Good bye Fred, see you soon

Fred Chamberlain III recently had his brain placed into cryostasis at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale.

Chronosphere says: "Frederick Rockwell Chamberlain, III was and is of absolutely critical importance to cryonics." He was is also a pioneer of the new science of cybernetic life, and of absolutely critical importance to us, his friends.

Fred and Linda Chamberlain incorporated Alcor in 1972; the minutes of those early Alcor meetings can be viewed by those who might be interested. "His physical presence will be missed by many friends, biological family and chosen family until technology allows a future instantiation to be with us once again," Linda says.

Fred had a great first life, and I am honored to be his friend. In the picture he is wearing a shirt with "Mind uploading - the ultimate out of body experience!" I took this picture at the the Terasem monthly gathering and annual graduation in Vermont, last october. This is how I want to remember Fred, until next time: smiling, in a beautiful sunny day, full of enthusiasm for a wonderful future.

"Though I will have to carry on alone for both of us for a short while before we see each other in cyberspace, Fred is still part of all of us in the Terasem Collective Consciousness and we will continue to enjoy his warm creativity again soon as well as through his poetry and many writings," says Linda. "As they say on the Star Pebble, See you in the next cycle."

The great Truths of Terasem weekly podcasts, by Fred and Linda, is available on iTunes, and transcripts are available on the Truths of Terasem podcasts website.

Terasem hangouts

Terasem joiners and friends meet on the 10th of each month, and remote participants can join via Google+ Hangouts. In the picture, the participants in Florida (shown, Martine Rothblatt performing a yoga session), Dan Massey and Alison Gardner from DC, myself from Europe, and a visitor.

These meetings will become even more interesting as the new Extra features in Google+ Hangouts, which combine multi-person video chat with screen sharing and collaboration in Google Docs, are rolled in Hangouts. ReadWriteWeb says: "Hangouts allow users to bring in Google Docs, and smartphone users can use mobile video chat to participate. The addition of screen sharing makes Hangouts a versatile, compelling, free way to conduct remote meetings".

The limit of 10 participants is annoying, but there are interesting news: Hangouts on-air will permit broadcasting hangouts to viewers. Read How Google+ Hangouts will transform traditional TV broadcasting on lostremote.

Transcendent Engineering - Terasem Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness

My essay Transcendent Engineering ha just been published on the Terasem Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness. A version of the essay is forthcoming in the Transhumanist Reader edited by Max More and Natasha Vita-More.

The image above is part of a beautiful picture taken by Terasem editor Lori Rhodes to illustrate the article. Thanks Lori!

Expanding previous essays, I argue that science may someday develop the capability to resurrect the dead and build (and/or become) God(s), and propose to base a transhumanist religion (or, better, mythology) on this idea.

Read the rest here...

Discussion: you are welcome to join the ongoing conversation on the Turing Church Facebook group and/or the IEET site: Transcendent Engineering - IEET

Turing Church Online Workshop 2, OpenQwaq, Sunday December 11

The Turing Church Online Workshop 2 will be held on Sunday, December 11, 2011, with a format similar to the Turing Church Online Workshop 1 on November 20, 2010, beginning at 9am PST (noon EST, 5pm UK, 6pm Continental EU).

The Workshop will explore transhumanist spirituality and “Religion 2.0″, the convergence of science and religion, highly imaginative future science and technologies for resurrection, emerging science and technologies for immortality, social and memetic engineering.

The technical implementation of the Workshop will be managed by teleXLR8 using the OpenQwaq VR technology. There are a limited number of seats available for those who wish to attend. On Sunday November 27 and Sunday December 4 at at 9am PST (noon EST, 5pm UK, 6pm Continental EU) there will be meetup and practice sessions for speakers and participants.

Some speakers in the pictures above.

Program: Turing Church online workshop 2 | KurzweilAI

Speakers, morning session, 9am PST to noon PST:

• Giulio Prisco
• James Hughes
• Martine Rothblatt
• Frank Tipler
• Ben Goertzel
• Remi Sussan

Speakers, afternoon session, 1pm PST to 4pm PST

• Lincoln Cannon
• Brent Allsop
• Dan Massey
• Andrew Warner
• Mike Perry
• Fred and Linda Chamberlain (pre-recorded talk)

Back from trip to NYC and Vermont

In the picture taken by my daughter I am in the New York subway with my late lamented Terasem travel bag, which was stolen by an asshole on the Amtrak train to Vermont. To the asshole: I guess you can make some money by selling the computers and cellphones in the bag, and there was some cash too, but I hope you spend it all on diarrhea pills.

