/sci/ - Science & Math

Nice. Where did he say the quote exactly? This guys sound like a badass.

Sadly, I'll never live to be an imorrtal, too many religous, overzealous fucks will bitch about losing our humanity, prolonging the inevitable long after I'm dead. Thanks you bastards.

I personally think I'll go for the cyborg-terminator type model where I look like a human but am actually 250lb killing machine

Any decent books on transhumanism?

This thread is the best on /sci/ despite its small size.

I think I'd like to hang on to my current meatbody, the way some people hold on to vintage model-T fords.

Sure, I'd have some tech (nano or something else powerful) to keep myself young, pretty, and alive. Other than that, I'd like an AI personal trainer to track my food intake, let me know exactly the optimum number of pushups to do.

Of course, I'd still want some bells and whistles like a brain/mind link to the internet, or the post-singularity equivalent thereof.

>>2822298
-Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly over the Edge
-Ending Aging
-The Singularity is Near

Eternity is an awefully long time, especially towards the end.

>>2822252
He's a retired nuclear physicist and cloning advocate. Sadly, he's really old, unless a miracle happens we won't live forever.

>>2822339
>I think I'd like to hang on to my current meatbody, the way some people hold on to vintage model-T fords.

And why not? If given the choice, I'd probably keep it preserved in my home for nostalgic purposes.

The concept of transferring my concience to a computer, or singularity doesn't sound to good to me. I can only think that it would be a quantum clone of my personality. Not necessarily me.

>>2822382
When you woke up this morning, were you the same person who went to bed last night?

Or are you a quantum copy?

True, I'm sure more than few of the neural connections in my brain have shifted around, but ultimatley I don't know if I'd take that chance.

>>2822418
Don't worry... if you can upload a mind, by extension we can copy your mind.

So instead of a 'cut/paste' upload, it could be a 'copy/paste' upload. 'You' would still be in your frail, squishy, mortal meatbody. However, another 'you' with all your memories and experience would also exist in the computer/robot. It would certainly think it was you, assuming the copy process goes correctly.

>>2822382
You exchange every atom in your body every two years or so, meaning from an atomic standpoint you're a completely different person. The point is, the key to transferring consciousness is slow atom transfer. We transfer a small piece of information at a time, ensuring you don't even notice.

If I was shown evidence that the human conciousness was a tangible object(my I'm talking bullshit right now...?) than could be transferred from shell to shell, I'd probably sign up.

>>2822453
"Tangible" in that any changes or removal of sections of the brain (through accidents, primarily) can drastically alter one's cognitive abilities in varying ways. In a sense, you, who you are right now, are your brain. More accurately though, the structure of your brain enables your current form of consciousness to run. If one's neurons could be mapped and systematically replaced through the use of nanomachines (AKA "magic") it should be feasible to be able to transfer the data gathered by the nanomachines to a separate network.

But in order to make any of this possible, there's still much ground to cover in the fields of neurology.

>>2822446
So what is consciousness then if all atoms get cycled out? How does it stay congruent?

>>2822349

Nope. Give me a cyborg body, now, wait fuck cyborg, just put my thoughts into a computer, full robot. I want to throw cars and shoot rockets out of my ass. Once that gets old I'll fight in a war or something, die in spectacular ways, wake up in new body. After THAT gets old I'll be the first to volunteer for space. No need for food/water/anything, I'll be a great astronaut. Just turn myself off for a while, get to the planet and explore and shit. If I find some aliens, awesome, I will throw their cars and be a god or something equally entertaining. Once that gets old hopefully the people back on Earth or wherever who haven't seen my ass for a thousand years because I've been careening through space will just pull my plug and put my mind into a super new thousand year developed robot body, or ethereal gas cloud or some shit. Then I will throw future cars. If I get super bored and agonize over never being able to die or something like that, I will just delete all backups of my personality, and kill myself by jumping into a blackhole to see what is on the other side.

I wonder what it would be like to have a 1000 year orgasm. If pleasure is due to chemicals, and is completely material, we could turn off our tolerance build up and just stimulate ourselves electronically forever. Our society would turn into a hyper-hedonistic anarchy immediately. That may or may not be a good thing.

>>2822509
I'm sure that we would eventually get used to simply living with the sensation, spending the rest of our time perhaps productively but while in pleasure. I guess. Not sure how it'd work with cyborgian bodies.

Someone said there would be a Mechanicus thread on /sci/.
This isn't a mechanicus thread! I am dissapoint

I heave /sci/ likes AdMech.
Good for you /sci/ you are awesome.

