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'Boosting' research to develop world's fastest nanomotor

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:41:00 GMT

http://www.biodesign.asu.edu/news/boosting-research-to-develop-worlds-fastest-nanomotor

In a “major step” toward a practical energy source for powering tomorrow’s nanomachines, researchers at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute report the development of a new generation of tiny nanomotors that are up to 10 times more powerful than existing motors.

Just like weekend hot-rodders who tinker with their car engines in the ultimate quest for speed, a research team led by Joseph Wang, who directs the institute’s Center for Biosensors and Bioelectronics, set out to improve on the design of current nanomotors. These so-called “catalytic nanomotors” are made with gold and platinum nanowires and use hydrogen peroxide (the same chemical that bleaches hair) as a fuel for self-propulsion.

But these motors are too slow and inefficient for practical use, with top speeds of about 10 micrometers per second, the researchers say. One micrometer is about 1/25,000 of an inch or almost 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. (If one could somehow magnify the nanoworld to human scale by multiplying by a factor of 100,000, the speed would be the seem the same as a walking speed of 3.6 miles per hour.)

Wang and colleagues supercharged their nanomotors by inserting carbon nanotubes into the platinum, thus boosting average speed to 60 micrometers per second. This was the first time that carbon nanotubes had been added to the existing gold and platinum nanowires. The tiny tubes, only a few atoms thick, help conduct electricity and heat.

This is the first example of a powerful, man-made nanomotor, said Wang, who is an ASU professor with a joint appointment in the departments of Chemical and Material Engineering in the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Science.

Spiking the hydrogen peroxide fuel with hydrazine (a type of rocket fuel) kicked up the speed still further, to 94- 200 micrometers per second (using the same multiplying factor of 100,000, the top speed would now be equal to a moped-like speed of 43.2 miles per hour). This innovation “offers great promise for self-powered nanoscale transport and delivery systems,” Wang states.

The Biodesign team is interested in more than just bragging rights at the nanotechnology research racetrack. By packaging the nanomotors with the right cargo, Wang says the powerful nanomotors could one day deliver disease-fighting drugs inside the body to invading pathogens or tumor cells, or help clean up environmental toxins by using the toxins as fuel.

Authors on the paper include: Rawiwan Laocharoensuk, Jared Burdick, and Joseph Wang. Their study is scheduled for the May 27 issue of ACS Nano, a monthly journal. They also reported their findings in the online edition of ACS Nano Carbon-Nanotube-Induced Acceleration of Catalytic Nanomotors.

###

Student and professor build budget supercomputer

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:57:00 GMT

Student & professor build budget supercomputer

August 30 , 2007

When Tim Brom 07’ set out to build a budget supercomputer with Calvin computer science professor Joel Adams, he didn’t know the product of his efforts might end up in his checked baggage headed for England.

Brom, now a graduate student at the University of Kentucky continuing his studies in computer science, worked with Adams to build Microwulf, a machine that is among the smallest and least expensive supercomputers on the planet.

“It’s small enough to check on an airplane or fit next to a desk,” said Brom.

This may prove useful next summer when Brom and others from his graduate program travel to England to do work that will require “a significant amount of computing power.” And as the price of commercial supercomputers is often prohibitive for many educational institutions, bringing a “personal” supercomputer like Microwulf could be a cost-effective solution for the group of graduate researchers.

“So far as we can tell, this is the first supercomputer to have this low price/performance ratio—the first to cost less than $100/Gflop,” said Adams.

This is a significant achievement considering that Microwulf is more than twice as fast as Deep Blue, the IBM-created supercomputer that beat world chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, and cost only a fraction of the $5 million spent to build Deep Blue.

Microwulf has been measured to process 26.25 gigaflops, or 26.25 billion double-precision floating point instructions, per second. It achieves this performance by relying on four dual-core motherboards connected by an 8-port Gigabyt Ethernet switch. The connected components form a three-tiered system that looks like a triple-decker sandwich.

Supercomputers like Microwulf are used to solve problems that take too much number-crunching for an ordinary desktop to handle, either because its processor is too slow, or because it doesn’t have enough memory, said Adams. Truly huge supercomputers (more than 100 times as fast as Microwulf) are used by organizations like the National Weather Service to process meteorological data and by the United States Missile Defense Agency to simulate nuclear tests.

Microwulf is considered a Beowulf cluster, a group of networked computers that run open source software and work in parallel to solve a single problem. Beowulf clusters are so named because their homemade, cost-effective nature liberates researchers from expensive commercial options for super-computing, much like Beowulf of the Old English poem liberated the Danes from the tyrannical rule of Grendel.

Do Brom and Adams see themselves as “liberators” by unveiling of a system like Microwulf?

“We’re taking the liberation a step further,” said Adams. “Instead of a bunch of researchers having to share a single Beowulf cluster supercomputer, now each researcher can have their own.”

