Bit of Discourse- Transhumanism

[Ahriman238]

I'm truly insane, it's the only explanation. My response to not having time for my analysis threads is... make more analysis threads and focus on them a while until the main projects feel like less of a chore.

So here we are again. This is one of a so far short series of threads where I try for a more conversational, more interactive tone, and instead of a specific series, we'll look at a common sci-fi concept, how it's done well and sometimes not so well.


So transhumanism is the belief in improving upon humanity, typically to grant superhuman physical or mental capabilities, life extension and/or technological immortality sometimes come up too. The precise methods, and what changes are desirable, are subject to endless debate. Some say the first transhumanists were eugenicists, believing in applying selective breeding to humanity. Genetic engineering and nanotech are all the rage these days. Perhaps the implanting of synthetic organs or body parts (bionics) superior to what nature created? We can already make prosthetic legs that enable incredible running speeds.

At some point, transhumanism got very caught up with the creation of AI that may be superior to human minds, the uploading of the human consciousness into a computer, as well as "augmented reality." I'm not planning on spending a ton of time these, mostly because they interest me less and I don't really see existing as a computer program as an upgrade to the human condition. Well, we'll see how it goes, if you want to talk about these things I don't have a problem with it. I may have less to offer though, but I'm sure there are plenty on the board who can more than take up the slack.

It should go without saying that transhumanism in sci-fi involves a lot of super-soldiers. The military applications to soldiers who are faster, stronger, tougher, heal quicker, or need less rest than the enemy are obvious. I think this reveals an unpleasant side of humanity that the mind leaps so quickly to weaponizing the improvement of humanity, or any innovation. In any case, a majority of examples I can think of for transhumanism involve making humans better at survival and killing each other, so we'll probably be spending a while on these.

Another application of transhumanism is Pantropy, picking up where technology has stopped evolution and adapting humanity to all manner of environmental extremes. Lack of space is less of a problem when people can live comfortably in Antarctica or on the ocean floor, no?

Well, as I say, I'll be bringing up a lot of "designer humanities" and hope to discuss with you which changes you think would benefit people.

[Esquire]

I know you said you weren't planning on talking about the uploading side of things, but I'm going to ask about it anyway - do the transhumanists have any idea how to go about that? Or even where to begin researching?

As far as the physical augmentation bits go, I think they'll be pretty uncontroversial by the time we can actually perform them easily and efficiently. See genetically-modified crops; while people still argue about them, there's simply no other option for feeding the planet.

[Grumman]

Another application of transhumanism is Pantropy, picking up where technology has stopped evolution and adapting humanity to all manner of environmental extremes. Lack of space is less of a problem when people can live comfortably in Antarctica or on the ocean floor, no?

I've discussed this with regard to one particular upcoming setting, and my view is that for a large part, Pantropy is stupid. There are some traits that are conceivably all upside - people aren't going to complain about having muscles that don't atrophy in microgravity, for example - but for more drastic changes, it would make a lot more sense to change the environment than to turn your children into Morlocks.

[Ahriman238]

I said I didn't want to talk about them too much. Like I said, if you want to talk about it, I'm fine with that.

I'm not an expert in uploading/WBE (Whole Brain Emulation) but it is my understanding that the perquisites include: a supercomputer capable of copying and mimicking the complexities of the human brain (it's not enough to just record data, it needs to be able to duplicate human thought processes. And even recording a snapshot of 86 trillion synapses is a nontrivial feat.), extensive and ludicrously detailed brain mapping technology, and a flawless brain-computer interface. A really good robot body would probably help matters a lot. So I would assume that research into all of these would be where the WBE crowd would focus their efforts.


