Present Day Views of My Posthuman Past

My Ultra Mobile Computing Wish List

2008-01-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

The New York Times published an article today about Intel's drive to push mobile computing to a new level. Dubbed Ultra Mobile Computing (UMC) or as Intel prefers to call it "Mobile Internet Device" (boring.) Qualcomm's chief operating officer, Sanjay Jha used the even less imaginative term "pocketable computers" all of which to describe a class of mobile computers that promises to do everything.

I personally would love to see real UMC's on the market...the only catch is it needs the following and should be almost small enough to fit in my pocket.

My UMC Most Wanted:
1. Ultra high resolution OLED touch screen
2. Fully integrated GPS (antenna inside device)
3. Mobile Phone (2G and 3G fully supported)
4. Digital Camera
5. Digital Video Recorder
6. Analog and Digital HD T.V Tuner
7. Digital FM, FM, AM and Satillite receivers
7. Wi-Max, Wi-Fi (802.11a - 802.11n), Bluetooth and IR
8. BlueRay and HD DVD RW drive
9. 1TB HDD or SSD
10. Supports all standard multimedia formats and document formats
11. Live synch capbailities
12. microphone

The device I envision should be able verify the owner by voice and retinal scan and then obey commands via voice recognition to produce live video that includes current location information and have GIS data superimposed that can then be uploaded as a live stream to a Web page regardless of my location in the world.

Things to add in ver 2.0
Personal Area Network Connectivity
acceleration/force sensors
gyroscope

With all of the integrated devices this thing has got to be completely programmable.

What's on your wish list? Did I leave anything off the list besides price

Discovered through Kurzweil.AI.net

Organic Solar Cell Technology Breaks World Record:

2007-08-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Certifies Cell Efficiency

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Plextronics, Inc. announced today that its organic photovoltaic technology achieved a world record in the conversion of solar light to power efficiency. The company's result of 5.4 percent establishes a new world record for single layer organic solar cells as certified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in Golden, Colorado.

Troy Hammond, vice president of products for Plextronics, said that the company began its organic photovoltaic development program less than two years ago, with the support of the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority.

"Today's world-record performance demonstrates the rapid pace at which our technology is progressing," said Hammond. "We look forward to continuing this advancement until we have enabled low-cost solar cell products with our Plexcore(R) ink system."

According to Shawn Williams, vice president of technology at Plextronics, "NREL is the nation's primary laboratory for renewable energy R&D, and to have their certification of our technology is absolutely vital. Most importantly, in the course of setting the world record, we've also identified clear pathways to further improve our technology."

Plexcore(R) ink systems for organic photovoltaic cells enable the low-cost printing of photo-active and charge carrier layers, which together convert light to power in the organic photovoltaic cell. The ability to print organic photovoltaic cells on glass or plastic drastically reduces the cost of energy compared to silicon solar cell technology. Specifically, Plextronics' technology has the potential to reduce the cost of solar cells below the commercially important threshold of $1 per watt, which is a reduction of up to five times that of crystalline silicon-based solar energy systems.

For more information about Plextronics, visit http://www.plextronics.com/.

Source: Plextronics, Inc.

Seeing Inside the Lungs With the Sound of Your Breath

2007-08-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

FDA Clears Unique Non-Invasive, Radiation-Free Pulmonary Imaging System

Deep Breeze(TM) VRIXP(TM) Pulmonary Imaging System Records & Monitors Lung Sounds

OR-AKIVA, Israel, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Deep Breeze(TM), the leader in vibration response imaging (VRI(TM)) technology, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted 510K marketing clearance for the VRIXP(TM), a non-invasive, radiation-free pulmonary imaging system to use lung sounds to create dynamic images of the lungs.

"Vibration response imaging enables physicians to effectively record and monitor lung sounds with the ultimate goal of improving the detection and assessment of lung disorders in the future," said Igal Kushnir, MD, President and CEO of Deep Breeze(TM). "FDA clearance represents a significant milestone for the Company and we plan to work closely with U.S. interventional pulmonologists to bring this advanced pulmonary imaging system to patients suffering from lung disorders."

Deep Breeze plans to launch VRIXP(TM) in the U.S. at the 2007 CHEST meeting in Chicago, October 20 to 25. The Company currently markets the technology in Europe and Asia.