>>2822481
You are the pattern of your brain. Nothing more. So if a slow methodical nanobot swarm replaces your dying brain cells one by one as they die, you won't notice anything other than your thinking slowly become stronger, clearer, quicker etc.

>>2822544
Wouldn't a good way to test this be to replace a part of a person's brain that controls a certain thought process with a mechanical part and then monitor the changes the person notices with that thought process, if any?

>>2822560
That would be a pretty good way, unfortunately we'll have to wait until at least 2030 to begin testing.

>>2822509
>I wonder what it would be like to have a 1000 year orgasm.

Do you now? Let's find out.

>>2822565
>mfw consciousness might be a quantum phenomenon

Posting in a Mechanicus thread.

I wonder how general puplic will fiview this technology, once it becomes affortable. Will they fear it, or be curious about it? Could they perpehaps for an ad mech styled cult around it?

>>2822697
If history has taught us anything, it's that religion is the vector to release an idea into the mass public. A religion that worships technology and human advancement.

>>2822724
that's actually a quite good idea.

>>2822774
>>2822724
"That's a terrible idea!
Let's do it anyway."

are there any videos/books that explain the main ideas of this/ whether anything of the type is realistically achievable in gen-y's lifetime?

>>2822793

Now there. There isn't anything inherently wrong about religions per say. They are a very good tool for controlling the masses. Unfortunately the modern major religions are old as hell, not fit for our times and they are hindering our progres.

It is naive to expect that every random citizen studies science and understands it to explain the world. They need something simpler and easier to grasp, and religion fulfils that nicely.

The modern day religions are not looking forwards. They are confined to the perspective of this planet and many of them have prophecies of the end of the world. These ideas are detrimental to the idea of spreading humanity to the cosmos. They are fatalistic and naive fantasies that belittle the potential of our species.

A new religion is needed. A religion without gods, the faith only in humanity itself. A religion that worships humanity, it's advancement and succes. Religion wich seeks to make humans "gods"
This way, the religion actually would promote the survival of our species, instead of wishing for it's extinction.

bio-luddite reporting.

cyborg, enjoy your EMP weakness.

>>2822882
>EMP weakness
I guess I'll have to avoid nuclear explosions then.

Enjoy your weakness to everything bio-luddite.

>>2822870
Isn't secular humanism pretty close to that? Or transhumanism? They are not religions, but could be a starting point.

>>2822930
Yeah, but the vast majority of transhumanists are atheists, which occasionally turns devout people off. By making it more "spiritual," or perhaps adding random rituals the ideas of human transformation could spread to people who are attracted to religion. Think of Dune, where teh Spacing Guild was atheist but created a universal religion to attain peace. That's basically the idea here, for atheists to create a pseudo-religion to speed up technological progress.

>>2822697

They will kills us all because of irrational fear of the unknown and doom our species to extinction.
>mfw

>>2822955
Problem is, no matter what religion you create or who creates it, people are assholes. Over time the religion would get corrupted into something it wasn't.

Fanaticism has always existed. Fanatical people hang on to anything they can, religions or ideologies and use them to "justify" their actions, even if those actions go completely against the religion/ideology.

Take a look at the existing religions. Christianity, islam, etc. all look good on paper, but in the real world, they're not so good.

Even if you could create a truly peaceful religion that promotes the advancement of humanity and technological progress, 200-300 years later it would have gotten corrupted into something nightmarish. The "followers" would torture/imprison/execute the poor guy who created that religion.

>>2823022
I don't know much about Islam, but Christianity is dramatically better in real life than it is on paper.

Pic related to all the luddites ITT who say "bawww its just a copy of me"

>>2823008
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/forever-young/manhattan-beach-project-end-aging-2029

http://www.sens.org/sens-research/research-themes

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3329065877451441972#

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101128/full/news.2010.635.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/nov/28/scientists-reverse-ageing-mice-humans

Transhumanists:
>A rabid pack of nerds who grew up with computers, read too much sci-fi, and have at best a basic grasp of science, and none at all of economics, society or human nature, which is why they are invariably permasingle.
>consider the ramblings of "thinkers" or "visionaries" to be fact, bordering on prophecy. Frequently spout ill-informed garbage such as "the singularity is inevitable!" and "You will be left behind if you oppose (insert demented fantasy about living forever as a god here)"
>The typical transhumanism zealot is involved in none of the scientific or engineering roles which would be required to have a working knowledge or understanding of any of the technologies involved, neither are they wealthy, nor do they work in anything other than the service (or tertiary) industry
>They believe (and belief is the correct concept to use in this case) that the only way forwards for humanity is turn themselves into pointless automatons, and envisage a future where they spend all day and night plugged into the net, forever, or floating around gigantic spacecraft. The thread linking all these fantasies is that in the future, they will not have to do any work, as machines will do everything for them, and they can spend all of their time indulging in the pleasures which are unobtainable to them now.
>Anyone who opposes even the slightest aspect of these demented ravings is labelled a Luddite, despite not having any real idea what that means or what the Luddite movement was about. Reality is steadfastly ignored. The technological revolution is just around the corner! If you dislike my half formed and intellectually bankrupt ideals, you obviously want to live in a cave and die of starvation! You are against progress! You must be religious!
>The last, and inevitable, accusation made of the "doubter" is amusing in itself, as what does the avid transhumanist most resemble in outlook and conviction than a religious fundamentalist?

