It’s a simple but very scary concept – that we live in an “Existential Atheistic Nihilist” world and universe. As Mike Treder wrote online “A clear comprehension and acceptance of existential reality, a recognition of ultimate truths – the absurd randomness, pointlessness, and futility of everything – can only be depressing for most of us and typically produces a bleak outlook.”... “This does not mean that existential nihilists, like me, must always be gloomy. We can and do still have fun, still care about others, still try to be good people. But we know, deep down, that it all adds up to nothing, and this leaves a dark hollowness at the center.”
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Joel Rudinow who teaches Philosophy and Humanities at Santa Rosa Junior College. He is also author of Invitation to Critical Thinking. The topic of the interview is about the Posthuman mind and how critical thinking applies to such a concept. We discuss important issues from whether or not the Posthuman will be friendly to the evolution of critical thinking.
An interview with PETA shows that the group is helping with the destruction of current technologies contributing to the suffering of animals worldwide while embracing emerging technologies that will help the fight for animal rights.
On October 6, 2011, protestors will converge on Washington D.C. to recreate Tahrir Square here in the United States. It is important to transhumanists and non-transhumanists alike because it calls for, in the end, the reduction of the use of money and technology to feed America’s imperial war efforts and to challenge those in charge to use our defense money for environmental purposes.
In an inevitable posthuman world, which ethical theory will triumph: The Categorical Imperative, Utilitarianism, Existential Ethics, Normative Intellectualism or Technoprogressivism?
I’ve spent almost a month in Egypt and can tell you that what I saw was a divide between the rich and poor, corruption, and poverty. As the picture on this page shows of me in Cairo standing in the middle of garbage, something common all over the city, things have got to change. However I also saw the rise of the internet and cell phone use.
Traditional values of looking at gender in binary fashion grow less and less important as scientists show that gender identity is diverse in nature and is caused by many biological and social conditions.
Eventually, we may reach a point where humans are immortal, hyperintelligent, and don’t suffer from mental illnesses. However, we will still probably argue with those we love, want things we don’t have the ability to get, and experience stress from most of the same factors that have caused it since the dawn of time.
When we sit back and think about how matter in its simplest stable macro form like protons, neutrons, and electrons, with properties that have the ability to retain information about how to carry on its complexity within different environmental factors, we reach a point where we can imagine these stable forms of matter becoming processes of life. We naturally use our mind to create conceptions of the nature of physical and chemical processes.
This article is not about nihilism, but about epistemology and ontology, the end result in the form of scientific value of existence. Ethics from a nihilist-like world makes sense in light of current theories of existence. Human V2.0, or posthumans, will have to deal with the same scientific paradigms as we do today. Their sped-up cognition may allow for paradigms to come and go quickly, but let’s imagine that the meaning to existence is still not answered, that it all comes down to agnostic, atheistic value.
Why do people believe different paradigms and memes over others? At this point in time there are a number of theories that can be utilized to answer this question but they remain crude in nature.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Katalin Balog, an Associate Professor at Rutgers/Newark. Prior to her current position she taught at Yale for 10 years. Prof. Balog is primarily a philosopher of mind and psychology though her interests intersect with metaphysics and philosophy of language. Her interest spans both Western psychology (cognitive and evolutionary psychology but also psycho-analysis) and Eastern (especially Buddhist) psychology. She is currently working on problems related to the nature of consciousness, personal identity and free will.
This may come as a surprise to many, but apparently near the end of last year golfer Tiger Woods found himself in the middle of a sex scandal that was covered extensively throughout almost every news outlet. During all this, a sub-scandal erupted when Fox News correspondent Brit Hume said that Woods should convert from his previous religion of Buddhism to Christianity, as Christianity offers more forgiveness than Buddhism. Woods did not convert and, in fact, during his public apology for all that had happened, discussed his adherence to Buddhism and an intention to reapply himself to its teachings in an effort to change how he was living his life.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Jason Beard, a 25 year old man that received a cochlear implant in May of 2009. Jason was hearing impaired from birth but was able to hear some sounds with the help of a hearing aid however he was not able to carry on conversations. With the help of a CI his life has changed.
“The antiscience tendency in anarchism, which does exist, is completely self-defeating on this score [questions of technology and revolution]. I mean, it is going to take, it is going to require sophisticated technology and scientific discoveries to create the possibility for human society to survive—I mean, unless we decide, well, it just shouldn’t survive, we should get down to, you know, 100,000 hunter-gatherers or something. Okay, except for that, if you’re serious about, you know, the billions of people in the world who—and their children and grandchildren, it’s going to require scientific and technological advances.” – Noam Chomsky
It has been claimed by biologists that the brains of females and males are different in obscure ways. However, physical differences in adults may be due to psychological and sociological pressures on the brains of each gender, because cultures and societies may exaggerate roles and stereotypes, having an impact on brain plasticity.
We are pleased to introduce the five members of our revised IEET intern program: Akansha Bhargava, Diana Deca, Kris Notaro, Ben Scarlato, and Priyamvada Sivasubramanian.
This is a humorous look (or not) on both postmodernism and structuralism, in a deferential way. The regression towards the mean concept is used metaphorically.
What properties of consciousness and mind will remain the same in a posthuman world? Will enhanced minds look at themselves and reality like we do? What can we learn from cognitive science and consciousness studies to help answer these questions? What are some ethical consequences of enhancing the brain/mind?
One day away from the Singularity Summit in NYC! I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be posting reports to this blog from the Summit on behalf of the IEET.
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Will Enlightened Posthumans Establish Post-Capitalist Utopias? pt2
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