tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47051409192312367262024-02-08T09:43:41.211-08:00The AI Apocalypse - religion, technology, artOfficial blogsite for Robert M Geraci, scholar of religion, science & technology and author of <u>Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality</u>Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-60585814582470055562012-01-05T06:39:00.000-08:002012-01-05T06:39:40.671-08:00first television appearanceIn early December, I went down to a Manhattan studio to tape an appearance on <a href="http://theagenda.tvo.org/episode/141041/its-the-end-of-the-world">The Agenda with Steve Paikin</a>, a Canadian news journalism show. The show aired last night, and since I haven't watched it I'm still hoping that I didn't say anything too foolish. Follow the link if you want to watch. The show is around 40 minutes long.<br />
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The topic of the show was apocalypticism in pop culture, based loosely around the silliness of 2012 doomsday scenarios. You know, the Mayan calandar sorta-kinda ends so the world must be about to. The same way the world blows up each time our Gregorian calendar runs out of days in December. Oh, wait. That doesn't happen. Well, it won't be happening on December 21, 2012 either.<br />
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It was a lot of fun doing the taping: all of the others were clever and fun, and I appreciate the invitation from our good neighbors to the north. The is the first step in our all-important quest to end up on <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/">The Colbert Report</a>. :)Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-90459498494740011622011-10-15T09:55:00.000-07:002011-10-15T09:55:19.375-07:00worst news in robotics...everOkay, so this isn't Skynet, but <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/10/us/drone-program-virus/index.html">this</a> is seriously not good. It reveals not only the weaknesses in our information systems, but a bigger problem with risk assessment and management in U.S. defense policy.<br />
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The "little" problem: there is a virus that has infected the U.S. Predator drone program. The computers that control the drones have been infected, and no one knows quite what the virus does. One thing that officials know is that the virus is logging all the keystrokes made on those computers. That's a problem when you're talking about classified movements and operations. <br />
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The HUGE problem: U.S. defense officials are "concerned but not panicked" about a virus that they do not understand and have failed to eradicate. They continue to fly drones in the compromised program, raising questions about the military's priorities. If we could build a hypothetical mind controlling virus and infect U.S. soldiers with it, would the Army continue to deploy those soldiers? Of course not. And yet, while we don't know what's going on with the drones, and therefore cannot even <i>estimate</i> the risks at stake in deploying them, there has been no reduction in the program. This does not bode well for those of us who--ever since the Challenger blew up--have hoped that the U.S. government would improve its risk assessment practices. When we're talking about robotic planes that carry weapons, we need to be smarter than this.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-59898744338277878962011-08-10T09:47:00.000-07:002011-08-10T09:47:36.094-07:00science and the publicThis past winter I wrote a paper about how more scientists involved with robotics and AI need to get involved with the public because, at present, most of them who are say little other than "the world will be magical" and wave their hands about and then pass a tin cup. While this definitely has some social value--it would be nice, for example, if Singularity University does more than simply create entrepreneurial opportunities and provide Ray Kurzweil with a check though I definitely think the jury is still out on the matter--I am skeptical that such voices are the only ones we need to hear. After all, robotics and AI pose <i>serious</i> dangers to individuals and societies.<br />
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As a big fan of both robotics and AI, I'm enthusiastic about continued research but I think we need to be a lot more cautious about how we deploy them, especially as they enhance certain aspects of military engagement (killing people from far away) and radically reshape public and private flows of information (through robotic spies or through AI algorithms).<br />
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The paper I wrote, "Martial Bliss: War and Peace in Popular Science Robotics," will come out in a special edition of <i>Philosophy & Technology</i> later this year. My basic hope is that roboticists will start engaging with the public, working toward a broad coalition that can guide our technological choices (which I absolutely refuse to believe are predetermined). We need to talk about what we, as a society, think is worth having and then work toward that. <br />
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In happy news, some other folks are picking up on the same issue. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09emily.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210"><i>New York Times</i></a> has just published an essay about the need for scientists to speak to the public, which is apparently composed of people ignorant about things scientists actually say or even of who might actually be a living scientist. Of course, knowing what scientists believe might be a problem, as apparently learning new (and correct) information actually causes some people to <a href="http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/">harden their faith in falsity</a> (anyone who's ever discussed global warming, tax policy, or evolution by natural selection with the U.S. Republican party faithful will already know this). <br />
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Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-41161488978821959832011-07-30T08:06:00.000-07:002011-07-30T08:06:40.338-07:00All Your Taxes Are Belong To Us!okay, not all of them. in fact, if the government implodes, there won't be any taxes collected or, if they are, they won't be disbursed to anyone but very rich people.<br />
