The duality is creation, or anima (which is an inherently active, masculine energy) & destruction, or consumption (which is a passive, feminine energy). Being passive, the manifestation of consumption is naturally static, & therefore requires only a predilection to the Path of Least Resistance to accommodate its being. It may then be of interest to note that this stasis will sometimes institute the kinetics of the anima, the active life force. However deeply we desire to sustain, change… Continue
Posted by Sita on May 6, 2008 at 5:35am —
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Our skin isn't enough to protect us from our environment, so we wear clothes. If you wear clothes you're a transhumanist. We don't need to turn ourselves into cyborgs. We just need to work towards better prosthesis. Continue
Posted by Fahad Baseer on May 2, 2008 at 9:46am —
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Hello fellow transhumanists,
I have noticed in the past few days that several new members have joined that didn't seem to fit the typical transhumanist profile (i.e. we don't often wear tiaras or operate Russian bride services). I don't want to inflame anyone by saying this as I realize that we all come from different backgrounds and demographics. However, my bullshit detector went on high alert lately when numerous solicitous comments were being made to members and hence the exalted Transumani… Continue
Posted by Christopher on April 7, 2008 at 3:59pm —
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Last winter (2007) I wrote a short cryonics story.
I want to thank Shannon Vyff and Kennita Watson for the editing and fixing the grammar
I wrote this story so I can use it to explain cryonics to my family and friends.
This story tells how I think about cryonics.
This story is about a young woman who gets seriously injured after a car accident.
She's going to die and she wants as last wi… Continue
The concept of the self, or mind the, or the person is frequently taken for granted as a metaphysical ultimate that is, as a primitive term or entity which cannot be reduced to, or analyzed into, anything simpler, and is somehow there to be found. The body of course is neither ultimate nor simple: it is composed of familiar chemical elements, into which it will disintegrate. But am I the same as my body? Or is it I who have a body? Continue
I first started paying attention to this company when I saw a video about their "RoboKind" robot boy Zeno.
However, Zeno is not their only invention!
You may have read about "Albert-Hubo", which was ranked as the 17th greatest robot in history, using HRI's Einstein portrait atop the KAIST walking Hubo robot.
Check out some of the advances they have made:
http://hansonroboti…Continue
Posted by Natassja Noctis on March 7, 2008 at 12:30pm —
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My interest in life extension and expansion began last fall, shortly after my mother informed us that she had terminal liver cancer.
She passed away a week before Thanksgiving.
I asked myself at her burial why people are buried or cremated.
It makes no sense that, in as advanced a state humanity exists, we still resort to embalming and burying
people or incinerating them.
I did my due diligence on nutrition, genetics, nanotechnology and cryonics, to name only three areas of life extension.… Continue
Posted by Bill Teeter on March 2, 2008 at 6:11pm —
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Fleshcanvas.net
is dedicated chiefly to raising awareness about the possibilities
inherent in transhumanism, all scientific & philosophic topics, as
well as body modification in general. When editing a post, my goal is
to remain as objective & informative as possible. I will also be
casting the spotlight upon many of humanity’s flaws, but will strive
always to offer logical (however often difficult) so…Continue
Posted by Sita on February 8, 2008 at 3:51am —
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At its best, life can be great: I’m thinking of my first kiss, but life is seldom this good - often it is crowded with minor and sometimes major personal disasters; most people believe that their lives will end in the ultimate tragedy – their own
death ... [continue reading ->]
"The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa 40,000 years ago, quickening to 100 times historical levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published…
Nematode worms treated with lithium show a 46 percent increase in lifespan, raising the tantalizing question of whether humans taking the mood affecting drug are also taking an anti-aging medication. Results of the Buck Institute study, led by...
My name's Jamie, and I could use a little help. I'm basically starting to write a novel set in the future where genetic and technologically advancements are possible, but still new enough to be controversial among people. The basic plot is that someone obtains military level enhancements illegally and goes on a killing spree, targeting people who are outspoken against the transhumanist ideals that are gripping the society. A police detective, who has himself undertaken…
I posted this on Gather.com a while back and thought I should put it up here.
Off topic: For every philosophical quandary there will be at least three stances. There is the one who proposes the first theory, along with all
who support it and their respective takes on it. Next will be a group
of people who may or may not have a theory to offer, but contest the
f…
My blog: The Hyperborean, is about futurism, ethics, epistemology, consciousness, culture, politics and critical theory. It has an obvious Nietzschean point of view, and also an activist/anarcho-libertarian point of view.
A man sits down before a gun, which is pointed at his head. This is no ordinary gun; it's rigged to a machine that measures the spin of a quantum particle. Each time the trigger is pulled, the spin of the quantum particle -- or quark -- is measured. Depending on the measurement, the gun will either fire, or it won't. If the quantum particle is measured as spinning in a clockwise m… Continue
It has been a year ago that I´ve made new drawings.
Last week I made this one: a drawing of a female cyborg. I have done the coloring whit photoshop. It was not easy for me to color this picture without a drawing tablet. The background is a picture that I like. I found this picture on the Internet. (I like Pictures of space.)