The main advantage, from the standpoint of technological immortality, is that if a brain's data, you personality, memories et al. can be converted into code you could conceivably "save" yourself regularly and be restored from backup if something unfortunate were to happen. Assuming that backup could be reasonably called you. The Culture books by Ian Banks tackle this idea in more detail, particularly IIRC, Look to Windward, where it's mentioned that every culture and species eventually has to deal with this capability and what it means for life, death, and an immortal soul. The Culture backs up it's citizens as a matter of routine, unless they specifically decline it. The Chandrians implant a "soulkeeper" continuously updating storage device in people's brains. Upon death, the soulkeeper is recovered and the mind-state within uploaded to a VR heaven.

[Ahriman238]

Another application of transhumanism is Pantropy, picking up where technology has stopped evolution and adapting humanity to all manner of environmental extremes. Lack of space is less of a problem when people can live comfortably in Antarctica or on the ocean floor, no?

I've discussed this with regard to one particular upcoming setting, and my view is that for a large part, Pantropy is stupid. There are some traits that are conceivably all upside - people aren't going to complain about having muscles that don't atrophy in microgravity, for example - but for more drastic changes, it would make a lot more sense to change the environment than to turn your children into Morlocks.

Yeah, you sure know what's coming. I simply can't decline to talk about it. May have to bring up Yudkowsky at some point too. But for the moment, that's in the future.

I'd say that Pantropy falls with lightsabers in the general category of "it's totally impractical, would never actually work, but look how cool it is!" Certainly I find it that bit more engaging than another supersoldier who can kill thirty men with his bionic index finger pistol. And at least one part of it is amazingly common. It seems half of sci-fi believes that the moment we really get genetic engineering down, the first thing we'll do is create amphibious humans who can breathe underwater. Other adaptations optional.


Oh, another cornerstone of transhumanism is procreational beneficence. You probably know it as "the Gattaca thing" or "designer babies" where before birth cells are culled and selected for desirable traits, producing kids who really are the best of their parents' genetic traits rather than a random mix while screening for congenital conditions or problematic predispositions. Leaving aside any legal or moral issues, which can get pretty tangled, a lot of proponents of this fail to realize that randomness is the entire point of sexual reproduction. Randomness leads to more mutations, more variance, better odds that someone will get that one essential trait nobody realized they needed until someone got it. In this, they share the penalty box with the eugenicists. Sorry guys, but life needs diversity.

[Scrib]

Well, as I say, I'll be bringing up a lot of "designer humanities" and hope to discuss with you which changes you think would benefit people.

So we're talking about humans altered through some incredibly effective procedure either from birth or otherwise...what would benefit people...hm.

I saw a post a while ago that claimed that if we ever got hold of the ability to actually do this to our heads then we've reached the end point of what people who came before can predict, practically speaking. Basically: if we can fuck with people what we consider right and wrong will shift with the fuckery until there is no common measure and/or people are just designed to fit with their current situation unless the government acts as a dampening force. Because really, what will the modified designer sociopath-exec share with the empath-religious model?

[Grumman]

Leaving aside any legal or moral issues, which can get pretty tangled, a lot of proponents of this fail to realize that randomness is the entire point of sexual reproduction. Randomness leads to more mutations, more variance, better odds that someone will get that one essential trait nobody realized they needed until someone got it. In this, they share the penalty box with the eugenicists. Sorry guys, but life needs diversity.

Your logic is flawed. The point of sexual reproduction is that random recombination of the survivors is the best a mindless, nearsighted, amnesiac universe can do to create a thriving bloodline. It is not automatically a better approach than what an actual conscious intelligence can come up with, just as millions of people dying every year failing to establish their immunity to smallpox the natural way is not better than vaccination.

[Jub]

Oh, another cornerstone of transhumanism is procreational beneficence. You probably know it as "the Gattaca thing" or "designer babies" where before birth cells are culled and selected for desirable traits, producing kids who really are the best of their parents' genetic traits rather than a random mix while screening for congenital conditions or problematic predispositions. Leaving aside any legal or moral issues, which can get pretty tangled, a lot of proponents of this fail to realize that randomness is the entire point of sexual reproduction. Randomness leads to more mutations, more variance, better odds that someone will get that one essential trait nobody realized they needed until someone got it. In this, they share the penalty box with the eugenicists. Sorry guys, but life needs diversity.

