplating these questions broadly, even in spite of extensive knowledge of their specifics, brings into focus some fundamental questions about the principles of human experience, and about the broad issue of our technological future and how to approach it.The more we envision a technologically saturated future, I think, the more our human values are called upon to be revealed as we react, respond, flinch, or embrace the pictures of our future reflected in these predictions. They ask us to consider: what do we value about being human? What do we want to hold on to about being human, and what do want to replace, augment, and transform with technology? Is living as stored information really any life at all?

In addition to these questions, exploring these futuristic issues calls us to consider some of our fundamental principles about technology. A basic yet extremely complex question arises: Should all technology be pursued? In other words, should we ever restrict technological innovation, and say that some technologies, because of their risks to humanity, or to certain human values simply shouldnt be developed?

Reflections on this question bring up the topic of techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, which I wrote about briefly here.

Kurzweil, it seems to go without saying, is a fullfledged techno-optimist, interested in letting technology run its full reign, even if that means leaving everything that is recognizeably human behind. He concedes that we need to be responsible about our use of nanotechnology a technology which some fear could bring about the end of the world (see the grey goo theory) but for the most part is a proponent of full fledged technological expansion. Reflection is important, but no amount should limit technologies:

We dont have to look past today to see the intertwined promise and peril of technological advancement, he says. Imagine describing the dangers (atomic and hydrogen bombs for one thing) that exist today to people who lived a couple of hundred years ago. They would think it mad to take such risks. But how many people in 2006 would really want to go back to the short, brutish, disease-filled, poverty-stricken, disaster-prone lives that 99% of the human race struggled through two centuries ago?

We may romanticize the past, but up until fairly recently most of humanity lived extremely fragile lives in which one all-too-common misfortune could spell disaster. Two hundred years ago, life expectancy for females in the record-holding country (Sweden) was roughly 35-five years, very brief compared with the longest life expectancy today-almost 85 years for Japanese women. Life expectancy for males was roughly 33 years, compared with the current 79 years. Half a day was often required to prepare an evening meal, and hard labor characterized most human activity. There were no social safety nets. Substantial portions of our species still live in this precarious way, which is at least one reason to continue technological progress and the economic improvement that accompanies it. Only technology, with its ability to provide orders of magnitude of advances in capability and affordability has the scale to confront problems such as poverty, disease, pollution, and the other overriding concerns of society today. The benefits of applying ourselves to these challenges cannot be overstated.

But another, more technologically conservative view is important to consider, one characterized by thinkers who question whether these technologies should be proliferated, or even pursued at all.

William Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, famously countered Kurzweils predictions in his article, Why The Future Doesnt Need Us. He opens his article discussing his meeting with Kurzweil:

I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was
hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility

From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21stcentury. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.

I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility. I was taken aback, especially given Rays proven ability to imagine and create the future. I already knew that new technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology were giving us the power to remake the world, but a realistic and imminent scenario for intelligent robots surprised me.

Joy then discusses how these technologies (namely nanotechnology and artificial intelligence) pose a new, unparralleled threat to humanity, and that as a result, we shouldnt pursue them in fact, we should purposefully restrict them, on the principle that the amount of harm and threat they pose to humanity itself outweighs what benefit they could bring.

Accustomed to living with almost routine scientific breakthroughs, we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before. Specifically, robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate. A bomb is blown up only once but one bot can become many, and quickly get out of control.

Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of sciences quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own.

We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes. Have we already gone too far down the path to alter course? I dont believe so, but we arent trying yet, and the last chance to assert control the fail-safe point is rapidly approaching. We have our first pet robots, as well as commercially available genetic engineering techniques, and our nanoscale techniques are advancing rapidly. While the development of these technologies proceeds through a number of steps, it isnt necessarily the case as happened in the Manhattan Project and the Trinity test that the last step in proving a technology is large and hard. The breakthrough to wild self-replication in robotics, genetic engineering, or nanotechnology could come suddenly, reprising the surprise we felt when we learned of the cloning of a mammal.

He closes his essay saying:

Thoreau also said that we will be rich in proportion to the number of things which we can afford to let alone. We each seek to be happy, but it would seem worthwhile to question whether we need to take such a high risk of total destruction to gain yet more knowledge and yet more things; common sense says that there is a limit to our material needs and that certain knowledge is too dangerous and is best forgone.

Neither should we pursue near immortality without considering the costs A technological approach to Eternity near immortality through robotics may not be the most desirable utopia, and its pursuit brings clear dangers. Maybe we should rethink our utopian choices.

Another view that counters Kurzweils is presented by Richard Eckersley, focused a bit less on the scientific dangers and more on the threat to human values:

Why pursue this(Kurzweils) future?The future world that Ray Kurzweil describes bears almost no relationship to human well-being that I am aware of. In essence, human health and happiness comes from being connected and engaged, from being suspended in a web of relationships and interestspersonal, social and spiritual that give meaning to our lives. The intimacy and support provided by close personal relationships seem to matter most; isolation exacts the highest price. The need to belong is more important than the need to be rich. Meaning matters more than money and what it buys.

