Shuttle, sea, clouds and birds

OK, I did not take these pictures of the Shuttle launch myself, but I was on the Florida Space Coast near the launch site on the scheduled launch date April 29 and I would have loved to take similar pictures. I have extracted these from the launch video recorded by Fred Chamberlain, and thanks Fred for the nice dedication!

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.

Thoughts on space, on the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first flight

This is a follow-up to my last post on Cosmists Knocking on Heaven’s Door on 50th Yuri's Night, and to my older Thoughts on space, on the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing. In the picture, the very nice banner appeared on Google's main search page on April 12.

Please read the two posts. A short summary of the main points:

The Cosmist thinking of Nikolai Fedorov and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky has inspired the daring and sexy space program of the 60s and early 70s.

Despite their scientific value, later phases of the space program have been dull, boring, uninspiring and less sexy than a washing machine. I have worked for many years in public space agencies, for example in ESA in the eighties and nineties.I used to say that the emphasis on cost-effective pragmatic mission with only a scientific return and no PR value would kill both public and political support for space, and the facts have given me reason.

We need new initiatives able to ignite the imagination of people, especially young people, all over the planet. In order to support spending money in space, people need to see other people in space taking risks to do momentous things. On this 50th Yuri's Night, we Cosmists and space enthusiasts should think of going back to space, back to the Moon, and onward to Mars and the stars.

But things are not going to change as long as the only actors are governments and industry. In today's world, the obsolete nation-states are part of the problem and not part of the solution. International organizations are paralyzed by power struggles between different national interests. And industry cannot be expected to see beyond next year's financials. Why not forming a global P2P space agency of the people, by the people, and for the people? Such a World Space Agency, whose members are not nation-states but individual citizens acting as a focused P2P laser (reference to The Millennial Project of Marshall T. Savage), could act in the best long-term interest of our species and prepare the way for its, our, journey to the stars.

Cosmists Knocking on Heaven’s Door on 50th Yuri's Night

This show must not be missed, as a Cosmist and a space enthusiast I hope I will get a digital copy soon.

BBC - Knocking on Heaven's Door: April 12th 2011 is the fiftieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight into space, hailed by the Soviet Union as a triumph for socialist science over capitalism. But the true story is much stranger. George Carey's film shows how the Russian space programme was kick-started by a mystic who taught that science would make us immortal, and carried forward by a scientist who believed that we should evolve into super-humans who could leave our overcrowded planet to colonise the universe. Stranger still, Carey shows how those ideas have survived Communism and adapted themselves to the science of the modern world.

The Telegraph - Knocking on Heaven’s Door, film-maker George Carey explains the mystic secrets of the cosmos and the Soviet space programme: The man some people say is the true father of space travel in Russia was not a scientist at all, but a reclusive mystic who was the illegitimate son of a prince called Gagarin. His followers today say the name is not coincidental - because it was that mystic, Nikolai Fedorov, who set Russians on course for Yuri’s moment of glory. In the 19th century, Darwinism and modern science seemed like enemies of God. But Fedorov came up with an extraordinary counter-suggestion: that science was a tool given to us by God to enable us to resurrect the dead and, as promised, enjoy immortal life. And, with curious practicality, he added that because the Earth could not sustain a population that never died, we must first learn to conquer space... the person who really injected his philosophy - known as Cosmism - into the bloodstream of Russian science was an unknown teenager (Konstantin Tsiolkovsky) who turned up in that library one day looking for advice about what to read... [Danila Medvedev] calls himself a Transhumanist, and believes that he will achieve his own immortality by uploading his personality into cyberspace.

As the article says, Cosmist thinking has inspired the daring space program of the 60s and early 70s. On this 50th Yuri's Night, we Cosmists and space enthusiasts should think of going back to space, back to the Moon, and onward to Mars and the stars.