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but assuming that the government continues to function in some sort of reasonable way, i'm pleased that it will be funding my research into religion and virtual worlds. i have been awarded with a National Science Foundation <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1144028">grant</a> to study meaningful experiences and transcendence in virtual worlds, particularly video games. the grant comes under the auspices of the human-centered computing division and will be used to establish a research group of undergraduates who will study virtual worlds and then write papers about them, which they will hopefully present and/or publish. i will write a summary paper of the findings with the students co-authoring.<br />
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i'm accepting applications from students right now and hope to do interviews in a week or two so that i can have the team ready by 9/1.<br />
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there's a quick webpage <a href="http://home.manhattan.edu/%7Erobert.geraci/nsf_home.html">here</a>.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-79177452942492697142011-07-22T11:23:00.000-07:002011-07-22T11:23:17.930-07:00the nanofuture / science and science fictionso there are wonderful books, like neal stephenson's <i>The Diamond Age</i>, that engage nanotechnology and the ways it will reshape the future. now eric drexler, the man most responsible for present nanotech research, has a <a href="http://metamodern.com/2011/07/21/my-next-book-radical-abundance-2012/">new "non-fiction" book coming out next year.</a> <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0553380966&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><br />
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although i put non-fiction in scare quotes, i look forward to reading it. the scare quotes are not to indicate i think his book will be irrelevant or untrue. indeed, i think drexler's a genius and many of his claims may well turn out true (though certainly others will not). it's just that between sci-fi and pop science, it's often difficult to tell which one portrays the future more truly. <br />
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as i've pointed out elsewhere, the interesting thing about pop science books like drexler's is not that they're necessarily more informative than science fiction or that they're going to be more likely correct...it's that they lay claim to a scientific prestige that legitimates them in different audiences. drexler asserts that his book will be valuable, for example, to policy experts. well, i'd say stephenson's book or doctorow's <i>Eastern Standard Tribes</i> also say interesting things about policy and are likely to be as helpful as drexler's for politicians navigating the future (which is to say that they'll either be utterly prescient or utterly worthless and no one knows which). and yet, when a sci-fi author writes about the future there's a certain social cachet missing and i've yet to decide if that's fair.<br />
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that said, i look forward to drexler's new effort and will purchase it when i can. <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0385199732&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-25234149530011496632011-07-12T06:35:00.000-07:002011-07-12T06:35:51.388-07:00in pursuit of meaningful educationtoday's topic has nothing in particular to do with robots or religion or video games or other. it's about education.<br />
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in the U.S., we've seen blistering attacks on college education over the past two or three decades, from decimated public funding to the end of a meaningful education for students, which has been replaced by (poor) vocational training. instead of teaching students how to think about the world they occupy, our colleges and universities have increasingly turned toward teaching students that they should just do their jobs (and poorly at that, as students, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/education/edlife/edl-17business-t.html?pagewanted=all">especially in business schools</a>, now think they don't have to work anymore). <br />
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once upon a time, state governments actually paid for their constituents to attend college; nowadays they resist doing so. see <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/public-colleges-tap-private-funds-as-state-support-dwindles/2011/06/29/AGHiWQvH_story.html">this article</a> about reduced funding in washington, for example, or <a href="http://www.independentcollegian.com/ut-to-lose-19-m-in-state-funding-for-fiscal-year-2012-1.2517685">this article</a> about reductions at my undergraduate alma mater, the university of texas. reductions in public funding mean additional pressures on faculty to raise money, on alumni to give money, and on colleges to monetize their educations and market themselves as places that lead to jobs.<br />
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colleges and universities are not places that lead to jobs. or, at least, they shouldn't be. they are places where we grow as people, becoming better citizens. acquiring skills in reading, writing and critical thinking should further that goal, first and foremost. secondarily, they are useful for jobs. in fact, for most jobs, they're about the only important skills. the things a student learns in business school are largely irrelevant without them. sadly, the marketing of school tends to discount the very classes where reading, writing, and critical thinking are learned, thereby ensuring that many of today's college graduates leave school with no meaningful ability to contribute to their workplaces or their country. <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0691140642&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align: left; height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><br />
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of course, in a world where education has been divorced from citizenship and meaningful public life, institutions like academic freedom and tenure appear irrelevant (<a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/vocationalism-academic-freedom-and-tenure/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=thab1">leading to ongoing fights about them</a>). all too many commentators (most, though not all) on the right side of the political spectrum now fight vigorously against tenure as they seek to produce a cadre of mechanical workers. <br />
