June 28, 2009

Dismiss Gaianism

Michael Anissimov is guest blogging this month.









Michael's blog: Accelerating Future.

Exploring transhumanist themes in Battlestar Galactica: Caprica

Good news for Battlestar Galactica fans: the new Caprica series is excellent.

I finally caught the two-hour pilot and was quite impressed with the new direction. If this first episode is any indication, this is going to be a provocative and fascinating series -- one that will touch upon many topics near and dear to transhumanists, including artificial intelligence, whole brain emulation, consciousness transfer, virtual reality and even immortality.

Set 58 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica, the Caprica series will primarily chronicle the events behind the rise of the Cylons. The show will explain how they were created and why the Cylons attempted to destroy the Twelve Colonies. Caprica, which is dark and filled with foreboding, takes place in a civilization not too far removed from our very own; this is a futuristic society at its peak, but one that's self-absorbed, hedonistic, and fully distracted by its dazzling array of advanced technologies.

Caprica takes place in a pre-Singularity civilization, so unlike the previous series it speaks more directly to a number of issues soon to be faced by our very own. Set within a drama involving two families and their hopeful attempt to resurrect loved-ones lost in an act of terror, Caprica explores the ethical and philosophical implications of emerging and disruptive technologies -- many of which will soon be within our reach.

Warning: Spoilers follow.

Fully immersive virtual reality

A technology that's prominently featured in Caprica is virtual reality. By using the "holoband", a device that's worn like a pair of glasses, users are transported into a fully realized virtual reality world. How the holoband works is not made entirely clear (there must be something to those cheesy colored flashing lights), but unlike the brain-jacks of The Matrix, these devices bring conscious awareness to a simulated world in a non-invasive way.

Interestingly, the specific VR world that's portrayed in Caprica is an illegal one developed by hackers. It features a teen club complete with girl on girl sex, human sacrifice and gunplay. This is commentary that's clearly directed at Second Life, but the debauched nature of the club is also important to the story; this is a world of extreme excess and withering values -- one that's headed in a bad way.

Whole brain emulation

But there's more to the virtual reality than just that. The developer of the holoband, Daniel Graystone, only intended for it to be a soft simulation (meaning the user has a corporeal body outside the VR -- see my article on Simulation Taxonomy for more info). But his daughter Zoe, a genius in her own right, figured out a way to copy her own mind in the simulation and create a virtual clone of herself.

Virtual Zoe is able to live and function within the simulation, but because she has no body in the real world she cannot leave; her mind resides completely within the simulation's architecture.

This is what transhumanists refer to as whole brain emulation. While grossly over-simplified in Caprica, it's the concept that's interesting (hey, television science fiction refuses to go hard so we'll take what we can get). Whole brain emulation involves the complete scanning and mapping of a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or other computational device. In this hypothesized scenario, the 'simulation model' that's run by the computer is faithful to the source, and the agent behaves in essentially the same way as the original.

Virtual Zoe's existence sparks considerable debate and suspicion among those who meet her -- including her father. He initially refuses to believe that an emulated version of his daughter could actually be 'real' and worthy of serious consideration. Discussions ensue as to what is real and natural -- and whether or not there is such a thing as the human soul.

Daniel eventually changes his mind, however, and learns to accept that she is just as real as the original Zoe; as the motto of his own company proclaims, "The difference that makes no difference is no difference."

Mind transference (aka mind 'uploading')

Something I didn't mention in the previous section was that the original Zoe died at the beginning of the pilot episode. Her grieving father was shocked to discover that she had copied herself in the virtual world and that he could still interact with a representation of her.

Not content to leave virtual Zoe in cyberspace, and true to his role as the show's 'mad scientist', Graystone decides to upload her consciousness into a military robot that his company is developing -- what he's dubbed a cybernetic lifeform node, or Cylon.

You can see where this is going.

But while Graystone has the requisite robotic hardware for the task, he and his company have yet to develop a 'metacognitive device' -- a platform that can hold and express an artificial intelligence. Undaunted, he does the next best thing: he steals it from a rival company who has developed it.