The non-invasive and radiation-free lung imaging system records lung sounds from sensors applied to a patient's back while he or she breathes. The system then uses an algorithm to convert these data into images. Changes in tissue composition or alteration in airflow impact how sounds within the lungs vibrate, and subsequently how the VRIXP(TM) images appear on the system's computer screen.

The VRIXP(TM) procedure takes only minutes in a physician's office and may be performed repeatedly for continuous monitoring. Results are delivered to the physician immediately and can be stored in a system database for future use. The radiation-free technology has been used in more than 3,500 patients worldwide without any single adverse event.

"The VRIXP(TM) system is a breakthrough technology that may allow us to improve patient care by providing more detailed and rapid assessment of lung status without exposing the patient to radiation," said Kalpalatha K. Guntupalli, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Chief, Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine.

"This technology shows great promise for assisting in the care and management of critically ill patients as well as patients with a wide variety of acute cardiopulmonary problems," Dr. R. Phillip Dellinger, professor of medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Director of the Critical Care Division, Department of Medicine, Cooper University Hospital, said.

About Deep Breeze(TM)

Founded in 2001, Israel-based Deep Breeze(TM) (www.deepbreeze.com) is a privately-held medical device company that is providing advanced pulmonary imaging with its proprietary patented technology, Vibration Response Imaging (VRI(TM)). The Company is currently conducting clinical studies globally to evaluate VRI(TM) efficacy in fields such as: general pulmonology, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, congestive heart failure, interventional pulmonology, lung cancer, lung transplant and critical care patient management. Deep Breeze(TM) is researching and developing the VRI(TM) technology to be applied in other organs of the human body.

Source: Deep Breeze (TM)

DARPA Ubran Grand Challenge-36 Semi-Finalist Make the Cut

2007-08-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

During a morning press conference today, DARPA announced that not only do they have a good size group for the Semi Final round but that DARPA organizers believe that they will actually be paying the prize money come November.

Here are some autonomous contestants:

To understand what this success means, just take a look at some of the more difficult trials the autonomous vehicles must perform to be considered as meeting the grand challenge.

Autonomous vehicles will be graded on the following abilities:
Staying in lane/Road following
Obeying speed limits.
Avoiding excess delays, particularly at traffic stops.
Avoiding collisions with objects and other autonomous vehicles
Stopping appropriately at stop lines
Appropriate vehicle separation for a particular speed
Performs lane change passing maneuver
3-point turn (U-Turn)
Intersection Precedence (Right-of-way)
Minimum following distance
Queuing/Merging
Obstacle avoidance including oncoming vehicles in same lane
Parking lot (ability to park with cars already in the parking lot.)
Dynamic re planing (ability to reroute around obstacles)
Can cope with GPS Outage
Left turn across incoming traffic.

I think we are actually going to get our autopilot cars during the next decade.

Also announced was the location of both the national qualifier round and the finals:

The DARPA Urban Challenge will take place in Victorville, California at the site of the former George Air Force Base on November 3, 2007. The National Qualification Event will take place at the same location, October 26-31, 2007.

Robot or Next Gen Tank for DARPA

2007-01-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

This little robot seriously can go anywhere. Now imagine it scaled up to tank size.

Yaa, that's what I was thinking.

a dragon fly remote control from Wowee.

2007-01-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

Just watch the video. From the creators of Robosapien and that monkey head thing you'll now be able to have your very own remote control dragonfly. It's actually pretty cool looking. You know DARPA is wondering if they can mount a camera and some missles on this little thing.

Cute Personal Robot Controlled By Cellphone

2007-01-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

I'm not gay but that's a cute little robot and it can be yours (if you live in Japan) for only $2,206. It's not clear from the video but I think the bot is probably controlled through a bluetooth enabled phone. I'm thinking the cost per minute to run this thing is...oh, about....$367.00 because that's about how long it'll hold my attention once I get it to skate backward and forwards a few times. You can program it using your PC so maybe the truely geeky can get it down to $100.00/min.
YT Vid. Below:

Transhumanist-You Are Mighty

2007-01-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

A link to a website with a somewhat inspiring and dramatic (flash media ?) perspective of the empowering abilities of transhumanism. Includes catchy music (lyrics anyone?) The title makes it seem like we are superhero wannabes but like I said, catchy.

http://www.Transhumanist.youaremighty.com

Detailed Roadmap of the 21st Century

2007-01-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Peter Pesti posted a year by year roadmap of the changes (especially technological) that were predicted by government reports and futurists. Peter intends to keep the list updated as new reports and updated predictions become available as well as by highlighting missed predictions in red and made predictions in green.

