The Aesthetical and Ethical application of Transhuman perception to Design
Project: Polytopia

Whilst it may be possible to soon grow your own clothes with synthetic bacteria, or indeed harnessing fog to eliminate the water problems of the world, what is exciting about design within technology and the transhumanist perspective of it, is primarily the idea that design can be simultaneously innovative, a game changer, aesthetically pleasing and ethically sound.

Such is the mission of the coming conference “TRANSHUMANISM MEETS DESIGN” at Parsons school of design where Humanity+ and Parsons will Explore the Role of Design in Transcending and Transforming Human Potential.



With a fascinating list of futurists speakers including Howard Bloom, author of Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, and Vivian Rosenthal, cofounder of New York-based Tronic Studio. Artificial intelligence researcher Ben Goertzel, chair of Humanity+; strategic philosopher Max More, CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation; and neuroscientist Anders Sandberg, a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University the conference promises to be an event at a critical junction in our evolution.

In my conversations with Natasha Vita-More, who co-chairs the conference with Ed Keller, the idea to present a designed form of presentation, interview like, for our audience here at SC came up, we have as a result created a schema of interweaving ideas, involving design, transhumanism, ethics and aesthetics.



I - Narratives

1.The Narrative of Aesthetics

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

— Alfred North Whitehead (Mathematical Logician and Philosopher)

Natasha: One way in which we can understand design and aesthetics is to refresh our imaginations about what personal identity means. If, for example, our personhood is a series of neuronal connections, then it forms a pattern. All aspects of our brain’s cognition, including memory, perception, experiences, analysis, and imagination, are patterns of connections. By this, one could say we are art.

2. The Narrative of Design

Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.

— Paul Rand (Icon Graphic Designer)


Natasha: Biology is a design of nature’s elements and evolution’s processes. If design, in its most basic sense, is the act of finding a solution to a problem, then design is a quintessential method for developing humanity’s future existence as biological, semi-biological and post-biological people. Science and technology are the tools, but design is the necessary, essential methodology.

3. The Narrative of Culture

Be culturally literate, because if you don't have any understanding of the world you live in and the culture you live in, you're not going to express anything to anybody else.

— Paula Scher (Dame of Grande Design)

Natasha: When time speeds up and the complexity of life causes cultures to clash, it is ever more sensible to promote diversity and understanding amongst consensual and disparate beliefs. Society’s need for knowledge is truncated by easy, quick-fix information that lacks accuracy and historical context. Repeatedly, I am seeing misinformation, lousy referencing, borrowed ideas, and a type of tweet culture that doesn’t take the time to accurately quote or identify where the information was obtained.

4. The Narrative of Transhumanism

Leonardo Da Vinci combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.

— Ben Shneiderman (Computer Scientist)

Natasha: Transhumanism evokes the sciences and technologies that might best solve the problems of bodily deterioration, cognitive degeneration, and overall lack of well-being. Enhancement means to expand upon—to make better. It parallels the role of design. Enhancement is not just augmenting the body with technology. As a design process, it aims to produce a reliable, efficient, smart model for personhood. It is the ultimate unity of aesthetics and engineering.

—
II - The Application of Transhuman Perception

1. The application of Transhumanism to Ethics

Natasha: At the finest intersection of transhumanism and ethics lies the issue of life and death, who we are, our purpose, our relationship to our self, to others and to society. Transhumanism values personhood, the right to live, and the right to enhance intellectual capacity, bodily performance, sensory modalities, physiological attributes, and to increase one’s lifespan. Transhumanism disavows any political, religious or other system that uses coercion in interfering with a person’s efforts to maintain his or her personhood and efforts to sustain life and wellbeing.

2. The application of Transhumanism to Aesthetics

Natasha: Aesthetics of an enhanced existence is best conveyed through new media’s virtual, immersive role in constituting experience design. This offers one an opportunity to partially experience what a transhuman, posthuman or upload might be like. For example, to experience multiple selves and distributed cognition. Ultimately the artistic finessing of radical life extension is the goal.

3. The application of Aesthetics to Design

Natasha: Surveying transdisciplinary practice-based works generating around the theme of transhumanism, it seems that designing new types of human platforms is at the top of the design excitement. When I designed “Primo Posthuman” in 1997, it was a novel prototype, never done before and I received international recognition for this concept and model. Since then, there have been many designers and artists who have added to this concept and there are some marvelous outcomes. Nevertheless, none of them have actually furthered my original concept or introduced a different or more meaningful examination of a future human prototype. Why? I think the reason is that the technological methodology that I envisioned for the future humans and its aesthetics is still not available.

4.The correlativity of Ethics, Aesthetics, Design and Transhumanism

Natasha: If we look at human enhancement as a design issue, then ethics and aesthetics are the primary tools. If the aim of transhumanism is to regenerate existence and personhood, in biological matter and other substrates, then the correlation between one’s values and one’s right to morphology are just two variables of the gestalt. What we will look like, how we functions, and the relationship between persons depends on the structure and substrate of the person and the architecture of the environment.


The health of one’s body and brain is essential to the core of transhumanism.

III - The body- The next frontier of evolution:

1.1 The Body extends in time via technology producing longevity

Natasha: Extending the body is the role of transformative human enhancement. Adding to the number of years we are alive, developing new environments within which to exist, designing new types of persons are crucial aspects of extending the body through technology. But it must be understood that the body, is inclusive of the person and the body is not tethered to biology or a three-dimensional structure. The idea of regenerating human life is not new. It is an age-old issue. What is new are the methods through which we can realize this proposition. Transhumanism has been challenging the human lifespan and the finality of death for 20 years.