So, Graystone now has all the pieces he needs: a robotic body, an artificially intelligent agent in the form of virtual Zoe and the cybernetic brain to house it. He then does something that transhumanists refer to as mind uploading or consciousness transfer -- he transfers (or copies, depending on your persuasion) Zoe's mind from the VR to the metacognitive device. The experiment proves to be a limited success, but for a fleeting moment Zoe has corporeal form. Before suffering some sort of malfunction, Zoe moves the cylon's body and tries to speak. The proto-cylon is born (for what it's worth, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end during this scene).

This is interesting for a number of reasons. First, based on where we know the series and the Cylons are headed, this is a suggestion that artificial superintelligence won't be coded from a discreet source, but that it will emerge from an existing human mind (a highly controversial topic among transhumanists and AI theorists). Second, it hints at something that roboticist Hans Moravec has said, namely that humanity will spawn its own mind children. Moravec has suggested that we'll eventually create our own successors through our technologies -- the next giant leap in the evolution of intelligent life -- and that these 'mind children' will allow humanity to go on permanent vacation.

And of course, the entire idea of mind transference is profound unto itself. It calls into question issues of the permanent and immutable self, and the broader philosophical and scientific quandaries about how such a technological feat could ever be accomplished.

Resurrection and immortality

Another theme explored by Caprica that's near and dear to transhumanists is immortality. The pilot episode suggests that people can be resurrected after their deaths by piecing them back together from all the artifacts that made up their life. Zoe, for example, didn't create a replica of herself by mapping her entire brain from the original (as I may have suggested above), but instead created an amalgam of herself by recompiling all the data bits of her life.

Personally, I believe this is a load of rubbish, but others take this possibility more seriously. One such thinker is the transhumanist Martine Rothblatt. She argues that in our cybernetic and virtual world of the future, genes are not going to matter so much. Instead, we’ll be concerned about ‘bemes' -- a fundamental, transmissible, unit of beingness. This will give rise to what she calls the 'transbeman person.'



As I've mentioned elsewhere, there is much more to resurrecting a brain and a person than just piecing together 'mindfiles.' But the suggestion does bring to mind some provocative issues as they pertain to memory, the continuity of self and who we think we are.

Bring on Caprica!

All of these themes were explored in the pilot to Caprica, so it'll be interesting to see where they go from here. But clearly the writers have set an excellent precedent in the first episode; spaceships and laser beams have been replaced by cyberpunk, and that's a good thing.

Additionally, one of the strengths of Caprica will be the proximity of its timeline to our very own. Unlike the previous series, these issues are a bit more tangible and within reach (especially the commentary on the extended self and simulated worlds).

And as already mentioned, the science behind the science fiction may be a bit sketchy and pedestrian, but it's the broader philosophical and social themes that are worth discussing. This is the part that the writer's have gotten right, and that's why I have high hopes for this series.

Look for me to post more articles about Caprica as the show unfolds.

June 25, 2009

The art of Shane Hope

There's an upcoming show that people in the New York area may be interested in:

Shane Hope: Your Mom Is Open Source

June 26 – August 1, 2009
Opening: Friday, June 26, 6-8 PM
Winkleman Gallery, 637 West 27th Street, New York

