Category Archives: Transhuman

This article is about the futurist ideology and movement. For the critique of humanism, see posthumanism. For the pattern of seasonal migration, see transhumance.

Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international cultural and intellectual movement with an eventual goal of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.[1] Transhumanist thinkers study the potential benefits and dangers of emerging technologies that could overcome fundamental human limitations, as well as study the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies. They predict that human beings may eventually be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label "posthuman".[1]

The contemporary meaning of the term transhumanism was foreshadowed by one of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new concepts of the Human" at The New School in the 1960s, when he began to identify people who adopt technologies, lifestyles and worldviews transitional to "posthumanity" as "transhuman".[2] This hypothesis would lay the intellectual groundwork for the British philosopher Max More to begin articulating the principles of transhumanism as a futurist philosophy in 1990, and organizing in California an intelligentsia that has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.[2][3][4]

Influenced by seminal works of science fiction, the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives.[2] Transhumanism has been characterized by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as among the world's most dangerous ideas,[5] to which Ronald Bailey countered that it is rather the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity".[6]

According to Nick Bostrom,[1]transcendentalist impulses have been expressed at least as far back as in the quest for immortality in the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as historical quests for the Fountain of Youth, Elixir of Life, and other efforts to stave off aging and death.

There is debate about whether the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche can be considered an influence on transhumanism despite its exaltation of the "bermensch" (overman), due to its emphasis on self-actualization rather than technological transformation.[1][7][8][9]

The fundamental ideas of transhumanism were first mooted in 1923 by the British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane in his essay Daedalus: Science and the Future, which predicted that great benefits would come from applications of advanced sciences to human biology and that every such advance would first appear to someone as blasphemy or perversion, "indecent and unnatural". In particular, he was interested in the development of the science of eugenics, ectogenesis (creating and sustaining life in an artificial environment) and the application of genetics to improve human characteristics, such as health and intelligence.

His article prompted a spate of academic and popular interest; - J. D. Bernal, a crystallographer at Cambridge, wrote The World, the Flesh and the Devil in 1929, in which he speculated on the prospects of space colonization and radical changes to human bodies and intelligence through bionic implants and cognitive enhancement.[10] These ideas have been common transhumanist themes ever since.[1]

The biologist Julian Huxley is generally regarded as the founder of "transhumanism", coining the term in an article written in 1957:

Up till now human life has generally been, as Hobbes described it, nasty, brutish and short; the great majority of human beings (if they have not already died young) have been afflicted with misery we can justifiably hold the belief that these lands of possibility exist, and that the present limitations and miserable frustrations of our existence could be in large measure surmounted The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself - not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity.[11]

Visit link:
Transhumanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We have exceeded the $14,000 base goal for this Kickstarter and will be producing the book Transhuman, and now we have a few final stretch goals to unlock -- check out below!

Stretch Goal 1: 8 Sample Characters

We will add 8 pages to Transhuman, featuring all new sample characters, each with their own illustration, in the style of those in the Eclipse Phase Core Rulebook and Sunward!

Stretch Goal 2: 8 More!

Transhuman gets 8 more sample characters, for a total of 16!

Stretch Goal 3: Freelancer Raise

All of the freelance contributors to Transhuman -- artists, authors, editors -- are going to get a 15% bonus on their pay for the book!

Stretch Goal 4: Morph Recognition Guide

We'll commission art for all the morphs that we've yet to illustrate, and publish a PDF and Print-on-Demand book, the Morph Recognition Guide, with those illustrations, details about the morphs, game stats, and more!

Stretch Goal 5: Morph Recognition Cards

See original here:
Transhuman: The Eclipse Phase Player's Guide by infomorph ...

Introduction to the website

Our website was hijacked last month !

See the old version of the website ( Euvolution 1.0 )

Cosmotheism is a religion which positively asserts there is an internal meaning and purpose in life and in the cosmos. There is an essential unity, or consciousness that binds all living beings and all of the inorganic cosmos, as one. And what our true identity is this: we are the cosmos, made self-aware and self-conscious by evolution. Our undeniable human purpose, is to know and to complete ourselves as conscious individuals, and also as a self-aware species, and thereby to co-evolve with the cosmos towards total and universal awareness, and towards the ever-higher perfection of consciousness and being.

Transtopia, Euvolution and Prometheism which are all 3 sister web sites have been described by a member of Better Humans as:

"The Magneto Side of the Transhuman Equation" BetterHumans

We in the Eugenics movement are not interested in competing against Adolph Hitler or Karl Marx for some minuscule little 1,000 year Reich. We are interested in competing with Jesus Christ and Buddha for the destiny of man.