Just two years ago, building a personal supercomputer like Microwulf for the price of a high-performance desktop was out of the realm of possibility for Adams and Brom. But when they saw a portable Beowulf cluster called Little Fe at a conference in October 2005, they began to think about building their system.

“I was really enjoying my high-performance computing class and wanted to keep working in that area after the class ended. I was also thinking about graduate school at the time and a project like Microwulf looks good on a curriculum vitae,” said Brom.

So by the summer of 2006 when the price of hardware materials needed to build Microwulf had gone down, Adams asked his academic department to provide $2500 for the project. He also asked Brom, then beginning his last year at Calvin, to help him build the supercomputer. In January of 2007, they began to piece together their system and by March, they were running tests to see just what Microwulf could do. In the end, the project came in under budget with Microwulf donning a price-tag of just $2470. With current hardware prices, another system like Microwulf would cost half of what it cost Adams and Brom to build earlier this year.

Though supercomputers are typically evaluated on their price/performance ratio, Adams built Microwulf giving attention to its power/performance ratio as well. In other words, he wanted to pay attention to the system’s energy consumption.

“This is becoming increasingly important, as excess power consumption is inefficient and generates waste heat, which can in turn decrease reliability,” said Adams on his Web site.

Adams and Brom managed to build Microwulf so that it could plug into one standard 120V wall outlet. This feature only enhances the system’s portability, allowing it to be taken to classrooms and other research labs where large power supplies are unavailable.

Adams isn’t going to let Microwulf gather dust in the supercomputing lab in the Science Building. Instead he’s going to take it out on the road, mostly to middle school and high school classrooms to try and get teenagers hooked on computer science.

Microwulf’s inventors aren’t set on keeping their blueprints for the supercomputer a secret. In fact, they’ve just published a detailed description and evaluation of their project on Cluster Monkey so others can build their own portable and affordable supercomputers.

It remains to be seen whether Brom will be able to get his wire-filled personal supercomputer past airport security next summer.

~written by Allison Graff, web communications coordinator

"Buckminster Fuller: The History and Mystery of Life"

Sat, 10 May 2008 17:59:00 GMT

Last night I watched the superb one man play, "Buckminster Fuller: The
History and Mystery of Life." Joe Spano nailed the role of the
visionary maverick who some have called, "the Leonardo DaVinci of the
20th century." I was enthralled by the combination of excellent
acting, writing, lighting, multimedia display, and set design. The
play was in a sense the most entertaining and educational university
lecture I have ever attended! lol I have seen a number of
documentaries about Bucky's life and this work was an incredible
resurrection of both the man and his ideas. The intelligence,
enthusiasm, concern, playfulness, energy, and earnestness of the man
was all there.

The humanity and charm of Buckminster Fuller came through as he waxed
poetic about the glories of love and how as a young lad he dropped out
of Harvard and ran off to the big city to court a beautiful showgirl!
They projected a photo of a young Bucky with a mischievous smile on
his face and the gorgeous dancer who caught his fancy. hee But this
did not exactly go over well with his very concerned parents...
Later, Buckminster found himself back home, with his father lecturing
him about his future and the importance of wisely spending his college
money on a Harvard education. And going on road trips to chase women
was not a viable alternative! lol Harvard just did not agree with
him, but in time he met the right woman and they married and had a
long and happy marriage. It was obvious that he adored her and his
romance with the universe and the future of humanity also applied to
the woman he loved and spent his life with.

The intertwining of Fuller's sometimes very painful and yet joyful
personal life, with his scientific and philosophical ideas was
fascinating. The way his spiritual/transcendental experiences
affected his futurism and general outlook is very inspiring to me and
a needed example.

Taken from the "Good Times" online interview with Joe Spano:
For Spano, the most interesting aspect of Fuller's life is his
epiphany at the age of 32 when he stood on the shores of Lake Michigan
contemplating suicide. He had gone bankrupt, lost his first child,
was discredited and unemployed staring into the frozen waters that
could take his life. In that moment, he had an idea that would change
his life, and the world, forever. It was then that he embarked on his
56-year experiment that attempted to prove his most controversial
ideas as feasible. In that time he authored 28 books, earned 28
United States Patents, received 47 honorary doctorates and circled the
globe 57 times giving lectures and interviews. Spano says, "To come
back from that low-point and make your life function and find the
joyful responsibility to communicate is the most important thing that
I take out of this."
>>>

My very favorite quote from Buckminster Fuller is, "find the time to
think in a cosmically adequate manner." I consider this to be one of
the coolest Transhumanist-themed ideas I have ever heard. In so many
ways he tried to get across the notion that each of us really do
matter and can make a difference in terms of the fate of humanity. I
found this both very powerful and humbling.

Another excerpt from the "Good Times" online article:
Spano has truly tapped into this role and encourages anyone who seeks
a connection to the world to see it. He lays it out simply: "As much
as you want entertainment, people hunger for something real," he says.
"That's how I experience life. Give me something that's so powerful
and I'll forget my life, but this is the opposite. It gives great joy
and lets the audience say, 'oh yeah.'"
>>>

I heartily recommend everyone look to see if this play is coming to
their community, and if it is, then go see it! I only wish my
comments here did justice to what I saw last night.