There would still be large levels of randomness regardless. There should be hundreds if not more combinations of beneficial traits from each set of parents and it's likely that most of the work would go into correcting obvious genetic flaws and attempting to head off other issues that can happen in the process between fertilized egg and infant rather than tailoring everything to be just so. Even if we did get to the point where we can literally design people I'd like to think that scientists would have the foresight to avoid obvious genetic bottlenecks.

[Elheru Aran]

A situation where pantropy could be useful, barring the lack of physics-fucking technology, would be in creating humans who are ideally adjusted to living in micro/zero gravity. This could be very useful, especially if we perfect some sort of suspended animation. You could have ships where the passengers are asleep for 99% of the journey, and the crew are space-adapted humans.

Of course it might turn out to be more practical to just use a physical solution like a centrifuge to simulate gravity...

[Ahriman238]

Oh, another cornerstone of transhumanism is procreational beneficence. You probably know it as "the Gattaca thing" or "designer babies" where before birth cells are culled and selected for desirable traits, producing kids who really are the best of their parents' genetic traits rather than a random mix while screening for congenital conditions or problematic predispositions. Leaving aside any legal or moral issues, which can get pretty tangled, a lot of proponents of this fail to realize that randomness is the entire point of sexual reproduction. Randomness leads to more mutations, more variance, better odds that someone will get that one essential trait nobody realized they needed until someone got it. In this, they share the penalty box with the eugenicists. Sorry guys, but life needs diversity.

There would still be large levels of randomness regardless. There should be hundreds if not more combinations of beneficial traits from each set of parents and it's likely that most of the work would go into correcting obvious genetic flaws and attempting to head off other issues that can happen in the process between fertilized egg and infant rather than tailoring everything to be just so. Even if we did get to the point where we can literally design people I'd like to think that scientists would have the foresight to avoid obvious genetic bottlenecks.

Conceded.

A situation where pantropy could be useful, barring the lack of physics-fucking technology, would be in creating humans who are ideally adjusted to living in micro/zero gravity. This could be very useful, especially if we perfect some sort of suspended animation. You could have ships where the passengers are asleep for 99% of the journey, and the crew are space-adapted humans.

Of course it might turn out to be more practical to just use a physical solution like a centrifuge to simulate gravity...

Indeed, in Orion's Arm this was the second modification (after merpeople) made to the human race, homo cosmoi. The cosmoi were immune to long-term negative effects of microgravity, had enhanced spatial awareness, and their feet were designed along the lines of a chimp's another pair of hands to grip things.


The tamest transhumanism I'm aware of ironically comes to us from a comic book. Steve Rogers aka Captain America was empowered through Dr. Erskine's super-soldier serum and an infusion of "vita-rays" that made him a peak condition, idealized human capable of performing any physical skill at an Olympic level. Where people are lucky to compete in one event after a lifetime of training, Steve can run like Jesse Owens and punch like Muhammad Ali. The movie version is noticeably better than that, but not unimaginably so. Since that point in the comics, though Erskine was killed and the formula lost, over half a dozen people have been empowered through serum salvaged from Steve's blood. There were two major retcons relating to this in the last decade I'm aware of. One is that Steve was the fourth test subject, two died and one was brain-damaged. The other is that Erskine originally created a program of diet and exercise which, followed religiously, would also result in an idealized physical specimen, the serum came later when the Army pointed out they didn't have a decade to wait. So this is the only Charlie Atlas form of transhumanism.


