A interesting short article by Rachel Wagner at Ithaca College.
See SBL Forum: XBox Apocalypse: Video Games and Revelatory Literature
Will add it to the reading list for the Bible and Popular Culture course.
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Nick Bostrom’s question - are we living in a simulation? - gets another airing over here: Clay Farris Naff: Sims, Suffering and God: Matrix Theology and the Problem of Evil
Bostrom’s original article “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” is over here: http://www.nickbostrom.com/
Hat tip to New Life From Old for this link through to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s resources for schools and young people, including Stem cells - science and ethics - BBSRC.
The other week I was looking for this sort of thing for a homework project one of my children was doing so I’ll bookmark it for future referencing.
Could also be a useful set of materials for next year’s ethics class - looking at how ethical issues around stem cells are framed in educative settings.
It’s been a while since I looked at anything related to cryonics, having been more preoccupied lately with things related to religion, popular culture and/or new media, so I was interested to see this article on cryonics in the NY Times. Discussion about cryonics has tended to get subsumed in the hype about super-longevity research or bypassed stories of potential cybernetic immortality, but it apparently still continues to function as both a though experiment and a business.
Anyway, the article Until Cryonics Do Us Part - NYTimes.com comments on how the partners of cryonics proponents are not always as keen on the idea as the proponents. In the article, one of the interviewees comments:
“Cryonics,” Robin says, “has the problem of looking like you’re buying a one-way ticket to a foreign land.” To spend a family fortune in the quest to defeat cancer is not taken, in the American context, to be an act of selfishness. But to plan to be rocketed into the future — a future your family either has no interest in seeing, or believes we’ll never see anyway — is to begin to plot a life in which your current relationships have little meaning. Those who seek immortality are plotting an act of leaving, an act, as Robin puts it, “of betrayal and abandonment.”
One of the things I look at in my research is how the stories of technological salvation parallel those of religious salvation, and that comment above could equally applied to families of those who have a member ‘convert’ to a religion or ideology.
Related link: Greenflame · Death as an engineering problem - which has a number of links to documentaries on super-longevity.
IEEE Spectrum has a new chart up of different robots the mimic human babies and children in various ways (on capabilities vs. appearance axes). See IEEE Spectrum: Invasion of the Robot Babies (Infographic) for that and some other interesting links on humanoid robotics.
Of course, if you have time and access to the DVD, a good robot baby movies can be found in Robot Stories. Trailer below
My browser has been collecting cyborg-related links over the last few weeks - so I’m getting them all out of the bookmarks here.
- No time like the present to discuss cyborg rights
- Everything You Need To Know About Movie/TV Cyborgs In One Giant Chart
- Jamais Cascio on Your Posthumanism Is Boring Me
- James Hughes on Beyond The Human Race - And “Human-Racism”
- Gizmodo - This Cyborg Life
- Aimee Mullins related links
- Religion, Robots and a Second Life | ShelfLife@Texas
From the io9 posthuman newsfeed is a brief article looking a this form of muscle/nerve prosthetic. I’m constantly amazed by this kind of thing, and can’t imagine what it will look like in 10-15 years time. See Portraits In Posthumanity: Claudia Mitchell - Posthumanity - io9
This is a nice list. I’ve read a number of these (and there are some obvious ones missing) but this will give me some more options when I head to the library looking for something like this to read on the train.
See The Essential Posthuman Science Fiction Reading List - Posthumanity - io9
As an aside I’m currently reading ‘Devices and Desires’ by K. J. Parker on my brother’s recommendation. So far, so good but I hope it speeds up a little. (I like engineers as protagonists)
This project is really interesting - the creation of a virtual choir. The original idea can be found here - Virtual Choir Project II: Lux Aurumque – Blog – Eric Whitacre
The lead into the project can be found here - The Virtual Choir – Eric Whitacre
(with links through to the media resources produced)
HT: The Technium: Virtual Choir (with some other comments there)
A couple of related articles about encoding ethics into software:
3D printing has always intrigued me, but potentially using a 3D printing system to make replacement body parts is really interesting. See Printing body parts: Making a bit of me | The Economist.
Interesting article over at Robots Teach Korean Students English - Robots - io9 on the deployment of 1000s of robot language teachers to assist in the learning of English in South Korean schools and pre-schools.
I’m wondering why they’ve embedded this approach in a humanoid form, rather than through an animated avatar on the cellphone for example. Perhaps the physical presence of the robot creates a kind of relationality (e.g. authority figure) that a computer application couldn’t do?
Heidi over at When Religion Meets New Media: CFP on book on Church and New Media has an informative blurb on the call of papers for a new edited book looking at a variety of approaches to religion and the internet.
I’ve cribbed some of it below - but drop by her site for the full details.
Call for Papers for Edited Book on CHURCH AND NEW MEDIA: PERSPECTIVES, PRACTICES AND FUTURES
Editors: Pauline Hope Cheong, Peter Fischer-Nielsen, Stefan Gelfgren and Charles EssBackground and Rationale
This book brings together, for the first time in five years, a collection of key articles in the area of religion and the Internet, particularly as new media relates to church, mission and interfaith dialogue. In light of the increasing mediation of everyday life in many parts of the world, this book approaches online religion with a fresh perspective, to account for contemporary developments in media and spirituality, with implications for faith and other civic organizations.Arguably, as institutionalized religions and movements rush to leverage the Web to improve their reach, religious communication on the Internet takes an increasingly significant role alongside more traditional venues for such discourse. It may be, however, that religious use associated with new media problematizes established faith rituals, and religious community building in both its conception and operationalization. Changes in the Church can also
be conceived as intertwined with a range of other forms of social and political developments, such that new media acts as an agent and practice to challenge and transform the influence and authority of the Church. Furthermore, as ³new² media is a moving target, there may be past concepts that are more able to explain the nature of church life (such as evangelical
mission and systematic theology) or new concepts that are being developed that are better able to address the diversity and complexity of contemporary social and religious life (such as the ideas of social networking, viral marketing and church branding).This edited collection aims to address and inform such issues and debates by offering new empirical, theoretical, and theological insights into how religious life continues to transform and be transformed by these new communication technologies. Current contributors, together with the editors, include Knut Lundby, Heidi Campbell, Mark Johns and Jørgen Straarup.
We hereby invite proposals for additional chapters (particularly in the historical and theological sections as explained below) that will complement and expand upon these contributions.
This looks interesting. A shame that I won’t be able to get to it. Hopefully something similar turns up when I get some sabbatical time.
Terry Pratchett on why ‘assisted death’ should be seriously considered - see Terry Pratchett: my case for a euthanasia tribunal | Society | The Guardian.
Of all the topics in ethics class last year, this one was the one most hotly debated by the students. Touches nerves on so many levels, I think, and not just theologically or spiritually.
Quick visit to Christchurch for an ICBC meeting. Main item on the agenda was discussion of the following:
ERMA200223 - Application to develop in containment genetically modified goats, sheep and cows to produce human therapeutic proteins, or with altered levels of endogenous proteins for the study of gene function, milk composition and disease resistance
You can find all the relevant documents (which are all quite an interesting read) at the ERMA web site here (scroll down to ERMA200223).
You see this sort of thing in the overseas press from time to time (after all it seems to be obligatory to run a robot story every week or so), but it’s not often you see a robot healthcare story in the NZ context. See Robot to work at rest home.
Derek points to this : Derek’s Blog » The complete guide to Google Wave. Looks like it might be useful reading once I have some time to play with my Google Wave account.
Back now from AAR for a couple of days and about to head back to work tomorrow to knock of the chaos of the week before the Examiners’ Meeting on Friday. If I can escape from that unscathed then I’ll probably drop by the STAANZ (Systematic Theology Association of Aotearoa-New Zealand) conference that is on at the end of this week.
I enjoyed AAR more this time than my first time last year (in Chicago). I knew a few more people, and Montréal was a nicer place to get around on foot. The weather was good (just like Auckland in mid-Winter) and dry, and there were some good bookshops etc. near my hotel which were good to browse in the gaps between doing conference things. Plus the conference was based on the edge of Old Montréal so I got to have a wander around there a bit.
The conference felt a little smaller than last year (and I think numbers were down a little), though having the conference in the spacious Palais des congrès de Montréal may have helped that. The facilities were good, it was nice to have almost all the sessions on one place, there was food etc. available in the complex, and it was connected to the ‘underground city’ tunnels etc. There seemed to be a good number of international attendees (over 700, I think) which was good, and I enjoyed the International Breakfast on the first day.
My session and presentation went okay, I think. I had a couple of good questions and some discussion afterwards, and I also attended a session on religion and popular culture that looked a transhuman themes too. I enjoyed some of the religion, media and culture sessions, and dropped into several on online learning and practical theology that also had some good points.
Also, had some serendipitous encounters with people that I’d only made contact with through email and blogs before. Plus some meals with other people that I’d jacked up in the time before the meeting. If I return next year to the meeting in Atlanta, I’ll have more scope for doing that again.
The book exhibits etc. were a little disappointing this year. Perhaps the combination of the meeting being held in Canada, plus the lower numbers and the economic situation that seems to have affected purchases etc. meant that some publishers weren’t there this year, and also a lot of stalls didn’t carry stock for sale, just for order (at least until the last morning of the conference when display copies were being flogged off). Still picked up some interesting volumes - just need the time to read them.
I was a little disappointed at the last day of the conference, when sessions were still on but most people seemed to have headed home. The pre-meeting meetings seemed much better attended, so I ghosted through a few last sessions.
Travel to the conference was relatively trouble-free, though I won’t be doing the 9 hour layover in LAX between flights again if I can help it (and I can get the uni travel agent to sort things out better). I was too tired to want to venture off into LA (esp. without someone else to come along for the ride), but there isn’t much (anything!) to do around the airport. Was glad to get home after 27 hours of travel to Auckland.
Anyway, back to work tomorrow (and to write a report about my trip). Looking forward to semester being finally over and then heading into a longish vacation over the Christmas break.
Photos attached below (Click to see larger pictures)
Old Montréal
Old Montréal 2
Old Montréal 3
Montréal cityscape - looking back from Old Montréal
Palais des congrès de Montréal
Off tomorrow to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion being held this year in Montreal. I’m presenting a paper at the Transhumanism and Religion Consultation titled “Image-bearing Cyborgs? Hybridity and Hope in the Landscapes of Transhumanism”.
I’m still trying to reduce my finished paper in size. Still too long, but if I talk to my paper rather than read it verbatim it should be fine. However, I’ll spend some time on the place highlighting what might be summarized and then print out a shorter version at the hotel.
I’ll know a few more people there this year - as opposed to last year when I knew no-one - so I’m hoping to catch up with some of them over the conference.
Heidi Campbell & Mia Løvheim have put out a call for papers for a special issue of Information, Communication & Society on Religion and the Internet: The Online-Offline Connection, which is also linked in with the 2010 Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture in Toronto (on my wish list to get to next year).
In particular this special issues aims to explore the relationship between online and offline forms of religious practice and community. Key questions include:
- What is truly unique about the performance of religion online?
- How is the practice and conception of religion online connected to offline practices, communities and institutions?
- In what ways does religion online reflect trends seen offline in religious culture and practice?
- How do these transformations connect with issues of globalization and glocalization?
You can read the full CFP over at When Religion Meets New Media: CFP: Special Issue on Religion and the Internet: The Online-Offline Connection.
Related link - article seen today - Religion moves online | Stuff.co.nz
A couple of short pieces from Harvard Business School about social networking
- Understanding Users of Social Networks — HBS Working Knowledge
- Social Network Marketing: What Works? — HBS Working Knowledge
I particularly liked the quote, “Online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks”.
