Critical Thought
When envisioning, planning for or attempting to create a future scenario, an often-overlooked problem is ignoring the Zeitgeist – the dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time. As a result, such scenarios have an overly narrow focus on that specific scenario alone. As a result, institutionalized aspects […]
As many Phys.org readers undoubtedly know, Einstein famously said that imagination is more important than knowledge – but there’s more to it. The full quote reads:
I believe in intuition and inspiration. … At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I […]
Transhumanism has been defined by Humanity+ as the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities, as well as the study of the ramifications, promises, […]
Why is there something rather than nothing?
A question asked perhaps most famously by Martin Heidegger – but posed earlier by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz, and, in some interpretations, implied by Thomas Aquinas when he contemplated Aristotle’s concept of a Prime Mover.
We’ll gloss over their different takes on the question and its answer, except to […]
Dr. Randal Koene, neuroscientist and neuroengineer, is a preeminent theorist and developer focused on Substrate Independent Minds, or SIM – a field of research which seeks to understand the brain and nervous system of a wide range of organisms, including humans, in order to facilitate emulation of these organisms in an artificial substrate, for example […]
From science fiction and academia through assembly lines and telemedicine, robots have become both conceptually and physically ubiquitous. Technologically, robotics technology has advanced dramatically since the time of their namesake introduction in R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), a 1920 Czech-language science fiction (which nonetheless was conceptually quite visionary, since the robots it depicted were biological, […]
In its essence, technology can be seen as our perpetually evolving attempt to extend our sensorimotor cortex into physical reality: From the earliest spears and boomerangs augmenting our arms, horses and carts our legs, and fire our environment, we’re now investigating and manipulating the fabric of that reality – including the very components of life […]
Artificial General Intelligence, Transhumanism and Open Source Transhumanism
Transhumanism Meets Design Conference
New York City| 14-15 May 2011
Dr. Ben Goertzel. Photo courtesy of Neural Imprints
Dr. Ben Goertzel is Chairman of Humanity+; CEO of AI software company Novamente LLC and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC; leader of the open-source OpenCog Artificial General […]
Well, OK, that would be Transhumanists. And yes, we’ll be converging on NYC with grand designs, but there’s nothing evil afoot.
We’ll be here on May 14-15 2011 for the Transhumanism Meets Design conference. You should join us.
UPDATE: Members of the the New York Transhumanist Association meetup group now have a discount! Go to […]
Technological evolution can be defined as the ongoing projection of our sensorimotor cortex through augmentation of our physicality – i.e., devices that enhance our arms, legs, eyes, ears, and so on. It’s clear that the next (and at least penultimate) frontier is our emerging ability to directly augment and extend our brain.
The current extension of […]
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CRITICAL THOUGHT | TV
Ben Goertzel | Cosmist & Singularitarian
The present, near-term and distant future of Artificial General Intelligence
Aubrey de Grey | Biomedical Gerontologist
Combating aging through biomolecular engineering
Mark Wigley | Architectural Theorist, Scholar & Author
Crafting forms that allow others to see the world differently
Lina Srivastava | Transmedia Activist
Harnessing cultural context and artistic expression to create change
Jesse Prinz | Culturalist & Neurophilospher
Empirical philosophy, evolution, culture, emotion, morality and consciousness
Randal Koene | Neuroscientist & Neuroengineer
Substrate Independent Minds and Whole Brain Emulation
Alex Gabbay | Filmmaker & Director
What do Art and Science have to say about Consciousness?
Jason Silva | Filmmaker & Futurist
Passion and artistic sensibility to inform the coming Singularity
