Category Archives: Transhuman

7 hours ago Credit: Colin Anderson, 2005 (Masterfile)

What do pacemakers, prosthetic limbs, Iron Man and flu vaccines all have in common? They are examples of an old idea that's been gaining in significance in the last several decades: transhumanism. The word denotes a set of ideas relating to the increasing integration of humans with their technologies. At the heart of the transhuman conversation, however, lies the oldest question of all: What does it mean to be human?

When talking about transhumanism, it's easy to get lost because the definition is imprecise. "Transhumanism" can refer to the Transhumanist (with a capital T) movement, which actively pursues a technologically enhanced future, or an amorphous body of ideas and technologies that are closing the bio-techno gap, such as a robotic exoskeleton that enhances the natural strength of the wearer.

What is human?

At Arizona State University, a diverse set of researchers has been critically examining transhumanism since 2004.

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, a professor in ASU's School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and director of the Center for Jewish Studies, has been at the forefront of this work. Her research includes a project exploring the challenges of transhumanism in collaboration with ASU's Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict.

According to Tirosh-Samuelson, transhumanists seek to transcend human biology through techno-genetic enhancements. Their ultimate goal is the Singularity a supposedly inexorable turning point after which humans as we understand them will eventually become obsolete, either because super-intelligent machines will replace them or because techno-genetic enhancements will render them unrecognizable. Essentially, it would be a new phase of human evolution driven by exponential technological growth.

"Homo sapiens will give rise to Robo sapiens," Tirosh-Samuelson says.

But Brad Allenby, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at ASU, says the idea that transhumanism will end humanity is just one of many transhumanist narratives.

"That's why transhumanism is so confusing," says Allenby. "Because some of the time people are talking about very normative perspectives on what it means to be human, and some of the time they're talking about specific technologies, or suites of technologies. That makes it very hard to define."

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Beyond human: Exploring transhumanism

The Transhuman Condition
The Transhuman Condition Encephalon 2011 Artoffact Records Released on: 2011-11-08 Auto-generated by YouTube.

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The Transhuman Condition - Video

Cambrian Genomics - Transhuman Dystopian Future Replacing Natural Life With Synthetic Creations.
CEO Austen Heinz of Cambrian Genomics : "We want to make everything that is alive on the planet. Everything that is alive is not optimal, it can be made better. We want to make totally new...

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Cambrian Genomics - Transhuman Dystopian Future Replacing Natural Life With Synthetic Creations. - Video

A. I. Delight - Weird Transhuman Postart - In Silence #0001
Another video experiment with (mostly) AVIO.

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A. I. Delight - Weird Transhuman Postart - In Silence #0001 - Video

Amaranthe - Transhuman
Afterlife by Amaranthe. Buy the original album, The Nexus - http://www.emp-online.it/amaranthe-the-nexus-cd/art_256535/ Tracklist: Afterlife - http://youtu.be/Uip5kUEPABs Invincible - http://youtu...

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Emanakcuf - "Transhuman Revolution"
Operation Metalfest Dunsmuir CA October 18th 2014.

By: Jon Herfindahl

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Emanakcuf - "Transhuman Revolution" - Video

ALEX JONES PATRICK M WOOD: NWO, Technocracy Transhuman Takeover!
ALEX JONES PATRICK M WOOD: NWO, Technocracy Transhuman Takeover! Alex welcomes to the broadcast The August Forecast Review Editor Patrick M. Wood to di...

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ALEX JONES & PATRICK M WOOD: NWO, Technocracy & Transhuman Takeover! - Video

Violent Virtues, Transhuman Moorhaven as #39;Whitechapel #39;
Violent Virtues, Transhuman Moorhaven came together for a Virtues re-union show to bring Whitechapel to Tiki Bar and Grill. Filmed with my GoPro. Set List:...

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Violent Virtues, Transhuman & Moorhaven as 'Whitechapel' - Video

In their zeal to collect as much operational data as possible, organizations hoping to gain an advantage through the use of big data will also need to rethink how they process, analyze and present that material.