From the website:
Winkleman Gallery is very pleased to present “Your Mom Is Open Source,” our first solo exhibition by New York-based artist Shane Hope. In his latest suite of Molecular Modeling prints (“Mol Mods”) and “Compile-a-Child" drawings, Hope collapses possible futures like technoprogressive child's play. Foreseeable advances in neuro-, cyber-, gene-, and nano-technologies will likely snowball our transition into “posthumans,” beings whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards. Molecular manufacturing, artificial general intelligence, and life extension technologies may make possible the printing of printers, inventing inventors, as well as the expansion of ontological wiggle-room into and across novel substrates.
Shane Hope: Yes, but [grey goo] will be our children.
Asserting that art can provide key pictorial explorations into the ramifications of more precise manipulations of the smaller basic building blocks, Hope's "Mol Mods" playfully unravel the world at these scales by foreshadowing newly fantastical conflations of building and growing. Rendered and built with customized versions of user-sponsored open-source molecular visualization systems, these hyper-detailed monotypes anticipate their own actualization by way of nanofacture and picture junk sculptures, seashell crafts, among other molecularly doodled composited chimeras each developing from an embryonic stage; animals fashioned from flowchart cells woven into food webs connected by arrows that hitherto indicated the folds and twists of proteins; carbon nanotube moths flapping amidst balloon animal monkey molecules and less definitive evolutures with buckyballs in their eyes.
Shane Hope: Junk DNA
"Junk DNA"


June 24, 2009

The girl who doesn't age: How a bizarre genetic disorder may help in the struggle against aging

She is the size of an infant, has all her baby teeth and exhibits the mental capacity of a toddler.

Trouble is, she's 16 years old.

Brooke Greenberg hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Her physician, Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but instead as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why.

In a recent paper for the journal "Mechanisms of Ageing and Development," Walker and his co-authors chronicled a baffling range of inconsistencies in Brooke's aging process, including the observation that her bone age is like that of a 10 year old.

Walker and his team have studied samples of Brooke's cells and DNA to look for what they think may be an undiscovered genetic mutation that has affected the way she ages. He believes that if the gene can be isolated, it may provide clues to questions about why we age and die. If the gene -- or complex of genes -- is identified, he plans to test laboratory animals to determine whether the gene can be switched off and, if so, whether it will cause the animal's aging to slow.



Incredible optical illusion

Optical Illusion: Monspiral
This illustration appears to show green and blue spirals, but in fact the apparent green and blue are exactly the same colour. More about this here and here.

Ranking the most powerful forces in the Universe

There are a large number of forces at work in the Universe, some more powerful than others -- and I'm not talking about the four fundamental forces of nature. A force in the context I'm talking about is any phenomenon in Universe that exhibits a powerful effect or influence on its environment. Many of these phenomenon quite obviously depend on the four basic forces to function (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak interaction and the strong interaction), but it's the collective and emergent effects of these fundamental forces that I'm interested in.

And when I say power I don't just mean the capacity to destroy or wreak havoc, though that's an important criteria. A force should also be considered powerful if it can profoundly reorganize or manipulate its environment in a coherent or constructive way.

Albert Einstein once quipped that the most powerful force in the Universe was compound interest. While he does have a point, and with all due respect to the Master, I present to you my list of the four most powerful phenomenon currently making an impact in the Universe:

4. Supermassive Black Holes

There's no question that black holes are scary; it's the only part of the Universe that can truly destroy itself.

Indeed, Einstein himself, whose Theory of Relativity opened the door to the modern study of black holes, noted that "they are where God has divided by zero." And it's been said that the gravitational singularity, where the laws of physics collapse, is the most complex mystery of science that still defies human knowledge.

Somewhat counterintuitively, black holes take the weakest of the four basic forces, gravity, to create a region of space with a gravitational field so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape its pull. They're called "black" because they absorb all the light that hits them and reflect nothing. They have a one-way surface, the event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing (save for Hawking Radiation) can escape.

Black holes can also vary in size and gravitational intensity. Supermassive black holes are a million to a billion times the mass of a typical black hole. Most galaxies, if not all, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers (including the Milky Way).

And recent studies are now suggesting that they are much larger than previously thought. Computer models reveal that the supermassive black hole at the heart of the giant galaxy M87 weighs the same as 6.4 billion suns—two to three times heavier than previous estimates.

That's a lot of pull.

Indeed, should anything have the misfortune of getting close enough to a supermassive black hole, whether it be gas, stars or entire solar systems, it would be sucked into oblivion. Its gravitational pull would be so overwhelming that it would hurl gas and stars around it at almost the speed of light; the violent clashing would heat the gas up to over a million degrees.

