——-

Good morning, and welcome to the 2013 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. My name is Lincoln Cannon. I currently serve as president of the association by appointment of the board of directors, which is elected by voting members of the association. I’ll lead this morning session of the conference. On behalf of the association, thank you for being here. I’d like to start today by commenting on the purpose of this association.

The Mormon Transhumanist Association stands for the proposition that we should learn to become Gods, and not just any kind of God, not the God that would raise itself above others, but rather the God that would raise each other together. We should learn to become Christs, saviors for each other, consolers and healers, as exemplified and invited by Jesus.

Mormonism itself is an immersive discipleship of Jesus Christ. It’s not so much a religion about Jesus as it is the religion of Jesus. With Jesus, we would trust in, change toward, and fully immerse our bodies and minds in the role of Christ. We would also endure in that role, working to reconcile ourselves, our relations and world, through suffering and even death if needed, anticipating the day of transfiguration and resurrection to immortality in eternal life (a fullness that our afternoon keynote, Richard Bushman, will say more about). So while we may not be Christian by creed, we’re plainly Christian by Gospel (and I hope our special guest, Carl Teichrib, will comment on this while sharing his Christian criticism of religious Transhumanism).

Mormonism is also a school for prophets. The name of the religion itself reminds us of a book that would extend the Bible, in part by claiming yet other books would also extend the Bible. In turn, that book reminds us of a man that would speak and act for God, in part by saying everyone should speak and act for God. The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith are not fortune-tellers, but rather forth-tellers that would express a sublime esthetic, a Holy Spirit, provoking us to speak and act so as to fulfill their prophecies, in part by learning to become prophets ourselves.

For some, prophecy is not a living proposition, let alone religion or God. They wonder if we’ve not heard that God is dead, and they’re right to wonder. Following their Gods, traditional religions are dying, particularly in technologically advanced and prosperous places. Observing this, many have embraced the secularization hypothesis that religion itself is dying. However, that hypothesis is showing its age, and it’s now embraced more by anti-religious voices in popular culture than by experts, among whom another hypothesis is coming of age.

If God is merely a supernatural superlative, he very well may be dead, but positing such as God misses the function of God. God always has been and is at least a posthuman projection, an extension and negation of human desire, imagined and expressed within the constraints of human thought, language and action. That’s not to say God is only so much. To the contrary, as demonstrated by the New God Argument, we’ve moral and practical reasons to trust that others have already realized posthuman projections (and I hope our special guest, Peter Wicks, will comment on this while sharing his atheist criticism of religious Transhumanism). However, no matter your attitude toward faith, God is at least this much: a posthuman projection. Understood in terms of that function, God clearly is not dead and never was, except perhaps to the extent recurring death is part of evolution.

Likewise, if religion is merely genuflection to the supernatural, it very well may be dying, but again that overlooks function. Most of us have regarded religion too narrowly, and much that’s supposed to be secular actually functions as religion. For example, some claim inspiration from science or ethics. Awe fills us as we contemplate the vastness of space or the voice of the people. Yet the inspiration is not merely in the reductionist implications of science or the procedural adjudications of ethics. Rather esthetics are woven through them, tying them together in meaning, and that’s why we care about science or ethics. Esthetics shape and move us, and at their strongest, they provoke us as a community to a strenuous mood. When they do that, they function as religion, not necessarily in any narrow sense, but esthetics that provoke a communal strenuous mood are always religion from a post-secular vantage point.

Of course, none of this means science or ethics should or even could be displaced by religion. To the contrary, science should continue to reconcile our contending accounts of experience, as ethics should our contending accounts of desire. Each should expand its reach to the uttermost, always better informing our esthetics, affecting each other in a feedback loop. Yet even as science and ethics increasingly empower us, let’s not fool ourselves into supposing they’ll ever be finished or sufficient in themselves. We care for and use them only in accordance with esthetics, which presents itself as foremost among them in the most vital moments of life, when we we must act, according to whatever wisdom and inspiration we might have. Life cannot wait.

How will we act? Will we see beauty in science? Will we feel unity in ethics? Will we care, and how much will we care? Could our degree of concern make a practical difference? These are questions that will matter to all except perhaps the most apathetic, escapist or nihilistic among us. It’s not enough that we can describe our world through science or imagine a better world through ethics. We also want to make a better world. We can do that through engineering and governance, but it’s also not enough that we can make a better world. We want to feel it, sometimes powerfully, and more: we want to share our powerful feelings with others in ways that move us together. As engineering and governance are action on science and ethics, religion is action on esthetics. As engineering and governance are the power of science and ethics, religion is the power of esthetics.

If we can raise our eyes from the altar of religious and anti-religous dogma, we’ll see that the hand raised to finish the dying God is the sign of the oath to the resurrecting God. If we can keep our eyes raised, resisting the carnage below, we’ll also see the hand is our own and it holds a blade that’s aged and stained. That’s when we have a choice, either to repeat the old sacrifices of our ancestors, or finally to make the new sacrifice that they always implied: we can put ourselves on the altar and learn to become Gods. Put differently, the negation of one posthuman projection always implies another until humanity chooses to become posthumanity.

Transhumanism is the ethical use of technology to expand our abilities from the human to the posthuman. For some, this conjures up images of comic book cyborgs with gun arms and laser eyes. Of course Transhumanism is partly about body enhancement, but you’d probably agree that a gun arm doesn’t qualify as an enhancement, either practically or esthetically. For better examples, look at the technology that enhances you right now. Some of you are using computing devices that extend your ability to communicate. You might be watching through glasses, contacts or surgically-modified eyes, or listening through hearing aids or cochlear implants. You’re probably wearing clothing that enhances your ability to adapt to environmental change. Under those clothes, you might have implants or prosthetics. Through your blood, drugs may be relieving pain, heightening attention, or facilitating growth. That’s just now. Think through the rest of the day leading up to this moment. Think through your life. Consider human history. If technologically-enhanced humans are cyborgs then we’ve always been cyborgs. At least in context of the past and present, that’s not particularly controversial. The controversy arises when we look forward. How will technology change us in a few years or decades? What about a thousand years from now? How many drugs, surgeries, prosthetics and other enhancements are there between humans and posthumans, as different from us as we now are from our prehuman ancestors? Is it possible to change that much? If so, should we?

Sometimes we talk about humans becoming more robotic or robots becoming more human. When we do, our language uses a dichotomy that is increasingly insufficient for describing not only the possibility space, but even the actuality space. Does a human receiving a prosthetic limb or an artificial heart become less human? Can a body originating from artificial DNA, conceived through an artificial process, or gestated in an artificial environment ever be human, even if it’s eventually indistinguishable from a natural human? For that matter, how natural are the humans we actually know? Are agriculture and medicine natural? The blurring between natural and artificial is as ancient as the stick our distant ancestor wielded to extend her reach, and the leaves donned to enhance his skin. In an important sense, a synthesis of anatomy and tools made us human, empowering us above and differentiating us from our prehuman ancestors. In that sense, perhaps we’ve always been robots, for at least as long as we’ve been humans. Of course, when we think of robots, most of us usually think of cold metal or hollow plastic. If that’s what robots are then we aren’t and never should (or could) be robots.

Why do we want to enhance ourselves? The answer’s not new. We want to enhance ourselves for all the reasons we’ve made tools since the beginning of history. Tools empower us. So we’ll continue to build more and better tools, and their synthesis with our anatomies will become increasingly seamless and intimate, because we want to and because we can, for the power it provides. Like all power, tools and their intimate evolution into body and mind enhancements are not inherently good or evil. Rather, they’re both risks to mitigate and opportunities to pursue according to whatever wisdom and inspiration we might have. On the one hand, tools can empower us against each other. Some hoard, and others deplete. Elites form, totalitarians control, and revolutionaries revolt. Artificial catastrophic risks well beyond those of nuclear weapons present themselves. Perhaps we could realize the worst interpretations of the Apocalypse. On the other hand, tools can also empower us for each other. Already we’ve used them to build, relate, console and heal in ways our distant ancestors imagined only Gods to have the capacity. Perhaps someday (and I can’t wait to hear more about this from our morning keynote, Aubrey de Grey) we might transfigure ourselves into ageless bodies. We might even resurrect each other as sublime minds that relate with unfathomable compassion and conceive thoughts that in themselves constitute nothing less than the creation of new worlds. In any case, Transhumanists affirm that we can and should change through continued ethical use of technology to expand our abilities from the human to the posthuman.

If you’re a Mormon, you should be a Transhumanist. To identify as a “Mormon Transhumanist” is not at all redundant, but to identify as a “Transhumanist Mormon” is redundant, because Mormonism mandates Transhumanism. In other words, you can be a Transhumanist without being a Mormon, but you can’t be a Mormon without being a Transhumanist, at least implicitly. Of course this is a controversial claim, but we can make an argument from Mormon scripture. Let’s begin with the premises.

First, God wants us to use ordained means to participate in God’s work. This premise is based on scriptures like First Nephi 3, which says God prepares ways for us to accomplish his commands; Alma 60, which says God won’t save us unless we use the means he’s provided; and D&C 58, which says we shouldn’t wait for God to command us to engage in a good cause.

The second premise is that science and technology are among the means ordained of God. This premise is based on scriptures like First Nephi 17, where God commands Nephi to construct a ship to save his family; Alma 37, which says God gave Nephi a compass to guide his family to the promised land; D&C 88, where God commands us to study and teach everything from astronomy and geology to history and politics; and D&C 121, which says we will learn all the laws of the natural world before attaining heaven.

The third premise is that God’s work is to help each other attain Godhood. This premise is based on scriptures like Third Nephi 12, where Jesus commands us to be perfect like God; D&C 76, which says God would make us Gods of equal power with him; and Moses 1, which says God’s work is to make us immortal in eternal life.

The fourth and final premise is that an essential attribute of Godhood is a glorified immortal body. This premise is based on scriptures like Ether 3, where the Brother of Jared sees that God is embodied; D&C 76, which says God has a body glorified like the sun; D&C 93, which says full joy requires a body, elements are the body of God, and intelligence is the glory of God; and D&C 130, which says God’s body is as tangible as that of a human.

From these four premises, we can reason. Since God wants us to use ordained means to participate in God’s work, and since science and technology are among those means, God must want us to use science and technology to participate in God’s work. Next, since God wants us to use science and technology to participate in God’s work, and since God’s work is to help each other attain Godhood, God must want us to use science and technology to help each other attain Godhood. Finally, since God wants us to use science and technology to help each other attain Godhood, and since an essential attribute of Godhood is a glorified immortal body, we can conclude that God wants us to use science and technology to help each other attain a glorified immortal body.

This conclusion is both a religious mandate, in that it purports to express the will of God, and a description of the Transhumanist project, advocating the ethical use of technology to expand human abilities. If we arrived at this conclusion by valid reasoning, which we did, and if we began with premises that accurately reflect Mormonism, as I believe we have, then Mormonism mandates Transhumanism.