This looks interesting digital nation - life on the virtual frontier | PBS
Digital Nation is a new, open source PBS project that explores what it means to be human in an entirely new world — a digital world. It consists of this Web site as well as a major FRONTLINE documentary to be broadcast in winter 2010. Our production team is posting rough cuts and raw footage on the web, and gathering input, feedback and stories from users as we go.
Related links:
Brief video/text article on religion in Second Life. See September 18, 2009 ~ Second Life | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
In the manner of many examination and essay questions…
Compare and contrast the perspectives of each of these people:
- Next-Wave Ezine - There Is NO Virtual Ecclesia by Bob Hyatt.
- The various articles by Mark Brown at: Articles for download at Brownblog, and especially:
-
- The Bible in the Digital Space
- Christian Ministry in a Technological Age
- The Digital Revolution and the Church
- Christian Mission to a Virtual World
- Shane Hipps interview with Christianity Today about virtual community.
- For further investigation look at:
- Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet by Heidi Campbell
Have fun 
I’m probably going to pick up a copy of the book Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality edited by Pranab Das, but am somewhat disappointed by the perception of global in it. While the authors represent a range of non Anglo-American voices, most (all?) the authors are still in a predominantly northern hemisphere axis. Where are the voices from Africa, South East Asia, Oceania and the Pacific, and Latin and South America? Hopefully, when I delve into it I’ll be surprised.
A bunch of links to religion (esp. Christianity) and transhumanism can be found at this recent posting on the Sentient Developments blog.
See Sentient Developments: J. Hughes: Radical Life Extension, Transhumanism and Catholicism.
Back in 2006 (Greenflame · e-Monks doing e-Business) the monks with the laser printer supplies business were making a minor splash. Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly pick up the story some three years on from there over at September 11, 2009 ~ Laser Monks | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.
The Ministry of Research, Science and Technology have collated the material from their nanotechnology workshop held in Wellington earlier this year. Summary documents, primers and video footage at Nanotech Workshop 2009 - MoRST.
Henry Jenkins’ blog has had a number of interesting recent postings related to transmedia storytelling, computer games and various other things:
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment — A Syllabus looks like a course I’d like to take sometime.
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: District 9 (Part One): Can a Bench Be a Transmedia Extension?
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: From Cinema to Games: Some Fascinating Data
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: Hightlights from My Conversation With J. Michael Straczynski
A couple of interesting links in the Washington Post relating to the ‘Religion’ field in Facebook profiles. See Facebook’s Religion Question Prompts Soul-Searching - washingtonpost.com and Facing Their Faith - washingtonpost.com.
Related link: In Google we trust: our new faith | Stuff.co.nz
A link sent to me by a colleague in architecture points to an excellent news resource for all things virtual. See DIP’s Dispatches from the Imagination Age.
Digital Faith
Exploring the contours of faith in our digital world
How do the Christian faith and the Internet impact upon each other? What place might the Bible have in our digital world?
Come and join us as our panel of expert speakers engage with these topics and others relating to issues of faith in the digital world.
Speakers
Mark Brown (Blog)
CEO, Bible Society New Zealand
Founder Anglican Cathedral in Second Life.
Stephen Garner (blog)
Lecturer in Theology and Popular Culture,
School of Theology, University of Auckland.
Heidi Campbell (blog)
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Communication, Texas A&M University
Author of Exploring Religious Community Online.
Tim Bulkeley (blog)
Lecturer in Old Testament, Carey Baptist College
Developer of the Amos Hypertext Commentary & podBible projects.
Saturday 5 September 2009, 9am-12pm
OGGB4 Lecture Theatre, Level 0, Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, The University of Auckland
(Map of city campus (PDF))
Please REGISTER your attendance by Wednesday 2 September with theologyadmin@auckland.ac.nz
Cost $5 (morning tea provided)
Parking under Owen G Glenn building, $5 flat rate
You can download the flyer here:
A few bits and pieces related to science and religion from the net this week:
The latest issue of Metanexus’ Global Spiral web publication looks interesting. Articles have been drawn from the annual Metanexus conference on this month including:
- “The Making of a New Biophilia: Evolutionary Governance and the Modern Creation Myth” by Walter Truett Anderson
- ““A Mirror up to Nature”: Cosmos, Nature, and Culture in Shakespeare” by Kenneth W. Davis
- “Why I am Not a Pantheist (Nor a Panentheist): Metaphysics, Totalization, and the Cosmos” by Jonathan Weidenbaum
- “God, Strings, Emergence, and the Future of the World” by Nicola Hoggard Creegan
- “The Idea of Design in Nature: Science or Phenomenology?” by Jakob Wolf
- “Religion, Culture, and the Personification of Non-Human Entities” by Kathryn Johnson and Adam Cohen
More details on the conference can be here.
Interesting short interview on robots and creativity. See Teaching Robots To Be Human.
I like historian Ronald Numbers’ material on the history of science and religion interaction - including the article with NZ historian John Stenhouse entitled ‘Antievolutionism in the Antipodes: From Protesting Evolution to Promoting Creationism in New Zealand’. This latest book by Numbers looks like it will have some interesting pieces in it too. See Harvard University Press: Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion by Ronald L. Numbers. While many people portray science and religion’s relationship as a simple dualism, the historical context is often far more complex than that.
Science & Religion Today: Is This the End Time? has some snippets from different people on eschatological hope from the “Closer to Truth” video episodes “Is This the End Time?“.
Will file it away for the next time I teach on different theological perspectives on the future.
The Theological Meaning of Evolution
7pm Thursday 25 June – 5pm Saturday 27 June
Laidlaw College
Auckland Campus
80 Central Park Drive
Henderson, Waitakere
A conference to celebrate and interact with Darwinism, on the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary
of On the Origin of Species.
What impact has evolution had on the world and on belief? How does Darwinism challenge traditional Christian faith? What does evolution really mean in a theological sense? How has evolution changed and challenged theology and what can theology contribute to the conversation surrounding human origins and meaning.
Flyer with more details (PDF)
A while back I noted this problem - Greenflame · Embryos in limbo - and some of the dilemmas associated with the storage of ‘extra’ IVF embryos. Here’s one proposed solution: RNS Feature: “What to do with excess embryos? One doctor has an idea.”
Hat tip to When Religion Meets New Media: Patheo and Religion Online“>Heidi Campbell for pointing out the current focus on online religion over at www.patheos.com - Public Square - Religion on the Web.
Two new web sites related to Science and Religion hit the net recently.
The first is The BioLogos Foundation, set up by Francis Collins, aims to bring science and religion into harmony.
The second is the International Society for Science and Religion, which has updated its web site to a new site with all sorts of science and religion related material.
I’m thinking it looks too much like ALF, but an interesting application in therapeutic robots for children.
Sentient Developments: Moving objects with your mind has a video clip of one of the new range of toys that use a wearable interface that ‘reads’ your brain’s activity to control physical objects.
I thought this was very good - a virtual reality love story.
See also YouTube - World Builder (high quality)
Similar in some ways to Grek Pak’s Robot Stories.
Radio interview on Radio NZ National on online religion at Easter went pretty much okay - apart from a glitch at the end when I ended up headphone problems that threw me a bit. Sorted it out by taking them off after about 10-20 seconds of confusion. All part of the learning experience.
You can catch the audio in it’s default format from Radio New Zealand National : Programmes A-Z : Easter Monday
Podcast link is: http://www.radionz.co.nz/podcasts/easter.rss
MP3 link here: http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/emm/emm-20090413-1140-Dr_Stephen_Garner-048.mp3
WMA link here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/__data/assets/audio_item/0006/1917294/emm-20090413-1140-Dr_Stephen_Garner-wmbr.asx
The article they refer to in the interview is: Stephen Garner: Spreading the word in cyberspace - Religion and beliefs - NZ Herald News
Religion and Science: Pathways to Truth is a DVD series that focuses upon the relationships between science and religion in various areas (e.g. genetics, evolution, anthropology). Looks like it might be an interesting resource. A little pricey though.
This looks like it might be fun. A headset that control games with both your thoughts and your facial expressions. See Emotiv Systems uses your thoughts to power gaming - Ars Technica.
Hat tip to: Nano and Nano- Bio, Info, Cogno, Neuro, Synbio, Geo, Chem…
Recent article in the NZ Listener gives some food for thought. It’s now available in full on their web site. See Feature: Life, death and the genetic selection by Joanne Black | New Zealand Listener
See also:
- Perils in online genetic tests | Stuff.co.nz (August 2008)
- Legal experts back screening of embryos | Stuff.co.nz (March 2009)
A copy of Heidi Campbell and Heather Looy’s new book A Science and Religion Primer arrived in the mail this week. Looks good, and I’m hoping my students will make use of the copies our libraries have picked up.
A brief op-ed piece by me appeared in the NZ Herald yesterday. The formatting changed a little, and the odd word or two got cut, but on the whole it’s out there to start discussion. See Spreading the word in cyberspace.
(BTW - I didn’t pick the title)
If you follow (or are interested in) things transhumanist, then it might pay to drop by the h+ magazine web site and see what they’re writing about. Latest issue is out at h+ Magazine Spring 2009 Issue.
This looks interesting - really big robot fish being used as sensing devices. Shades of Stingray, perhaps?
See Robot fish detects pollution - technology | Stuff.co.nz.
For those of you who missed out on Stingray in your childhood, here’s a link to the TV show’s title sequence. (Always had a soft spot for ’scifi’ submarine/underwater shows like Sealab 2020, Man from Atlantis, Stingray and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Though, somehow really didn’t get into seaQuest DSV)
I love anthologies of science fiction short stories - a chance to read new stories by familiar authors, as well as the opportunity to find out about new authors to follow up at the library. Just reading "Year’s Best SF 11" by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer which was published back in 2006, and really enjoyed the following stories.
A Case of Consilience by Ken MacLeod intentionally picks up on James Blish’s pondering of religion in outer space in A Case of Conscience (See Greenflame: Books from Blogs). You can read it over here.
Secondly, David Langford’s New Hope for the Dead deals with the issue of transhumanist uploading - and more particularly who pays for that, a point I rarely/never see written about in their literature. Again, you can read the story over here at New Hope for the Dead.
Ebru TV have a couple of interesting episodes online as part of their Matter and Beyond series.
See
Hat tip to: http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2009/02/matter-and-beyond-explores.html
The gospel according to Darwin (Richard Dawkins) is an interesting article by Richard Dawkins on responses to Jerry Coyne’s book Why Evolution Is True.
A couple of links from the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.
Firstly, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion - Multimedia has a bunch of audio and video materials from their seminars.
Secondly, Test of FAITH is a project developing materials on science and faith that are relevant and accessible for churches.
Kim Fabricius over at Faith and Theology posts Ten propositions on Darwin and the deity.
And so, I capitulate and create a Darwin category.
A symposium on Science and religion in the 21st century: faith in science, science in faith.
Programme
- Prof Jeff Tallon FRSNZ
- Truth or true? – faith and science rubbing shoulders
- Prof Bob White FRS
- Natural disasters: acts of God or results of human folly?
- Dr Graeme Finlay
- The story in our genes
- Rev Dr Graham O’Brien
- Evolving evolution
- Prof Gareth Jones CNZM
- Manufacturing humans: the borderlands between human and divine control
- Prof John McClure
- Psychology and religion: is there a ghost in the machine?
- Dr Stephen Garner/ Dr Nicola Hoggard-Creegan
- The view from theology
When: 8.30am-6pm, Saturday 14 March 2009
Where: Theatre 401-439, ‘Neon Foyer’, Engineering School, Symonds Street, The University of Auckland
Please register for the symposium by Wednesday 11 March, with p.medhora@auckland.ac.nz
Cost $20, non-waged people $10 (refreshments and lunch provided)
Parking under Owen G Glenn building, $5 flat rate
For more details click on the picture or on the links below:
A public lecture on Global Warming: a Christian response
Professor of Geophysics, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
When: 6-7 p.m., Thursday 12 March 2009
Where: Theatre OGGB4, Business School, corner of Symonds Street and Grafton Road, The University of Auckland
(Parking under Owen G Glenn building, $5 flat rate)
Professor Robert White is Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge (since 1989) and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1994. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society, and a member of the American Geophysical Union. He leads a research group investigating the Earth’s dynamic crust. His scientific work is published in over 300 articles.