When all this information finally gets to the business, it is difficult for the business to understand what to glean out of the data, said Sharmila Shahani-Mulligan, CEO and co-founder of big-data startup ClearStory Data. We know this has been a problem for several years now.

Shahani-Mulligan was one of a number of speakers at the OReilly Strata + Hadoop World conference Thursday in New York to offer tips on making the move from data to big data. She suggested that the executive dashboard is giving way to emerging technique of interactive storytelling, which gives data more readily apparent context and meaning.

Meanwhile, organizations should watch Google closely, advised M.C. Srivas, chief technology officer of Hadoop distributor MapR Technologies. Google, with its vast and varied infrastructure, can provide us with a glimpse into the future of where computing is going, said Srivas, who worked at Google before co-founding MapR.

One of the basic rules to pick up from Google is that more data beats complex algorithms, Srivas said. This is something that Google has demonstrated again and again: The company that can process the most data will have an advantage over everybody else in the future.

A number of MapR customers are following this principle, Srivas said.

Millennial Media, a leader in the mobile advertising market, collects up to about 4TB of mobile user data each day, combining with petabytes of data on hand to build profiles of mobile users.

Cisco collects data from its firewalls worldwide, aggregating about a million events per second, all to better detect security threats. Credit agency TransHuman collects data from multiple sources to provide real-time credit scores.

But once an organization has committed to collecting more data, the question becomes what to do with it.

Visualization is a handy tool, but picking the correct visualization is vitally important, advised Miriah Meyer, an assistant professor in the University of Utahs School of Computing.

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Hadoop World: The executive dashboard is on the way out

Humans love to have their minds blown. We are changed by that feeling of seeing or learning something perfectly new -- that feeling we call awe. And, according to Jason Silva, thats the secret to really spectacular online content.

Great content trades in the currency of inspiration, said Silva, host of the popular National Geographic TV show Brain Games and futurist with YouTube series Shots of Awe, at Advertising Week in New York City earlier this month. If we are going to tell a story, if we are working with advertisers -- why not make that story inspirational? Why not make that story mindblowing? Why not give people that experience of cognitive ecstasy? Because I promise you they are going to be more compelled to share if they are moved by what you have created.

At a time when the volume of material for people to read and watch is exponentially growing, being able to grab consumers attention online is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you can invoke wonder and amazement in the content you create and share, you stand a better chance at making those consumers your customers.

Related:Market to Empowered Women: It's Ethical -- And It's Good for Business

Silva spends his life seeking that feeling -- that exhilarating neurostorm of intense intellectual pleasure. He specifically curates what he reads, sees and does to maximize his potential for experiencing awe.

I think it was Aristotle who used to say that human beings dont care about spectacle, what they care about is ecstatic understanding, he says. We want to feel like we learned something new. We want to upgrade our maps. We want that cognitive ecstasy.

How does he define awe? Its that sensation you experience when youre presented with something you have no existing framework to process. Consider the first time you went to the Grand Canyon or the first time you saw an IMAX 3-D film about space. Literally you have no reference points for what you are seeing, no anchoring for what you are seeing, so your mental maps of the world are being upgraded in real time and that is an experience of awe.

Its next to impossible to listen to Silva and not believe what he preaches. Hes animated, energetic and eager. Its as though he wants to give his audience a taste of the cognitive ecstasy he preaches about. But alongside his charismatic presentation is some pretty impressive science. A 2012 study published in Psychological Science determined that experiencing awe slows down peoples perception of time, and that the more a person experiences awe, the more satisfied they are with life.

Related:Dig Inn Founder: 'I Wouldn't Let People Tell You That You Can't Do Things'

Advances in technology open up more opportunity for awe -- and thats a good thing. The changes we are experiencing now, such as the constantly shrinking size of a computer chip or the miniaturization of the video camera, will provide new experiences we cannot even imagine. Silva says thats not something to be feared, but something to look forward to.

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Your Online Content Should Deliver 'Cognitive Ecstasy'