Transhumanist religion 2.0
July 13, 2012 by Giulio Prisco
Cosmic infinity (credit: ESO/Wikimedia Commons)
Cosmism, an emerging “religion 2.0” that is part of a radical futurist conception of the future development of humanity, can give us the positive optimism and “strenuous mood” to overcome our current problems and embark on our cosmic journey.
So say contemporary cosmists, who believe that the “manifest destiny” of our species is colonizing the universe and developing spacetime engineering and scientific “future magic” much beyond our current understanding and imagination.
These ideas were first developed in the late 19th century by Russian Cosmism, the scientific philosophy of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Nikolai Fedorov, who considered science as a tool given to us by God to enable us to resurrect the dead and, as promised, enjoy immortal life.
Some cosmists — including me — expect that God-like beings will exist in the future, and they may be able to affect their past — our present — by means of spacetime engineering. Probably other civilizations out there have already attained God-like powers.
“It’s at least conceivable that remarkably advanced technology of the future may allow positive answers — that our descendants will have the god-like ability to recreate us in the future, giving us an unexpected prospect for immortality,” says David Wood in Super-technology and a possible renaissance of religion.
Future magic will permit achieving, by scientific means, most of the promises of religions — and many amazing things that no human religion ever dreamed of. Future God-like beings could resurrect the dead by “copying them to the future.” Perhaps we will be resurrected in virtual reality — and perhaps we are already there.
I have written a lot about these convictions, without calling them “beliefs.” But, following William James, since I am persuaded that these convictions are scientifically plausible, and they give me happiness and drive, I choose to hold them as beliefs.
On Saturday, July 14, 2012, in London, Prisco will give a talk on Turing Church unlimited – Transhumanist Religions 2.0, organized by David Wood and the London Futurists Meetup group. The talk is free to attend. You can sign up on the London Futurists Meetup website or on Facebook.
UPDATE 8/15/2012: Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon welcome Giulio Prisco to FastForward Radio to discuss the convergence of science, technology, religion, and spirituality.
Comments (107)
by bizonc
I’m a fellow transhumanist and would consider myself a rational optimist but skeptical of the things I hope will happen in the future. I have some questions I have been wanting to discuss with my H+ community and would love for someone to address these concerns.
1.) I don’t understand how quantum archaeology can actually bring back the original identity person consciousness. Once a brain is permanently decomposed or no living, they are gone forever, right? I can see emulations/simulations/clones/copies of me but not me.
2.) I don’t understand why we don’t start the cryonics process while the patient is alive. I realize it’s against the law (which I do not understand), but waiting until they are legally dead would seem to astronomically reduce the chances of revival and cause tremendous damage to the brain. Curing the diseases and future transhuman emerging tech seems plausible but reviving dead people seems very improbable. (by the way I would sign up for cryonics if I could afford it).
3.) I think Carbon Copies, the Brain Preservation Foundation, Bostrom, Sandberg and others working on brain emulation is a very noble pursuit and important. I’m a proponent of mind uploading however after all the research (Koene, Hayworth & others) I have done, I come to the conclusion the brain is the mind and the mind is the brain. It’s impossible to move or separate the mind unless you believe in some sort of dualism. I do not. I think modern neuroscience shows clearly the reductionist materialist view of the mind is true. I don’t think we can have our mind on another substrate since our mind arises from the inner working of our brain so technically the mind is a substrate or so it seems. I only see copies and clones even after reading Koene’s and Hayworth’s arguments and I do support their research with whatever money I can afford to give. I think our best bet is gradual uploading/upgrading or strong AI finding a solution or other biological solutions.
Lastly,
4.) I hope science & tech really do accelerate and the singularity happens this mid century, strong AI in the next decade or two and/or other life saving technologies happen in the next 50 years. I just don’t see it happening. I think our numbers are way off. The chance to live indefinitely without cyronics won’t happen for centuries. I understand accelerating & exponential change and the law of accelerating returns, however not much is different now from the 90′s except smart phones, tablets, faster internet and social media. Perhaps the technological changes are fast in cosmic time but not fast enough for human lifespans. The manned space program went to a halt. People in the 50′s thought strong AI was just around the corner (several predictions), space colonies, moon colonies and none of their sci fi visions came true (see adam carolla book; chpt “I want my future back”). The PaleoFuture blog has some good books on the future too. The predictions by my man Kurzweil that have come true are never mainstream. I really want a robotic body or to live in a virtual reality but I think we are screwed. We are the early transhumanists who won’t benefit from these technologies. I think it’s another 100 years from now and that they still won’t be mature. Right now are technology is so primitive and life is not a priority. That is a huge problem that people think it’s abnormal to want to live longer than a measly 80 years. The deathist cult is sickening. I hope I’m wrong and there is hope for major revolutionary technological change in medicine, robotics, computers, physics and neuroscience in the next 30 to 40 years.
Thanks to anyone willing to discuss.
Carson
by James McLean Ledford
There is a reality beyond that which we sense… There is a way for life to grow that transcends what we can imagine now. Imagine a continuum of evolving life connecting us to a supreme state of being with universal creative power over space-time. This state of being must exists now. It is logical, consistent, and in full agreement with scientific observation.
by craig fox
of what possible purpose could such a religion have. Is it like Azimov said something to the effect that “the nice thing about a religion based upon science is that it actually works”? Apparently the unspoken premise is that the majority of the population is not bright enough to understand science–so we present it in the form of a religion they can feel.
by Fabiano
So let me get this correct… You don’t believe in God but you would like to be one? You refuse to believe all things created have a ultimate source, origination and intelligence, yet you are trying to achieve that end in your endeavors and inventions..
I am so confused.
by cosmowrench
Imagine you could talk to a person who lived 200 years ago. And you tell him you can see things that happen a thousend miles away, you can travel between continents in just hours, you can talk to a person on the other sideof the planet, cure diseases etc. That person would think you are a god. Do you think you are a god? Did you wanted to become one?
by Giulio Prisco
It took only a bit more than a century to go from drums to iPhones. What magic cannot be achieved in millennia?
Our current powers would seem God-like to our ancestors, and the powers of our descendants would seem God-like to us.
Never forget Clarke’s 3rd Law.
by Giulio Prisco
@Fabiano – I don’t believe in a supernatural God, and yes, I would like to build [or become, or merge with] a natural God. Our descendants may be able to do so, and perhaps future natural Gods will be able to affect their past (our present) with currently unknown science and currently unimaginable tech.
by Pulica Frinaru
There is no such thing, bah humbug. People will destroy themselves at some point. Or an asteroid will destroy Earth before people have a chance to colonize other worlds, or they will colonize in too few numbers and the species will not survive. If that weren’t the norm, there would be other beings outhere that would have contacted us already.
by René Milan
Why is it that self-appointed prophets, who should stick to their “religious constituency” (gullible followers) keep invading even scientifically oriented sites like this ? I hope (but doubt) that you can see that your predictions are based on conjecture.
by Editor
Aren’t all predictions based on a mix of ideas, including facts, rules, models, and some conjecture? If so, how do we define what portion of these conjectures should be thrown out, unexamined?
by René Milan
“how do we define what portion of these conjectures should be thrown out”: How about the way Pulica does – by fiat ?
by Noooo
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot… Why do you have to taint transhumanism as a religion? Why do you even have to speak of such things?