On the darker side of transhumanism via drugs, we have Rifts' Juicer. Juicers are fitted with a computerized rig that regulates their hormones and auto-injects drugs to keep them at peak levels at all times. So they're four times stronger than other men, with lightning-fast reflexes and ten times the physical endurance. Plus they heal fast, are effectively immune to pain (which is of debatable utility) and can go for five days without sleep, needing only four hours before they're up and ready to go. The downsides are addiction, reliance on a steady supply of a variety of drugs, they're twitchy and unable to relax, oh yes, and the whole setup will kill them in 5-8 years. Turns out the human body isn't meant to be overclocked that way.

There's a bundle of Juicer variants, some faster, some stronger, some with psychic powers. And in fairness, there are less intense and lethal juicer conversions, it's more the combination of all these drugs that eventually kills you, a Juicer stimulant every few days won't hurt much.

[Starglider]

Or even where to begin researching?

Yes, there is a great deal of expertise, money and computing power being thrown at neurological simulation; the Blue Brain project has probably received the most media coverage. Techniques for (destructively) scanning in brains are also progressing. Raw numbers like 100 trillion synapses aren't so daunting now that we're up to petascale computing (with exascale under development). Current knowledge & hardware should suffice for a coarse simulation of an entire rat brain or a detailed (molecular) simulation of a single microcolumn, although last time I checked no one had published a convincing success on either of those.

It seems half of sci-fi believes that the moment we really get genetic engineering down, the first thing we'll do is create amphibious humans who can breathe underwater. Other adaptations optional.

What form of 'we' are you using? You sound like a futurist from 1980s USSR, 'The global people's council of applied science determined that creation of human genetic abberations is a poor use of research resources, not to mention an offense to the basic socialist principles of equality. Thus it has been proscribed and any rouge labs that enage in such work shall be destroyed by orbital bombardment, survivors sent to the Mercury Gulag Colony'.

Wheras a current bay area singu-futurist might say 'well of course once the gene-tweaking techniques are opensoured, expert system assisted and physically replicated by third-tier emerging country / unregulated design shops, the self-transformative aspirations of the larger virtual communities will be realisable by crowfunding. Thus all the budding merkin will fund the prototype mods via kickstarter 3.0, and after not more than seven horrible deaths, fourteen lawsuits and two project reboots it will become safe and viable for user growth follwing a type 4 fast memetic popularity curve. Obviously the additional biomorphic diversity will enrich the metahuman intersectionality hypersphere, which is axiomatically good (disagree and you are a horrible bigot who will be virtu-ostricised via Google Glass overlay blackout)'.

[Esquire]

I can see how simulating brains wouldn't be impossible with modern (or near-future) computing power, but I thought we were after uploading minds? Is the plan to just go on with simulation research and hope something pops up?

[Jub]

Simulation and greater understanding of how the brain works should get there eventually. We can already get fuzzy images from people's brains with current tech.

[Esquire]

I'm not expressing myself well - trying to get to consciousness-transferring through brain simulation seems a little like trying to get to replicators through photography. It sounds like there's a lot of smart people who think differently, but I don't know why. If there's a convenient article on this stuff I'd be happy to just go read it, it's a fascinating subject.

[Grumman]

I'm not expressing myself well - trying to get to consciousness-transferring through brain simulation seems a little like trying to get to replicators through photography. It sounds like there's a lot of smart people who think differently, but I don't know why. If there's a convenient article on this stuff I'd be happy to just go read it, it's a fascinating subject.

You're never going to get to consciousness-transferring unless we discover that the soul is real or something similarly amazing, but if we ever did find a way to move your consciousness, we'd still need a place to put it. Developing brain simulation would be a necessary prerequisite for that, I think.

[Sea Skimmer]

It seems to be in principle consciousness transferring might work if you do it in a progressive fashion. Replacing and disabling parts of the brain with a machine in stages such that the brain adapts as it occurs. This would not really be different then how brains mature in the first place, some changes may occur but it would not have an inherent interruption that prevents continuity.