We are left with the matter of destiny: it is our preordained fate, Kurzweil suggests, to advance technologically until the entire universe is at our fingertips. The question then becomes, preordained by whom or what? Biological evolution has not set this course for us; Is technology itself the planner? Perhaps it will eventually be, but not yet.

We are left to conclude that we will do this because it is we who have decided it is our destiny.

Joy and Eckersley powerfully warn against our pursuit of a Kurzweil-type future. So we may be able to have the technical ability to achieve machine-like capacities; does that mean we should? This technological future, though perhaps possible, should not be preferable. The technologies that Kurzweil speaks of are dangerous, presenting a new type of threat that we have not before faced as humans and the risks of pursuing them far outweigh the benefits.

We may find ourselves equipped with the capacity to alter ourselves and the world, and yet unable to handle or control that immense power

If we are to continue down Kurzweils path, we may be able to pursue remarkable things conceived of mostly so far in science fiction a future where we are no longer humans at all, but artifacts of our own technological creations. But if we are to heed Joys and Eckersleys views, we would practice saying enough is enough we would say we have sufficient technology to live reasonably happy lives, and by encouraging the development of these new technologies, we might be unleashing entities of pandoras box that could put humanity in ruins forever. We would say, Yes, there is tremendous promise in these technologies; but there is more so a tremendous risk. We need to hold fast to the human values of restraint and temperance, lest we find ourselves equippedwiththe capacity to alter ourselves and the world, and yet unable to handle or control that immense power.

So the camps seem to be these: Kurzweil believes technology reduces suffering, and that we should pursue it for that reason to any end even until we are no longer human, but become technology ourselves. (Indeed, he feels we have a moral imperative to pursue them for this reason.) Joy believes there are too many dangers in this type of future. And Eckersley asks, why would we want this future, anyway? I am left thinking about a number of things:

First, I am intrigued by Kurzweils unwavering love for technology because it seems to me like technology has both its strengths and its weaknesses, and that such faith in a technological system greatly overinflates the capacities of technology to cure all of the worlds problems while overlooking its very real drawbacks.I wonder about putting so much faith in technology, to solve all our ills, and replace all our deficiencies. Is it really such a healing, improving force? Would it really be possible to achieve this technological utopia without some potentially disastrous consequences?

I also cant help but wonder what role technology, as its own force, plays in this debate. People often fear about rebellious robots or artificially intelligent beings taking over; but is technology already, in a sense guiding us, in control of us, instead of us controlling it? It seems harder and harder to resist the grip of technology, even as we face a future that, as Joy says, no longer needs us. Isnt there something a bit strange about humans contemplatingand preferring a post-human future? Does it indicate, in some sense, that technology has already overtaken man, and is gearing us down a path until it fully reigns supreme?

If we arent drawing the line at genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, does that mean we will never actually draw a line?

I am also left wondering, in part because of the aforementioned reason, whether it is possible to forego the development of certain technologies, as Joy suggests, given our current track record and inclinations towards the use of technology. It always seems with technology that if we have the capacity to do something, then we inevitably will. Is it possible to stop the development of technology, especially if that means also giving up some of its potential benefits? And if we arent drawing the line at genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, does that mean we will never actually draw a line? What does that say about human nature that we forever seek this sort of technological progress, even when it robs us of what we currently conceive of as making us human? Are there core values to being human that will persevere, or are we really just a fleeting blip in the evolutionary climb towards becoming transhumans?

Concluding Thoughts

The ideas Kurzweil puts forth as his vision of our future really forces one to consider what things about being human seem worth holding onto (if any). And even if his predictions dont materialize in the way or the time frame he anticipates, it does seem undeniable that we are at a critical turning point in our species history. Indeed, the decisions we choose to make now in regards to these fundamentally reshaping technologies will affect generations to come in a profound way generations whose lives will be radically different based on what roads we choose to go down in regards to genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology.

But making these choices is not strictly a technical task, concerned merely with what we are able to, technologically speaking, accomplish; rather, it really requires us to decideour core beliefs about what makes a good life; to consider what is worth risking about being human beings, not only to alleviate suffering but also to engage in these self-enhancing technologies that will supposedly make us stronger, smarter, and less destructible; and to grapple with these fundamental questions of life and death that are not technological issues but rather metaphysical ones. Indeed, its no small philosophical feat to reshape and change the human genome; its no small feat to create artificial beings smarter than human beings; and its no small feat to eradicate what has, since the birth of mankind, defined our human experience: the fleeting nature of life, and the inevitability of death. Taking this power and control into our own hands requires not just the capability to achieve extended life from a technical standpoint, but a completely redefined scope of who we are, what we want, and what our purpose is on this planet.

There are questions, of course, about the moral decision of living forever. What would we do about overpopulation would we stop procreating completely? Does a person living now have more of a right to be alive than a person who hasnt been born yet? Where would we derive purpose from in life if there was no end point? These would all be real questions to consider in this type of scenario; and they are questions that would require real reflection. With a reshaped experience of what it means to be human, we would be required to make decisions about our lives that weve never even had to consider making before.