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it is not surprising, of course, that when academic freedom comes under attack, so too is freedom. nowadays, all you have to do is label your restriction of rights a "patriot act" and you can rest assured that people will lack the ability or the inclination to resist. tenure is important but it is important not just to protect intellectual inquiry from political attacks but also as a reminder that colleges are not and should not be business schools (though MBA and MPA programs and also accounting programs certainly have a place in them). going to college is not about getting a job; it's' about becoming a real citizen. you can do that without college, but it's easier with guidance than without it. let's restore our colleges and universities to their mission of learning. let's fund them publicly and give students a chance to learn enough that they will be truly productive in our society.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-81315493698319193362011-07-08T15:23:00.000-07:002011-07-08T15:23:30.127-07:00singularity snapshots ... hooray for religion!So there have been an enormous number of things happening in transhumanism lately, including more press for Kurzweil (obviously), more voices on H+ as a religion, and--most awesomely--an evangelical Christian who claims that Jesus predicted the Singularity.<br />
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I'm short on time so I'm skipping the Kurzweil press. After all, he gets plenty.<br />
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Giulio Prisco recently revamped his 2004 essay on how transhumanism is religious, leading to the usual chorus of "ain't no way my beliefs about stuff that hasn't happened yet and cannot be confirmed in the immediate future are religious!" You can see Giulio's essay <a href="http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/06/28/engineering-transcendence-addendum-from-2011/">here</a>. As I keep claiming, transhumanism is, indeed, a religion. It's nice that a growing number of transhumanists are coming on board with Prisco; publication with <i>H+ Magazine</i> is a sign of some respectability in the community. And it's not as though this is some sort of problem. After all, as I commented on his post, religion is a tool and, like other tools, it is not inherently evil. Moreover, the guy who coined the term transhumanism to refer to this movement (Julian Huxley) actually saw it as religious. I've got an article dealing with that issue (and others) coming out this summer. <br />
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Also, BoingBoing recently featured a <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/07/02/transhumanism-and-he.html">brief spot</a> on how transhumanism has connections to a 19th century Russian Orthodox thinker.<br />
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Someone new is talking about the folks that I lump into the Apocalyptic AI, category, calling them "informatic futurists," which is probably even more awkward than my term. The author, Abou Farman of CUNY, evidently used the term at a <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/k8NVM">conference in May</a>. Can't we get something short and sweet? I'm still dreaming of being the one who gets a catchy term going.<br />
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Finally, for now, and best of all...my friend <a href="http://www.ericsteinhart.com/">Eric Steinhart</a> notified me that the folks at RaptureReady, whose <a href="http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html">Rapture Index</a> I've shown to students for years, have now decided that <a href="http://www.raptureready.com/featured/gillette/ss.html">Jesus predicted the Singularity</a>. Obviously, I look forward to the transhumanists' response to being enfolded within the Christian evangelical community.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-554693069384268822011-06-28T11:24:00.000-07:002011-06-28T11:24:37.207-07:00the difference between academia and journalism?I have friends who are journalists. I like them a lot. I hope that none of them would ever, ever deliberately misquote someone they've interviewed.<br />
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I was asked to discuss Neil Gaiman's <i>American Gods</i> by a journalist writing for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. The journalist asked several questions by e-mail and asked that I respond very swiftly to them. I did because I like to be helpful.<br />
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The journalist--who has no excuse because my words were right there in his e-mail--misquoted me. He writes:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Not everyone loved "American Gods" a decade ago. In his introduction to the new edition, Gaiman mentions that some critics complained the book was "not American enough"; others "that it was too American." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Robert Geraci, a religious studies professor at Manhattan College, believes he knows why. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> "I think Gaiman's book may not please those who believe there is <em>an</em> America," he said. "However, as a Brit who's lived in America for a long time, Gaiman can see things about our culture that we can't -- or that we prefer to ignore. In showing us the real complexity of America, which includes the America of recent British immigrants as well as the America of the First Peoples, Gaiman can't help but annoy those who prefer a mythic America that is uniform and coherent." </span><br />
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What I actually said--in response to whether or not Gaiman's book is "not American enough" or "too American"--is:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">debates over what is "american" are muddled from the start, as "americanness," if anything, means a conglomerate of cultural practices, ideas, and institutions. while American Gods omits some of these (such as the overwhelming presence of protestant christianity), it captures the essence of the u.s. as a "melting pot." ... gaiman's book is not a perfect snapshot of american life (what would be?), but it does brilliantly explore our cultural heritage(s) by situating america in the long history of religions and peoples." </span><br />