We'd need a near complete understanding of the brain for any of this to work though, and since we are still making fundamental discoveries on the location of all the processing centers in the brain, let alone how they work or how they interconnection that is a very long way off. Even when we can simulate a brain, that will still be far less computing power then is required to run it in real time. Though a vast amount of load might be shed by simplifying certain processing centers. The functioning of the eyes for example, it might be possible to do that in a much more efficient digital process, but still emulate all the outputs the thinking brain requires. But then that might not work out either. We don't know how distributed processing really is.

[madd0ct0r]

why no discussion of the transhumanists that are already here?

tattoos, stretching out the the extremes of body modification, cosmetic surgery and crazy stuff that beats most cycberpunk extremes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropyl ... t_implants
wetware hackers, ranging from magnets in the finger to sponsored scientists to hackers like Lepht Anonyms
Clinical cyborgs, rebuilt better with prosthetics or people who are just turning to arrays of sensors to understand themselves better
people who are already rewiring their brain chemically, from beer to flouxotine, from travel sickeness pills to 'study aides'
people who are walking around now with metal hips, plastic kneecaps or a device designed to restart their heart?
Others who have gone under the medical knife, and now carry someone else's heart, lungs or have been drastically reshaped?

How many of the above examples would attract much attention on the street?

We're living in a transhumanist world already.

[Simon_Jester]

It seems half of sci-fi believes that the moment we really get genetic engineering down, the first thing we'll do is create amphibious humans who can breathe underwater. Other adaptations optional.

What form of 'we' are you using? You sound like a futurist from 1980s USSR, 'The global people's council of applied science determined that creation of human genetic abberations is a poor use of research resources, not to mention an offense to the basic socialist principles of equality. Thus it has been proscribed and any rouge labs that enage in such work shall be destroyed by orbital bombardment, survivors sent to the Mercury Gulag Colony'.

Er... he sounds to me like when he says "we" he means "the set of all humans."

That does not mean the set of all humans have a coordinated decision-making process.

So unless you just have an irrational objection to describing the future of the human species in terms of what the human species as a whole is up to on a given day... I don't see the problem?

Wheras a current bay area singu-futurist might say 'well of course once the gene-tweaking techniques are opensoured, expert system assisted and physically replicated by third-tier emerging country / unregulated design shops, the self-transformative aspirations of the larger virtual communities will be realisable by crowfunding. Thus all the budding merkin will fund the prototype mods via kickstarter 3.0, and after not more than seven horrible deaths, fourteen lawsuits and two project reboots it will become safe and viable for user growth follwing a type 4 fast memetic popularity curve. Obviously the additional biomorphic diversity will enrich the metahuman intersectionality hypersphere, which is axiomatically good (disagree and you are a horrible bigot who will be virtu-ostricised via Google Glass overlay blackout)'.

Christ, you guys are worse for buzzwords than the education policy wonks...

I'm not expressing myself well - trying to get to consciousness-transferring through brain simulation seems a little like trying to get to replicators through photography. It sounds like there's a lot of smart people who think differently, but I don't know why. If there's a convenient article on this stuff I'd be happy to just go read it, it's a fascinating subject.

By analogy, having a machine that can scan every individual atom of an object is not enough to ensure you will be able to duplicate that object fully in a timely fashion. However, it is necessary- you will never duplicate an object at the atomic level unless you have some kind of tool for seeing the object at that level.

In this case, once your mind is transferred, you need an OS for it to run on- in other words, SimBrain. Is this sufficient to permit transfer of consciousness to machines? No. Is it necessary? Yes.

why no discussion of the transhumanists that are already here?

tattoos, stretching out the the extremes of body modification, cosmetic surgery and crazy stuff that beats most cycberpunk extremes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropyl ... t_implants

wetware hackers, ranging from magnets in the finger to sponsored scientists to hackers like Lepht Anonyms

Clinical cyborgs, rebuilt better with prosthetics or people who are just turning to arrays of sensors to understand themselves better, people who are already rewiring their brain chemically, from beer to flouxotine, from travel sickeness pills to 'study aides' people who are walking around now with metal hips, plastic kneecaps or a device designed to restart their heart? Others who have gone under the medical knife, and now carry someone else's heart, lungs or have been drastically reshaped?

