What unfolded — easily history’s only redeeming manifestation of the panel format — was a fascinating quilt of perspectives not only on the Mariner 9 mission itself, or even just Mars, but on the relationship between mankind and the cosmos, the importance of space exploration, and the future of our civilization. Two years later, the record of this epic conversation was released in Mars and the Mind of Man (public library), alongside early images of Mars taken by Mariner 9 and a selection of “afterthoughts” by the panelists, looking back on the historic achievement.

(read more at Brain Pickings)

Neuromancer, by William Gibson

The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace…

Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology, Neuromancer ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the century’s most potent visions of the future.

Both authors have solid backgrounds in the subject matter at the theoretical and more practical level. While serving as a text for senior/grad level students in computer science/physics/engineering, this book has its primary use as an up-to-date reference work in the emerging interdisciplinary field of quantum computing — the only prerequisite being knowledge of calculus and familiarity with the concept of the Turing machine.

Amazon | Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, “I” arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here?

I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the “strange loop” — a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called “I.” The “I” is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.

How can a mysterious abstraction be real — or is our “I” merely a convenient fiction? Does an “I” exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics?

These are the mysteries tackled in I Am a Strange Loop, Douglas Hofstadter’s first book-length journey into philosophy since Gödel, Escher, Bach. Compulsively readable and endlessly thought-provoking, this is a moving and profound inquiry into the nature of mind.

Amazon | Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand’s greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex.

Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy, to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction, to the philosopher who becomes a pirate, to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad, to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.

Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.

Amazon | In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles — micro-robots — has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.

It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour.

Every attempt to destroy it has failed.

And we are the prey.

Amazon |  This book’s main idea is that this century’s global politics will be dominated by the “species dominance” issue.  21st century technologies will enable the building of artilects (artificial intellects, artificial intelligences, massively intelligent machines) with 1040 components, using reversible, heatless, 3D, molecular scale, self assembling, one bit per atom, nano-teched, quantum computers, which may dwarf human intelligence levels by a factor of trillions of trillions and more.

The question that will dominate global politics this century will be whether humanity should or should not build these artilects.  Those in favor of building them are called “Cosmists” in this book, due to their “cosmic” perspective.  Those opposed to building them are called “Terrans,” as in “terra,” the Earth, which is their perspective.  The Cosmists will want to build artilects, amongst other reasons, because to them it will be a religion, a scientist’s religion that is compatible with modern scientific knowledge.

The Cosmists will feel that humanity has a duty to serve as the stepping-stone towards building the next dominant rung of the evolutionary ladder.  Not to do so would be a tragedy on a cosmic scale to them.  The Cosmists will claim that stopping such an advance will be counter to human nature, since human beings have always striven to extend their boundaries.  Another Cosmist argument is that once the artificial brain based computer market dominates the world economy, economic and political forces in favor of building advanced artilects will be almost unstoppable.  The Cosmists will include some of the most powerful, the richest, and the most brilliant of the Earth’s citizens, who will devote their enormous abilities to seeing that the artilects get built.  A similar argument applies to the military and its use of intelligent weaponry.  Neither the commercial nor the military sectors will be willing to give up artilect research unless they are subjected to extreme Terran pressure.

To the Terrans, building artilects will mean taking the risk that the latter may one day decide to exterminate human beings, either deliberately or through indifference.  The only certain way to avoid such a risk is not to build them in the first place.  The Terrans will argue that human beings will fear the rise of increasingly intelligent machines and their alien differences.  To build artilects will require an “evolutionary engineering” approach.  The resulting complexities of the evolved structures that underlie the artilects will be too great for human beings to be able to predict the behaviors and attitudes of the artilects towards human beings.  The Terrans will be prepared to destroy the Cosmists, even on a distant Cosmist colony, if the Cosmists go ahead with an advanced artilect building program.

In the short to middle term, say the next 50 years or so, the artificial brain based industries will flourish, providing products that are very useful and very popular with the public, such as teacher robots, conversation robots, household cleaner robots, etc.  In time, the world economy will be based on such products.  Any attempt to stop the development of increasingly intelligent artilects will be very difficult, because the economic and political motivation to continue building them will be very strong in certain circles.  If the brain-based computer industries were to stop their research and development into artilects, then many powerful individuals, including the artilect company presidents and certain politicians will lose big money and political influence.  They will not give up their status without a fight.

However, as the intelligence levels of the early artilects increases, it will become obvious to everyone that the intelligence gap between these artificial-brain-based products and human beings is narrowing.  This will create a growing public anxiety.  Eventually, some nasty incident or series of incidents will galvanize most of society against further increase of artificial intelligence in the artilects, leading to the establishment of a global ban on artilect research.