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There are some reasonably significant differences between what I said and what the piece's author attributes to me and you'll note that I don't anywhere claim that this issue is the reason why some people didn't like the book (which a reader could reasonably infer from what was written). I was asked about whether particular criticisms of the book were valid and asked how I would respond to people who held them. My answer fits that question, not the one I am possibly alleged to be addressing.<br />
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More to the point, there are some very significant ethical issues in claiming that you're quoting someone when in fact you are not. In my classes ... I call this sort of thing lying and I fail students for it.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-75733732720458508232011-01-08T18:30:00.000-08:002011-01-08T18:30:44.598-08:00unending publicityI have to admit, with all the publicity over the Singularity, etc. these days, I feel pretty good to have published ahead of the curve. :)<br />
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<i>Scientific American</i>, for example, just published the latest <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=e-zimmer-can-you-live-forever">popular essay</a> on the subject, this one authored by Carl Zimmer and apparently based upon an essay he wrote for <i>Playboy</i>, of all places. It's a pretty standard mix of "gee, a lot of this looks really cool" and "some of this is probably a outside the realm of likely." I'm probably in Zimmer's camp here, though my writings are not generally intended to evaluate the likelihood of any apocalyptic promises made by Kurzweil, Moravec, etc.<br />
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My ongoing effort to ensure that credit is found where it is due, however, seems to be a losing effort. In ten pages, Hans Moravec's name never comes up. Vernor Vinge? Yes. Ray Kurzweil? A dozen times or more. Moravec (the man whose work both Vinge and Kurzweil base their promises upon)? No. Sigh.<br />
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Maybe I should just send Mr. Zimmer a copy of my book. : )Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-3395841816289840442010-12-17T17:10:00.000-08:002010-12-17T17:10:10.143-08:00mind uploading = #2 on the list of prioritiesso just this past monday i was at Columbia U speaking for the Studies in Religion seminar. i argued that the tranhumanist dream of uploading minds is a really important phenomenon in the study of religion and that it probably necessitates some new ways of thinking about religion (what constitutes a religious group, a holy text, etc.) and would benefit from some new methods coming out of the sociology and anthropology of science.<br />
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naturally, there were some folks who wanted to understand where apocalyptic AI fits in in the transhumanist worldview. well, turns out it comes in second, at least according to the Lifeboat Foundation, which labels it the #2 transhumanist technology in its <a href="http://lifeboat.com/ex/transhumanist.technologies">top ten list</a>.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-47145568171305789782010-12-02T09:47:00.000-08:002010-12-02T09:47:18.170-08:00The Mark of the Digital BeastSo for millennia, there have been Christians awaiting the return of Jesus, who will vanquish a cosmic beast (known by everyone who's bothered to think about the matter as the <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/%7Egrout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/nero.html">Emperor Nero</a>) and establish a New Jerusalem for the faithful. In the Book of Revelation, the Beast has his mark stamped upon the people and without it no one can buy or sell (Rev 13:16-17).<br />
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Apocalyptic Christians in the 20th century have oddly interpreted that phrase to mean such technologies as <a href="http://www.av1611.org/666/barcode.html">UPC symbols</a> and <a href="http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/06/70308">RFID</a> tags (neither of which is likely to be placed on your forehead). So it won't be long before they jump on <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/scientists-attach-barcodes-to-mouse-embryos-human-ones-coming-soon?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=73da63e794-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email">barcoded embryos </a>as examples of the end of the world. <br />
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When someone makes a million dollars on a book about barcoded embryos, the Beast, and the return of Jesus, I'm going to be really irritated that I'm too honest to have written the book and gone to the bank, myself.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-85383210301388858502010-12-02T09:36:00.000-08:002010-12-02T09:36:30.529-08:00Time for KurzweilSo I've been impressed for years at Ray Kurzweil's own exponentially rising public profile, the most recent accomplishment of which is to answer ten questions for <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2033076,00.html">Time</a> magazine. <br />
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There's nothing new in the article: Kurzweil tells us that we'll re-engineer bodies and brains, becoming long-lived (the word "immortal" is noticeably absent, however) and much smarter. We'll have to prevent anyone from bioengineering weapons, and we'll have a happier, more spiritual culture. These are just reiterations of claims he's made before, in <i>The Singularity Is Near</i> and <i>The Age of Spiritual Machines</i> so the claims, themselves, are of little interest to me.<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0143037889&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><br />