I was a few days in Vermont where I attended the Terasem monthly gathering and annual graduation. In the video below I listen to Martine Rothblatt who talks of satellite radio, electric cars and solar energy... driving an electric sport car powered by solar energy in beautiful Vermont. Awesome.



On Cctober 13 I gave a talk on Transhumanism and Religion at Manhattan College. Thanks to Robert Geraci for organizing the talk, and thanks to all participants for the great questions and comments.

On October 15 and 16 I attended the Singularity Summit 2011. See my Singularity Summit 2011 roundup report at KurzweilAI.

In the picture below I am with my good friend Guillermo Santamaria, whom I met at the Summit face to face for the first time. I met many other friends face to face for the first time, including Robert Geraci and Rachel Haywire, who is organizing the Extreme Futurist Festival in December in LA to bridge counterculture and academia ("if the original Burning Man was to meet the Singularity Summit, you would have Extreme Futurist Fest 2011"). An event not to be missed (though I am afraid I will have to miss it).

I was happy to meet again many good friends (too many to list). A special mention to Alison Gardner and Dan Massey (please see their website VenusPlusX and support their work), who also came to my talk on October 13. After David Brin's talk at the Singularity Summit (David said that the Singularity community should seek a dialog with religious people), Dan and I agreed that the religion of Science and the religion of Love are one and the same, or at least they should be.

My talk on Transhumanism and Religion, Manhattan College, Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 4pm

I gave a talk on Transhumanism and Religion at Manhattan College, Thursday, October 13, 2011. Thanks to Robert Geraci for organizing the talk, and thanks to all participants for the great questions and comments.

Slides of the talk:

Transhumanism and Religion

View more presentations from Giulio Prisco

7th Terasem Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology in Second Life

Each year on July 20th, Terasem conducts a workshop on the subject of geoethical nanotechnology. The purpose of the event is to provide the public with informed perspectives regarding geoethical nanotechnology via expert presentations, challenges and discussions. Of course the date of July 20th is symbolic, and we all should always remember what it means.

This year's workshop, at the Terasem Island Amphitheatre in Second Life, has been an exchange of scholarly views regarding the transplanting of organs/limbs, prosthetic devices, hybrid machines and nanotechnology employed in the body, with a goal of optimizing the rights and understanding of enhanced humans. The workshop has been a very solid and intense two-hours event, with two great talks followed by interesting questions and answers, and a final discussion mainly centered on future AIs, their civil rights and possible threats to biological humans1.0. Like the organizer Martine Rothblatt, I consider future sentient AIs as part of our own species and I don't think of "us" vs. "them". It will be just US.

I attended with my Second Life avatar Eschatoon Magic who has recently been resurrected in cyberspace as, according to Terasem, we may all be someday. The Terasem island, which had recently been repaired after having been hit by digital heavy weather, is now one of the few (perhaps the only) remaining transhumanist meeting points in Second Life, and I look forward to attending other forthcoming events.

Update: Budapest, Terasem, MOM, Second Life, OpenQwaq

A quick update. We are living in Budapest since beginning April. At the end of April I visited Terasem in Florida (photo composition below).

I have been meaning to join Terasem for quite some time, and I am happy I finally joined. See my joinership video here. I plan to be more and more active in Terasem: more thoughts in a forthcoming article, and please see the great Terasem multimedia website maintained by Fred and Linda Chamberlain. Unfortunately I cannot participate regularly in Terasem gatherings in the US, but I can and will participate regularly in Terasem gatherings in Second Life (picture below). I had not been in SL for ages, but I plan to attend all Terasem events and, I hope, other interesting events. My new SL avatar is, guess, simply giulioprisco (the blue skinned old astronaut in the picture).

After Florida I went to see my daughter for a few days. Her film making team just successfully completed their first fundraising project on Kickstarter! On my way back at the airport I received an email announcing OpenQwaq (the open source version of Teleplace). This is very exciting news, because it permits reloading the teleXLR8 project which was stalled for lack of funds.

We are planning to re-open teleXLR8's virtual doors in a couple of months. We will probably launch a Kickstarter project for teleXLR8 (always learn from the young). In the picture above, a first test of OpenQwaq. Watch the teleXLR8 blog for more related news and thoughts.