Is. not. science. eNOUGH?
Why?
You can’t achieve ANYTHING with anything else. History is my proof.
(Even creativity is applying the scientific method of empirical study and improvement.)
by cosmowrench
I find that alot of people posting here dont have a clue what transhumanisme realy is. The least you can do before commenting on it, is learn what it is. Check out some vids, interviews… with Ray Kurzweil on youtube. Or watch his movies… The singularity is inevitable, whether you like it or not. It will come naturaly from advanced medicine, computer science, biotechnology…the trends in the past all show that these branches of science are picking up momentum and are growing exponentially. Like Ray says it: What took up half a building 30 years ago, now fits in your pocket, and it will fit in a bloodcell 30 years from now….
by Tatiana Covington
‘Hail, thou radiant star again risen
To new dawn in the sheltering Mountain’s depths!
Hail, my gleaming Love rekindled
In Toflyffe’s cool unburning flame!
Hail, thou victorious light
I have restored to immortal life!
Hail, your resurrected life
Drawing fire from the triumphant Ring!’
by Capt. Mud
I for one, do not wish to have my consiousness frozen in carbonite for eternity. Is This how the evil ones will get out, by getting someone else to take their places? PASS. ps. All of our problems are being manufactured on purpose…why do so many fail to state, recognize this? Derp ??
by Aac
FOR THOSE THAT DO NOT BELIEVE THERE IS A PLAN FOR A WORLD GOVERNMENT (THIS TO IMPLEMENT POPULATION REDUCTION POLICIES), HERE IS A COLLECTION:
http://www.shorttext.com/RuCY9Wx
by That one guy
Aac,
But would a world governing body really be so bad.
Benefits of such a system include:
The inability for corporations or the super rich to have tax havens to avoid paying tax (current estimate is that there is about 36 TRILLION dollars from the world wealthiest combined settled in these tax havens…horders of another kind, as if they will never have enough..)
The benefit of open boarders everywhere, no more squablling of resources as we would be forced, as one world, to find a way to share our resources as opposed to one nation consuming a third of the world resources, or more, and saying to the rest essentially they and ONLY they deserve it.
Most importantly, it forces us to COALESCE, and come together as one world, as opposed to remain divided to constantly fall, over and over, until the end of time.
Most nations today, although separate from religions, base their laws heavily either on religious and/or ethical grounds. Take out the religious aspect, and you will find that most people tend to have the same ethic standards, but then you add the religious element and certain aspects of those ethics change (i.e. my god is the true god, and to reach him you must do A B C, and if you dont A)believe and/or B) dont follow the ABC steps then you will be punished [even if you live, literally, a perfectly peaceful, calm life, the very FACT that you don't believe in that god figure or the steps to reach him mean you are in need of saving or tricked by the evil and/or are evil in some religions])
by John Wentworth
No, most people do not have the same ethic standards absent religions. For instance, myself and many others believe that tax havens, and nonviolent tax avoidance in general, is a good thing. Its elimination would not be a “benefit”.
Such people also tend to feel that resources belong to individual owners, so switching to a world government would not lead people to “share our resources” unless that world government happened to be socialist.
As for “constantly falling”… I really don’t see any reason to believe that unity is a safety against collapse. If anything, the recent financial meltdown showed that interdependence increases the risk of worldwide collapse.
This one world government scenario may sound like heaven to liberals, but for individualists it is thoroughly unpleasant.
by That one guy
So John, you say its perfectly ok for these corporations to use tax evasion tactics, loopholes, and bank accounts such as these to horde more profits, while at the same time outsourcing jobs away from the country that let them become a corporate entity in the first place to horde even more profits? Then they make a sale and instead of allowing the money to flow freely back into the economy (by paying taxes on what they are REALLY worth and how much they made that year) they move it off to these off shore account to avoid paying taxes, and effectively leave the rest of us, who earn FAR FAR FAR Less than they do, to pay MORE in taxes, and try to keep up with the inflation that results from the need to print more physical money, because after all, they are hording it off shore and not being taxed for it as well…literally letting it sit there until they want to use it? That sound like a sound thing to do? Its cheating plain and simple….and leaving those who are worth far less and make far less in dire straights trying to keep our country afloat.
Corporation becomes a real entity.
Corporation makes a product or sells service
Corporation takes profits and moves them where it can’t legally be taxed
Corporation, wanting even more, outsources jobs from the home nation to make even MORE profit
Corporation takes those profits and again moves them to where they can’t be taxed.
Fiat money has its limits, because it is in the end only paper, and there is a FINITE supply. If this cycle continues, we will forever need to keep prininting the physical money, at our expense not theirs, because they have found a way to keep the physical money completely to themselves, via tax free or extremely low tax accounts…..the more they horde, the more we must print. IF they paid taxes based on how much income they really made, year after year, we would not have a world wide economic issue, as much of the 32 TRILLION they currently have in these tax evasion accounts would be freely flowing the economy, as it should be, and not horded via tax evasion, peaceful or otherwise.
by renemf
“FOR THOSE THAT DO NOT BELIEVE” – who are they ? Any thinking person knows there are innumerable plans for anything and everything, some good, some bad, some realistic, many not. Under current conditions population reduction would go a long way to solve many of our problems but is difficult to implement. World government is one of the alternatives to the current system of organization by “nations” which has proved to be part of the problem, not the solution. Why should it matter where one is born ? Why should anyone be allowed to restrict free movement as long as we have only one planet ?