Again, the Mormon Transhumanist Association stands for the proposition that we should learn to become Gods, and that science and technology complement religion and spirituality as means for doing so. Here’s how it’s expressed in the Affirmation that all association members support:

1) We seek the spiritual and physical exaltation of individuals and their anatomies, as well as communities and their environments, according to their wills, desires and laws, to the extent they are not oppressive.

2) We believe that scientific knowledge and technological power are among the means ordained of God to enable such exaltation, including realization of diverse prophetic visions of transfiguration, immortality, resurrection, renewal of this world, and the discovery and creation of worlds without end.

3) We feel a duty to use science and technology according to wisdom and inspiration, to identify and prepare for risks and responsibilities associated with future advances, and to persuade others to do likewise.

That’s the purpose of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, and that’s what we’ll do at this conference. We have an excellent lineup of speakers today, and I’m excited to be here. Next up, believe it or not, is the Mormon Transhumanist Barbershop Sextet!

To phone franco via dia butt who gets the last ward afterword?

If yousia verse-ion of him, the forking lickhead, the microcausemic

mountInous mass of livesticktock, in short the long hall and complete

contorted portion he calls his all, rhe-lay hi’m the fowling note:

Hey  stoop’dID -  go phown \y/ourself biway of cellyou’llar singall. : )

Ur Temp plated off ov and constintuated bi a

basement(ate) heap of sething cellves this

in-digInous that this present present and

list of listless lowermisters and passingpastmast

massterrs who try (h)and be by mayking a b-

line, or eve’ n’ skip-ping it altogether by notched hopsgotcha

and snhatches of patches of splace to rather gather

togetherness. Zeno knew, just as Xeno new -

even if 3G(od)d) or for or more

for wireless is still linear as analogy, even if digital

Cause a wire ain’t a line - that’s the point.

sides, a point can be pin as top or plump as pot

whether straight to (or round about) the point.

Sun… Pre Empty I’ve - Post’s Crypt

Uprooted self transplanted in the aft-err math of

translation into the dialect o ticktock o

Time in time again

Cause we ran to run as we pan to pun

The end leading t in any numburr or a’mount of rans is

Loamless yet homeless anywade, not tangible but tangentable:

sonoambivalently silent and closed blind(s) to rind sight but unstill

there                          besides

To pan like scan of see of me or eye of my I aye-eye capital-An.

To take land in hand like canned and

and stand underlieing understanding back upon

Its shoulders again in A(tla)ss-to-mouth self-

emberacecarebme

To with/in a transe of transacked skin shift sod hued by ex.-

-.humed humoral hints of those humanned-no-more

To heft sunswallowswollen lifts of siltwilten simbowl-ground as

though softend with spadended shaft before your for(a)ged (a) ford and

Preceding your success. . .

————————————————————————————-

Transhumance:

noun; the seasonal migration of livestock, and the people who tend them, between lowlands and adjacent mountains.

Origin:

1900–05;  < French,  equivalent to transhum ( er ) to shift ground (modeled on Spanish trashumar;  see trans-, humus) + -ance -ance

Source:

Dictionary.com Unabridged; Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.

The Retreat is to provide a physical forum for various people in the trans-humanist community to come together and support various projects related to topics such as AI, sustainability, robotics, longevity and more. The initial development facility is located about 20 miles from Seattle, WA near the mountains with space for about 8 on site staff as well as room for various projects, living area, work areas and more. The location is near a number of major colleges (University of Washington, PLU) and several community colleges (Green River, Highline); as well as being between the 2 major cities (Seattle and Tacoma) in Washington State on the West coast of the United States.

Participants or staff members are expected to maintain a high moral and ethical standard, practice an open source approach to various research projects and be examples for what post humanity should be. To live on staff there is a 400 dollar a month fee to cover living costs (mortgage, utilities, food etc.) and each live in staff must additionally do the following:

• Adhere to a high moral and ethical standard

• Consider yourself a trans-humanist

• Be actively engaged in an approved research project (for the most part this means legal, related to our vision stated earlier)

• Or be an active fulltime student in a local educational institute, in a major that contributes to the above stated vision

• Write a trans-humanist related or research project related article or blog post to be published on the Retreat blog

• Obey the law

It is important that the Retreat be able to function as a way of helping bring together knowledge and as a location to bring about further interaction within trans-humanists and trans-human groups. The location itself is about 10k square feet, with 2000 sq. feet of indoor living space including a common area, work room, bedrooms, bath rooms, etc. and another 1600 sq. feet of additional work area. High speed internet is onsite and the building is hardwired to run off main power or run entirely off grid. There are two gas fireplaces, central heating and air, a continuous hot water system run off natural gas and a full kitchen, as well as 4 shared bedrooms. While the address is kept private or unpublished, you can make an appointment, if you’re in the Seattle area, to tour the property after it opens.

Some projects, lab equipment and workshop equipment is already being installed from computers to electronics and sustainability related equipment. Additionally, the Foundation is starting a fund; to pay for or cover costs and pay for additional research.

If you’re interested in living on site, or have a project to sponsor on site or have other questions please contact the Foundation at pratoriate@hotmail.com  

Giulio Prisco calls the philosophy of The Transhumanist Wager’s protagonist, Jethro Knights, “an extreme, militant version of the radically libertarian formulation of transhumanism”. However, this is the area where I perceive the most significant departure from the parallels to Atlas Shrugged. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism (which she did not like to be called “libertarian”, though it was in essence) has the principle of individual rights and the rejection of the initiation of force at its ethical core. Galt’s Gulch in Atlas Shrugged was formed by a withdrawal of the great thinkers and creators from the world of those who exploited and enslaved them. However, there was no active conquest of that world by Rand’s heroes; rather, without the men of the mind, the power structures of the world simply fell apart on their own accord.

Jethro Knights creates his own seasteading nation, Transhumania, a fascinating haven for innovation and a refuge for transhumanist scientists oppressed by their governments and targeted by religious fundamentalist terrorism. The concept of an autonomous bastion of innovation is timely and promising; it was echoed by the recent statements from Larry Page of Google in favor of setting aside a part of the world to allow for unbridled experimentation. Transhumania, due to its technological superiority, spectacularly beats back a hostile invasion by the combined navies of the world. It is when the Transhumanians go on the offensive that the parallels to Galt’s Gulch cease. Instead of letting the non-transhumanist world crumble or embrace transhumanism on its own accord, Jethro Knights conquers it, destroys all of its political, religious, and cultural centerpieces, and establishes a worldwide dictatorship – including some highly non-libertarian elements, such as compulsory education, restrictions on reproduction, and an espousal of the view that even some human beings who have not initiated force may not have an inviolate right to their lives, but are rather judged on their “usefulness” – however defined (perhaps, in the case of Transhumania, usefulness in advancing the transhumanist vision as understood by Jethro Knights). Jethro Knights permits a certain degree of freedom – enough to sustain technological progress, high standards of living, and due process in the resolution of everyday disputes – but, ultimately, all of the liberties in Transhumania are contingent on their compatibility with Jethro’s own philosophy; they are not recognized as absolute rights even for those who disagree. John Galt would have been gentler. He would have simply withdrawn his support from those who would not deal with him as honest creators of value, but he would have left them to their own devices otherwise, unless they initiated force against him and against other rational creators of value.

 

The outcome of The Transhumanist Wager is complicated by the fact that Jethro’s militancy is the direct response to the horrific acts of terrorism committed by religious fundamentalists at the behest of Reverend Belinas, who also has considerable behind-the-scenes influence on the US government in the novel. Clearly, the anti-transhumanists were the initiators of force for the majority of the novel, and, so long as they perpetrated acts of violence against pro-technology scientists and philosophers, they were valid targets for retaliation and neutralization – just like all terrorists and murderers are. For the majority of the book, I was, without question, on Jethro’s side when it came to his practice, though not always his theory – but it was upon reading about the offensive phase of his war that I came to differ in both, especially since Transhumania had the technological capacity to surgically eliminate only those who directly attacked it or masterminded such attacks, thereafter leaving the rest of the world powerless to destroy Transhumania, but also free to come to recognize the merits of radical life extension and general technological progress on its own in a less jarring, perhaps more gradual process. An alternative scenario to the novel’s ending could have been a series of political upheavals in the old nations of the world, where the leaders who had targeted transhumanist scientists were recognized to be thoroughly wasteful and destructive, and were replaced by neutral or techno-progressive politicians who, partly for pragmatic reasons and partly arising out of their own attraction to technology, decided to trade with Transhumania instead of waging war on it.

 

Jethro’s concept of the “omnipotender” is a vision of the individual seeking as much power as he can get, ultimately aiming to achieve power over the entire universe. It is not clear whether power in this vision means simply the ability to achieve one’s objectives, or control in a hierarchical sense, which necessarily involves the subordination of other intelligent beings. I support power in the sense of the taming of the wilderness and the empowerment of the self for the sake of life’s betterment, but not in the sense of depriving others of a similar prerogative. Ayn Rand’s vision of the proper rationally egoistic outlook is extremely clear on the point that one must neither sacrifice oneself to others nor sacrifice others to oneself. Istvan’s numerous critical references to altruism and collectivism clearly express his agreement with the first half of that maxim – but what about the second? Jethro’s statements that he would be ready to sacrifice the lives of even those closest to him in order to achieve his transhumanist vision certainly suggest that the character of Jethro might not give others the same sphere of inviolate action that he would seek for himself. Of course, Jethro also dismisses as a contrived hypothetical the suggestion that such sacrifice would be necessary (at least, in Jethro’s view, for the time being), and I agree. Yet a more satisfying response would have been not that he is ready to make such a sacrifice, but that the sacrifice itself is absolutely not required for individual advancement by the laws of reality, and therefore it is nonsensical to even acknowledge its possibility. Jethro gave his archenemy, Belinas, far too much of a philosophical concession by even picking sides in the false dichotomy between self-sacrifice to others and the subjugation of others to oneself.

Perhaps the best way to view The Transhumanist Wager is as a cautionary tale of what might happen if the enemies of technological progress and radical life extension begin to forcefully clamp down on the scientists who try to make these breakthroughs happen. A climate of violence and terror, rather than civil discourse and an embrace of life-enhancing progress, will breed societal interactions that follow entirely different rules, and produce entirely different incentives, from those which allow a civilized society to smoothly function and advance. I hope that we, at least in the Western world, can avoid a scenario where those different rules and incentives take hold.

I am a transhumanist, but I am also a humanist, in the sense that I see the advancement of humanity and the improvement of the human condition as the desired aims of technological progress. In this sense, I am fond of the reference to the goal of transhumanists as the achievement of a “humanity plus”. Transhumanism is and ought to be, fundamentally, a continuation of the melioristic drive of the 18^th-century Enlightenment, ridding man of the limitations and terrible sufferings which have historically been considered part of necessary “human nature” but which are, in reality, the outcome of the contingent material shortcomings with which our species happened to be burdened from its inception. Will it be possible to entice and persuade enough people to embrace the transhumanist vision voluntarily? I certainly hope so, since even a sizable minority of individuals would suffice to drive forward the technological advances which the rest of humanity would embrace for other, non-philosophical reasons.