The Cosmists however, will oppose a ban on the development of more intelligent artilects, and will probably go underground.  If the incidents continue and are negative enough, the anger and hatred of the Terrans towards the Cosmists will increase to the point where the Cosmists may decide that their fate is to leave the Earth, an option that is quite realistic with 21st century technology.

Since the Cosmists will include some of the most brilliant and economically powerful people on the planet, they will probably create an elite conspiratorial organization whose aim is to build artilects secretly.

The book presents a scenario in which the Cosmists create an asteroid-based colony, masked by some innocuous activity. In reality, this secret society devises a weapon system superior to the best on the Earth.  With their wealth and the best human brains, this may be achievable. They will also start making advanced artilects.  If the Terrans on the Earth discover the true intentions of the Cosmists, they will probably want to destroy them, but not dare to because of the counter threat of the Cosmists with their more advanced weapons.  The stage is thus set for a major 21st century war in which billions of people die – “gigadeath.”

This horrific number is derived from an extrapolation up the graph of the number of deaths in major wars from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the 21st century.  Approximately 200 million people died in the 20th century, for political reasons — wars, purges, genocides, etc.

The profound schizophrenia that the author feels on the Cosmist/Terran species dominance issue will be felt by millions of people within a few years he expects.  There is probably Cosmist and Terran in nearly all of us, which may explain why this issue is so divisive.  The author is simply one of the first to feel this schizophrenia.  Within a decade it may be all over the planet.

The last chapter of the book closes with a repetition of a pithy slogan that summarizes the two main viewpoints in the artilect debate in a nutshell; a debate that the author believes will be raging in the coming decades.

“Do we build gods, or do we build our potential exterminators?”

While addressing the technology-vs.-privacy debate, he offers an informed overview of the issues and a useful historical account of how current policies evolved. Also beneficial are his descriptions of the different viewpoints on encryption software, online anonymity, the Clipper Chip and techno-jargon. But when Brin opines on these topics, the book suffers from superficiality.

He appends remarks to the end of each chapter as this: “When you’ve been invited to a really neat party, try to dance with the one who brought you.” His main point — that information and criticism should flow unrestricted — is lost in a melange of armchair social science theory and unrelated observations on the media, morality, identity and manners.

After making a thoughtful case for discouraging encryption and encouraging free speech on the Web, he undercuts his position by calling for e-mail civility, “because people who lash out soon learn that it simply does not pay,” then states that a balance can be achieved between these two extremes. Despite a strong beginning, Brin’s book ultimately lacks clarity and originality.

Erin Rhodes |

Transmigration of the human mind into a machine is only one of many fantastical predictions Hans Moravec, a roboticist at Carnegie-Mellon University, makes in his book Mind Children. Moravec speculates that the end product of transmigration, where our “postbiological” evolution will ultimately lead us, is “a supercivilization, the synthesis of all solar system life, constantly improving and extending itself, spreading outward from the sun, converting nonlife into mind.”

Soft Machines explains in a lively and very accessible manner why the nanoworld is so different to the macro-world which we are all familiar with. Why does nature engineer things in the way it does, and how can we learn to use these unfamiliar principles to create valuable new materials and artifacts which will have a profound effect on medicine, electronics, energy and the environment in the twenty-first century. With a firmer understanding of the likely relationship between nanotechnology and nature itself, we can gain a much clearer notion of what dangers this powerful technology may potentially pose, as well as come to realize that nanotechnology will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering.

This prospect is understandably terrifying to many. A loose coalition of groups-including religious conservatives, disability rights and environmental activists-has emerged to oppose the use of genetics to enhance human beings. And with the appointment of conservative philosopher Leon Kass, an opponent of in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research and life extension, to head the President’s Council on Bioethics, and with the recent high-profile writings by authors like Francis Fukuyama and Bill McKibben, this stance has become more visible – and more infamous – than ever before.

In the opposite corner a loose transhumanist coalition is mobilizing in defense of human enhancement, embracing the ideological diversity of their intellectual forebears in the democratic and humanist movements. Transhumanists argue that human beings should be guaranteed freedom to control their own bodies and brains, and to use technology to transcend human limitations.

Identifying the groups, thinkers and arguments in each corner of this debate, bioethicist and futurist James Hughes argues for a third way, which he calls democratic transhumanism. This approach argues that we will achieve the best possible posthuman future when we ensure technologies are safe, make them available to everyone, and respect the right of individuals to control their own bodies.