Your contribution strikes me as yet another case of fashionable paranoia, not least because you’re shouting it out. I wonder what exactly you are afraid of.
by cosmowrench
@That one guy: I do have a problem with all my memories, experiences, loves and dreams disappearing after death. I dont want them to. On the subject of consciousness, there a so many scientists working on that problem (and on the problem of the workings of the brain overall) that i’m quite confident all its secrets will be revealed in the relative near future. And i also believe that when these secrets are revealed, they will be able to recreate consciousness on other substrates as the brain (machine consciousness).
by That one guy
Why would you have a problem with that? Unless you actually contributed something to the advancement of the world as a whole, your experiences and dreams are quite meaningless, except to you and your immediate loved ones of course. The experience was unique to you and your family, and unless you openly shared that experience with everyone around you to savior some of its essence when its gone life will still go on without it. BUT as I said I don’t believe it’s the case anyway, our experience, memories, and POSSIBLY the emotions do stick with our specific conscious frequency, as I will continue to assert. You say it may be possible one day to recreate conscious experience in a machine, and while that may be possible one day, I assert that we already may be capable of such a feat, without machines. At the moment of death, if you have already realized that your specific experience during your lifetime can be saved when your energy leaves it’s shell, when you are reborn in cycle, you may be capable of retaining at least some of those experiences and memories, at least in theory. Absurd, …perhaps. Leap of Faith needed ya, which makes it religious i suppose. But again, I don’t believe your memories experiences etc leave at death, not because I am scared of it, or want to believe in something greater, but because I just feel in my very being that it simply isn’t true. But like those who believe the earth was flat, not round, empirical evidence will be needed. Closest example I can think of to the kind of consciousness I am speaking of here can be found in the writings of Eduard Meier. Alien stuff aside, the alleged cycle of life proposed in that paper is similar to what I am talking about here. Basic run down:
Finite source of Energy to drive the consciousness (aka Soul energy if you will)
This energy is local to our solar system, but CAN travel outside of it if there is no planet suitable for life (aka suitable to give rise to co-creators aka Humans)
The energy is consciousness itself, but alone it is practically useless because it can’t :
Refine Ores
Landscape
Build things
learn
experience
feel
It needs to manifest itself physically in order to do these things.
So how does this apply to machine consciousness?
Maybe one day we can create a machine that lasts longer than 100yrs or so for this energy to reside in and continue to co-create, experience, feel, and dream in. Scary thought for some, but consider what evolution may really have been……single-cells working together to create multicellular organisms, to inturn become even more complex organism and eventually give rise to a human being. What the hell for? I can only say, theoretically, that we are meant to be co-creators in this universe, otherwise why eventually grow hands eyes feet etc to move around farther than even a single cell could have dreamed? And now that we have been in this human state for some time on this planet, perhaps now we need to create new shells for the consciousness to enter, but this time through our own creativity. Only problem is that such machines don’t seem to be capable of self sustainability. They can’t give birth, for example, they would have to have factories. And if the world we live on was destroyed via our sun asteroid or what have you, they would not continue to exist. The energy would then be energy again, and have to start over and seek new planet to continue this cycle. All Theory, all BS most likely, save for some points. But not impossible.
by cosmowrench
Do you even have an idea of what the singularity is? You seem to have the idea an intelligent conscious machine will be like a sitting duck, not capable of doing anything :o. Such a machine would be able to improve on itself much faster and easier than any human can. And it will become millions of times more intelligent than us in a very short time.
And dont be silly with your ‘soul energy’. There is no such thing. Evolution works great without it, no need to complicate things. You ask why i have a problem with dying? Why does a rabit run from a fox? Because thats how nature works, its the urge to survive…all living beings have it.
by Peter Simmons
Thus illustrating the exact nature of religion! ‘I don’t want them to’ ‘I’m quite confident’ ‘I also believe’ all based on faith because you wish it. Just as with every other lifeform, we die and return to the biomass, end of your personal story, but life goes on. It may not be to our choosing or liking, it may exclude homo sapiens after we finish trashing the ecosystem, but that too is irrelevent. We are no more important than a fly. We have existed for a very short time, far shorter than the now extinct dinosaurs. Perhaps one of them once mused ‘I do have a problem with all my memories, experiences, loves and dreams disappearing after death. I dont want them to.’ But it made no difference.
by Giulio Prisco
@Peter Simmons, if thinking that after you die you will return to the biomass makes you happy, please do! I will continue to think what makes _me_ happy. I trust you have no problem with that.
by cosmowrench
This ‘faith’ comes from trends in the past, projected in the future. Is that the exact nature of religion?
by Tim
I guess it depends on what you mean by “copying” a person. It may be possible in the future to create a person which looks and sounds like you but to create a person that thinks, feels and perceives like you will be impossible.
Your memory is not an absolute of everything, it does not capture and store your emotions, your perception of the world around you, your connection to others and the things you feel. I know that science would like to think that one day it will be possible to simply download a person’s memory and to duplicate all that that person was, but the problem is allot of what makes you YOU has nothing to do with your brain or memory.
The article says that one day God-like beings will walk the earth doing these things, well God like beings already inhabit the earth… Collectively we call them people… God is a person, therefore YOU are god. The only thing that prevents us from knowing this is our perception of who we are. Do not be fooled by silly science that says that we need technology to become God like, God is within YOU now. Realizing and understanding just how special we ALL are is our first hurdle. Do not dumb yourself down to the level of others, rise above it and accept that which you KNOW to be true.
by cosmowrench
What makes you YOU has everything to do with your brain. You ARE your brain. It is proven and, if you want say otherwise you better come with some damn hard facts. If you get hit upon the cranium with a baseball bat, you won’t even remember your own name, let alone those of your wife or children. No brain means no memory, no personality, no YOU.
by That one guy
Your brain may simply be the catalyst that allows your soul energy to interact and take in knowledge from your current surroundings, knowledge stored and capable of being recalled. If the brain is damaged then you cant recall the information correctly, but the information may still be there to be recollected. Take a computer. I can load a harddrive with tons of information, and recall it by accessing it on my PC. I can also take a bat and smash the same hard drive, and it will no longer be able to access that information, but the information is actually still there, and I simply need to use other methods to access it.
by cosmowrench
Yes, but a harddrive is a much more sturdy substrate than the brain. If the fragile connections of your neurons are broken, the information will be lost forever. Just like on the harddrive…if the magnetic disc itself is damaged, the information on the damaged sectors will be lost forever.
by Freddie
Your brain is like a computer terminal with connections to the soul level of the unified field…analogous to the Internet……so in the same way that the Internet is not inside your computer….your personality and soul and thoughts are NOT inside your brain…..the brain is simply a receiver and transmitter as well as being able to “run” the body rhythms etc…. Sure…damage the brain…and you damage access to the soul unified field or soul Internet. We are already god like beings…but we have been robbed of our creative potential through thousands of years of “education” aka entrainment…more recently…entertainment or entertrainment….reprogramming us to make us believe that we are nothing more than little me and little you…… Our breakdown in soul level communication and creation began when we were given the tool of written language. a lot of Modern Australian aborigines still know how to access the unified field and communicate with a tribesman a thousand miles away…or more…distance is no barrier. We can learn from these people…but what has white man done instead???? Given them alcohol and made them into alcoholics…..because well…we just can’t have these extremely talented people running round loose…and maybe teaching the white folk their skills….that would jeapordise the power scales…..it’s always about power and control….
by cosmowrench
Freddie, apply Ockham’s razor on your theory and you will find that there is no reason to assume a ‘soul level of the unified field’. Everything happening in neuroscience suggests that our thoughts, personality, emotions, consciousness…are products of the brain. Nature already has an amazing system of evolution in place. You are born, pass on your genes to your offspring and eventually you die and are recycled. Now what would the benefit of such a ‘soul internet’ be in that picture?
by Peter Simmons
But you are not a computer, and your brain is not a hard drive. And there is no evidence for ‘soul energy’ just faith. We are talking religion here you know.
by cosmowrench
Silly science?. If you are god, why the hell are you using a computer? And dont worry, i will not dumb myself down to your level!!
by That one guy
Immortality is not a physical trait.
