The Latest Musings from the Posthuman World

It seems like alot is being said at this year's TransVision 2007 conference - the leading annual get-together for posthumanist thinkers. For example:

Marvin Minsky suggested that 'we' could solve any population problem by uploading the minds of 10 billion people and running them on a computer that occupies a few cubic meters and costs only a few hundred dollars to run. Sounds like a familiar, ongoing argument.

Then there is the avatar and transhumanist guru Ray Kurzweil who again claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. In other words, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy could be indefinitely long. He projects that by 2030, AI will be ubiquitous, and most humans will be physically melded to information and other technologies.

This online article is a good brief overview of some speakers - 'Would you give up your immortality to ensure the success of a posthuman world?'

Again, so much emphasis upon re-designing the body of the human, and virtually little or no conception of the evolutionary growth of Spirit and the nervous system... typical of the scientific materialistic, atomistic mindset...

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Future Hideaway?

Another issue that keeps me watchful is the continual covert development (especially on/under US soil) of deep underground/mountain bases... what is the agenda behind this?

Much has been said on this issue, whether its on Area 51 or Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD bases, in relation to alien activity. Whilst this is something that can only be speculated, there is also a more pragmatic agenda here: future earth catastrophe.

It is reasonable to suggest that major government powers have considered emergency procedures in the light of natural climate catastrophe or human-induced destruction - especially as we now live in such high-risk times. Indeed, even the UK astronomer Royal - Sir Martin Rees - gave out a 50-50 chance of the human race surviving into the next century - see Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?

Given the future of such stark odds, a Plan B may well include powerful elites going 'underground' within self-sustainable cities for a long period of time until the surface is once again habitable...

An article I came across from 1991 which appeared in Time magazine called 'Civil Defense Doomsday Hideaway' is noteworthy on this account:

But buried deep inside a Virginia mountain, a vast, top-secret installation -- one of the great artifacts of the cold war -- remains at the ready. Known as Mount Weather, it is a Strangelovian relic of yesteryear intended to shelter the President and other top U.S. officials in case of nuclear war. The 33-year-old facility is manned by a second generation of doomsday planners, men and women who are reassessing their mission and that of the massive bunker they have maintained through more than three decades of nuclear threat.

Designed to survive the unthinkable and completed in 1958, the year after the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite, Mount Weather stands as a monument to a potential nightmare. Few in the U.S. government will speak of it, though it is assumed that all along the Soviets have known both its precise location and its mission; defense experts take it as a given that the site is on the Kremlin's targeting maps. Yet Mount Weather remains an integral part of the U.S.'s "Continuity of Government" plan, under which senior officials are to be whisked away in case of an imminent nuclear strike so that they can set up a kind of Administration-in-exile, directing every order of business from retaliation to recovery.

Mount Weather is operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which for years has fended off inquiries about the installation with a firm "no comment." Jokes Bob Blair, a FEMA spokesman: "I'll be glad to tell you all about it, but I'd have to kill you afterward." Officially, the Mount Weather bunker does not exist; it is not mentioned in FEMA's published budget. "Even I don't know much about it, and I'm head of FEMA's congressional affairs," says David Cole. "A lot of it is in the black ((secret)) program."

Yet this is - literally - only the tip of the iceberg!

Let the unaware ones plan for the soil - and lets allow the Hearts to prepare for the Stars...

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A Future of Eco-Terrorism?

Here is a statement made in 1997 by Dr. William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense:

"Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations…It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts."

[Secretary of Defense William Cohen at an April 1997 counterterrorism conference sponsored by former Senator Sam Nunn. Quoted from DoD News Briefing, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy, University of Georgia, Athens, Apr. 28, 1997.].

HUMAN BODY VERSION 2.0

In the past I have talked on the 'future human' in terms of the homo gestalt or homo noeticus which I feel are more spiritually aware understandings of how the human species may evolve into a next stage, in terms of awareness, synergy, collective consciousness, and higher vibrational nervous systems.

Now, from the Tech-pack comes a future model that is more in keeping with the Technological Singularity model - in this recent article by tech-pioneer Ray Kurzweil titled 'HUMAN BODY VERSION 2.0' he writes that:

In the coming decades, a radical upgrading of our body's physical and mental systems, already underway, will use nanobots to augment and ultimately replace our organs. We already know how to prevent most degenerative disease through nutrition and supplementation; this will be a bridge to the emerging biotechnology revolution, which in turn will be a bridge to the nanotechnology revolution. By 2030, reverse-engineering of the human brain will have been completed and nonbiological intelligence will merge with our biological brains.

Overview
Sex has already been largely separated from its biological function. For the most part, we engage in sexual activity for intimate communication and sensual pleasure, not reproduction. Conversely, we have multiple methodologies for creating babies without physical sex, albeit most reproduction still does derive from the sex act. Although not condoned by all sectors of society, this disentanglement of sex from its biological function has been readily, even eagerly, adopted by the mainstream.

So why don’t we provide the same extrication of purpose from biology for another activity that also provides both social intimacy and sensual pleasure, namely eating? We have crude ways of doing this today. Starch blockers, such as Bayer’s Precose, partially prevent absorption of complex carbohydrates; fat blockers, such as Chitosan, bind to fat molecules, causing them to pass through the digestive tract; and sugar substitutes, such as Sucralose and Stevia, provide sweetness without calories. There are limitations and problems with each of these contemporary technologies, but a more effective generation of drugs is being developed that will block excess caloric absorption on the cellular level.