Interestingly, to myself anyway, there is no prediction of laboratory produced gravitomagnetic energy being confirmed, controlled and harnessed so I will make one here in the hopes that Peter will decide to use it in his next update.

I predict that lab produced gravitomagnetic energy will be confirmed by 2008 and that by 2010 scientists will have learned how to control and amplify the energy causing a paradigm shift in technology. Within the span of only a couple of years, engineers will have scaled a system for mass production and integration. By 2015 the first car will be driven, the first satellite launched, the first lifting system, the first large scale and personal defense systems and the first power system using the technology will have been developed.

2007 -The Year We Loose Our Wires?

2006-12-31T10:01:00.000-08:00

Over these past few months I've been watching the technologies come online which will finally help us get rid of all of the unsightly cables and wires that have been piling up, connecting each device to another device and each of those devices to a power source.

Here's a quick breakdown of the technologies that will save copper:

Wireless USB
With Wireless USB you can toss all the USB cables.

Skin Transmitting Wireless Headphones
With skin conduction earphones you can reduce the amount of RF radiation in close contact with your body.

Wireless Power
New wireless power schemes correct many of the problems of earlier designs and promise to radically change our homes and offices. One method allows devices to be place on a surface but there is also a method that will charge a device within 10 feet of a transmitter.

Okay, so maybe it'll take until 2009 for the products to hit mainstream but at least it's not about the technology anymore it's about product development, manufacturing and marketing.

The Future and You -Award Winning Monthly Podcast

2006-12-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

"The Future and You" is an award winning monthly podcast that brings futurists together to speculate on what the future has in store for us.

Finally I have something worth listening to during my afternoon drive home. Mornings I have Armstrong and Ghetty. :-)

Here's the link to download December's podcast

RFID Enabled Phones

2006-12-29T09:05:00.000-08:00

Soon everyone will be sporting one more device crammed into their phones. RFID reader technology has reached the stage where it can be incorporated into cell phones.

See: MoreRFID Gentag to Piggyback on NFC Technology to Read RFID Sensors

The RFID enabled phone will read tag information in a product the phone will pull info from an RFID product database on the web and link to a website with detailed product info.

Why do you want it?

Immediate uses:
manufacturing and shipping history
detailed nutritional info
product comparisons

Later uses:
Through your phone you will be able to easily purchase stuff.
Your phone will download your grocery list from your smart appliances
and then automatically update your inventory as items are purchased. Manufacturers will be able to apply instant coupons through your phone.

RFIDorgs will be able to transfer calling card info easily since they can link their RFID data to an RFID database for downloading info such as the location of a blogsites.

Scientists Develop a Touchy Feely Hand for Cyborgs

2006-12-13T22:54:00.001-08:00

New Scientist reports that scientists have developed a robotic hand that can sense pressure, temperature and slip through piezoelectric crystals that were "thick film printed."

Advance by advance our posthuman fate awaits.

One Christian's View of Transhumanism

2006-12-13T19:06:00.000-08:00

Lepanto League Information Service has a new blog that attracted my attention with the title Reflections On Ghastly Transhumansim that links back to an essay by David B. Hart titled The Anti-Theology of the Body.

Although Hart's essay (really a response to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body) is verbose it is still an interesting read for the ideas, relationships, comparisons and some worthy quotes. In the end, I found it hard to be offended by his perspective and was left with one mans opinion that while not agreeable from my perspective is understandable given his.

A note of caution: Take the time to read the essay carefully so that bias does not cloud the true meaning and perspective he is trying to convey. He seems to be a master of nearly offending and complementing in the same sentence.

Some of the more memorable quotes:

"A satirist with a genius for the morbid could scarcely have invented a faction more depressingly sickly, and yet—in certain reaches of the scientific community—it is a movement that enjoys some real degree of respectability."

"Obviously one is dealing here with a sensibility formed more by comic books than by serious thought. Ludicrous as it seems, though, transhumanism is merely one logical consequence (if a particularly childish one) of the surprising reviviscence of eugenic ideology in the academic, scientific, and medical worlds."

"Transhumanism, as a moral philosophy, is so risibly fabulous in its prognostications, and so unrelated to anything that genomic research yet promises, that it can scarcely be regarded as anything more than a pathetic dream; but the metaphysical principles it presumes regarding the nature of the human are anything but eccentric."