1.2 The Body cybernetically extended as itself via tech , changing the human condition

Natasha: Cybernetics looks at the observer as part of the system, rather than outside the system. Building on this theory, it makes sense that the observer would also be a co-creator with the development of the system. After all, it is his/her life we are talking about! To extend and elevate the human condition related to extending the “observer” beyond biology and unto alternative platforms. One such platform, which relates to cybernetics, is a digital and computational platform, for example. But the issue of uploading consciousness is a very hard problem for cognitive scientists and neuro scientists to explore. The rest of us can imagine the possibilities and what the aesthetics implied might be.



1.3 Body extended as enhanced brain –The metabrain, Brain Machine Interface

Natasha: The metabrain is the term I use for the enhanced brain. It features a dashboard of options, including adaptive AGI that assists psychological behaviors and decision-making. Also neural macrosensing, conceived by nanotechnology expert Robert A. Freitas Jr., relates to medical in vivo nanorobotics for the detection of somatic states as well as extrasomatic states, such as sensory data originating outside the body.

-
IV - Transhuman thought is ethically consistent and aesthetically pleasing



Natasha: The reasons why I think design is a crucial element of transhumanism is because design, by its very nature, is about problem solving. While we are primarily focused on life extension, there is great interest in and concern about every day problems that people face. Technological innovation permeates all aspects of society—from tiny water purification packets and portable LifeStraw filters, to GPS tracking devices, wearable Timex iPods and Gel-Kinsei high-tech running shoes. Because technology and society evolve together, it has become increasingly important to develop a greater understanding of how technology is shaping the course of our lives. We are faced with a need to continuously become more innovative in harnessing and controlling technology’s acceleration. Nevertheless, innovation develops in stages. When it speeds up, we are faced with an urge to become ever more resourceful. When it slows down there is an impending impatience to compete with the exuberance of China. There is no doubt that even the most conservative thinkers agree that we have stepped into an era of a massive change. The good news is that our human diversity continues to spawn inventiveness and novelty. Through artistic and innovative applications of design, transhumanist technologies can synthesize ethics and aesthetics.

-
I have asked Natasha to comment on some actual examples of designed technology already changing our lives and their correlation to Transhuman perception of design:

4.1 Smart Wheel chairs



Natasha: Mobility is second nature to us, and without easy access to movement we can feel imprisoned in our bodies. A wheelchair is a type of prosthetics and prosthetics is a major area for transhumanist design. Not only do we want to live much longer, we want to be able to replace worn out body parts with newer versions. What happens if we don’t have bodies that function? My design “Primo Posthuman” is a whole body prosthetic based on emerging technologies such as regenerative biotechnology, molecular nanotechnology, neuroinformatics, and artificial general intelligence.

The everyday products that help to protect our lives touch on the core of transhumanism. How can we expect nascent technologies to fix many of the biological problems that we face today if we do not ourselves protect our lives? Anyone who has had cancer knows what a difficult situation they are faced with. Our bodies are now a synthesis of prosthetic and biology.



4.2 People who have lost their larynx to cancer could speak again, thanks to a device that can interpret facial movements when the wearer mouths a word

Natasha: Having had cancer twice, I know how it feels to have to face the disease. I remember when I was 11 years old and had a tumor growing in my jaw and had to have it removed. In my Chicago-based surgeon’s waiting room, I saw people who had lost large portions of their faces. Many wore scarves to cover up what their tumors had devoured. It makes me happy to know that the field of design is helping people who have lost body parts or need new body parts.



For a full list of confirmed speakers and additional information about the conference, please visit the conference website: Humanity+@Parsons NYC

I think that many of us here at Space Collective will find much interest in this conference and maybe will also be able to contribute some additional insights.
Though I am sorry to say I personally will not be able to attend, if any of you does, a Polytopian perspective added here will be much appreciated.

Thu, May 5, 2011  Permanent link
Categories: design, Ethics, transhumanism, Aesthetics, Humanity+, Parsons
Sent to project: Polytopia

RSS for this post

Hybrid futures and Knowmads (pt2)
Project: Polytopia

Part 5 in the series : The Rise of the Cyber Unified Civilization

If it works its already obsolete
Marshall Mcluhan

Just another accelerating week?

It so happened that this last week has presented us with a few worthwhile notifications, not the least of which is the announcement by Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and others that are planning a central nervous system for the earth. (see: Sensor Overload ) And though there is no doubt that the ubiquity of these pin size sensors will take a while to materialize, our world is increasingly and continuously being monitored and interconnected. Do note that ubiquity is the term du jours :
” Ubiquitous computing refers to the practice of embedding information processing and network communication into everyday, human environments to continuously provide services, information and communication.” (see : The Middle of Moore's Law) but for a truly inspiring moment I suggest watching David Orban explaining how machines are going to make us human again (David Orban - Free to be Human! ), and its possible extension 'Barcodes help objects tell their stories', or indeed if you missed it the fascinating presentation by Andrew Hessel – the internet of living things.
This is the same week that also saw the announcement of the first prototype for the bionic eye implant, and the long awaited historic patent for Robert Freitas diamond mechanosynthesis (DMS) which is nothing less than the first molecularly precise fabrication of physical structures.
Finally this is the week when Intel guru says that 3-D Internet will arrive within five years and this will change everything.
Of course I could go on with Cyborg messenger dogs that will save you after an earthquake or with the truly Lifelike Geminoid F Robot that Blurs Boundaries of Reality, but for sheer sanity I shall stop here.

