Lifeboat Foundation

This special issue of ‘Sophia’ aims to reflect upon future evolutions of religions and their related narratives and imaginaries from a critical and generative understanding of our ancient sources. Bodies are locations of creative power and symbolic proliferation. Cyborgian, transhuman, and posthuman embodiments are going to generate visions of the divine in tune with such an epistemic shift, by addressing questions such as: can God be represented as a cyborg? Could robots and avatars be prophets? Is internet a suitable setting for a posthuman theophany? This special issue articulates within the frame of a relational ontological perspective, according to which the notion of the divine evolves, as much as human and non-human persons do. In this evolutionary scenario, the representation of the divine realm may shift from era to era, adapting to new natural-cultural formations. This special issue argues that the posthuman paradigm shift will be followed by a symbolic turn in religious imaginaries as well.

In a posthuman future, human and non-human beings, plants, and minerals will most likely co-exist with advanced artificial intelligence, sentient robots, and conscious humanoids. As futurist Ray Kurzweil affirms: ‘The introduction of technology is not merely the private affair of one of the Earth’s innumerable species. It is a pivotal event in the history of the planet’ ( 1999, p. 35). Religions will need to re-think their theological approaches in order to allow for different types of subjectivities and embodied entities to partake in the religious quest. Religions themselves are material as well as symbolic networks, actualized through words, prayers, metaphors, rhythms, images, and symbols, among many other expressions. The physical, the virtual, and the symbolic are inextricably intertwined. In the era of the cyborg, God is not only human; in the era of the post-human, humans are not the only prophets.

The 10 Hot Consumer Trends for 2030 report covers how the internet of senses can be a reality by 2030 adding sensory experiences such as taste, smell and touch.

Sarcos sprinkled the flavor of the future on last year’s CES show when it revealed the latest evolution of its robotic exoskeleton technology, the Guardian XO. At this year’s CES, the Salt Lake City-based robotics specialist and Delta Airlines announced pilot trials, with Delta employees set to be among the first workers to suit up in the battery-powered, force-multiplying wearable robots, enjoying superhuman strength and endurance without body wear and tear.

Few things make us want to trade a cushy gig of rambling away about gadgets semi-coherently on the Web for a life of physical labor like the Guardian XO. A full-body robotic suit that turns its wearer into something of a near-cyborg superhero, the XO looks straight out of a dystopian sci-fi thriller and brings the capabilities to match. It bears its own substantial weight, along with 200 additional pounds (91 kg) of payload, letting the wearer lift heavy objects for hours without physical strain or fatigue.

Sarcos says the Guardian XO takes under 30 seconds to put on or take off, responds in milliseconds to the operator’s movements, and amplifies his or her strength by up to 20 times. It offers eight hours of battery power, and a hot-swapping battery system allows users to extend that operational time. All in all, it’s a highly impressive machine meant to help humans complete obligatory lifting tasks that would be difficult or impossible to tackle with more conventional lifting machinery.

Scientists at the MDI Biological Laboratory, in collaboration with scientists from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., and Nanjing University in China, have identified synergistic cellular pathways for longevity that amplify lifespan fivefold in C. elegans, a nematode worm used as a model in aging research.

The increase in lifespan would be the equivalent of a human living for 400 or 500 years, according to one of the scientists.

The research draws on the discovery of two major pathways governing aging in C. elegans, which is a popular model in aging research because it shares many of its genes with humans and because its short lifespan of only three to four weeks allows scientists to quickly assess the effects of genetic and environmental interventions to extend healthy lifespan.

A new unique signal discovered within the brain might be what makes us human:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/83

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Now, DOD is leading a new charge, pouring more than $1 billion annually into hypersonic research. Competition from ambitious programs in China and Russia is a key motivator. Although hype and secrecy muddy the picture, all three nations appear to have made substantial progress in overcoming key obstacles, such as protecting hypersonic craft from savage frictional heating. Russia recently unveiled a weapon called the Kinzhal, said to reach Mach 10 under its own power, and another that is boosted by a rocket to an astonishing Mach 27. China showed off a rocket-boosted hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) of its own, the Dongfeng-17, in a recent military parade. The United States, meanwhile, is testing several hypersonic weapons. “It’s a race to the Moon sort of thing,” says Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “National pride is at stake.”

Despite hype and technological hurdles, a hypersonic arms race is accelerating.

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PHOTO GALLERY: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/08/photos-first-sls-core-…s-factory/

Your brain is the orchestra that plays the symphony of your mental experience and your awareness, and that experience is your window on existence and on the universe. Our aim is to preserve, restore, and even improve your mental experience beyond the limits of biology. With dedication, scientific advances within our lifetimes may allow us to record the unique arrangement and responses of neurons and synapses that encode your memories, their active behavior, and ultimately to restore all of that in a neural prosthesis that seamlessly repairs a brain function, or a complete artificial brain. Some of this is still reminiscent of science fiction, but each challenge is well on its way to being a tractable technology problem supported by scientific evidence and understanding.