Ray Kurzweil Archives

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”

To wit: the clever, logical, programming/engineering monkey-mind should not be allowed to instantiate its limited idea of humanity, the universe and everything, on… well… humanity, the universe and everything.

by R.U. Sirius

It was at the end of the first day of the Singularity Summit 2012 when Ben Popper — the dude from The Verge who I’d spoken to by phone approached. “What do you think?” he asked. It’s been pretty interesting, I responded earnestly.

The absence of a superlative was perhaps telling, but I was not in the mood to think on it more deeply. Ben agreed. And then Eve and I made a wrong turn heading back to the North Bay and we found ourselves moving at a crawl through Chinatown.

Chinatown was throbbing with biological life of the human sort. Old Chinese women were inspecting vegetables on display outside of stores. A group of older men stood on a street corner just hanging out and talking. The streets were packed to overflow with people going about their early Saturday evening activities. I don’t think I saw anybody smiling, but I had the sense that people were enjoying their familiar activities.

Once home, I decided to finally watch I’m Still Here, the Casey Affleck film documenting Joaquin Phoenix supposed attempt to leave behind his acting career to become a rap star. Fat; with long uncombed hair and scraggly beard, dressed like a particularly disheveled street person — throughout the film, Phoenix, along with some of his handlers, displays a full repertoire of coarse, vulgar, moronic human behaviors as he tries to pursue his new career. He also appears in onstage performances, rapping… badly. Various media commentators suspect that it’s a hoax, but Phoenix remains in character. He puts Ben Stiller — trying to get Phoenix to consider a script — through the ringer. He acts pathetic and nuts in a famous Letterman appearance. He’s trying to get Sean Combs to produce a rap album for him.

Watching this film… unsure myself whether the whole thing was a bit of Andy Kaufman-like performance art; a genuine descent into madness; or both (I was leaning towards both) and seeing how the various players tried to navigate how to respond given that they were experiencing the same uncertainty that I was — I was struck by the wheels-within-wheels-within-wheels multiple strange loopy character of the thing that I was not only witnessing but participating in by being engaged in confusion. And I was struck by how many layers of uncertainly could emerge out of very stupid behaviors… behaviors, incidentally, that would likely hold little interest to a proper singularitarian; and all of it done for absolutely no rational purpose other than to fuck with people’s heads. For what? To improve them? To teach them something? No. Just to see what happens. Read more “Steal This Singularity Part 1 (2012)”