Fractals……
Fractals……
all physical matter is eventually destroyed, nothing that is physical matter lasts for eternity
but something does last
something does go on forever……
life……and the energy that drives it.
Principle of Energy Conservation within our Biosphere
Energy = not created from nothing, nor destroyed when used, constantly recycled in one shape or form to another……
The absolute closest we humans will come to being immortal is the realization of this cycle.
The soul is, in the end, the energy that drives our physical self. When you die, it does not just go to a special place and reside there forever, think about what a waste of energy that would become…….
“But that sounds like reincarnation…”:
How astute, oh keen one, yet I am not a religious man.
Disprove the Energy Conservation theory, and you will have achieved a feat. Try to disprove it and find that you can’t…..and that will be the first step toward true immortality.
by cosmowrench
What soul? You are right about the energy conservation. When you die all your atoms will be recycled by plants and worms and inesects. When you are cremated, trees will absorb your fumes and you are even likely to be inhaled by some unfortunate humans. All physical matter is eventually destroyed? Since einstein proved matter=energy, no physical matter is ever destroyed!! You say it yourself : Principle of Energy Conservation . Not only in our biosphere but in our universe.
by That one guy
without going to deep into it, when you are thinking inside your head, you are not talking to the ATP that is physically providing energy for all your cells….the mind phenomenon is unique in that, I believe, the mind is the soul, or the soul energy. For all time man has constantly in one way or another known that some greater power existed, and religions giver face to the different ways one tries to come into touch with this said power. our atoms get recycled yes, but that’s only one form of energy. The phenomenon of the pineal glad releasing chemicals at death, at least to me, demonstrates that something is leaving, something outside of the energy that drives your cells. No one would say a single cell, or even bacteria is actually conscious, nor atoms for that matter, yet we may agree that we humans demonstrate some kind of consciousness….and when I say soul I guess I am referring to the energies that drive conciousness, not the ATP that drives our cells.
by cosmowrench
Well it is very human of us to hope and believe there is some kind of life after death. It is not a pleasant thought that all your memories, experiences, loves and dreams will be gone forever when you die. It is that hope that gives rise to religion. If man was immortal, no religion would exist. I would advise you to read or watch what Daniel Dennett has to say about consciousness so you would understand that it is not so special or mysterious as we might think. My hope lies with science and, based on trends in the past, i think my hope is much more realistic than any hope religion can offer.
by That one guy
I am not offering any religion. I too have heavier faith in empirical science. That is why I feel the Energy Conservation principle to be so important. Daniel Dennett is but one opinion on the subject, however my favorite read of his is Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness. Regardless, I still feel that consciousness is a form of energy, and that conscious energy that drives a human is the so called soul. I have no issue, 100 percent no problem, with the idea that our memories and experiences and emotions simply disappear forever at death. At the same time, I truly feel in my very being that is it also not true, and I look towards both science (ancient and modern) AND the study of religions (both ancient and modern) to see what the answer may really be, for as with so much in this world, the answer, I believe, would lay somewhere in the middle of the two, not on one side or the other.
by That one guy
Matter = energy
Yes, however that energy must be vibrating at very specific frequencies in order to manifest itself in one physical form or another, and it is these vibrating frequencies tath can wear down or outright be tampered with/destroyed, and thus NOTHING PHYSICAL will remain immortal. I assert that true immortality is the recognition of YOUR OWN CONSCIOUS FREQUENCY that exists and will for all time. It is indeed unique to you. I believe in the past life phenomenon for people, and what does that denote? That your conscious energy, call it a soul or whatever, is unique to YOU, and if you can realize this process and this fact, you can in fact become “immortal”, perhaps retain much or all of the knowledge you once or have been gathering throughout all your time in physical form.
Will this make you a “god”? hardly….but we can become rather unique co-creators in our universe if we discover any of what I have theorized to be true. Death is not permanent, at least I don’t believe it is.
by valiantx
I’ve read your argument with the pro-materialist and post-humanism advocate ‘cosmowrench’ and have agreed with your understanding and explanation of the real science that is trying to understand nature as a intelligent whole, for I too understand that everything is but an expression of vibratory energy levels and states. In fact, our mind was created by nature and is directly linked to what the Taoist called the numina, though I belong or believe in any collective or external religions myself – in my opinion, its quite abstractedly pointless and not part of reality, though such ideas and thoughts do define who you are per se. Everything is infinite and intelligent in its own way, but our split mind as Julian Jaynes has stated in his book, ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,’ that all humans see reality in a distorted left and right brain way and we all indirectly avoid sensing it for what it really is, thus he himself defined this as the cause for the god in the sky complex of religions.
But I digress, and wanted to close by saying that nature, which we ‘grow’ from, is all part of a holarchic system that we exist as individual entities and is infinite – one does not live and not die, and vice versa, because its a reciprocal relationship much like the yin and yang concept. This cyber-space memory storage is another ploy by the elites agenda to control and direct the masses towards a technocratic post-humanism hokum just like Vanilla Sky and Total Recall, which is all but an artificial intelligence pipe-dream created by delusional computer-scientists that has all been disproven to be factual or ever possibly real by Hubert Dreyfus, who currently teaches at UC Berkeley, CA USA.
by Frank horrigan
Wow, This ladies and gents is exhibit A of your typical avatar wet dream eco communist. First off, “Principle of Energy Conservation within our Biosphere”? We live on a planet and solar system with more energy than we know what to do with. Look up at that bright thing in the daytime and think real hard. Then there’s your mentally challenged perception of economics .We are a species of individuals who engage in symbiotic relationships for mutual benefit, not for the good of the collective. Corporations and individuals use “specialization” (write it down) so all parties involved have increased wealth. Socialism led to the death of millions from fascism and communism. This is why the future will be entirely dystopian, and begin the final war between control freaks and individuals.
by Peter Simmons
Whilst indulging in arrogant insulting by way of an argument, patronising too [write that down] you come out with the most ludictous American extreme right blather like ‘Socialism led to the death of millions from fascism and communism.’ So Hitlet wasn’t to blame, he just had a bad press, and it was all down to socialism, which to you means anything slightly to the left of Genghis Khan. I bet you’re up in your mountain hideaway complete with ammunition store and lots of guns waiting for the socialists to take over and come for you, right?