Hughes offers fresh and controversial answers for many other pressing biopolitical issues-including cloning, genetic patents, human genetic engineering, sex selection, drugs, and assisted suicide-and concludes with a concrete political agenda for pro-technology progressives, including expanding and deepening human rights, reforming genetic patent laws, and providing everyone with healthcare and a basic guaranteed income.

A groundbreaking work of social commentary, Citizen Cyborg illuminates the technologies that are pushing the boundaries of humanness-and the debate that may determine the future of the human race itself.

In Breakpoint is the #1 bestselling author of Against All Enemiesgoes beyond the more familiar Middle East geopolitical scenarios.  Drawing on his years as Special Adviser to the President for Cyberspace Security and his work as Chairman of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, Clarke brings readers into a special world of knowledge and inside information as he looks at present and future technology, the web of communications that ties the earth together—and how very, very easy it would be for a dedicated terrorist group to throw the world into utter chaos.

The global village is an intricately intertwined network of technology that has changed the way business is transacted, governments operate and national defense is conducted.  Binding together the world’s economies, governments and communications it is large, vital and extremely fragile.  Now a sophisticated terrorist group is seeking to “disconnect the globe.”

The action in Breakpoint takes place over a 12-day period and begins when a series of truck-bomb attacks in five U.S. states and on both coasts destroys 10 obscure, unmanned and unprotected beachheads—the nondescript, windowless shacks near the beaches where transoceanic fiber-optic cables come ashore from Europe and the Pacific and feed into Internet routers and switches.  Whoever the attackers are, the damage done to the international financial system and U.S. diplomatic and military command control is immediate and wide-ranging.  Data and communications links between the State Department and U.S. embassies in Europe, Africa, the Mideast and South Asia are down.  And more than half of U.S. military forces overseas cannot fully carry out their missions because they do not have unclassified Internet connectivity to the U.S.

The major government agencies all lumber into action but behind the scenes, the special projects office of the Intelligence Analysis Center (IAC) knows that to catch unconventional terrorists requires unconventional methods.  A small team—smart, agile, and quick—immediately starts to sift through a welter of often contradictory information about right-wing militias, Russian organized crime, Jihadist terrorists and enemy nation-states; chasing leads all across the country and overseas.  The FBI and Homeland Security are looking for answers where the streetlights shine.  The IAC team goes into the shadows.

Computer grids, communications satellites, biotech firms soon come under attack as the pace and scope of destruction increases.  Somebody has figured out an Achilles’ heel in America’s technology and national infrastructure, one obviously the government itself had not recognized.  Soon a breakpoint will be reached—and then there may be nothing anybody can do.

Breakpoint goes well beyond drawing attention to the very real and very frightening vulnerabilities of America’s critical infrastructure and the information systems that are essential to our national and economic security.  The book is filled with the technology being developed right now for a future just around the corner or in many cases already here—a technology certain to cause enormous political, social, and economic change.

“Readers want suspense, a fast pace and, most of all, the illusion they’re getting a glimpse of how things work in the clandestine inner circles of power.  Clarke’s book delivers on all these scores.  And in his case, the insiderness is no illusion.  Unlike most novelists, the man has actually been there and done that.”
–Joseph Finder, New York Times Book review of The Scorpion’s Gate

“Some of us have learned to listen when Richard A. Clarke has something to say.  Now Clarke comes with a novel that will keep you awake at night…He demonstrates a flair for action fiction.  His almost three-decade background in intelligence and counterterrorism serves him exceptionally well.
– Gary Hart, Washington Post on Clarke and The Scorpion’s Gate

Publishers Weekly |

He stands up for “group selection” (a minority view among evolutionists) and traces cooperation among organisms and competition between groups throughout the history of evolution. “Creative webs” of early microorganisms teamed up to go after food sources: modern colonies of E. coli bacteria seem to program themselves for useful, nonrandom mutations. Octopi “teach” one another to avoid aversive stimuli. Ancient Sparta killed its weakest infants; Athens educated them. Each of these is a social learning system. And each such system relies on several functions. “Conformity enforcers” keep most group members doing the same things; “diversity generators” seek out new things; “resource shifters” help the system alter itself to favor new things that work.

In Bloom’s model, bowling leagues, bacteria, bees, Belgium and brains all behave in similar ways. Lots of real science and some history (much of it fascinating, some of it quite obscure) go into Bloom’s ambitious, amply footnoted, often plausible arguments.  Subtract the hype, and Bloom’s concept of collective information processing may startle skeptical readers with its explanatory power.

Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kurzweil, artificial intelligence expert and author of The Age of Intelligent Machines, shows that technological evolution moves at an exponential pace.