But if Kurzweil is correct, then never have we had such power over our own destinies. In Kurzweils world, there is no higher power or God divining our life course, nor is there an afterlife or Heaven worth gaining entrance to. The biological and technical underpinnings of life are, in his view, manipulatable at our will; we can defy what some might call our God- given biology and we can become our own makers. We can even make our own rules. And along with that power, would come the responsibility to answer some very weighty philosophical questions, for nothing else would be determining those answers for us.

My question is, do we really want that responsibility? Are we really equipped to handle that type of power? And furthermore, does getting caught up in all the ways these technologies could enhance our lives in getting caught up in the idea that all technological innovation is definitively progress are we less and less able to step back and ask the philosophical and ethical questions about if this isreally what a good life looks like?

Questions:

When you envision our technological future, do you share Kurzweils dreams? Joys fears? Eckersleys questions about our human values being lost?

Should we place limits on certain technologies, given the dangers they present? Are there any types of technologies we simply shouldnt pursue?

Continue reading here:

Immortality, Transhumanism, and Ray Kurzweils Singularity

What idea, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity? This was the question posed by the editors of Foreign Policy in the September/October issue to eight prominent policy intellectuals, among them Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and member of the Presidents Council on Bioethics.

And Fukuyamas answer? Transhumanism, a strange liberation movement whose crusaders aim much higher than civil rights campaigners, feminists, or gay-rights advocates. This movement, he says, wants nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints.

More precisely, transhumanists advocate increased funding for research to radically extend healthy lifespan and favor the development of medical and technological means to improve memory, concentration, and other human capacities. Transhumanists propose that everybody should have the option to use such means to enhance various dimensions of their cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being. Not only is this a natural extension of the traditional aims of medicine and technology, but it is also a great humanitarian opportunity to genuinely improve the human condition.

According to transhumanists, however, the choice whether to avail oneself of such enhancement options should generally reside with the individual. Transhumanists are concerned that the prestige of the Presidents Council on Bioethics is being used to push a limiting bioconservative agenda that is directly hostile to the goal of allowing people to improve their lives by enhancing their biological capacities.

So why does Fukuyama nominate this transhumanist ideal, of working towards making enhancement options universally available, as the most dangerous idea in the world? His animus against the transhumanist position is so strong that he even wishes for the death of his adversaries: transhumanists, he writes, are just about the last group that Id like to see live forever. Why exactly is it so disturbing for Fukuyama to contemplate the suggestion that people might use technology to become smarter, or to live longer and healthier lives?

Fierce resistance has often accompanied technological or medical breakthroughs that force us to reconsider some aspects of our worldview. Just as anesthesia, antibiotics, and global communication networks transformed our sense of the human condition in fundamental ways, so too we can anticipate that our capacities, hopes, and problems will change if the more speculative technologies that transhumanists discuss come to fruition. But apart from vague feelings of disquiet, which we may all share to varying degrees, what specific argument does Fukuyama advance that would justify foregoing the many benefits of allowing people to improve their basic capacities?

Fukuyamas objection is that the defense of equal legal and political rights is incompatible with embracing human enhancement: Underlying this idea of the equality of rights is the belief that we all possess a human essence that dwarfs manifest differences in skin color, beauty, and even intelligence. This essence, and the view that individuals therefore have inherent value, is at the heart of political liberalism. But modifying that essence is the core of the transhumanist project.

His argument thus depends on three assumptions: (1) there is a unique human essence; (2) only those individuals who have this mysterious essence can have intrinsic value and deserve equal rights; and (3) the enhancements that transhumanists advocate would eliminate this essence. From this, he infers that the transhumanist project would destroy the basis of equal rights.

The concept of such a human essence is, of course, deeply problematic. Evolutionary biologists note that the human gene pool is in constant flux and talk of our genes as giving rise to an extended phenotype that includes not only our bodies but also our artifacts and institutions. Ethologists have over the past couple of decades revealed just how similar we are to our great primate relatives. A thick concept of human essence has arguably become an anachronism. But we can set these difficulties aside and focus on the other two premises of Fukuyamas argument.

The claim that only individuals who possess the human essence could have intrinsic value is mistaken. Only the most callous would deny that the welfare of some non-human animals matters at least to some degree. If a visitor from outer space arrived on our doorstep, and she had consciousness and moral agency just like we humans do, surely we would not deny her moral status or intrinsic value just because she lacked some undefined human essence. Similarly, if some persons were to modify their own biology in a way that alters whatever Fukuyama judges to be their essence, would we really want to deprive them of their moral standing and legal rights? Excluding people from the moral circle merely because they have a different essence from the rest of us is akin to excluding people on basis of their gender or the color of their skin.

Moral progress in the last two millennia has consisted largely in our gradually learning to overcome our tendency to make moral discriminations on such fundamentally irrelevant grounds. We should bear this hard-earned lesson in mind when we approach the prospect of technologically modified people. Liberal democracies speak to human equality not in the literal sense that all humans are equal in their various capacities, but that they are equal under the law. There is no reason why humans with altered or augmented capacities should not likewise be equal under the law, nor is there any ground for assuming that the existence of such people must undermine centuries of legal, political, and moral refinement.