Let us consider, however, a more fundamental reengineering of the digestive process to disconnect the sensual aspects of eating from its original biological purpose: to provide nutrients into the bloodstream that are then delivered to each of our trillions of cells. These nutrients include caloric (energy-bearing) substances such as glucose (from carbohydrates), proteins, fats, and a myriad of trace molecules, such as vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, that provide building blocks and facilitating enzymes for diverse metabolic processes.

Kurzweil, as always, is a charismatic and persuasive writer, and even if you feel that his arguments are far too materialistic (as I do), they are nonetheless well worth the read..

Electromagnetism and the Environment

The uses of electromagnetic low frequency (ELF) waves are still a concern and interest to me. And now that the HAARP project has been officially completed by BAE systems (see press release - also here)this may be more of a concern - and especially so for the global environment.

In 2000 a remarkable book was published - with no fanfare. It was written by Rosalie Bertell (President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH), and Editor in Chief of International Perspectives in Public Health) - the book was called 'Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War: The Newest Weapon of War' which examines in detail the military experiments with EM (HAARP), ionosphere, and other radiative pulse technologies, including weather modification, and how these might have been linked with catastrophic changes in global environmental phenomena:

She exposes how the military have, for decades, been secretly conducting experiments, including high-level nuclear explosions, which may disrupt the vital layers of the atmosphere which protect us from the sun's lethal radiation. She says these experiments are often conducted without even discussing with non-military experts the hazards of damaging these life-preserving earth-veils. And she believes that such experiments may already have accelerated global warming and contributed to earthquakes and freak weather conditions.

For an excellent review of the book, see this one written by Anne Baring (review No 1). This book somehow disappeared quietly and quickly from circulation, and can now only be found in a few 2nd hand places (generally as ex-library cast outs). However, it is worth securing a copy...

Of similar material, there is the work of Thomas Bearden - according to Wikipedia:

Tom Bearden has unconventional views on other subjects, some of which could be regarded as conspiracy theories. He believes that Russia developed a weapon in the 1960s which uses "time-polarized EM waves" to disrupt the normal flow of time, and used this in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Bearden has also claimed that Russia used various other technologies in the 1980s to cause the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle and induce "several large earthquakes".

Bearden has written extensively on EM warfare and weaponry, and as yet I am undecided about his credibility, although his material is worth looking at in terms of possibilities...

The question has to be asked - have todays abrupt weather disruptions been a result of intentional technological military intervention as well as the more orthodox human-pollution climate effects?

New Science Scares

NewScientist usually is a good read for the latest forays, adventures, and mis-adventures into the boffin developments in science. Two recent stories that made me pause, wonder, and frown are these below, which I feel are worth the time to read:

Humanity gobbles a quarter of nature's resources:

Almost a quarter of nature’s resources are now being gobbled up by a single species – humans.

People appropriate 24% of the Earth’s production capacity that would otherwise have gone to nature, according to figures for the year 2000, the most recent available.

The result is a gradual depletion of species and habitats as we take more of their resources for ourselves. And things could get even worse, they say, if we grow more plants like palm oil and rapeseed for biofuels to ease our reliance on fossil fuels.

Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US:

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists.

Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg.

The revelations come from Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosafety pressure group based in Austin, Texas, US, who after persistent requests got the minutes of university biosafety committees using the US Freedom of Information Act. The minutes are accessible to the public by law. There are now 20,000 people at 400 sites around the US working with putative bioweapons germs, says Hammond, 10 times more than before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Some scientists have warned for years that more people handling dangerous germs are a recipe for accidents.

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Self-transformation is the essence of humanity

Philosopher Ray Tallis recently wrote an article called 'Enhancing Humanity' that discusses how many of the high-tech changes have not so far come about as change takes a slower pace rather than sudden cyborgian transformations:

Of course, people are worried about more invasive innovations; in particular, the direct transformation of the human body. And this is where the gradualness of change is important, because as individuals we have a track record of coping with such changes without falling apart or losing our sense of self entirely. After all, we have all been engaged all our lives in creating a stable sense of our identity out of whatever is thrown at us. This idea is worth dwelling on.

And that the evolution of the human species is about continual change and working upon our self-redefinitions...

We assimilate these changes into an evolving and continuous sense of our own identity…
Yes, we shall change; but the essence of human identity lies in this continuing self-redefinition. And if we remember that our identity and our freedom lie in the intersection between our impersonal but unique bodies and our personal individual memories and shared cultural awareness, it is difficult to worry about the erosion of either our identity or our freedom by technological advance.

Tallis is more sober on this acccount, yet ultimately does believe that 'the distinctive genius of humanity is to establish an identity which lies at an ever-increasing distance from our organic nature...in the expression of human possibility in ever-advancing technology'.

The question that concerns us is indeed the 'Time' factor, as the long-term 'organic' evolution may no longer be an option if technological advance out-strips our evolutionary mindfulness of how to control such advances for our betterment... now the age-old argument...

CoExistence

Yes, it has been a little while since words/images last graced this e-page: my physical self has been engaged in a little roaming... then coming back to my physical abode I encountered this lovely little video space: it's called 'Co-Existence', and well-worth 2 minutes of your time. To celebrate the beauty of our world amidst the barbarity.

It is so easy to focus on the disruptions, the chaotic occurances and breakdowns, rather than the small yet moving moments where the human Spirit can shine through.

How we manage our moments is our testing time...