Further, he asserts, in a sort of swirling postulate, time speeds up as order increases, and vice versa. He calls this the “Law of Time and Chaos,” and it means that although entropy is slowing the stream of time down for the universe overall, and thus vastly increasing the amount of time between major events, in the eddy of technological evolution the exact opposite is happening, and events will soon be coming faster and more furiously.

This means that we’d better figure out how to deal with conscious machines as soon as possible — they’ll soon not only be able to beat us at chess, but also likely demand civil rights, and might at last realize the very human dream of immortality.

Lavishly illustrated and easily accessible to the nonspecialist, The Age of Intelligent Machines provides the background needed for a full understanding of the enormous scientific potential represented by intelligent machines and of their equally profound philosophic, economic, and social implications. It examines the history of efforts to understand human intelligence and to emulate it by building devices that seem to act with human capabilities.

In a sweeping approach reflective of his intimate knowledge of the subject, Kurzweil systematically builds on the great landmarks of human intellect. He weaves together the singular achievements of such major thinkers as Plato, Euclid, Newton, Babbage, Einstein, von Neumann, and Wittgenstein to provide an orderly and comprehensive understanding of the impact intelligent machines will have on the world as it enters the third millenium.

Running alongside Kurzweil’s historical and scientific narrative, are 23 articles examining contemporary issues in artificial intelligence by such luminaries as Daniel Dennett, Sherry Turkle, Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert, Edward Feigenbaum, Allen Newell, and George Gilder.

In The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil postulates that we are already in the very early stages of this transition, and that within just a few decades, life as we know it will be completely different. As Kurzweil explains, “The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine nor between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.”

Devices enormously smaller than before will remodel engineering, chemistry, medicine, and computer technology. How can we understand machines that are so small? Nanosystems covers it all: power and strength, friction and wear, thermal noise and quantum uncertainty. This is the book for starting the next century of engineering.” — Marvin Minsky MIT.

Science magazine calls Eric Drexler “Mr. Nanotechnology.” For years, Drexler has stirred controversy by declaring that molecular nanotechnology will bring a sweeping technological revolution — delivering tremendous advances in miniaturization, materials, computers, and manufacturing of all kinds. Now, he’s written a detailed, top-to-bottom analysis of molecular machinery — how to design it, how to analyze it, and how to build it.

Nanosystems is the first scientifically detailed description of developments that will revolutionize most of the industrial processes and products currently in use. This groundbreaking work draws on physics and chemistry to establish basic concepts and analytical tools. The book then describes nanomechanical components, devices, and systems, including parallel computers able to execute 1020 instructions per second and desktop molecular manufacturing systems able to make such products. Via chemical and biochemical techniques, proximal probe instruments, and software for computer-aided molecular design, the book charts a path from present laboratory capabilities to advanced molecular manufacturing. Bringing together physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, and computer science, Nanosystems provides an indispensable introduction to the emerging field of molecular nanotechnology.

Personal fabrication (PF) is the ability to design and produce your own products in your own home, with a machine that combines consumer electronics and industrial tools. This book describes how personal fabricators are about to revolutionize the world just as personal computers did a generation ago.

Unique for both its style and substance, the book is today recognized as the seminal work in nanotechnology and has earned Drexler the title of “Father of Nanotechnology.”

Engines of Creation 2.0: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology — Updated and Expanded, is an e-book-only version available for free to readers exclusively through WOWIO.

In addition to an updated “look and feel” for the e-book, Engines of Creation 2.0 has been expanded to include the first known lecture on nanotechnology by physicist Richard Feynman, the landmark open letter debate between Dr. Drexler and the late nanotech pioneer and Nobel laureate Dr. Richard Smalley, analysis of the debate by Ray Kurzweil, and a number of new additions by Dr. Drexler, including his advice to aspiring nanotechnologists.

“Some seminal works stand out like beacons in the history of science. Newton’s ‘Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica’ and Watson and Crick’s ‘A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid’ come quickly to mind. In recent decades we can add Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation, which established the revolutionary new field of nanotechnology.

“In the twenty years since this seminal work was published, its premises and analyses have been confirmed and we are starting to apply precise molecular assembly to a wide variety of early applications from blood cell sized devices that can target cancer cells to a new generation of efficient solar panels. We can now see clearly the roadmap over the next couple of decades to the full realization of Drexler’s concept of the inexpensive assembly of macro objects constructed at the nanoscale controlled by massively parallel information processes, the fulfillment of which will enable us to solve problems — energy, environmental degradation, poverty, and disease to name a few — that have plagued humankind for eons.” — Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of The Singularity is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology

This book is available from WOWIO Books | Click the image below to purchase.

In this debate with his critics, including several Discovery Institute fellows, Kurzweil defends his views and sets the stage for the central question: “What does it mean to be human?”