The only defensible way of basing moral status on human essence is by giving essence a very broad definition; say as possessing the capacity for moral agency. But if we use such an interpretation, then Fukuyamas third premise fails. The enhancements that transhumanists advocate longer healthy lifespan, better memory, more control over emotions, etc. would not deprive people of the capacity for moral agency. If anything, these enhancements would safeguard and expand the reach of moral agency.

Fukuyamas argument against transhumanism is therefore flawed. Nevertheless, he is right to draw attention to the social and political implications of the increasing use of technology to transform human capacities. We will indeed need to worry about the possibility of stigmatization and discrimination, either against or on behalf of technologically enhanced individuals. Social justice is also at stake and we need to ensure that enhancement options are made available as widely and as affordably as possible. This is a primary reason why transhumanist movements have emerged. On a grassroots level, transhumanists are already working to promote the ideas of morphological, cognitive, and procreative freedoms with wide access to enhancement options. Despite the occasional rhetorical overreaches by some of its supporters, transhumanism has a positive and inclusive vision for how we can ethically embrace new technological possibilities to lead lives that are better than well.

The only real danger posed by transhumanism, it seems, is that people on both the left and the right may find it much more attractive than the reactionary bioconservatism proffered by Fukuyama and some of the other members of the Presidents Council.

[For a more developed response, see In Defense of Posthuman Dign
ity, Bioethics, 2005, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 202-214.]

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See original here:

Synthetic Life - Robotoids, Parasites and Artificial ...

Let's face it: the only real justification for using vaccines to "immunize" ourselves against disease is derived from the natural fact that when challenged our immune systems launch a successful response. Were it not for the elegance, proficiency, and mostly asymptomatic success of our recombinatorial (antibody-based) immune systems in dealing so well with infectious challenges, vaccination would have no cause, no scientific explanation, no justification whatsoever.*

In fact, ever since the adaptive, antigen-specific immune system evolved in early vertebrates 500 million years ago, our bodies have been doing a pretty good job of keeping us alive on this planet without need for synthetic, vaccine-mediated immunity. Indeed, infectious challenges are necessary for the development of a healthy immune system and in order to prevent autoimmune conditions from emerging as a result of TH2 dominance.

In other words, take away these natural infectious challenges, and the immune system can and will turn upon itself; take way these infectious challenges and lasting immunity against tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pathogens we are exposed to throughout our lives, would not be possible.

Can vaccines really co-opt, improve upon, and replace natural immunity with synthetic immunity?

How many will this require?

Are we not already at the critical threshold of vaccine overload?

By "improving" on our humanness in this way, are we not also at the same moment departing dramatically from it?

Presently, compliance with the CDC's immunization schedule for children from birth through 6 years of age requires 60+ vaccines* be administered, purportedly to make them healthier than non-vaccinated or naturally immunized ones.** Sixty vaccines, while a disturbingly high amount (for those who retain the complementary human faculties of reason and intuition), does not, however, correctly convey just how many antigenic challenges these children face in total...

A new paper published in the journal Lupus entitled, "Mechanisms of aluminum adjuvant toxicity and autoimmunity in pediatric populations," points out that as many as 125 antigenic compounds, along with high amounts of aluminum (AI) adjuvants are given to children by the time they are 4 and 6 years old, in some "developed" countries.

The authors also state: "Immune challenges during early development, including those vaccine-induced, can lead to permanent detrimental alterations of the brain and immune function. Experimental evidence also shows that simultaneous administration of as little as two to three immune adjuvants can overcome genetic resistance to autoimmunity."

Vaccine adjuvants are agents that accelerate, enhance or prolong the antigen-specific immune responses vaccines intend to elicit. In essence, they enhance vaccine "efficacy," which is defined by the ability to raise antibody titers. A vaccine's "effectiveness," on the other hand -- and which is the real-world measure of whether a vaccine works or not -- is not ascertainable through the number of antibodies produced. Whether or not a vaccine or vaccine adjuvant boosts antibodies that have actual affinity with the intended pathogen is what counts in the real world, i.e. antibody-antigen affinity, (and not the sheer volume of antibodies produced) determines whether a vaccine will be effective or not.

The semantic confusion between "vaccine efficacy" and "vaccine effectiveness" ensures that vaccines which disrupt/harm/hypersensitize the immune system by stimulating unnaturally elevated antibody titers may obtain FDA approval, despite the fact that they have never been shown to confer real-world protection. *** Some vaccine researchers have even suggested that breastfeeding, which may reduce vaccine-induced elevations in antibody titers in infants, i.e. its iatrogenic disease-promoting effects, should temporarily be delayed in order not to interfere with the vaccine's so-called "efficacy."

Common adjuvants include: aluminum, mineral oil, detergent stabilized squalene-in-water, pertactin, formaldehyde, viral DNA, phosphate, all of which are inherently toxic, no matter what the route of exposure.

Many parents today do not consider how dangerous injecting adjuvants directly into the muscle (and sometimes blood, due to incorrect and/or non-existent aspiration techniques), especially in non-infected, healthy offspring whose immune systems are only just learning to launch effective responses to the innumerable pathogens already blanketing their environment.

