Heather Bradshaw is working on a thesis on enhancement and disability at the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol. Heather is a staffer at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford where she is currently managing the editing and publication of a collection of essays on wisdom in Western and East-Asian culture.

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A common human ‘limitation’ that many transhumanists would like to overcome is that of sleep. I am not one of them.

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In the second of Leon Kass’s lectures at Princeton, Nov 6-8 2006, on why human enhancement, assisted suicide, stem cells, well…everything in medicine…is wrong, Peter Singer asks some questions about the European experience with assisted dying, the dignity of anencephalic babies and the use of chimps in research. Kass says he’s opposed to use of chimps!

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The 1936 version of H.G. Wells’ classic technoprogressive novel Things to Come, which projects a coming apocalyptic world war, followed by a technoprogressie renaissance, with a Luddite backlash and a valiant escape to space. cheesy, but awesome.

Watch Online

QuickTime  (338 B)  MPEG4 (478 MB)

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Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully demonstrated a robotic interface operated through mind control. Utilizing an electrode cap (a non-invasive tool generating a noisy signal), mental powers commanded the robot to walk to a block, pick it up, and set it down in a designated area.

Video 1    Video 2    Video 3

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One of the odder manifestations of the fabrication future may well revolutionize the world of medicine—and quite possibly change how we eat and offer a new way to fight global warming, too.

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Christopher Beam of Slate on “How Do I Get Experimental Drugs? You don’t need your doctor’s permission.”

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An interview with Pavlos Hatzopoulos for Re-public

  How possible is it for us to create value for one another without the intervention of government or corporate interests? Douglas Rushkoff explains the commons as the rising of a set of behaviors that generate an alternative value.

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The online journal Re-public has just published a very interesting issue on The promise of the commons. The issue explores the technocultural openings that the concept of the ‘commons’ presents for contemporary democratic theory and practice. Among the articles are a piece by Richard Stallman on The free software movement, a piece by IEET Fellow Douglas Rushkoff Commons: Creating an alternative value system, and a piece by Michel Bauwens, Peer production, peer governance, peer property, among many others.  (posted on Amor Mundi)

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At the “Future WMD” symposium I attended on Monday, I came across an interesting paper written by Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development, which is described as “a non-governmental policy-oriented research and advocacy group.”

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Do we really need to “come to terms” with death in order to be psychologically healthy?  Many would assume that the answer to this question is “yes”, but where does that leave the rational life-extensionist?

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For the Elon University/Pew site “Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast” Jamais addresses the question “What is your greatest fear for the future of networked technologies?”

and “Looking more than 10 years in the future, what technological development will have the greatest impact on society?”

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IEET friend Anders Sandberg is looking for cognitive enhancement novels, stories and films. He has quite a list already, shown below. If you have additional suggestions, let us know.

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Last May Dr. Hughes and two dozen other experts on cognitive enhancement technologies convened to discuss future policy scenarios with the Advanced Concepts Group, Sandia National Laboratories and the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University. The policy frameworks were drawn from Dr. Hughes’ book Citizen Cyborg, laying out four principal ideological positions that policy makers might adopt -
“Laissez-faire” (techno-libertarian),
“Managed Techno-optimism” (techno-progressive),
“Managed Techno-Skepticism” (Left bioconservative) and
“Human Essentialism” (Right bioconservative). After a day discussing the various near-term cognitive enhancement technologies the group broke into these four factions - albeit for purely heuristic purposes and not because of affinity - to devise policies based on the ideological position.

The report, “Policy Implications of Technologies for Cognitive Enhancement,” is available now, and it summarizes the event, the technologies and policy discussion. A better than average introduction to the issues.

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Leon R. Kass, University of Chicago. Three seminars at Princeton University on Keeping Life Human: Biology and Human Dignity. Nov 6-8, 2006.  Presented by the James Madison Program

Talk One Talk Two Talk Three

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There’s a story I’ve seen about a philosopher who bet an engineer that he could make a robot that the engineer couldn’t destroy. What the philosopher produced was a tiny little thing, covered in fur, that would squeak when touched—and when threatened, would roll onto its back and look at the attacker with its big, glistening eyes. When the engineer lifted his hammer to smash the robot, he found that he couldn’t. He paid the wager.

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Yesterday I attended and took part in a “Future Weapons of Mass Destruction” symposium in Arlington, VA, sponsored by the Stanley Foundation and the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. One of the most interesting outcomes was a general agreement that the WMD acronym probably should be broadened to included Weapons of Mass Disruption as well as Destruction.

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Bioconservative activist Wesley J. Smith writes: “Transhumanism on the Air - I was interviewed for an hour by Derek Gilbert yesterday on KSSZ about transhumanism, post humanity, and genetic enhancement of our progeny. We discuss human exceptionalism. I quote James Hughes’ assertion from Citizen Cyborg that creating an ape/human hybrid would prove that human exceptionalism is bunk, or as he puts it, would disprove “human racism.” We also discuss transhumanism as a “new eugenics” and get into the history of the old eugenics.”

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Cognitive enhancement, the amplification or extension of core capacities of the mind, has become a major topic in bioethics. But cognitive enhancement is a prime example of a converging technology where individual disciplines merge and issues transcend particular local discourses. This article reviews currently available methods of cognitive enhancement and their likely near-term prospects for convergence.

Download the PDF

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Aubrey speaking at at Oxford, UK, July 2005. (Duration: 23:31)

Watch Online    Download Audio   Download Video

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Podcasting transhumanist perspectives on science, philosophy, ethics, and the future of intelligent life George P. Dvorsky’s Podcast Blog

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Lots of nano-news over the past week or two—and most of it good!