Just another week in the modern world of fast pace innovation?



“..the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.”

Constable Moore in “Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson


1. There is nothing straightforward about our futures:


There is nothing straightforward about the evolution of civilization and culture, in fact nothing is more unpredictable than the coming future, a future which I believe will be more surprising and more enlightening than we can imagine. But right here and now I wish to call our collective attention to a particular aspect of these unpredictable futures. Namely, that these futures will be of a hybrid nature.

It is clear that the planet we have been born upon is now in its post evolutionary stage due to the culture we have created. We are building a new operating system for this planet, altering the nature of the very evolutionary process that gave us birth.
That same evolutionary process that allowed us to create realities that are not culturally palatable or acceptable is the same state of affairs that will allow us to co-evolve a future that is other than our pasts, and it will be a hybrid future.

That our futures are bound to be hybrid is practically a given, the merging of some of us with machines, the meshing of some of us with virtualities, where avatars and flesh comingle is inevitable, the rise of multigender existential systems of being and actuation in some situations and locations is foreseeable.
The issue of course is that all these already exist as desire, fantasies and imaginary constructs, however what the fast pace of technology is bringing home is the actualization of diversity in form and meaning that the human mind wished to actuate.
We have always used new methods to answer old questions, fashioning new technologies and exploring uncharted territories via science and math, poetry and art. And the new methods we have and are creating as we speak will allow for a truly formidable experience of life, a hybrid life in a hybrid future.

2. Our Hybrid futures:

Hybrid futures are basically combinations of different kinds of cultures and technologies, sciences and art, biology and poetry, math and music, humans and machines, flesh and Nanomachines, blood and intelligence, storytelling and information, multiple identities across multiple platforms, all meshed into a semi coherent and at times incomprehensible whole that fluctuates and undulates like medusa’s tentacle hair, our job of course is to look in the mirror and not freeze but dance the freedom of our expressive beingness.

Enhancing our bodies and minds whether chemically or telematically, mechanically or physiologically is only part of what our hybrid futures are bringing upon us, for when I speak of hybridization of our futures I also take into consideration that not all of us wish or desire the same kind or the same extent of technological penetration into our very essentiality. Since this is the case I take it as a given that our hybrid futures will fundamentally alter the manner by which we relate to each other. So hybrid I understand to mean not only the combinatorial reality of human and technology but also the sphere of combinatorial reality of different cultures born of the interdependent and coexisting.
These combinatorial realities need provide a platform of engagement that is fundamentally and categorically different from the platforms of engagements we have used in our pasts.
The need to understand the bifurcating paths ahead of us is an aesthetic need as much as it is a technical and organizational one, without such an understanding we cannot construct or indeed allow the coming into actuation of a truly global civilization that can reach for the stars.
The question that I see as crucial for the rise of a cyber unified civilization as is presented in this series of posts is therefore how are we to accommodate the diversity of realities we are moving into without balkanizing ourselves into a dystopian mélange a la’ ‘Mad Max’ apocalypse.

As I presented in my previous post I believe that the core of an answer to our hybrid futures lies with the advent of the knowmadic state as a personal existential reality.
The reasons for this I will try to elucidate in the following chapter but bear in mind that the whole polytopia project is in a manner of speaking an experimentation (and a provisional one at that) meant to create just such a ground of engagement to which the Knowmad relates as a node within a given infocology.



“I was born human. But this was an accident of fate - a condition merely of time and place. I believe it’s something we have the power to change “
—
Kevin Warwick outlines his plan to become one with his computer.

3. A positive outlook

I am positive and utterly confident, that humans are capable and fundamentally interested in creating a better future, a future in which and by which we can all live to our hearts desire, whatsoever that desire might be.
Some of my friends want to live on other planets, some want to celebrate their bodies into infinity, others desire to upload their minds, and still others wish for a simple life lived in the ancient manner in the woods near a perfect lake in the purest and untainted environment, meditating into their next step of personal evolution. I count amongst my friends, humans that see mathematics and neuroscience as the best possible exploratory method for life the universe and everything and others that see their art as the highest attainment of the human experience, and some that deem a return to simplicity as the most desirable goal of a human life lived to its fullest potential.
Some of my colleagues see the net as the answer to it all, some consider philosophy as the proper activity for a developed mind, some (as do I) see language as quintessentially developmental and yet others believe that ‘doing the act’ is the duty of the poets. There are many more friends and colleagues, and many more ideas and views in this list, however what makes me a great believer in the power of the human specie to overcome itself is our concomitant and correlated activity, we all at bottom work for the same goal, even if at times appearances may deceive us into thinking otherwise.

Being a Knowmad and a Polytopian I cannot afford the luxury of indulgence into mere pessimism, in fact I do not think that any of us can afford such excess.