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What is interesting is that <i>Time</i> has jumped on the apocalyptic bandwagon. Does the magazine endorse Kurzweil's ideas? Not yet. Does it endorse Kurzweil himself? Well, yes. By giving Kurzweil massive mainstream exposure, the magazine acknowledges Kurzweil's social status and simultaneously adds to it.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-72974681703737412122010-11-06T18:45:00.000-07:002010-11-06T18:45:42.476-07:00the end of computers as we know them!So, in 2013, shortly after the world ends because of the Mayan mathematical and calendrical system, the world will end again. A mere 13 years after Y2K destroyed life as we know it, a multitude of solar storms will do so again. According to <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-06/15/how-to-survive-a-solar-storm">Wired</a> magazine, we all need to stop driving (this is actually good advice) and buy Faraday cages to protect our computers. Otherwise, solar storms will destroy our data, crash our cars, and leave us bereft of any purpose in life. We should also apparently all save cash under our mattresses rather than putting it in bank accounts because, like during Y2K, all bank accounts are on the verge of digital erasure. Nevermind that your cash will be worthless if all the computers in the solar system go defunct...surely there must be someone who will sell his last--and impossible to replace--can of food for your stacks of green paper.<br />
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Whew, it's a good thing that Jesus is coming back in <a href="http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/may21/index.html">2011</a> to save us from this cataclysmic techno-apocalypse.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-72475617943514751072010-10-27T09:57:00.000-07:002010-10-27T09:57:05.101-07:00American Gods, Neverwhere, and the power of landscapeSo this post has nothing to do with AI or apocalypticism, but it's what I'm up to, so I'm blogging it anyway.<br />
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This weekend, I'll be in HOTlanta, first for a visit to SEE SEVEN STATES FROM <a href="http://www.seerockcity.com/">ROCK CITY</a>! with my awesome friend Kimberly and then to participate in the annual conference for the American Academy of Religion. I'm joining the religion and pop culture crowd to present my paper: "A Landscape of the Religious Imagination: Travel and Tourism in the work of Neil Gaiman."<br />
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Sadly, I was invited to go to the Neil Gaiman event at the House on the Rock (a place featured in <i>American Gods</i> and my presentation) but not until after we'd bought tickets for the whole family to head to HTL. I would have loved to have joined the HoTR's <a href="http://thehouseontherockjournal.blogspot.com/2010/10/full-event-program-now-available.html">Low-Key Gathering</a>, but it just didn't work out. Maybe next time. <br />
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Rock City is also part of <i>American Gods</i> and my paper presentation, so I'm excited to go see it and take lots of pictures. Imported knee-high gnomes in a blacklit cavern...what more could you want? <br />
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Gaiman's <i>Neverwhere</i> and <i>American Gods </i>are two of the best damn books I've read and I'm thrilled I get to talk about them at the conference. This paper will also be part of a book I'm co-writing with my brilliant and beautiful wife. <br />
<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0060557818&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><br />
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<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0060558121&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-91310788190947883262010-10-23T17:05:00.000-07:002010-10-23T17:05:40.842-07:00virtual eschatonUnfortunately, the hotel in Milan where the <a href="http://transvision2010.wordpress.com/">Transvision 2010</a> conference is taking place lost Internet access today. That means that in the middle of Natasha Vita-More's presentation, we went through a 15 minute technical intermission that eventually became a complete severance between those of us presenting in Teleplace and those who were on location. For good or ill, I presented my own paper ("The Mythic Power of Transhumanism") prior to that separation. So the European audience had as much opportunity as the virtual audience to think I'm an idiot. Hopefully, it wasn't unanimous.<br />
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In brief, I argued that transhumanism has always been religious despite the objections of members of the H+ community and that, by embracing their religiosity, they'll have greater storytelling power than when they reject it. And, since storytelling power is the greatest power in the universe (no matter what the physicists might tell us), I think I gave them good advice.<br />
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Irritatingly, the technical delays during Natasha's talk and that subsequently interfered with the gentleman advertising his cryogenics services took up an enormous amount of time, costing us the opportunity to hear from two other speakers. This was very unfortunate, as I was looking forward to hearing them. Lincoln Cannon's talk on the Mormon Transhumanism can be read on his <a href="http://lincoln.metacannon.net/2010/10/transcript-of-presentation-for.html">site</a>. I haven't read it yet, but I look forward to doing so.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-70188038570565250402010-10-19T16:54:00.000-07:002010-10-19T16:54:24.804-07:00uniwikipediaSo the <i>Chronicle of Higher Education</i> just published a piece entitled "<a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/what-if-we-ran-universities-like-wikipedia/27612?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6c7c633597-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email">What if we ran universities like Wikipedia?</a>" or somesuch.<br />
<br />
Now as a general rule, I like the <i>Chronicle</i> but in a totally non-judgmental way, what I find really odd about the piece is that it reads like its author is a Cory Doctorow fan. After all, it was Doctorow who described the "ad hoc university" system in <i>Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom</i>. <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=the01c0-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=076530953X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Doctorow's book is brilliant and deserves all the awards it got. I love it and have cited it in academic presentations and papers.<br />