Only one performance was scheduled for my area and the auditorium was
about 90% full. But I was saddened that I only saw a small handful of
young people there. I would say the most numerous demographic was of
couples in their fifties and above. But then it was a Friday night...
lol

I wish I could start up a nightclub called "Bucky's." The place would
be full of dancing and fun, and held under a gigantic and brightly lit
geodesic dome! Interesting and inspirational quotes & pictures from
Buckminster Fuller's life and ideas would be put on the walls of the
joint. : )

John Grigg

Some Buckminster Fuller quotes that really resonate with me:
"If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It
is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference."

"We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims."

"Humanity is now experiencing history's most difficult evolutionary
transformation."

"I have been a deliberate half-century-fused inciter of a cool-headed,
natural, gestation-rate-paced revolution, armed with physically
demonstrable livingry levers with which altogether to elevate all
humanity to realization of an inherently sustainable,
satisfactory-to-all, ever higher standard of living. Critical
threshold-crossing of the inevitable revolution is already underway."

------------------------------

The following are two online reviews that covered this incredible production:

http://sixties-l.blogspot.com/2008/03/r-buckminster-fuller-history-and.html

R. Buckminster Fuller: The History and Mystery of Life

Actor Joe Spano takes on the life and ideas of the visionary
freethinker R. Buckminster Fuller

WALLACE BAINE - Sentinel staff writer
Article Launched: 03/07/2008

R. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller has been dead for 25 years. But no one
of his generation, or perhaps of any previous generation, would be
more comfortable walking out of the past right into 2008.

Fuller "" futurist, inventor, philosopher, architect, engineer,
freethinker, utopian "" prefigured today's world of carbon
footprints, global warming and technological salvation. He has been
called one of the most fascinating original minds of the 20th century
and an enlightened American mystic. Yet, today, he has not penetrated
the mainstream consciousness of most Americans.

A new one-man show, coming to Santa Cruz on Friday, March 14, is
looking to enlighten contemporary audiences on the man who became a
central figure in the intellectual development of the 1960s
counterculture. "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History and Mystery of
Life" features actor Joe Spano in the conservative suit and big,
horn-rimmed glasses of Fuller. The play is meant to address both
Fuller's life and his ideas.

"There are biographical elements to it," said Spano, known for his
recurring role in the landmark 1980s TV series "Hill Street Blues."
"But it's also a history of the evolution of his thought."

Spano said he has commonly heard from audiences that many people were
pleasantly surprised at the play's content.

"I've heard, 'I was so afraid that I wasn't going to understand it.'
But it's not about science or specifics about engineering. It's
really about the experience of thinking for yourself, the integrity
that makes you be yourself and how you've got to follow the path to
fulfill your own life."

The play's writer and director Doug Jacobs said that he first came
across the ideas of Buckminster Fuller 40 years ago, during Fuller's
first full flowering of influence.

"I was a freshman at UC Santa Barbara, looking to study political
geography," said Jacobs. "And my brother, who was in the College of
Creative Studies at the time, told me, 'Hey, you gotta come hear this
guy talk.' So I went, at the beginning of Bucky's lecture, slipped
out to go to class, came back and he was still talking, left again,
came back again and he's still there. And this went on for two or three days."

It wasn't until years later, in 1980, when Jacobs read Fuller's
seminal book "Critical Path" that he went "down the rabbit hole" for
Fuller's ideas.

"Bucky bridges science and the humanities," said Jacobs. "All those
lines we draw "" left/right, Democrat/Republican, scientist/artist ""
he cut across all those lines. He just paid no attention to them. He
was all about jumping fences in the best kind of American way."

Fuller is most known as the inventor of the geodesic dome, but his
philosophical ideas embrace the doing-more-with-less notions only now
coming into mainstream thought today. He was a systems thinker who,
to take one example, felt that world hunger could be easily wiped out
with a different systematic approach.

The play came about in 1995 when Jacobs, already fully immersed in
the Bucky belief system, was approached to write a play on the
centennial of Fuller's birth. Jacobs said he brought elements of
performance art and entertainment into the story of Fuller's life,
perfectly in keeping with the man's personality.

"He had this fascination with show business," said Jacobs, "and a
not-so-secret desire to be a song-and-dance man. This will be
different than a lecture. There's a poetic element to the play as well."

Spano spent hours watching tape of Fuller's lectures to get the
mannerisms and speech patterns down, and also re-interprets Fuller's
tweedy manner of dress and personal style.

"He was really a counterculture figure," said Spano. "But he wanted
to be taken seriously also. And he knew he wouldn't be taken
seriously unless he dressed conservatively, like a bank clerk."

"The thing about him," said Jacobs, "was that he could go down into
the minute details of any subject that interested him and then zoom
out to the bigger picture, going masterfully from the microcosm to
the macrocosm and back again. And very, very few people have been
able to do that."

Jacobs said Fuller had wished to provide the world with an example of
what one person could do, given effort, energy and creativity, and
that his play reflects that part of Fuller's philosophy. "It's a call
to action to become who you're meant to become, just like he did. It
asks the question: What are you meant to do with your life?"

Spano said that Fuller's message is perfectly contemporary to today's
artists, writers and freethinkers.

"He says in the play, 'I do think we'll make it, if we wake up and
act in a sensible way.' And that's something that people really want to hear."
-------------------------

http://www.gtweekly.com/a-e/pass-the-buckminster-1

The Good Times website, article written by Alex Page:

Meet the P.R. man to the universe

R Buckminster Fuller was one of the greatest minds in history.
Descriptions of Fuller only obfuscate his life more than it was, with
apt but bizarre phrases like "the first navigator to chart spaceship
earth's critical path towards either utopia or oblivion." Known to
most as the designer of the geodesic dome, Fuller was nothing short of
genius, but terribly disturbed as well. He is credited with inventing
the Dymaxion Map and coining the word "debunked."

This man of mystery has a plethora of quirks, credits, inventions and
ideas. Most of us have no idea who Fuller was or even his
philosophies that emanated with his environmental consciousness, but
wonder no more. Joe Spano (Hill Street Blues, Apollo 13 and
Hollywoodland) is tackling the task of portraying the "Da Vinci of the
20th century" and he's coming right here to Santa Cruz through the UC
Santa Cruz Arts & Lectures series. For one night only at 8 p.m. on
March 14 at UCSC's Mainstage Theater, Spano will be performing the
highly acclaimed one man show, "R. Buckminster Fuller: The History
(and Mystery) of Life."

Spano has been a film actor for nearly 35 years, and began his acting
career up in the Bay Area. A San Francisco native, he attended UC
Berkeley where he quickly dropped his medical ambitions and found his
love for stage performance. He helped found the Berkeley Repertory
Theater and performed with them for 10 years before he made his way to
television. He's best known for his Emmy Award-winning role on Hill
Street Blues. Spano describes this stage role as the hardest thing
he's done in his career. "The experience of being the sole
communicator is very satisfying," he says. "But it takes more time, is
much harder on you and you make less money. But for family life it's
easier to do television. I've found the process to be very
challenging this time; as you get older it gets harder because it's so
physical." He's not the first to tackle this role, but his close-knit
relationship with director D.W. Jacobs has made this production reach
new heights of accuracy.

He explains that researching the role led him toward stacks of tapes,
books and papers written by and about the unique mind. He also took
the script and really sank his teeth into it. But nothing helped more
than getting to meet with Fuller's daughter who is now in her
eighties. She provided an exclusive peek into Bucky's life that
biographies fall short of describing.

The whole performance has led the actor in his own understanding of
life. He feels that Bucky Fuller and his words really speak to
people. Too often audiences are watching in order to escape from
reality. Yet this play guides the audience on an understanding of the
world, the universe and ourselves. Spano believes that he has gained
a sense of what is true. "I can't explain it and it'd be a bad idea
if I tried, but truth is like pornography," he says. "You know it when
you see it." That seems to be a mantra of contemporary popular
culture. With shows like American Idol and Survivor, we yearn for an
escape from reality into "reality." It's clear through talking with
Spano that those types of shows are just a distraction. Those that
seek reality must seek truth, but fabricated television cannot provide
that. Instead we should try philosophical theater. "R. Buckminster
Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of Life" interestingly borders that
realm of escape from, and explanation of, life.

For Spano, the most interesting aspect of Fuller's life is his
epiphany at the age of 32 when he stood on the shores of Lake Michigan
contemplating suicide. He had gone bankrupt, lost his first child,
was discredited and unemployed staring into the frozen waters that
could take his life. In that moment, he had an idea that would change
his life, and the world, forever. It was then that he embarked on his
56-year experiment that attempted to prove his most controversial
ideas as feasible. In that time he authored 28 books, earned 28
United States Patents, received 47 honorary doctorates and circled the
globe 57 times giving lectures and interviews. Spano says, "To come
back from that low-point and make your life function and find the
joyful responsibility to communicate is the most important thing that
I take out of this."

The performance is a two-hour play with multimedia components infused
to better convey the madness and genius of Buckminster Fuller's ideas,
concepts and inventions. The show was written and directed by D.W.
Jacobs and pulls most of the script straight from the words and work
of Fuller who is purported to be the most documented person in human
history. The play is being produced in conjunction with Z-Space
Studio and has been hosted at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, Spano's
self-declared "home theater," before its current tour throughout the
country.

Spano has truly tapped into this role and encourages anyone who seeks
a connection to the world to see it. He lays it out simply: "As much
as you want entertainment, people hunger for something real," he says.
"That's how I experience life. Give me something that's so powerful
and I'll forget my life, but this is the opposite. It gives great joy
and lets the audience say, 'oh yeah.'"

-------------------------

Does your brain have a mind of its own?

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:06:00 GMT

A quote from the article:
"No sensible engineer would have designed things this way. Why design fancy machinery for making long-term goals if you're not going to use it? Yet the brain is structured such that the more tired, stressed or distracted we are, the less likely we are to use our forebrains and the more likely to lean back on the time-tested but shortsighted machinery we've inherited from our ancestors."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...0,5015266.story

Do any of you play the cognitive function enhancement games available for the net, cell phones, handheld game consoles, etc.,? Any recommendations?

John Grigg

I attended the ASU Workshop on Transhumanism, "Repudiation of Transhumanism: Part II"

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:25:00 GMT

I attended a Templeton sponsored workshop on Transhumanism at ASU this past Friday and had a fascinating time. The speakers were generally very good, though ironically some of them admitted from the start to not knowing very much about the subject (and it at times really showed). I was offended when at the very start of the conference, Transhumanism was called a "shallow ideology" that did not warrant even being called a philosophy yet. And yet it supposedly needed to be addressed because as Fukyama stated, "it is the world's most dangerous idea."

http://www.asu.edu/transhumanism/

http://www.asu.edu/transhumanism/about.html

The conference was set up to be for basically only academics and so I was touched to be invited. But the closed nature of the event (I had to "sniff it out" to even pursue going) bothered me. I feel it should have been advertised (it is not even mentioned on their website!) and the general public allowed to attend. But it was believed that keeping things closed would keep out many possibly noisy Transhumanists. lol Several of the speaking academics were very critical of Transhumanism and I was very troubled that there were no prominent Transhumanists there such as Max More, Natasha Vita-More, Nick Bostrom, Anders Sandberg, James Hughes, etc., to counterbalance them. It was definitely needed at times! But I was told several Transhumanist academics had been invited, but for one reason or another did not accept. I was very saddened to learn this.

I reached the end of my rope when Andrew Pickering, of the University of Exeter, who admitted from the start to having known nothing about Transhumanism before he was asked to give a talk at the workshop, gave his opinion that Transhumanists, with their vision of humanity uploaded into super computers, had a total lack of imagination as to how the future might be! He went on about Transhumanists wanting to "freeze their form for the ideal of Transhumanist perfection." I shook my head at this because of course Transhumanists want the freedom to take on whatever configuration they desire and not to be "locked in" to just one form. This stereotyping of *all* Transhumanists wanting the same scenario/goals and his general ignorance on the subject really disturbed me.

Andrew Pickering:
http://www.huss.ex.ac.uk/sociology/staff/pickering/

But the tipping point for me was when Professor Sarewitz (mentioned in my last post), of ASU, chimed in and said Transhumanists "suffered from a desiccated imagination." I finally stood up for us and said that I had seen Transhumanists accused of many things, but lack of imagination was not one of them! LOL I stated that Transhumanists were not all of one mind and that uploading was just one option that some of us we embraced. And that others wanted to simply augment the bodies we currently have. At that I was told it was just another example of Transhumanist lack of imagination! ha

Dan Sarewitz:
http://cspo.org/about/people/sarewitz.htm

Things felt Monty Pythonesque when a professor started waxing poetic about how great it would be to be genetically modified so you could have wings and fly. It was decided by the group (very seriously I might add) that this was indeed a very great idea and better than what Transhumanists could dream up. The unintentional comedy potential of academics in a group is really something...

Later, the final speaker, Ted Peters, read a quote from Ray Kurzweil on humanity transforming the universe, and then looked my way and with a smile on his face and acknowledged how you could never justly accuse Transhumanists of a lack of imagination!

Don Ihde, of Stony Brook University, started off the lectures by discussing the four "idols" of futurism. Paradise, techno-fantasy (he saw Transhumanists falling for this one, especially), prediction and cyborgs were the deadly failings. He referred a great deal to the failed predictions of the past. But the man lost me when he said Transhumanism was man versus nature (in some ways true), while the Japanese cultural approach to technology was different by being highly integrative. I do admire Japan for their pro-tech pro-robotics endeavors, but I don't see how they should be viewed as the enlightened alternative to Transhumanism.

Don Ihde:
http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/

Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a Frenchman of both Stanford and École Polytechnique, was a very charming and extremely energetic fellow who referred again and again to Hannah Arendt's 1958 book, "The Human Condition." Dupuy said she foresaw even then what is happening now with technology and society. Regarding Nick Bostrom (described as a "very bright guy") and other prominent Transhumanist scholars, he was "they are not stupid, they know their stuff."

Dupuy went on to say some modern scientists are seized by the spirit of the Sorcerer's Apprentice myth. The goal is not control but actually having their creation get *out* of control. I think he misunderstood the classic Disney cartoon because Mickey did not want the spell on the broom to get out of hand! lol

A sweet moment in his presentation was when he gave very adoring background information about a professor he was about to reference and then he brought up a picture of the lovely female academic who just so happened to be his wife! lol Dupuy was quite the charmer and was almost a living stereotype of the classic bright, romantic and energetic French intellectual type.

He claimed that "love would become incomprehensible in a Transhumanist world" and to support that view he shared the Greek myth of Alcimena. Zeus took the form of her husband (who was off fighting in a war) and then had sex with her, getting the woman pregnant. This resulted in baby Hercules. The story was brought up to take into consideration the Transhumanist/SF idea of making a copy of a former lover who had died. But as a female professor said to a girlfriend, "how could a woman not know it was another man, despite appearances?" lol I think female intuition is not to be underestimated.

The French professor commented that Nick Bostrom had written what he considered a superb paper about how Transhumanism should be seen as the height of humanism. But at the same time he said the big irony was that Transhumanism would ultimately eliminate humans as they now exist.

Jean-Pierre Dupuy
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/faculty/dupuy.html

Katherine Hayles, of UCLA, spoke about "wrestling with Transhumanism." People laughed (so did I) when she confessed, "Transhumanism to me is like being very obsessed with a former lover and not being able to fully let go!" lol

She said a strongpoint of Transhumanism is that it takes "techno-genesis" extremely seriously, while many other future oriented groups/movements do not. But Hayles felt a comparative weakness is the emphasis on the individual, which is sometimes divorced from the larger picture/society. And going along with that is a naiveté regarding the idea that Transhumanist technology will be good for everyone. I see her points, but I think if she had been reading Transhumanist email lists over the last year or two she would not have claimed we had these weaknesses to the extent she thinks we do.

I was very impressed that she felt reading science fiction was an excellent way to explore various possible future scenarios. Hayles went into great detail about the superb Hugo-winning "Beggars in Spain" series by Nancy Kress, that focused on genetic engineering and the social conflict/cooperation it may engender.

Katherine Hayles took Transhumanism seriously, despite many criticisms and she very much impressed me. But I was distressed by her closing statement that Transhumanist philosophy (not ideology!, lol) and logic were just not at present sufficient to deal with the extremely complex and very hard to anticipate consequences of convergence technology on society.

Katherine Hayles:
http://www.english.ucla.edu/faculty/hayles/

Ted Peters, of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, felt that no amount of technological progress could truly lift humanity out of its dark and self-destructive nature. He discussed nano, bio, info, cogno convergence, but also added artificial intelligence (isn't this "info?") , capitalism (need money!) and intelligence amplification (isn't this "cogno?").

Peters brought up William Jennings Bryan, who he said defended evolution largely out of the fear that if the public embraced it, that it would corrupt them by greatly cheapening the value of human life due to its view of life forms competing fiercely for survival. Bryan had witnessed some of the crimes against humanity (mass murder of the Hottentots) the pre-WWI Social Darwinist Germans committed against their colonial underlings in Africa and he had been appalled. Peters felt we must be careful or Transhumanism could go down a similar twisted path among at least some of its future adherents.

This speaker was the only one who really examined Transhumanism from a religious perspective. He explained that this had been requested from the conference organizers. I suspect it may be a requirement from the Templeton Foundation (an avowedly religious foundation, set up to explore connections between science and religion) to have at least one speaker at a largely secular conference focus on the religious aspect.

I found it interesting when he brought up the differences between immortality in Transhumanist thinking and how it is envisioned in mainstream Christianity. The speaker compared the Transhumanist upload immortality scenario to the concept of Platonic resurrection.

Engendering much discussion was the subject of evil/sin existing in a Transhumanist Post-Singularity society and how even as we ascended to godlike status we would be bringing the dark side of our natures with us, in essence corrupting our technological Eden.

Ted Peters:
http://www.counterbalance.net/bio/ted-body.html

Around the conclusion of the conference a grad student brought up Nietzsche and "the will to power," in regards to Transhumanism. She wanted to wanted to know what kind of future world Transhumanists really wanted to live in and what drove them on/made them tick. There was a silence and you could have heard a pin drop after she finished speaking. Finally, people started responding but not to my satisfaction. I could tell the woman who made the comment was not content with the replies she had been given. And the heads of various professors were turning and looking my way to see if I would give an answer...

I said Nietzsche was a source of inspiration for Transhumanists but he had been rehabilitated by scholars over the past several decades and was no longer falsely seen as an evil poster boy for Hitler. And so it would be wrong to make the horrible assumption that Transhumanists were on their way to becoming futuristic Nazi's.

Regarding what kind of future Transhumanists wanted to live in, I told her many of us envisioned a universe where various intelligent beings of different levels of power and ability, unaugmented humans, greatly enhanced humans still in a humanoid body, and nearly god-like uploads would co-exist in harmony in (I admitted) a near-utopian society, at least compared to the civilization we have now. I said that what drove us was the desire to reach that place.

