h+ Magazine

When we think in a grander scope of time and space, both the past and the future can be very thought-provoking, or even elicit powerful emotional responses. But why are our imaginations so easily captivated by stories and images of cavemen and spacemen? Romans and sentient AIs. Fred Flintstone and George Jetson.

Ben Goertzel interviews Adam Ford about the upcoming Humanity+ @Melbourne (May 5-6 2012), which will feature Aubrey de Grey, Natasha Vita-More, Stelarc and many more inspiring speakers.

Schwann Cybershaman, an h+ magazine writer and filmmaker, has been compiling a video series of lectures by the late Terence McKenna, the psychedelic philosopher and proto-transhumanist. Whether or not you agree with McKenna’s specific views, his breadth of knowledge and the boldness of theorizing will have you thinking about life, the universe, and everything in novel ways.

I have long had misgivings about large aggregations of computing nodes forming a mind because of speed-of-light delays. That will reduce “thinking speed,” since a mind cannot “be of one mind” if much it is not aware of the current situation due to speed-of-light delays.

I think all dystopian writers share the burden of witnessing how influential their ideas are. If you have a negative vision for humanity and it ends up coming true how much of this is due to your own influence? If we recognize patterns that lead us to think we are heading for catastrophe should we share them with the world? Or is it better not to put these memes into the cultural DNA pool?

Our structures could become living objects, responding to the environment. Instead of our buildings remaining inert, they could adapt to or respond to the seasons, like parks and gardens, with living coatings responding to the availability of more or less wind, sunlight and water.

The book’s author, Jill Price, has a condition called “hyperthymestic syndrome” — the continuous, automatic and perfect recollection of the minutiae of every day life. Price claims to be able to remember virtually every detail of her life since the age of 14.

The Singularity to me seems to be a little bit too ‘singular’. It seems to assume that all these different technologies converge and take off all at the same pace. Whereas in my view, we’re more likely to see a Surge which might trail off, might slow down—in fact, maybe a series of surges.

It’s like celebratory gunfire isn’t life-threatening because your state of mind affects the reality you perceive. That is; until you get hit in the head by a stray bullet. It’s been said that no battle plan survives the first engagement, so it’s difficult to predict what will happen next as we continue the birthing of a new generation, a generation suckled on the Information Age.

Ordinary people, and even older and more educated ones, disbelieve in a technological Singularity for three major reasons.

Ben Goertzel converses with Hugo de Garis on his transhumanist argument for the reality of a Creator.