"I dwell upon extremes because I believe it is in extremes that truth is most likely to be found."

Turtles: Masters of Negligible Senescence

2006-12-12T17:42:00.000-08:00

The NY Times has an article about the possibility of turtles living forever.

From the article:

Dr. Christopher J. Raxworthy, the associate curator of herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History, says the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its teenage counterpart, a Ponce de Leonic quality that has inspired investigators to begin examining the turtle genome for novel longevity genes.
“Turtles don’t really die of old age,” Dr. Raxworthy said. In fact, if turtles didn’t get eaten, crushed by an automobile or fall prey to a disease, he said, they might just live indefinitely.
Turtles have the power to almost stop the ticking of their personal clock. “Their heart isn’t necessarily stimulated by nerves, and it doesn’t need to beat constantly,” said Dr. George Zug, curator of herpetology at the Smithsonian Institution. “They can turn it on and off essentially at will.”

Augmented Reality Moves One Step Closer

2006-11-27T20:02:00.000-08:00

This video showcases a really exciting area of augmented reality and gives us a pretty good insight into what practical augmented reality (mix reality) will look like. It’s easy to see this technology being used to navigate streets even in absolute darkness or to display virtual signs and directions in windshields using a combination of augmented reality and super bright transparent OLEDs screens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L6ee0KAdXA

Christmas Shopping after the Singluarity

2006-11-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

On Alex Kay's blog "Alexx's LJ" he writes about how fast Amazon.com ships and then wonders just how fast shipping can get with a technological Singularity. Then as a follow-up comment, metahacker adds an imagined note from a post Singularity Amazon. Amusing and short -thanks to both for thinking about the tranhumanist little things.

Re-thinking Star Wars, Star Trek and UFOs

2006-11-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking for a while now that it's time for American pop culture to banish for good non-engineered biological humans from the future unless it's within a subspecies context. While we are in banishing mode, we might as well get rid of the popular assumption that visiting aliens are non-engineered entities.

Most people, including many UFO buffs, still assume that ET is a natural biological being like humans are today except millions or maybe billions of years more evolved than us. Apparently, from discussions, cloning is the limit of their breeding technology. Most people also assume that humans will not be engineered even hundreds of years from now. Part of misconception is the result of popular media such as Sci Fi television and movies.

In Star Trek The Next Generation for example, Geordi La Forge only had his visor interface going into his head. The visor itself was external. To be fair, I need to note that in a later Star Trek TNG movie, they internalized the visor technology. The point, however, is that cyborgs such as Geordi and Luke Skywalker (post amputated arm) remain the exception rather than the norm in film. We can see the tide turning with movies such as I Robot which depict a rapidly evolving future (Singularity?) where cyborgs are beginning to blend seamlessly but this is a representation of a transhuman future not a posthuman future.
Other shows such as Battlestar Galactica, although incorporating strong AI, still manages to keep humans and technology separate (that was until the Cylons and humans started have sexual relations.) The Matrix, while depicting cyborgs as the norm due to the Matrix energy harvest and breeding program, also does not depict a posthuman future. The closest movie I can recall that had the possibility of a posthuman future was the movie AI but even this movie may actually depict a dark future because in the end there are no humans post or otherwise mentioned, only benevolent AI.

The other part of the misconception of a posthuman future is that it's probably too difficult to visualize and even harder still to connect with on a human level. Posthumans may just be too alien for us to understand even in our imaginings of the future.

Virtual Potential: Second Life As A Transhumanist Meetinghouse

2006-11-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

Anne C. who runs a blog called Existance Is Wonderful, recently posted on the World Transhumanist Association website her first impressions of Second Life as a meeting place for transhumanists.

The World Transhumanist Association has a Second Life Chapter (WTA-SL) boasting 90 members and still growing. Right now, the WTA-SL Board is organizing monthly programs. The first will be a joint Eudoxa and WTA-SL presentation by Eudoxa partner Anders Sandberg on December 18 at 10 a.m. PST on Uvvy Island in Second Life. The presentation will be titled "Keep on raging against aging." everyone is welcome to attend.

Children's Myths and the "Truth" Revisited

2006-11-24T12:27:00.000-08:00

Joesph, in his blog, Posthumanity Rising, writes about how even though he's atheist he still thinks Christmas is important to celebrate. His blog inspired me to write about the myths we tell our children and the valuable life lesson that can be passed on when they learn the "truth."