Bob is Associate Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, and a director of the John Ray Initiative, an educational charity that works to develop and communicate a Christian understanding of the environment.
For more details click on the picture or on the links below:
Via Sze Zeng: ‘Rescuing Darwin’ Report we come to Does Darwinism need rescuing? | Religious Debate | Theos think tank -> Does Darwinism need rescuing?.
Another reason for the Darwin subcategory.
Back in June (2008) I pointed out that Metanexus’ Global Spiral publication had a special issue on transhumanism - see Greenflame · Metanexus Global Spiral - Special Issue on Transhumanism.
Apparently this generated some pointed comment from the transhumanist community.
- Sentient Developments: Guest Blogger: Russell Blackford: How to avoid a spiral of nonsense; or, the transhumanists strike back.
- Sentient Developments: Transhumanists given opportunity to answer critics on The Global Spiral
Anyway, Global Spiral’s current issue has a series of responses from transhumanists. You can read them at Global Spiral :: H+:Transhumanism Answers Its Critics (Feb 2009).
Short article & video over at February 6, 2009 ~ Darwin at 200 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.
I really am going to have to create a Darwin subcategory this year.
Paul’s put some really interesting posts up over on his blog. Check them out:
- fishers, surfers and casters » The Cyborg and the future of researching online religion - I
- fishers, surfers and casters » The Cyborg and the future of researching online religion - II
- fishers, surfers and casters » The Cyborg and the future of researching online religion - III
- fishers, surfers and casters » The Cyborg and the future of researching online religion - references
Game Based Learning .:: alpha version ::. - Public Pedagogy through Video Games: by James Paul Gee and Elizabeth Hayes (Design, Resources & Affinity Spaces) is a really interesting article on how informal learning (and critical thinking within that) might function to enhance education.
Hat tip to Derek.
Do Humanlike Machines Deserve Human Rights? over at Wired talks about different responses to creations that become more human like. Similar perhaps to the “Flesh Fair” in Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence?
Science Magazine have started a new blog called “Origins” as part of their response to the 200/150 year Darwin anniversaries. You can read the introduction at Welcome to the Origins Blog - Origins.
Similarly, Nature has come out with their ‘Evolution Gems’ resource here (PDF). (Announcement: Evolutionary gems : Article : Nature)
And over here at BBC Focus there’s also a 12 page special on Darwin 200.
Around the blogosphere I’ve noticed various people pointing out that the ten Darwin’s Legacy lectures from Stanford Continuing Studies are available via YouTube. (See Videos from Darwin’s Legacy course at Standford « The Dispersal of Darwin and ‘10 Lectures on Darwin’s Legacy’ by Stanford University - RichardDawkins.net)
But they’re also available for iTunes (as part of the iTunesU section), so I might have a bash at downloading a few to watch on the train. Link here.
My dentist is sending me reminders about coming in for a check up, which reminded me of this article from a few weeks back. Nation & World | Chew on this: We’ll soon be able to grow replacement teeth | Seattle Times Newspaper.
One of my eschatological hopes is new teeth
Andii at Nouslife points to this nice summary list of questions Letters from a Skeptic by Gregory A. Boyd: 76 Reasonable Questions to ask about any technology by Jacques Ellul.
Interview: Jason Silva on How Science Will Make You Live Forever looks at scientific ’salvation’ stories.
Besides, by labeling death a problem, it shifts our complacent attitude about death and turns it into an engineering problem, one that we can solve, much as we have solved impossible problems in the past.
The film referred to in the article is available on YouTube at YouTube - THE IMMORTALISTS - a short film
Related films - YouTube - Quest for immortality (New Scientist) and Do You Want To Live Forever? (Channel 4).
A good recent summary of some of the developments in prosthetics.
See We have the technology to rebuild ourselves - tech - 07 January 2009 - New Scientist.
Far-fetched as it may seem now, what if cosmetic surgery was to one day extend to replacing perfectly good arms and legs with more beautiful or powerful ones in the hope of producing another Michael Phelps or Victoria’s Secret model? “Then we will have to evolve as a society a new morality, new ethics and codes of conduct, won’t we?” says Gow.
(David Gow is the inventor of the i-Limb hand).
Firstly, 12 Elegant Examples of Evolution | Wired Science from Wired.com.
Secondly, Creation Lens: Exploring the World, Discovering God (EWDG) with the related Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology (ITEST) DVD resources. (Hat tip to Tensegrities » Blog Archive » Creation lens).
This video clip from Wired Science highlights some interesting research about what sort of relationships might be formed between robots and their human operators, especially in situations where the robot might be put at risk.
What happens to embryos created by IVF but not implanted is a fraught question for many, but it gets more complicated when those storing the embryos can’t contact the couples.
See Embryos in limbo - dilemma for clinics - Religion and beliefs - NZ Herald News. (It’s been filed in the Herald’s “Religion and beliefs” section but they probably need a more general ‘ethics’ section as it impacts on more than just religious beliefs”)
Read the story on the link above and then answer the following question: "What do you think should happen to the embryos?
A link through to a brief report on a NZ project to create a virtual personal assistant for controlling your environment. See Meet Nicole, the virtual PA - Stuff.co.nz.
More detailed information at: Massey University - School of Engineering and Advanced Technology - Unravelling the mystery of mechatronics and YouTube - Massey University Engineering Smart House.
Related link: Greenflame · Guess who’s coming to (virtual) dinner?
At some point soon I hope to watch this video clip (Science & Religion Today: Watch an Atheist & a Jesuit Astronomer Chat) that comes from unused material from The Genius of Charles Darwin - FameLab from channel4.com. I don’t know whether we’ll ever get the documentary here in NZ so the web video might have to do. (A review is at: Science & Religion Today: Richard Dawkins on Darwin’s Genius)
I do have a copy of the following DVD ($5 in a sale bin a while back) which I will be watching soon.
"Genius - Charles Darwin" (Kultur Video)
And hopefully I’ll get my hands on this one too.
"Paradise Lost: The Religious Life of Charles Darwin" (David Wollert)
Related links - see Greenflame · Search results for darwin.
A series of interconnected posts from around the net recently:
- James Hughes over at Trans-Spirit : Message: Vatican condemns enhancement, embryonic stem cells, cloning highlights the recent Vatican document Dignitas Personae relating to bioethics
- He then follows it up with a list of other Catholic bioethics-related publications at - Trans-Spirit : Message: Dignitas Personae and previous documents. The links are a little broken in places but you should be able to make them out.
- Science & Religion Today: Religion Affects View of Scientific Decisions points to how ‘faith’ in one (science or religion) affects ‘faith’ in the other.
- And Who Cares if the Vatican Weighs in on Bioethics? | blog.bioethics.net figures that religious bioethics is, at the end of the day, irrelevant.
Wired pick up on a recent article in Science magazine on the possible implications of becoming overly reliant on robotic child minding systems. See I, Nanny: Robot Babysitters Pose Dilemma | Wired Science from Wired.com
The original article is here but you need to sign in to get it (unless you have access through an institution that subscribes or similar). The reference is:
Science 19 December 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5909, pp. 1800 - 1801
DOI: 10.1126/science.1164582Perspectives
COMPUTER SCIENCE:
The Ethical Frontiers of Robotics
Noel Sharkey
Science & Religion Today highlights a recent article in Science that sketches some of the some of the potential dimensions that creationism might take in a Muslim context. Worth a look at if you’re interested in how religious perspectives on things like evolution might happen in a non-Christian religious context.
The Science & Religion Today blog picked up on some interesting things recently.
A collection of recent links relating to new media in a variety of contexts:
- “Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures” | Youth Ministry Blog
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Race in Digital Space (Revisited): An Interview with Sarah N. Gatson (Part One)
- Derek’s Blog » The Horizon Report: 2008 Australia-New Zealand Edition
An article looking at the relationship between transhumanism and religion from the side of a transhumanist (and also an MP3 of the paper being delivered). See Sentient Developments: James Hughes: Transhumanism and Religion.
Related links:
A timely reminder in the face of all the hooplah about human-machine interfaces : timeless : Direct Human Brain - AI - Interface Technologies by Gina Rydland.
Lack of factual information creates a naive conception of the development process of technologies sanctioned as safe to use, clouding the public debate and undermining sufficient grounds for government decision making. Securing human rights and safety when testing and implementing safe to use technologies, demands access to more specialized and accurate knowledge than today’s global polititical, military and industrial climate permits.
Resonates with Greenflame · Brain-machine interfaces and genuine concern for the other.
Interesting article at Why Professors Blog | The Scriptorium Daily: Middlebrow (HT: Exploring Our Matrix.
I originally got into the blogging game as a way to organise my research material. Now I’m wondering what to do next with the blog - particularly as I have less time to spend on it now.
With the 200th and 150th anniversaries in 2009 of the birth of Darwin and the publication of Origin of the Species respectively there are all sorts of things happening around the place to mark that.
Here’s a couple coming up in Auckland in the first few months of next year.
Following on from the previous posting here’s an ongoing development in Europe. See European agency rules against stem cell patents | Health | Reuters.
Related links: Are we too risk averse? and Social issues and GM crops - LearningSpace - OpenLearn - The Open University.
From around the place at the moment
ERMA (Environmental Risk Management Authority) are wanting submissions by Dec 8 on the revised methodology related to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. See ERMA: Submissions on proposed GMO regulations if you’re interested in making a submission.
Some interesting questions being raised by the Privacy Commission over the storage and lifetime of NZ baby’s DNA in blood samples taken at birth.
The article The Alban Institute - The New Connectivity: How Internet Innovations Are Changing the Way We Do Church by Andrea Useem makes some interesting points about digital technologies and religious community. Resonates with me this weekend as I’m speaking tomorrow evening at church on technology as the environment we inhabit, and also because I attended a Web 3D and Virtual Worlds symposium at work yesterday.
Also PBS carried a feature on online religion today too. See Episode no. 1212. Online Religion | PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
Both the Alban Institute and the PBS pieces engage with Heidi Campbell’s work.
(Hat Tip: Tensegrities » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 and congregations)
Interesting news article looking at Matrine Rothlatt’s perspective on digital immortality. See Virtual immortality — baltimoresun.com
Terasemfaith.org, the Internet home base for Terasem Movement Transreligion Inc., describes Rothblatt’s religion as one that believes “God emerges as technology becomes increasingly omnipresent, omniscient, omnificient and omnipotent,” and that “technology will soon enable joyful immortality.”
Related links - the film transbemanmovie: About TransBeMan which Rothlatt is involved in and Greenflame · Search results for immortality.
I really enjoyed the AAR session “Religion and Transhumanism” I was presenting at. They were four of us presenting (see below) and the three other presentations were really good. I especially appreciated Jennifer’s material critiquing biases relating to gender and disability in transhumanist literature. (You can see the full blurbs for the talks here - just scroll down to “A1-134 Transhumanism and Religion Consultation - Theme: Perspectives on Human Enhancement”)
- Returning to Eden: Reflections on the Transhumanist Vision of Extended Life with Respect to the Ascetic Tradition in the Desert Fathers
- Todd Daly, Urbana Theological Seminary
- The Glorified Body?: Transhumanist Dualism and Theological Anthropology
- Jennifer Thweatt-Bates, Princeton Theological Seminary
- Brain Uploading: The Transhumanist Quest for Immortality
- Philip Douglas, Michigan State University
- Constructing a Theology of Technology in Response to Transhumanism
- Stephen Garner, University of Auckland
Some good questions from people attending the session and it was good to meet others interested in the intersection of trans/post-humanism and religion.
