James Ledford: I attended the University of Arizona for Nuclear Engineering, I am married (27 years) with 2 daughters and 4 grandchildren. I’m an Instructor at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station just west of Phoenix Arizona where we tap into the nucleus of the atom to provide an energy source a million times more concentrated than that of previous sources. We convert nuclear energy to electrical energy to power the Southwest.
30 years ago I helped design the operator training program and now I implement the program by teaching nuclear physics, thermodynamics, process control systems and reactor operation. This training program has grown in recognition as the very best in the world indicated by our reactor operator class through- put, nuclear safety record, and actual power plant capacity factor.
Tapping into nuclear power in such a way that an individual can control gigawatts of power by hand is a good example of transhumanism. It puts us up the Kardashev scale which is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to utilize.
To me transhumanism is a quickening of an evolutionary trend. We gain control of our evolution and improve the human condition through developing and creating widely available technologies. We study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as the ethics of using such technologies.
Hank Pellissier: Aren’t you a founding member of the Christian Transhumanist Association?
James Ledford: Yes, I am also transhumanist in hope and faith: I’m Catholic (in the Pierre Tielhard de Chardin sense) where we believe there is a healthy balance of faith and works that leads to the most optimistic trans-humanizing outcome for life: divinization.
I am also member of The Sant Nirankari Universal Brotherhood Mission based in India focusing on the divine potential of humanity, and I am a member of the Ching Hai Meditation Center, initiated in the Quan Yin method, called “The Way of the Universe”.
About twenty years ago I recognized a very potent synthesis in how science, technology and spirituality can be easily reconciled by the perennial philosophy - a common outlook on life that there is much more to discover and become. The pioneers among us consciously evolve in understanding and creative powers with the aim of sustaining a life worth living, indefinitely. In 2001, as a reaction to this realization, and because I am a child of the western world, I formulated a type of Christian Transhumanism and opened my beliefs to discussion and sharing through my internet websites. The websites allowed the information to reach a global audience and in 2014, I co-founded the Christian Transhumanist Association.
Hank Pellissier: Tell me about your opinion that “increasing Love” is the most important goal for transhumanists.
Engaged thinking teams greatly reduce risk of any critical task. At the Sandia Labs this idea is called The Cognitive Collective – (When studying military conflict for the government they come to the conclusion that information superiority is imperative) “There is so much data that it is not practical to have humans consider all of it, particularly if they must be experts in one or more fields. But, In a Cognitive Collective, a communicating group may recognize a pattern in cases where no single one was able to see a pattern." If you know something share it. Care enough to act. If the cognitive collective is efficient and sustained understanding increases in a potentially exponential fashion.
In practice I find peace (keeping a cool head) very important because it helps minimizing the noise inherent in communication; it allows unwavering attention, which establishes a clear unambiguous connection. Also there needs to be forgiveness, because at the heart of the process there are errors; symbols, words, and feelings are ordered into meaning imperfectly and so a type of “forgiveness” is important to the process. Forgiveness establishes error correction by exhausting misunderstanding and disorder. A person who does not forgive is encumbered by a heavy baggage of memories of the wrong.
Of course this is the soft side of basic information and communications theory. You could apply the process to computers, the internet, telecommunications, social networking, sensory and kinesthetic enhancement, and international diplomacy. We are actually coming together, living better, and becoming more conscious of the world because of growth in what I call the love process.
The Love Process has the power of life behind it: The current definition of life is: a characteristic distinguishing physical entities having signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not. Nobel Laureate Murry Gell-Mann describes a life form as an Information Gathering and Using System (IGUS). An IGUS is a sufficiently self-aware being that collects information, stores it, processes it, uses it, and then, via a feedback mechanism, attempts to improve the usage of the information. This sets up a strange loop: The better you are at “IGUS” or the more intelligent you are, the more likely you will live to transhumanize another day.
As corny as it may sound, there is reason to believe that we will converge on universal love, even as we compete. It’s the winning strategy in the game of life.
In a Cambrian-type intelligence explosion the survival of the fittest contest will be won by the ones who gain the cognitive high ground. In that race you must be very efficient, not retaining the least bit of ignorance or baggage. The most efficient way to learn the world, is by loving the world. Love is the cognitive high ground.
Hank Pellissier: In your opinion, what can people do to increase our capacity to love?
James Ledford: 1) Personally increase connections, attention capacity and working memory in every transhuman way.
2) Collectively improve the health of the attention economy which can be measured in the types of advances we make in communication, education, and research.
3) Good information should be readily available to all not behind paywalls. A wise society would recognize the components of the attention economy and help it grow. Google is successful because it connects people to the world better than anyone else. Because of our transhuman tendencies, there is much more opportunity for entrepreneurs in the real-world interfacing and actualizing. Human performance improvements ultimately focus on new digital technologies, including: digital reality systems - virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mix reality (MR), artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms, advanced robotics, and a wide variety of new sensor technologies. Companies are fusing these digital technologies with evolving neuroscience principals to achieve improvements in human performance in fundamentally new ways, such as digital therapeutics, validated neurowellness, and accelerated growth in understanding and experiential entertainment.
We are naturally transhuman and progress is certain to continue. It is the “Groove” and the meaning of our lives, to learn, to order, to create, and to make things better for the next generation. With our robust communication systems we have grown connected to each other, and to the vast amount of information we have collected over the ages. We are free to pick which of this we pay attention to. Once data is "mined" and worked into information it can be sold. Corporations and Nations attempt to monopolize information but information will be free. It dissipates in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.
We have a situation where there is a vast amount of information available but a limited supply of attention. Businesses are essentially competing for our attention. Webster defines attention as “the giving of one’s mind to something". Giving your mind to something is no small thing. Attached to your mind is your spirit and your resources. When we concentrate on something, social capital is endowed upon it. This makes your attention precious. It is better than money. What you pay attention to is yours to decide. What do you get for paying attention? You receive an experience. The lasting value and worth of the experience is measured in potential for your growth. A rich experience is called a flow experience.
Hank Pellissier: Can you define this ‘Flow Experience’?
James Ledford: This is what to look in The Flow Experience:
1) a clear goal,
2) concentration on the task at hand, worries and concerns are suspended,
3) immediate feedback, you know instantly how well you are doing,
4) a sense of growth and of being part of some greater thing,
5) a feeling that time seems to pass faster,
6) expansion of self through the experience.
Hank Pellissier: And this relates to Love?
James Ledford: The highest quality of attention is love. Love is expressed when you give your full attention, your time, and your focus to someone or something. Here is the fundamental connection between science spirituality and the meaning of life; Love is a mode of understanding. It is uniting. It is spiritual. To know something is to love it and to love something is to know it.
"We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge, and when the love is sufficiently disinterested and sufficiently intense, the knowledge becomes unitive knowledge and so takes on the quality of infallibility."
Huxley, Aldous (2012-02-14). The Perennial Philosophy (P.S.) (p. 81). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Images
James Ledford in the control room simulator training reactor startups.
The continuum of understanding. Design by James Ledford.