For generations in America and elsewhere, myths have been an integral part of growing up, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny come to mind.

Many parents have been there for their children when they learn that Santa Claus is not what they had been led to believe but a product of their imaginations, reinforced by adults and media such as cartoons.

Myself, I only have a year or two left before I will also be there for my children.

What will I say to my child when he discovers that what he believes can no longer be supported by what he sees in the world around him. He's already asking questions. He's still holding on to the "magic yet I can see that he senses something is not right.

How many conversations have you had whith your children where he or she says, "Magic must be real because how could Santa deliver all those presents in one day?"

What lesson should we pass on to them?

While I have been determined to not tell my children what to believe about religion or even death, especially since I am unsure myself, I am also determined to let them know that nothing can be taken for the absolute truth.

Most of us remember the recent discussions on whether Pluto should remain a planet. My son didn't like the answers he was hearing since up until that point every book he had read told him it was in fact one of nine planets. His concern revolved around the question, "How can scientists decide that it's not a planet anymore?" In his mind, he imagined it literally disappearing from our solar system and obviously no scientists can make planets disappear.

I believe it's at times like these were a little philosophy maybe even transhuman philosophy can come in.

Many of us are bright enough to know that we don't know everything and things that we think we know for sure will likely change. The transhumanist point, here is that our understanding of the universe will change.

The message I intend to convey to the first of my kids to cross the magic barrier is that we can only know what we know but that we should never ever take for granted that that's all there is. There is no ultimate truth that we can ever hope to comprehend, only temporary models or better approximations that we are forced to use until something better comes along. I'm sure I will add some reassuring thoughts at the end about gravity and the light from the sun because I don't want him to be insecure or afraid of the universe coming to an end tomorrow, I just want him to be cognisant of the fact that what we know will change.

I'm not sure, exactly, how to convey these thoughts meaningfully to a child so if anyone has any advice or input have at it. It may be a multistep process.

The First Posthuman

2006-11-23T22:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, real short. The first posthuman won't usher in an age of celebration. The first posthuman won't be recognizable as human. The first posthuman will be patterns of thoughts, memories, relationships but not what we would want to consider a complete human. Let me tell who the first posthuman is:

The first posthuman is the guy who has a couple of memory implants and maybe even a frontal lobe implant for reasoning. This guy has a diagnostics port which is intended for use by researchers to study the interactions of his implant with his biological brain. Something happens; he's going to die. The researchers have already been uploading his neural net patterns for study. They do one more upload before he dies. The pattern of the neural net and associated data remain in storage for a few years while scientist continue to study it. Scientists learn how to simulate the missing regions of a typical brain. Eventually they have a complete simulated brain and insert his neural net patterns to see how it responds compared with his actual. It works but not like they wanted. The problem is that brains need external inputs to thrive. So they decide to provide that sensory input and ways for it to interact with its environment. What they discover is that the posthuman has some memories of the life it once was a part of but that it doesn't have the personality or responses of the original person.

Discussions among scientists ensue. They determine that the infant person they created is significantly different from the origninal but also agree that it had incorporated the neural net information and that it would develop its own identity and personality some of which might even resemble the guy who died. This person continues to grow and thrive but would likely have some psychological and personality issues as it struggled with memories and thoughts from another life.

I imagine the situation like that of a new born baby that grows up accepting its environment and learning how to manipulate its world but also having a sense of a time and of a life before, a sort of reincarnation.

Posthuman Shit: It really does smell like roses

2006-11-20T19:43:00.000-08:00

Apologia:
Here I go again. It's my fourth post and I'm still talking about the little things in life. This time it's all about the smell of posthuman excrement. Seriously, don't I have something better to do.

Nope.

So before, I draw any scientific (used loosely here) conclusions about what posthuman waste is or isn't, I think it's prudent for me to step way back and ask a fundamental question. Will posthumans crap?

Sure, some of you may be saying to yourselves, "Who gives a shit." (lame pun intended) and some of you will even press the left arrow to prove the point but for those of you curious enough to stick it out a bit longer, you can feel good knowing that we are about to discover a deep insight into the reality of posthuman life.

Biology and Conservation of Energy:
Back to that posthuman crap. Will they? Why would they? What about the smell? Without going through a biology class, let me just say that crap in equals crap out. Many of you IQ follower types are probably thinking that the posthuman energy source of tomorrow isn't crap because crap isn't a very efficient food source and that you just scored yourself another IQ point. But you are wrong. Here's why.