Just back this morning from attending AAR in Chicago. Feeling more than a little tired from the Chicago–>San Francisco–>Auckland flights so will post on the conference at the weekend. Click on the pictures for larger images
Scientific American has a recent article surveying the development of brain to computer interfaces up to recent prototypes that attempt recognise the neurological activity associated with controlling the muscles for speech and translating that into synthetic speech. Very interesting.
From Putting Thoughts into Action: Implants Tap the Thinking Brain: Scientific American
Flying out on Thursday to the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Chicago. I’ll be presenting at the “Religion and Transhumanism” consultation on Saturday and looking forward to meeting various people also interested in that and other things related to science, technology & religion.
I imagine it’ll be an interesting experience in cultural anthropology - the combination of American Halloween (which, in spite of the best efforts of retailers and US-centred TV, we don’t celebrate here in NZ much/at all) and US presidential elections will be make for interesting cultural viewing.
It’s a bit of a long haul to get there - Auckland-San Francisco-Chicago - and I have to hurry back for final assessment and reporting for the year, but hopefully all will go smoothly.
Anyone else going to be there?
I’m looking for some film titles to list as recommended viewing for students of science, technology and religion. I’ve got a selection already but I’m always interested in seeing what other people have found useful.
Add you suggestions as a comment.
Xenotransplantation clinical trials where pig tissue is transplanted into humans in order to help treat diabetes have been given provisional approval by the Minister of Health. Should make for some interesting discussion.
See Go-ahead for pig cell trial on humans - National News - Dominion Post.
See also the xenotransplantation information at Publications [Bioethics Council].
Heidi Campell’s started a new wiki for researching issues related to religion, the internet and other forms of new media. See the link below:
Some of the people involved with the now defunct Science and Religion News magazine and website have put together a new(ish) blog on things relating to science and religion. You can catch it at: Science & Religion Today.
Today I’ve been reading bits of Pacific Genes & Life Patents which is a collection of papers looking at bioethics, biotechnology and genetics from Pacific and Oceanian perspectives. The articles aren’t always ‘polished’ but they convey a deep passion about the issues being faced and the need to Pacific voices to be heard in the face of Western technological and economic agendas. The material on biopiracy (and to a lesser extent bioprospecting) is alarming, to say the least.
The full reference to the book is:
Mead, Aroha Te Pareake, Steven Ratuva, Call of the Earth Llamado de la Tierra (Organization), and Institute of Advanced Studies. Pacific Genes & Life Patents : Pacific Indigenous Experiences & Analysis of the Commodification & Ownership of Life. Wellington, N.Z. ; Yokohama, Japan: Call of the Earth Llamado de la Tierra and the United Nations University of Advanced Studies, 2007.
And there are more details at Call of the Earth - Publications as well as a downloadable copy of the book (for free).
Interesting post by Kevin Kelly on why he thinks that the transhumanist emphasis on intelligence as the source of technological ’salvation’ is somewhat misplaced.
See Thinkism.
Off to Christchurch to speak at the Theology and the Natural Sciences in Aotearoa (TANSA) Talk this weekend which should be good. Graham and I will talk for a bit and stimulate some discussion, and hopefully we’ll have some sort of panel discussion at the end.
Official details can be found here but here’s the blurb anyway. Feel free to come along if you’re in Christchurch.
We’re going to lunch afterwards at a restaurant or café which people are welcome to tag along to too.
TANSA Talk
9.30-12 noon Saturday September 20th
Laidlaw College (previously BCNZ) Christchurch
70 Condell Avenue, Papanui,
Christchurch
(03) 354 42701. Science, Theology, and Ethics: An Emerging Alliance. (Graham O’Brien)
Graham O’Brien has a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology (Canterbury University), 3 years post-doctoral experience in molecular virology (Auckland University), and a Masters degree in Theology (Bible College of New Zealand). Currently Graham is the Vicar of the Picton Anglican Parish, in the Diocese of Nelson. He is also member of the InterChurch Bioethics Council, representing the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Aotearoa, New Zealand on issue relating to bioethics.
2. Thinking theologically about new technologies. (Stephen Garner)
Technology might be considered the environment in which we live, and breathe, and have our being. As such, where does one start to think theologically about the technological environment we find ourselves in? This presentation picks up themes common in bioethics, such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice, as helpful conversation starters for thinking theologically about technology.
Stephen Garner lectures in Theology at the University of Auckland. His PhD in Theology looked at the imago Dei in the context of transhumanism, virtual reality and artificial intelligence. His also holds an MSc in Computer Science and is a member of the InterChurch Bioethics Council.
In July Metanexus had their annual conference on the theme of Subject, Self, and Soul: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personhood.
The papers for these are now available and I’m particularly looking forward to reading Technology and Eschatology: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on the Transformation of Human Nature by Ronald Cole-Turner.
Two different approaches to working towards treating the same condition. One via stem cells, the other via creating adapted foods.
Interesting short article What United Methodists can learn from Wikipedia by Hacking Christianity blog author Jeremy Smith.
The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley has just released a report based on a survey of different religious (& non-religious) groups responding to whether extra-terrestrial intelligence would precipitate a crisis in their respective traditions. The general consensus from religious groups tended to assert there wouldn’t be, while non-religious groups thought there would be.
The press release is here - CTNS Announces Religious Believers Welcome Potential Interaction with Extraterrestrials.
You can find the main survey page over at Counterbalance Foundation - The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey including the Full Report Documents and Appendices.
This seems all the rage at the moment - will we have chameleonware/chameleonware (from Neal Asher’s Polity books), changeling nets (Babylon 5) or invisibility cloaks (Harry Potter) at some point?
ACART, the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, has just released its recommendations to the Ministry of Health to broaden the use of frozen eggs in fertility treatment. (See ‘Babies from the grave’ a step closer - Stuff.co.nz)
They have released a discussion document relating to their advice to the Minister, and is asking for comments from the wider public. Submissions close 5 September 2008 and you can get the document from Consultation on the Use of Frozen Eggs in Fertility Treatment: Discussion document.
Following on from the ‘Reborn babies’ post recently here’s an article that notes the continuing development of sociable robotics, or at least robots that can learn to detect visual cues from body language and response to that ‘guess’. See Emotional robots in the spotlight.
See also Greenflame · Computer companions: Are they possible?
Paul Walker kicks off a series of posts coming out of his research on theological perspectives on the Internet. Part one can be found at Church 2.0 - Main - Theological perspectives on the Internet part 1.
Looking forward to parts 2 though 99(?).
Article this week on ‘reborn babies’ - very lifelike dolls - sold to people primarily for collecting but also purchased by people like grieving parents. See ‘Reborn babies’ niche for collectors, grieving parents - Stuff.co.nz. I’m wondering if the revulsion some people feel towards them is part of the ‘uncanny valley’ response to human simulcra noted by Masahiro Mori (see Greenflame · Robots: From tools to partners).
Seems similar to the article I linked to in Greenflame · Virtual babies aim to ease parenting pain back in Feb 2004.
Related links:
- Wired 8.09: Congratulations, It’s A Bot!
- Robot Stories movie/DVD, esp. the “My Robot Baby” story.
After listening to Steve’s presentation on River as a Christ-figure in the movie Serenity, I felt inspired to walk up to Heroes for Sale and grab the last two parts of the latest Serenity mini-series “Better Days” from Dark Horse comics.
Suffice to say I was disappointed. The story seemed to drag, some of the characterisation and language seemed “off”, and it didn’t really grab me like the first mini-series “Those Left Behind” did. Plus, there’s the sense of “dead men walking” if you’ve seen the film. Still, it is Serenity (and walking up the hill to the shop did clear my head of conference ‘fug’ and stretch my legs after a day sitting listing to stuff).
I also picked up the next issue in Image Comics “Transhuman” series - which deals with venture capital funding in this issue. It’s okay, but again the previous issue was much better.
See also:
Greenflame · Serenity: Better Days
Greenflame · Transhuman - The comic mini-series
Very busy this week juggling SBL + work stuff in the gaps - always a problem when a conference is happening on your own campus.
Good to catch up with lots of different people over the week.
Various random highlights included:
Going to a presentation in an ecological stream and in the question time finding out about Transition Towns (see also Transition Towns New Zealand Aotearoa)
Having Steve (the emergentkiwi) to stay for a couple of nights and enjoying his paper/presentation on female Christic figures in cinema (especially in “Whale Rider”, “The Fifth Element” and “Serenity”).
Seeing a new crop of postgrads (and a few undergrads) from around the country front up and present their research. Some really good presentations today which bodes well for new people coming through in biblical studies in this part of the world.
Doing my paper on “Broadening the application of the co-creator metaphor”, getting some good feedback, and surviving getting into my talk before realizing I was using the version of the paper without the last minute changes I’d made to it the night before. (Luckily I had the new version on me and could grab it without breaking stride too much).
Listening to an intriguing paper after mine on Melanesian perceptions of the world (especially time) and how that shapes the enculturation of the the gospel and teaching theology. Some good material there that would intersect with developing an Oceanian theology of technology.
It’s been a long week so I’m now looking forward to a lazy weekend.
Microclesia alerted me to the death this week of John Templeton, who has been hugely influential in the funding and support of science and religion discussion and dialogue.
Scientific American carries an article on him over at John Templeton, Philanthropist of Science and Religion, Dead at 95: Scientific American.
Related links:
For an interesting range of articles, video clips and other things relating to the speculative concept of the technological singularity see IEEE Spectrum: Special Report: The Singularity.
Related links:
A couple more robot links to go with a robot girlfriend link from a day or two back.
The first, Robotic Navi-Bear as Annoying as It Is Cute | Autopia from Wired.com, is the fusion of a talking teddy bear with a navigation system for drivers.
The second, Tartalo the robot is knocking on your door, is about a robot being built in Spain the can navigate around the wider community by recognising people’s homes.
Another step in the direction of virtual companions? See Japan makes robot girlfriend for lonely men
Related links: Greenflame · Computer companions: Are they possible?
Interesting series of quotes about what it means to be human from various scientists over at What Does It Mean to Be Human? | Wired Science from Wired.com.
Often our attempts to define this tend to be linked to particular understandings of the essential core that defines human beings, sometimes called the locus humanus. Typically, this is denoted by a set of attributes that human beings alone possess, such as the religious concept of an immortal soul, but is often a collection of psychological attributes such as reason, language, consciousness and self consciousness. And indeed, in the quotes in the link above some of these crop up.
Hat tip to Nouslife: What Does It Mean to Be Human?
Metanexus’ eMagazine/eJournal - Global Spiral - has a special issue this month on transhumanism edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson from Arizona State University.
See Global Spiral, June 2008 (Volume 9, Issue 3) - Special Issue on Transhumanism
Articles include:
- Engaging Transhumanism: The Meaning of Being Human :: Hava Tirosh-Samuelson :: Global Spiral
- Of Which Human Are We Post? :: Don Ihde :: Global Spiral
- Wrestling with Transhumanism :: Katherine Hayles :: Global Spiral
- Cybernetics Is An Antihumanism: Advanced Technologies and the Rebellion Against the Human Condition :: Jean-Pierre Dupuy :: Global Spiral
- Brains, Selves and Spirituality in the History of Cybernetics :: Andrew Pickering :: Global Spiral
- Transhumanism and the Posthuman Future: Will Technological Progress Get Us There? :: Ted Peters :: Global Spiral
I will have to make time to read them all in the next couple of weeks - perhaps one or two per day on the train?
Flying visit to Wellington yesterday for an Interchurch Bioethics Council meeting.
Nice to be back in the Heavenly City, if only for 10 hours or so. Stimulating meeting too.
More resources at: Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Media: Ecumenical & Interchurch - Interchurch Bioethics Council Resources.