Hi Everyone, Due to a flurry of other activities, I am unable to put as much time as I would like into developing this site and would like to add a couple of admins to the site to keep things improving. Admins can do anything on the network other than delete it. It would be great to have someone with PHP/HTML/CSS skills to add pages and the like. This network has a lot of flexibilty for appearance and features so some design skills would also be useful. If you wish to be an admin, PM me or l… Continue
Mind from Immortality Institute set up a new group on Razoo.
Help End Aging win $10,000 in Razoo.com's
Change Your World Contest! Any Group that recruits 100 members by
October 1st will be entered into the contest, then the Razoo community
will vote for the winner. Help us win the Contest and come learn more
about End Aging by joining our group on Razoo!
You can read about it (and get involved) here:… Continue
Cruising down the Beltway, I found myself being enveloped in a peculiar state as I watched the bright lights across the bay dancing along to the sweet electronic dub vibrating through my head. The occupants of the offices and hotel rooms across the water, whoever they might have been, were in some way cosmically connected to me through the rhythm of the snares' tap-tap-tapping to the bass. The Universe decided for that moment that it would own some kind of meaning and united I and all around…
Well, I'm excited that we have over 200 members now...but it's never been quieter. Where has the conversation gone? Facebook? other forums? summer holidays? Hopefully we can get into some gritty topics soon. I'm as guilty as anyone for my ennui.
In 1971, the political philosopher Ivan Illich wrote a
rather provocative book, called Deschooling Society. It was about
modern educational systems and the way that they perpetuate
hierarchical thinking by solidifying it in children from a young age.
This hierarchical thinking filters out to the rest of society creating
negative feedback loops which result in all sorts of problems.
Insightfully, he wrote that education should be self-directed using
"learning webs." He e… Continue
I just started writing this and I'm not fully sure why. But I feel I need to say it:
A few weeks ago, I went with my father to Iola, Kansas, a couple hundred miles south of my home in Kansas City. A flood had devastated the area, and we were there as part of a service group to help people rebuild their lives. Our job was finding furniture that was too far gone and tossing it into a heap to be thrown away. In one house, as we were carrying out water-logged mattresses and mold-infested c… Continue
I'm one of these people who likes to squirrel away things. I have more books than I'll ever read (only made possible by Project Gutenberg and things like it), I compulsively buy tools that I'll never use, and I collect ideological labels without really fully developing the ideas behind the labels.
It seems that the latest label I've taken on is that of Transhumanist.
Obviously, I would be speaking from a position of almost total ignorance of the ph… Continue
The World Transhumanist Association is accepting applications for the position of Executive Director. The Executive Director is responsible for managing the affairs of the WTA under the Direction of the WTA Board of Directors, including:
- directing the work of the Assistant Director - re-designing and maintaining the transhumanism.org website - fundraising - managing WTA mailing lists, newsletters, and memb… Continue
Posted by Christopher on July 16, 2007 at 4:26am —
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Check out my blog "Cyborg Fantasies" in which I have been writing about the social and technological implications of the Cyborg phenomenon since 2004 for the general non-scientific and specific populations.. The link is : http://cyborgfantasy.blogspot.com/ Continue
Posted by V.R.MANOJ on July 13, 2007 at 3:02am —
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I accidentally deleted all the music files while shuffling things around...sorry. In the interest of faster loading times for the front page I removed the music app (which can't exist on member pages without being on the front page) and the member thumbnails. You can still access the members via the 'member' tab at the top of the page and if you want to share music on your profile page you can add a music widget into your text box. If you need help with this, just send me a message. Continue
To give you a sense of what it will be about, let me just quote what I put under interests: "transhumanism, the singularity, mathematically-informed applied
rationality, artificial intelligence, molecular nanotech, math,
physics, economics, statistics, philosophy, writing, miscellaneous
science and futurism". Continue
"Transhumanism". It is
an idea system defined in the dictionary as "man remaining man, but
transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his
human nature" or "Advocacy of improvement to the human condition
through enhancement technologies, such as eliminating aging and
expanding intellectual, physical or physiological capacities."
...nothing anyone with a 3 digit IQ doesn't know already, but it reassures me that I'm not [completely] psychotic & at least some other eyes can see.
"What's Fred Smoking?
An Essay In Cultural Psychiatry
September 24, 2006
Letters pour in from desperate readers (or would if they did) saying, “Fred, explain America today. Say something tendentious and irritating about what is going on in this curious country. Why do we do wha…
It pleases me to find that there is a place for those of us who dare to call ourselves “Transhumanists” to come and share ideas. I say dare because insofar as we call ourselves Transhumanists, we are stating that we are attempting to transcend the human experience. Not merely through the use of technology, but also with the power of our own will. It is not enou…
There is no Transhumanist Party per se, but I've signed up for the Unity '08 group for the next big election. The concept of the group is to be a third party between the lines. With being on neither side, but inside agreeing to come to the middle and rational decision about how the country should be headed. That way the discussions and inclusions of what's important to the populace or delegates rises to the top, with the voices being heard with the biggest numbers. Takes away some of the propaga… Continue
I have been filming a documentary about two brothers who are trying to get their car to run the quarter mile drag in under ten seconds.