How many of the above examples would attract much attention on the street?

We're living in a transhumanist world already.

Er... honestly no, because most of these things don't transcend the limits of the possible, they just shift them around. Insanely huge breast implants don't really let a woman do anything that was previously impossible, they just let her do it with a bigger backache. People with prosthetics and transplants are, by and large, just trying to recover normal functionality that everybody else has anyway.

Pills for suppressing jet lag or enabling concentration, likewise... that's the closest, but the performance enhancement thus obtained is pretty minimal.

When we talk about "transhumanism" the 'trans' means 'beyond,' as in 'fundamentally beyond what the human mind and body normally allow a human to do.'

[madd0ct0r]

like fundamentally beyond the breast size a normal human body can grow?
Like fundamentally beyond the colours or interactivity, or durability or range of senses or organs they were born with?

sounds pretty similar to transcending the limits to me, just in things they are interested in, not you

[Ahriman238]

What form of 'we' are you using? You sound like a futurist from 1980s USSR, 'The global people's council of applied science determined that creation of human genetic abberations is a poor use of research resources, not to mention an offense to the basic socialist principles of equality. Thus it has been proscribed and any rouge labs that enage in such work shall be destroyed by orbital bombardment, survivors sent to the Mercury Gulag Colony'.

Science fiction writers seem borderline obsessed with the idea that once we (humanity, or I suppose the technically inclined portion, which amounts to the same thing) develop the ability, nothing will stop us (again, the human race) from making a human with functional gills.

Unless you assume I was using the royal/editorial "we" and meant that all previous science fiction were the scribblings of mad prophets transcribing fragmented dreams foretelling the coming of superscientist Ahriman and the day I allow us to colonize the seabed. Right after developing viable FTL and antimatter power.

like fundamentally beyond the breast size a normal human body can grow?
Like fundamentally beyond the colours or interactivity, or durability or range of senses or organs they were born with?

sounds pretty similar to transcending the limits to me, just in things they are interested in, not you

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by interactivity and the range of senses? I'm aware of things like Cochlear implants, but I believe these just help you hear as well as anyone else.

[Broomstick]

Actually, no, cochlear implants do not allow people to hear as well as fully functional human ears, much less better. We do not, at present, have any prosthesis that replaces the natural range and abilities of a healthy, fully functional human body part. Someone like Oscar Pistorius, in addition to a great deal of training, needs a specialized prosthesis to run as fast as an unmodified human but that specialized prosthesis, while excellent for running, isn't particularly efficient for walking or pedaling a bicycle which is why outside the running track Pistorius wears a different pair of legs.

The closest we have to transhumanism is our gadget tech - nightvision goggles, Google Glass, telephones, radio, the internet... Those function as add-ons to the human body, not replacement of parts. I don't see an issue with this, utilizing removable augmentations rather than implanted/incorporated ones. If nothing else, it makes upgrading a lot easier than if you needed surgery to do it.

While a great deal of progress has been made, we're still a long way from replacement or augment parts better than what the natural human body provides.

[Ahriman238]

Speaking of implants, let's talk about two sets. First, the SPARTAN-II augmentation procedure from Halo. Now, I once spent an entertaining afternoon playing Halo 2 some years back, watched most of the cutscenes on youtube as I often do when I'm interested in a game's story (still have no idea what the hell was going on with Halo 4, but neither did I get Bioshock Infinite.) but I am definitely not an expert, nor have I even cracked the Halo EU. Most of my data on this process comes from a fan wiki. So If I'm missing anything obvious, chime up.