In the absence of a full-fledged embrace of this humanistic vision of transhumanism, at the very least I hope that it would be possible to “sneak around” the common objections and restrictions and achieve a technological fait accompli through the dissemination of philosophically neutral tools, such as the Internet and mobile devices, that enhance individual opportunities and alter the balance of power between individuals and institutions. In this possible future, some of the old “cultural baggage” – as Jethro would refer to it – would most likely remain – including religions, which are among the hardest cultural elements for people to give up. However, this “baggage” itself would gradually evolve in its essential outlook and impact upon the world, much like Western Christianity today is far gentler than the Christianity of the 3^rd, 11^th, or 17^th centuries. Perhaps, instead of fighting transhumanism, some representatives of old cultural labels will attempt to preserve their own relevance amidst transhuman-oriented developments. This will require reinterpreting doctrines, and will certainly engender fierce debate within many religious, political, and societal circles. However, there may yet be hope that the progressive wings of each of these old institutions and ideologies (“progressive” in the sense of being open to progress, not to be mistaken for any current partisan affiliation) will do the equivalent work to that entailed in a transhumanist revolution, except in a gradual, peaceful, seamless manner.

Yet, on the other hand, the immense urgency of achieving life extension is, without question, a sentiment I strongly identify with. Jethro’s experience, early in the novel, of stepping on a defective mine has autobiographical parallels to Istvan’s own experience in Vietnam. A brush with death certainly highlights the fragility of life and the urgency of pursuing its continuation. Pausing to contemplate that, were it not for a stroke of luck at some prior moment, one could be dead now – and all of the vivid and precious experiences one is having could one day be snuffed out, with not even a memory remaining – certainly motivates one to think about what the most direct, the most effective means of averting such a horrific outcome would be. Will a gradual, humane, humanistic transition to a world of indefinite life extension work out in time for us? What can we do to make it happen sooner? Can we do it within the framework of the principles of libertarianism in addition to those of transhumanism? Which approaches are the most promising at present, and which, on the other hand, could be counterproductive? How do we attempt to enlist the help of the “mainstream” world while avoiding or overcoming its opposition? For me, reading The Transhumanist Wager provided further impetus to keep asking these important, open, and as of yet unresolved questions – in the hopes that someday the ambition to achieve indefinite life extension in our lifetimes will give rise to a clear ultra-effective strategy that can put this most precious of all goals in sight.

It’s not a physical landscape. It’s a term reserved for the new technologies. It’s a landscape in the future. It’s as though you used technology to take you off the ground and go like Alice through the looking glass.John Cage, in reference to his 1939 Imagined Landscape [1].

In the last installment I argued that the increasing prominence and frequency of futuristic aesthetics and themes of empowerment-through-technology in EDM-based mainstream music videos, as well as the increasing predominance of EDM foundations in mainstream music over the past 3 years, helps promote general awareness of emerging-technology-grounded and NBIC-driven concepts, causes and potential-crises while simultaneously presents a sexy and self-empowering vision of technology and the future to mainstream audiences. The only reason this is mentionable in the first place is the fact that these are mainstream artists and labels reaching very large audiences.

In this installment, I will be analyzing a number of music videos for tracks by “real EDM” artists, released by exclusively-EDM record labels, to show that these futuristic themes aren’t just a consequence of EDM’s adoption by mainstream music over the past few years, and that there is long history of futuristic aesthetics and gestalts in electronic music, as well as recurrent themes of self-empowerment through technology.

In this part I will discuss some of these recurrent themes, which can be seen to derive from a number of aspects shared by Virtual Art (any art created without the use of physical instruments), of which contemporary electronic music is an example because it is created using software. I argue that this will become the predominant means of art production - via software - for all artistic mediums, from auditory to visual to eventual olfactory, somatosensory and proprioceptual artistic mediums. The interface between artist and art will become progressively thinner and more transparent, culminating in a time where Brain-Computer-Interface technology can sense neural operation and translate this directly into an informational form to be played by physical systems (e.g. speakers) at first, but eventually into a form that can be read by given person’s own BCI and instantiated phenomenologically via high-precision technological neuromodulation (of which deep brain stimulation is an early form).

In the second part of this installment I will be following this discussion up with a look at some music videos for EDM-tracks that embody and exemplify the themes, aesthetics and general gestalts under consideration here.

Odditory Artificiality

The music- videos accompanying many historical and contemporary examples of EDM tracks display consistently futuristic and technoprogressive thematics, aesthetics and plots, as well as positive, self-empowering and often primal-pleasure-appealing depictions of emerging and as-yet-conceptual technologies. Many also exemplify the recurrent theme of human-technology symbiosis, inter-constitution and co-deferent inter-determination. It is not just physical prosthesis – for in a way language is as much prosthetic technology as artificial arm.  This definition of prosthesis doesn’t make a distinction between nonbiological systems for the restoration of statistically-normal function and nonbiological systems for the facilitation or instantiation of enhanced functions and/or categorically-new functional modalities. And nor should it. I argue that such a dichotomy is invalid because our functional modalities are always changing. This was true of biological evolution and it is true of mind and of cultural evolution as well. Other recurrent themes depicted in the video include technological autonomy and animacy and the facilitation of seemingly magical or otherwise-impossible feats, either via technology or else against a futuristic background.

These videos are not wrong for picking up on the self-empowering and potential-liberating inherencies of technology, nor their radically-transformative and ability-extending potentials. Indeed, as I argued in brief in the first installment of this series, electronic music exemplifies a general trend and methodology that will become standard for more and more artistic mediums, and to an increasingly large degree in each medium, as we move forward into the future. Contemporary EDM and electronic music is made using software – and this fundamental dissociation with physical instrumentation demonstrates the liberating potentials of what I have called virtuality – the realm of information, the ontics of semiotics, and the ability to readily create, modulate and modify a given informational object to an arbitrarily-precise degree. Not only do artists have the ability to modulate and modify a given sound-wave or sound-wave-ensemble with greater magnitude and precision, but they can do so to create end-result sound-waves that are either impossible with current physical instruments or else significantly harder to produce with physical instruments.

Virtuality De-Scarcitizes

The ability to create without constraint (i.e. if it’s an information-product then we aren’t constrained by the use of physical resources or dependency on materials-processing and system-configuration/component-integration) means that our only limiting factor is available or objective-optimal memory and computation. The ability to readily duplicate an information-product with negligible resource-expenditure (e.g. it doesn’t cost much, in terms of memory or computation, to create and transmit an electronic file) means that any resources expended in the creation (whether computationally or manually by a human programmer) or maintenance (e.g. storage) of the information-product is amortized over the course of all the instances in which it is doubled – that is, it’s cost, or the amount of resources expended, in comparison to the net product is cut in half every time it’s doubled).

Is it coincidence that these de-scarcitizing and constraint-eschewing properties inherent in information-products are paralleled and reflected so perfectly, in thematic, aesthetic and gestalt, by electronic-music videos? Or could such potentials be felt by our raw intuitions, seen in the ways in which technology empowers people, expands their choices, frees possibilities and works once-wonders on a daily basis, and simply amplified through the cultural magnifying-glass of art? After all, if one looks back throughout the history of electronic music one can see many early pioneers and antecedents of electronic music, we can see individuals and movements that acknowledge these de-scarcitizing, possibility-actualizing and self-empowering potentials in various ways. This very virtue of virtuality could be seen, exemplified in embryonic form, in early forms of electronic music as long as 100+ years ago - for instance in the works and manifestos of Italian Futurism, an early 20th century art movement, which embraced (among other artistic sub-genres) Noise Music, an early20th century embodiment of electronic music

It’s not as though EDM came out of nowhere after all (claims to constraintless creation aside); the technological synthesis of sound can be seen as a natural continuation of the trends set out by the creation and development of recording equipment  in the early to mid-20th century, and harkened by the explosion of popularity the electric guitar and synthesizers saw in the 1960s. In the last minute of the video below from an Interview in 1969, Jim Morrison essentially predicts the predominance of electronic music we are seeing today, saying that “I guess in four or five years the new generation’s music will have a synthesis of those two elements [blues and folk] and some third thing, maybe it will be entirely, um, it might rely heavily on electronics, tapes… I can kind of envision one person with a lot of machines, tapes, electronic setups singing or speaking using machines.”

Sound-Wave Sculptor

I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the use of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard. Photoelectric, film and mechanical mediums for the synthetic production of music will be explored.

John Cage, The Future of Music: Credo, 1937 [2].

 

When did these underlying potentialities inherent in virtual or informational-mediation really start to become obvious, or at least detectable in nascent or fledging form?

The de-scarcitizing effects of virtually-mediated art (a class that includes such early embodiments and antecedents of electronic music) seems only to have become obvious on a level beyond intuition when the ability to artificially synthesize sound brought with it a greatly increased ability to directly modulate and modify such sound.

This marked the beginning of the trend that distinguishes this class as categorically different than physically-mediated art. After all, playing an instrument can be considered modulating it just as operating a turn table can, so what constitutes the effective difference? Namely the greatly increased increased range and precision (that is, the precision with which the artist can modulate a given sound or create a given sound to his liking, which corresponds to the degree-of-accuracy between his mental ideal and what he can produce physicality) of modulation made possible by the technologies and techniques that allows us to artificially-synthesize sound in the first place.

Sound-waves can be modulated (i.e. controlled or affected in real-time) or modified (i.e. recorded, controlled or affected in iterations or gradually, and then replayed without modulation in real-time) with greater precision (e.g. ability to modulate a waveform within smaller intervals of time or with a smaller standard-deviation/tolerance-interval/margin-of-error). The magnitude of such changes (e.g. the range of frequencies a given waveform can be made to conform to, or the range of pitches a given waveform can be made to embody, through such methods) is also greater than the potential magnitude available via the modulation of playing a physical instrument. What’s more, fundamentally new categories of sound can be produced as well, whereas in non-virtually-mediated-music such fundamentally new categories of sound would require a whole new physical instrument - if they can be reproduced by physical instrumentation at all.

The earliest synthesizers harkened the future of all art mediums; artificially-created, modulated and modified sound via the user-interface of knobs, dials and keys is one small step away from music produced solely through software – and one giant leap beyond the watered-down and matter-bound paradigm of music and artistic-media in general that preceded it.

References:

[1] Kostelanetz, Richard. 1986. “John Cage and Richard Kostelanetz: A Conversation about Radio”. The Musical Quarterly.72 (2): 216-227.

[2] Cage, John. 1939. “Future of Music; Credo”.