The only energy source that would be available to a human who goes through a transhuman phase to become posthuman is the organic kind and if it's organics in it's organics out. Decomposing organics don't really smell that great unless you're a gardener. Even better, a gardener who grows rose bushes. I am not a gardener.

You see, the most readily available energy source for non-biological components in a biological human would probably be Adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP). Again, we'll skip biology class and try to get to at least one point. The point is, that at each stage of each transhuman phase will be the installation of components that use biological process to derive energy. When that last bit of biological human is finally removed, and good riddance because it was starting to stink up the hardware, there will remain a complete non-biological human that was designed to use organic food as the primary energy source.

Waste of Effort:
As we all know, not every organic molecule is useful to our bodies. If all of the molecules were useful, our throne would have to be resigned to the fact that it was just a porcelein God. Alas, this is not the case, we use it regularly for a throne and only on rare occasions do we pray to that forgiving God.

Surely we recognized that our bodies, through evolution, have predetermined which molecules take a little energy input to get a large energy output and which molecules are just a plain waste of effort. This "waste of effort," my friend, is what we shall call "posthuman crap."

Removing That Smelly Smell:
Now about the smell. If, for some reason, our posthuman selves determine that smelly crap is beneath us then our embedded nanites could expend the extra energy required to sequester the remaining aromatic volatiles and move them to off site storage or possibly convert them to something useful.

Or...

Since it would be a waste of effort to sequester organic volatiles or to convert them to something useful or especially to add the extra step of replacing the crap smell with essence de la rose petals, it would be much more likely that crap smells will continue to smell like crap.

This smelly crap future is not so bad though. Posthumans will be able to specifically filter out unpleasant odor information or reroute automatic response signals in such a way that the famed smell of butt won't be perceived as necessarily good or bad but merely as useful information such as for predicting what a person ate the night before. "Ewww! Did you have a dozen boiled eggs for dinner or what!"

There's Always a Catch:
This posthuman crap thing, however, only works if posthumans decide to continuously occupy their regularly upgraded living quarters (their bodies). All bets are off, if instead the posthumans decide to upload their minds and completely leave the body behind, which, by the way, is a decent segway into my next post...The First Posthuman.

The Dangers of Posting: or CFOSHGB

2006-11-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

For those of you who can't read my mind, CFOSHGB is an acronym for Chief Financial Officers Shouldn't Have Gambling Blogs.

Well, after my posthuman sex post from last night, I figure I should take a moment to reflect upon the dangers of posting my mind to the world.

How many of us have given thought to the pervasiveness of the net? Have you ever thought about the permanence of the messages you post? I think I have given it some thought but, then again, maybe not enough.

Four years ago, I posted a conspiracy theory (using another id) to a news website. It was fun and harmless but guess what, it's still on the web floating around. What if, 10 years from now, I decide that I don't want to be a transhumanist anymore. I know, it sounds crazy right now but I have been known to change my mind from time to time. Now let's suppose that instead of thinking about getting my next implant towards posthumanity, I am heavily involved in a conservative Christian organization and was just getting ready to be promoted to preacher or something. My employer, the church, decides to look me up on the 3D Internet. Loweth and beholdeth (that's how churchy types talk) guess what they find my friend. They find out that I am Lucifer incarnate because of my transhuman past and believe it or not, for some strange reason, I don't get the job because God doesn't like the competition. Not only that but rumors start to circulate (because conservative Christians have nothing better to do than circulate rumors of Satan) and I am embarrassed out of my dream job.

So here I am, torn between being who I really am, talking about what I really want to talk about or just quietly pretending to be someone I currently am not.

Since the quiet thing seems kinda boring and isn't a good topic for discussion unless you're Garrison Keillor writing about shy rights, I guess I will need to accept that I cannot be a conservative Christian preacher in the future.

End of story? Not quite.

I also see people post their pictures all over the web. Right now, there is software in beta that can scour the Internet comparing photos of cats (or maybe dogs, I forget which). If you don't get the implications of that, Mr. picture posty pants, I will tell you.

It means that, your awesome girlfriend, Mary Jane, you know the one that talks not the one you smoked, who snapped a photo of the two of you over the weekend can scan that photo and compare your face to every picture on the web looking for a match. I hope for your sake you anticipated her doing that, the sneaky little (bleep), and have prearranged the perfect explanation for why your mug shot turned up on your "secret blog" with a random group of people at a rave that you swore was a late night meeting.