Adequate breastfeeding, in fact, is the most successful strategy in the prevention of morbidity and mortality associated with infectious challenges, and is so distinctively mammalian (i.e. obtaining nourishment and immunity through the mammary glands), that without adequate levels (only 11.3% of infants in the US were exclusively breastfed through the first six months of life (Source: CDC, 2004)) infants become much more readily susceptible to illness.

Not only have humans strayed from their mammalian roots, by creating and promoting infant formula over breast milk, and then promoting synthetic immunity via vaccines over the natural immunity conferred through breastfeeding and sunlight exposure, for instance, but implicit within the dominant medical model to replace natural immunity with a synthetic one, is a philosophy of transhumanism, a movement which intends to improve upon and transcend our humanity, and has close affiliation with some aspects of eugenics.***

The CDC's immunization schedule reflects a callous lack of regard for the 3 billion years of evolution that brought us to our present, intact form, without elaborate technologies like vaccination -- and likely only because we never had them at our disposal to inflict potentially catastrophic harm to ourselves.

The CDC is largely responsible for generating the mass public perception that there is greater harm in not "prophylactically" injecting well over 100 distinct disease-promoting and immune-disruptive substances into the bodies of healthy children. They have been successful in instilling the concept into the masses that Nature failed in her design, and that medical and genetic technologies and interventions can be used to create a superior human being.

Continue to Page 2

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.

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Vaccination Agenda: An Implicit Transhumanism / Dehumanism

This is what we should live for, Danlo: the heightening of our sensibilities, the rarefying of our desire, the deepening of our purpose, the vastening of our selves. The power to overcome ourselves. To be more. Or rather, to become more. Who hasn't dreamed of such becoming? - David Zindell: "The Broken God".

Lord Martin Rees, member of the Oxford Martin School Advisory Council, Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, giving the 10 year anniversary lecture for the Oxford Martin School.

Transhumanisme is mainstream geworden.

In den beginne had je het Extropy-Institute. Toen ik mij aansloot bij dit instituut, ca 1997/98, was het een gezelschap met een zeer hoogwaardige mailinglist. In Nederland was toen Transcedo in oprichting, transhumanisme met een Nederlandse couleur locale. Een klein groepje van zes leden, die eens per maand op het centraal station in Utrecht bij elkaar kwamen om te discussiren over zaken waarvan iedereen indertijd dacht dat het sciencefiction was, maar waarvan sommige inmiddels gerealiseerd zijn en de meeste andere zodanig binnen bereik liggen dat vrijwel niemand meer twijfelt aan de toekomstige mogelijkheid ervan.

Grootste wapenfeit van Transcedo: het organiseren in 1998 van de eerste Transvision: de bijeenkomst van Europese Transhumanisten, in Weesp. Een initiatief dat daarna jaarlijks herhaald werd in repectievelijk Stockholm (1999), Londen (2000) en Berlijn (2001), waarna in 2002 Nederland weer aan de beurt had moeten zijn. We kregen het in dat jaar echter niet meer voor elkaar. Waarom niet? Iedereen gaf inmiddels zijn eigen invulling aan het begrip transhumanisme en daarmee aan hoe zo'n symposium ingevuld zou moeten worden. Transcedo bestaat inmiddels eigenlijk alleen nog in naam; de leden die cryogene suspensie als de belangrijkste activiteit van Transcedo zagen, hebben een nieuwe vereniging opgericht, de DCO (Dutch Cryonics Organisation).

Inmiddels zijn er meerdere verenigingen en organisaties opgericht met een min of meer transhumanistische doelstelling en, door het veranderen van het karakter van het internet, vinden de meeste activiteiten plaats via Facebook en Google+, al zijn er natuurlijk nog steeds websites. Zoals bijvoorbeeld deze :-), al wordt hij dan ook onregelmatig bijgehouden 🙁 want, zoals gezegd, het meeste nieuws - als dat er al is - wordt gebracht via de social media.

Bij gebrek aan nieuws worden er dan wel eens stukjes geschreven (en gerecycled!) die misschien wat meer navelstaarderig zijn, zoals deze: "Transhumanism: there are [at least] ten different philosophical categories; which one(s) are you?" door Hank Pellissier op het forum van het Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Pellissier onderscheidt tien soorten transhumanisme en wel:

Extropianism

Singularitarianism

The Hedonistic Imperative

Democratic Transhumanism

Survivalist Transhumanism

Libertarian Transhumanism

Religious Transhumanism

Cosmopolitan Transhumanism

Cosmism

en

Anarcho-Transhumanism

Uiteraard wordt in het artikel uitgelegd welk label voor welk type transhumanist staat, maar om de zaak overzichtelijk te houden zijn er mengvormen. Pellissier daagt de lezer dan ook uit kleur te bekennen en op het forum aan te geven welk type transhumanist hij of zij is en, interessant dit te doen aan de hand van een Pie-Chart, die je hier kunt maken.