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On the other hand, I do not take it as a prescription for how to solve the problems of academia (of which there are admittedly many).<br />
<br />
I wonder why the folks at the <i>Chronicle </i>have done so.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-41170278383602575532010-10-15T16:49:00.000-07:002010-10-15T16:49:49.735-07:00Transivision 2010 conference in one week!So we're one week from the <a href="http://transvision2010.wordpress.com/tv2010/">Transvision 2010</a> conference, hosted in Milan by the brilliant Giulio Prisco, the Italian Transhumanist Association, and an advisory board. There's a weekend long set of talks and it should be a fantastic conference. I'm presenting on Saturday night (late by my EST) along with some other really great folks (Ben Goetzel, Natasha Vita-More, Lincoln Cannon, and, I think, a couple of others). <br />
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What's that? You don't live in Milan? No problem!<br />
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You can attend the conference through Teleplace. You just need an account. I have no idea how you get one, but I bet you can find out <a href="http://transvision2010.wordpress.com/tv2010/tvirtual/teleplace/">here</a>. I'll be presenting through Teleplace, so I spent a few minutes today logging on for the first time. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to delete all the shared windows of a sample document I had created, but hopefully my mess was all cleaned up when I logged off. :)<br />
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Hope to see you there!Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-57881035082848119942010-09-24T07:18:00.000-07:002010-09-24T07:18:35.080-07:00a million Stephen Colberts -- and me on the Colbert ReportI haven't been on the <i>Colbert Report</i> ... yet.<br />
<br />
But I should be.<br />
<br />
Who would be better to discuss the possibility of uploading Stephen Colbert's mind into a computer so that we could copy him an infinite number of times?<br />
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Imagine the possibilities:<br />
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Do you wonder who you should vote for this fall? Just consult your in-house Colbert. Once we've copied his mind into a robot we could all have him!<br />
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Are there politicians (or academics!) who need interviewing? A CUPID (Colbert Uploaded Personality In Dispersion) could be dispatched to the location while the flesh and bone Colbert relaxed comfortably in a smoking jacket with a glass of brandy nearby.<br />
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Imagine a political debate...the candidates could all answer questions from their personal Colbert.<br />
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And what about ending political strife altogether? 100 CUPIDs could ensure that there are no fllibusters in the Senate and another 435 would take care of the House of Representatives. With two more as President and Vice-President and 9 more on the Supreme Court, political partisanship and legislation from the bench would come to a permanent end!<br />
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So, how about showing Mr. Colbert a little love...encourage him to invite me onto his show to discuss the possibilities. <br />
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<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FDr-Geraci-Considers-Appearance-on-Colbert-Report%2F153139088051242%3Fv%3Dpage_getting_started%23%21%2Fpages%2FDr-Geraci-Considers-Appearance-on-Colbert-Report%2F153139088051242%3Fv%3Dwall&width=292&connections=10&stream=true&header=true&height=587" style="border: medium none; height: 587px; overflow: hidden; width: 292px;"></iframe>Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-75168983893090630032010-08-20T13:15:00.000-07:002010-08-20T13:15:52.642-07:00cosmo-transhumanismi once had a good friend who was hospitalized for surgical repair of her achilles tendon. being the kind of person i am, i showed up at the hospital and on days thereafter at her home to entertain her. to improve my entertainment quotient, i purchased the latest copy of the magazine Cosmopolitan for her reading pleasure. in my brief foray into Cosmo magazine, the most obviously entertaining part were the quizzes...are you this? are you that? do you like this? does he like that?<br />
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the quizzes were inane but also amusing.<br />
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so imagine my delight when, upon first gazing upon FM-2030's <i>Are You Transhuman?</i> (1989), i find that it is chock full of quizzes (called "monitors") to help me figure out whether my "rate of personal growth" is high enough to lead me into a transhuman future. <br />
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now FM-2030 (ne feridouin esfandiary) was a bright guy who wrote a couple of early transhumanist books (<i>Optimism One </i>and<i> Up-Wingers</i>) in the 1970s and in his early works you can see a sort of proto-Singularity thesis, a proto-Law of Accelerating Returns, and other transhumanist elements later popularized by Kurzweil and others. so i do not want anyone to come away with the idea that FM-2030 was a nitwit. he definitely was not.<br />
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on the other hand, <i>Are You Transhuman?</i> is a pretty amusing mess of transhumanist enthusiasm, Cosmopolitan magazine, and, well, just plain foolishness. my favorite quiz is the very last one: "How Transhuman Are You?" (this after taking quizzes on how immortality oriented you are, how ritualistic, power-oriented, emotional, rich, fluid, etc.). the final quiz asks the following (in brief):<br />
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1. do you have implants, transplants, etc.<br />
2. does your brain have a pacemaker, electrodes, etc.?<br />
3. have you had major body reconstruction?<br />
4. are your body processes (including moods) telemonitored and regulated?<br />
5. are you teleconnected to people via portable telecom?<br />
6. are you androgynous?<br />
7. do you reproduce only through new collaborative asexual methods?<br />
8. are you the product of asexual reproduction?<br />
9. are you postterritorial: free of kinship ties, ethnicity, nationality?<br />