Some have suggested that the supermassive black hole is the most powerful force in the Universe. While its ability to destroy the very fabric of space and time itself is undeniably impressive (to say the least), its localized and limited nature prevent it from being ranked any higher than fourth on my list. A black hole would never subsume an entire Galaxy, for example, at least not within cosmologically long time frames.

3. Gamma-Ray Bursts

The power of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) defies human comprehension.

Imagine a hypergiant star at the end of its life, a massive object that's 150 times larger than our own. Extremely high levels of gamma radiation from its core is causing its energy to transform to matter. The resultant drop in energy causes the star to collapse. This results in a dramatic increase in the thermonuclear reactions that was burning within it. All this added energy overpowers the gravitational attraction and it explodes in a fury of energy -- the hypergiant has gone hypernova.

This is not the stuff of fiction or theory -- explosions like this have been observed. Hypernovas of this size can instantly expel about 10X46 joules. This is more energy than our sun produces over a period of 10 billion years. 10 billion years! In one cataclysmic explosion!

Hypernovas can wreak tremendous havoc in its local area, effectively sterilizing the region. These explosions produce highly collimated beams of hard gamma-rays that extend outward from the exploding star. Any unfortunate life-bearing planet that should come into contact with those beams would suffer a mass extinction (if not total extinction depending on its proximity to the supernova). Gamma-rays would eat up the ozone layer and indirectly cause the onset of an ice age due to the prevalence of NO2 molecules.

Supernovas can shoot out directed beams of gamma-rays to a distance of 100 light years, while hypernovas disburse gamma ray bursts as far as 500 to 1,000 light years away.

We are currently able to detect an average of about one gamma-ray burst per day. Because gamma-ray bursts are visible to distances encompassing most of the observable Universe -- a volume encompassing many billions of galaxies -- this suggests that gamma-ray bursts are exceedingly rare events per galaxy. Determining an exact rate is difficult, but for a galaxy of approximately the same size as the Milky Way, the expected rate (for hypernova-type events) is about one burst every 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.

Thankfully, hypergiant Eta Carinae, which is on the verge of going nova, is well over 7,500 light years away from Earth. We'll be safe when it goes off, but you'll be able to read by its light at night-time.

But not so fast -- our safety may not be guaranteed. Some scientists believe that gamma-ray busters may be responsible for sterilizing giagantic swaths of the galaxy -- in some cases as much as a quarter of the galaxy. Such speculation has given rise to the theory that gamma-ray bursters are the reason for the Fermi Paradox; exploding stars are continually stunting the potential for life to advance, making it the 3rd most powerful force in the Universe.

2. Self-Replication

A funny thing started to happen about 8 billion years ago: pieces of the Universe started to make copies of itself. This in turn kindled another phenomena: natural selection.

While this might not seem so impressive or powerful in its own right, it's the complexification and the emergent effects of this process that's interesting; what began as fairly straight forward cellular replication, at least on Earth, eventually progressed into viruses, dinosaurs, and human beings.

Self-replicating RNA/DNA has completely reshaped the planet, its surface and atmosphere molded by the processes of life. And it's a process that has proven to be remarkably resilient. The Earth has been witness to some extremely calamitous events over its history, namely the Big Five Mass Extinctions, but life has picked itself up, dusted off, and started anew.

Now, what makes self-replication all the more powerful is that it is not limited to biological substrate. Computer viruses and memes provide other examples of how self-replication can work. Replicators can also be categorized according to the kind material support they require in order to go about self-assembly. In addition to natural replicators, which have all or most of their design from nonhuman sources (i.e. natural selection), there's also the potential for:
  • Autotrophic replicators: Devices that could reproduce themselves in the wild and mine their own materials. It's thought that non-biological autotrophic replicators could be designed by humans and could easily accept specifications for human products.
  • Self-reproductive systems: Systems that could produce copies of itself from industrial feedstocks such as metal bar and wire.
  • Self-assembling systems: Systems that could assemble copies of themselves from finished and delivered parts. Simple examples of such systems have been demonstrated at the macro scale.
It's conjectured that a particularly potent form of self-replication will eventually come in the form of molecular manufacturing and the introduction of self-replicating nanobots. One version of this vision is connected with the idea of swarms of coordinated nanoscale robots working in tandem.