Hat tip to James at Exploring Our Matrix for a link through to an extensive interview How Our Brains are Wired for Belief with Andrew Newberg (hosted by the Pew Forum) on religion and neuroscience (neurotheology). He also notes this link to various related articles by Newberg and others.
See also Greenflame · Search results - Newberg which has some more links in it.
Recent UK legislation relating to embryology included provision of the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos (which combine human and animal genetic material) for therapeutic research purposes. (See UK parliament backs human-animal embryo research | HEALTH | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz)
What do you think?
Do you think it is acceptable to create human-animal embryos for therapeutic purposes?
Related links:
Two different points of view on the UK embryology bill:
- Geraldine Peacock: The human fertilization and embryology bill gives me hope | Comment is free | The Guardian
- Response: I have a disability, yet I still think it’s wrong to destroy embryos, says Alison Davis | Comment is free | The Guardian
Who’s afraid of a synthetic human? | John Harris - Times Online
A recent issue of ESPN The Magazine has an article on athletes with prosthetics and some commentary asking what really is the difference between various sorts of technological enhancement in sport. See ESPN - ESPN The Magazine - Let ‘Em Play and the photo gallery at ESPN - ESPN The Magazine - Photo Gallery.
Hat tip to Gregor Wolbring at ESPN Magazine focus on Athletes and Prosthetics « Nano, Bio, Info, Cogno, Synthetic bio, NBICS.
In one of those “around the houses†moments I rediscovered the Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, and Technology blog attached to Arizona State University’s Templeton Research Lectures - Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, Technology project. Something to keep track of over the next few months.
Hat tip to a BetterHumans.com : “General repudiation of Transhumanism†posting - which is less than enamoured with the ASU blog.
Related links:
These looks interesting - new prosthetic hands that allows for greater control of fine motor skills. See New Prosthetic Hand Has Grip Function Almost Like A Natural Hand: Each Finger Moves Separately
If you have an interest in science and religion or history you will probably be interested to know that Cambridge University has digitized and published on the internet its collection Darwin material (30,000 odd items and 90,000 images, as well as audio material). From the web site:
This site contains Darwin’s complete publications, thousands of handwritten manuscripts and the largest Darwin bibliography and manuscript catalogue ever published; also hundreds of supplementary works: biographies, obituaries, reviews, reference works and more.Almost all is online only here: such as 1st editions of Voyage of the Beagle, Zoology, Descent of Man, all editions of Origin of Species (1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th & 6th); important manuscripts: Beagle Diary & field notebooks, Journal, transmutation notebooks and Autobiography.
You can access the site at: The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (darwin-online.org.uk).
More too, over at Complete Darwin Papers Debut on Internet | Wired Science from Wired.com
Picked up the first issue of Transhuman from Image Comics yesterday. It’s a four-part mini-series in a documentary format set in the not to distant future and deals with the initial commercial forays into commercialising technologies to produce ‘off-the-shelf’ human self-modification of a transhumanist nature. I thought the first issue was quite good, and offered some insight into the commercial agendas of biotechnology often glossed over in the transhumanist literature. I’ll be interested in where the series goes.
The comic made it onto the transhumanist-related Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies blog. See IEET - Transhuman, the comic, which includes a link to some sample pages from the issue here.
Various reviews of the issue can be found at:
Love to share is a downloadable resource from the World Council of Churches that aims to give some direction and guidelines for churches when considering intellectual property rights and copyright and looking at alternatives to the current situation. At some point I’d like to have some students theologically investigate these ideas so I’ll be downloading it to see what it says. [Hat tip to Tensegrities]
On a related note I’ve also been reading the WCC booklet - Globalization of Communications - by Chris Arthur. It’s about 10 years old now, but there’s some interesting starting points for further discussion in it.
But wait, there’s more…
WCC and new and emerging technologies: Able-ism: A prerequisite for transhumanism is a discussion paper on new technologies by Gregor Wolbring, who blogs over at Nano, Bio, Info, Cogno, Synthetic bio, NBICS.
And there’s also the WCC report Science, Faith & New Technologies: Transforming Life, Volume 1 : Convergent Technologies, which has some stuff in it relating to transhumanism.
Clearing out old web links I’d saved over the past few months I came across this one.
John La Grou’s reflections, microclesia >> AI Jesus, on interacting the AI Jesus over at www.godsbot.org.
An interesting post about a set of interviews with US scientists about religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Part of a follow-up to a larger survey and indicate that religious/spiritual inclination might be much higher than is commonly portrayed in a science vs. religion conflict model.
See The Immanent Frame » Blog Archive » Beyond The God Delusion
Related links:
The website Edge: The Third Culture recently asked the question “WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?” to a range of commentators. Martin Rees (President, The Royal Society; Professor of Cosmology & Astrophysics; Master, Trinity College, University of Cambridge) responded with interesting short piece - We Should Take the ‘Posthuman’ Era Seriously.
You can also listen to him as part of the panel on the most recent episode of BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time on the concept of the Multiverse.
Sentient Developments points to a special report in IEEE Spectrum on the current state of prosthetic arms. See IEEE Spectrum: Special Report: Prosthetic Arms with video here.
Interesting short article commenting on research presented at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science conference which identifies religion as far more significant a factor in the US than in Europe. In part, it’s due to the conflation of nanotechnology with other things like biotechnology and the sense the people are ‘playing God’ when seeking to manipulate a nano-scale world.
I went to hear Prof Maggie Boden speak tonight on Computer companions: Are they possible?. The main thrust of the talk was that computer systems (robotic and simulations) are being created to serve three main types of roles:
- Physical interaction - such as robots that are used in caregiving or domestic roles: Robo-Monk and Robot nurse will care for Japan’s lonely old people
- Conversationalists - providing some sort of interactive conversation as part of doing tasks
- Confidants - related to the above, but able to engage in conversation in some way based upon building up a knowledge of a person over time: such as being able to listen to, analyze and draw upon the stories that have been told it the system previously.
Boden argued that these sort of systems are in various stages of development now (particularly for commercial deployment), and that they raise a whole range of questions that go beyond the purely technical ones of whether or not functional ’sociable’ robots/system are possible.
- Could a ‘computer companion’ really do x (where x might be gossip, feel sympathy, express humour)?
- Could a ‘computer companion’ really be made to appear to do x?
- Would a human being believe that a ‘computer companion’ could do x?
- Would we want (3) to happen?
- How might (3) affect human-human relationships?
These are similar questions to some that have come up in my own research so they weren’t a surprise to me, but given the discussion after the talk they were new to some there.
Update: Radio New Zealand’s Sunday Morning programme had an interview with Margaret Boden at the weekend which covered some of this material. You can listen for a while here (MP3).
Related material - a quick selection of papers, essays and books by Boden that I’ve found interesting:
Boden, Margaret A. 1985. Wonder and Understanding. Zygon 20 (4):391-400.
______. 1987. Artificial intelligence and natural man. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books.
______, ed. 1990. The philosophy of artificial intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
______. 1995. Artificial intelligence and human dignity. In Nature’s Imagination: The frontiers of scientific vision, edited by J. Cornwell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
______. 1998. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence 103 (1-2):347-356.
______. 2005. Ethical Issues of AI and Biotechnology. In Creative Creatures: Values and Ethical Issues in Theology, Science and Technology, edited by U. Görman, W. B. Drees and H. Meisinger. London: T & T Clark.
Margaret Boden is also speaking on What is creativity? : Wednesday 20 February 5.30pm, at the Gus Fisher Gallery as part of her time at the University of Auckland.
See also: Exploring Our Matrix: Robots in the News
The New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology last weekend was nice and stimulating. Some good plenary sessions, entertaining (and somewhat disturbing) public lectures, a wide variety of papers, and interesting people. These included:
- A really interesting talk from Brad Partridge, PhD student from the University of Queensland, who’s looking at public perceptions of life extension technologies, including responses from transhumanist and conservative Christian groups. Related links at: Who wants to live forever? Community attitudes to life extension - UQ News Online - The University of Queensland and Eternal life ‘not so appealing’ | NEWS.com.au
- An interesting but really quite disturbing paper on people who want to reshape their bodies by intentional amputation of limbs (even to the state of paraplegia). Relevant in parts give this current discussion (Greenflame · Therapy or enhancement in sport?)
- A broader range of topics and issues being discussed than I anticipated - including a common theme of social justice running through many of the talks, but kicked off by the first plenary talk by Howard Brody
I can’t remember whether I’ve posted these links before (a quick search of the blog says not), but in a week’s time I’ll just back from Dunedin having attended the New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology so it seemed apt to note them. There’s a session on transhumanism on the last day of the conference so I’ll be interested to see what the perspectives offered there include.
New Scientist magazine had a special focus on ‘death’ back in October (see Special Report on Death - New Scientist) with a bit in it on transhumanist aspirations to overcome death (or at least, short life) - Death special: The plan for eternal life - being-human - 13 October 2007 - New Scientist (including a link to the video YouTube - Quest for immortality featuring various transhumanists and ‘techno-progressives’).
Other related links:
- Living Forever: The Longevity Revolution - from The Nature of Things with David Suzuki : CBC-TV
- Do You Want To Live Forever? - Channel 4 Documentary
- Mark Walker on superlongevity
- Building Gods - Rough cut of documentary available online
- Immortality Institute
Firstly, a short summary piece from PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly on recent developments in biotechnology and whether they change the ethical landscape. See Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . PERSPECTIVES . Bioethics Update . January 25, 2008 | PBS
And secondly, Rod Benson (who produces the weekly summary RELIGION & ETHICS AUSTRALIA) also has a daily blog going over at Ethics Update: News, opinion and rumour on all manner of ethical, political and religious issues.
Mary over at Tensegrities points to this visually engaging project - Chris Harrison - Visualizing the Bible.
Beyond Paley: Renewing the Vision for Natural Theology is an interdisciplinary event being held at the University Museum, Oxford in June. The line up of speakers looks engaging, but given my chances of actually getting there as very slim (as in non-existent) I’ll wait for the downloads from the web site.
Related links from the Counterbalance site:
Interesting article by Real Live Preacher over at Christian Century on the enquiring mind and faith.
Some people see the boundary between mystery and science as a battleground with barbed wire and trenches on either side. But I think that the place where our searching and empirical minds meet the mysteries of the world is the realm of worship and poetry.
Full article at: The Christian Century: Faith matters - Brother Scientist (January 15, 2008) by Gordon Atkinson.
A new user-driven blog relating to transhumanist ideas, and in particular, the technological singularity. See On Singularity:
Justice De Thezier, one of the most frequent contributors to the transhumanist blog Cyborg Democracy (which tends towards the ‘left’ of the H+ spectrum), wrote a posting a few weeks back about how he’s decided to abandon the transhumanist label (and also membership in the WTA). It makes for interesting reading (and has some parallels with stories told by those who leave religious communities).
Interestingly, his three points that he sees hindering a broader, more inclusive transhumanism (1. An undercritical support for technology in general and fringe science in particular; 2. A distortive ‘us vs. them’ tribe-like mentality and identity; and 3. A vulnerability to unrealistic utopian and dystopian ‘future hype’) also came out quite clearly in my own research into the ideology. (And those three points also look similar to criticisms of faith communities by some who leave - uncritical approach to doctrine; us vs. them; and escapist eschatologies).
You can read the article at CybDem: De Thezier’s New Year’s Resolution: Quit Transhumanism and the follow up article at CybDem: 2 Weeks Later….
On a related note - here’s a link to an article describing a movie being developed about the technological singularity: Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: The Singularity In a world where it’s hard to be an expert on the science and technology (say behind global warming claims or reproductive technologies) these types of movies seem to be as much about positioning their proponents as people you can trust, as conveying useful information about their ideas. Still, I look forward to watching it critically at some point.