In 2004 heb ik mijn positie binnen het transhumanisme al eens bepaald; voor het grootste gedeelte gebaseerd op de toen al verouderde principes van het Extropy-Institute. Maar goed, ik heb ook zo'n pie-chart gemaakt en ik kwam er, niet geheel tot mijn verbazing achter, dat mijn ideen de laatste jaren wat zijn gaan verschuiven, je ontwikkelt je natuurlijk, en het zou zomaar kunnen dat deze chart over vijf jaar, vijf maanden of zelfs over vijf dagen al niet meer klopt.

Goed, op het gevaar af dat ik erop vastgepind ga worden, is hier mijn pie-chart.

Allemaal angst. Doom and Gloom. Zelf kan ik niet wachten....

Via Singularity Weblog.

Mooie film van Richard Mans.

In this breathtaking science fiction spectacle, a strange mechanical device lands on a desolate world and uses the planet to undergo a startling transformation, that has profound implications for an entire galaxy.

abiogenesisfilm.com facebook.com/abiogenesisfilm

Abiogenese is het ontstaan van leven uit niet-levende materie.

An Oxford philosophy professor who has studied existential threats ranging from nuclear war to superbugs says the biggest danger of all may be superintelligence.

Superintelligence is any intellect that outperforms human intellect in every field, and Nick Bostrom thinks its most likely form will be a machine -- artificial intelligence.

There are two ways artificial intelligence could go, Bostrom argues. It could greatly improve our lives and solve the world's problems, such as disease, hunger and even pain. Or, it could take over and possibly kill all or many humans. As it stands, the catastrophic scenario is more likely, according to Bostrom, who has a background in physics, computational neuroscience and mathematical logic.

"Superintelligence could become extremely powerful and be able to shape the future according to its preferences," Bostrom told me. "If humanity was sane and had our act together globally, the sensible course of action would be to postpone development of superintelligence until we figure out how to do so safely."

Bostrom, the founding director of Oxford's Future
of Humanity Institute, lays out his concerns in his new book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. His book makes a harrowing comparison between the fate of horses and humans:

Horses were initially complemented by carriages and ploughs, which greatly increased the horse's productivity. Later, horses were substituted for by automobiles and tractors. When horses became obsolete as a source of labor, many were sold off to meatpackers to be processed into dog food, bone meal, leather, and glue. In the United States, there were about 26 million horses in 1915. By the early 1950s, 2 million remained.

The same dark outcome, Bostrom said, could happen to humans once AI makes our labor and intelligence obsolete.

Lees meer.

Een nieuw boek over transhumanisme komt binnenkort uit: "Religion and Transhumanism. The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement". Een fraaie cover van een biddende post-human:

die gelijk ook een ernstige vraag opwerpt: religie en transhumanisme, is dat niet in tegenspraak met elkaar?

Sebastian Seung, schreef in 2013 het boek "Connectome: how the brains wiring makes us who we are". Zo'n beetje de Amerikaanse tegenhanger van Dick Swaab's "Wij zijn ons brein". In tegenstelling tot Swaab staat Seung niet helemaal afwijzend tegenover cryonics en bespreekt in hoofdstuk 14 van zijn boek de kansen voor het slagen van cryogene suspensie als zijn model van het brein klopt. Dat is de reden dat het boek door veel transhumanisten gelezen is. Het boek eindigt min of meer (er volgt nog een epiloog) met de volgende bijzondere uitspraak:

The bible said that God made man in his own image. The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said that man made God in his own image. The transhumanists say that humanity will make itself into God.

Zoals uit de tagline van deze website (een citaat uit "Don Juan und Faust" van Christian Dietrich Grabbe) blijkt, is dat ook hoe ik het transhumanisme interpreteer.

De uitgever rechtvaardigt het boek als volgt:

"Transhumanism" or "human enhancement" is an intellectual and cultural movement that advocates the use of emerging technologies to change human traits. Although they may sound like science fiction, the possibilities suggested by transhumanism are very real, and the questions they raise have no easy answers. If these enhancementsespecially major ones like the indefinite extension of healthy human lifebecome widely available, they would arguably have a more radical impact on humankind than any other development in history.

This book comprises essays that explore transhumanism and the issues that surround it, addressing numerous fascinating questions posed by scholars of religion from various traditions. How will "immortality" or extreme longevity change our religious beliefs and practices? How might phamaceuticals enhance spiritual experiences? Will "post-human" technologies be available to all persons, or will a superior "post-human race" arise to dominate the human species? The discussions are as intriguing as the future they suggest.

De redacteurs van "Religion and Transhumanism", Calvin Mercer, "professor of religion" en Tracy J. Trothen, "associate professor of ethics and theology" hebben duidelijk het accent gelegd op de ethische kant van het transhumanisme:

Gaap. Die discussies zijn inmiddels al heel vaak gevoerd en op zijn minst doet het boek ongeveer hetzelfde als het op deze website eerder besproken boek Human Being @ Risk van Mark Coeckelbergh, behalve dat "Religion and Transhumanism" door meerdere auteurs bij elkaar is geschreven, waaronder Anders Sandberg, dus mijn hoop is dat dit boek daar iets nieuws aan gaat toevoegen, mogelijk - maar het boek moet nog uitkomen, dus ik moet het nog lezen - in ieder geval meer een "dialogue" gaat opleveren. Het boek is ook iets aangenamer geprijsd: 46 voor 472 pagina's, en verschijnt in november 2014.