Microscopic self-replicating nanobots may not sound particularly powerful or scary, but what is scary is the prospect for unchecked exponential growth. A fear exists that nanomechanical robots could self-replicate using naturally occurring materials and consume the entire planet in their hunger for raw materials. Alternately they could simply crowd out natural life, outcompeting it for energy. This is what has been referred to as the grey goo or ecophagy scenario. Some estimates show, for example, that the Earth's atmosphere could be destroyed by such devices in a little under two years.

Self-replication is also powerful in terms of what it could mean for interstellar exploration and colonization. By using exponentially self-replicating Von Neumann probes, for example, the Galaxy could be colonized in as little as one to ten million years.

And of course, if you can build you can destroy; the same technology could be used to sterilize the Galaxy in the same amount of time [for more on this topic read my article, "Seven ways to control the Galaxy with self-replicating probes"].

Consequently, self-replication sits at #2 on my list; its remarkable ability to reshape matter, adapt, grow, consume, build and destroy make it a formidable force to be reckoned with.

1. Intelligence

Without a doubt the most powerful force in the universe is intelligence.

The capacity to collect, share, reorganize and act on information is unlike anything else in this universe. Intelligent beings can build tools, adapt to and radically change their environment, create complex systems and act with reasoned intention. Intelligent beings can plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas, use language and learn.

In addition, intelligence can reflect on itself, predict outcomes and avoid peril; autonomous systems, for the most part, are incapable of such action.

Humanity, a particularly intelligent bunch owing to a few fortuitous evolutionary traits, has -- for better or worse -- become a force of nature on Earth. Our species has reworked the surface of the planet to meet its needs, significantly impacting on virtually every other species (bringing many to extinction) and irrevocably altering the condition of the atmosphere itself. Not content to stay at home, we have even sent our artifacts into space and visited our very own moon.

While some cynics may scoff at so-called human 'intelligence', there's no denying that it has made a significant impact on the biosphere.

Moreover, what we think of as intelligence today may be a far cry from what's possible. The advent of artificial superintelligence is poised to be a game-changer. A superintelligent agent, which may or may not have conscious or subjective experiences, is an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including problem solving, brute calculation, scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills. Such entities may function as super-expert systems that work to execute on any goal it is given so long as it falls within the laws of physics and it has access to the requisite resources.

power. And that's why it's called the Technological Singularity; we have no idea how such an agent will behave once we get past the horizon.

Another more radical possibility (if that's not radical enough) is that the future of the Universe itself will be influenced by intelligent life. The nature of intelligence and its presence in the Universe must always be called into question. There exists only one of two possibilities: intelligence is either 1) cosmological epiphenomenon, or 2) an intrinsic part of the Universe's inner workings. If it's the latter, perhaps we have some work to do in the future to ensure the Universe's survival or to take part in its reproductive strategy.

Theories already exist in regards to stellar engineering -- where a local sun could be tweaked in such a way to extend its lifespan. Future civilizations may eventually figure out how to re-engineer the Universe itself (such as re-working the constants) or create an escape hatch to basement universes. Thinkers who have explored these possibilities include Milan Cirkovic, John Smart, Ray Kurzweil, Alan Guth and James N. Gardner (for example, see Gardner's book Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life is the Architect of the Universe).

Intelligence as a force may not be particularly impressive today when considered alongside supermassive black holes, gamma-ray bursts and exponential self-replication. But it may be someday. The ability of intelligence to re-engineer its environment and work towards growth, refinement and self-preservation give it the potential to become the most powerful force in the Universe.

June 22, 2009

Transhumanism and the 'Intelligence Principle'

Silicon state
Transhumanists are in the business of speculating about the degree to which we can and will refine the human species. A central assumption among us is that there's significant potential for the re-engineering of humanity; in modern practice we have scarcely begun to scratch the surface, but our visions of what may be possible in terms of modification and enhancement is startlingly vast.