"..That seems to me one of the first illusions – and one of the more prideful illusions – of human culture: that a final understanding is possible in the first place. Better, I think, to try and frame questions which can do it… and leave off searching for answers, because answers are like operating systems: they’re being upgraded faster than you can keep up with it.”
Terence McKenna



Hybrid futures are fundamentally a terminology I use to describe and define, the very backbone or superstructure of the coming possible futures (some of which are already upon us), especially as relates to the idea that our futures are both varied and multiple both in appearance and manifestation, and will probably unfold in a manifold fashion, the center of which will be, in the short term at least, the human.

Hybrid futures are mixed futures, combined futures, diverse and varied, all co-existing and evolving in parallel. To put it differently, not all of our futures will be similar, some will be different and though apparently a truism, the emphasize here is that some of these bifurcating paths in front of us will be totally alien to some of us.
Hybrid futures implies futures that merge and overlap and though our craftiness will probably forever try to mesh these futures into a coherent whole it is my view that we will fail miserably at this task, not because it cannot be achieved but because our futures imply diversification.


4. Flows of networks and networks of flows

W.Gibson once said that: “One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital from the real.” And I cannot but totally agree with this statement, the meshing of the real and the virtual accomplished by networks of flows, individual and collective, intertwining into other flows of networks create the basis for the grid of hybrid futures, the very nature of which is diversity and complexity.

When the complexity of these flows of networks coalesce into stable infocologies the result is that levels of hierarchy (of complexity) are born, these in turn imply that the level of complexity we are reaching breeds new rules and new laws to which the previous level (of the network) or the next level (of the flow of networks) bears no resemblance. In other words, one cannot imply from one level of complexity to the next.
The emergence of new rules and new laws per level of complexity demands an (almost) instantaneous reorganization of our minds plastic capability to adapt and learn the new rules.
The above is the main reason why I see the knowmadic state on an individual level and collective manifest as the current question of dwelling.
A Knowmad in an infocology lives on the edge, but that edge is of particular significance because the most interesting point of existence for innovation and creativity is the point of maximal information content.
The most interesting complex system for us is where the level of unpredictability is high and the bifurcations are on the increase and that is where apparent choices are made.

In a manner of speaking our freedom is maximized on the edge.

Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
Kurt Vonnegut



Interlude:

Hybrid futures is an expression that tries to contain a manifold of possible futures, myriad expressions of human desire and an almost infinity of levels of complexity. These hybrid futures are tension intensive, and extremely difficult to navigate and cohere, hybrid futures demand a sort of living on the edge of chaos state of mind. This state of mind is defined as the knowmadic state, a state that excels in ambiguous situations, enhances syntax and semantics conversion into actual adaptation of new forms of meaning, and by consequence changes the very meaning of enmeshed existence.

(see pt 1-10 in previous post for an extended list of knowmadic characteristics)



stay tuned, soon to be followed by hybrid futures and the notion state..

endnotes:

This particular post is dedicated to...

“Will you be my wings
when the feathers that I need
fall around my feet?”
— Daily Haiku on Love by Tyler Knott Gregson

images in text from ModernMath

Fri, Apr 16, 2010  Permanent link
Categories: Complexity, Hybrid Futures, Knowmads, edge, networks
Sent to project: Polytopia

RSS for this post

The Audacious beauty of our future - Natasha Vita-More ,an interview
Project: Polytopia

There exists certain kind of people about whom I do not think as people per se, but more as an event. Such is the case with Natasha Vita More, to my mind she is an event unto itself, an elegant forward thinking person that carries enough ambitions and interests, intelligence and visions to cater for a battalion of futurists.
Though we have never met in person (this interview was conducted via email) I have a great sense of personal acquaintance with Natasha. An acquaintance based on similarities of thought and projections, ideas proximity and embedded realizations.
I have a sense that here is a person whose straightforwardness may at times mask the truly audacious and adventurous nature of her life event, a life she intends to extend indefinitely.
We need such humans as Natasha, minds that are at present free from the absolutism of their own views, free in such a manner as to allow themselves the divergent and the emergent, the convergent and the openness to work simultaneously towards the aesthetics of the future.
The aesthetics of our common cyber emergent future is what I perceive in the work of Natasha and that is why I have asked to write about her and with her, this therefore is part essay, part interview, in short an event, just as Natasha is.



W: "Natasha, you have been hailed as the first transhumanist female and such cultural icons as Dr. Timothy Leary said that: "You are a catalyst—a cultural agent in the virtual salon of ideas." ( Dr. Timothy Leary, Icon ) and FM-2030 said that :” "Natasha is a visionary whose 21st Century aesthetics crystallized early on." ( FM-2030, author, Are You A Transhuman?)
Moreover the Atlantic wrote that you are a "A superhuman object of desire combining Madonna, Schwarzenegger and Marcel Duchamp." Atlantic Unbound ), these are only some of the adjectives that have been appended to you, could you give a more informal introduction to your life and the way you are presented in the media?"

Natasha: “I am fortunate to have had many years of interest in my work by the media/press and I am thankful and appreciative of this. There is something to be said for being in the right place at the right time, which is often equated with being the "first." I have been called the first female transhumanist, both as an artist and a theorist/philosopher and I feel no loss by admitting that I am probably not the first, but the first within a timeframe where the media turned its cameras on and the presses started rolling.