The “People Power for the Third Millennium: Technology, Democracy and Human Rights” symposia from The Centre for Bioethics & Public Policy in the UK looks interesting, though being held in London means I’m hoping they’ll be something published out of them for a wider audience.
The first symposium, “Robots & Rights: Will artificial intelligence change the meaning of human rights?”, was a couple of days ago, and other upcoming topics include:
- Transhuman minds? Is cognitive enhancement a human right?
- Privacy and Surveillance: Monitoring humans or monitoring human rights?
- Arts and technology: the role of the arts in democratic policy making
I’ve been wondering whether South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who runs with carbon-fibre prosthetic legs, would be competing at the Beijing Olympics ever since I saw a news article about him a year to eighteen months ago. It appears now that he won’t be there, even if he makes the qualifying times.
See: Pistorius’s unfair advantage keeps him out of Olympics | Athletics | Guardian Unlimited Sport
Hat tip to Andii over at Nouslife: Pistorius’s unfair advantage -the cyborg prosthete.
It’s an interesting question - how much enhancement should an athlete be allowed? Obviously, things like spectacles and contact lenses are allowed, as are various operations to fix/improve weak spots in a physique (e.g. replacing broken tendons) or corrective eye surgery. But something like taking performance-enhancing drugs or blood-doping isn’t. It seems like it’s going to get harder to differentiate between therapy/enhancement in sport as time goes on.
NPR ran a programme on Pistorius and enhancement in sport back in May last year. You can listen to it at: NPR : Prosthetics in Sports: Disability or Advantage?
iRobot have produced a new household robot (’ConnectR’) that allows you to partake in family life when you can’t be there in person. The small round robot allows you to see, hear and follow your loved ones around, as well as allowing you yo talk to them, all via wireless connectivity at home and an internet connection wherever you are.
More details on the product at iRobot Corporation: About ConnectR.
Hat tip to TidBITS Tech News: CES 2008 Day 3: Robots and Wrap-up.
Oh, and there’s a video of it in action over at Geekanerd - Video Games, Comic Books, Movies, and All Things Geek!: Digital Life: Two Minutes With the iRobot ConnectR.
Incarnational or excarnational living - the choice is yours. But somehow it doesn’t beat tucking the kids into bed in person, nor sharing the evening meal together.
Via Russell Brown’s column in the latest NZ Listener - Wide Area News: Casting the net - a link through to the World Internet Project New Zealand being done by AUT’s Institute of Culture, Discourse & Communication.
The World Internet Project New Zealand (WIP NZ) is an extensive research project which aims to provide important information about the social, cultural, political and economic influence of the internet and related digital technologies.
The findings of the pilot programme and the interim reports can be found here. (Brown’s piece summarizes a some it as well). I’m going to download them and see if anything interesting pops out.
A few interrelated things in the past week or so about genetic testing, discrimination and Alzheimer’s.
Firstly, PBS carried this article (and video) about the ethics of testing for Alzheimer’s - Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . COVER . Alzheimer’s Testing . December 14, 2007 | PBS.
Which, in turn, relates to this part of Radio NZ’s Nine to Noon programme on Thursday that looked at genetic discrimination in insurance cover - MP3 here.
And then this from Terry Pratchett, who notes that while he’s been diagnosed with very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s people note that he’s not dead yet. (Are there eulogies on the net already?) - Discworld News © PJSM Prints
As someone interested in both transmedia narratives and the TV show ‘Heroes’ I was really interested to read this article recently.
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: “We Had So Many Stories to Tell”: The Heroes Comics as Transmedia Storytelling and to find the link to the online ‘Heroes’ comics that add to the TV episodes at Heroes TV Show on NBC: NBC Official Site
More links to transmedia storytelling at Greenflame · Transmedia.
Interesting articles that popped up on young-earth ‘creationist’ geology, and the problems it causes, not for secular geologists, but rather for old-earth Christian geologists.
Original NYT article at: Rock of Ages, Ages of Rock by Hanna Rosin (Nov 25, 2007). (Login needed).
Commentary on the article here at Young Earth Creationism Makes Life Difficult for Everyone | Liveblog | Christianity Today.
I long time ago I flatted with a postgrad geneticist-microbiologist who had the crazy idea of trying to make bioluminescent bananas (so they could be picked in the dark ). Apparently, bananas are the wrong type of plant for the bioluminescent symbiote he wanted to use, though potatoes would have worked.
Now I see this - SKorean Scientists Clone Cats That Glow: Wired News - AP News - and I wonder, what ever happened to my old flatmate?
Various books on the go at the moment. Some good, some not so. Random comments follow.
“Metal Swarm” by Kevin J. Anderson (Book 6(!) in the “The Saga of Seven Suns” series). Should be right up my alley - ancient powerful alien races continue ancient wars while plucky humans (with strange alien sometime allies) strive to survive. It’s Babylon 5 all over again - even down to the human politics and civil war. But it reads really badly - too many characters to follow and a million very short chapters focusing on different characters means it feels like watching a TV where someone’s changing the channel every 10 seconds. No time for empathy to develop with any of the characters, and by now it feels like it’s just going through the motions. On a plus side you can skip whole chapters and not miss much of the plot. Undecided on whether I’ll read the next book.
“The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Recommended to me by a non-scientist/non-theologian (in the professional sense) so I’ve picked it up from the library. As usual I’ve started reading from the back, in this case the first few pages of the appendix on bioethics which gives some nice summaries of that field. (See also: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . PROFILE . DR. FRANCIS COLLINS . July 21, 2006 | PBS)
“Saturnalia: A Marcus Didius Falco Novel” by Lindsey Davis. Falco novels are like a comfortable old pair of slippers for me. When I don’t feel like reading anything too heavy then I get the next one out of the library. I didn’t really like the last one (“See Delphi and Die”), but you know what you’re getting and I’ve always been interested in Ancient Rome. “Saturnalia” improved on the last book, but still missed something of the dramatic tension present in the early novels. (Related information: Second-born (9) has been devouring the children’s equivalent of the Falco novels - Caroline Lawrence’s “Roman Mysteries” - effectively a ‘Famous Five in Ancient Rome’)-
“Practical Theology: On Earth As It Is in Heaven” by Terry A. Veling. Because it was spoken highly of over at Simply Simon: Practicing theology and Simply Simon: Practicing theology II.
“The Blackwell Reader in Pastoral and Practical Theology (Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology)” by John Patton. Because it was near the Veling book on the shelf in the GSC library, and because it covers a wide range of perspectives on the field.
“Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction (Online Teaching and Learning Series (OTL))” by Rita-Marie Conrad and J. Ana Donaldson. A book that collects a large number of different online learning examples and is really useful for showing you what other people have down and why, and also for helping design your own activities and assessements.
Scott Prather, over at swords to plowshares: Major bio-medical breakthrough highlights the recent news of researchers developing techniques that look useful for creating stem cells for therapies from a non-embryonic source. (More details at: Researchers Turn Skin Cells Into Stem Cells — Vogel 2007 (1120): 1 — ScienceNOW).
Scott notes that Lutheran bioethicist, Ted Peters, thinks that even if the controversial nature of using embryonic material as a source of stem cells is eliminated by this process the public controversy won’t die down. Indeed, the discussions over what exactly defines personhood, and possibly the ’sacred’ nature of DNA will continue, I think.
This is the simply the case of different views of what being human and what nature is are played out in the public arena. For example,
It seems conceivable that the intensity of current controversies around genetically modified crops and foods arises in part from the fact that, in their regulation in the public domain, conflicting ontologies of the person are making themselves felt in the politics of everyday life.[1]
[1] Celia Deane-Drummond, Robin Grove-White, and Bronislaw Szerszynski, “Genetically Modified Theology: The Religious Dimensions of Public Concerns About Agricultural Biotechnology,” Studies in Christian Ethics 14, no. 2 (2001): 27.
Related links:
- Greenflame · Is our DNA Sacred?
- Greenflame · DNA, Stem Cells and Faith
- Hansen, Bart, and Paul Schotsmans. “Cloning: The Human as Created Co-Creator?” Ethical Perspectives 8, no. 2 (2001): 75-89. (Abstract)
Practical Ethics is a new blog that provides “reaction to the most recent ethical issues in the news, with a special focus on science related events” from a collection of people associated with the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. Given the presence of commentators from the Future of Humanity Institute, which has strong transhumanist leanings I’ll be interesting in knowing what’s considered ‘practical’ ethics.
An impressive piece of engineering. A single carbon-nanotube molecule that serves simultaneously as all the essential components of a radio — antenna, tunable band-pass filter, amplifier and demodulator. Wow!
See World’s First Nanoradio Could Lead to Subcellular Remote-Control Interfaces
A few recent Charles Darwin links.
David Wollert, whom you may remember from Greenflame · Emergent systems & the church and Greenflame · Emergent systems & the church (revisited), has produced a documentary about Charles Darwin’s religious life. You can find it at:
Looks like an interesting approach to Darwin’s life and thought - one ignored by some religious and secular accounts that both, for various reasons, hold Darwin up as the arch-enemy of religion.
Also, the Auckland museum is currently running an exhibit on Charles Darwin which I want to get to soon, I hope.
And finally, James McGrath has been doing a series of posts on Philip Kitcher’s book Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith.
The Templeton Research Lectures Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science, and Technology hosted by The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University have produced a podcast of the audio of the lectures and there’s links to other material on their web site.
The podcast feed is here.
Topics include:
- John Tooby: Can Beauty Build Adapted Minds
- Ashok Gangadean: A Missing Global Blueprint for Integral Life and Culture
- James Hughes: Happiness, Virtue, and Transcendance in a Neurotechological Future
- John Tooby: Reconciling Universal Human Nature and Genetic Uniqueness
- Pascal Boyer: The Blind Spot of Humanism and Transhumanism
- Sander van der Leeuw: Could Transhumans be Humans After All?
- William Grassie: Transhumanism at the Crossroads of Science and Religion
- Leda Cosmides: Are We Already Transhuman?: Evolutionary Psychology and Human Nature
Related link:
In his post Exploring Our Matrix: Robots in the News, James McGrath points to not only the new Star Wars developments but also a couple of articles/books about robots and how we perceive them in terms of possible consciousness and relationality.
Reminds me of this quote from Ray Kurzweil’s article “The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine” (from Scientific American) where he says,
Sometime early in the next century, the intelligence of machines will exceed that of humans. Within several decades, machines will exhibit the full range of human intellect, emotions and skills, ranging from musical and other creative aptitudes to physical movement. They will claim to have feelings and, unlike today’s virtual personalities, will be very convincing when they tell us so.
As McGrath says, the issue will not be whether or not we can definitively assign agreed concepts of consciousness or personhood to synthetic systems, but whether our conscious and unconscious interactions with such systems will have already forced us to decide how we will treat them.
Well, not quite the insect robots of the movie in the title, but definitely in a similar area. A cheap humanoid robot being developed in Bangladesh. See Bangladeshi develops humanoid robot from scrap | Technology | Reuters.
Related to the post a couple of days ago, here’s an article about religious orders using the Internet to attract people into a religious vocation. See Monasteries enter the Internet Age - New Zealand’s source for technology news on Stuff.co.nz
Well, I’m surprised that there are only three noted here, given that the idea crops up regularly in science fiction and “technoprogressive†(e.g. transhumanist) writings. Still Yudkowsky does highlight three significant ways in which technoprogessives see accelerating technological change generating a ‘point of no return’. I’d want the apocalypticist viewpoint developed more - there is definitely a religionist stream to some of the singularity talk (even if that’s denied by some) and far more nuanced negative critiques have been put forward.