Via The British Institute of Posthuman Studies - A Critical Forum for Transhumanist Thought. Written by: Peter Brietbart and Marco Vega

We investigate three dominant areas of transhumanism: super longevity, super intelligence and super wellbeing, and briefly cover the ideas of thinkers Aubrey de Grey, Ray Kurzweil and David Pearce.

PostHuman: An Introduction to Transhumanism is the first of our planned video series on transhumanism, titled PostHuman.

Interessant artikel in Wired.co.uk in de afdeling Transhumanism: Sleep replacement and 3D-printed shapeshifting: a bodyhacker's wish list. Daaruit de volgende WishList:

2013 to 2014 Wireless file storage Subdermal navigation system Brain-only control of temperature of my house

Five to ten years Replacement of heart Sensors on remaining major organs Proximity sensors Internal alarms Enriched blood (enriched with oxygen)

10 to 20 years Replacement of most major organs Maths coprocessor (OMG I want this so bad) Replacement and entire brain system (audio cortex maybe?) Toxin filtration Replacement of hands B2C (brain to computer) wireless interface with internet Emotional "volume" B2B (brain to brain) wireless interface

20 to 40 years Majority of body replaced 50 percent plus of brain replaced Back up "brain" Levitation tech Self-repair No need for food or oxygen Temporal tuning (slow the perception of time)

More:

Transhumanisme | Don Juan: Wozu bermenschlich, wenn du ...

by Eric Steinhart Department of Philosophy William Paterson University Journal of Evolution and Technology

Vol. 20 Issue 1 - pgs 1-22

December 2008

from JournalOfEvolutionAndTechnology Website

Omega Point Theology Being Used As Framework For 'Christian' Transhumanism

Tomorrow's Nephilim As Spiritual Leaders Of New Global Order

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was among the first to give serious consideration to the future of human evolution. His work advocates both biotechnologies (e.g., genetic engineering) and intelligence technologies. He discusses the emergence of a global computation-communication system (and is said by some to have been the first to have envisioned the Internet).

He advocates the development of a global society.

Teilhard is almost surely the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence. He discusses the spread of human intelligence into the universe and its amplification into a cosmic intelligence. More recently, his work has been taken up by Barrow and Tipler; Tipler; Moravec; and Kurzweil.

Of course, Teilhards Omega Point Theory is deeply Christian, which may be difficult for secular transhumanists.

But transhumanism cannot avoid a fateful engagement with Christianity. Christian institutions may support or oppose transhumanism. Since Christianity is an extremely powerful cultural force in the West, it is imperative for transhumanism to engage it carefully.

A serious study of Teilhard can help that engagement and will thus be rewarding to both communities.

1. Introduction Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Jesuit paleontologist.[1] He combined his scientific study of the fossil record with his Christian faith to produce a general theory of evolution. Teilhards body of work has much to offer transhumanists, who advocate the use of technology to enhance human capacities and see current human beings as in transition to posthuman forms.

There are several specific reasons for transhumanists to study Teilhards work.

The first reason is that Teilhard was one of the first to articulate transhumanist themes. Transhumanists advocate the ethical use of technology for human enhancement. Teilhard's writing likewise argues for the ethical application of technology in order to advance humanity beyond the limitations of natural biology. Teilhard explicitly argues for the use of both bio-technologies (e.g., genetic engineering) and intelligence technologies, and develops several other themes often found in transhumanist writings.

He discusses the emergence of a global computation-communication system, and is said by some to have been the first to have envisioned the Internet (Kreisberg, 1995). He advocates the development of an egalitarian global society. He was almost certainly the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a kind of Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence.

He discusses the spread of human intelligence into the universe and its amplification into a cosmic-intelligence.

The second reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that his thought has influenced transhumanism itself. In particular, Teilhard develops an Omega Point Theory.

An Omega Point Theory (OPT) claims that the universe is evolving towards a godlike final state.

Teilhards OPT was later refined and developed by Barrow and Tipler (1986) and by Tipler alone (1988; 1995).

Ideas from the Barrow-Tipler OPT were, in turn, taken up by many transhumanists (see, for example, Moravec (1988; 2000) and Dewdney (1998)). Kurzweil also articulates a somewhat weaker OPT.

He says:

evolution moves inexorably toward our conception of God, albeit never reaching this ideal

(2005: 476; see also 375, 389-390)

Many transhumanists work within the conceptual architecture of Teilhards OPT without being aware of its origins. Indeed, Teilhard is mostly ignored in the histories of transhumanism; e.g., he is mentioned once and only in passing in Bostroms (2005) detailed history of the transhumanist movement.

The third reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that he develops his transhumanist ideas within a Christian context. Teilhard shows how one might develop a Christian transhumanism. Although some secular transhumanists may be inclined to react negatively to any mention of Christianity, such hostility may prove politically costly.