As a little background, I spent considerable time thinking about, and exploring geographical locations where I could enjoy unique landscapes. Simultaneously I was deeply involved with film, video and performance. Creating a home base in the ski resort Telluride, I was positioned in one of the world's most intriguing artistic communities, which provided enormous freedom. I believe it was my relationship with Telluride and the social status I gained there that intrigued the media. This was an opposite direction from what I had taken for many years as a performance artist, where my works were produced inside volcanoes, in the middle of oceans, on Indian reservations, and so forth, with, frankly, no time or interest in media attention or exposure. In hindsight, it was a pragmatic decision on my part to engage in because suddenly I had something thoroughly important to say to the world, and what made it very intriguing for me was that it was not about me or my work; it was about the human nature and technological change—what we might become and how we might experience the world in the coming decades.

I try to look beyond the narrow focus, which is often restricted to a predisposed view of what is normal and normalcy for humans. Many people have freedoms that are often taken for granted. One is freedom of choice. It would be less than dignified for me to complain about being misquoted and misunderstood by the press when I have shared equal time in the media as being accurately quoted and highly understood. It is on the latter that I would like to focus.”

W: In a paper that you presented in 1996 entitled: AGELESS THINKING Creating Positive Transhuman Attitude (link) you write in the introduction: “Ageless means to be free of the characteristics associated with age. Thinking means to bring thought to mind by exercising the power of reason. Ageless thinking means to practice the exercise of thinking about maintaining a youthful state, both physically and mentally. How and what we think about age depends on our individual goals.” Could you elaborate on this aspect of your thought?


Natasha:” You ask about my term “ageless”. To explain, it fascinates me that chronological age is still used to define a person. Similar to relying on an IQ test to measure one's cognitive skills, relying on chronological age presupposes that all life is neatly defined by a linear calendar. This method of linearity for determining a person’s fitness is outdated and scientifically inaccurate. Aging is based in genetics and is affected by how we live our lives and choices of physiological intervention. A healthy, vital 50 year old can equal an inactive, sun-dried 30 years old. From a metaphorical perspective, being ageless is simply a way to begin anew each day. I don’t know what to say about the paper I wrote (“Ageless Thinking”) other than how we think about our lives and ourselves affects how we live our lives. The content of the essay considers how society predetermines who we are and what we should do based on our age, for the most part, rather than our capabilities. But that paper was written some time ago and in light of accelerating change and the novelty of technologies, which are breaking down generational gaps, it may not have the fervor it had when I wrote it.

W: About your connection with Timothy Leary

Natasha: “I enjoyed the short time I had in getting to know him. He had a marvelous sense of humor. I am not truly knowledgeable about his views on mind alteration, other than the use of d-lysergic acid diethylamide to alter perception and what I have read. We did not discuss it. He was someone it was simply fun to be “in the moment.” I did make a short video with him months before he passed away (he was ill and frail I remember he adored his black and white checked jacket and how he wanted to wear it on camera).

W: About Mind enhancement?

Natasha:"Human enhancement is the field I am most interested in primarily because it has a history in cybernetics, electronic/technological media arts and biological arts. Secondarily, it is a broad field and can be approached in a transdisciplinary manner—which gives me a lot of freedom to explore all sorts of relationships, which affect and are affected by design.

Mind enhancement is one aspect of the boarder field of human enhancement. The areas of mind enhancement where I am mostly focused are related to cognitive augmentation, which includes memory, perception and communication. For the mind, I am interested in alternative personas, or multiple selves of person’s existence. I think this is a sub-field of human enhancement that will grow exponentially on its own as humans spend more time in virtual and synthetic landscapes and assume more than one, singular identity (which is just as outdated as basing one’s sense of worth on his/her chronological age :-))."



W: How did you become a transhumanist? Could you recount your connection to the emergence of the extropy institute and your relations with philosopher Max More?

Natasha:” I moved to Los Angeles to develop my film and video projects. I produced several events for the ‘Filmex’ International Film Festival and At Sunset on Sunset Strip, and was a stringer writer for the Hollywood Reporter. I met with a number of notables in the areas of global issues such as Buckminster Fuller, new technologies of creative artistic practices such as Francis Ford Coppola, and the future of social changes such as FM Esfandiary (FM-2030). I produced a few short high 8 films about social dogma and after learning about human-computer interfaces and the biotechnologies which could change human physiology and issues concerning human modification; I authored the Transhuman Statement (1982), a manifesto for human futures. I produced a number of video projects, which thematically addressed individual and global issues, and I created the educational cable TV show “Transcentury Update” which focused on transdisciplinary influencers of the future.

I was making Transhuman works of art, but I did not know of transhumanism, per se. It was not until 1990 that I learned about the transhumanist philosophy. In fact, transhumanism as a philosophical outlook and a social movement is the direct result of Max More, who authored the philosophy, and the efforts of the Extropy Institute. Later, Max was a guest on my TV cable show (“Transcentury Update”). I was delighted to meet such a remarkable intellect who had carefully put together the ideas of transhumanism into a succinct manner and to have later also written the Principles of Extropy. While I came from a different transhumanist background than Max, we shared similar values and my deep regard and enthusiasm for Extropy Institute propelled me to join and later become involved in its magazine and conferences, and eventually lead to my becoming its president for three years prior to its closing. During that time, the board and I put together the first online Transhumanist event called the Vital Progress Summit, which goal was to unravel a protocol for identifying the pros and cons of accelerating change. We decided to counter the well-known Precautionary Principle with our own principle, the Proactionary Principle . Some keynotes included, Max More, Raymond Kurzweil, Marvin Minsky, Rob Freitas, Aubrey de Grey, and myself. My reason for putting on this summit was that we have a responsibility to protect ourselves, our children, and our loved ones in determining what choices to make about the future of our health.