Anyway, see The Singularity Institute Blog : Blog Archive : Three Major Singularity Schools
More links about the singularity concept at Greenflame · Peering into the future
PhD graduation yesterday! Kim and I had breakfast with the theology staff and graduands in on campus, before we went to the graduation chapel service at Maclaurin Chapel, and then I took part in the procession from campus to the Auckland Town Hall. The ceremony yesterday morning was for Education, Theology, and Creative Arts and Industries, and as “Graduand #1” I was first across the stage.
As well as Kim, my parents (from Melbourne) were there, along with Kim’s folks (from the Bay of Plenty), and my supervisors (Nicola Hoggard Creegan and Martin Sutherland) were both there too. And Kim’s aunt was there as a marshal - checking I made it onto the stage in one piece. A good day all round, and a chance to catch up briefly with fellow theology PhD graduate, Brian Harris (whose thesis was on the theology of Stanley Grenz, and who shared the same supervisors).
Finally it feels like I’ve finished. And it feels good to be at the end of this journey.
From the graduation chapel service
Gracious God,
Remember students and scholars
engaged in the adventure of learning.
In our search for knowledge
may we not forget your wisdom.
To our intellectual discoveries
may we bring the mind of Christ.
Through our study and research
may we serve your healing and justice.
Amen
Here’s the family (Kim’s folks, Kim and me, my folks), and a couple of snaps of Brian and me with the supervisors.
Well, obviously I think the answer is yes
Anyway, that’s the title that the editors of sPanz (the quarterly magazine of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa-New Zealand) put on the editorial I wrote for this quarter’s issue.
You can read it at Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand // Media: Should we have a theological perspective on technology?.
Two notes:
- The picture here is of the garden path mentioned in the article
- sPanz ‘graduated’ me a couple of weeks early. PhD graduation is next week.
Interesting article on Wired’s web site about developments that see brain-machine interfaces moving from therapeutic domains and into the entertainment world, and medical concerns about that. see BCI - Brain to Control Games Directly, Maybe Vice Versa
One of the perennial questions that comes up when people think about robots and artificial intelligence is the ‘does it have a soul?’ question. A more significant question might be ‘can the robot dance?’ That, in itself, might be a sign the that robot has ’soul’
Japanese Robot Keepon Dances to Spoon Hit, “Don’t You Evah” (YouTube link of the music video at this site).
Radio New Zealand National’s Nine-to-Noon programme had an interview last Thursday concerning the potential resumption of clinical trials of xenotransplantation techniques to help treat Type 1 Diabetes (through the implantation of pig tissue in a person’s pancreas). See Radio New Zealand National : Programmes A-Z : Nine to Noon : Thu, 30 August with the interview available as an MP3 here.
Related links:
ABC radio programme The Spirit of Things - 26August2007 - Space, Genes, Evolution and Religion interviews four thinkers in the area of science and religion: Ted Peters, Martinez Hewlett, Antje Jackelen and Jacques Arnould. It’s a fairly low key engagement with the topic, but worth a listen (and the web page has links to both the audio and other resources).
Related references:
Jackelén, Antje. “The Image of God as Techno Sapiens.” Zygon 37, no. 2 (2002): 289-302.
Jackelén, Antje. “What Is ”Secular“? Techno-Secularism and Spirituality.” Zygon 40, no. 4 (2005): 863-873.
Peters, Ted. Playing God?: Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Peters, Ted. Science, Theology, and Ethics Ashgate Science and Religion Series. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
Peters, Ted, and Martinez Hewlett. Evolution from Creation to New Creation: Conflict, Conversation, and Convergence. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003.
The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
Zygon Center for Religion and Science
The NZ Privacy Commissioner has a press release out on what she calls “privacy pollution” caused by individuals and wider society being permeated by digital media and transactions.
“Privacy pollution is about the small privacy incursions that are annoying rather than harmful in themselves, but can accumulate and have widespread impact that can ultimately amount to a significant level of intrusion”
See: Private Word Issue 63, August 2007 - The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, New Zealand
Related links:
A few years back I heard a sermon from a guest preacher that used the example of Jupiter’s presence in the solar system decreasing the number of comets etc. that might hit the Earth catastrophically as a ‘proof’ of the intelligent design (by God) of the solar system (and by implication the whole universe). (For an example of this see: Reasons To Believe: Spokane Chapter Newsletter - June 2006 - Jupiter and Saturn: Miraculous Planets)
As someone who has a passing interest in astronomy (I did a couple of undergraduate papers at university) that example always seemed too neat - surely things were more complicated than that in the celestial mechanics of the solar system? And now, things do appear more complicated over at Is Jupiter a Bodyguard or Troublemaker? — Schilling 2007 (824): 3 — ScienceNOW. I guess it’s time for a sermon retcon for a few preachers.
The Ideas slot on Sunday morning on Radio NZ National was about virtual worlds, including both positive and negative voices about their effects on individuals and wider society.
Audio available via podcast or from the link on the Ideas page. (Be aware that the default audio format is WMA. If you want MP3 then you have to change your audio preferences on the RNZ web site).
Couple of interesting links from PBS Religion and Ethics this week. One on the tension between therapy and enhancement in healthcare and the other on the continuing rise of the “prosperity gospel”. I can see a time when the latter might preach the ‘abundant life’ with all the material trimmings includes the genetic enhancements for believers and their offspring.
Satirical piece over at LarkNews.com: Virtual Pastors please picky church-goers. I’d laugh more, but I can see it actually happening (given that congregations try to do it in real life sometimes).
Heidi posts a collection of links that track messianic expectation (of sorts) around Apple’s iPhone. See When Religion Meets New Media: IPhone = Jesus Phone?!?.
Reminds me of this from Kevin Kelly in his article, “The Third Culture.” (Science 279 (1998): 992-993.):
One would expect to see frenzied, messianic attempts to make stuff, to have creation race ahead of understanding, and this we see already. In the emerging nerd culture a question is framed so that the answer will usually be a new technology.
Also, on the cyberspace front a three books I’ve added to my “to read” list:
- Gaming Lives in the Twenty-First Century: Literate Connections by Cynthia L. Selfe and Gail E. Hawisher (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). The chapters “Dungeons, Dragons, and Discretion: A Gateway to Gaming, Technology, and Literacy” and “Gaming and Spirituality”.
- Cyberspace Romance: The Psychology of Online Relationships by Monica T. Whitty and Adrian N. Carr (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
- Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins (NYU Press, 2006).
The article Wired: The World’s Most Advanced Bionic Arm précises the work being done to create “an artificial human arm that acts, looks and feels to its user like his native arm, and to do it with astonishing speed by the end of 2009”.
I can hear the Six Million Dollar Man theme music in my head as I’m reading it.
Firstly, a (mini) colloquium on Media and Religious Authority on Tuesday, which included some of the Virtual Theology colloquium participants from a while back, along with Heidi Campbell. A good time to catch up with people, to meet Heidi in person for the first time, and to start to thrash out some ideas I’m interested in relating to various dimensions of religious authority in comic book and graphic novel genres.
More about it at:
- SansBlogue: Media and Religious Authority
- fishers, surfers and casters » Virtual Theology Colloquium
- When Religion Meets New Media: Media and Religious Authority Colloquium
Then Friday and Saturday I participated in the Metanexus/Tyndale-Carey sponsored conference New Perspectives in Science and Theology. Heidi (The Technologized Other: Considering the Posthuman and Prophetic Technorealism) and I (Image-bearing cyborgs?) were the opening speakers on Friday, and I got some good questions and comments after my talk (and over the weekend) that will help to shape a few areas that need tighter definition and reflection. And gave me some ideas for at least one other paper to write.
And that’s what I like about presenting at things like the two events this week. It gives you a chance to start a conversation about your work, and to make connections to other work that you haven’t made before. Doesn’t always make answering the questions being asked any easier though
A recent article in La Civilta Cattolica by Jesuit Antonio Spadaro argues for Catholics to consider virtual worlds, such as Second Life, as potential mission fields.
See:
Catholics urged to save virtual souls too - Stuff.co.nz
FT.com : Gospel 2.0: Jesuits move into Second Life:
You can read the article abstract here (in Italian) and here (via Google translation).
Links to a couple of images I saw recently on Mondolithic Studios’ web site.
Different Futures. The choices we make now affect those who follow.
Dark Energy. Resonates for me with William Blake’s lines from ‘Auguries of Innocence’, as well as with the dreams of the nanotechnologists.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Related stuff - Mondolithic search results on Greenflame.
Hard-bound and digital copies of PhD thesis lodged with university. Roll on graduation in September.
Thesis submission process went something like this:
- Thesis submitted early January 2007 (still 2006 academic year).
- Oral defense late May 2007.
- Official notification of defense results early June.
- Modifications to made received mid-June.
- Sign off on modifications mid-July.
- Hard-bound and digital copies submitted 20 July.
- Assuming bureaucracy’s wheels turn, graduation 27 September.
The process has seemed as grueling at times as actually writing the thesis. But now, there’s nothing left in my hands. Quite an odd feeling after 4-5 years of living with the thesis always in the background.
Related link: PHD Comics: Now what?
John highlights a Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity seminar looking at biotech. See microclesia Blog Archive » Re-Engineering.
While, Wired has Wired Science - Wired Blogs - In Freeman Dyson’s Biotech Utopia, Say Goodbye to Darwinian Evolution which links to the (badly formatted) interview Freeman Dyson’s Brain.
Books on the go at the moment.
- Writing at the Edge of the Universe
- Published by Canterbury University Press (2003), it’s a collection of essays, interviews, reflections and talks from the ‘Creative Writing in New Zealand’ Conference. Covers everything from politics, young adults fiction, comics, hypertext, and definitions of ‘cultural’ within the NZ writing scene. Something to dip into every now and then.
- Spin Control by Chris Moriarty
- A mix of technology, religion and politics set in a posthuman future. Has a short bibliography of material relating to emergence, transhumanism, and social evolutionism. Oh, and lots of stuff about ants. If only my thesis read as well.
- The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card
- Finally got around to reading this collection of Card’s older science fiction material. Some interesting material relating to theodicy, suffering, pain, human perseverance, and free will, together with other observations about the technological quest for immortality.
- For Everyone Concerned by Damien Wilkins (2007)
- The most recent collection of short works by Wilkins, much of which is set in Wellington. I grabbed the library’s copy and found it a mixed bag (as with most collections like this). I loved the short story “Reunion” set in Wellington Library though.
Tim Bulkeley’s on the lookout for people interested in religion and media.
Calling Auckland Bloggers! or Media and Religion scholars?
Heidi Campbell (Texas A & M) author of When Religion Meets New Media (Routledge) and the blog “When Religion Meets New Media” if there are bloggers in the Auckland vicinity who would be interested in a face to face get together to meet Heidi and each other on the evening of the 24th please contact me (Tim) by email or phone 526 0344 with your contact details. We will be having a sort of semi-colloquium on Media and Religious Authority that day (hopefully with virtual participants as well as physical ones - if you are an academic and interested in this topic please also contact me!) and a quiet chat with a wider group could be a good way to finish the day.
Contact him on the phone no. above or follow the link SansBlogue: Calling Auckland Bloggers! or Media and Religion scholars?
The first volume of the Wikiklesia Project - Voices of the Virtual World: Participative Technology and the Ecclesial Revolution - is scheduled for release on July 23, 2007. It’s a collection of reflections and essays by around 40 contributors looking at relationships between emerging (digital) technologies, spirituality, and the church.
You can find a press release here at: Wikiklesia Project: Press Release - Wikiklesia: Book One.
Voices of the Virtual World explores the growing influence of technology on the global Christian church. In this premier volume, we hear from more than forty voices, including technologists and theologians, entrepreneurs and pastors… from a progressive Episcopalian techno-monk to a leading Mennonite professor… from a tech-savvy mobile missionary to a corporate anthropologist whom Worth Magazine calls “one of Wall Street’s 25 Smartest Players.” Voices is a far reaching exploration of spiritual journey contextualized within a culture of increasingly immersive technology.
