We have been brainwashed to believe that “blood is thicker than water.” But we lack familial shared genes with spouses and best friends. In reality what is most important is shared thoughts, experiences and feelings. Affinity based upon genes is as obsolete as loyalty based upon melanin. The beme is mightier than the gene.
Humanity is devoting some of its best minds, from a wide diversity of fields, to helping software achieve consciousness. The quest is not especially difficult as it is a capability that can be intelligently designed; there is no need to wait for it to naturally evolve.
Cyberconsciousness implies techno-immortality. Immortality means living forever. This has never happened in the real world, so we think of immortality as a spiritual existence (as in heaven) or as a non-personal existence (as in ‘Bach’s music will live forever’). With cyberconsciousness it will be possible, for the first time, for a person to live forever in the real world. This unique, technologically empowered form of living forever is called techno-immortality.
I am often asked what is the single most important issue that needs to be resolved in order to insure that health care reform moves forward in America. The answer is actually quite simple. If the key reason to reform the health care system is to extend health insurance coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who have none, then all those promoting reform but especially President Obama must drive home the ethical position that health care is a right.
We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Arthur Caplan, one of the world’s foremost bioethicists, has agreed to serve on the IEET’s Board of Trustees. The other current member of the Board is Martine Rothblatt. We are in the process of gathering a few more members for this body to help the IEET establish a serious philanthropic base, and promote our technoprogressive policy options in the marketplace of ideas.
We are 37th! We are 37th! No, this is not the cheer to be heard this week at a Notre Dame football pep rally. Rather, it is, according to the last rankings done by the World Health Organization, the chant appropriate for the U.S. health care system. What does the rest of the world know that we don’t?
The term “mindclone” evokes a wide range of sci-fi images from the “Cylons” of Battlestar Galactica to the “Mr. Smiths” of The Matrix. While it is indisputable that we are creating large mindfiles, as described in Question 1, and surely there are geeks working hard on mindware, as reviewed in Question 2, how close could we be to an actual mindclone when computers can’t converse on their own much better than a two-year old kid?
A mindclone is a software version of your mind. He or she is all of your thoughts, recollections, feelings, beliefs, attitudes and values, and is experiencing reality from the standpoint of whatever machine their mindware is running on. Mindclones are mindfiles being used and updated by mindware that has been set to be a functionally equivalent replica of one’s mind. A mindclone is your software-based alter ego, doppelganger, or mental twin. If your body died, but you had a mindclone, you would not feel that you personally died, although the body would be missed more sorely than amputees miss their limbs.
Mindware is operating system software that (a) thinks and feels the way a human mind does, and (b) sets its thinking and feeling parameters to match those discernable from a mindfile. Mindware relies upon an underlying mindfile the way Microsoft Word relies upon a textfile. When appropriate parameters are set for mindware it becomes aware of itself and a cyberconscious entity is created.
A mindfile is the sum of saved digital reflections about you. All of the stored emails, chats, texts, IMs and blogs that you write are part of your mindfile. All of the uploaded photos, slide shows and movies that involve you are part of your mindfile. Your search histories, clicked selections and online purchases, if saved, are part of your mindfile. Your digital life is your mindfile.
In its “Special Issue on Transhumanism”, the magazine Global Spiral gave guest editor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and five other authors - Ted Peters, Katherine Hayles, Don Ihde, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, and Andrew Pickering - all participants in a Templeton Foundation-funded project on transhumanism - an opportunity to critique transhumanism’s alleged faults. This responsive second Special Issue on Transhumanism is an opportunity for ten transhumanist authors - seven of them members of the IEET community - to evaluate the criticisms and address concerns.
The IEET does a lot with very little, and a lot of that little over the last couple of years has come from Dr. Martine Rothblatt. We are delighted to acknowledge her most recent gift of $5000. Her support means a lot to us, and we’re looking forward to the release of her new film Transbeman.
The Order of Cosmic Engineers are a group of transhumanists who are focused on “turning this universe into a ‘magical’ realm.” They focus on building their activity in online virtual reality worlds. They include IEET Board member Giulio Prisco and IEET advisor Martine Rothblatt. They have recently issued the “YES! to Transhumanism” statement which is a call to arms for defense of radical transhumanism against pressures to downplay the more challenging and futuristic aspects of the transhumanist perspective.
Martine Rothblatt has an interesting idea. Unfortunately, I don’t think her idea is going to work.
In our cybernetic and virtual world of the future, says Rothblatt, genes are not going to matter so much. Instead, we’ll be concerned about ‘bemes’— a fundamental, transmissible, unit of beingness.
IEET advisor Peter Houghton and IEET Executive Director James Hughes are writing a book, tentatively titled Cyborg Life: The Reality of Living With Artificial Parts. Peter is an artificial heart device recipient (LVAD) and the founder of several charities in the UK working on the technologies and needs of people with artificial organs. He has been collecting narratives of people with heart assist devices, insulin pumps and similar devices, and in this book we intend to describe the current experiences of people with implanted medical devices, and the public policy agenda to ensure universal access to safe, life enhancing devices in the future. The website - with resources and a blog - is here.
We’re all busy busy here at the IEET, between attending and organizing conferences, writing blogs and papers, producing podcasts, and working on books. Here’s an update on some of the books we’re working on.
Macro-Bushido is a set of ethical guidelines for the modern Info-Cultural Age based on Bushido, the unwritten code of ethics that guided Japan’s samurai until about one hundred years ago. The seven principles of Bushido are: Rectitude, Courage, Benevolence, Politeness, Veracity, Honor and Loyalty. Rothblatt dissects each principle and explains how it could be applied to the modern world and in particular, to emerging cyberconsciousness. Rothblatt argues that upholding Macro-Bushido in today’s world will result in many benefits, among them that humans may be saved from the consequences of shortsightedness by refocusing their attention on loyalty to a higher goal. In addition, a class of modern samurai may emerge to help keep humanity loyal to the objectives of diversity, unity and immortality. These ideals are invaluable as we arrive at personal cyberconsciousness within humanity’s quest for survival.
On November 5, 2005 Drs. James Hughes (IEET Exec. Dir.), Martine Rothblatt (IEET Advisor), and Aubrey de Grey (IEET Fellow) spoke at the first Immortality Institute conference in Atlanta Georgia. Their powerpoints and video are now online:
IEET Blog |
email list |
newsletter |
The IEET is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization registered in the State of Connecticut in the United States.
Contact: Executive Director, Dr. James J. Hughes,
Williams 229B, Trinity College, 300 Summit St., Hartford CT
06106 USA
Email: director @ ieet.org phone:
860-297-2376
How Uploading Works 
Obituaries: 
Dr. Hughes and Dr. Rothblatt speaking at the Immortality Institute conference November 5, 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia
IEET Blog