In short: I did not create or help to create Extropy Institute. I was a Transhuman before I learned of the philosophy of transhumanism. I met Max More in 1992 and later became a member of Extropy Institute because it was the most intelligent, advanced and high-profile international group of people who were thinking about the future and far out ideas such as nanotechnology, human-brain interface, multiple selves, uploading, radical life extension, ethics of emerging technologies, etc.
Extropy had one of the very first email lists on the Web for discussions about the future and technological change, etc. After I joined Extropy Institute I became a Board member and later I was president for 4 years, during which time I chaired the VP Summit. The institute closed down, but the email list is still very, very active to this day!!”



W: " I am aware that you have certain very specific ideas concerning the aesthetics and the future of art, how do you understand post humanist art and aesthetics?
How do you see the changing paradigm of beauty and aesthetics? And if you can, describe the relation between your work, specifically the primo concept of the future human, the changes you advocate and the future of gender."

Natasha:” My theory of the posthuman and posthumanism is that we currently do not know what a posthuman will be, but we have an idea of how it might come about. Posthumanism is directly related to and intertwined with transhumanism; the latter being a means to become the former. I think that our future will be one of distributed existence in multiple forms and will not necessarily relinquish the physiological body. The posthuman could have one body or many bodies comprised of biological, biosynthetic, or other types of substrates. In short, it is not a neither/or situation.

Humans are far too inventive to limit ourselves with one future. Currently, posthumanism is too tethered to postmodernism and needs a good shaking up. It needs to separate itself from postmodernism and find its own future. Lastly, my view on transhumanism is that it is pioneering, intelligently formed, and a vital part of preparing for our posthuman future. Transhumanism embraces not only accelerating change, but also the socio-political issues that must be addressed, and the ethical issues, which must be engaged.

I suppose that posthumanism and transhumanism had better think about where the aesthetics of human is headed. The cyborg imparts several interpretations, such as a self-regulating organism, science fiction’s man-machine terminator, or an ironic political myth.
Alternatively, the Transhuman as an organism or entity is a technologically enhanced human, which conveys an emotional and intellectual desire to improve the human condition. Unlike the cyborg, the Transhuman is based in philosophy and its socio-political factors include ethics and human rights, although its process, like Manfred Clynes’ cyborg, is to self-regulate and evolve. As such, the Transhuman behavior suggests transitional stages of development (rather than a permanent state like a cyborg), depending on available sciences and technologies, along with the intellection and wherewithal to think about social and political issues, which could support or confront its progress.



W:” Some other pioneers in the arts and aesthetics have made interesting headways into the PosthumanTranshuman conception of the body and its aesthetic evolution , could you relate your work to the works of Stelarc and Orlan emphasizing the differences and similarities and the way our conceptual understanding of our bodies are changing, especially as relating to beauty- acceptance-rejection..

Natasha:” You ask how I differ from Orlan and Stelarc. We are all performance artists who use our bodies and identities as our art medium or form. We each embrace and employ various technologies to manipulate our biological bodies. We each display our bodies as exhibition objects or objects d'art. Yet, theoretically we differ, as we differ in our philosophical views. The most obvious difference between my work and Stelarc and Orlan is that my work is focused on human enhancement in regards to being different than what is considered the norm for a human and the process of evolutionary change brought about through enhancement. More specifically is the fact that my work concerns radical life extension, a concept that neither Stelarc nor Orlan, to my knowledge, embrace.

Recently, I was asked to write a short essay for a French book series titled, 100 000 Ans de Beauté (2009, Gallimard pub- in French) in which I wrote, "Because beauty is a process of self-transformation, uniquely based on our individual values and experience of reality, one relevant question to ask is: What might beauty become in a world of Transhuman and Posthuman futures?” To answer this question, I bring into the discussion the Wired magazine cover story:

“Wired magazine, at the launch of the 21st Century, declared ""Don't Die, Stay Pretty." , which featured an image of Jeanne Calment and myself as examples of longevity. [Ms. Calment passed away at 122 years, and I hope to live well beyond her reverent age]. The transhumanist view is that radical life extension means that humans can live longer, but not as exclusively biological beings. The human would have to redesign its internal biological system in order to overcome disease, injury, aging and death—a pattern of gradual senescence, which switches off reproduction and turns on the steady decline of physical and mental functions. The human would also have to examine its external environment, its relationship to all other species and the earth, and its use of emerging and converging sciences and technologies. Lastly, the human would have to critically investigate possible non-biological platforms to co-exist within. This is the new, mid-21st Century notion of beauty." (Vita-More)

Regardless of whether bodies are bio or digital, sensorial pleasures are transferable. The telematic, immersive, and extended experiences of an enhanced existence lean toward a highly developed range of pleasures.

Umberto Eco asked,” is beauty something ontologically self-subsistent, which gives pleasure when it is apprehended? Or is it rather the case that a thing appears beautiful only when someone apprehends it in such a way as to experience a certain type of pleasure?" Beauty can be one, the other, or both ways—taking it into a state of multiplicity. The idea that historically a person had to be located in one field, one ideology, one body, changes to the proactive prospect that it is not an eitheror scenario, but an array of possibilities.