You can see the list of chapter titles and contributors (including me) at Wikiklesia Project: Chapter Titles.
The volume will be released initially as a eBook, followed by a printed edition at a later date.
All proceeds from the Wikiklesia Project will be contributed to the Not For Sale campaign.
More on the Wikiklesia Project at: Wikiklesia Project: About
Thanks to John La Grou and Len Hjalmarson for getting the experiment off the ground.
Brief summary article ScienceDaily: Who Should ‘Own’ Genetic Information? points to the British Medical Journal news release Should families own genetic information? Yes — Lucassen 335 (7609): 22 — BMJ.
That article in turn points to two journal articles that argue for different sides of that discussion - one in favour of families and the other in favour of the individual. You can find them at:
- Genetic information: a joint account? — Parker and Lucassen 329 (7458): 165 — BMJ - favours joint ownership.
- Should families own genetic information? No — Clarke 335 (7609): 23 — BMJ - favours private and personal to the individual concerned.
If I can find a decent polling plug-in or widget for the blog I might turn this into a poll.
In spite of all the hype around robots and the ‘eschatological’ dreams connected to things like the transhumanist singularity, this robotic application actually looks useful. See Using a Robot to Teach Human Social Skills.
Related link: MIT - Robotic Life - The Huggable: A Robotic Companion for Therapeudic Applications
Got flicked the link to this the other day. The programme and keynote speakers aren’t there yet, but it looks like an interesting conference with potential for interaction between religious ideas of wellbeing and biotechnology.
See New Zealand Bioethics Conference: Wellbeing and Technology
The School of Theology at the University of Auckland is advertising for a Biblical Studies lecturer with specialisation in Hebrew Bible. So, if you’re an Old/First Testament kind of person, you dream in Hebrew, and you want an Antipodean lifestyle, now’s your chance.
See Current Vacancies - The University of Auckland - Lecturer in Biblical Studies (A479-07I).
Ah, the choices we make. I was really torn between Old Testament and Christian Thought and History in my studies. I’d done all the OT BD papers available (including the Hebrew options for Psalms and Pentateuch). Opted for theology, and now all the jobs around seem to be in OT. B*gger.
Still, managed to do a theology thesis relating to the imago Dei that had a chunk of OT exegesis behind it, and the ‘Eighth Century Prophets’ paper I did significantly informed social justice aspects in the thesis, too.
A selection of links that intersect around the role of new media in educational environments. Henry Jenkins has an essay (in two parts) that looks at the tension between participatory media and traditional educational models, and in particular emphasises the critical application of the following skill set:
- Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others towards a common goal.
- Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information source.
- Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize and disseminate information.
- Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative sets of norms.
See:
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART ONE)
- Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins: WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART TWO)
Connected to this, is Mary Hess’ post about a review of her book on theological education promoting this type of critical engagement with new media by teachers and students. See:
- Tensegrities » Struggling to respond… and Tensegrities » A response to a review
- Tensegrities » Teaching/learning in theological education
Then AKMA has this post on reflecting on a meeting to discuss related matters - AKMA’s Random Thoughts - Retrospect and Prospect.
And then Tim chimes in with this post (connected to AKMA’s) - SansBlogue: Bible, Babel and Web 2.0. (Some long comments there - including some from Mark which he refers to here: E-BCNZer: Brighouse - “On Education”).
The integration of digital technologies, with existing pedagogues and technologies, will be here for a while yet. I know that I’ve found it frustrating as both a student and teacher that the roles I’m being trained for/are training people for are collaborative - they stand or fall based upon healthy, dynamic relationships (both in IT and religion) - and yet the systems promote individualism (for assessment particularly) and work to stamp out collaborative efforts (it’s called cheating). Intellectual property discussions (esp. academic ones) also connect here. There must be a better way.
Article recently in the Washington Post looks at the different ways in which people are bringing religion into the Second Life virtual environment. See Finding Religion in Second Life’s Virtual Universe - washingtonpost.com (Text also available here)
Related links:
- Anglican Second Life Inhabitants Construct Medieval Cathedral - Game | Life - Wired Blogs and The power of the blog « brownblog via SansBlogue: The Second Life Cathedral goes mainstream.
- Greenflame · Paul Teusner on Heidi Campbell’s “Exploring Religious Community Online”
- Greenflame · Religion and computer-mediated communications
- Greenflame · Research in New Media and Religious Online Communities
- Greenflame · God in Cyberspace
- Greenflame · Give Me That Online Religion
- Greenflame · Virtual Praystation
- Wired 3.07: Technopagans - May the astral plane be reborn in cyberspace and Erik Davis [ TECHGNOSIS ]
- Wired 3.06: A Globe, Clothing Itself with a Brain and “CyberGrace: The Search for God in the Digital World” by Jennifer Cobb.
- All sorts of things in the cyberspace and virtual reality categories.
Melbourne newspaper “The Age” has this brief article on neuroscientists analyzing what the brain does when an person is altruistic - see Warm as charity: why giving feels good.
Related links:
Books and articles by Antonio Damasio including:
- “Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain” (Antonio Damasio)
- “Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain” (Antonio Damasio)
- “The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience (Theology and the Sciences)” (Eugene G. D’Aquili, Andrew B. Newberg)
- Damasio, Antonio. “Fundamental Feelings.” Nature 413 (2001): 781.
Books and articles by Andrew Newberg
- Metanexus articles by Andrew Newberg
- D’Aquili, Eugene G., and Andrew B. Newberg. “Consciousness and the Machine.” Zygon 31, no. 2 (1996): 235-252.
- D’Aquili, Eugene G., and Andrew B. Newberg. The Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.
A couple of interesting articles from Science about new stem cell research to file away under the bioethics category.
New Perspectives In Science and Theology Conference will be held 27-28 July 2007 at the Bible College of New Zealand in Auckland. It’s being organized by TANSAA (Theology and the Natural Sciences in Aotearoa Auckland) and Tyndale-Carey Graduate School, and is a Metanexus initiative.
The conference speakers cover a range of specialties: Physics & Origins of life; Biology; Theology & Biblical Studies; Psychology; Media and Digital Technologies.
I’m presenting a paper entitled “Image-bearing cyborgs?â€, picking up some of the strands of hacking, hybridity and hope.
Click on the poster for more details.
A lot gets written about the ultra-hi-tech prosthetics (Greenflame · The World’s First Powered Ankle) and ‘cyborg’-implants (Greenflame · Mind Over Matter) but this (relatively) low-tech approach to finger replacements looks interesting. See: Gadget Lab - Mechanical Fingers Grant Grip: No Batteries Needed.
A recent article on the Reuters web site Ancient Rome comes back to life in virtual model reports on the University of Virginia’s RomeReborn1.0 project, which attempts to recreate a virtual reality model of the entirety of Rome circa 320AD. (That’d be good to splice into a computer simulation game)
Reminded me of the ARCHEOGUIDE project that was promoted before the 2004 Athens Olympics. This was an augmented reality project that allowed people physically exploring the site of ancient Olympia to have virtual constructs of the “unruined†structures superimposed upon the landscape to give impressions of their size and relationship to other structures. More in the paper Cultivate Interactive Issue 9: Augmented Reality Touring of Archaeological Sites with the ARCHEOGUIDE System.
Also there is an exploration of the ruins of the bronze age palace at Knosós on the island of Crete available at British School at Athens: Knosós. (Uses Quicktime VR)
Three different approaches - virtual reality, augmented reality and web-based media.
Article from Wired highlighting an internet service for getting ‘debaptised’ from the Roman Catholic Church in Italy. See Debaptism 2.0: Fleeing the Flock Via the Net
In early January I submitted my PhD thesis (Greenflame » Submission) for examination, and then a couple of weeks ago (May 21) I had my oral defence of the thesis: Transhumanism and the imago Dei : Narratives of apprehension and hope. For the oral I met with my examination panel (The two NZ markers in person, and the US marker via written questions) and a chairperson to defend my thesis. A pretty traumatic experience of just over two hours, though good to be able to address the examiners in person and respond to their criticisms and comment. I’d have hated just getting the examiners’ reports in the mail and not getting the critique nuanced by interaction in person.
Yesterday I received the confirmation letter from the University of Auckland stating officially that the examiners had recommended my thesis favourably and that, pending some minor modifications, I can submit the final copies to the university (within three months) and then graduate with my PhD.
So all the hard work is done, I’ve passed the final examination, and now just need to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” in a few places and get on with the rest of my life. The feeling gets better every day.
Left: Newman Hall, home to the Catholic Institute of Theology, and site of oral defence trauma.
Right: The Fisher Building (next door to Newman Hall), site of the School of Theology.
Photos taken before the oral, which was a good thing, as I wasn’t in the mood to take any at the end of it.
The biblical language of the early chapters of the book of Genesis continues to permeate the discussions of technology and no more so than in the area of genetic engineering. Both religious and secular writers draw upon images Babel, Eden, naming, gardening and the Fall to frame their arguments and to inspire the imagination of their readers. For example, Lee Silver’s “Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning will Transform the American Family”, and Leon R. Kass’ “Technology and the Humanist Dream: Babel Then and Now”.
Often negative responses to technology (or aspects of it) appeal to a symbol like the biblical Tower of Babel in Gen 11:1-9. This is interpreted as an example of humanity’s hubris leading to God’s judgement, and therefore used as a justification for limiting technologies that appear to ‘play God’. Pete Moore, in his recent book (“Babel’s Shadow: Genetic Technologies in a Fracturing Society”) on genetic engineering examined from within the Christian tradition, notes the potential for such technology as a force for good, but he also uses the Babel symbolism to highlight its potential for disaster.
In biblical Babel the solution was to confuse the language and scatter the people. The result was diversity. In the future, the genetic ‘Tower of Babel’ may have a more lasting impact, and the scattering could come from new forms of discrimination and exclusion, or from events as extreme as a split into more than one human race. On the other hand, if controlled and managed with care, it could lead to a world where individuals are treated with respect and enabled to live out their full potential.
Maybe in response to his request for “SansBlogue: Getting ideas for Biblical Studies Podcasts”, Tim could do one of his ‘5-minute Bible‘ spots on Gen 11:1-9. Gen 1-3 get lots of coverage around the place, but the end of the Gen 1-11 primeval history less so. Might be a useful refresher for those who keep coming across the Babel motif.
This upcoming conference looks interesting:
Pacific Institute for Ethics and Social Policy: Challenging Assumptions: Religious Faith, Genetic Science, Human Dignity
(12 to 14 October 2007, Portland, Oregon, United States).
See CFP here.
I borrowed a copy of “Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends†(edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles Anderson and Michael Sleasman: 2007) from the library the other day because it contained a copy of the essay “Human 2.0: Transhumanism as a Cultural Trend†(PDF) by Matthew Eppinette, as well as an essay on the church and blogging by .
I haven’t yet read most of the articles but from a quick skim it looks like it’d be a good introductory book for the course ‘Gospel in a Post-Christian Society’ that I took as part of my BD way back in 1999. (See e~mergent kiwi: a burger at my theological table for more on the course).
In his introductory essay, Kevin Vanhoozer argues for Christians being able not only to exegete the Bible and reflect theologically upon it, but also to exegete culture and become culture-makers. He states:
The reason why theology must study God and contemporary culture is the same reason why preaching must connect both with the biblical text and the listener’s context: because disciples do not follow the gospel in a vacuum but wend their Christian way through particular times and places, each with its own problem and possibilities. We can follow God’s word only if we know where we are and if we have a sense of where various ways lead. Doing theology is part and parcel of one’s daily walk and is too important to leave solely to the professionals.
Definitely.
A couple of links came to my attention this week. Firstly, the Singularity Institute have started a blog to promote ideas about the technological singularity (Greenflame » Pondering the Singularity (Again)), and at the same time I came across the bioethics podcast