Transhumanism and Christianity are not essentially enemies.

They share some common themes (Hopkins, 2005). Of course, it is understandable that many transhumanists reject the superstitious aspects of Christian doctrine and the authoritarian aspects of Christian institutions. Likewise, Teilhard wants to abandon those aspects of Christianity. He argues that Christ is at work in evolution, that Christ is at work in technology, and that the work of Christ ultimately aims at the perfection of human biology. Christianity is a complex network of doctrines and institutions.

A study of Teilhard can help transhumanists to locate and carefully cultivate friends in that network and to locate, and carefully defend against, opponents.

The fourth reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that they are likely to need to defend themselves against conservative forms of Christianity. The dominant forms of Christianity today (at least in the USA) are conservative. As the cultural visibility of transhumanism grows, conservative Christians will increasingly pay it their attention.

They may feel increasingly threatened by transhumanism and come to see it as a heresy (Bainbridge, 2005). Various conservative Christians have already opposed transhumanism (Wiker, 2003; Hook, 2004; Daly, 2004; Hart, 2005). Since Christianity is an extremely powerful cultural force in the West, it is imperative for transhumanism to engage it carefully.

Conservative Christian forces have already opposed various biotechnologies (such as embryonic stem cell research and cloning) and may oppose all the enhancement techniques that transhumanists advocate. Conservative Christianity currently has the political power to effectively shut transhumanism down in the West.

Teilhard was attacked by conservative Catholics, and transhumanists may have to fight similar battles over similar issues. And yet Teilhard gained a surprisingly large following both within and beyond the church.[2]

A study of his work can help transhumanists develop nuanced strategies for defending against attacks from conservative Christians.

The fifth reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that they may want to build bridges to liberal and progressive forms of Christianity. Teilhard believed that science and technology have positive roles to play in building the City of God in this world.

A study of Teilhards work may help transhumanists to explore the ways that transhumanism can obtain support:

from Christian millenarianism (see Bozeman, 1997; Noble, 1999)

from Irenaea
n and neo-Irenaean theodicies (see Hick, 1977; Walker, Undated)[3]

from liberal Protestantism (see Arnow, 1950)

from process theology (see Cobb and Griffin, 1976)

Teilhard believed that everyone has a right to enter the kingdom of heaven it isnt reserved for any special sexual, racial, or economic elite.

A study of Teilhards writings can help transhumanism embrace a deep conception of social justice and expand its conception of social concern (see Garner, 2005). A study of Teilhard can help transhumanists make beneficial conceptual, and even political, connections to progressive Christian institutions.

My goal in this paper is to present the thought of Teilhard de Chardin in a way that is defensible and accessible to transhumanists.

Teilhard was working in the early twentieth century, at a time when biology was primitive and computer science non-existent. Many of his ideas are presented in a nineteenth-century vocabulary that is now conceptually obsolete.

My method is to present these ideas in a charitable way using a contemporary conceptual vocabulary, and to show how they have been refined by transhumanists such as Tipler, Moravec, and Kurzweil. One might say this paper offers a transhumanist reading of Teilhard or even a Teilhardian transhumanism. Since I make extensive use of computational ideas, I am offering a computational model of Teilhards thought.

I thereby hope to make his ideas accessible and to encourage further study of Teilhard among transhumanists.

Teilhard produced an extensive body of work that may be of interest to them;[4] there is also an enormous secondary literature on Teilhard, much of which may be of great interest to transhumanists.[5]

2. Teilhard and computation

2.1 Complexity and logical depth Physical things can be compared in terms of their size, mass, and so on. But they can also be compared in terms of their complexity. Complexity is an objective physical property and the scale of complexities is an objective physical scale.

Teilhard says:

the complexity of a thing... [is] the quality the thing possesses of being composed (a) of a larger number of elements, which are (b) more tightly organized among themselves.... [Complexity depends] not only on the number and diversity of the elements included in each case, but at least as much on the number and correlative variety of the links formed between these elements.

(Teilhard, 1959, The Future of Man, page 98; henceforth abbreviated FUT.)

A first refinement of Teilhards thought requires that we update his definition of complexity.

We can define the complexity of an object as the amount of computational work it takes to simulate the object. It takes a more powerful computer to simulate a more complex object. Bennett (1990) makes this idea more precise by defining complexity as logical depth.

He says:

Logical depth = Execution time required to generate the object in question by a near-incompressible universal computer program, i.e., one not itself computable as output of a significantly more concise program.... Logically deep objects... contain internal evidence of having been the result of a long computation or slow-to-simulate dynamical process.

(Bennett, 1990: 142.)

Teilhard observes that increasingly complex systems are emerging in our universe over time.

We can plot this emergence on a graph with two axes: a time axis and a complexity axis (Teilhard, 1973, My fundamental vision in Towards the Future, page 166; henceforth abbreviated MFV). Teilhard refers to the emergence of increasingly complex systems as complexification. Today we are more likely to talk about self-organization. But the idea is the same.

According to Bennett, we should expect more complex objects to appear later in any evolutionary process.

Teilhard would agree.

Go here to read the rest:

Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism