November 2006

The Economist’s “From the world in 2007″ special forecasting trends for the next year carries this article about transhumanism. See The World In 2007 | Towards immortality.

Vernor Vinge’s presentation of the technological singularity back in 1993 (PDF here) talked about the scenario where human intellect is augmented through better communications networks and human-computer interfaces. Here’s a recent article in the Boston Globe that picks up on the “intelligence augmentation” (IA) within contemporary settings. See Souls of a new machine - The Boston Globe.

Interesting article on how the new Zune’s media sharing facilities add DRM to creative commons media. See Wired News: Zune, Creative Commons Don’t Mix.

The Detroit Free Press has an article up giving a list of their top 10 spiritual books for 2006. Interestingly, several comic/graphic novels make it in there.

See DAVID CRUMM: Enlightening reads.

We’re all back home from the trip down south as of late this afternoon.

The 6 of us drove West Auckland to Raumati, Raumati to Blenheim (via the Picton ferry), Blenheim to Christchurch, Christchurch to Kaikoura, Kaikoura to Upper Hutt (via ferry again), Upper Hutt to Rotorua (slowly through the around Taupo cycle event), and Rotorua to West Auckland. 2486 kms according to the odometer.

Have unpacked (sort of), put children to bed, shopped for food for school lunches and breakfast tomorrow, deleted spam, and am now look forward to sleeping in my own bed (with my own pillow!).

Brief article on CNet about robots that are aware of their own bodies. See Researchers unveil a self-aware robot | CNET News.com.

Related to an article published this month in Science.
Abstract at: Resilient Machines Through Continuous Self-Modeling — Bongard et al. 314 (5802): 1118 — Science
Auxiliary files: Resilient Machines Through Continuous Self-Modeling — Bongard et al. 314 (5802): 1118 Data Supplement - Supporting Online Material — Science.

I’ve found Cynthia Breazeal’s robotics research both interesting and theologically provocative, and I’ve referred to her book “Designing Sociable Robots (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents)” in several places in the thesis.

PBS is running a profile on her on their scienceNOW web site (including video later this week). Links there to various slideshows, articles etc. See NOVA | scienceNOW | Profile: Cynthia Breazeal | PBS.

Related links:

Cynthia Breazeal’s home page at MIT Media Lab.
Greenflame: God In The Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Humanity And God
Robotic Life - sociable robots
Kismet (robot)

Some shots from the “road trip”

Raumati Beach (north of Wellington) looking south to Pukerua Bay and Mana Island.

Kaikoura looking north.

Lyttleton Harbour on a bleak, windy day.

St Martins in Christchurch at the park.

I see the NZQA’s comments here made it into cartoon over in North America here.

Auckland Regional Council’s Stadium Decision web page has a link to the feedback survey for the Auckland stadium decision. No idea how it’ll shape final decisions, but a place to express an opinion. (Seems to be identical link to one from Auckland City Council page).

Have arrived in the Riviera of the South Pacific (Christchurch) after driving down from Babylon (Auckland). A good trip - the ferry was smooth, if windy - and good hospitality has been enjoyed. Only hitch so far was the youngest getting car sick just north of Bulls and requiring a change of clothes due to chucking. His siblings not impressed with him.

Very strong winds yesterday made driving from Blenheim to Christchurch hard work, but the traffic was light and very few people seemed in a hurry. Had the best fish and chips I’ve had for years in Kaikoura - the fish was outstanding.

Photos to follow at some point when I get a better connection - we’re in a place with no landline connection so even dial-up isn’t an option.

Best billboard of the trip so far was the Tui one in Blenheim - “A stadium for all New Zealand. Yeah, right.”

(And petrol station attendants want to know what Aucklanders think of the stadium proposal. Personally, I’m all for the final to be held at Lancaster Park.)

Rob and Jenny’s wedding was great. Nice and laid back, with a deep sense of peace and calm about it. A good day with good company, not the least Naomi (bridesmaid) who handled lots of the organization. Where are the pictures, I hear you ask?

End of the week. Handed my supervisors the last bit of the thesis and returned an excessive number of books (50+) to four different libraries around Auckland. Tried (and failed) to buy a digital camera, but picked up the latest GL, GL Corps and Ion comics in town.

Tomorrow, we’re off to the wedding of a couple of friends. Should be good.

And then we’re all off to the Riviera of the South Pacific (Christchurch) via the Heavenly City (Wellington) for a couple of weeks. A much needed break to catch up with friends and family, and to restore the our souls.

Today I’ve been adding in some footnotes to articles about food aid to developing countries being linked with the requirement to accept genetically modified foodstuffs or crops. And also the attempts by some governments who supply aid for other problems (e.g. malaria) to make acceptance of GM crops as a condition for receiving that aid.

If you’re interesting in following the GM food topic then the Guardian special report section of their web site keeps track of news in that area (like the recent US GM rice debacle).

See Special report: GM food debate | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited.

Related links:

Nuffield Council on Bioethics : Genetically Modified Crops (includes material on GM crops in developing countries).

Christian Aid’s controversial paper: Selling suicide - farming, false promises and genetic engineering in developing countries (1999). Followed up in 2004 with Christian Aid and the GM crops debate.

Much food, many problems from the journal, Nature (402, 231-232 (18 November 1999)).

Monsanto.com.

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification [New Zealand Ministry for the Environment].

Still thinking about beneficence and technology. Some random quotes from that process.

Peterson, James C. Genetic Turning Points: The Ethics of Human Genetic Intervention Critical Issues in Bioethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

The question for any technology is, how can we develop this to best love God and our neighbors? Asking that question is not trying to be God; it is following God’s orders, fulfilling a God-give mandate to maximize our service while we are here. Such development and intervention is not playing God. It is fulfilling a God-give mandate to serve. Whether our current physical nature is a starting point God intends us to improve upon, broken in the devastation of the fall, or both, it is clear the we could be physically better. We are responsible to do the best we can with what we have. As God’s people we are being created, redeemed, and transformed by God. Part of our calling is to participate in that process by sustaining, restoring, and improving what has been temporarily entrusted to us. (p.89)

Peters, Ted. “The Soul of Trans-Humanism.” Dialog 44, no. 4 (2005): 381-395.

Drawing a bright sharp line between therapy and enhancement seems easy to do. Therapy is ethical, whereas enhancement is not. Yet, is it so easy? For the theologian, the line gets blurry quite quickly. Let’s ask: if therapy focuses on health, does this refer strictly to bodily function? Let’s also ask: if the Christian faith emphasizes redemption, would this lead to embracing all forms of human betterment, even enhancement? Still one more question: would good health within Christian theology include enhancement? (p.384)

Spezio, Michael L. “Brain and Machine: Minding the Transhuman Future.” Dialog 44, no. 4 (2005): 375-380.

Will such enhancements actualize dormant human possibilities, or will they rather make it more difficult for that which is most human to be actualized, in the individual and in relationships? (p.377)

Graham, Elaine. “Bioethics after Posthumanism: Natural Law, Communicative Action and the Problem of Self-Design.” Ecotheology 9, no. 2 (2004): 178-198.

Yet to speak of an orderliness to nature, of its integrity as a mediation of divine purpose, is not the same as inferring an immutability to nature which forbids the ‘unnatural’ interventions of technology or cultural diversity. So we must be ware of attributing to ‘nature’ a fixity and purpose – or even a homogeneity and determinism – which it does not possess. Human relationships to nature are altogether more complex, and appeals to what is ‘natural’ provide little help when, as in the age of advanced biotechnology, this is the very category which is revealed to be malleable and problematic.(p.184-185)

Socio-economic inequalities may thus represent as profound a threat to human dignity as biotechnologies. (p.189)

Hansen, Bart, and Paul Schotsmans. “Cloning: The Human as Created Co-Creator?” Ethical Perspectives 8, no. 2 (2001): 75-89.

In brief, the power of mastering (human) nature through (therapeutic) cloning raises the question whether the human being, as the image of God, is permitted to carry out this task or whether God alone may exercise this right? (p.82)

An interesting site that aims to teach young children reading skills. See Learn to Read at Starfall - teaching comprehension and phonics.

Hat tip: Cool Tools: Starfall.com.

I’ve been editing some material at the end of the thesis that looks at how the theme of ‘beneficence’ (the doing of good) interacts with technological development. The theme of actively doing good, rather than just not doing evil, is a significant one in religious reflection upon technological use. Indeed, the moral imperative to do good with technology is a common feature between religionists and transhumanists.

For example, Peter Vardy says of genetic enhancement in “Being Human: Fulfilling Genetic and Spiritual Potential“,

If there is a God, then God has given human beings rational minds to enable them to make moral decisions and to develop medical technology and other resources to help them to live in harmony within this world. Indeed, it is held to be one of the crowning glories of human beings that they do have these facilities. Once this is accepted, then to set limits to how this intelligence should be employed seems arbitrary. There has been a tendency in the past for religious people to be nervous of new developments. However, if they believe God has given human beings minds, then it seems perfectly proper to argue that these minds can be used in eliminating disease and physical defects and also in enhancing human beings further to enable them to fulfil their full capacity, by employing the genome in appropriate ways.

The question, of course, is: what are “appropriate ways”?

Would the following qualify? BBC NEWS | Health | Plan to create human-cow embryos.

Related links:

Greenflame: Is our DNA Sacred?
Greenflame: DNA, Stem Cells and Faith (contains links to responses to the above).

The Open Source Religious Resources project has released its request for proposal (RFP) for their proposed internet hub. They’re now looking for the person, institution, organization or group who can build it for them.

Tim Berners-Lee, credited with inventing the World Wide Web, on the initiative to create a discipline (or inter-discipline) to examine the the social aspect of the Web and the Web’s impact on society. A kind of new “Web (Social) Science”. See Berners-Lee, universities launch ‘Web science’ initiative - Internet - News - ZDNet Asia.

As an aside, Tim Berners-Lee provides an interesting example of the integration of religious stories and cyberspace. In his book describing the origin of the web and its possible future, Berners-Lee connects Unitarian Universalism with how he thinks the web should function. Unitarian Universalism’s pragmatic appropriation of features from various religions and philosophies serves, he argues, as a useful metaphor for the World Wide Web. Provided one maintains mutual respect for each other’s traditions and beliefs, be they religious or technological, then the web will function harmoniously.

(See: Tim Berners-Lee and Mark Fischetti, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 207-09.)

Hat tip to Jonny Baker for this link to the Guardian’s focus on Web 2.0. See Weekend Magazine web 2.0 special | Weekend | Guardian Unlimited.

Andii on a technological analogy for the Fall. See Nouslife: CyberFall. Spam as a sign of falleness?

Just what I needed today. Scott McKnight on theologians and biblical scholars as servants of the church. See Jesus Creed » Westminster and Writing for the Church.

This is a clever idea but really…

A Sunshade for Planet Earth — Kaiser 2006 (1031): 3 — ScienceNOW

A technological solution to a problem that more about the human heart than anything else.