The Transhumanism Handbook

837 Pages·2019·17.894 MB·English

by  Newton Lee

Newton Lee Editor
The Transhumanism
Handbook
The Transhumanism Handbook
Newton Lee
Editor
The Transhumanism
Handbook
Editor
Newton Lee
California Transhumanist Party
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Institute for Education Research, and Scholarships
Los Angeles, CA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-16919-0 ISBN 978-3-030-16920-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16920-6
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
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To peace, love, and freedom
About the Book
Modern humanity with some 5,000 years of recorded history has been experiencing
growing pains, with no end in sight. It is high time for humanity to grow up and to
transcend itself by embracing transhumanism.
Transhumanism offers the most inclusive ideology for all ethnicities and races,
the religious and the atheists, conservatives and liberals, the young and the old
regardless of socioeconomic status, gender identity, or any other individual
qualities.
This book expounds on contemporary views and practical advice from more than
70 transhumanists in order to:
(a) Present the whole picture of transhumanism from both secular and religious
points of view.
(b) Explain and demystify artificial general intelligence and superintelligence.
(c) Offer practical advice on radical life extension and rejuvenation.
(d) Explore the roles of blockchain and cryptocurrency in transhumanism.
(e) Examine transhumanist economics, ethics, philanthropy, philosophy, and
politics.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong said on the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, “One
small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Transhumanism is the next logi-
cal step in the evolution of humankind, and it is the existential solution to the long-
term survival of the human race.
vii
Contents
Part I Brave New World of Transhumanism
1 Brave New World of Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Newton Lee
2 History of Transhumanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Natasha Vita-More
3 The Boundaries of the Human: From Humanism
to Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
José Luis Cordeiro
4 How Transhumanism Will Get Us Through the Third Millennium . . 75
Kate Levchuk
5 The United States Transhumanist Party and the Politics
of Abundance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Gennady Stolyarov II
Part II Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Superintelligence
6 Beauty Is in the A.I. of the Beholder: Artificial
and Superintelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Newton Lee
7 The Sapient and Sentient Intelligence Value Argument
and Effects on Regulating Autonomous Artificial Intelligence . . . . . . 175
David J. Kelley
8 Choices in a Mediated Artificial Super Intelligence Assisted World:
The Future Before Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Kyrtin Atreides
ix
x Contents
9 The Upward Spiral of Inspiration in a mASI Assisted World:
Where Root- Cause Solutions Empower Positive
Feedback Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Kyrtin Atreides
10 Creating Conversational AI Capable of Uncommon Range
and Empathy, for the Betterment of Business and Humanity . . . . . . 227
Rob Lubow
11 Humanizing Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Eleanor “Nell” Watson
12 Ethics and Bias in Machine Learning: A Technical Study
of What Makes Us “Good” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Nicole Shadowen
13 Philosophical, Moral, and Ethical Rationalization of Artificial
Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Mariana Todorova
14 Theopolis Monk: Envisioning a Future of A.I. Public Service . . . . . . 271
Scott H. Hawley
15 Hacking the Human Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Julia A. Mossbridge
Part III Super Longevity and Rejuvenation
16 In Search of Super Longevity and the Meaning of Life . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Newton Lee
17 To Age, or Not to Age: That Is the Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Maria Entraigues Abramson
18 Drinking From the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Joe Bardin
19 Transhumanism and Older Adult Quality of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Jonathan Squyres
20 Are You Willing to Die for Reductionism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Michael R. Rose and Grant A. Rutledge
21 What Do We Need to Know to Treat Degenerative Aging
as a Medical Condition to Extend Healthy Lifespan? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Ilia Stambler
22 Harnessing Nature’s Clues for Regeneration, Disease Reversion,
and Rejuvenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Ira S. Pastor
Contents xi
23 Induced Cell Turnover and the Future
of Regenerative Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Jakub Stefaniak, Francesco Albert Bosco Cortese, and Giovanni
Santostasi
24 Extending Healthy Human Lifespan Using Gene Therapy . . . . . . . . 423
Elizabeth Parrish
25 How to Reach a Societal Turning Point on Life Extension . . . . . . . . . 431
Keith Comito
26 How to Organize a Moonshot Project for Amortality:
Scientific, Political, Social and Ethical Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Didier Coeurnelle
27 Taking Up the Cosmic Office: Transhumanism
and the Necessity of Longevity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Kali Carrigan
Part IV Biohacking and Mental Health
28 Cyborgs and Cybernetic Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
Newton Lee
29 My Transhumanist Story of Overcoming with LEGO . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
David Aguilar
30 Biohacktivism, Cyborgasm, and Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Rich Lee
31 The (R)Evolution of the Human Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Augusta L. Wellington
32 Transhumanism from the View of a Psychologist,
Focusing on Mental Health Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Andjelka (Angie) Stones
Part V Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
33 Transhuman Crypto Cloudminds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
Melanie Swan
34 Transhumanism and Distributed Ledger Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Calem John Smith
35 DoI-SMS: A Diffusion of Innovations Based Subsidy
Minting Schedule for Proof- of- Work Cryptocurrencies . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Janez Trobevšek, Calem John Smith, and Federico De
Gonzalez-Soler
xii Contents
Part VI A rt, Literature, and Films
36 In the Afterglow of the Big Bang: Science, Science Fiction, and
Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Judith Reeves-Stevens and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
37 Not in the Image of Humans: Robots as Humans’ Other in
Contemporary Science Fiction Film, Literature and Art . . . . . . . . . . 557
Sophie Wennerscheid
38 Jethro Knights—Human to Machine: A Hero We Love To Hate . . . . 573
Chris T. Armstrong
39 Art and Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
R. Nicholas Starr
40 An Artist’s Creative Process: A Model for Conscious Evolution . . . . 587
Dinorah Delfin
Part VII Society and Ethics
41 Pragmatic Paths in Transhumanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Jeffrey Zilahy
42 Leave Nobody Behind: The Future of Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
Amanda Stoel
43 Should We Genetically Engineer Humans to Live in Space? . . . . . . . 619
Amanda Stoel
44 The Meme of Altruism and Degrees of Personhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
Amanda Stoel
45 Charity in a Transhumanist World, and Our World Becoming So . . 631
Stephen Valadez
46 Two-Worlds Theory: When Offline and Online Worlds Begin
to Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
B. J. Murphy
47 Digital Eternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
Henrique Jorge
48 Nietzschean Superhuman Evolution in Decentralized
Technological Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651
Eugene Lukyanov
49 A Transhumanist World Comes from Diversity of Thought . . . . . . . . 659
Martin van der Kroon
50 Imagination and Transhumansim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663
Sylvester Geldtmeijer
51 Transhumanism Is the Idea of Man Merging with Technology . . . . . 667
Vineeta Sharma