by Frank horrigan
Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, all used socialism, the redistribution of wealth, as a means of control over the masses. In a Laissez-faire representative republic with the inherent right to self-defense, these sociopaths would never have assumed power in the first place. I’m inferring from your post that I must be racist and a national socialist? In societies with individual rights, the ethnic background is irrelevant, only the merit of the individual that counts, pure evolution. Btw, I do in fact live in the mountains with a small arsenal of exquisite firearms waiting for you control freaks to F*** up the world economy. I doubt it will do much good against these damn drones however. The meme from the 1986 cult film Highlander sums it up, “there can be only one”.
by Frank horrigan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq4SqgxIKM0
by Joey
some of you brian-ee-aks believing in this transhumanis -be a god thing -you need drugs or fresh air -the fool says in his heart there is no God – and believes he can be one – there is no fear of yah before their eyes ; like children who can not grow up and face reality -lost and caught in there big worded brains -but Gods love and mercy is so big and so good
by Trekgeek1
A real fool quotes the Bible as if it has any authority or merit. Take your mythology to a church. God’s mercy? Like sending anyone that doesn’t believe in him or her to hell for eternity? Put down the kool-aid. Actually, drink up. Cheers.
by Peter Simmons
I gather you have difficulty with the big words.
by Frost
I’m sorry, but this so-called religion is just goofy and no rationally minded person should be involved in it.
It took the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and centuries of effort to get science untangled from religion so that those in it could operate and make conclusions freely. Now we’re supposed to co-mingle it with religion again, because supposedly it’ll be a good thing this time and focused on tailoring ourselves into gods?
Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t smell Religion 2.0, I smell Scientology 2.0. No thanks.
by Frank horrigan
DAMN YOU XENU??? WHY!?!?! Scientology is a scam, The real religion though is Unitology.
by Peter Simmons
Right on. Breath of realism.
by GatorALLin
i wish the first paragraph read…”Cosmism, an emerging new idea of “Humans 2.0 thinking” that is part of a radical futurist conception of the future development of humanity, can give us the positive optimism and “strenuous mood” to overcome our current problems and embark on our cosmic journey to seed the universe with all we can learn.”, thus if I am being honest the word “religion” for me is a distraction in the original language and I think often a negative term for many here. I think we may end up learning 99.9% of all the secrets in the Universe at some point (if we don’t destroy ourselves before then and think the treasures of the future make it worth the gamble to keep that focus).
I also did not like the use of “God” as that word is again a distraction used later in this description. I can see that if we had all the magic powers to live forever and a few dozen other things we can’t do now we might appear like gods to much of modern man, but again, I think that word is arrogant in a way that is not helpful and proves again to be a distraction for some real possible momentum this movement might actually have. Also have zero faith in the ability for us to time travel in the future and so this bs of resurrecting the dead seems a waste of focus for this movement. I am excited we may colonize distant planets, but worried the laws of physics may trap us mostly in our galaxy (although colonizing it may prove a big enough challenge in the next 2 billion years).
I do like the idea that it is up to us to seed the universe and pass on what knowledge we can gain. As much as I love the idea that Seti will massively change how they can scan the sky for ET, I expect Seth will be buying that cup of coffee in my lifetime, but I do Hope that I am wrong! (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/seth_shostak_et_is_probably_out_there_get_ready.html) I think he is too old to make the singularity and we won’t find ET. I am a fan of the rare earth theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis . Please remember it takes just 8 factors where Earth is 1 of a thousand to take that 300 to the 23rd power number of stars or planets in the known universe down to 3. I don’t think we are the ONLY planet with intelligent life able to make a radio tower…but I think we might be first… or just one of 3 or so that colonize other planets, but spread out so ridiculously far apart that we may never get to learn of the other 2 or so. I hate the idea that ET will visit us first and give us all their secrets… I more like the idea that we are first and no one is coming to rescue us…ever. Layers and layers of complexity… as Earth is likely a planet from a 3rd generation star… and we are just over 4 billion years old with humans only a blip on that timeline.. the next 999 years should prove amazing for human2.0′s … at 43, I am worried I may be too old to make the cutoff myself actually… but if there is a tip to that spear, I hope to be on it… (I plan to live forever…so far…so good….right?). My biggest worry is that although technology is changing at an increasing rate…that our human nature is not close to keeping up… also our laws, politics, and basic systems are just so slow to catch up or change that scary misuse of technology with those of means and power will be ripe with abuses. At least a few of the guys still hear that at least won at the money games currently honored here on earth have really stepped up to pay it forward… Warren buffet… the Gates foundation… ebay founders, even google and others are setting up wonderful charities and doing so much good with their money/influence. I think that level of good is always more likely to come from rich geeks than polished politicians we elect.
…anyhow…. Here is at least my vote that we stay humble and we plan to do all the hard work ourselves….. lets skip the need for any more religions… and if I get to live forever and have all the cool magic figured out, there is no confusing words like God even with human 9.0 or whatever we call it then…. by then maybe we can go from one small step for a man to living our best selves and become our highest common denominator as a (new) species.
by Frank
God’s coming to judge the world. You won’t have time to do what you think you will do.
by Ed
Agreed, Frank!
by melis256
WOW, what an intellectual and carefully balanced reply! /extreme sarcasm…
by Trekgeek1
God is a myth.
by trakk
God is not some guy in a white suit and beard as shown in the movies.Its the supreme power or force or whatever you may call it which is behind everything.
We are understanding gods creation and power through all this science.
Maybe you mean religion. All religions are manuals written by human beings on how to worship god. You dont need religion compulsarily, to understand the presence of god.
by John
That is like seeing a painting and then saying the painter is a myth.
by GatorALLin
http://blog.imaginaryfoundation.com/2012/07/16/be-humble-be-noble/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
by mark
HELLO, If I was going to type my story in my head like you just did I read it outloud and it just flows right out my mouth. I have always wanted to write my ideas down and I do write alot down now but nobody can make since out of it because they say it is too obserd and strange for them HA Ha ha!!! They try to tell me I am crazy for the way I think but yet you think the same kinda way very cool story!!!
by /:set\AI
however death is
irrational because you are a discrete structure that the
laws of physics endlessly recurs- to stay dead requires
magic – yet there is nothing in physics that prevents
multipartite being- quantum mechanics even shows that
multiple expressions of some form are entangled by
non-local connections- physics multiplies structures and
forms networks between them- only the naive
psychology of the ego needs to be unique
the same discrete recursive physics and all logic reveal
that your reality is a simulation- meaning you ARE the
resurrected form- the resurrected arguing that
resurrection doesn’t occur is the very essence of
ignorance
since all empirical evidence and all rational thought
imply that resurrection technology is not only possible
but inevitable- it makes achieving resurrection the moral
imperative of all living humans- and is the ultimate
litmus test for whether our civilization has any
legitimacy- the resurrection of all organisms and the
Trillion Dead humans is my purpose for existence-
therefore I am willing to wage Total War to acheive it -
by Peter Simmons
‘the resurrection of all organisms and the Trillion Dead humans is my purpose for existence’
Does this mean I can have my doggy back? Does it matter if they were cremated?
by Giulio Prisco
@Peter Simmons re “Does this mean I can have my doggy back? Does it matter if they were cremated?”