10. have you been to space?<br />
11. have you ever died and been resuscitated?<br />
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according to FM, if you answered "yes" to 7 out of these 11, you're a full-fledged transhuman.<br />
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so i immediately imagined a geriatric, epilectic, hospitalized former astronaut with a cell phone who could fulfill numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, and 11 right off the bad. if or she has given sperm or ova, that would get 7 or a car accident could result in credit for 3, and then it's just a hop skip and a jump (perhaps an androgynous one?) to transhumanism.<br />
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not exactly the poster boy that FM and his so-cal crowd were shooting for...but it might make for an amusing new angle in Cosmopolitan. :)Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-65244191315105501622010-08-14T05:17:00.000-07:002010-08-14T05:17:01.371-07:00everyone loves the singularityone of the key issues in my book and in an article to be published in <i>Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science</i> this december is the public significance of ideas like the Singularity and mind uploading. these days, it seems like i cannot turn around without having that thesis confirmed.<br />
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for example:<br />
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giulio prisco just pointed me at a <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/07/20/paypal-founder-facebook-financier-raises-250m/">Forbes magazine article</a> which, rather surprisingly, concludes with the statement: "Now if other venture capitalists would only adopt the firm’s willingness to back wild new startups, we’d soon be commuting to work with jet-packs, uploading our consciousness to the internet and cloning dinosaurs from DNA." obviously, this is a bit tongue in cheek but it is still fundamentally encouraging transhumanist technologies. <br />
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and<br />
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Singularity University sent me an e-mail last week announcing that NASA's chief technologist came to SU to tout the University's work in the local community and that SU's director was invited to a conference hosted by the U.S. State Department's USAID development arm. the policy groups' love of SU is something that the Singularity folks will continue to push for and appreciate. <br />
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the only thing that pains me about the persistent emergence of these things is that i cannot put them back into work that's already published. someday, when all the books are electronic, i suppose i'll be able to do that. perhaps that will help mollify me when i cannot hold paper books anymore.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-68487909629252983092010-08-11T07:23:00.000-07:002010-08-11T07:23:41.062-07:00floating to the topi must report that I'm already going back on my word: i'll be mentioning the <a href="http://lifeboat.com/ex/main">lifeboat foundation</a>, of which i am a board member, soon. i'm working on a paper about transhumanism in pop science and science fiction (it's been accepted, i'm just revising) and i have occasion to mention david brin's comments in the lifeboat listserv. so, while i said i wouldn't be mentioning them in my work, i will be. ;)<br />
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in further lifeboat related news, they've cheerfully pointed out to me that they've made it into the <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/the-lifeboat-foundation-battling-asteroids-nanobots-and-a-i/">new york times</a>. the times seems committed to singularity and futurism talk these days (see my prior post about the recent essay on kurzweil and co.), so it's not too surprising that they've featured lifeboat also. nevertheless, it's certainly a measure of the foundations growing public presence that they made it in. i do wonder how many people the times pushed to lifeboat and whether that was successful in gaining members and donors.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-44776221404343798512010-08-08T07:27:00.000-07:002010-08-08T07:27:15.340-07:00Singularity Summit 2010Next weekend transhumanists, futurists, and interested parties will converge on San Francisco for the Singularity Summit, an event founded by the Singularity Institute. Speakers include familiar standards (e.g. Ray Kurzweil, Greg Stock, Ben Goertzel) and some other, newer figures. The most exciting of the newer folks looks to be magician and paranormal researcher James Randi, whose abstract says:<br />
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"We can trust our perceptions, or so we like to believe. But James Randi knows better. Randi, who for half a century traveled the world as a celebrated conjurer and escape artist, takes the stage to demonstrate how human beings fool each other and themselves. Drawing on his extensive experiences as an investigator of paranormal, supernatural, and generally weird claims, Randi will argue that the inhabitants of the modern world are not as rational as they appear -- and that as our technologies become ever-more potent, our hidden penchant for unreason becomes commensurately more dangerous. In singular times, it is the ethical responsibility of every thinking being to become an agent for the promulgation of critical thought, skepticism, and humility."<br />
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This reveals two serious problems:<br />
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1) getting all people to promulgate critical thought, etc. is, well, impossible. As evidence, witness the fact that poll numbers continue to indicate that Republican voters don't think that President Obama is a natural born citizen of the U.S. and that a stunning 24% of them think he's the <a href="http://www.livescience.com/culture/obama-anti-christ-100325.html">Antichrist</a> while their leaders seem to think that the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/opinion/08rich.html?_r=2&ref=opinion">war in Afghanistan began in the Obama presidency</a>. <br />
