Transhumanism.

[Azanigin]

Cybernetic Immortality


The successes of science make it possible for us to raise the banner of cybernetic immortality. The idea is that the human being is, in the last analysis, a certain form of organization of matter. This is a very sophisticated organization, which includes a high multilevel hierarchy of control. What we call our soul, or our consciousness, is associated with the highest level of this control hierarchy. This organization can survive a partial --- perhaps, even a complete --- change of the material from which it is built.
Most of the knowledge acquired by an individual still disappears at biological death. Only a tiny part of that knowledge is stored outside the brain or transmitted to other individuals. It is a shame to die before realizing one hundredth of what you have conceived and being unable to pass on your experience and intuition. It is a shame to forget things even though we know how to store huge amount of information in computers and access them in split seconds. Further evolution would be much more efficient if all knowledge acquired through experience could be maintained, in order to make place only for more adequate knowledge. This requires an effective immortality of the cognitive systems defining individual and collective minds: what would survive is not the material substrate (body or brain), but its cybernetic organization.

One way to reach this ideal has been called "uploading": the transfer of our mental organization to a very sophisticated computer system. Research in artificial intelligence, neural networks, machine learning and data mining is slowly uncovering techniques for making computers work in a more "brain-like" fashion, capable to learn billions of associated concepts without relying on the rigid logical structures used by older computer systems. See for example our research on learning, brain-like webs. If these techniques become more sophisticated, we might imagine computer systems which interact so intimately with a human use that they would "get to know" that user so well that they it could anticipate every reaction or desire. Since user and computer system would continuously work together, they would in a sense "merge": it would become meaningless to separate the one from the other. If at a certain stage the biological individual of this symbiotic couple would die, the computational part might carry on as if nothing had happened. The individual's mind could then be said to have survived in the non-organic part of the system.

Through such techniques, the form or organization with which we identify our "I" could be maintained infinitely, and, which is important, evolve, become even more sophisticated, and explore new, yet unthought of, possibilities. Even if the decay of biological bodies is inevitable, we can study ways of information exchange between bodies and brains which will preserve the essence of self-consciousness, our personal histories, our creative abilities, and, at the same time, make us part of a larger unity embracing, possibly, all of the humanity: the social superorganism. We call this form of immortality cybernetic, because cybernetics is a generic name for the study of control, communication, and organization. It subsumes biological immortality.

At present our ideas about cybernetic immortality are still abstract and vague. This is inevitable; long range notions and goals may be only abstract. But this does not mean that they are not relevant to our present concerns and problems. The concept of cybernetic immortality can give shape to the supreme goals and values we espouse, even though present-day people can think realistically only in terms of creative immortality (although -- who knows?). The problem of ultimate values is the central problem of our present society. What should we live for after our basic needs are so easily satisfied by the modern production system? What should we see as Good and what as Evil? Where are the ultimate criteria for judging social organization? Historically, great civilizations are inseparable from great religions which gave answers to these questions. The decline of traditional religions appealing to metaphysical immortality threatens to degrade modern society. Cybernetic immortality can take the place of metaphysical immortality to provide the ultimate goals and values for the emerging global civilization

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBIMM.html

An interesting video

Converging technology, transhumanism, and our future in the making. The cutting edge group known as transhumanists see a beautiful future brought about by artificial intelligence, life extension, and cybernetics. What one must realize before getting carried away with such utopian dreams is that transhumanism was born out of the elitist pseudo-science eugenics. This documentary provides vital information on the history of eugenics and its new cutting edge transformation.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2615496775977574586&hl=en#

[Eldritch]

What one must realize before getting carried away with such utopian dreams is that transhumanism was born out of the elitist pseudo-science eugenics.

Transhumanism isn't utopian, and eugenics is not pseudoscience.

[Eins Zwei Polizei]

If it is so utopian and preposterous why should opponents even bother to be worried :confused:

[Jackson]

Was watching and reading up on some of the concepts behind this last night, it seems pretty sound from a logical perspective, especially given that our technology is advancing exponentially. If that continues who knows what we can achieve in 50 or 100 years. Although i think it needs to happen at the right time, because dramatically increased lifespans or immortality, as well as extreme mental and physical capabilities come at a likewise extreme cost. The population is also expanding very rapidly, so we would need to constantly be re-colonizing new places (different planets i assume, or perhaps create livable large-scale space-stations). Either that or there would need to be a corresponding massive drop in population and recolonization around the world. Ultimately it could end up that human society becomes deeply stratified between technologically and genetically enhanced humans and ordinary humans, and the former would gradually or quickly replace the latter (this tends to happen in a scenario where one has a significant advantage over the other, although it can be quite slow).

Or even creating a biological-technological hybrid life-form with only the limits of our technology would be astounding. In theory you could create a whole new race of super-intelligent beings in this fashion, or enhance and then transfer our intelligence and ability across to a mechanical or hybrid system. After all we are just biological machines, and by using a biological brain we would know (or at least think we know) that the being was 'alive' in the same fashion as we recognize now.

The question is whether we stick with our biological platforms and use our technological developments to extend our capabilities physically and mentally, lifespans etc, whether we hybridize between man and machine and essentially create a method of transferring the our accumulated 'data' and consciousness onto another platform allowing for practically unlimited lifespan and a wide array of physical and mental capabilities. I've even heard something along the lines of all human consciousnesses being interlinked in a sort of 'hive-mind;, and physical forms being essentially an optional extra (this reminds me of the Geth in mass effect (and probably there's other examples), the physical being are 'platforms' for the programs (beings) in the system.

Or perhaps it could be a mix of all of these things. Humans are often inherently driven to reach the top at the expense of others, to organize rigid hierarchies and often caste-systems. So it perhaps might be a case where certain castes have different forms of life, even. Of course, our humanity may change as a result, and our outlook and instinct become different.

All interesting prospects. Personally i think one of these things will happen at some point, and the abilities to do so are starting to fall into place now - whether it occurs in the next 100 years or not for 100,000 years i don't know, but it's probably the next stage of evolution, the next big leap - like someone said, perhaps comparable from a jump to single celled to multi-cellular beings in it's importance.

Certainly our capabilities would be infinitely improved in any of these circumstances, but it's also extremely risky, and we could easily destroy ourselves in the process. It's a fascinating but frightening prospect, i hope i live to see it either happen or not happen. Instead of having 7 billion people of broadly high-intelligence and capable of high forms of civilization, we could have 700 billion people (in more places than just earth of course), each one vastly more intelligent than the most intelligent people today. More intelligence in each head and vastly more people to pool it, and a much longer time in which a single person or a group can develop ideas. I think we would truly be a hyper-advanced inter-galactic species by this point, whatever we were. But in theory it could take only a few hundred years to get well along the road to there, perhaps less.

After all, if we can perfect ourselves (in our view), that is ultimate tool for survival and the propagation of our species and ensuring our status at the top both here and elsewhere, so who wouldn't give it a go? In my opinion it's worth the risk, but it would have to happen at the right time, and i think we'd have to be lucky too (not to end up destroying ourselves in the process, given our nature).