>>2823022

That is true, but most people need some sort of faith system to hang to. A belief system that supports our advancement and worships humanity sounds a lot better than one where our species is the bitch of some divine entity.

The purpose of this pseudo religion would be to simply ease our transition to post humanity, by making people like and embrace the idea. After the transition, the relgioun would have served it's purpose, and wouldn't really matter anymore.

>>2823064

>human nature

Stopped reading here. You realise that there is no such thing as a human nature that is never going to chainge. We can already mold the genetic make up of organisms to what we please. Within the nex vew decades, the getical engineering of humans will most likely becme quite common.
We can mold our "nature" like clay, and shape it to anything we please. Our descendants will be desinged by ourselves to be exactly like we want. The consept of "human nature" is meaningles in this context.

>>2822955
This sounds like a good conspiracy theory. "Christianity was created by atheists to control the population and bring about the New World Order!"

>>2823089
>we

lol no

A typical transhumanist folly is to link themselves to the people and organisations carrying out the research as stated in
>>2823064

It can be basically summed up as
>I haven't done any of the work, I haven't invested anything, I have no knowledge other than what I read in popular science magazines/websites, and yet I expect all of the benefits, gratis

>>2823110
nope.jpg
Modern transhumanism came out of silicon valley a couple decades ago, and most of the supporters are involved in computers, biotechnology or genetics somehow. Or at least science in general. You have no idea what you're talking about. Even if non-scientists are interested, that's in no way a bad thing because eventually mainstream culture is going to notice. Only a retard would think popular support is a bad thing.

>>2823107

You mean the jews right?

>>2823089
>there is no such thing as a human nature

Have you ever actually met another person?
People are greedy, selfish, tribal, dislike change and hate those they consider different in any way. They will drop their niceties pretty much at the drop of a hat. A couple of days without food and your neighbour will murder you and yours for a box of cereal.

Saying that this changes suddenly because some people in a lab have made a mouse with an ear on its back is quite some statement

Especially as you can't spell for shit

>>2823121
Nice blanket statement bro.

Ya but even if the world eventually turned into something like starcraft where were fighting different races... If you WANT that, its not going to be epic. Its only epic when the whole world is trying to actually kill the other race for the sake of humanity.

Richard Seed - the same nut that told everyone he was going to clone a human back in the 90's?
A whole bunch of cranks have come out with profound quotes of the years, it don't mean it's going to come true, and if that's his attitude, I'd rather it didn't have anything to do with him. He sounds like a cockend

>>2823121

No have you
>ever actually met another person?

Seriously, that post made you sound like some antisocial misanthrope. Do you have friends? If not, goo out and talk to people and make some, that should kill your fucked up view of humanity.

I tought about other people in a same way as you apparently do. Then I grew out of my teenage angst, got some friends, socialized, had fun ect. Sure people might seem to be greedy selfish and evil to YOU, because they have no reason to be nice to some antisocial jerk who hates them on principle.
People are nice to the people they care about.

Also, not a native speaker, so spelling mistakes sometimes occur.

>meditate
>myface when my inner primate is starting to self-destruct
die you stupid evil moneky, all you do is make me hate others and only want pleasure and money

>>2823159
>so spelling mistakes sometimes occur

Get firefox bro, it's got an auto spellcheck function. Most everybody on 4chan can't spell for shit, and get their browsers to fix it for them

>>2823167

Thanks for that tip.
No longer needing to constantly spellcheck my posts and still fail at that would be nice.

>Unemployed at the time of his announcement to clone the first human, Seed was reported to have dabbled in ill-fated ventures in the past. He claimed at one time to have commitments for $800,000 toward a goal of $2.5 million needed to clone the first human before 2000. Seed first said that he was going to make little baby clones for infertile couples. Later, “to defuse criticism that I'm taking advantage of desperate women"--he announced that he would first clone himself. Still later he announced that he would re-create his wife Gloria.