Philosopher and futurist Max More began developing his own ideas of “extropy” in the late 1980s, when he moved from his native England to the USA. More had studied philosophy at Oxford University, and he started the cryonics movement in England before moving to California to study for a PhD. Together with Tom Bell, More founded the Extropy Institute (ExI) in California.

The term extropy, as an antonym to entropy, had been used earlier in academic literature as well. The term was apparently first used in a 1967 academic volume discussing cryogenics, and then again in a 1978 academic volume of cybernetics. Extropy, as coined by Tom Bell and defined by Max More in 1988, is “the extent of a living or organizational system’s intelligence, functional order, vitality, energy, life, experience, and capacity and drive for improvement and growth.” Extropy is not a rigorously defined technical term in philosophy or science; in a metaphorical sense, it simply expresses the opposite of entropy.

Futurist Fereidoun M. Esfandiary also developed some original ideas of the “transhuman” concept since the 1970s. His family was Persian (or Iranian now), but he was born in Brussels and finally moved to the USA, where he settled and wrote several books, including his visionary Up-Wingers: A Futurist Manifesto in 1973. He also changed his name to FM-2030 since he said that he was “a 21st century person who was accidentally launched in the 20th. I have a deep nostalgia for the future.”

Artist, designer and theorist Natasha Vita-More had just completed the short 8mm film “Breaking Away” and moved to Los Angeles to work with Zeotrope and 20th Century Fox. There she interviewed numerous futurists, including FM-2030. They teamed-up to form futurist events in Los Angeles. After learning more about the concept of the transhuman, she wrote the Transhuman Manifesto in 1983. She has since become one of the most prominent personalities of the transhumanist movement, valuing the philosophy of Extropy, and having also served as last president of the Extropy Institute and is current Chairman (actually Chairwoman) of HumanityPlus. Humanity+ was originally born as the World Transhumanist Association (WTA) in 1998, which rebranded itself as Humanity+ in 2008.

Science fiction author Diane Duane was the first to use the term extropy to signify a potential transhuman destiny for humanity in her 1983 Star Trek novel The Wounded Sky. The extropy term finally became philosophically anchored when Max More first published Extropy: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought in 1988. More and Bell then co-founded the Extropy Institute in 1990, and the ExI became the first transhumanist networking and information center to use current scientific understanding along with critical and creative thinking to contemplate the new capabilities opening up to humanity. The Extropy Institute’s email list was launched in 1991, and in 1992 the institute began producing the first conferences on transhumanism. Affiliate members throughout the world began organizing their own transhumanist groups. Extro Conferences, meetings, parties, on-line debates, and documentaries continue to spread transhumanism to the public.

The fast spread of Internet greatly contributed to take the ideas of extropy and transhumanism around the world. In 2006 the Board of Directors of the Extropy Institute, where I was a member, took the decision to close the organization. With little financial support and being too ahead of the times, ExI reviewed its vast accomplishments and decided that its original mission in developing the philosophy of transhumanism and creating the transhumanist movement was “essentially completed.” Natasha Vita-More wrote then “In respect for the philosophy of Extropy and the Principles of Extropy, the Board of Extropy Institute believes that Extropy Institute has served its mission and achieved its goals.” The Board has continued to work independently of ExI to further transhumanism. ExI’s website is still active and serves as a library for knowledge on transhumanism and its history.

Indeed, the “meme” of extropy has quickly spread to many places, and its philosophy is a refreshing look toward future possibilities for humanity, both here and beyond our tiny planet. Human and posthuman beings will finally begin the colonization of other space bodies, beyond Earth, as part of our continued evolution. Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, one of the “founding fathers” of astronautics, said about a century ago: “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.”

Let’s now celebrate the next quarter of a century of extropy thinking about our inner and outer worlds full of untapped possibilities.

The Principles of Extropy: Version 3.11 (2003)

Perpetual Progress: Extropy means seeking more intelligence, wisdom, and effectiveness, an open-ended lifespan, and the removal of political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to continuing development. Perpetually overcoming constraints on our progress and possibilities as individuals, as organizations, and as a species. Growing in healthy directions without bound.

Self-Transformation: Extropy means affirming continual ethical, intellectual, and physical self-improvement, through critical and creative thinking, perpetual learning, personal responsibility, proactivity, and experimentation. Using technology – in the widest sense to seek physiological and neurological augmentation along with emotional and psychological refinement.

Practical Optimism: Extropy means fueling action with positive expectations – individuals and organizations being tirelessly proactive. Adopting a rational, action-based optimism or “proaction”, in place of both blind faith and stagnant pessimism.

Intelligent Technology: Extropy means designing and managing technologies not as ends in themselves but as effective means for improving life. Applying science and technology creatively and courageously to transcend “natural” but harmful, confining qualities derived from our biological heritage, culture, and environment.

Open Society – information and democracy: Extropy means supporting social orders that foster freedom of communication, freedom of action, experimentation, innovation, questioning, and learning. Opposing authoritarian social control and unnecessary hierarchy and favoring the rule of law and decentralization of power and responsibility. Preferring bargaining over battling, exchange over extortion, and communication over compulsion. Openness to improvement rather than a static utopia. Extropia (“ever-receding stretch goals for society”) over utopia (“no place”).

Self-Direction: Extropy means valuing independent thinking, individual freedom, personal responsibility, self-direction, self-respect, and a parallel respect for others.

Rational Thinking: Extropy means favoring reason over blind faith and questioning over dogma. It means understanding, experimenting, learning, challenging, and innovating rather than clinging to beliefs.

Recommended Readings

Alexander, Brian. (2004). Rapture: A Raucous Tour of Cloning, Transhumanism, and the New Era of Immortality. New York, NY: Basics Books.

Alighieri, Dante. ([1321] 2008). The Divine Comedy. New York, NY: Chartwell Books.

Asimov, Isaac. (1993). Asimov’s New Guide to Science. London, UK: Penguin Books Limited.

Bostrom, Nick. (2005). “A History of Transhumanist Thought.” Journal of Evolution and Technology ‐ Vol. 14 Issue 1 ‐ April.

Chaisson, Eric. (2005). Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Church, George M. and Regis, Ed. (2012). Regensis: How Synthetic Biology will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Clarke, Arthur C. ([1962] 1984). Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.

Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat. ([1795] 1979). Sketch for a historical picture of the progress of the human mind. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Cordeiro, José Luis. (2012). Latinoamérica: Del pasado al futuro. México, México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM.

Cordeiro, José Luis. (2010). Telephones and Economic Development: A Worldwide Long-Term Comparison. Saarbrücken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing.

Darwin, Charles. ([1859] 2003). The Origin of the Species. New York, NY: Fine Creative Media.

Dawkins, Richard. (1976). The Selfish Gene. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Diamandis, Peter H. and Kotler, Steven. (2012). Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think. New York, NY: Free Press.

Duane, Diane. (1983). The Wounded Sky. New York, NY: Pocket Books.

Drexler, K. Eric. (1987). Engines of Creation. New York, NY: Anchor Books.

Dyson, Freeman J. ([1984] 2004): Infinite in All Directions. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Esfandiary, Fereidoun M. (1973). Up-Wingers: A Futurist Manifesto. New York, NY: John Day Co.

Ettinger, Robert. (1972). Man into Superman. New York, NY: St. Martin’s.

Ettinger, Robert. (1964). The Prospect of Immortality. New York, NY: Doubleday & Co.

Foundation for the Future. (2002). The Next Thousand Years. Bellevue, WA: Foundation for the Future.

Garreau, Joel. (2005). Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—and What It Means to Be Human. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Glenn, Jerome C., Gordon, Theodore J. and Florescu, Elizabeth. (2013). State of the Future 2013. Washington, DC: The Millennium Project.

Goertzel, Ben. (2010). A Cosmist Manifesto: Practical Philosophy for the Posthuman Age. Los Angeles, CA: Humanity+ Press.

Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson. (1924). Daedalus; or, Science and the Future. London, UK: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

Haraway, Donna. (1991). “A Cyborg Manifesto” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hawking, Stephen. (2002). The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe. New York, NY: New Millennium Press.

Hughes, J. (2004), Citizen Cyborg: why democratic societies must respond to the redesigned human of the future. Cambridge, MA: Westview Press.

Huxley, Julian. ([1927] 1957). “Transhumanism” in New Bottles for New Wine. London, UK: Chatto & Windus.

Kahn, Herman. (1976). The Next 200 Years: A Scenario for America and the World. New York, NY: Quill.

Kaku, Michio. (2012). Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100. New York, NY: Anchor Books.

Kurian, George T. and Molitor, Graham T.T. (1996). Encyclopedia of the Future. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Kurzweil, Ray. (2012). How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed New York, NY: Viking Adult.

Kurzweil, Ray. (2005). The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology New York, NY: Viking.

Kurzweil, Ray. (1999). The Age of Spiritual Machines. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Minsky, Marvin. (1994). “Will robots inherit the Earth?” Scientific American, October 1994.

Moravec, Hans. (1988). Mind Children. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

More, Max. (2003). The Principles of Extropy. Version 3.11. The Extropy Institute.

More, Max and Vita-More, Natasha. (2013). The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Nam, Ramez. (2005). More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. New York, NY: Broadway Books.

Paul, Gregory S. and Cox, Earl. (1996). Beyond Humanity: Cyberevolution and Future Minds. Hingham, MA: Charles River Media.

Roco, Mihail C. and Bainbridge, William Sims (eds.). (2003). Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.

Sagan, Carl. (1977). The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. New York, NY: Random House.

Simon, Julian L. (1998). The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Stock, Gregory. (2002). Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. (1964). The Future of Man. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Venter, J. Craig. (2008). A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life. New York, NY: Penguin.

Vinge, Vernor. (1993). “The Coming Technological Singularity.” Whole Earth Review Winter issue.

Vita-More, Natasha. (1999). Create/Recreate: 3rd Millennial Culture. Los Angeles, CA: MoreArt.

Warwick, Kevin. (2003). I, Cyborg. London, UK: Garnder’s.

Wells, H.G. (1902). “The Discovery of the Future.” Nature, 65:

World Transhumanist Association (Humanity+). (2002). The Transhumanist Declaration. World Transhumanist Association.

Young, Simon. (2005). Designer Evolution: A Transhumanist Manifesto. New York, NY: Prometheus Books.

