Creating biosynthetic humans – are they already here? Some people claim that cyborgs are “alive and well” and working as actors and actresses in Hollywood and on TV; and some cyborgs are believed to have "infiltrated" the government and the military.
Hollywood Cyborg
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... woodCyborg
A handsome young Cyborg named Ace
Wooed women at every base
But once ladies glanced at
His special enhancement
They vanished with nary a trace.
—Barracks graffiti, Sparta Command, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Molecular Magnets
http://www.ias.ac.in/matersci/bmsjun2009/217.pdf
The conventional magnetic materials used in current technology, such as, Fe, Fe2O3, Cr2O3, SmCo5, Nd2Fe14B etc are all atom-based, and their preparation/processing require high temperature routes.
Employing self-assembly methods, it is possible to engineer a bulk molecular material with long-range magnetic order, mainly because one can play with the weak intermolecular interactions. Since the first successful synthesis of molecular magnets in 1986 a large variety of them have been synthesized, which can be categorized on the basis of the chemical nature of the magnetic units involved: organic-, metal-based systems, heterobimetallic assemblies, or mixed organic–inorganic systems. The design of molecule-based magnets has also been extended to the design of poly-functional molecular magnets, such as those exhibiting second-order optical nonlinearity, liquid crystallinity, or chirality simultaneously with long-range magnetic order. Solubility, low
density and biocompatibility are attractive features of molecular magnets. Being weakly coloured, unlike their opaque classical magnet ‘cousins’ listed above, possibilities of photomagnetic switching exist.
US Patent 7022348 - Method of creating biological and biosynthetic material for implantation
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/70223 ... ption.html
The present invention relates to a method of creating biological and biosynthetic material suitable for implantation to replace or augment damaged, diseased or absent tissues, structures or organs, of particular but by no means exclusive application in the treatment of autogenic, allogenic or xenogenic material of mammalian origin, to maintain a microarchitectural organization and inhibit in vivo calcification, tissue ingrowth and transmural angiogenesis. In one embodiment, as may be determined by the end use, transplanted living cells can be attached and retained under in vivo conditions.
Silicon biotechnology: harnessing biological silica production to construct new materials
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... b1490d2bc8
Silicon, the basis of semiconductors and many advanced materials, is an essential element for higher plants and animals, yet its biology is poorly understood. Many invertebrates produce exquisitely controlled silica structures with a nanoscale precision exceeding present human ability. Biotechnology is starting to reveal the proteins, genes and molecular mechanisms that control this synthesis in marine organisms that produce large amounts of silica. Discovering the mechanisms governing biosilicification offers the prospect of developing environmentally benign routes to synthesize new silicon-based materials and to resolve the biological use of silicon in higher organisms.
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence – The Next Step in Human Evolution?
http://rickforeman.com/?p=42
Whether people realize it or not, we are surrounded by examples of artificial intelligence. Voice activated customer services, the GPS system in your car, the airport scheduling system that chooses the gate where your will disembark when your plane lands, the latest video games and even the software to write this article contain some form of Artificial Intelligence.
Right now, we are well into the period of Narrow AI which refers to artificial intelligence that performs a useful and specialized function that once required human intelligence to perform and executes those functions at human levels or better. Often Narrow AI systems greatly exceed the speed of humans as well as provide the ability to manage and take into account thousands of variables simultaneously.
While Narrow AI gives machines the ability to perform specific tasks, what is needed to develop and construct a fully functioning robot is Strong AI. Although there is no total agreement on what defines Strong AI, most researchers in the area of artificial intelligence agree that the properties of Strong AI should include the following:
• Ability to reason, strategize and make judgments under uncertain conditions
• Ability to represent knowledge including knowledge that is categorized as common sense
• Ability to plan and learn
• Ability to communicate in a natural language
• Ability to integrate all the above skills
Development in the area of Strong AI draws upon tools from three main areas: first, on what is currently known about the brain; second, based on the decades of research in Narrow AI; third, reverse engineering of the brain. Many tools have been developed and are emerging that provide the spatial and temporal resolution necessary to produce adequate data from extremely accurate scanning and sensing of neurons and neural components.
For a human being, the learning process required to master the knowledge necessary to function in any scientific area is decades. For a robot with artificial intelligence, learning will be just a matter of the time required to download the information from one machine to another. Once a human level of artificial intelligence is reached then technological advances in all areas will accelerate at an incredible exponential rate.