Moral of the story kiddos, don't do anything that you'll regret because there is someone out there making sure you will.

My Next post: Posthuman Shit...It Really Does Smell Like Roses.

Posthuman Sex...WTF!

2006-11-19T20:41:00.001-08:00

Maybe it's premature but as I sit here on my love seat alone drinking homemade beer, I wonder why the hell no one is talking about what posthuman sex might be like. I mean, sex is always ripe for discussion, right? And don't give me that "posthumans won't be having sex because they don't need to, end of story" crap. That's just a boring thoughtless answer. Obviously, some of the six billion humans on this planet are having sex even though they aren't making babies (my boring thoughtless response).

Like most humans, I generally do "it" because it feels good. Humans, if nothing else, love things that give them pleasure. Given this generalization, I can make a simple assumption here without stepping to far out of line. Posthumans will be having sex because it will still feel good. At least, that's how the future had better be. I don't want to be posthuman if there's no pleasure in it. Who's going to want an upgrade that takes away their desire to seek pleasure. Personally, I'm planning to skip early adopter upgrade versions and wait for ver. 2.0. especially if Microsoft is involved.

Since posthumans will be pleasure seeking and since we can be fairly certain that businesses will be catering to transhuman sexual pleasures (there will be lots of those) when the first posthumans are upgraded into existence, we can move on to imagining what it might be like to have sex as a posthuman.

My first thought on posthuman sex is drawn towards the "Lawnmower Man" type virtual reality sex scenario but this seems kinda boring because of the body suit and v.r. helmet they used in the movie which, by the way, is here but no one has figured out how to make it mass marketable. Instead, I want to start with thoughts on how the posthuman possibly senses the world. The posthuman will, I imagine, have pretty complicated firmware. This firmware could be adjusted at will to allow, for example, an auditory signal to be routed to both the auditory processing system and to pleasure processing systems so that sounds could be perceived as sexual pleasures. Then certain auditory frequencies and amplitudes might lead to a posthuman orgasm (posthuman orgasm to follow). Even this experience is limiting because that auditory stimulation is still related to the current five senses. Going further, I imagine senses being developed in the transhuman era which incorporate a sixth sense that, for example, might be perceived as a kind of pressure or resistance when network bandwidth is restricted possibly due to high volume traffic or slow routing. In this strange posthuman sexual scenario, then, a pair of posthumans or a group of posthumans (maybe posthumans are used to sharing intimacy with groups since sharing will be so easy) link their traffic sensing and routing systems with their pleasure sensing systems, create a virtual private network (VPN) and voila, commence with manipulating bandwidth and wildly manipulating routing network traffic...ooohhh...aaahhh!!! Wild routing of the network traffic...Gotta love that style!

So what happens at the end of the errr...umm...wild routing?

Orgasm of course. Uncontrollable spasms of pleasure and random processes swirling through neural pathways, temporarily overloading and shutting down and then, after a few moments, thoughts and feelings become coherent again as the posthuman mind adjusts and reflects upon what took place just moments earlier

After a pause, the posthuman mind and body settles down. All is calm and relaxed again. Euphoria is all that remains...and some grogginess...

"Was it good for you," she asks, unsure.

You respond, "I have never lasted more than three microseconds since the doctors removed that last bit of biological brain tissue...It Was Great! You continue. Yawning, "Sorry babe but my diagnostics are logging an unusual amount of errors. I need to go into sleep mode for a little while until my maintenance system sorts things out. Night."

Damn, some things never change!

If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say...

2006-11-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

Why is it that transhumanists present themselves as being arrogant even towards other transhumanists? Individually, do they think they are better than everyone else? Do they think they know more?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that most of us are arrogant. But I do get a strong impression (maybe I'm just being sensitive) that we are plagued by the same ideological prejudices that permeate the rest of the world. I have seen postings in transhuman blogs and message boards criticizing other transhumans for being homosexual, homophobic, a prostitute, a fascist, a racist, Jewish, rich, poor, capitalist, American, European, promoting transhumanism in Second Life, being religious, being christian, being non-christian and more.

If we are truly as enlightened as we believe ourselves to be then it seems we should recognize that nothing productive can come out of these types of postings and should stop. In place of these postings we should focus on reaching out to the non-transhuman world, discuss implications of future technologies and even have some strong disagreements about what it means to be transhuman.