THAT STANDS BETWEEN

THE LIGHT AND THE DARKNESS

YOU ARE THE ONE

THAT HAS THE LINK

TO ALL THE WORLDS

YOU ARE THE ONE

THAT CAN HOLD THE

WORLD TOGETHER

YOU ARE THE ONE

THAT CAN MAKE

CHANGE HAPPEN

YOU ARE THE ONE

THAT CAN LEAD THE FUTURE

FOR THE PEOPLE

YOU ARE THE ONE

AND YOU HAVE ALWAYS

BEEN THE ONE

hutch liȇk vid’ veil-lid-ity, touch lijȇk acyrillic pewrity,

wee liȇk two be rheborn bye the day

And houses within houses beakause wee liȇk a fire fractal

Liȇk the Phoenix feather front-tier fringed bye

Its population-liek seethe ov sunny

Tongues liȇck transient paint upawn space sitself

Thus rooms four wombs withinside the larger twomb ov house

Thrue puckerparting labiassed doors wee move head

first out from form, to be rhesearected bye the (-m-)

Inute (h)as well/s

Four wee on-live the day liek it was h/our life

mand night liek a no ther’s

And wee live-on-e’er the (-m-) inute liek {-t-} it was the day

Hand each second as though {-t-} it were the

first minute Cand secowned second

Thus halls liȇk vul[can]vic

Passaways (...burn—, werrm—, I mean pass ages) Tube e

(...-t-urn—, mum—, knot tubey, butt two be) revoluted minutely,

Too be the not now, to be the knotted not then not now, t(w/h)o

Both be and beenaught bye becoming inst.ed; altimetely two bhe

Born and die bye

The passling ov pulsed doors and halls

In microcosmic cataclysm sublime, wee pass two and fro as

Though {-t-} it were e’er forth and foremost fireward

Hinto the forge[t]fall [f]org[e]

I remember a time, as i should since it was not very long ago, when in my perception discussions of religion among transhumanists took place mostly in the context of dealing with the criticism that transhumanism itself constitutes a new religion. Imagine that: declared rationalists defending themselves against the injunction by other rationalists of being irrational. Good olde days.

Even more recently, vexed by the then glacial progress in the spread of TH ideas, someone realized that there is an untapped reservoir of at least nominally religious people of over 80% of the world population out there, and if…,

well if only…, frankly i do not know what the exact content of that particular vision was, or if it was just another reflexive marketing impulse of the kind that drives so many poor business decisions these days, but it was decided to start a ‘dialogue’ with these people, presumably to render them receptive to TH concepts and policies.

Surveying the state of TH now from my limited internet fora based perspective i conclude that this was a strategically disastrous decision. In the following i shall attempt to elucidate my reasons for this view. But in order to properly frame the debate, if there be a public one, else just for the sake of the one taking place in my head, some housekeeping tasks must be performed.

Years ago i resolved to purge my mind of redundancy at least in written communication. The first to go were silly phrases indicating that what i write is actually what i think. So why am i now breaking my own rule to point out what should be obvious ? Because to too many it is not, which results in much greater redundancy as they respond to what they misperceive as me making objective statements, or postulations about what they should think. Deviations from this default such as citations of others’ opinions or assuming devil’s, or angel’s, advocacy will be made explicit.

As web based texts rarely accommodate page footers i shall insert inline and within brackets what otherwise would be footnotes.

A pervasive problem in these debates is the lack of consensual or even just stated definitions which tends to render presented ideas unintelligible andor open to a multitude of debatants’ often contradictory (mis)interpretations, and the ensuing discussions futile. I shall therefore start by outlining and elaborating my ideas on transhumanism as well as religion and some related terms, before presenting my arguments for the incompatibility of the two concepts.

Transhumanism

This is my bare bones definition and a more comprehensive picture should emerge from the entirety of this article.

Transhumanism consists in the awareness of the fact that humanity is in the process of taking conscious control of the engines of evolution (currently genetics and memetics), and the attempt to direct this process toward desirable outcomes.  To determine the desirability of possible outcomes is the purpose of transhumanist debate, and effecting those recognised as desirable is the purpose of transhumanist activity.  A secondary concern is recognition of and engagement with nonhuman sentiency and intelligence.

A transhumanist is a person engaged in these activities with the intention of furthering this process.A transhumanist is not an enhanced human, and there is no such thing as a transhuman, as we are all, willy or nilly, in transition. [Yes there will be posthumans but the distinctions and categorizations will be arbitrary because speciation will no longer be the only game in town.]

Technology is not central to transhumanism in particular, but a defining property of humanity in general.

Religion

I had to learn to use two separate definitions within different contexts.

1 – Private: under the assumption that historically those who first introduce new terms do this for a more or less good reason [among neologisms eugenics is an interesting case as it is generally assumed to have been corrupted, but the term already implies a return to some legendary and imaginary state of purity – prefix ‘eu’ – and while i support the idea of genetic improvement i propose the term ‘progenics’], i usually look at the etymology to decide if and how i want to use a term, regardless of its meaning’s deterioration through sloppy usage over time. By this procedure i arrive at the concept of ‘rebinding’.

The binding part refers to a continuous activity with the objectives of finding, defining, maintaining and developing a viable position within a given or chosen environment. In tree and cave dwelling days this appears to have been largely automatic. [Interesting exceptions were who throughout history have been called shamans, psychotics, mutants, geniuses; people who are not inclined to take things at face value, prototypical scientists.] Whatever was needed for survival was provided by the immediate group and learned and practised by default. None of this constituted religion but represented primitive yet partially successful attempts at science. These attempts were directed at the whole spectrum of human experiences which can be simplistically categorized thus:

Those which can be easily controlled – by using sticks and stones as tools, taking a flame from a fire to the cave, learning to create and use sparks.

Farther from home there are those that can be partially controlled – like hunt and warfare.

And many cannot be controlled at all, like weather, seasons, climate and seismic events.

For the primitive mind, which is what we still have today but with more access to undisputed information (science), it is hard to discern which trial and error interventions are actually effective. A new spear design will help your hunt, but if you pick the wrong time to test it the effect may be lost, or vice versa (false positive). If you dance for rain long enough there is a good chance of raining, but when it does was it because of your dance ? To give powers names must be the first step in trying to control them. The power later called Vulcan was not a mythical being to a 10,000BC resident of Napoli but a scientific fact. But nobody knows if offering a sacrifice will keep a volcano from erupting; however in the absence of understanding its mechanics it is a fair assumption that it may, apparently confirmed by the passing of the days without eruptions. In preliteral cultures anything occurring outside a temporal and local range accessible within one’s lifespan tends toward mythification. But none of this amounts to what we now consider to be religion. That is just a misinterpretation by ‘modern’ anthropologists who see indications of ceremonial behaviour and wrongly label it ‘religious’, not understanding that ceremonial activity merely serves efficiency and is found in today’s bureaucratic, business, research and manufacturing processes among others, and who have no concept of the distinction between primitive science and that which i shall deal with in the following.

Into this house we’re born

Into this world we’re thrown

Like a dog without a bone

An actor out alone

Riders on the storm

Jim Morrison 1970

About 10 millennia ago the introduction of agriculture and the ensuing concentration of people in cities and division of labour brought on their separation by skills. Alienation and existentialism were born (but remained infants for a long while). Suddenly it was not (as) obvious who you were or what you might want, and many people found (and still find) themselves unable to meet the new mental challenges choice presents. At the same time clever operators realized that in a political environment great power can be amassed by exploiting those people’s insecurities and gullibility. Thus and only then religion was born. The ‘re’ prefix demonstrates that it implies the quest for something that was lost, the reestablishment of the prototypical ‘binding’, which of course is futile under changed conditions. It can only be accomplished in the realm of fantasy.

Interestingly the term ‘yoga’ has a similar semantic value; meaning ‘yoke’ it also signifies a binding process, that i interpret as referring to the interface between force and form, as well as that between inside and outside (i and not-i). This binding can be manipulated by the skilled practitioner to attain desired results, and that is the significance of my personal definition of (re)ligion. [Because of the deterioration of the meaning of the term yoga over the past half century that now to many indicates something akin to jazzercise, i am considering to actually call it ‘ligion’.]

2 – Public: as only few will share this view i do not use that definition in public discourse. But here too i must clarify a particular usage: i apply the term only to the phenomenon as a whole, not to any particular faith, tradition, language or culture based groups, which i prefer to call cults. I am not using the term in a pejorative way (after all it signifies building, developing, tending to), and that usage has been established by the larger groups to claim their superiority without having to explain or demonstrate it. But all of these groups start as cults, and remain such regardless of their eventual size. It is like some people claiming that (too large to fail) banks are not really businesses, which of course they are, if particularly dodgy ones, but institutions.

So how can we determine which cults must be considered religious ? In the introduction to his book “The Praxis” Dirk Bruere writes [numbering by me for easier reference]: “Simply put, a religion needs to satisfy as many of these conditions as possible:

01 - It must provide a doctrine

02 - It must have canonical texts that expound upon that doctrine

03 - It must offer an ethical framework

04 - It must offer an explanation of the world around us and the world within

05 - It must offer hope and comfort in adversity

06 - It must offer community, fellowship, mutual support and a better way to live

07 - It must empower the individual

08 - It must offer a mission in life beyond the mundane

09 - It must offer a vision of a life beyond this one

10 - It must offer transcendence”

I disagree with the ‘must’, but Dirk himself has qualified this by saying “as many…as possible”; and this seems to be a quite comprehensive list of properties. I have to question and qualify some of them however:

03 – Offer yes, but not necessarily abide by.

06 – ‘Better’ must be put in perspective – better than before, or better than possible any other way ?

07 – This, like the previous item, is very relative. The normal deal goes somewhat like this: you surrender part of your freedom to us, in return we will ensure your happiness or whatever it is you are looking for. Besides the fact that this deal is not necessarily kept (conmen are everywhere), the resulting state is not what i call empowerment. (For the record, my definition of empowerment is attainment of a state of being that enables one to independently define what it is one wants to be and do, and to realize that vision.)

08 – It is debatable if there is anything “beyond the mundane”, and what that may be (definition needed).

Largely this collection of properties encircles the exoteric meaning of religion quite well, but one, maybe the most essential, ingredient is surprisingly missing. [I do not know if Dirk views it as so essential as to be implied, but either way in a proper definition it must be made explicit and itself defined.] I am talking of ‘faith’.

Faith is often understood as belief in something for which one has no evidence. That is a necessary but not sufficient condition. In addition a conscious (one should hope) decision is required to create a mental space that is impervious to reason, and to assign this space a ‘higher’ or greater validity than the realm of reason [this can be included in, even implied by, doctrine, which may be the reason for Dirk’s omission]. Secular critics of religion tend to make the mistake of trying to dismantle religious thought through rational argument. But as Gregory House famously said: “If you could reason with religious people there would be no religious people.” Yet this mistake keeps being made in spite of the fact that ‘religious people’ often respond by explicitly expressing the de facto unassailability of their faith by reason. These are two different and separate mental domains.

A distinction must be made between faith and trust. The above quoted insufficient condition of faith is sufficient for trust. Trusting not to lose one’s balance while walking, or not to be swallowed up by the ground or carried away by wind, or not to be betrayed by one’s partner, in spite of the fact that all these things do occur, constitutes not only belief in the absence of evidence but in the presence of evidence to the contrary. However we all do it, and on a higher level of abstraction it is the perfectly rational thing to do, the alternative being paralysis. Hence the conflict between the rational and the extra-rational inherent in faith does not apply to trust.