From the physical aspect, the development of a human like robot is much closer to being realized. In many depictions of robots in science fiction they are metallic and awkward but current technology already exists that can create an almost human appearing robot. In Japan, a new artificial outer covering gives the feel of real human skin by covering a 1-cm thick “dermis” of elastic silicone with a 0.2-mm thick “epidermis” of firm urethane. Countless tiny hexagonal indentations etched into the urethane epidermis provide it with a very realistic texture.
On the other hand, advances in medical technology are creating many artificial parts to replace some of our worn out or broken biological parts. Today, knee, hip and shoulder replacements are common. Artificial limbs are used by many who have lost their original ones. Advances will continue at a rapid pace so that in the near future we may be able to replace any organ or limb with a new and improved one. Some scientists hypothesize that all the information and memories in our brain may one day be downloadable. It seems possible that one day we may reach a point where the distinction between human and robot becomes too close to distinguish.
Robots have long been dreamed of as helpers and companions to enhance the lives of humans. Could it also be possible that the inadvertent direction of robotics will be, not to replace humans, but perhaps the next step in human evolution?
Future Life Forms among Posthumans
http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/8-2/07.pdf
As we begin to ride the wave into human redesign, the destination is still largely unknown. But despite all the unanswered questions, we have a number of clues that can help us speculate as to what we truly mean by the posthuman organism – including the striking acknowledgement that in all likelihood not just one type of posthuman awaits us, but several.
We will re-engineer our biological constitutions, and introduce silicon, steel, and microchips into ourselves. Some may choose to reside in computers as conscious wave patterns, while others will convert themselves into durable robots and venture out into space. Simultaneously, we will create entirely new forms of life, including artificial intelligence and perhaps even a global consciousness.
Humanity's monopoly as the only advanced sentient life form on the planet will soon come to an end, supplemented by a number of posthuman incarnations. Moreover, how we re-engineer ourselves could fundamentally change the ways in which our society functions, and raise crucial questions about our identities and moral status as human beings.
As the possibility for conscious human redesign has emerged, so too has a philosophical movement that considers the implications. This approach to future oriented thinking known as transhumanism works on the premise that the human species does not represent the end of human evolution but rather its beginning. Transhumanism is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the possibilities for overcoming biological limitations through scientific progress.
Ultimately, transhumanists hope to see technological opportunities expanded for people, so that they may live longer and healthier lives and enhance their intellectual, physical and emotional capacities. Transhumanism emphasizes that we have the potential not just to "be" but to "become." Not only can we use rational means to improve the human condition and the external world; we can also use them to improve ourselves, the human organism. And we are not limited only to the methods, such as education, which humanism (its philosophical precursor) normally espouses. Rather, transhumanists argue, we will have the means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what most would describe as human.
Cyborgs
http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10394
Among the common tropes of science fiction, cyborgs have long been recognized as possessing unique potential as a metaphor for transitional identity, for the spaces between natural and constructed, human and machine.
Before cyborgs became a symbol for embracing radical uncertainty, they were a theoretical solution for solving some of the problems posed by travel in outer space. Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline published a paper in 1960 in which they propose the term "cyborg" for humans augmented to make them more suited to space flight.
The cyborg sometimes gets confused with androids, which are humanoid machines rather than mechanized humans. The confusion is understandable, being largely a matter of the direction from which the concept of the man-machine hybrid is approached.
The central question posed by the machine-human interface of the cyborg can be asked in two different ways:
How much does changing the physical body change identity?
To what extent is the mind independent of the body?
Free Will and Artificial Intelligence
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/e ... terek.html
Free will can arise from the interaction of two algorithmic systems because this can create choice. Human fear of artificial intelligence is based on the questioning of whether or not free will exists. People feel threatened by the notion that free will can arise algorithmically and accidentally. There is a fear that the mind may create free will as an illusion to explain actions. If machines were to have something similar to free will, it would show that free will can arise from algorithmic systems and that free will may arise without intent. Science fiction movies provide some of the strongest cultural expressions of these fears.
Free will is the ability to create options and to choose between them without an external agent such as fate or divine will. If people are capable of making any decision they desire, then there is free will; however, if humans are only capable of following set patterns of behavior, then there is not. For instance, if a person feels fear he/she seems to have the choice between fighting or fleeing. If that person, due to an algorithm, was only ever capable of choosing one story, despite being able to create both, they would not have free will.
Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud both noted that there were inner human drives, namely survival and sexual, that never changed regardless of outside factors. Jung took this notion further stating that there were also intrinsic notions of good and evil. It seems clear biologically, that the section of the brain that interacts with the environment is fully algorithmic. For instance, humans have reflexes. These require no conscious thought. However, Jung's notion suggests that there is also an algorithm in the neocortex. This suggests that there are inborn senses in people, including the notions of morality and freedom that can dictate behavior.
There is a question as to where the line is drawn between things that are only following an algorithm to things can act outside the algorithm and whether anything truly is outside the algorithm at all. Self-awareness alone may not create free will because self awareness does not ensure the ability to make a choice. The movie AI suggests that self aware things may not always have free will. When the robots are a carnival in which they will be destroyed for entertainment, the David is the only one capable of begging for his life. He was not programmed to beg, but he did so because external input told him to feel fear. This allowed him to make what seems to the external observer to be a choice. However, his algorithm may simply be more complex. This scene represents the fear that if machines can imitate free will, then perhaps free will is simply an extremely complicated algorithm in humans.
The Hive-Mind versus the Integrated Man - Consider this carefully as you "Unify"
http://universalproject.ning.com/forum/ ... versus-the
Food for thought ... Some of you are seekers of a collective mankind.
I am seeking to become a single integrated individual. This may be like one species examining another species. The individual that is integrated does not see a hive as an advancement of evolutionary development.
I'm ME, an open-minded skeptic, a very integrated man, lost in a society of sleep-walkers, drones, army ants, royal court, and slaves in prisons of mind where individuality is not an option.
Integrated: adjective -- resembling a living organism in organization or development and formed or united into a whole
My role model is not a hive, but honey is from flowers and I don't mind bees, they do good work in making honey and pollination. The Hive mind is external and a bizarre anomaly to the individual mind.
I don't wish to become one as a cooperative mindless zombie, near dead as seen from my mind's eyes. My place as a man is not to be a bee, an ant, a wasp or termite in a collective with sole intent of servicing a Queen and her royal hierarchy.
The Hive Mind
Since ancient times, ants have been acclaimed for their wisdom. Ants stand out at, or near, the peak of invertebrate development, displaying memory, learning, and the ability to correct mistakes. Like human societies, ant communities have their own expertise at the three primary methods of obtaining food: gathering, hunting and growing.
A caste system divides the workload among workers, soldiers and the queen. They all live together in the same colony. This system is believed to have existed for 30 or 40 million years.
Despite their intelligence, ants are trapped inside rigid and programmed behaviour patterns that are distinct to each species. These patterns produce carpenters, dairymen, soldiers, seed collectors, fungus growers, and even thieves and beggars, among others. Some species of ants raid colonies of other species and use them as slaves to work in their own colonies.
What is the hive-mind?
"They hold authority as the truth, not truth as the authority."
controlling elites hold a monopoly on free will and seek to preserve it at all costs.
The hive mind is an organization of society where thought and decision making have largely become centralized. Centralization of power implies concentration of power, because an elite few exerts the power of millions of unquestioning people under their chain of command. For this to happen, the majority of a population must, at some point, have ceased independent thought in favour of the opinions and dictates of experts and elites. These experts and elites are, of course, serving themselves.
To be more specific, the individual human mind is powered by consciousness, which makes decisions based strongly on the need for self-preservation. (Note that in contrast to animals, the human will often use the conscious mind to make survival decisions, instead of relying on instinct alone.)
The less an individual needs to make decisions regarding their lives and their futures, (i.e. love everybody and everything), the less that individual links self-consciousness with self preservation, and thus the less likely it is that that individual will be influenced by their natural desire for self-preservation.
People have left the responsibility for preservation to the authorities, and in doing so, they have rescinded control of their own minds to a central point outside themselves; unfortunately it is a centralized control source which does not see their individual lives as anything of importance.
Free will and the hive mind are in eternal conflict. However, free will remains essential to society regardless of which system is chosen: people at the top of any given hierarchy must make decisions for those below them, therefore it follows that people with free will must head the hive mind. The hive mind differs from civilized society in that the controlling elites hold a monopoly on free will and seek to preserve it at all costs.