cosmism Archives - Mondo 2000

by Giulio Prisco

I am a mad scientist interested in future science and technology able to resurrect the dead from the past. I look for hints, clues and glimpses in today’s speculative, highly imaginative science. Do you want to join me?

The recently published book “Technological Resurrection: A Thought Experiment,” by Jonathan Jones, provides a short and readable first introduction to our ideas on technological resurrection. See my review on Mondo 2000. According to Jones, future engineers will be able to teleport our consciousness to the future with ultra-technology based on quantum effects, wormholes and whatnot.

Technological resurrection science is likely to involve next-next generation physics of huge energies, infinitesimal scales, space-time noodles and quantum ultra-weirdness, not to mention higher dimensions and parallel worlds. The same science will take us to the stars, perhaps faster than light (FTL), perhaps open the way to some sort of time travel, and perhaps permit understanding God(s). Or build God(s), or become God(s).

I call this research program “Irrational Mechanics” (see below).

Before becoming a mad scientist, I used to be a “real” scientist in academy and public research centers. I know the science establishment pretty well, certainly well enough to realize that what I’m saying is so heretical that no scientist can enter safely. There are a lot of scientists who entertain similar ideas, but even mentioning them is career suicide. Developing these ideas is for politically incorrect amateur citizen scientists like me, and perhaps you.

We can’t do real research because our skills are too limited or too rusty, and/or we have to do other things for a living. What we can do is research on others’ research. But that’s good enough, because the heavy lifting work is already done by top scientists, only they aren’t allowed to even mention some deep implication of their own work. Laying out the heretic implications is up to us. Of course, we must understand the science first.

For example, many enthusiasts believe that the spooky correlations between quantum-entangled particles could be used to send FTL instant messages, or signal backward in time. But unfortunately, according to our current understanding, entanglement is real but can’t be used to send FTL instant messages.

Why? Because measuring the spin of one of a pair of entangled particles always gives a random result — even if the results of the two measurements are correlated — and any attempt to preset the spin of a particle would break the entanglement. A good analogy is two decks of “magic” cards that are always in the same order, but the magic only works if both decks are well shuffled first, and cheating breaks the magic. Read more “Mad Scientists Wanted for Research on Irrational Mechanics”

And when we die, they pull our minds through a wormhole in space-time and put us into an awesome brand new body in this ‘heaven’.

Review by Giulio Prisco

The recently published book “Technological Resurrection: A Thought Experiment,” by Jonathan Jones, is a little gem. It only costs $1.26, and provides a short and readable first introduction to ideas on technological resurrection.

If you value hours of informative, thought provoking and entertaining reading more than $1.26, buy the book now. It’s so refreshing being able to pay a small sum to a deserving writer, instead of downloading a pirated version of one of those expensive books.

The idea behind technological resurrection is that we’ll all be resurrected — copied to the future — by future hyper-advanced technology based on quantum weirdness, time scanning, wormholes, and whatnot.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept and want to find out more, perhaps because you are looking for scientifically believable alternatives or complements to traditional religion, then this book has been written for you.

In my favorite passage, Jones mentions “Nothingness” as a possible answer to the question of what comes after death, but quickly dismisses the possibility because it tastes like tofu: “We’re told that it’s the most sensible, best option. And it will be good for us. But what’s the point of life, we keep asking ourselves, if all we ever get to eat is tofu?”

I interpret this as a perfect reply to the “cultural” thought police and the bureaucrats of philosophy who want to eliminate what remains of spiritual imagination and hope. Screw tofu, I want pizza. And ribs. And a beer.

Temporal resurrection

Jones’ much better answer, inspired by Nikolai Fedorov and the Russian Cosmists, is very similar to mine: We will be resurrected by future humans by means of science and technology. Technological resurrection works like this:

Step 1, looking back through time using some future technology built on quantum weirdness;
Step 2, using the information retrieved from the past to “print” a copy of your body and mind;
Step 3, retrieving your consciousness from the past; and finally
Step 4, inserting your consciousness into your new body.

Simple, isn’t it? Well, perhaps not that simple, but super-intelligent AIs will be there to help.

Most technological resurrection procedures that have been imagined based on this “uploading to the future” concept stop at step 2. If your mind is there in the future, what more can you want? Our grandchildren could even skip printing a physical body/brain and insert your mind into a new robotic body, or a software “body” in a virtual world. Read more “Technological Resurrection by Jonathan Jones Reviewed”