Yes it does, and no, it doesn’t matter. If our descendants will develop Quantum Archaeology technologies, they will be able to “fish” information from any moment in the past.
by /:set\AI
death is
irrational because you are a discrete structure that the
laws of physics endlessly recurs- to stay dead requires
magic – yet there is nothing in physics that prevents
multipartite being- quantum mechanics even shows that
multiple expressions of some form are entangled by
non-local connections- physics multiplies structures and
forms networks between them- only the naive
psychology of the ego needs to be unique
the same discrete recursive physics and all logic reveal
that your reality is a simulation- meaning you ARE the
resurrected form- the resurrected arguing that
resurrection doesn’t occur is the very essence of
ignorance
since all empirical evidence and all rational thought
imply that resurrection technology is not only possible
but inevitable- it makes achieving resurrection the moral
imperative of all living humans- and is the ultimate
litmus test for whether our civilization has any
legitimacy- the resurrection of all organisms and the
Trillion Dead humans is my purpose for existence-
therefore I am willing to wage Total War to acheive it -
by renemf
@/:set\AI – while i agree with much of your message i think you should consider your language. “death is irrational” is a silly statement that almost made me dismiss the rest of your post. Death is a phenomenon, like sand, screwdrivers and Sirius. To call it ir/rational is a nonsensical statement based on a categorical error. And your warlike rhetoric will prevent you from winning over a large portion of the billions of people that i assume you’ll want on your side. You may not need them to realize your program, but then (actually always, but in this scenario to a more pronounced degree) the question arises about the morality of resurrecting people who didn’t ask for it.
by Nyk
In practice, very few humans can abandon religion. Yes, they might abandon Christianity – but they will only replace it with other silliness from the political-ideological realm. Very few people are capable of abandoning idealism completely.
So, why not design from the ground-up a religion that aligns with the goals improvement of the human race through science? Transhumanism is just that religion.
Though unfortunately I also cannot bring myself to accept it. I think a future like that depicted in the movie Idiocracy is at least as likely to happen as the Singularity.
by Gabor
Nyk – Transhumanism is not a religion. Religion is providing false explanations to the unknown, they are deceptions. “Idiocracy” is science fiction and a really funny one at that but that’s all that is. People today in general are much smarter then they were only a few decades ago and we are all geniuses compared to say people 3-400 years ago. In the next 50 to 100 years our intelligence will multiply perhaps 1000s of times.
by Frank
No, it’s a religion. Because you want to make yourself god.
by Conrad Green
No the idea of something higher than your current religion belief threatens you so you post semantic banter of the negative nature to trans humanists and geeks alike hoping that your word will sway them But are instead evermore pissing them off and also making yourself look rather silly. They’re not calling it a religion. You are ….because your offended. Am I right? Of course I am. Thank you for your indirect imput. Your comment proves my point. Good day sir!
by PatriotArmingBears
Sorry, but people today aren’t smarter than people of a few decades ago. You’ll have to prove that one. People are more educated, and because of increased population numbers, there are more smarter people now, than 100 years ago, but there were lots of smart people back then. Now, your other claim that our intelligence will multiply is a likely possibility, one that I have thought of, as well.
by Peter Simmons
I see no evidence for your statements here. Would you care to supply some proof? Does this mean you are smarter than Leonardo DaVinci? If unfamiliar you could look up his achievements, and his date of birth.
by Gabor
Peter – I’m not claiming to be personally smarter than Leonardo DaVinci was. I realize that people’s brain did not change significantly since the XV. century. I do believe though that we have easy access to a huge amount of recorded previous knowledge through the internet. As more people have access to the internet through cheaper computers, broadband and now smartphones, they can make more informed decisions. Even geniuses in the past had some pretty weird ideas about reality because of very limited access to information. 25 years ago I had to make decisions based on the opinion of a handful of people and a handful of older books in the library. I can’t even compare my choices today. I can go to the internet and have an almost unlimited amount of knowledge about any subject that I need to decide about. I am a much better decision maker today than I was 20 years ago, not just because of experience but because of technology that lets me analyze my situation by comparing to other’s experiences easily. That to me means “smarter”. Basically all I’m saying is that DaVinci would possibly have twice the IQ if he lived today instead of 500 years ago.
by renemf
@Gabor – The definition of transhumanism is not generally agreed upon even among transhumanists. Many outsiders (irrelevant in this context) and some insiders see it as a religion. Religions are commonly, almost always, used for deception, domination and exploitation, but in spite of being based on highly unlikely assumptions, they cannot be proved false under current conditions.
Watching the news daily makes the likelihood of an Idiocracy scenario appear to increase. A whole new generation has grown up with relatively easy access to knowledge, but things don’t seem to improve much planetwide. But of course it’s still early days. On the other hand we haven’t agreed on a definition of smart here. Knowledge of and access to information technology is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for (my idea of) smartness. The taliban use it too.
by adsdasf
Keep dreaming, losers!
You’re just playing into Satan’s trap of idolatry…
by Bri
If there is anyone “playing into Satan game ” it is you. If god created everything, then Satan is his doing. If god is all knowing, then before you were born god knew what you would do, and even made you to do it, or do you think he was drunk and made a mistake, and if you only listen to his beloved son, who he tormented with a brutal death, to show how much he really cares,( just think what pain and suffering you get if you not his son, and if he created you your probably ” His” son too),maybe you’ll do the right thing, or else it’s, eternal damnation, since he messed up, and we’re so easily fooled, that despite all his assurances that, everything will be OK, after your dead, and you’ ve prayed the right way……. I bet you have a plastic Jesus on your dash board. First comandment. No other gods before me. Praying to a “Son” is another god. Make no images of anything that walks the land, swims in the sea, or flys’ through the air. Ooooppps broke another of only Ten commandments. Take my advice. God is everywhere,and in all things. He,she, or it, knows what they are doing, and wouldn’t want to torment you for eternity. Probably is kind of fond of you,(don’t ask me why),and could easily, with the blink of an eye “fix” things if they were not right, otherwise, he, she, or it is sadistic. (a follower of Satan!)
by Ben G.
Does anybody know what William James quote he’s referring to?
by Dan Foley
I believe he’s referring in general to the lecture, “The Will to Believe.”
by Stefan
Seems like humans tend to stick labels on everything… seriously, cosmism?
I for one don’t see science going this way, I personally hope it will not succeed. I would rather see people attain “God Like” status by their own doing, meaning some use of internal power. And not to use external tools to ascend beyond the known boundaries of the Universe.
Though I do think that the use of external tools to understand the internal power of a (human)being is good. But injecting yourself with nano bots to live longer is not the way it should be.
This part frightened me the most; “who considered science as a tool given to us by God to enable us to resurrect the dead and, as promised, enjoy immortal life.”