All eyes were on me as I said these things and there was a palpable feeling of focused attention and energy there. When I finished speaking people seemed to be mildly impressed and the professor in charge of the conference gave me a kind smile of affirmation. I felt really good at doing my best (in the very limited time I had to speak) to defend Transhumanism.

As Ted Peters did his Q & A session, Dan Sarewitz rounded out things by saying Transhumanism will not be able to overcome sin/the human dark side. He also stated that to be realistic we need a "muddle through" mentality and the other people there approved of this idea. Finally, he asked why academics at any level even buy into the Transhumanist future technology exponential growth scenario.

Dupuy added that he felt Transhumanism must not be dismissed, but instead confronted. And that at times Transhumanists behave like a sect/cult. Once again (he loved to bring this up), he said how shocking it was that William Bainbridge is the head of a 1.5 billion dollar research grant allocating department within the U.S. government.

Growing up Mormon I remember how Evangelical bookstores would make a great deal of money selling "exposes~" on the LDS Church. Books, audiotapes, films and the guest speakers pushing them became extremely popular. I suspect up to a point a similar thing could be happening in academia, but the focus is Tranhumanism. It is the new, exciting and best of all frightening idea/movement/ideology/philosophy that can attract the grant money and resources to build up one's name and organization/department. Many Mormon Transhumanist Association members could give their own insights into this parallel.

I believe if these academics are representative of what is going on worldwide, that there is a strong effort going on to at first marginalize and then later quite possibly supplant us as various sectors of society garb themselves with the mantle of Transhumanism (as it gets more popular) and relegate us to the fringes. But for now using us as a straw man/scary Bogey man seems to be the order of the day.

I did learn a great deal from the conference, generally had a wonderful time (including the difficult moments), and took copious notes. But the antagonism and lack of respect for Transhumanism, coupled with no prominent Transhumanist academics present to try to off-set unfair criticisms, really concerned me.

John Grigg

"General repudiation of Transhumanism"

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:49:00 GMT

Last Monday night I attended a Templeton Foundation Research Lecture that was part of their ongoing series on Transhumanism. The speaker was ASU professor Dan Sarewitz and his topic was, "Can technology make us better?" He attacked Dr. James Hughes (who helped host last year's ASU Transhumanist workshop) idea that by raising the average IQ of a democratic citizenry that you can make them more informed and capable citizens, who can then better defend democratic values. He felt there was no real connection there. I wanted to "magically" remove 50 IQ points from his brain and then ask him, "are you feeling just as capable a worker and contributing citizen as you did before?" After all, as a professor he is a member of America's intellectual/high IQ elite. Or does he only want a relative few to be in that club?

Sarewitz went on to say the two key challenges facing humanity would not be helped by aggressive intelligence augmentation. The first challenge regards individuals, groups and societies experiencing conflicting values and world views and trying to deal peacefully with each other. The second challenge dealt with humanity's ability to predict and manage the future. He pointed out that extremely bright and educated people/think tanks have guided nations into very stupid policies/wars over the years and done great damage and so why should even brighter technologically augmented folks do better? I thought to myself that perhaps we should instead use biotech to *weaken* our collective intelligence... His talk seemed to inadvertently point out very bright people as a threat to humanity! LOL

The speaker did grudgingly admit that the technologies Transhumanists endorse will be coming into being whether he likes it or not. And he stated the primary mover for this was military and economic competitiveness between nations. He saw this as the main reason why reasonable people like him had to swing into action and carefully control and regulate these new technologies.

I did like his concern about inequality in relation to the subject and it was a person in the Q & A session who brought up the classic scenario of rich parents buying their unborn offspring genetic enhancements, causing even greater gaping inequities within society. But Sarewitz to my surprise did mention how in time treatments might become cheaper as they are easier to do. And so in time, due to the "trickle down effect," middle class parents could afford these treatments to enhance their own children.

After the lecture he mingled with the crowd over refreshments and then the real venom against Transhumanism came pouring out. Sarewitz very mockingly referred to the Singularity as a crazy essentially religious obsession Transhumanists had. And he spoke about how they envisioned god-like computers running things and saving us from ourselves. Sarewitz ridiculed Ray Kurzweil's book "The Singularity is Coming" and said the predictions were pie in the sky overly optimistic and basically just plain wrong. Oh, and the matter of Transhumanist fear of death (especially in middle aged Transhumanists) was also brought up as a reason why the Singularity was predicted to be within the lifespan of many somewhat older Transhumanists. As I listened to all of this I thought to myself, "these people really don't like Transhumanists and want to totally marginalize us!" And to think I always thought the Evangelicals and not the academics would be our sparring partners. lol

This is a link to an online forum some ASU Professors created to form their ideas for a "general repudiation of Transhumanism."

http://www.studiesinthetranshuman.blogspot.com/

John Grigg

Richard Dawkins Lecture & Aubrey de Grey, too

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:55:00 GMT

I went to a Richard Dawkins lecture at ASU and it was excellent. I was not quite sure what to expect of the man but I found him to be mild mannered (I somehow expected the angry atheist stereotype), charming in that classic British gentlemanly way, and at times extremely funny. He started off with a statement that occurred to me many years ago, "why do children usually follow in their parent's religion, and why does that particular religion just so happen to be the only true and right one?" lol I personally believe in God but it was good to have him put my beliefs up to a mirror for closer examination. His slideshow presentation was the focal point of his humorous asides. And yes, Monty Python was excerpted at several points!

