Transhuman
Crossroads
Ok
without going into too much detail I'm going to use this page to give
an over view of the H+ movement, (sometimes called transhumanism or extropy)
This a first
draft and will become in depth in the future.
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What
happened to hover cars, intelligent robots and interstellar
travel? I've immersed myself in futurist published works
and the net resources over the past year. As I began to
find people like Vernor Vinge, Nick Bostrom and later Ray
Kurzweil, I understood that these future visions had not
evaporated they had merely been waiting the advance of a
certain seed technologies.
For
writers like Ray Kurzweil and others, these crucial technologies
are medical bio-scanning advances, nanotechnological research
and the advance of computing power as described by Moore’s
law.
Many
of the early advances will be medical, but all will have
an impact on our society. For example, if you’re a woman,
you may choose to ignore the ticking biological clock. You
might for instance consider having your child in your early
60's with a body and mind that will still be healthy and
vital. Personally I'd like to see the end to cancer and
diseases that blight society and then on the flip side enjoy
the enhancements in culture and entertainment. Immerse films
anyone?
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As
the pace increases, these technologies promise to end and
reverse ageing, tackle global hunger, reverse environmental
damage and could very well lead to human and artificial Intelligence's
pushing beyond what we consider fixed limits today.
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Many aspects
of this vision of the future scare many people, worry governments
and provide great fuel for Hollywood blockbusters.
If you want
a good considered primer to the whole host of issues that H+ addresses
see this
page The James Martin Institute (Oxford Uni) has just held a
ground breaking conference drawing scientists, philosophers and
futurists from around the world to discuss human enhancement and
the future of humanity. They have full streaming videos of the conference
over four days, which are well worth the watch.
Of course the
major buttock clenching fears surround what is called the singularity.
This as quoted from Wikipedia "a theoretical point in the development
of a scientific civilisation at which technological progress accelerates
into infinity or beyond prediction." To some thinkers this
is most likely to happen when an AI (artificial intelligence) becomes
conscious and is able learn on its own.
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This Singularity
is the tipping point, once reached, knowledge and technology beyond
our childish dreams will be possible. Of course as every sci-fi
fan knows this really means the movie will get more exciting as
the "evil" AI tries to squash us all like ants! In the
terminator movies it is the government super computer that becomes
self aware and decides to wipe us out. Would a ban on these technologies
work? Would a government uphold a ban in public, sign a UN charter
and in the background continue work unchallenged? I for one support
the civilian efforts of the Singularity Institute who are actively
attempting to work through ways to create a conscious AI by defining
how its initial design parameters have to start out to allow for
a friendly and useful partner to humanity and the world.
As a lucid
dreamer I'm excited about this future and what it could mean.
Lucid dreamers might find that interfacing with such a computer
would be very like our own high lucid dreams, all be it, lucid
dreams that can be entered an exited at will. We usually get between
2 to 20 minutes in a lucid, immerse virtual reality could give
us unlimited time. The H+ future brings a whole host of potential
pitfalls and pleasures, its certainly not going to be boring,
if you want a say you need to get involved, see the links at the
bottom of this page to find out how.
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Other
interesting pages at the Crossroads
H+ Video's, Pocast's
etc
Recommended
pages on the Internet with similar themes
Places
to discuss this page, or regular blogs to read
More
pages on the Internet with similar themes
Realitycarnival,
NewScientist,
Immortality Institute, Methuselahmouse,
Institute of nanotechnology,
ScientificAmerican,
Calresco,
Edge, Opte,
IEET.org, Templeton
award, Sens,
Wikipedia
Artificial_intelligence, Neil de Grasee
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Aleph
Transhuman page, ne-plus-ultra
project,
uk transhumanists,Scitechdaily,
David
Chalmers,
JET, Sagecrossroads,
Wired, Alcor,
1st-ave-machine,
Openmind, Innovationwatch
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your help
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© 2006. All rights reserved. |