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I am so pleased about the victories of Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders, so pleased at the prospect of good folks in the Progressive Caucus finding their way into Leadership and oversight positions, and from a technoprogressive angle of view especially so pleased at what nearly everybody is coming to see as the indispensable role of peer-to-peer formations (blogs, online small contribution aggregation, rapid-fire online negative campaigning pushback, citizen oversight, and so on) in this election. This is an impact that is growing stronger by the hour, and all to the good for those of us who prefer democratic over nachine politics, whatever party label gets slapped onto the result.

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I’m somewhat of a film buff, particularly sci-fi, so when it comes time to watch an eagerly anticipated movie it’s often difficult for me to leave my emotional baggage and lofty expectations at the door. Darren Aronofsky‘s latest film, The Fountain, is a good case in point. I was totally expecting to love this movie, but instead now find myself forced to write a very negative review.

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Discussion with Princeton biologist Lee Silver about his new book Challenging Nature: The clash of science and spirituality at the new frontiers of life. Silver defends bio-science from religious and quasi-religious Luddism.

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Natasha Mitchell’s Radio Australia’s program “All in the Mind” is awesome and highly recommended. [RSS]

Here are their last three programs:

(Dec 9 2006)  The Chimeric Brain  [Listen |  Download]  Transplanting our brain cells into our closest primate relatives has raised eyebrows, and the prospect of the ‘humanzee’. Could this make their brain more human-like? Might this change their moral status in the lab? Top stem cell scientist, John Gearhart, bioethicist Jason Scott Robert, and neuroscientist Peter Schofield join Natasha Mitchell to discuss the scientific and moral questions at the core of creating chimeric brains.  Read Transcript

(Dec 2 2006) The Brain Computer Interface  [Listen |  Download]  Artist Pro Hart died of it, so did actor David Niven - the nightmarish legacy of Motor Neurone disease which paralyses the body as the disease progresses. Communication can become restricted to an eye-blink, with the mind remaining intact and active in a frozen body. But the technological cutting edge of the brain-computer interface could make a difference, and help people communicate with the outside world using the only thing they have left…their mind. Turn on the TV, switch off the lights and even send emails, just by thinking about it? No, it’s not hocus-pocus.  Read Transcript

(Nov 25 2006) Moral Minds: The Evolution of Human Morality  [Listen |  Download]  Incest, infanticide, honour killings - different cultures have different rules of justice. But are we all born with a moral instinct - an innate ability to judge what is right and wrong? Could morality be like language - a universal, unconscious grammar common to all human cultures? Eminent evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser and philosopher Richard Joyce take on these controversial questions in impressive new tomes, and to critical acclaim. But could their evolutionary arguments undermine the social authority of morality? Is biology the new ‘religion’?  Read Transcript

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On Friday, Dec. 1, 2006 the IEET and IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics - the bioethics liaison office of the International Humanist and Ethical Union - co-sponsored a panel discussion on “Cognitive Liberty in an Age of Neurotechnology” across the street from the United Nations. About one hundred people attended, from as far away as Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and the event was very successful.

The three speakers were:

IEET Executive Director James Hughes Ph.D. (who also moderated), who spoke on the technoprogressive understanding of cognitive liberty, and the ways that emerging neurotechnologies may further challenge cognitive liberties. [LISTEN TO/DOWNLOAD MP3]  [SLIDES]

Elizabeth Phelps Ph.D., a Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University, who showed some of the work on fMRI brainscanning of learning, memory and decision making being done at her Phelps Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience. Dr. Phelps argued that much of the anxieties about threats to cognitive liberty are overblown since the science is being hyped, and nowhere near providing the kind of intimate “brain-reading” that the media sometimes suggests.  [LISTEN TO/DOWNLOAD MP3] 

Bradley Lewis MD, PhD was the third speaker. He read a redacted and fascinating version of his paper “Prozac and the Post-human Politics of Cyborgs” which raises questions about whether SSRIs are as effective as we think they are, why people want to take them, and how it all relates to Harawayan cyborgology. Dr. Lewis teaches cultural studies at the Gallatin School at New York University, with affiliated appointments in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis and the Department of Psychiatry. He is the author of numerous articles published in academic journals, is the cultural studies editor for The Journal of Medical Humanities, and author of Postpsychiatry: Theorizing Psychiatry, Prozac, and DSM.  [LISTEN TO/DOWNLOAD MP3]

Thanks to Drs. Phelps and Lewis for great talks and give-and-take afterwards, and to Ana Lita of the IHEU-Appignani Center for Bioethics for helping to organize this great event.

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An will be visiting North American universities in February conducting research on neuroenhancement.

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Now that the RAG Tournament featuring Vladmir Kramnik and Deep Fritz has concluded with the machine emerging victorious, it’s time for some contemplation about the current state of chess and its future.

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Now that I'm just running one international nonprofit organization instead of two I'm working on clearing out the backlog of a year's accumulating to-do items. One was to edit and post all the audio of the May 2006 Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference. I was a little stymied because it turned out that the recordings were mostly done too loud, so there is a lot of painful distortion that I tried to figure out how to reduce. But tweaking audio tends to introduce nasty artifacts like high-pitched whistles, so I've given up and have started putting the talks up as MP3s.

Fortunately the opening panel with Bailey, Davis and Hurlbut was nice and clean, and these are their talks. Expect the rest shortly.

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