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2) what if the thing we're all getting fooled about is that current technological trends are doing us any good? There'd be no way of figuring this out until far too late, as we have already discovered with the massive <span id="goog_398537051"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/">overuse of antibiotics<span id="goog_398537052"></span></a> and might be discovering with respect to things like <a href="http://greenmedinfo.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/genetically-modified-soy-linked-to-sterility-infant-mortality/">pesticides and GMO crops</a>. The humility that Randi mentions is in short supply, I'm afraid.<br />
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I'm on Randi's side. I'm a big believer that we can thoughtfully, ethically move forward technologically; and I definitely believe that this could include some (though probably not all) of the items on the transhumanist agenda. But I also wonder whether Singularity hype helps us toward this end; it all too often falls short of all three of Randi's concerns.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-20833774012625853982010-07-21T05:09:00.000-07:002010-07-21T05:09:22.387-07:00SL discussion about Apocalyptic AIExtropia DaSilva, one of the more significant SL folks whom I quote in my book, <i>Apocalyptic AI</i>, recently discussed ideas from the book at a Thinkers meeting in <i>Second Life</i>. She was kind enough to invite me but, unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to the summer research colloquium. <br />
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The transcript from her event is <a href="http://extropiadasilva.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/thinkers-july-20-2010-sacred-cyberspace/">here</a>. <br />
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There seemed to be issues of defining religion v. spirituality and religion/spirituality v. escapism (neither of which is necessarily a distinction i would make as they were being discussed: "spirituality" is a form of non-institutional religion invented rather recently and all religions, for whatever else they may also be, are to some extent escapism). They finished with an interesting discussion of the ontological status of SL avatars, focusing on what happens when an individual logs out of the system. The conversation seems (from the transcript) to have been reasonably lively and people seem to have been interested in the topic. <br />
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Whether or not I'm correct in seeing SL as a platform for religious activity remains, I'm afraid, as inconclusive as at the end of my book. : ) Regardless, it's nice that people are engaging the ideas and appreciate the Extro enjoyed the book enough to be passing along some of its content.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-79764542494108049662010-07-13T18:56:00.000-07:002010-07-13T18:56:53.633-07:00one among a multitudei have been invited to join a foundation's board of advisors for the first time. along with some actual transhumanists (who probably have more to contribute!), i'm among the recently added members to the <a href="http://lifeboat.com/ex/main">lifeboat foundation'</a>s enormous <a href="http://lifeboat.com/ex/directors">board</a>. duties will apparently range from nothing to possibly engaging in their grant process and providing input when they put together working papers on stuff.<br />
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my wife wonders if this would constitute a conflict of interest, given that i do research about transhumanism. i don't think so, given that a) i've never mentioned the lifeboat foundation before (though i had heard of them) and don't intend to start and b) they're not giving me anything. hopefully i'm right. :)Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705140919231236726.post-12221407532305912302010-07-12T16:53:00.000-07:002010-07-12T16:53:32.663-07:002010 ARIL colloquium and book progressso i'm one week into my participation in the summer <a href="http://www.aril.org/colloquium.html">colloquium</a> for the association for religion and intellectual life and <a href="http://www.aril.org/"><i>crosscurrents</i></a>.<br />
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it's been good thus far, though it's definitely had its quirks. on the first night, we all met and had dinner together. a pleasant event for familiarizing ourselves with the folks who had come to play. several struck me as having projects relevant to my interests and worth immediately getting to know but several were "off topic" for this year's theme. i knew that would be the case, though, so no big deal. after all, part of the joy of academic life is learning new stuff!<br />
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there were 3 talks in the first week (6 to come each week from here on out). of the three, one was about the need for contemplative perspectives in modern culture, one was about religion blogs, and one was about the bodily relationship between humanity and our technologies. a solid start to the colloquium. i have been surprised by the tone of some of the post-talk discussion, which has been more "red in tooth and claw" than is customary in academic discourse. <br />
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on the downside, the day we were introduced to columbia's library had me fuming...some of the questions were simply not appropriate for individuals allegedly engaged in scholarly labors. on the other hand, the library is air conditioned and gorgeous, which makes up for a lot when it's 100 degrees outside. when we were led to the rare books collection, i simply wanted to explore for the next 10 hours.<br />
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my own progress has been great. this is motivating me through my chapter on world of warcraft. in the past week, i've written 11 or 12 single-spaced pages, read a lot, extensively outlined the rest of the chapter, spent one day incoherent out of combined alcohol poisoning/lack of sleep/brutal heat, and took one day off to visit queens and eat a heck of a lot of indian food. i'll definitely have the chapter fully drafted by the end of colloquium (and possibly by the end of the week if my current pace keeps up).<br />
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in the meantime, i'll keep enjoying everyone's research presentations.Robert M Geracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04096400757761428713noreply@blogger.com0