Executive Director, Terasem Foundation

Martine Rothblatt is responsible for launching several satellite communications companies, including the first nationwide vehicle location system (Geostar, 1983), the first private international spacecom project (PanAmSat, 1984), the first global satellite radio network (WorldSpace, 1990), and the first non-geostationary satellite-to-car broadcasting system (Sirius, 1990). As an attorney-entrepreneur she was also responsible for leading the efforts to obtain worldwide approval, via new international treaties, of satellite orbit/spectrum allocations for space-based navigation services (1987) and for direct-to-person satellite radio transmissions (1992). In the 1990s Dr. Rothblatt entered the life sciences field by leading the International Bar Association’s project to develop a draft Human Genome Treaty for the United Nations (submitted in 1999), and by founding a biotechnology company, United Therapeutics (1996). Dr. Rothblatt is the author of books on satellite communications technology (Radiodetermination Satellite Services and Standards, Artech, 1987), gender freedom (Apartheid of Sex, Crown, 1995), genomics (Unzipped Genes, Temple University Press, 1997) and xenotransplantation (Your Life or Mine, Ashgate House, 2003). She is also cyberscripted and produced one of the first cybermuseums, the World Against Racism Museum.  Under the auspices of her Terasem foundation, Martine organized the First Annual Colloquium on the Law of Transhuman Persons held in Florida, December 10, 2005.

A “beme” is the smallest unit of someone’s essential nature or character. How can we interbreed using bemes?  There are three steps, all of which are underway and inevitable: (1) Replicating our own, or blending two or more persons’, mannerisms, personalities, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values in a capable computer.  (2) Providing a capable computer with a mind operating system (“mindware” or “thoughtware” ) that seamlessly organizes the replicated or blended bemes into human thought patterns and an apparently conscious human mind.  (3) Granting the apparent consciousness that emerges from the capable computer the status of legal personhood.