Indeed, for most transhumanists, the notion that the human species is forever destined to remain a purely biological entity is both absurd and facile. Taking a step back, can we seriously argue that the apex of intelligent life is the state at which it was last crafted by the processes of natural selection? Given the current developmental state of biotechnology, cybernetics and information technologies, combined with the potential for molecular nanotechnology, can we reasonably refrain from suggesting that humanity is poised to under go a transformation that will be nothing short of radical and profound?

And this isn't some airy-fairy gee-whiz futurism talking, either. Rather, it's a fair assessment of where we are at as self-modifying species that has yet to meaningfully integrate technology with biology.

Take a step back and look at the big picture

For the dissenters and skeptics, what often gets lost in the discussion is the '40 foot perspective.' Discussions often regress to cultural/ethical/moral inhibitions, yuck factor ethics, and sheer incredulousness; it's hard for many of us to imagine anything other than our current state of being.

But this isn't good enough. We need to start thinking more philosophically and broadly about the potential for intelligent life and the impacts that will come through steady technological progress.

To assume, for example, that our current social, scientific, technological and biological condition is at or near an end-state is in its own way a violation of the Copernican Principle; it would be folly to assume that we observe ourselves at a particularly special point in history -- especially when it appears that our rate of progress is accelerating. Instead, we should apply a developmental view to our situation and acknowledge the fact that we still have a huge space of possibilities to work within.

The 'Intelligence Principle'

A similar sentiment was articulated by the distinguished historian of science Stephen J. Dick, in his 2003 paper "Cultural Evolution, the Postbiological Universe and SETI," where he argued that there is a disconnect between much of our current thinking and the prospects following exponential growth of technology as perceived in recent times. Dick's critique was primarily directed at SETI, but it's one that can applied to those who are complacent about our current existential mode.

In his paper, Dick makes the case that we may become (or spawn) a postbiological species, one that has "evolved beyond flesh and blood intelligence to artificial intelligence" and is a "product of cultural rather than biological evolution." He believes that this possibility hasn't been given the attention it's due, nor has it been carried to its logical conclusion. Consequently, Dick argues that we need to apply more long-term thinking when contemplating the problem of our future and that of intelligence in the universe.

To that end, Dick suggests that we apply the 'Intelligence Principle' (quoted above) to our long-term thinking about humanity's potential. His central contention is that we should readjust our thinking and consider a postbiological universe -- an argument powered by the likely age and lifetimes of technological civilizations and the overriding importance of cultural evolution as an element of cosmic evolution.

A will and a way

And it's important to note that the timelines don't matter (well, they do matter, but let's set that aside for the moment). A significant number of people dismiss transhumanists on account of our overly optimistic time frames. For the sake of argument let's assume that technological progress continues to plod along at a linear rate. Well, that's still progress: given enough time, incentive and access to resources, there's no reason to believe that humanity cannot come to realize many of the futuristic visions espoused by the transhumanists. As long as something is scientifically viable, and there's a perceived need for it, it will be developed.

This the crux of the intelligence principle: "...to the extent intelligence can be improved, it will be improved."

And overcoming the limitations of human biology would certain seem to be on the agenda. Among other things, the transhumanist 'to do list' typically includes the eradication of infirmity, aging, and suffering. We don't imply that solving these problems is going to be easy, but we do suggest that these problems are not intractable.

There is a will, and there will be a way.

June 21, 2009

Link dump: 2009.06.21

From the four corners of the web:

Yesterday's tomorrow: "Nanotechnology - Age of Convergence"

I'm skirting the line with the 'reto-futurism' here, but this video, which was posted on YouTube in 2006, feels like it's much older (early to mid 90's? -- if you know, please let me know). The video itself is actually pretty cool -- I love the music and cheesy sound effects.