There are several other terms that in many people’s minds sit at the interface (i prefer the term fault line here) between religion and transhumanism and need clarification because of their central role in this debate.

Transhumanism, being based on science, engineering and rational thought, has no use for that extra-rational mental space created by religion to ensure its own survival. So where does that leave god(s) ?

Exactly nowhere. Inasmuch as gods are seen as impersonations of natural and mental forces, they will continue to have a legitimate place, even though i shall advocate using terms developed by science that describe the same phenomena, in order to reduce the potential for confusion. However when working with people not trained in scientific thought, it can be effective to use the traditional terms, be they gods, nature spirits, familiars, angels, demons, qliphothic or even cthulhic forces – some Jungians and other therapists, as well as some schools of initiation, are doing excellent work while applying this language, which, presumably because of its age and low resolution, for many resonates much stronger with the energy of the object referred to than the new and often highly specialized scientific terms. When it comes to the upper echelons, the supreme commanders and almighties, only brahma stands out as a sophisticated concept. Its name represents a force outside of at least this universe, which it keeps recycling by breathing in and out, not a starring actor in the divine drama.

Shiva with his blinking eye partakes of the same quality, but, with his attendant Shakti, on a lower level of abstraction, like yin and yang in relation to the dao. By contrast the abrahamic god, a minor mountain spirit and usurping thug, one might say the Stalin of the gods, is merely the impersonation of children’s nightmares.

Some transhumanists claim to want to become godlike. Seeing how many usages on how many levels exist for ‘god’, this is a nonsensical and unnecessary term. Increasing our own powers is what humans and prehumans have done for billions of years, but where is the dividing line between humans and ‘gods’ ? What properties exactly will make me godlike ? And why use an indefinitive and fantastic concept as an instrument to map one’s aspirations ? All that is needed is to set one’s goals in accordance with one’s inclinations (or needs) and skills.

Heaven and its allegedly non religious counterpart utopia are cul-de-sacs or, less elegantly but more precisely, dead ends. The abrahamic heaven is presented as an end state, as David Byrne sang “a place where nothing ever happens”, while utopia implies perfection.

Etymologically ‘perfect’ signifies that which is (all the way) done, finished, and logically it demands arresting evolution in order not risk losing this perfection once attained. And the tiplerian omega point does this by expanding subjective time into foreverness of sorts. Transhumanism is concerned with development, change, evolution, learning to gain greater control of these processes, and static concepts like those are incompatible. The same is true for the related concept of immortality which is a property accompanying at least two of the three. Utopia does not even have a generally agreed definition, but logically it must require immortality as well. Longevity is one of the most uncontroversial transhumanist concerns, but how the meme immortality, which contradicts physics as we know it, could have invaded TH discourse is inexplicable, unless it rode in on the coattails of those static concepts, or just represents sloppy language use which undermines the foundations of our mental constructs.

Another term seen by many transhumanists as central to their ideology is ‘the singularity’.

Based on observable exponential increases of price-performance indeces of computational hardware is the reasonable assumption that a point will be reached in the not too distant future when the changes effected by this development will become unpredictable. But, seduced by that pretty hyperbolic curve suggesting the exponential increase in ‘intelligence’ on its ride toward infinity at ever accelerating speed, and not taking into consideration conditions (cosmic ‘constants’) changing over time and space, or possible encounters with different theoretical principles on which alternative, and superior, manifestations of intelligence may be based, many singularitarians take the shortcut conclusion that intelligence (the kind we know of) will just continue to spread throughout the universe at ever increasing speed, transforming it in the process, like some smart Ice Nine, all the way up (or down) to the omega point where we will then reap the benefits in disneyland eternal. No wonder that religiously inclined ‘transhumanists’ compare it to a (user)friendly apocalypse or rapture without tears. The term superintelligence has come to dominate the debate which is unfortunate because it is meaningless. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, so while we might want to assign a super title to our makers if we come face to face with them, in ‘Sirens of Titan’ they turn out to be no more than galactic Triple A engineers in the service of Salo the stranded tourist. Those of us who accept the probability of a singularity must take care to define it clearly in order to prevent it from being used as a Trojan horse carrying assortments of religious silliness in its belly.

The idea that our reality is actually a simulation, while not as central to TH as the singularity, can be, and is, also used as an inroad for religious thinking, with control of the gates fought over by those who want to invade, pointing to high probabilities, and the defenders, declaring them to be zero, both on ‘philosophical’ grounds. Apparently there are people (Beane, Gates, Terrile) working on finding evidence which however still is out of reach, and Bostrom has never presented certainties, only probabilities. Given this situation i hope there are others like me, who view the idea as currently no more than an entertaining mindfuck of no further consequence.

[It is interesting to note that an experience can be had that seems to subjectively confirm the simulation interpretation by conveying the impression of a reality breakdown similar to that implied in the header of the tv show ‘Outer Limits’ (‘do not attempt to adjust your set’), and that can be fairly reliably achieved by ingesting at least .001% of body weight of dextromethorphan (not recommended without guidance).] Furthermore if evidence is produced this will not validate religious ideas, as the discovery of living in a simulation would increase the probability of the simulators also living in one, and theirs as well etc. Instead of gods we would find ever more sophisticated ninja turtles all the way up (or better out). No religious doctrine that i am aware of would accommodate such a model (but some initiatory schools do). Again much of the confusion is due to the lack of coherent terminology and the prevalence of faulty assumptions about the relation between religion and simulation, but just as with the singularity, there is nothing inherently connecting the two.

Another term that has risen to prominence among some transhumanists in recent years is ‘spirituality’. Worse than ‘superintelligence’ this is not undefined in one dimension but nonsensical in several. ‘Spirit’ meaning wind and breath naturally appeared to the old ones as suitable to denote a hidden actor behind observable phenomena. Watching a storm one can see objects move, but what moves them remains transparent. The spirit principle can also be applied to people in the sense of presupposing a spirit, or soul, to be the driver behind their physical and behavioural manifestations. That opens the floodgates to allow for the spirits of the ancestors (some of whom sort of show up in séances), nature spirits, and exalted ones that by shapeshifting into doves and untraceably impregnate virgins can earn titles like ‘holy’. The old ones did not know that people are mostly moved by (then) invisible processes inside their nervous and muscular systems, and more basically, that not all physical processes are detectable by human vision andor other perceptual systems. So does that mean that by calling myself a person inclined toward spirituality i declare belief in spirits ? In my perception the term is often used as code for: ‘well, i am not a religious person, but something just has got to be going on up there’, which of course constitutes an example of classic weaselling (with apologies to my lttle furry friends). If transhumanists mean to indicate their interest in mind altering technologies they should use a reference to ‘psychology’. While named after ‘psyche’ (‘wind’, the greek goddess of the soul or spirit (surprise), at least, unlike spirituality, spiritualism or spiritology, it denotes an established academic field of research; and it does not invite the invasion by spirit weasels and other new agers.

Finally some concepts of atheism must be considered. Recently i came across a brief article on Turingchurch pointing out that Dawkins stated that he can not disprove the existence of god. Why would he claim otherwise ? Being like i a declared atheist, i understand that his atheism is based on the dominance of the scientific method, and in claiming to be able to disprove god(s) he would destroy the basis of his atheism itself. There are lots of serious and idiotic definitions of atheism out there.

A self described ‘christian atheist’ named Altizer proclaimed: “every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but only the Christian knows that God is dead” – oh boy, yes we know it does not take belief in god to be self centered. It is really rather simple: an atheist does not believe in the existence of divine beings unless positive evidence is presented, which has not yet happened [discounting cases where god is defined as spacetime, gravity or the universe etc]. The term ‘agnosticism’ is often used by theists to promote the inane position that (bad) atheists just claim that there is no god, while the (not quite so bad) agnostics at least say that they do not know. This contradicts my given definition of atheism and ignores the fact that in reality most agnostics are simply people who can not be bothered to think about the issue. There are some atheists that reject the term because of an understandable dislike of being identified in terms of what they are not. Rationally being not a theist should be the default in no need for a particular designation, like people who do not kill are not called a-killers. However in this case, as a testimony to how far we still have to go, the numbers are reversed; we are a minority and thus special, and a label comes in handy and i have not come across a better one.

“Some people go to the left, some people go to the right, but assholes go everywhere.” - Giulio Prisco.

Although i disagree with my friend on religious issues, this one is indisputable. Assholes here is code for people at least lacking in capacity for rational thinking andor in effort to apply it.

“I kind of like religious debates, just hearing what other people believe is interesting and then crushing their beliefs with facts is fun.” – Dzhokar Tsarnaev, allegedly a proud muslim.

“I think its [sic] telling with what fury and indignation the world reacts when their pet theories are challenged with the confidence and supernatural faith of Catholics convicted of their certainties.” – Johnny Proctor, u.s. soldier.

With these people having, unfortunately without realising it, self disqualified from rational debate, only two groups are left to consider. Both have mastered the art of rational thought sufficiently to understand there is currently no alternative principle for discourse that aims at effective problem solving [which does not mean that ‘irrational’ methods, such as brainstorming or therapeutic methods, can not be used in that pursuit]. But while some base their conduct completely on that principle, others create these extra-rational mental spaces i described above, that i shall tentatively call xrats for brevity. When used properly, this compartmentalization can be a very useful skill. People use it for intra-mental communication with deceased loved and admired ones (beats relying on a medium), for, more playfully but no less importantly, shared fantasies, and for artistic endeavours among many others. I suggest most people employ xrats in more or less serious ways.

The objective of science, as well as transhumanism, is to develop and apply models for change (mostly) communally that, while derived from a finely tuned combination of objectified observation and more or less individual vision, stay as close to mutually agreed concepts of reality as possible, which is why scientists, and transhumanists, while perfectly entitled to maintain, develop and enjoy their xrats, must keep them out of public discourse.

Once the borderlines between the generally agreed upon principles of reason and those of personal or shared xrats are perforated, the discourse may become pretty, nasty, dreamlike, surrealistic, anything but useful to the pursuit of the above defined objectives. Transhumanists must be pragmatic enough, and muster the talent, to develop and apply non rational techniques such as art, music, and psychological skills like rhetoric and propaganda, in the service of their policies. But they must keep nonsense, however high minded it may be, out of their debates. Here is an illustration: my friend quoted above recently stated, if memory serves, within a debate about mormons` claim to transhumanist credentials by declaring that humans must become more ‘godlike’, that he reserves the right to believe in the tooth fairy, a right that i fully support. I do not know if he actually does believe in the tooth fairy, but i dare say we will never see him declaring that humans must become more tooth-fairy-like.

And this is the first reason for my postulation that religion and transhumanism are incompatible: allowing irrational considerations into transhumanist discourse has the potential to destroy its intellectual foundations.