Halo Spartans are children abducted at a young age and raised in a grueling military training program. During early adolescence, those who haven't washed out submit themselves to five surgical procedures, each agonizing in spite of sedation, which kill or cripple 61% of recipients. I'm guessing at the order here, but it seems logical to begin by sticking an HGH-loaded implant in the thyroid to encourage skeletal and muscular growth, then the intramuscular injections of complex proteins that boost muscle density and reduce accumulation of fatigue poisons. A toss-up for the next procedure, either increasing bloodflow to the back of the eyes for increased vision or redoing the entire nervous system with an electronic version that works three times faster. I'd save for last the carbide ceramic reinforcing of bones. I see again and again that coverage is not to exceed 3%, but I'm unsure if that means only a very thin layer of reinforcement or very careful choosing of strategic points to reinforce.

End result, Spartans are about three times stronger than other people, a foot taller, can run at a reasonable driving speed (35 mph/55 kph) with incredibly quick reflexes. They're also the only ones capable of using power armor because (I guess?) no one else can be that precise in their movements and still move fast enough to be useful in a fight.



A more sophisticated approach. "biotechnic enhancement" is used in Mutineer's Moon, one procedure, well, in the Imperium's day they had one for small children and a complete set upon adulthood, though recovery and learning to deal with the augmentations takes months. Bones are reinforced with battle-steel then coated in a micron-thick sheath of super-dense artificial tissue, for which the surrounding muscles act as actuators, but which do the actual moving. Immunizations, tissue regenerators and blood filters, plus generally advanced medicine make the enhanced man's average life expectancy just shy six hundred years. The skin and muscles are reinforced just to prevent accidental tearing with the new strength. They clot and heal rapidly from injuries, Dahak estimates it would take eleven times as much damage to kill an enhanced person, though a couple large-caliber bullets at close range seem to do quite well for them. Also, this rapid clotting does not apply to bleeding inside the skull. They also get artificial nerves, and like the Spartans they're triple the speed of nature's version. In the head, they get a brain-computer interface for controlling all Imperial tech, a databank with personal codes, and a fold-space comm. Their senses are all expanded upon, their eyes can "track a single mote of dust on the far side of a tennis court" and see in a variety of light-spectrums, their noses can "separate and label chemicals as well as a good lab" and they have added senses for detecting gravity and electricity.

They also get a five-hour emergency airtank that is refilled in the course of normal breathing. Plus a personal force field we never see anyone use except to keep the rain off or dry themselves rapidly, even say, when having large-caliber bullets fired at them at close range.

Put it all together and you have a man who is eight times stronger, three times faster, far tougher, with better senses and longer-lived. Plus they have a comm that can be disabled but never taken from them. These implants never seem to need maintenance or get damaged except in cases of massive physical trauma, nor do they generate a lot of heat or waste-products. They do make a man thirty kilos (66 lbs.) heavier. Still, I feel like I'd be quite hapy with this for Humanity 2.0

[madd0ct0r]

@ahriman238 - back to the real world

A friend has been writing a little bit about the sensor mods.

https://biomimicron.wordpress.com/2013/ ... -than-man/



https://biomimicron.wordpress.com/2014/ ... -and-evil/

I actually ran the calcs for a magnet insert, but it wouldn't be strong enough to detect steel rebar through 20mm of cover which was why I wanted it. Being able to tell if a wire is live or not would be handy though.

[Wing Commander MAD]

End result, Spartans are about three times stronger than other people, a foot taller, can run at a reasonable driving speed (35 mph/55 kph) with incredibly quick reflexes. They're also the only ones capable of using power armor because (I guess?) no one else can be that precise in their movements and still move fast enough to be useful in a fight.