Favored Races Manifesto (PDF) by James L. Hart

We Prometheans are voluntarily coming together to purposefully direct the creation of a new post-human species. A species with higher intellect, creativity, consciousness and love of ones people. A communion of intellect and beauty, for the simple reason that it can be done. This creation is what gives us purpose and meaning. No other justification is required for this program to advance our Promethean species.

Read more:
The Transhuman Cosmic Conscious Evolution Website ...

Humanity+ @Conferences

Our Humanity+ conferences explore innovations of science and technology and their relationship to humanity. Recent conferences have been held at San Francisco State University, Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, California Technology Institute, and Harvard University.

H+ Magazine covers technological, scientific, and cultural trends that are changing humans in fundamental ways. H+ Magazine aims to reflect the newest edge culture by featuring creative expressions of humanity on a razors edge where daily life and science fiction seem to be merging.

This is a brand new world-wide holiday! Future Day is slated for every March 1st. Become a Friend of Future Day and work with us all together, across the world, to get Future Day off to an incredible start!

The 2013 H+ Virtual edu TV series is a discussion series on provocative questions about emerging and speculative technologies of human enhancement and life extension, ethics, and how our cultureand how technology plays a key role inthe narratives we form. Located atteleXLR8.

Join a Chapter or start one! There are many possible activities for local groups, from purely social gatherings to study groups and speaker series. All local chapters are autonomous, except insofar as we recognize and cooperate with you.

The Humanity+ Student Network is an international coalition of student organizations dedicated to discussing transhumanist ideas. The H+SN and its member groups seek to provide opportunities for university-level work and research in exploring the promises and perils of technology and the future of humanity.

Read the original post:
Humanity+ | Elevating the Human Condition

Excerpts

Transhuman Space won the Grog d'Or for the best roleplaying game, game line, or RPG setting of 2002.

In the coming decades, technologies like genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology will transform humanity. A strange new world is unfolding nightmarish to some, utopian to others. Soon we'll have the power to reshape our children's genes, build machines that think, and upload our minds into computers.

And Earth no longer confines us. Space tourism, mining the Moon and asteroids, a settlement on Mars: all are dreams poised to take wing.

The universe of Transhuman Space is a synthesis of these two visions a world in which ultra-technology and space travel fuse to forge a new destiny for mankind. Neither utopia nor dystopia, it is a place of hopes, fears, and new frontiers.

Written by David L. Pulver Edited by Andrew Hackard Cover art by Christopher Shy Illustrated by Christopher Shy

Transhuman Space Line Editor: Phil Masters

See original here:
Transhuman Space

We have exceeded the $14,000 base goal for this Kickstarter and will be producing the book Transhuman, and now we have a few final stretch goals to unlock -- check out below!

Stretch Goal 1: 8 Sample Characters

We will add 8 pages to Transhuman, featuring all new sample characters, each with their own illustration, in the style of those in the Eclipse Phase Core Rulebook and Sunward!

Stretch Goal 2: 8 More!

Transhuman gets 8 more sample characters, for a total of 16!

Stretch Goal 3: Freelancer Raise

All of the freelance contributors to Transhuman -- artists, authors, editors -- are going to get a 15% bonus on their pay for the book!

Stretch Goal 4: Morph Recognition Guide

We'll commission art for all the morphs that we've yet to illustrate, and publish a PDF and Print-on-Demand book, the Morph Recognition Guide, with those illustrations, details about the morphs, game stats, and more!

Stretch Goal 5: Morph Recognition Cards

Continued here:
Transhuman: The Eclipse Phase Player's Guide by infomorph ...

Dethrone The Sovereign - Transhuman Drum Playthrough
http://dethronethesovereign.bigcartel.com http://dethronethesovereign.bandcamp.com http://www.facebook.com/dethronethesovereign http://www.youtube.com/dethro...

By: Dethrone The Sovereign

Read more from the original source:
Dethrone The Sovereign - Transhuman Drum Playthrough - Video

Firaxis has elevated XCOM: Enemy Unknown's intensity through the bulkier risk-reward strategy system in its expansion, XCOM: Enemy Within. The expansion's potency is at worst intriguing and at best traumatic. Its net effect is as captivating as its launch pad with new items, juiced-up soldiers, alien mechs, a new branching series of side quests, and 47 fresh battlegrounds ripe with opportunities for tactical excision.

