After I recently moved to India, I was asked to write another blog-article for IEET, this time about the question of India’s role in accelerating change and the technological “Singularity.”
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Posted by
Ilia Stambler on 02/04 at 12:03 PM
“A future cyborg, trans/posthuman or AGI would possibly just be integrated into the pantheon of innumerable Hindu gods and goddesses, among Shiva the renewer and destroyer … maybe it will be Kalkin, who will usher in a new age.”
The idea of the incarnation of Vishnu as Kalki - the “machine man” - does seem to be very relevant (though the Wikipedia article does not seem to mention this aspect of Kalki). Even now the iconography of Vishnu is mighty futuristic.
I have been thinking of the Transhumanist discourse in terms of the Hindu Trinity – Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer:
While the proponents of human enhancement may be closer to the spirit of Brahma, the proponents of life-extension may be the followers of Vishnu, the proponents of transience may be closer to Shiva.
IEET Blog