IIRC it was a combination of normal people lacking the fine control and the durability to use Spartan style power armor. I think it was from either the book Fall of Reach or maybe the Halo comic book from in between Halo 1 and Halo 2 (not to be confused with the comic series that came out later) but the regular troops tended to shatter bones and such due to the the armor amplifying the forces past what they could handle, even if they didn't intend to use that much force. For a fun illustration, imagine a marine going to pick his nose, only to end up with his fist through his skull. That is an issue that should be solvable with proper safety measures installed on the suit. Something I imagine, didn't happen due to cost issues. I seem to recall some comment about a Spartan + Armor (mind you this is pre-shielded varieties, as that was introduced right before Reach) having the same cost or at least ballpark cost as a cruiser. I believe there were other forms of power armor available, I think the Xbox strategy game had some, but this was much larger in comparison to the operator. Think the power-loader from Aliens. Then again, who knows how much they've changed or retconned as I haven't followed the Halo EU since before 2 or 3.

[Starglider]

I'm not expressing myself well - trying to get to consciousness-transferring through brain simulation seems a little like trying to get to replicators through photography. It sounds like there's a lot of smart people who think differently, but I don't know why. If there's a convenient article on this stuff I'd be happy to just go read it, it's a fascinating subject.

The engineering spec for brain uploading is make a cognitive system with very similar capabilities and reactions to a human brain. A specific human brain for the strong definition, but we'd expect an early effort to be a patchwork of scans and simulations that roughly approximates 'a human'. That is still uploading as distinct from de-novo evolved or designed + trained biomorphic neural nets. The engineering spec to satisfy the 'OMG it is really the same person' sense of the word is simply matching the original personality to within some below-human-perceptible tolerance. This is conceptually relatively straightforward to brute force; freeze/vitrify the brain, destructively scan it in layers by some combination of laser and mechanical sensing & stripping, pattern-recognise the neural structures, configure appropriate synapse, cell body and external metabolic simulations, run on zetascale (or maybe exascale with good approximations) computer. Of course the relevant technologies have a long way to go but good progress is being made.

'But I want to transfer my real true consciousness/soul' is essentially a marketing problem. Yes, engineering a sufficiently convincing philosophical placebo will be considerably harder than just brute forcing it, but there are plenty of options and I'm reasonably confident at least some of them will work well enough to convince a lot of people. Of course some people are just axiomatically unconvincable.

We'd need a near complete understanding of the brain for any of this to work though, and since we are still making fundamental discoveries on the location of all the processing centers in the brain, let alone how they work or how they interconnection that is a very long way off. Even when we can simulate a brain, that will still be far less computing power then is required to run it in real time.

The main stated goal of the current well funded brain simulation efforts is in fact to understand the brain better, not create artificial intelligence as such. It is possible (although much harder) to brute force simulate the brain in the same way that we brute force simulate CFD and other chaotic physical systems that we do not have a tractable analytic model for. Human brains are just hard to study and there are all kinds of tedious ethical issues with dissecting, probing and stimulating them , so a 'brute force' simulation based on high-res scans is very appealing even before (in fact particularly before) we understand how all the higher level information processing happens.

why no discussion of the transhumanists that are already here?

Because the capabilities either don't exceed human baseline or are only of use/interest to a small niche. In short, they don't make a big impact on society so aren't terribly interesting (yet) from a futurist or sci-fi perspective.

Wheras a current bay area singu-futurist

Christ, you guys are worse for buzzwords than the education policy wonks...

I am not a trendy bay area singu-futurist. Not only am I not in the bay area (aka one true tech/futurist Mecca according to all who dwell there), I am not on any of the hip forums, trendy conferences or cool blogs. I do talk to them enough to be able to playfully emulate the style though

However, it is necessary- you will never duplicate an object at the atomic level unless you have some kind of tool for seeing the object at that level.

Necessary for what? Why are we trying to duplicate things 'down to every individual atom' in the first place? Of course the 'atomic level' is important in that we need to be able to map and reproduce the functional properties of various molecular processes and nanoscale structures, but we are pretty certain the relevant functional properties of say a dendrite tree can be described many orders of magnitude more concisely than its arrangement of atoms.