MT wrote:
What happens to us when we die? Nothing happens. We're simply gone, we've expired, we no longer exist. Religious believers are in deep denial of this existential reality, while agnostics are halfway in and halfway out of denial.

RH wrote:
I haven't read the other 89 comments yet, but when we die it thrills me to think that our cells become dispersed and we become a part of the whole great everything. We become part of the worms, the soil, the trees etc. :)

JM wrote:
The loss of my individual identity doesn't thrill me, and it's quite surprising to hear someone say that who is not suicidal in their eagerness to be recycled by the universe.

RH wrote:
...at JM... I already fully accept that there is no finite division between myself and everything else. That humans are identifiable but not definable. Therefore I have no eagerness TO BE recycled. However, a post death version of interconnectedness is also fascinating to contemplate. :)

JM wrote:
Sorry, but being worm food is not fascinating. I'm not sure what you mean by no finite division. Since humans are physically limited in extent, by the Beckenstein Bounds derived from quantum mechanics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenstein_limit ), there are only a finite number of possible humans. Frank Tipler(a theoretical physics heavyweight... See More) has done some interesting calculations matching up that number against the rapid growth in our computing power to try to get an estimate of the point at which every human who has ever lived(plus every possible human who could ever have lived!) could be "resurrected" via computer simulations. Great book, "Physics and Immortality".

RH wrote:
....it thrills me that we are STAR LIGHT; Thanks to photosynthesis and the veg we eat, and the other animals we eat too that have themselves consumed the solar powered green stuff .

JM wrote:
Yes, that is thrilling. Death, not so much.

RH wrote:
... and it is thrilling to think that as much as 90% of every human being's entire 100 trillion cells ..... is actually BACTERIA. We are walking communities, much of it unmapped, un-named as of yet :)

I recently encountered the following proclamations: "Transhumanism is science-based, everyone should leave any ideas which are non scientific at the door while going to a meeting" and "It is only through science that a transhuman state may be realised."

I can't be the only one to find such declarations to be suffocatingly short sighted and unambitious.

Fundamentally Transhumanism is a story about Being.

It is a story about the process of Becoming. To be Transhuman is to be a voyager travelling to an unknown destination.

To be Transhuman is to be a pioneer, an eXistential eXplorer.

Transhumanism is a daring tale of transformation, boundaries transgressed and uncharted existential terrains. Self direction and self ownership demands that our chosen evolutionary paths will be wildly diverse and will therefore draw upon wildly diverse ideas.

Seriously, science just ain't enough.

Transhumanism needs the ideas of people with experience in forging their own paths. Transhumanism needs to engage with the psychonauts, the absurdists, the pranksters, the poets, the actors, the posers, the dancers, the dreamers, the differently able, the outsiders, the freaks, the disobedient, and anyone else experienced in swimming against mainstream currents.

In conclusion: Simone de Beauvoir believed it to be the height of irresponsibility for any serious thinker to attempt to make the world seem less ambiguous. While Theodor W. Adorno said “Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.”

If Transhumanists believe that only science and evidence based ideas are necessary to lead them to the promised land, then Transhumanists are little more than deluded dinosaurs whistling "tomorrow belongs to me."

A man named Algernon Black once said: "Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication."

Earlier I was asked for a definition of Transhuman Automorphism.

I replied, Transhuman Automorphism is an exploratory commitment to various definitions of the word "PLAY".

This morning I was asked about my creative online projects and what I have to say on Transhumanism. And I was asked to suggest a selection of my links that are perhaps the best introduction to my H+ criteria.

Reflecting upon my overall work to date I highlighted some of the recurring concepts that are of prime importance to me:

- A culture's power structure depends largely on how we look and how we are looked at.
- Transhuman Theonarcissism.
- Ontological Anarchy.
- Cognitive Liberty.
- Transhuman Automorphism - Living as Art.

(I later thought I should also have included, Equiveillance - Deep Transparency)

and I offered the following selection of links:

http://www.transhumanism.org/gallery/rh.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/75587844/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2001/jan/05/guardianletters1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russell-higgs/53700518/

http://russellhiggs.shutterchance.com/archive.php

 In addition I also wrote in my reply:

My creative work and life experience to date is also strongly flavoured by Financial Poverty (relative to western living), which I believe is a topic of considerable importance in the context of mainstream H+ fantasies and idealisation. In particular with regard to Self Direction and Self Ownership. My financial poverty is primarily a consequence of personal priorities and choices that I have made and those that I continue to make. My emphasis being that Self Direction and Self Ownership are not always going to take us down the most sensible routes. And it's important to underline that that's OK. Which also leads me to one more thing that comes to mind: the importance of imperfection.

And finally I was asked "Is life treating you well? Are you treating it well?" To which I replied:

Generally existence and the world intrigues me, I like being alive very much, and most of the time I am something like contented, and frequently happy even.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

(said Charles R. Swindoll)

synthetic happiness video - dan gilbert

part of a series of video mini lectures,
over on T.E.D.

http://www.gcarlson.com

"Gary strives to bring a level of artfulness to medical illustration that makes it exciting as well as informative"

4 pages from THE INSURGENT
(an ongoing online foto-graphic novel and self help manual)



















anarcho-transhumanism



Political Freedom: Against the tyranny of government.

Economic Freedom: Against the tyranny of capitalism.

Biological Freedom: Against the tyranny of genes.

It is my belief there is no reason why clothing should be compulsory. It is simply my ordinary human body that is visible. We are criminalised because of prejudice against our appearance. Religious concepts of bodily sin and shame continue to inform our contemporary self-perceptions, while advertising exploits both our fascination with the body as well as our low self-esteem, through limited representations of ideal bodies. This campaign of public nakedness is a simple action that simultaneously invigorates numerous complex issues.

I am not a naturist, a nudist, a streaker, nor an exhibitionist. Labels are for clothes. My unclothed appearance is also not motivated sexually nor out of any gratuitous need to seek attention. I believe that while society continues to have a fundamentally negative relationship with the human body and appearance, we can never be a free or mature society. It's the 21st century. Time to evolve.

(Russell Higgs, Brixton prison, december 2000, from a letter to the guardian)