IEET Rights News http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/rights Protecting cognitive liberty, reproductive rights, and body autonomy, enhancing consent, challenging human-racism, and promoting personhood ethics, ape rights, e-democracy, basic income security and the right to technological empowerment. http://ieet.org/images/ieet.jpg Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/rights Promoting the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities en director@ieet.org Copyright 2009 2009-07-03T21:06:00+00:00 Metaphysics of Science http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mos09/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mos09/#When:21:06:00Z This is a preliminary announcement of a conference on the Metaphysics of Science, which will be held at the University of Melbourne 3-5 July 2009. We plan to hold the conference on the University of Melbourne campus, and we expect that the primary location for accommodation will be Ormond College.

]]> Rights > FreeThought]]> Purpose

The purpose of the conference will be to promote discussion of current research in the metaphysics of science. The field of the metaphysics of science is one that barely existed a decade or two ago. But it has now become one of the most active areas of current research in philosophy of science and closely related areas of philosophy. Our aim will be to bring together a significant group of philosophers who are currently working on the metaphysics of science for concentrated discussion of their current research, as well as to explore new directions that are opening up in the field. It is anticipated that at least one major volume of published essays will emerge from papers presented at the conference.

For a general overview of the relevant issues, please see the text on the Metaphysics of Science by Brian Ellis.
Topics

We anticipate that topics will range over a variety of areas of interest in the metaphysics of science. Such potential topics for discussion may include topics in the ontology of science, such as causation, laws of nature, natural kinds, universals, essences, dispositions and powers. Issues relating to scientific realism and anti-realism, as well as the implications of the realist/anti-realist debate for topics in the metaphysics of science will also be on the agenda. Other topics to be explored are likely to include the nature of possibility and necessity, as well as truth-makers, especially as these topics relate to the metaphysics of science.
International focus

Research in the metaphysics of science is being undertaken throughout the philosophical world. We therefore expect the conference to be international in character. Philosophers in the Australasian region have been active contributors to this new field of research. So we expect a significant presence of Australasian philosophers working in the area. However, we hope to attract significant participation by philosophers from North America, Great Britain and continental Europe, as well as other parts of the world.
Invited speakers

We are pleased to be able to announce that we have been able to invite the following as invited speakers at the conference:

  * Alexander Bird (Bristol)
  * Simon Blackburn (Cambridge)
  * Jeremy Butterfield (Cambridge)
  * Barry Loewer (Rutgers)
  * Stathis Psillos (Athens)

We plan to announce a number of further invited speakers as details become available.
Further details

Further details will be announced on this website, as information becomes available. In particular, we plan in the near future to issue a call for papers, as well as to announce details of the conference venue, registration details and accommodation.
Conference organization

The conference is a joint initiative that is sponsored on a collective basis by the Philosophy programs of La Trobe, Melbourne and Monash Universities. The Centre for Time of the University of Sydney will co-sponsor a symposium which will be held at the conference.

Organizational Committee: David Armstrong, John Bigelow, Andrew Brennan, Brian Ellis, Graham Oppy, Toby Handfield, Huw Price, Graham Priest, Howard Sankey.

For further information, please contact the conference organizer, Howard Sankey: chs@unimelb.edu.au

]]> 2009-07-03T21:06:00+00:00 Life Inc. video dispatches and audiobook available http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/lifeincd09/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/lifeincd09/#When:17:29:30Z IEET Fellow Doug Rushkoff is posting brief videos and MP3s encapsulating key concepts from his Life Inc for de-corporatizing our lives, abandoning the speculative economy, and rebuilding both commerce and community from the bottom up.

]]> Rights > Economic > Fellows > Doug Rushkoff]]> Dispatches to date; check ‘em and spread ‘em:

Life Inc. Dispatch 01: Crisis as Opportunity

Life Inc. Dispatch 02: Insulation Equation

Life Inc. Dispatch 03: Money as Debt

Life Inc. Dispatch 04: It’s Just Little Brown People Over There, Somewhere

Life Inc. Dispatch 05: Markets Love Selfish People

Life Inc. Dispatch 06: Why Corporations Hate the Free Market

There is also an audiobook jukebox where you can listen for free to Doug reading some of LIFE INC, including:

- Intro - Your Money Or Your Life: A Lesson On The Front Stoop
- Chapter 1 - Once Removed The Corporate Life-form
- Chapter 9 - Here and now

 

]]> 2009-07-03T17:29:30+00:00 Blackford and Schuklenk interviewed about 50 Voices http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bsi50v/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bsi50v/#When:16:39:52Z The Examiner conducted a very nice interview with IEET Fellow Russell Blackford, and his co-editor Udo Schuklenk, about their new volume 50 Voices of Disbelief

]]> Rights > FreeThought > Fellows > Russell Blackford]]>

Have you ever wondered why Michael Shermer is an atheist, or Margaret Downey, or A.C. Grayling, or James Randi, or Victor Stenger, or many other well known atheists? You will be able to find out this coming fall. The new book “50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists” by Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk is a collection of essays by some of the most prominent on why they are atheists. Inspirational stories and philosophical monologues will provide a doorway into the author’s life, and shed some light on their journey to the land of non-belief.