La eternidad no empieza aquí… por ahora

lainformacion.com - La eternidad no empieza aquí… por ahora

De momento sólo existen tres empresas en el mundo que ofrezcan este tipo de servicios. Dos en EEUU, (la citada Alcor y Cryonics Institute, en Michigan) y la rusa KrioRus. A fecha de hoy, hay alrededor de 220 personas conservadas en nitrógeno líquido en alguna de estas tres instalaciones. Algunos conservan el cuerpo entero y otros solo la cabeza, con la esperanza de que la tecnología del futuro permita devolverlos a la vida...

Algunos teóricos del transhumanismo, como Giulio Prisco creen que en un futuro será posible la denominada “transferencia mental” (Mind uploading) que consistirá en escanear nuestras conexiones cerebrales y trasplantarlas a una máquina. “Nosotros somos información”, asegura Prisco, “una vez que la tecnología sea capaz de leer esta información y transferirla a otro soporte te habrás mudado desde tu cabeza a otra cosa”...

Technological Transcendence: An Interview with Giulio Prisco, on H+ Magazine

Technological Transcendence: An Interview with Giulio Prisco, by Ben Goertzel, is on H+ Magazine.

From Ben's introduction: "While transhumanism differs from traditional religions in being based around reason more centrally than faith, it does have some commonality in terms of presenting a broad vision of the universe, with implications on the intellectual level but also for everyday life. And it does present at least some promise of achieving via science some of the more radical promises that religion has traditionally offered -- immortality, dramatic states of bliss, maybe even resurrection. A host of transhumanist thinkers have explored the connections between transhumanism and spirituality, seeking to do so in a manner that pays proper respect to both"

From me: "Our universe is a very big place with lots of undiscovered and unimagined “things in heaven and earth” which science will uncover someday, and perhaps in this mysterious and beautiful complexity there is room for spirituality and even for the old promises of religions, such as immortality and resurrection... I am persuaded that these glimpses into veiled future possibilities are basically compatible with our best understanding of how the universe really works. And they give me beautiful visions of future worlds, and the hope, drive and energy that I need to try living a good and productive life, in this world. And this, I believe, is what really matters." The interview is long, and we discuss many related ideas and the work of spiritually inclined transhumanist groups such as the Turing Church, Terasem, the Society for Universal Immortalism, and the Mormon Transhumanist Association.

At the end Ben gives some very interesting ideas "about how to start a Confederation of Cosmists – i.e. some sort of active organization centered around Cosmism aka “strong transhumanism” as a practical philosophy. Not a religion but something vaguely analogous to a religion, founded on rational radical transhumanism rather than traditional faiths."

I have written a lot on transhumanist spirituality, but I have often been misunderstood, which probably means that I have never been clear enough. I hope in this interview, and with Ben's valuable help, I have managed to be more clear.

Donate Bitcoins to Pioneer One

It is good to see positive and powerful trends coming together. This morning I have written about Bitcoin, and now I just found out that Pioneer One is accepting donations in Bitcoin. I donated 6 Bitcoins so far.

Pioneer One is notable both for being funded purely through donations and for being the first TV series created for and released on BitTorrent networks. See the Pioneer One website and the Pioneer One page on VODO.net. VODO helps promote and distribute new creative works all over the world and enables those enjoying shared media to make donations to creators.

I am a big fan of Pioneer One and VODO.net. This is an alternative distribution model for creative content (film, music, literature, are, whatever) which, if we consumers support it, will end the traditional model. It works like this: creatorors produce something good, make it available as a free download, and those who like it donate something to permit creators making a living with their creative work.

Pioneer One (2 episodes so far, a third coming) has been made with a few tens of thousands of dollars instead of many tens of millions of dollars like major TV series. Of course it is not yet as good as major TV series, but I think it is solid and professional work, and the plot is interesting. If we support this and similar initiatives, the quality will become better and better and we will have plenty of legally downloadable and sharable content at a fraction of the cost. Donate something to Pioneer One now to participate in the people's media revolution.