Artworks that shape our future continue to engage our enhanced existence through the virtual, telematic, nano-bio-info-cogno media. Artworks continue to engage our sense of style. They may also be invaluable in informing this new sense of self by pulling together all the distributed experiences that fluctuate in diverse spaces and time. The aesthetic of a radically enhanced existence may clarify the nature of human experience and the essential moments in the perceptions of experience.



My practice-based work, “Primo Posthuman”, suggests mind enhancement, but I am working on the next version, which will address mind enhancement. One issue I am looking at is the symbiotic relationship of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and nano-macro sensing in the brain. I delivered a paper on this in the UK three years ago.
The paper is online at Ieet.org: Wisdom through Neural Macrosensing

Human enhancement aesthetics can be viewed as an outgrowth of philosophical aesthetics and the science of human enhancement. Prior to its development, aesthetics within the analytic tradition is mostly concerned with the philosophy of art. Human enhancement aesthetics originates as contingent to this emphasis with a focus on aesthetic appreciation of human futures, including the cyborg, transhuman, posthuman, and whole brain emulation upload.

Aesthetics of enhanced existence, is basically design engineering which scope includes synthetic and natural environments, suggests bio-nano bodily design with enhanced cognitive processing power. The idea of human equivalent processing power (HEPP), brought about by the person(s) rather than institutionalized authority, may give new contextual meaning to the notion of biopower. Further, the activity of ‘giving style’ to one’s existence (Nietzsche 1974), through an explicit transformation, turns autonomous style into an open and enhanced network of styles. Thus, the Nietzschean self-hood as mortal, changing, and embodied (1989) gives way to the immortal, evolving, and distributed body.



The basic concepts of aesthetics of enhanced existence could be imagined by introducing new media’s immersive, interactive role in constituting experience (Dewey 1980). This offers an opportunity to partially, if not naively, experience the sentiment of what enhanced existence might be like. In media aesthetics, logical description cannot replace personal participation (Schirmacher 1991). Nonetheless, there still remains a tension between the act of experiencing the world and a need that the experience depicts a world worth living (as a precondition) (Nozick 1990).

Enhanced existence evokes dramatic narratives, which generate uncertainty. Taking it from one posthumanist perspective, embodiment will give way to its reconfigurement by the machine (Hayles 1999); from another it would upload (Kurzweil 2006). Taking it from a transhumanist perspective, identity will give way to distributed selves. The scenarios, if approached like events, forgo the experiential exploration into aesthetics of enhanced existence. Life simply is not a blatant shift in materiality; it includes sensory and emotional experiences along the way. (Vita-More “Design Aesthetics of the Radically Enhanced Human” 2009- pdf)



“Primo Posthuman” as a work of art and a philosophical outlook suggests that the following will come about:

• Experience transfer technology for “shared experience” will map out one person’s thoughts onto synthetic platforms, which will be available for downloading into another person’s mind.
• Macro-sensing nanorobots will enhance human senses.
• Human life-like avatars will function in more than one environment at the same time.
• Death will become an option and reversible.
• Molecular manufacturing will become as commonplace as plastics, the leading mainstay in society today.
• 100% biological bodies are a thing of the past.
• Exo-body AI supercomputing intelligence will function as silicon partners to assist human-level intelligence.
• An internal network of nano-computers will continually detect cell disease and report status to the brain.
• The Earth undergoes technological augmentation and enhancement.
• Global Human Rights takes a new turn in encouraging Morphological Freedom as the right for a person to enhance and the right for a person not to be coerced to enhance.

Primo Posthuman at KurzweilAi.net



W:”First I would like to thank Natasha, on behalf of the Polytopia project, for the patient and gracious manner by which she approached this interview, moreover I would like to use this opportunity and congratulate her as recently she was chosen to be on the H+ board.

Irrespective to her substantial attainments and creative work I think that Natasha offers something larger than the obvious.
Natasha has a knack for presenting a view that is sorely lacking in many discourses of our futures. To my eyes she represents a combination of meliorism and aesthetics, in a packaged pragmatic and philosophical aesthetic realism. In a manner of speaking I think that the views presented by Vita-More are aligned to the current flow of events in the world of thought, especially as regards the need to re invigorate the distinction between posthumanism and postmodernism. As indeed Natasha mentions above, posthumanism is still tethered to postmodernism, as if it is a philosophy that needs a parent to recognize its own identity. Postmodernism, if it can be called a philosophy at all (and about that there are as many views as there are thinkers) is not in and of itself a view of progress as such, but a critique of the manner by which thought and art, philosophy and society operated before their time.
Posthumanism and transhumanism on the other hand walk straight headed into the future carrying a progressive agenda of hope in the future of the human. There is a certain very clear assessment of current technologies and their offspring, possible consequences and potential risks are taken into consideration in a manner that though not anthropomorphist exalts the creative aspect of the human in re-inventing its mind, its body, its social system, and possibly its very nature. Having said that, I think that what worldviews like the one Natasha espouses, increase our capability and intelligence in developing new modes of seeing ourselves, as aesthetically self-enhancing beings, as ever evolving minds guided by our innate desire to upgrade the natural.

I am a great believer in the art of collaboration a collaboration that extends across domains, using technology and science, philosophy and art to express and manifest in as many ways as possible the interdependence and interconnectivity of all life. (And that may very well be one of the possible definitions of posthumanism).
The beauty arising under such conditions of exploration is the audacious beauty of our future.