Enemy Within's single-player campaign starts the same way as Enemy Unknown -- bunkered in an underground military base at the brink of the end of the world, following the escalating war with the aliens to its climax. Think of the expansion as a lateral addition to a core game and mission list that remains unchanged. It's possible to play Enemy Within almost exactly like Enemy Unknown, but Enemy Within adds an optional quest line early on: Defend the XCOM nations and XCOM itself from a transhuman threat... an organization called Exalt.

To further humanity's evolution, Exalt attempts to disrupt XCOM operations and promote the assimilation of alien technology into human biology. Thick with narrative irony, XCOM simultaneously develops two tracks of transhuman upgrades, the exact kind of alien-human integration that Exalt wants: MECs and gene mods. Each unlocks after the construction of cybernetics or genetics labs, respectively, enabling the manufacture of XCOM super soldiers to combat both Exalt and the Sectoids' breed of elite soldiers.

For the first ten or so hours, Meld abounds and players are free to explore the potential of MECs and gene mods. To balance this advance, dedicating a soldier to one excludes him or her from the other. MECs lose their class-specific abilities, beef up on armor, and gain the potential use of flamethrowers, kinetic strikes, healing spray, grenade launchers, proximity mines and electric fields. Their robotic metal shells can also serve as cover or bullet sponges, opening up opportunities for some devastating close-quarter attacks.

Thankfully, it's not always enough. The design temptation here might be to add content and then just turn players loose. Firaxis resists, and complicates each level with advanced enemy units and cleverly placed enemy spawns. I say "cleverly placed" in hindsight; at the time, a rush of three Chrysalids could not have been more terrifying, especially on Classic difficulty, without auto-save. Note that multiple auto-saves are disabled by default on Normal. Classic and Ironman continue to be brutal tests of willpower and patience. You've been warned.

Just as Meld upgrades the XCOM soldiers, it's also responsible for a host of new enemy units. The Mechtoid, a Sectoid mounted in an oversized metal rig sporting two piercing plasma rifles for arms, parallels the human MEC in size, health, and damage dealt. Meld-enhanced Exalt agents have access to the same buffs as gene-modded soldiers. And the Seeker, a floating, tentacled stealth squid, cloaks and face hugs to take soldiers out of action. A few late-game surprises also dial up the challenge, particularly in Council Missions and Exalt Covert Extracts.

If all this permadeath sounds like a bit too much, rest assured that there's always Normal difficulty and the option to reload auto-saves. If, however, you balk in the face of unidentified flying Armageddon, Enemy Within offers the chance to mix up play variables with new Second Wave options like Save Scum, which reseeds the random number generator that determines how percentage shots are executed, allowing players to play from the same save until the shot lands. Itchy Trigger Tentacle causes some aliens to open fire automatically on sight, leading to sneakier tactical play. Add 47 new maps to that permutation and your roads to death grow exponentially in number.

In response to claims of unbalance or inefficiency in the single player campaign, Firaxis has also tweaked some of the interfaces and abilities for the soldiers. New items like Reaper Rounds and the Gas Grenade make full use of the dual item slot upgrade from Officer Training School, while a much-needed "Make Items Available" button streamlines the process of equipping items to the rotating roster of healthy soldiers. In Enemy Unknown, to ready a fresh squad for battle, players would have to navigate to the item inventory for each out-of-action soldier, release the item, weapon, or armor, and then manually assign that to the new units. The "Make Items Available" frees up any items not being used by active squad members during preparation, turning a tedious task into a simple and efficient one.

The gamble here rests less on in-match strategy and more on complementary loadouts, to its credit and discredit. Credit is due for the revived multiplayer mode's turning focus towards the tactical mind game during battle preparation. You could find yourself nervously hoping that the enemy forgets to equip snipers with respirators and their MEC with jet-boosting boots so your Seekers can take out their roof support without interference from the MEC, then move in your plasma-wielding sniper to finish the job. The addition of Seekers does, however, present the opportunity for some world-class griefing, like if a team of all Seekers strangles every enemy unit simultaneously, ending the match. You can counter that kind of tactic, but only if you've spent the resources on respirators or bio-electric stealth detection or battle scanners. The fight in multiplayer has clearly moved to the shadows; a challenge that requires some thoughtful planning and a little paranoia to conquer.