>"God made man in his own image," he told National Public Radio correspondent Joe Palca in December 1997 . "God intended for man to become one with God. Cloning, is the first serious step in becoming one with God." In a later interview on CNN, Seed elaborated: "Man," he said, "will develop the technology and the science and the capability to have an indefinite life span."

>Seed is retired and living in the Chicago area. He is now a director of a son’s company.

"The only way you can prevent me, is to kill me"
Sounds like the best way to prevent him is to ignore him.
Talentlesscrazyoldhack.tif

>>2823166

Know that feel bro.
Some times, I am filled with this primal bloodlust, that makes want to rip throats open and splash their warm steamy blood over my face...
I think I might have some problems.

>>2823194
Nah, most normal people think that.

Modern science has existed for barely 300 years now, give it some time. The best thing you can do is research what interests you and contribute to that field.

>>2823194

i always wank when I get dat

I just want a powerful mechanical body that allows me to wrestle bears to death and punch out sharks. Is that too much to ask?

Pick realted, I'd protect babby seals from polar bears by whrestling with the mighty predators.
One can only dream...

I just want a powerful mechanical body that allows me to wrestle bears to death and punch out sharks. Is that too much to ask?

Pick related, I'd protect babby seals from polar bears by wrestling with the mighty predators.
One can only dream...

we must realize the the industrial and scientific revolution that started in 18th century europe is the greatest advancement in human kindd since the neolithic revolution. nobody can even imagine where it will take us, maybe it will make us conquer galaxies, maybe its gonna lead us to selfdestruction.

Unless these enhancements are provided for free or so cheap even the almost homeless can afford them they should be utterly banned. Otherwise the rich/poor gap will just widen even faster.

>>2823318

>implying that's a bad thing.

FUCK YOU!
This technology will get cheap eventually, but banning it only because the rich are the first ones to get it is utterly retarded.
Banning technology, that improves the lives of people, just because evryone can't afford it is utter insanity.

>>2823318
I admire your sympathy for the poor, but would transhumanism make the poor worse off? Or are you simply trying to keepthe rich down so the poor can feel better?

>>2823318
"I can't have it, so nobody else can't have it either."

The rich and famous will get the technology first. They'll be like Macs: one size "fits" all. Later, you can scavenge spare arms and legs (literally) and rebuild yourself in a true "Linux" way: Hack together your own systems. Then even the homeless can get them.

The start will be violent. Over time things will stabilize.

>>2823159
Not the guy you are referring to, but do you have a slightest idea about human psyche and motives? The only reason those people are nice to you is either

a) They are afraid of you for some reason
b) They have use of you (and pretend to like you, while your ego likes it too much to allow your mind to see the truth)
c) You somehow fit into their tribal instincts

Of course, not all humans are like that, but their numbers fall into the category of statistical error unfortunately.

>>2823346

If we are friends, does it fit the category c)?

Because I honestly don't see how they would be afraid of me or get any use out of me.

And besides, that wasn't even the main pint of my argument. The person who I was replying to didn't understand my earlier post, in wich I stated that no matter what the current state of "human nature" is, it doesn't matter, because our technology will allow us to mould our own genome, and through that, human nature to be whatever we want within this century, if our technologial progres continues on this current path.

I don't mind people choosing to remain constrained by their organic form, just like I don't mind the amish living in the 15th century and minding their own business.

But the moment some christ/allahfags start bitching about transhumans "abandoning humanity" or some shit, there will be war, and the organic luddite faggots won't stand a fucking chance against the post-singularity transhumans.

By 2045, every human will have the capacity to enchance their intelligence to the point where they can do 1000 years of unaugmented-equivalent thinking in a second.

The difference between transhumans and unaugmented organics will be far more extreme than the difference between a baseline human and a virus.

>>2823380
>By 2045, every human will have the capacity to enchance their intelligence to the point where they can do 1000 years of unaugmented-equivalent thinking in a second.

Where the fuck are people pulling this utter toss from?
I suppose this is the modern equivalent of "by 1980, we'll all have fusion powered cars and live on the moon" of the 50's

>>2823411

Agreed. People pulling out numbers out of their ass give bad name to the rest of the transhumanists. I for one, don't want to make any predictions about the future. The best way to ensure that transhumanism actually happens is to work towards it, not making baseles predictions.

>>2823380
by 2045, everything will be worse. Fact. Everything.

>>2823365
So consider this hypothetical scenario:

I genetically/technologically augment myself to be the ultimate killing machine, with the sole purpose of existence to kill you. That forces you to do the same in order to defend yourself. Which locks out most other possibilities. Or, if someone decides to keep both of us as helpless slaves just so we worship him as a God. And sends us to hell (literally) if we disobey him. As long as he is technologically/scientifically one step ahead, we have very little chance to free ourselves. And what reason would someone have to change his "nature" , i.e destroy his identity?