There are two additional derivative arguments to be made in support of my initially expressed view that engaging in a dialogue with religion was a wrong decision. As i stated elsewhere on the subject: “openings go two ways, and we are dealing with extremely experienced operators”. A mormon ‘transhumanist’ is still a mormon, and thus by mixing the two infuses the contents of what should remain confined to his xrats into TH thought. I am not in a position to judge if this is done according to agenda or out of ignorance, but it should not be done at all, and yet (some) transhumanists sent out the invitations. I recommend abstaining from trying to play their game, we are neither as good at it nor should we be interested.

The other one concerns the divisive nature of religious thinking which through its unreasonable claims affects even people who want no part of it, and it has exacerbated the divisions within TH. The undermining of rational foundations described above represents to many transhumanists like me the crossing of a nonnegotiable line. I see three possible responses:

For now i have chosen the latter response, but i anticipate deciding in the near future if that remains a viable approach. In any case it seems clear that far from helping the TH cause, opening to religions has severely damaged it.

Before i can get to the essence of the second reason i must present my view of the historic significance of transhumanism.

One might hold that the earliest transhumanist endeavour currently on record was the quest of Gilgamesh for immortality. However despite superficial similarities there are profound differences between his story and our current concerns.

Disregarding the question if the gods from whom he claimed descendency in 2/3 proportion existed just in myth and fantasy or actually populated the middle east in his days (even though i admit to finding the latter option more plausible), it appears that he claimed a right to immortality that much to his chagrin was denied to bastards like him by the divine establishment. [He allegedly ruled for 126 years, thus doing much better than Alexander over two millennia later who is said to have been on a similar quest. He would certainly be a longevity champ by today’s standards, however poor they may be.] Today’s transhumanists pursuing longevity do not make or need that claim. We are not pursuing anything lost or denied (by anyone but evolution) and do not look backward to history as much as forward to potential. Skipping over the valiant efforts undertaken by alchemists of various times and places in longevity, nanotech and related fields, as well as the beginning of the loosening of Rome’s power grip through the reformation and the renaissance, i see the roots of modern TH in the current that powered the enlightenment 350 years ago.

From the WP definition: “Its purpose was to reform society using reason, challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and advance knowledge through the scientific method. It promoted scientific thought, skepticism and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition, intolerance and some abuses of power by the church and the state.” It was not concerned with many of today’s transhumanist issues, largely because contemporary ones were much more pressing, and generally because one can not jump before one can walk. In fact one can not even walk without a ground to stand on, and the thinkers and agents of the enlightenment have done a remarkable job in preparing that ground and helping us to get from there to here.

But a daily news scan confirms that we still have a long way to go. I say we because transhumanists are the natural inheritors of the enlightenment legacy. There is not much of a point in achieving, and more importantly distributing, longevity without creating the conditions within which life is worth living, or in developing technological marvels for the benefit of all without also controlling the destructive tendencies to tear them down again.

During the french revolution these ideals were encapsulated within the concepts of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, immediately sparking righteous debates about their mutual compatibility. While in practice the art of balancing them must be mastered, which may differ by the type of polity desired, they can be likened to the three legs of a stool that can not maintain stability if one of them is missing. [There is an echo here of the concepts of Power, Wisdom and Love, that are similarly interdependent – and yes, i know that in an enlightened way they reflect the catholic trinity, but giving them silly, all male names warrants immediate objection.]

“Transhumanism is a new philosophy that has been proposed to continue the ideas of humanism in a new world where science and technology are the major drivers of change.” – José Cordeiro.

After over two centuries of steady scientific progress despite religious resistance of increasing fierceness and decreasing potency, about 150 years ago in Europe even the core ‘competency’ of religion began to be successfully questioned. More than most the christian cult(s) had for political reasons exercised tight control to maintain its monopoly of communicating with ‘the divine’ on behalf of their dependants.

[The doctrine of ‘papal infallibility’ enshrines this monopoly]. Throughout the middle (dark) ages independent researchers of altered mental states had to operate in secrecy and danger. With the arrival of translations by mostly german scholars of eastern religious and enlightenment texts, efforts that were supported by some masonic forces, more people in Europe became aware of the existence of traditions and technologies enabling the attainment of ‘divine experience’, or more generically awareness alteration, without mediation, supervision or permission by agents of the religious establishments. The incorporation of the Theosophic Society in 1875 and the Golden Dawn in 1888, as well as the arrival of several indian gurus in the west, were milestones in this process. In contrast to the reformation almost 400 years earlier which was – besides politics – largely about bad business practices, this was the beginning of the realization among educated people in the west that even in these endeavours, where the religious establishment claimed exclusive expertise, it is in fact, with its preinterpretations, value judgments and prohibitions, more of a hindrance than a help.

In the meantime technological advances kept multiplying, finally showcasing the latest achievements in two wall to wall wars, during which people’s primary concern was survival. Only at the beginning of the second half of last century, with rising prosperity and security in the ‘developed’ countries, did some finally resume asking questions about Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and started devising practical answers which invariably led to more questions etc. I was privileged to witness these processes from the inside. Here is what i saw being pursued and developed (an incomplete list):

1. Liberté

a) Personal self determination, which includes control of one’s body and mind (appearance unleashed from convention and fashion, choices in sexual, intellectual, political, economic and religious behaviour, rejection of the concept of victimless crimes).

b) Freedom from oppression (internally: police rule, information manipulation, and externally: colonial rule).

2. Egalité

a) Ending economic exploitation.

b) Equality before the law.

c) Ending disadvantagement of people by skin colour, nationality, gender, sexual preferences and age.

3. Fraternité

a) Establishing food, health and housing security for everyone.

b) Ending violence in war, crime and punishment.

c) Solidarity in pursuit of these goals.

Thus the old unfulfilled promises of the enlightenment were revived in the 50s underground and came into full bloom during the rise of the counter culture in the 60s. Early pioneers of the coming IT revolution were part of this culture, but due to the unavailability of that technology outside of academia it did not start having a wider impact until the late 70s. Then Leary introduced the basic outline of transhumanist ideas with his SMI2LE agenda (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension) which reinforced the evolutionary message of his earlier Exo-Psychology and gave the enlightenment tradition an explicit orientation toward the future, and in the 80s the debate moved online. This is how i interpret José’s quote above and how i understand transhumanism.

Naturally the vast majority of religious – as well as secular – establishments (the ‘system’) had to, and obviously still does, oppose these ideas and activities, as much out of inertia as for preservation of power and privilege, which puts transhumanism and religion firmly on opposite sides of history, one pushing forward and the other trying to hold back, and this constitutes my second reason for viewing them as incompatible.

Frequently the argument is made that religions have produced countless magnificent intellectual, artistic and social achievements throughout history, which is based on an attribution error. High achievement individuals and currents occur continuously regardless of location and time, and while the conditions they find themselves in may be more or less conducive to their expression, many do by necessity adapt to their surrounding cultures. Even now in the age of cheap and fast physical and mental travel many find it hard, if even desirable, to detach themselves from their culture, which includes religion, because of traditions having been transmitted by their most significant and influential friends and teachers, even if they are not fervent believers. Newton thought of himself as a christian, albeit a heretic one, but i dare say he would not were he 20 years old today. Those achievements occur(red) not because of – ignoring the resistance effect (being provoked into action by adverse conditions) – but in spite of domination of culture by religion. [Liberation theology represents an interesting example showing elements of both, the cultural domination effect and the resistance effect. Coinciding with the blossoming of the counter culture and in a way being part of it, but taking place under then almost complete domination by the roman church, its adherents had not much of a chance to realize their socialist, equality oriented visions, which are more often associated with atheist attitudes, from outside of the church simply because there was not much space left. And while not questioning their faith, i am sure that by following what they understood to be the guidelines set by Jesus they violated church policies if not doctrine, and with limited but surprising success.]

“Hallowed be my changing name” – Fra∴ Permutabo

Humanity, or if you will biointelligence on this planet, is growing up. Unlike babies we have no need to suck on mummy’s tits any longer, and unlike children we have no more use for daddy’s institutional authority. We are teenagers now, with all the attending problems and promises: utterly confused yet full of ideas, with short attention span and lack of focus but highly energized and with boiling creativity. And most importantly we feature that most typical classic teenage desire to find out for ourselves and reject unquestioned tradition. We are coming into our own even though we have only vague ideas what that can, or will, or above all what we want it to, look like. In my initial definition of TH i mentioned ‘taking conscious control of … evolution’. The thrust is toward independence and self determination. This should not be confused with the simplistic libertarian approach so popular among teenagers of all ages, which under current conditions is not feasible and will not be until we master the basics of space migration and thus the means to implement sufficient habitat separation to accommodate incompatible lifestyles. People may choose to forfeit, even if only temporarily, their independence, for instance by making commitments to others or to causes or projects, or by joining communal lifestyles or lifeforms. But the emphasis is on ‘choose’. No one shall be forced or bamboozled by tradition or authority or god(s) (or their self appointed reps) into action or inaction.

This then is my third and final reason to claim incompatibility between the two: while religion over the last 10 millennia has maintained humanity’s status as dependent on higher forces, represented increasingly over time as male god(s) (daddys), transhumanism is a cry for liberation from that dependency and emphasizes the growth of our intelligence into young adulthood.

In summary i have presented three interrelated reasons for exorcising religious memes from transhumanism:

And i expect that those who accept my premises will agree with my conclusions.

So what then is your – transhumanist – answer to my title question ?

Referring to the subjects of what are currently called cosmology, particle physics, and the rest of the sciences, and thus redefining worship as scientific attention, the initial quote by DuQuette continues:

The Greatest Problem of the Human Condition

The problem with the contemporary view of happiness is that such a view is necessarily static. It sees happiness as a state in which all of an individual’s desires are met and nothing troubles him – either physically or mentally. The static view of happiness, of course, has another side to it – which was embraced by such Oriental philosophies as Buddhism. If happiness is the fulfillment of all of one’s desires and the freedom from trouble, said the Buddhists, then why not minimize how much one desires and what one considers to be trouble? Why not just be content with whatever is and not aspire for anything more? After all, the fewer desires you have, the easier it will be to fulfill them all. And if you have no desires at all, then you will be truly enlightened and attain the state of nirvana, or complete inner peace.

Alas, the Buddhist way, taken to its full conclusion, simply does not work in the real world – even though it might be useful at helping some individuals abstain from pursuits that would indeed be unnecessary and damaging for them. The problem with this approach is that, whether or not you desire anything, there are thousands of things, phenomena, and people out there that threaten to hurt you, rob you, and even kill you. A man with few or no desires is just as likely to suffer from bodily decay as a man with abundant desires. And as anyone who has been to public elementary school knows, the bullies of the world do not hate their victims for any particular reasons. For them, the hatred comes first, and then they try to find external reasons to justify it. Whether or not you desire anything will not save you from the bullies and thugs – be they children or adults.