Dead is part of life, closure of a person’s lesson in his very short life span on this Earth, in this particular dimension.
Do note that this is just my opinion, and what do I know.. right?
Be at peace with the phenomena we call dead and there shall be no more fear. At last you are FREE.
by laconia
I agree that creating more “-isms” is pretty useless, however, internal and external means to reach “godhood” are intertwined and one leads to the other. I don’t like the materialistic emphasis on purely technological methods either but you have to admit that they get the job done, so they are a very important factor in supplementing your inner evolution by freeing you from the many perils of life on a physical level. Ultimately, I believe both ways are only two sides of the same coin.
Furthermore you write: “This part frightened me the most [...]” and I think therein lies the actual problem, namely fear. Why does “immortal life” or “resurrection of the dead” frighten you if you already accepted that you are going to die? In your mind, you probably won’t be here to witness it, so why do you even care about what may happen in the future? This is something I never quite understood about death apologists. Could it rather be that you accept death because you don’t accept life?
This is like some kind of Advaita philosophy that offers consolation and sedation up to the point that one denies his own responsibility for existence. Subject and object merge, turning everything into a single melting pot in which you don’t resist against suffering anymore until one feels nauseated about the self and life in general, becoming a believer in death. At least this is my observation and I don’t think that it represents freedom. Yes, in my view you have to make peace with both aspects (i.e. life and death) to minimize hysteria, but not in a manner that sacrifices any progress – you also have to stand up to improve the conditions so that they eventually become optional.
Remember that you are free to decide your own life, so we are wise to let others do the same. Everyone must be able to choose for themselves how long they want to live.
by Jared
Spot on Iaconia.
Could it be, Stefan, that if there is a greater power who has planned a system that requires death that He will not allow us to create immortality in the first place? Think on this…. conversely, the day someone is resurrected or gains immortality it spells doom for Christian theology. It will be fun to sit back and watch man/science try to defy Christian theology ….either outcome will be tremendously important.
by twm114
Regarding ‘colonizing the universe’ may I suggest reading John Smart’s ‘transcension hypothesis’ from his ‘Introduction to the Developmental Singularity Hypothesis’.
by Singularity Utopia
Disappointing to see a modern form of Intelligent Design being preached via KurzweilAI.
If Cosmism is grounded in science and technology then call it science and technology; I don’t see why there is a desire or need to redefine science and technology as a religion.
Extreme technology may be very powerful but it is not God.
Recently via the Huffington Post I was reading about how religious belief decreases with analytical thinking thus it seems an oxymoron to associate science and technology with religion, unless the ideas of Cosmism are merely religious nonsense (anti-science, anti-intellectual) devoid of logical-analytical foundation thus they have no place in Transhumanism.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/intuitive-thinking-religious-belief-analytical-research_n_1457396.html
by Gabor
@Giulio – With all do respect, I don’t think so. The last thing we need is another religion. Religion (and free market capitalism) is nearing the end of it’s usefulness. I totally agree with you that religion served an important role in wanting to better ourselves and hence developing technology (contrary to it’s anti science appearance). That is where it stops though. The true purpose of religion (besides controlling the masses) is to prepare us to die through the promise of eternal life. As soon as we develop technology to transcend our mortal biological bodies, religion loses it’s purpose and will witter away. I highly doubt that we will ever be able to affect the past for any practical purposes. Sorry, love is just not enough to do that (to resurrect our loved ones) because love is just a fairly complex but still just a byproduct of this imperfect biological brain we have today. In the (near) future, as we gradually upgrade our brains we will develop even higher, more complex “feelings”. Resurrection is not possible in the true sense, no matter how “Godlike” (and I hate to use that term) we become. Yes, we will be able to recreate copies of our loved ones and they could be perfect in every imaginable way even for themselves. Meaning that we could program their brains to think that they are in fact the person who died x years ago. But in reality they will not be the original person who died. When you die today, your thought pattern ceases to exist because we don’t have the technology to preserve it, yet. It will be gone forever. Sorry, our future descendants will not be able to bring us back. It’s OUR job to work towards preserving ourselves or be gone forever!!!
by Giulio Prisco
Hi Gabor. Following the same logic, the person who will wake in my bed tomorrow morning will not be me, but a perfect copy. Perhaps it is so, but I am willing to accept him as a valid continuation of me.
Remember that duck that looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck. It cannot be anything but a duck, and I call it a duck.
Similarly, if someday in the far future somebody will recreate a good enough copy of me (does not even need to be a perfect bit-by-bit copy), who remembers having been me, feels like me, and wants to be me, that is good enough for me. I am willing to accept him as a valid continuation.
by Gabor
Hi Giulio. Yes your first point is valid, however, the only reason that we accept in the morning that we are still ourselves is because as of now we don’t have any technology that would recreate a perfect copy of our own body and mind. Our mind wont stop during the night, we just don’t remember most of the activity by the morning and we know it because the opposite is impossible as of yet. As soon as we develop the technology though, we cannot go unconscious for any period of time without risking of not being the same person when we revive. I know it sounds weird but when we have the technology to transcend the need for this cumbersome maintenance of this biological body we wont want to go unconscious. There will be no reason. We only want to sleep now because the brain floods itself with a drug to tire us (same reason why it feels good to go to sleep when you’re tired but feels a task when you are not tired).
As for your second argument, I implore you to rethink it. You will not accept “him” as a valid continuation of yourself because you will not be around to “accept” him, assuming that the technology to preserve the continuation of thought pattern will not be invented before you die. He would appear to everyone else as you but you wouldn’t be around to know that he is in fact you. If we followed your thought (with a little stretch) a completely different being (like a tree if it had a mind) could say that “the human” is millions of years old. Not realizing that humans die every 60 years or so and loose the continuation of thought pattern because (compared to a tree) all humans are almost exact copies of each other.
In short, he wold be you (and more) but you wouldn’t be him which is not a continuation of your thought pattern from your point of view in absolute terms.
by Kevin
I hate to say that the duck analogy is a bad one. Especially when you can replace one word and come to a different outcome.
If it looks like a woman, walks like a woman and talks like a woman it could still be a man. :)
by Conrad Green
Add on: if it has woman parts (now) in the future even possible could ovulate ….still might be a man LOL
by Jared
I agree somewhat with Gabor…..If you were to perfectly replicate yourself and STILL maintain your current self you will not say to the replicant “you must be me! I accept you as me!” Forever they will only be copies. There is something to be said about the “continuation of the thought pattern” as Gabor put it. If it ever stops it can never be replicated again. (I may not be a believer in physicalism/materialism) The sleeping self idea holds no water to me….there are myriad methods to prove that I am still the exact same person or continuation of thought patter that fell asleep. There are no processes that have stopped during the sleep.