So yes, "human nature" is highly important, the same way living conditions are important for the evolution of species.

the war will not be organics vs androids/cyborgs, it will be machine sapience (both uploaded and newborn) vs organic-brain zealots (who will refuse to acknowledge the 'reality' of machine consciousness). there will also be 'amish', of both the spacefaring and traditional (medieval) varieties, but nobody will give a shit about them.

the economic 9/11 that is gonna happen in summer/fall 2012 will push the singularity back 2 decades minimum.

>>2823467
Necrons vs Tyranids

Fuck yeah

>>2823467
sure is matrixy out today

>>2823491
I read that as neocons vs. tyranids

which would make quite a good movie

>Narcissistic personality disorder
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001930/

>>2823467
AMISH... IN SPACE!

They still use chemical rockets, while the rest use more advanced propulsion tech.

>captcha: haxprom and

There are so many problems facing the human race as a whole that at the moment I have serious doubts as whether we'll ever really get properly out in space, let alone this singularity cyborg nonsense

pssssh the mechanus would never rise against the imperium

>>2823513
sounds like a vote for economic 9/11

>>2823461

But you asume that there isn't going to be ohter humans stopping you in your attempt to become a killing machine (why would you even do that? )
The idea that one person would manage to get so far ahead of the rest of humanity that he could begome a "god" unopposed is quite ridicilous. I anyone of us is going to become a god, it is going to happen through gradual cooperation of humans agumenting themselves. We will most likely prevent anyone of going so far that they could single handedly overpower the rest of us.

This isn't still related to my argument. What I mean by chainging the nature of humanity basically means altering our children to be nices, and better people. No greed, hunger for power ect.
All these problems that you are talking about arise only when people with the worser aspects of human personality, such as megalomania, sadism, and greed get their hands on this technology. I have argued, that in the future, these people might not even exist, because we chainged the personality traits of our children for the better.

>>2823318

That's like saying that education should be banned because most people can't access it. Go play in traffic.

>>2823513
Yeah, whilst all this deus ex stuff would be nice, it's probably not going to happen for a very long time
>energy crisis
>environmental crisis
>food crisis
>constant war
>economy in the shitter
>massive overpopulation
>growing shortages of already scarce elements needed for advanced technology
>inequality soaring everywhere
to name a few. It'll probably happen, but unlikely in our lifetimes. And even then, it'll probably be the same as it's always been, the super rich and governments get it first, control it and keep the status quo. It'll trickle down in drips and drabs to us proles, but never as advanced as those at the top have it.

>>2823543
You are aware that it is exactly such people who are in charge of the world today, right? And that they will be the ones first having that technology...

And is others stopping me from becoming what i want any different from me stopping you from existing?

Are you not enslaving those children by modifying them without their consent? What you described is something like technological circumcision.

As you see, it's far from being simple.

>>2823543
>altering our children to be nice
This might be potentially dangerous, you could be making them docile and easier to control by tyrants. We should be making children healthier and more intelligent but we shouldn't mess around with emotions much, as many problems as they cause, just so the end product is still "human".

>>2823598
Stopping you becoming an augmented killing machine with desires to rule is not only moral, it would be necessary and sensible.

bump

inb4 (or inafter?) postmodern luddite faggots.

Why call them Bio-Luddites if it's always the same shit?

>>2824302

Oh boy, arent you late for this party.

>>2824314
I agree. Colonel, what's wrong?

>>2824314
>>2824345

I was eating with my uncles who just came from many countries away.

Ugh, I can't stand the people who say stuff like "Death gives life meaning." Why do people have to rationalize death so much they think it's desirable?

We may yet keep our fleshy organic meats, without any real ill effects. A meat-shell does not automatically imply luddism.

Pic related, taken from an internal lab report. We're getting ready to publish this shit, I'm excited. Babby's first real paper.

>>2825241
wow

>>2825241
That figure isn't stand-alone enough. Mice in groups A1/A2 were treated with a bacteria that lives in the cytoplasm, which we made to secrete an engineered telomerase that had an exposed nuclear transport domain.

Almost all of B1 died some time in month 7. The phenotype of B2 was rescued by treatment with the secret bacterium, and they're still alive some six months later.

>>2825294
its more like small interfering RNA or some vaccine type shit like that, problem is, i've seen a half dozen similar papers, and they all leave out the fact that all the test mice are covered in cancer near the end of their normal life expectancy, even though the young mice don't seem to age beyond maturity.