The great problem of the human condition is not a problem of the mind. If it were a problem of the mind, then it would be quite easy to resolve just by thinking about it. All of the pressing problems of life are material at their core. The greatest harm that can befall a human being – death – is the disruption and disintegration of the material components of his body, so that the body ceases to function as an organized system and becomes simply a heterogeneous lump of tissues. The causes of death are not abstract in your mind; you cannot just wish them away. They are quite concrete and material. Whether it is a knife that slices your body apart or virus that replicates inside it; whether the cause is a physical act by another human body or a physical law followed by an inanimate object, the very process of death is entirely oblivious and apathetic to the state of your mind. Unfortunately, as matters stand today, it threatens to occur to everyone – happy or sad, desiring much or desiring nothing. This state of affairs should not be tolerable to any sane, rational, just human being.

And yet, if you are dead – or, for that matter, in you are in tremendous physical pain, starving, or severely paralyzed – you do not have much or anything desirable going on in your mind. Mere psychological satisfactions pale in comparison to the inescapable, nagging fact that your very existence is in danger. It is possible to overcome some physical disabilities, provided that one can still maintain some stable state of health and activity – but it is not possible to live well when faced with a steady degeneration of one’s body and faculties.

Besides, happiness, love, morality, art, culture – what have you – all require you to be alive to enjoy and think about them. Thus, the question of how to keep existing must always take precedence over every other question – because nothing is possible in your life unless you exist in the first place. Therefore, the first goal of any person’s life ought to be the minimization of threats to his existence. Once the most urgent threats have been addressed, one can move on to the less urgent threats. But there are literally thousands of ways in which our lives could end every day. Anytime anybody devises a means of eliminating even one of those ways, he or she becomes one of the greatest heroes of humankind.

Today, we are able to successfully evade many more causes of death than our ancestors could. By curing diseases and establishing better sanitation and disease prevention, people have nearly quintupled the typical human lifespan in prosperous countries – a lifespan which ended in the late teens during the Paleolithic era. Due to economic growth and technological progress, most of us can be well-fed and assured of good hygiene and adequate shelter. More humane political and economic arrangements – founded on free markets, free speech, heterogeneity, and toleration – enable most of us to avoid killing one another in senseless wars, political persecutions, and mob violence.

But so much more remains to be done. Cancer, heart disease, and degenerative conditions of the brain kill millions of people every day. Humans have still not discovered how to establish a government that does not eventually devolve into either chaos or tyranny. Moreover, a single sufficiently large calamity on Earth – such as a giant asteroid, a chain of volcanic explosions, or a new Ice Age – can still wipe out all human life. Preventing these calamities – or at least settling on other planets so as to eliminate the risk of species extinction – ought to be the concern of many more people than those few who are addressing it today. Furthermore, with the current level of technology, death is still inescapable for humans living today – no matter what they do. Every human being – if he is truly serious about his life and its continuation – needs to give these matters some thought and develop ways to combat today’s gargantuan perils in his own personal way. Securing one’s own health, economic prosperity, and intellectual development is a good start.

In the face of these problems, we can see how absurd it is to hold a static view of happiness, life, or anything else at all. Any unchanging state, by definition, is stagnant – leaving one an easy, sitting target for the forces of death and decay. If any happiness or purpose is to be obtained in life, it must be defined dynamically, as a process and not as a state. We all need to act just to survive – so if we ever arrive at a state of contentment, this will simply mean that we will stop acting and, in our illusory happiness, rapidly decompose.

But if instead we think of the good life as a life of incremental progress against the forces of death and deterioration – a life in which we increasingly assure for ourselves a freedom from external perils – then our lives can be happy, meaningful, secure, and so much more. Much more can be said on this, and we shall discuss it next.

Incremental Progress

Surrounded by perils as we are, what are we to do? Clearly, the safety of our lives is not just a binary alternative. There are degrees of safety, and some lives in some conditions are safer than others. The life of virtually anyone in a Western country today is much safer and freer from perils than the lives of virtually any of his great-grandparents. But how did we get even the prosperity and safety we currently have? Surely, they did not spring up overnight. Indeed, the groundwork for them was laid over the course of centuries. Great scientists, inventors, mathematicians, economists, engineers, architects, doctors, and the people implementing their ideas brought into being better machines, more efficacious cures for diseases, and stabler, freer political and economic systems. The combined contribution of technologies such as the automobile, the airplane, the computer, antibiotics, and the assembly line to our lives cannot be overestimated.

But no one person could have single-handedly developed all of modern civilization. In the brilliant essay, “I, Pencil,” Leonard Read shows that no single individual could even have assembled a typical pencil entirely on his own from start to finish without great hardship. But millions of people have made contributions – great or small – to the progress of civilization. More people still work effectively within the framework of systems of human interaction that were either consciously designed or arose spontaneously based on the activities and choices of millions of people. Nobody deliberately initially designed money, markets, or even languages – but these systems have a ubiquitous presence in our lives. Sometimes the idea of a single person will be taken up by others, who will use it in creative and remarkable ways unforeseen by its originator.

The truth of the matter is, none of us can know how exactly our individual work and contributions will affect the progress of civilization and the fight against death, disease, pain, and oppression. As we discussed in Chapter 2, our predictive power can only go so far. Surely, we can have some insights on this matter. If a man, George, decides to assemble a simple table from its basic components and keep it for use in his office, he can have a decent understanding of how that table will serve his purposes. But even then, George might be surprised at the opportunities that table opened up for him. What if George’s productivity doubled simply because he – having more space – was now able to lay out all his documents in a more convenient and easily accessible format? Surely, that would have been difficult to predict precisely. And if George were to sell the table to somebody, he would likely have little to no idea of how that person would use it – but it might be critical to the buyer’s endeavors and success.

Much of our understanding of the effects of our work – when we can get such an understanding – will be a series of reasonable anticipations of highly specific causes and effects, based on the particular circumstances immediately surrounding our lives. We can see that far, but rarely can we see further. Yet seeing that far is enough for us to systematically plan our own lives and become not the best people we can be – because that presumes an upper limit to our abilities – but rather to become increasingly better people. We cannot plan how our actions will affect the world, but we can certainly plan to a degree how they will affect us personally.

This, then, is incremental progress: the continual expansion of our individual skills, knowledge, and efficacy in acting in the world. There is a broad, almost inexhaustible variety of the kinds of skills, knowledge, and actions you can choose to pursue in order to make such progress. What you ultimately end up pursuing as an occupation will depend on a variety of complex factors: your initial skills and interests, the resources initially available to you, the information to which you have access, and the social and political institutions that constrain what you are able to do. No professions are inherently good or bad for all individuals – unless those professions involve hurting oneself or others. But you need to be able to make a reasonable case to your own self as to why your occupation of choice – be it your job or a leisure activity – is one by which you can make considerable incremental progress.

Remember that any action you pursue will indeed have some direct effects. These direct effects will be the lower bound of the progress you make. Regarding the table George built, the direct effects of his decision to build it are that he now has another table on which he can put whatever he pleases. That is the least he can say regarding the progress he made. Whatever extra opportunities or benefits the table opens up for him will, of course, be contributions to his progress. But it is not wise to rely on benefits that one cannot foresee in advance. It is better to suspend judgment regarding them and to view them as pleasant surprises if and when they come. Of course, if you work hard enough, they will come in some form – but their specific manifestation is difficult to foresee.

So in planning your activities, you can reasonably foresee the least that you will be able to accomplish as a result. If that bare minimum is all that you come to expect, then you will always at least meet your expectations and – in accomplishing the direct products of your effort along with some extra gains – you will always be proud of your efficacy and happy (in the attainable sense) because you continually seem to rise above your own anticipations.

But you cannot reasonably expect to transform or revolutionize any aspect of your life overnight. If you set your short-term expectations too high, then they will be difficult, if not impossible, to meet. You will fail to meet them even after an earnest effort – an effort that might have sufficed to meet some less grand objective. The discouragement you will receive from not meeting your grand goal right away might deter you from further pursuits in that direction, even though if you applied yourself consistently over time, you might have eventually attained even the loftiest objects conceivable to you. The key to genuinely progressing in all aspects of your life is to remember the incremental part of “incremental progress.” Set goals for yourself every day that you know you have the ability to meet. The goals do not always have to be pleasant or comfortable to pursue; indeed, many of them can involve considerable exertion and delayed gratification. But they have to be manageable, and you need to be able to expect to complete them in advance.

Of course, there are certain minimum requirements for what one needs to be accomplished – set by the negative external pressures of one’s environment. A certain amount of work is needed just to stay alive – to be fed, to pay for one’s shelter, and to hold back bodily decay. A certain degree of self-support through work, exercise, and common-sense habits of good hygiene and caution is not optional – according to the laws of nature. But the extent of that minimum varies depending on one’s environment. In most times and most places throughout human history, people needed to work for ten to twelve hours every day just to ensure that they would have adequate food. In the West today, the minimum amount of work needed to ensure that we can stave off death for another day is much less – because we have the benefit of highly productive machines and centuries of accumulated knowledge regarding effective lifestyles and production processes.

Furthermore, a certain somewhat higher amount of work is required to maintain one’s present standard of living and set of skills. Alas, material objects do fall into disrepair and abilities atrophy unless they are exercised with sufficient frequency. To achieve incremental progress, it is not enough to just stay alive. It also necessary to stay alive while keeping what one already has and adding something new to what one has all the time. If you do just enough to maintain your present material standard of living and skill set, then you are simply breaking even. Incremental progress occurs when you go beyond just breaking even. That requires work – often hard work – but it is also manageable for anybody. All you need to do to achieve incremental progress is find efficient, easily implementable ways to maintain what you already have and then know yourself well enough to determine what rate of accumulation of objects and skills you can be comfortable with and sustain over a long time.

At the beginning of each day, you should ask yourself these three questions:

Question 1. “What do I need to do today to survive and maintain my current level of health?” This question is fairly easy to answer in most cases.

Question 2. “What do I need to do today to ensure that my current standard of living and skill set are maintained and that I lose nothing of what I already have in terms of material comfort and intellectual ability?” This question is somewhat more difficult, as it requires an understanding of how to efficiently hold on to what you have – within the time constraints under which you operate.

Question 3. “What can I do today to add a little more to what I have, know, or can do?” If you can successfully address Question 2, then answering this question actually becomes easier – especially since there are many additional accomplishments that do not require future maintenance or can maintain themselves. When I originally published this chapter on the Internet, for instance, I did not need to do anything else with it, but it worked for me in small ways, spreading my ideas and reputation while earning me a little bit of money.

At the end of each day, do a mental debriefing and ask yourself these questions:

Question 1. “Have I done enough today to survive and maintain my current level of health?” In most cases, the answer will be “Yes,” but do be careful regarding the latter part of this question.

Question 2. “Have I done enough today to maintain my current standard of living and skill set?”

Question 3. “What have I done today to add to what I already have or know?”

If you can provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions, then from the viewpoint of incremental progress, you have had a good day. In the future, the indirect benefits from your activities might surprise you regarding just how good a day it was.