June 20, 2009

Fascinating comment thread for Anissimov's "Eliminating All Pain, Forever"

If you haven't read Michael Anissimov's excellent piece on eliminating all pain forever from a few days ago you must read it now. And be sure to check out the fascinating discussion that has ensued in the comments section.

June 18, 2009

Link dump 2009.06.18

From the four corners of the web:

Yesterday's tomorrow: Waterproof house


Eliminating All Pain, Forever

Michael Anissimov is guest blogging this month.









Michael's blog:
Accelerating Future.

June 15, 2009

TED: Susan Savage-Rumbaugh on primate intelligence and culture [video]

From TED:
Into the great debate over intelligence and instinct -- over what makes us human -- Susan Savage-Rumbaugh has thrown a monkey wrench. Her work with apes has forced a new way of looking at what traits are truly and distinctly human, and new questions about whether some abilities we attribute to "species" are in fact due to an animal's social environment. She believes culture and tradition, in many cases more than biology, can account for differences between humans and other primates.

Her bonobo apes, including a superstar named Kanzi, understand spoken English, interact, and have learned to execute tasks once believed limited to humans -- such as starting and controlling a fire. They aren't trained in classic human-animal fashion. Like human children, the apes learn by watching. "Parents really don't know how they teach their children language," she has said. "Why should I have to know how I teach Kanzi language? I just act normal around him, and he learns it."
More: Sue Savage-Rumbaugh on the welfare of apes in captivity.

June 14, 2009

Reactable: The multitouch audio table

I was at the Subtle Technologies Festival yesterday in Toronto and one of the highlights for me was watching a Tenori-On orchestra perform. They were comprised of 10 Tenori-On players and one sound guy who controlled the mix. It was both aurally and visually stimulating.

In the conversation that followed, one of the festival attendees brought Reactable to my attention -- a device that brings music interface design to another level entirely.

From the Reactable website:




June 12, 2009

But I Have Promises to Keep...

I promised George a longer reply than just "no" on my objections to the video link on science and Buddhism that he posted earlier today. The reply is now up at my site: Keeping an Open Mind is a Virtue, but not so Open that Your Brains Fall Out. Here is the first paragraph, to whet your appetites, your knives, or both:

Alan Sokal was a teaching assistant in my quantum mechanics (QM) course. I still recall vividly the day he came with a graph showing the spike of the first-ever observed strange particle. I remember, too, the playful twinkle in his eye. Thirteen years ago, Alan (at this point a physics professor at NYU) submitted a paper to the prominent cultural studies journal Social Text, titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”.

Starship Reckless
On Being Bitten to Death by Ducks

The Transhumanist Declaration









Find out more about transhumanism at Humanity+.

The art of Heidi Taillefer

Venus Envy

Heidi Taillefer is a Canadian artist living in Montreal. Her work is an original creative fusion of classical figurative painting, surrealism, contemporary realism and mythology combined with popular figurative traditions ranging from Victorian romanticism to science fiction. Her artwork is consonant with some early 20th century surrealists, such as Max Ernst and Giorgio DeChirco.


Taillefer addresses eternal issues on the human condition borrowing from mythologies throughout different eras and cultures, through the lens and language of mechanism, mirroring the ubiquity of technological advancement in the world.


In her work she attempts to marry primordial human essence with the explosive expansion of the machine, as a new paradigm looms close on the horizon and promises a redefinition of what it means to be human.


You can find out more about Heidi Taillefer at her homepage.

June 11, 2009

Where science and Buddhism meet [video]

Where Science and Buddhism Meet from Gerald Penilla on Vimeo.


Interpretive Dance of the Transhumanist Future







(Yacov Sharir)

Transhumanism Health & Body







“Vita More bodybuilding guru …”(Wired 1997)












Cyborg vs. Transhuman


Addressing Athena










Aesthetics of an Enhanced Existence






Transhumanist Intelligence





“The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people

(Elif Ayiter)


June 9, 2009

What About the Animals?

Michael Anissimov is guest blogging this month.





To a certain degree, yes.





Michael's blog: Accelerating Future.