Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
Category: Transhumanism
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Vernor Vinge’s presentation of the technological singularity back in 1993 (PDF here) talked about the scenario where human intellect is augmented through better communications networks and human-computer interfaces. Here’s a recent article in the Boston Globe that picks up on the “intelligence augmentation” (IA) within contemporary settings. See Souls of a new machine – The…
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The pro-nanotechnology website of the Foresight Nanotech Institute has a brief review of the World Council of Churches report on the convergent/emergent technologies of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive sciences. You can read their slant on the WCC document over at Nanodot: Nanotechnology News and Discussion » Blog Archive » Nanotechnology: World Council of…
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Trying to nut out the 1000-1500 words I want/need to write about the Singularity, its various flavours, and its commentators. I’ve stacks of notes, written chunks about it before in drafts and papers, but can’t quite get the slant to these words that I want and need. That slant is not so much a description…
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Over at The Digital Sanctuary: Internet Evolution Cynthia points to the new Pew/Internet report Imagining the Internet which surveyed the opinions of various stakeholders in the Internet. Related to my previous posting is their assertion that a substantial number of them are concerned about the role of autonomous technology in shaping future societies. Of course,…
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Mark over at Reflections… wanted some more details about last Friday’s talk. So here are some links to related things: The introduction to my talk is here – Cyborg-Intro.pdf. It’s pretty rough and ready as I read it, rather than have others read it. I used the ASB Bank “Streamline” TV commercial as an example…
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Chris Wren of Mondolithic Studios posts an interesting article which contends that transhumanism isn’t a distinct movement or philosophical school. Rather it is simply one manifestation of the myriad of ways that human beings are technological. See Mondolithic Sketchbook: AREN’T WE ALREADY TRANSHUMANISTS? Certainly this would fit with claims that transhumanism is a useful label…
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A while back Brian Edgar, Director of Public Theology for the Australian Evangelical Alliance, wrote a good summary paper on some of the theological issues arising from transhumanism and the notion of the cyborg. It’s written in reasonably accessible language (one doesn’t need to be a theological or technological expert) and was originally presented at…
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What you believe eschatologically affects how you live in the world today, and particularly how you treat the world around you. There’s a tendency that if you believe the return of Christ is imminent, or that the world will be ultimately be destroyed (rather than remade) by God at the end of time, for environmental…
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Last month Metanexus held their annual science and religion conference on the theme of “Continuity and Change“. Abstracts and full papers from the conference are available online from the web site. One paper I look forward to reading is More than Human: Religion, Bioethics, and the Transhuman Prospect by Ronald Cole-Turner. If I look sideways…
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After managing to find this week’s NZ Listener (it gets delivered 7 days before the week it’s for, and often gets misplaced) I see the lead article is on the accelerating pace of technological change. A quick skim though highlights that it picks up on genetics, robotics and nanotechnology in the typical popular fashion. I’ll…