h+ Magazine

For 3 days in late February, Russian businessman Dmitry Itskov gathered 500+ futurists in Moscow for a “Global Future 2045 Congress” – the latest manifestation of his “Russia 2045” movement. The Congress featured an impressive roster of Russian scientists, engineers and visionaries, along with American futurist leaders like Ray Kurzweil, Randal Koene and John Smart.

Are we on the verge of totally new social and economic paradigm brought about by the increasing power of computation in our machines?

Back in the day, before Mondo 2000, I and my partners had a magazine called “Reality Hackers” (which evolved into Mondo).  The notion that reality was a hackable system was very attractive to us proto-transhumanists.  One one level, reality hacking implied all of the enhancement tropes that are fondly embraced by the H+ community — improved brains, awesome abilities, extended lifespans, wingspans… maybe an extra arm… you know the drill.

Hank and I have had a complicated relationship, which anyone who has read his articles here on H+ and over on IEET might be familiar with. I started out being an avid supporter of his in such early articles such as in-vitro meat, and sex-bots, and a regular commenter on his many others.

I’m not going to try to write a review of “Transcendent Man”, since I myself am in the movie, albeit just for 4 or 5 minutes. But nevertheless I’d like to encourage you to watch it – not because of the chance to see my smiling face, but because in my opinion it’s a rather well-made film … and both instrumental in, and symbolic of, the mainstreaming of transhumanist ideas, which is happening full force these last couple years.

Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not a Gadget” is a rare book, and not merely for it’s comfort in declaring itself ­- right on the cover – a proper manifesto. Authored by a credentialed specialist with extensive qualifications (primarily computer science, having coined the term “virtual reality” and having worked on such systems ever since), it simultaneously provides insight into his work on the bleeding edge of new technologies (check the sections on “morphing” and body awareness for appetite-whetting glimpses of future tech), while also making profound and novel arguments.

Greg’s Egan Zendegi has been the second book that I have bought in Kindle format (the first was David Eagleman’s Sum). I bought it a few minutes after midnight on January 1: I had decided to begin the new decade by reading this e-book. Some explanations and thoughts before starting with the review:

"He doesn’t dig imperfection, man," says aging hacker Kevin Flynn of his program CLU, the master of the Tron: Legacy (2010) universe.  A zenned-out Jeff Bridges reprises his 1982 roles as Flynn/CLU in your choice of eye-popping Disney Digital or IMAX 3D. The gladiatorial combat, illuminated Frisbees, glowstick suits, and fast-moving lightcycles are back in a multidimensional "grid" that is sure to delight gamers.   

The proverbial 800-pound gorilla is the monster in the room that you just can’t ignore, although you might want to.  With this week’s debut of the long awaited Blio – Ray Kurzweil’s tablet-friendly eBook reader – the eBook reader market may have found just such a game changer.

See Also: A Cosmist Manifesto (Excerpt)

The term Cosmism seems to have been introduced by Konstantin Tsiolokovsky and other Russian Cosmists around 1900.  Now, Ben Goertzel’s Cosmist Manifesto (published by Humanity+ Press and available on Amazon) gives it new life and a new twist for the 21st century.  Cosmism, as Goertzel presents it, is a practical philosophy for the posthuman era.  Rooted in Western and Eastern philosophy as well as modern technology and science, it is a way of understanding ourselves and our universe that makes sense now, and will keep on making sense as advanced technology exerts its transformative impact in the unfolding future.  Goertzel weaves a philosophic tapestry using AI, nanotechnology, uploading, immortality, psychedelic drugs, meditation, future social structures, psi phenomena, alien and cetacean intelligence and the Singularity.  The Cosmist perspective is shown to make plain old common sense of even the wildest future possibilities.



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