About Natasha:

Natasha Vita-More is a Ph.D. candidate, University of Plymouth. Her research concerns the transformative human and radical life extension. Her academic lectures on human futures include Coeur des Sciences, Québec; Pecci Museum, Milan; University of Applied Design, Austria; Laboral Centro de Industrial Creatión, Spain; Servico Social do Comercio, Brazil; Cumulus International Association of Universities and Colleges of Art, Design and Media, Estonia Academy of Arts. Her writings have been published in Artifact, 2008 Volume 3, Nanotechnology Perceptions, Vol. 2, Technoetic Arts, Vol. 5.3, Annual Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology, Death And Anti-Death Vol. 2, Cryonics, Vol. 22.1, and Extropy, Vol. 17. Her bi-monthly column on transhumanism is published in “Nanotechnology Now”.

Her theoretical and practice-based works are featured at "Evolution Haute Couture: Art and Science in the Post-Biological Age", XXX Moscow International Film Festival and Moscow Museum, National Centre for Contemporary Design, Brooks Memorial Museum, Women In Video, Telluride Film Festival, U.S. Film Festival.

Natasha is currently an advisor for non-profit organizations including Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Adaptive A.I., and Lifeboat Foundation, and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

—
Endnote:

This is the first in a series of interviews under the heading of a new project I am embarking upon.
The project is temporarily entitled :
Free Radicals- interviews with possibilities

Free radicals are extraordinary humans that promote the emergent paradigm shift of post humanity.
There is no claim of objectivity here but an unabashed bias towards a techno-optimistic, aesthetically pleasing future evolution of humanity.
The humans I have chosen to interview reflect different perspectives of multidimentionality and multiversality as regards the change and transformation of human nature.

Thu, Feb 4, 2010  Permanent link
Categories: art, photography, philosophy, transhumanism, body, Beauty, Aesthetics, Natasha Vita-More, Posthumanism, Cognitive Enhancement, Mind Enhancement, Future Bodies, CyberFutures,
Sent to project: Polytopia

RSS for this post

The Art of Complex Problem Solving
Project: Polytopia

The Art of Complex Problem Solving

Filling the Vacuum

An interesting and highly useful visualization/procedure for our Polytopia project.

Sat, Oct 18, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Complexity, Problem solving, Art
Sent to project: Polytopia

RSS for this post

Are we Transhumanists?
Project: The great enhancement debate

The singularity- an optimistic take

So, are we or are we not Transhumanists? That is a very difficult question especially considering the fact that the term has gotten such an ill reputation.

Reason magazine has an interesting interview with Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal, angel investor in Facebook, founder of the hedge fund Clarium Capital Management, adviser to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and self-described libertarian).

From the interview:
Reason: But you’re betting that in fact there is a Singularity in the human future?

Thiel: By definition, these are one-time, nonrepeatable events. Assigning probabilities to them is not an easy exercise. There’s something about the idea of a Singularity that is kind of unscientific, because you can’t really do an experiment. We can’t say, “What’s the probability this is going to happen?” We can’t assign numbers to this, but falsifiability I think is a bit too strong a criterion. We couldn’t have assigned numbers to the probability of a communist revolution in the early 20th century, yet people would have done well to worry about that.

Thiel goes on:

Reason: Do you consider yourself a Transhumanist?

Thiel: The problem with the label is that it suggests that we should run away from being human. Take the question of aging. If you define that as the essence of being human, then Transhumanists are anti-aging and therefore you try to transcend this human limitation. I don’t think that death and life are inextricably interconnected in some sort of Eastern mystical sense in which for everything white there’s something black and there’s always a yin/yang type of thing. Every myth on this planet tells us the purpose of life is death, and I don’t think that’s true. I think the purpose of life is life.

And finally on an optimistic note:

Thiel : My optimistic take is that even though politics is moving very anti-libertarian, that itself is a symptom of the fact that the world’s becoming more libertarian. Maybe it’s just a symptom of how good things are.

Read the article at Reason: 'Technology Is at the Center'


On another note, about a week ago Michael Annisimov in his blog accelerating future wrote a beautiful and inspiring article entitled: “I am a Transhumanist, thanks!

From the article:” I say, fear not. If you have clearly transhumanist beliefs, like the notion that human enhancement is coming in the next few decades and will be a big deal, then don’t be afraid to call yourself one.

As Dr. Wittgenstein, one of my favorite philosophers ever, used to argue, words are just labels we fill with our own content. To think that a word has any inherent meaning aside from its use in language is absurd.

Thus, the word “Transhumanism” is only as valuable as the people who apply it to themselves.”
—

I both love the paper and agree with Michael and with Thiel.

Now then, taking those two articles together, I think that a new wave of positive, optimistic, confident and cheerful views concerning the singularity, the technological advances for the betterment of all (including age related research, see the Methuselah foundation, the elimination of suffering based on our biological substrate and so on) and the resolution of ethical issues as the IEET strives to do, is coming upon us all.

The question then comes to focus: are we to embrace Transhumanism as a positive approach to the future and declare ourselves as Transhumanists as Michael A. will have us do?

This question, I believe, is of interest to all of us taking part in building a better future for ourselves as a specie.

*As a side note let it be known that I personally prefer the term “ Transbeing”.

Mon, May 12, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: transhumanism, Singularity, Enhancement
Sent to project: The great enhancement debate

RSS for this post