However, I suppose that this still leaves open the possibility of soul migration in to other objects or vesicles.
by Bri
There is no way to replicate heaven in the material world. Computronium is a material world analogs of spirit. Finite things can’t achieve infinity. This is a world of one thing at one time. It’s born, it lives for however long, and then dies. Your soul is immortal, your life is more like a colored lens, that you use to perceive reality. Every moment that happened in the past is still there. Every moment in the future is right there. It’s like your strapped to a chair on an open train car, and your forced to look threw a telescope as the your train travels down the track of time. Your soul can see it all.( thanks Kurt)
by Augustus
Death is the great robber of all things. Every persons life has worth. Their experiences, their memories all have value. When they die a valuable treasure is lost. What might those who walked before us some one hundred or even five thousand years ago been able to tell us?
by Jared
Peter…Calm down. You, too, have beliefs. You, too, have faith. Your beliefs and faith are simply in things your ego has told you is acceptable….just like everyone else. You and I are not that different than anyone else.
by Vin
Is this a superficial layer on something that ain’t broke? Any blurring of the science/religion boundary seems to play dangerously into the hands of rich creationists who lobby for religion in science class, undermine the constitution, etc.? Why is operation of scientific method – arguably the best interface with the whole of reality, so including human nature and harnessing its motivational roots and biases, that we can all enjoy in egalitarian freedom – not enough to inspire progress? Lets not get greedy :D
by Giulio Prisco
@Peter Simmons – science advances through adventures of imagination.
It is not about what it is, but precisely about what we would like to be. “What it is” kept our ancestors in caves, but “what we would like to be” led them to develop the fire, the wheel, and agriculture, using scientific imagination tempered by the scientific method, with all the qualifiers that you seem to dislike.
I am going to ignore your “intellectually inadequate” non-sequitur, also because I believe I may know more science than you, perhaps much more. But perhaps you wish to share your scientific qualifications with us? I am listening.
by giorgio gaviraghi
Hi Giulio, I also believe in a future where multiple Singularities, AI as human, human immortality, mind uploading, alien encounter, interstellar travel, will radicaly and entirely transform our society and culture.
Humans will transform themselves through further evolution steps, even reach the noosphere state as pure energy.
In my upcoming ebook, The Quadrillion economy, due in november by Benham books, I am exploring , under the chapter Exponential creativity such issues, at least the initial part with the Singularities effects on our economy. My question is: Do we really need a religion for this? Don’t you think than through history religions did enough damage to civilization to create a new one?
by Giulio Prisco
Hi Giorgio. Some persons don’t _need_ a religion for this, but I think many others do, especially those who are used to frame “transcendental” issues in religious terms. This is the reason why I use the term “religion” for my ideas, even if it may not be the more appropriate.
_Religious people_ did a lot of damage to civilization. Books and ideas don’t kill people — other people do. At the same time, many religious movements have been positively instrumental to the development of civilization. You can say similar things about nearly all systems of thought that we have developed so far.
Your book seems very cool, please keep us posted!
by Ben Corbin
In simplest terms, becouse you love them?
by Giulio Prisco
@Ben (and Mike) – yes, love is the main reason. Imagine a chain of love, where one person resurrects his or her loved ones, and they resurrect their loved ones in turn.
There are other reasons of course, curiosity, history simulations, or just the desire to push the boundaries of science, but I believe the development of resurrection science will be mainly motivated by love.
by Mike Hanley
why would you want to ressurect the dead?
by David Wood
Because some of them (perhaps all?) would have wanted to be resurrected (in suitable circumstances) – and because we want to be with them again
by bizonc
Why wouldn’t we. Life and intelligence is the greatest thing in existence. Life gives life meaning. Everyone wants to be with their loved ones. You would think the theists and/or Christians would have some cognitive dissonance while wishing for eternal conscious life in a afterlife but not understanding why some of us would want to live “forever” in real life. It’s strange how so many people that believe in an afterlife, will say they would not want to live hundreds or thousands of years. Boredom would be better than non existence.
by renemf
@bizonic – but no one wants to be with “their hated ones”, and most have at least a few of those, for whatever reasons.
by Gorden Russell
Why would I want to do this? Let me tell you why.
Just the day before yesterday I read a blog posted by Richard Brody under the tab, “The Front Row” on the New Yorker website. It was titled, “Anne Frank’s Cinema.” While she was in hiding she pasted newpaper clippings of Hollywood movie stars onto the wallpaper of her room. She liked Greta Garbo, Ray Milland, Ginger Rogers, Robert Stack and many more. When I think of her young innocence cut short, of her promise taken from the world, I want to save her.
I want to open up a wormhole to the past and send through a nano-robot to fly into her ear while she sleeps and scan her brain to copy her mind. While there it would also copy her DNA. Then it would fly back through the wormhole to grow a new body and copy her mind into it.
But even that wouldn’t save her. We would have a perfect copy, but the original would still die in the prison camp.
So maybe instead I would send back a nano-robot to fly it up atop the roof of the annex where she hid. There it would use sunlight and air to copy itself over until it had mass enough to fly into the world and make more copies over and over until full-sized robots of carbon nanotubes could be made to put an end to the Nazi war machine.
Then the original Anne Frank would grow up to become a journalist and writer and fulfill her promise.
But this would be an alternate universe, splitting off from our own. In our timeline she would still die. But we would know that somewhere she still lives.
by Giulio Prisco
Hi Gorden,
Re “We would have a perfect copy, but the original would still die in the prison camp.”
If the copy is perfect, we cannot say which one is the original and which one is the copy (by definition). So, instead of “the original would still die in the prison camp,” it is “one of the two (or more) instances of Anne dies in the prison camp.” This sounds better, though it is not much of a consolation for the instance who dies in the prison camp!
by Editor
Qualifiers are the language of research science. If you want certainty, you might try consumer publications.
by David Wood
@Peter Simmons
>Just like that. I think therefore it is. Or cogito ergo voila!
No. I suggest you take at least a nanosecond to read some of the context first. There’s plenty of prior relevant discussion.
>How ‘everyone alive indefinitely’ will have an ‘environment of great abundance’ isn’t elucidated, and since we can barely keep present numbers alive now, seems highly unlikely by any rational reasoning
There’s plenty of energy reaching the earth from the Sun, to feed everyone alive. And that’s hardly a new idea. Equally, expectation that the earth’s resources are already overstretched has a venerable history too (wrong almost every time). You might enjoy some of the ideas reviewed in http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/9867/
by Peter Simmons
Ah, so you intend to eat energy. Makes abundant sense.
Equally, expectations that the planet can continue indefinitely being raped by greedy apes also has a venerable history and has been shown to be deranged time and again which, if you spent more than a nanosecond researching you might actually learn about.
by Peter Simmons
I’ve read that somewhere before! Come on, stop this censorship, you know it doesn’t sit well with you, and just because I was robust doesn’t justify you acting like a 1984 censor banning certain words and phrases. None of my posts here have been nasty, in fact there are some posting who are really quite vicious. Is it something I said ;-)