What do I love about it? Well, if you read thispost then you know I think that when a human is operating a car, the line between man and machine is blurred and in essence becomes a cyborg.
Because even t…
I read someone calling transhumanism the opposing view to cyberpunk: cyberpunks are pessimists, predicting that technology will exceed our ability to comprehend it, making all of civilization depressed and lethargic. Transhumanists are optimists, foreseeing that humans will use technology to make ourselves more than human, to make sure we can keep up with the technology.
I guess both will exist. Some people will embrace the changes that come with technology, and enhance themselves. Others will f… Continue
When does social networking get out of hand? So far I have now joined Facebook, Transhumanists.org, LinkedIn (for professional contacts), and Plaxo (my address book). I get separate email on different networks. I get invited by people, I invite people, and my social networking explodes, but I'm not really sure what the point is quite yet. Well, networking I guess. And meeting new people. And making use of widgets built around my network of friends, family and new acquaintances.
I have stripped our own club-specific information from several of our h+ posters and flyers and created template Photoshop and PDF files for your own use. Feel free to download these files and add your own information, or make modifications to best represent your own club.
These files are located on our h+ group page, in the Box.net widget, in the "Poster Templates" folder.
The other folders include specific h+ information that will probably not be useful to your own club. You… Continue
Posted by Richard Leis, Jr. on June 21, 2007 at 4:18am —
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"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building
experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of
human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it
underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another,
and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever
known." -- Carl Sagan
This is a very very interesting & inspiring… Continue
Posted by Sita on June 20, 2007 at 8:28am —
No Comments
Chapter 0: THE FOOL, URANUS, DA'ATH. Introduces our Fool, Jaedkin
Sunaru, whom we will be accompanying for the entire book. He is the
quintessential seeker; a human sent to the surface to investigate why
communication with the H+ has been lost (dispersing illusion, getting
to the truth; da'ath). He was really a guinea pig, given the job
because he was not expected to return.… Continue
I would like to announce that h+, a transhumanist club at the University of Arizona, has decided to move its online presence from its existing website to Transhumanists.org and Facebook.
Roko's mention of trying to figure out a sort of spiritual rallying point for
Transhumanism got me to thinking, and I have been doing just that for the past
week or so along a particular thread I think that I am ready to share with the
rest of you, although it is still a little rough around the edges.
Firstly, I start from the premise that only that which is
observable exists, and t…Continue
I was at my son's baseball game tonight, they're 0-14 right now. That's another topic for another blog, he obviously did not get the ringer teams, at least he's smiling though. Anywho, I was talking to a mother, her son was on the other team, but they had played together last year. Background for what I'll be talking about: she and I raised money for a little boy who was dying of Down's and leukemia last year. Prior to the boy's untimely departure, he was 3, her son, 20, fell three stories from… Continue
I'll say something about whether transhumanism is compatible with
religion: I don't think it is. There is no logical incompatibility,
other than the logical problems inherent in religion. I think that the values behind the two ideas are
fundamentally at odds with each other.
The big religions that we
are familiar with (Islam, Christianity) basically say that humans are
sinful, inferior beings, and that without god to help us out and show
us what to do, we are doomed. They go even furthe… Continue
Transhumanists rejoice! The audio player has arrived. If you have a podcast or create music or you just want to share something wonderful that you've been listening to, you can now share it with everyone else on the network and beyond. If you are using someone else's work please respect the copyright restrictions (check out Creative Commons for a reasonable, progressive way to license your work.)
You can upload up to 100 MP3's each up to 20MB in… Continue
If you don't have the patience for the whole thing, the really important bit is in the last half-dozen short sentences.]
As people like Ray Kurzweil have brought to our attention, quantitative measurements of key indicators of progression towards such an "immaterial economy" have maintained a smooth ex… Continue
I was thinking about an article I remembered reading that said that apparently the aspects of a Buddhist monk's brain associated with compassion are strengthened to the extent that it's noticeable by electroencephalograph or whatever (google it up for yourself; the more people looking, the more chance somebody will find out if it's bullshit). And I thought, hm, this suggests some very powerful ways to make the creation of strong AI safer.
(Of course, it also suggests the mental imag… Continue
I didn't make this up: Back in the 1990's, when the glittering but often illusory potentials of the Internet created more enthusiasm than rational thinking, I kept reading things to the effect that in the so-called "new economy," matter would become economically obsolete or irrelevant compared with the enormous "added value" coming from the development and application of "intellectual capital." Of course, when petroleum sold for $10 a barrel or so with no obvious inflection point in sight (excep… Continue
The singularity. Why are there institutes and stuff popping up about this? What is going on?
Look people, what do we want before anything else? That will give us time to focus on all the other issues of life?
Could it be Life extension? Well, what exactly does an institute obsessed with AI and a single event destined to change mankind have to do with biological immortality?
I realise if it happened tomorrow, it would help, of course it would. But I see life extension… Continue
You have to hand it to yesterday's science fiction writers and "futurologists." They portrayed futures where people got off their butts and did interesting things in the physical world: Travelling in flying cars, building underwater cities, colonizing space, etc. These activities se…