Enemy Within makes even clearer the goal set out by Firaxis in Enemy Unknown: to use consequence as a means of creating value for player agency. Choices matter, but they matter even more when the stakes are higher. With 30+ hours of your time resting on your mortal soldiers' melded bodies, you're only ever one misfortune away from an expensive checkmate.

Original post:
XCOM: Enemy Within Review: Of MECs and Men

Machines that can think for themselves attached to a global brain with the ability to self replicate? Yeah, we're making that happen.

This article is part of ReadWrite Future Tech, an annual series in which we explore how technologies that will shape our lives in the years to come are grounded in the innovation and research of today.

We have seen the future, and it's starting to look a lot likeSkynet.

That self-aware computer systemyes, the one that tries to exterminate the human race in the Terminator movies (and one TV show)is a potent symbol of Frankensteinian hubris. It is mirrored in the Singularity, the idea that technological progress will soon hit exponential growth, leading to self-aware robots and artificial intelligence that seize control of their own destiny, rendering humans irrelevant if not extinct. (Unless people go transhumanfirst, although that's another article entirely.)

The Singularity may never happen. Artificial intelligencelong predicted, never realizedmay be much harder to achieve than we think. An emerging computer consciousness might pass through a period of infancy, during which humanity might be able to take countermeasures of one sort or another. Self-aware robots might turn out to be benevolent, or even completely uninterested in humanity. It's impossible to predict.

Here, we'll just assume the worst comes to pass. And this scenario is based on technologies that we're feverishly developing today.

What if computer code could write itself? What if robots could think for themselves and continuously learn from their environment while being fed contextual information from a vast global network of data? What if the machines could build themselves and propagate, much in the same way that mammals give birth to new mammals?

Scientists are alreadyresearching computer chips and networks that act like the human brain. These chips could allow computers to learn and act on their own in ways that we never thought possible. I saw researchers demonstrate a simple robot with one of these chips that was given an order to stand up. It squirmed, it stumbled and it stood, having learned that behavior on its own.

We may look back one day and see this as the first step towards our doom. Matt Grob, executive vice president of Qualcomm Technologies, wondered whether it was ethical to turn the robot off after having imbued it with a certain degree of sentience.

See the original post here:
Maybe We're Making It Too Easy For The Machines To Take Over

Kids, don't try this at home: A self-described "biohacker" had a big electronic chip almost as large as a deck of cards inserted beneath the skin of his arm. Without a doctor's help. And without anesthetics.

Tim Cannon is a software developer from Pittsburgh and one of the developers at Grindhouse Wetware, a firm dedicated to "augmenting humanity using safe, affordable, open source technology," according to the group's website. As they explain it, "Computers are hardware. Apps are software. Humans are wetware."

The device Cannon had inserted into his arm is a Circadia 1.0, a battery-powered implant that can record data from Cannon's body and transmit it to his Android mobile device. Because no board-certified surgeon would perform the operation, Cannon turned to a DIY team that included a piercing and tattoo specialist who used ice to quell the pain of the procedure. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

Now that the device is inserted and functioning, Cannon is one step closer to achieving a childhood dream. "Ever since I was a kid, I've been telling people that I want to be a robot," Cannon told The Verge. "These days, that doesn't seem so impossible anymore."

The Circadia chip isn't particularly advanced: All it does is record Cannon's body temperature and transmit it to his cellphone over a Bluetooth connection. While this isn't a huge improvement over an ordinary thermometer how analog! it does represent one small step forward in what will undoubtedly be a continuing march toward greater integration of electronics and biology.

Cannon is hardly the first individual to have technology implanted into his or her body just ask former vice president Dick Cheney (who had a battery-powered artificial heart implanted), or any dog with a microchip.

Some are referring to biohacking as the next wave in evolution. "I think that's the trend, and where we're heading," according to futurist and sci-fi author James Rollins.

"There's a whole 'transhuman' movement, which is the merging of biology and machine," Rollins told LiveScience in an earlier interview. "Google Glass is one small step, and now there's a Japanese scientist who's developed the contact lens equivalent of Google Glass. And those are two things you put right on, if not in, your body. So I think we're already moving that way, and quite rapidly."

Cannon sees future refinements as being able to do more than just passively transmit information. "I think that our environment should listen more accurately and more intuitively to what's happening in our body," Cannon told Motherboard. "So if, for example, I've had a stressful day, the Circadia will communicate that to my house and will prepare a nice relaxing atmosphere for when I get home: dim the lights, [draw] a hot bath."

See more here:
'Biohacker' puts chip in arm