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Category: transhumanism – Page 47

Quantum Mind, Immortality, and the End of Suffering | David Pearce | Waking Cosmos

Subjects: consciousness, psychedelics, panpsychism, transhumanism, abolishing suffering, death and immortality.

My guest today is David Pearce, a well known philosopher and transhumanist, yet his views about consciousness set him apart from other transhumanists you might be familiar with. David believes that the nature of consciousness goes much deeper than can be explained through classical physics or from within a materialist paradigm. He suspects that consciousness may reflect an intrinsic feature of reality. Whether or not this is the case, David is confident that the unity of consciousness is facilitated by a quantum unity occurring in the brain. As a result, David is skeptical about the possibility of classical computation-based “mind uploading” or truly conscious artificial intelligences arriving in the foreseeable future. But while our descendents will continue to be biological, they will however be dramatically different to us, not only with their indefinite lifespan, physical fortitude, and resilience to disease, but most significantly, in the structure of their minds. According to David, our great grandchildren will inhabit profoundly blissful mind spaces which exist exclusively “above hedonic zero”. They will have abandoned retributive emotions such as jealousy and anger, and their ordinary conscious states will be comparable to today’s peak experiences. Most significantly for David, our descendants will set their sites on abolishing suffering in all sentient life on this planet, and finally, the entire reachable universe.

We discussed these subjects and more in our conversation. Whether or not you find David’s vision hard to believe, this will be an interesting episode! If you value these conversations, please consider supporting Waking Cosmos on Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/wakingcosmos

David’s website
https://www.hedweb.com

Overcoming Human Bias

The IAmTranshuman (ist) web site is about the stories of transhumanists, from professors to artists and everything in between from all walks of life. IAmTranshuman is about helping humanity grow and be more then what we were through the responsible use of technology.

University of Washington coronavirus puzzle game aims to crowdsource a cure

Foldit is crowdsourcing a cure and needs lots new players. All Transhumanist should participate.

The University of Washington is taking a novel approach to combat the spread of coronavirus around the world.

A new puzzle game from the university challenges scientists and the public alike to build a protein that could block the virus from infiltrating human cells. The game is on Foldit, a 12-year-old website created by the university’s Center for Game Science designed to crowdsource contributions to important protein research from more than 200,000 registered players.

The most promising ideas generated by the game will be tested and possibly manufactured by UW’s Institute for Protein Design in Seattle.

Girl receives R2-D2 ‘bionic arm’ and phone call from Luke Skywalker actor

A young Star Wars fan and amputee has received an R2-D2 bionic limb and a phone call from Luke Skywalker himself.

Bella Tadlock, from Tallahassee, Florida, raised almost 14,000 dollars (about £11,000) for her bionic hero arm, created by Bristol company Open Bionics.

The 11-year-old started a fundraiser that first caught the eye of actor Mark Hamill in November — Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars movies, retweeted her appeal to his 3.6 million followers.

FM-2030 film ‘2030’ — director Johnny Boston interview

I interviewed the director of recently released movie ‘2030’, about the life of transhumanist pioneer FM-2030, about his film and what it was like knowing FM-2030 personally — full video here:

My interview with Johnny Boston about his film 2030, which focuses on the life of FM-2030 (born Fereidoun M. Esfandiary) — a noted transhumanist and futurist thinker.

The documentary is available on multiple platforms including Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/2030-FM/dp/B0851TX933?tag=lifeboatfound-20

Anders Sandberg — Freeman Dyson, Galactic Megastructures, Physical Eschatology & the Fermi Paradox

Many of you know the sad news that theoretical physicist & mathematician Freeman Dyson has passed away, so in celebration of his life and achievements, Anders Sandberg (Future of Humanity Institute) discusses Freeman Dyson’s influence on himself and others — How might advanced alien civilizations develop (and indeed perhaps our own)?
We discuss strategies for harvesting energy — star engulfing Dyson Spheres or Swarms, black hole swallowing tungsten dyson super-swarms and other galactic megastructures, we also discuss Kardashev scale civilizations (Kardashev was another great mind who we lost recently), reversible computing, birthing ideal universes to live in, Meinong’s jungle, ‘eschatological engineering’, the aestivation hypothesis, and how all this may inform strategies for thinking about the Fermi Paradox and what this might suggest about the likelihood of our civilization avoiding oblivion. though Anders is more optimistic than some about our chances of survival…

Anders Sandberg (Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford) is a seminal transhumanist thinker from way back who has contributed a vast amount of mind blowing material to futurology & philosophy in general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Sandberg

Happy Future Day (march 1st) : http://future-day.org

Freeman Dyson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
Dyson Sphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
Aestivation Hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestivation_hypothesis
Reversible Computing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing
Kardashev Scales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
Nikolai Kardashev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kardashev

Many thanks for watching!

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Continue reading “Anders Sandberg — Freeman Dyson, Galactic Megastructures, Physical Eschatology & the Fermi Paradox” | >

Cyborgs, Robots, And Biohackers: The First-Ever Survey of Transhumanism

the photo series by vintner and fletcher illustrates three gradual stages of transhumanism from ‘testing ground’, ‘patient zero’ to ‘humanity 2.0’. at the lowest tier, ‘testing ground’ looks into individuals who have created wearable technology to expand their human abilities, improving everything from concentration to mental health.‘patient zero’ studies those who have taken permanent action to become half human and half robot. in the final chapter, ‘humanity 2.0’, the transhumanist subjects focus on life extension and immortality.

Join 24-Hour Round-the-World Conversation to Celebrate World Future Day, Hosted by the Millennium Project

Starting at 9PM EST tonight (noon New Zealand Time).

Press Release (ePRNews.com) — WASHINGTON — Feb 27, 2020 — World Future Day is March 1. This will be the seventh year that futurists and the general public will conduct a 24-hour, round-the-world conversation on the future on March 1 at 12 noon in whatever time zone they are in. Each year, total strangers discuss ideas about possible worlds of tomorrow in a relaxed, open, no-agenda conversation. Futures research is shared, collaborations are created, and new friendships are made.

The Millennium Project, a global foresight participatory think tank, will host this conversation on the future in collaboration with the Association of Professional Futurists (APF), Humanity+, UNESCO’s Global Futures Literacy Network, the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF).

“Anybody can pull up a cyber-chair at this global table and join the discussion on ZOOM at: https://zoom.us/j/9795262723,” says Jerome Glenn, CEO of The Millennium Project. “Whatever time zone you are in, you are invited at 12:00 noon in your time zone. People drop in and out as they like. If people can’t come online at 12 noon, they are welcome to come online before or after that time as well.”

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