Dawkins surprised me by declaring that he is agnostic and not a 100% atheist in that he feels there is a very small chance of their being some sort of powerful deity/super being out there. He just sees no current evidence for it. The other surprise was that Dawkins (reminded me of the Star Trek 5 plot) considers it an actual duty of science in the decades/centuries ahead to "track down and contact" God, should such a being actually exist, but be hanging back and waiting for us to reach out to it. I can envision people being brought back from cryonic suspension and getting told, "oh, Seti contacted intelligent alien life decades ago, and now they are trying to make contact with God!" heehee

He also made the Greater Phoenix/Tempe community proud by saying, "in ALL his travels to speak, he has never spoken to a crowd as large as what ASU produced for him!" The crowd cheered and clapped wildly at that! lol The Gammage Performing Arts Building can seat over 3,000 and only a tiny handful of seats were empty! I wanted to shake his hand and get an autograph but the line to see him was several hundred feet long and I had to work the next day (the man is surely a celebrity and I was glad to see police standing behind him, just in case). I finally gave up on waiting! lol

Since taking in his lecture I have seen the several crazy episodes of Southpark where he made his "guest appearance." The teaching of evolution in public schools was the major plot point and done as only Southpark does it! Dawkins is shown as a very kind and proper gentleman, but what the writers "did with him" really floored me. In an interview Dawkins stated that if there was a serious point to the episodes that he could not discern it! And he was also bothered by the fake British accent "he" was given by the voice actor who played him.

The Dawkins lecture started at the very same time as a debate across town starring Aubrey de Grey "up against" Jay Olshansky. Arghh! lol I chose to see Dawkins. Aubrey thought this was the right choice (I bumped into him the day before at ASU, he had both a Christian Bioethics Conference and a Methusalah Mouse meeting to attend!), and he said his debate would likely be recorded and I could later get a copy.

It was a pleasure learning more about each of these great men.

John Grigg

"The 11th Hour" Documentary

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:42:00 GMT

Last night I viewed "The 11th Hour" with a local campus "save the planet before it's too late" club. I had read a bad review of the documentary in a local paper, but upon actually watching it myself I have to admit to being rather impressed. Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio did *partially* narrate it, and yet this was hardly "the end of the world." lol The documentary went well beyond the subject of global warming and focused much more on the matter of our current civilization developing a *sustainable* system of global economic development. The "consumer/industrial use it/toss it/don't bother recycling it/wreck the planet" culture we have now was strongly taken to task for the way we are presently heading off a cliff. But as smart and reasonable alternatives were brought up I thought to myself, "maybe there still is reason to hope (and many of their "hopeful options" were very Transhumanistic in scope)!" : )

If civilization is going to survive long enough for us to be brought back from cryonic suspension, we better hope the "powers that be" institute the ideas given in this documentary for a sustainable world...

The official documentary website:

http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/mainsite/site.html

A volunteer/action website connected to the documentary:

http://11thhouraction.com/

On Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/11th-Hour-Leonardo-DiCaprio/dp/B00005JPXA

John Grigg

Ray Kurzweil's upcoming film about the Singularity

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:35:00 GMT

I am extremely excited and yet also very anxious about Ray Kurzweil's upcoming film about the Singularity. I hope it is equal to the subject material and that it makes it into enough theaters (with sufficient advertising & marketing mojo behind them) to have its presence strongly felt. The odds are good it will stir up much thoughtful (and also sometimes thoughtless...) public debate.

This could be the huge memetic leap forward we have been dreaming about for so long.

Thank you, Ray Kurzweil!

John Grigg : )

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2007/11/kurzweil_qa

Robert Heinlein at 100

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:57:00 GMT

I have to say Heinlein looks terrific and gets around very well for a man who just turned 100! : ) If only it were true! lol Reason magazine has a great article about Robert Heinlein's contributions to society, which focuses on how his supposedly disparate legacy of patriotic militarism (Starship Troopers) and free-love & communes (Stranger in a Strange Land) actually were different sides of the same coin.

It seems many people looked to him for wisdom and leadership, though this left him feeling perplexed at times. If he had established his own organization (something vaguely akin to Hubbard's group) I wonder what it would have been like. Perhaps in some parallel Earth we will find out that he did.

I hope Hollywood turns "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strange Land" into *quality* films someday fairly soon.

John Grigg

http://reason.com/news/show/120766.html