Both authors agreed to a small interview to tell readers more about their book and why they’ve decided to create it. If you’re intrigued by this book, read this interview and you will see that it is a must read for any atheist. If you’re still hiding in the “closet”, this book will inspire and give you energy to kick the door open and tell everyone that you’re an atheist. Just think about it, reading these stories is like having conversations with Austin Dacey, Peter Singer, Lori Lipman Brown, and many more. Why not immerse yourself into the lives of your favorite authors and people you admire?

Read the rest here.

]]> 2009-07-03T16:39:52+00:00 Edward Miller How to Redesign our Communities for the Internet Age http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20090702/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/miller20090702/#When:15:34:09Z (IEET intern Edward Miller is guest blogging at Sentient Developments this month.) There is a long list of crises that we need to face and I won’t waste time boring you by listing them. As our brightest minds admit they were wrong, I hope that I can say, without qualification, that big changes in our thinking are required. Unfortunately, we haven’t made that “Change” even though we now have some new faces in power, and a bunch of old faces out of business or in prison.

]]> Rights > Economic > Interns > Edward Miller]]> 2009-07-03T15:34:09+00:00 Mike Treder The Difficult Questions of ‘Personhood’ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090702/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090702/#When:15:06:43Z Every human is a person, right? And anyone we call a person must be a human, correct?

Well, no, not necessarily.

]]> Rights > Disability > Personhood > Life > Innovation > Vision > Futurism > Staff > Mike Treder]]> 2009-07-02T15:06:43+00:00 The Paradox of Neurotechnology II http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/tpon2/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/tpon2/#When:18:04:57Z Website

Date: TBA

As the fields that are broadly grouped under the rubric of neuroscience provide increasingly more information about the structure and function of neural systems and the brain, it becomes relatively easier to accept and use this data as “facts” to guide, if not actually dictate, our perspectives and activities. Indeed, in the past decade neuroscience has become something of a focal point for applications of genetic and nanotechnologies. The pace of neuroscientific discovery is fueled in part by the synergy of new technology in these and other areas, as neuroscientific advances are both being applied in medicine and integrated into the fabric of social conduct and daily life. This in turn has spawned incipient fields of “neuroeconomics,” “neuromarketing,” “neurolaw,” “neurotheology,” etc. But given the reality that knowledge of the brain and mind remains incomplete and contingent, the ‘neuro’ prefix seems to have become synecdoche for the reductionist/anti-reductionist debate in each of the areas in which it is used, prompting us to consider what some have regarded as “the limits of neuro-talk.”

In this second symposium, a host of distinguished participants will address the question of the changes that might be needed in the theories and concepts of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology if a holistic concept of the human person is to emerge from them. The core discussion will center on questions of how the brain creates the phenomenal “mind,” and if and how this phenomenal mind can affect the neural mechanisms of decision-making, deliberation, and resolutions that impact much of our individual and social behavior. In particular, the speakers will address what is often referred to as the “Hermeneutic Circle” that questions the relationships of part and whole, causes and effects, and the implications that these issues raise. Key questions include the extent to which conscious choices can reclaim the self from patterns of intention, behavior and need, and the degree to which we can properly speak of a self concept as having a determining role in our life choices.

]]> Rights > Neuroethics > Life > Enablement]]> 2009-07-01T18:04:57+00:00 Ben Scarlato True Blood: Coexistence http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/scarlato20090630/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/scarlato20090630/#When:02:39:59Z [Contains spoilers] True Blood is a fascinating HBO series about vampires living with humans, now in its second season. It follows Sookie Stackhouse, a human that has fallen in love with the vampire Bill Compton. While the vampires’ fight for marriage rights and the intense religious opposition reflects the gay rights struggle, True Blood’s depiction of an ageless species with several enhanced powers also provides an exploration of how society might deal with transhumans, and perhaps more importantly how society views such possibilities.

]]> Rights > Privacy > Life > Vision > Bioculture > Interns > Ben Scarlato]]> 2009-07-01T02:39:59+00:00 Mike Treder Technoprogressives and Transhumanists: What’s the difference? http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090625/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20090625/#When:15:41:11Z Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science—the so-called “NBIC” technologies—have the potential, especially as they converge, to radically transform both human beings and human societies.

Let’s consider a couple of questions raised by the powerful possibilities that loom in the near future.

]]> Security > SciTech > Rights > Economic > Life > Access > Enablement > Vision > Technoprogressivism > Staff > Mike Treder]]> 2009-06-25T15:41:11+00:00 J. Hughes On Democratic Transhumanism http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20090623/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20090623/#When:19:50:03Z The political journal Re-Public has published two special issues on the politics of transhumanism. The first collection included IEET Executive Director J. Hughes’ article “Transhumanist politics, 1700 to the near future”. This second collection of essays includes IEET Fellow Riccardo Campa’s “Toward a transhumanist politics”, an interview with IEET Fellow Andy Miah on “Human enhancement and the accumulation of biocultural capital,” and this interview with Dr. Hughes about democratic transhumanism and technoprogressivism.

]]> Security > Rights > Life > Vision > Technoprogressivism > Staff > J. Hughes]]> 2009-06-24T19:50:03+00:00 Ben Goertzel AI And What To Do About It: Invest in human obsolescence http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20090623/ http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20090623/#When:18:57:46Z Of all the amazing technologies on the brink of creation, one has implications far beyond any others: the establishment of superhuman artificial intelligence, or AI.

]]> Security > Cyber > Rights > Economic > Vision > Futurism > Fellows > Ben Goertzel]]> 2009-06-24T18:57:46+00:00