Jump to content
The Corroboree
bogfrog

the 2045 Initiative - "the path to neohumanism" - your thoughts?

Recommended Posts

http://2045.com/

http://youtu.be/01hbkh4hXEk

Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.

The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.

The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.

A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.

The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.

An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.

Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society

2015-2020

The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.

2020-2025

Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.

2030-2035

Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.

2045

This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.

Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.

post-8023-0-29995200-1407115137_thumb.jp

International Manifesto of the "2045" Strategic Social Initiative

22.02.2011

Mankind has turned into a consumer society standing at the edge of a total loss of the conceptual guidelines necessary for further evolution. The majority of people are almost exclusively absorbed in merely maintaining their own comfortable lives.

Modern civilization, with its space stations, nuclear submarines, iPhones and Segways cannot save mankind from the limitations in the physical abilities of our bodies, nor from diseases and death.

We are not satisfied with modern achievements of scientific and technical progress. Science working for the satisfaction of consumer needs will not be able to ensure a technological breakthrough towards a radically different way of life.

We believe that the world needs a different ideological paradigm. Within its framework it is necessary to form a major objective capable of pointing out a new direction for the development of all mankind and ensuring the achievement of a scientific and technical revolution.

The new ideology should assert, as one of its priorities, the necessity of using breakthrough technology for an improvement of man himself and not only of his environment.

We believe that it is possible and necessary to eliminate aging and even death, and to overcome the fundamental limits of the physical and mental capabilities currently set by the restrictions of the physical body.

Scientists from various countries in the world are already developing technology that ensures the creation of an artificial human body prototype within the next decade. We believe the biggest technological project of our times will become the creation of such artificial human body and a subsequent transfer of individual human consciousness to such a body.

Implementation of this technological project will inevitably result in an explosive development of innovations and global changes in our civilization and will improve human life.

We believe that before 2045 an artificial body will be created that will not only surpass the existing body in terms of functionality, but will achieve perfection of form and be no less attractive than the human body. People will make independent decisions about the extension of their lives and the possibilities for personal development in a new body after the resources of the biological body have been exhausted.

The new human being will receive a huge range of abilities and will be capable of withstanding extreme external conditions easily: high temperatures, pressure, radiation, lack of oxygen, etc. Using a neural-interface humans will be able to operate several bodies of various forms and sizes remotely.

We suggest the implementation of not just a mechanistic project to create an artificial body, but a whole system of views, values and technology which will render assistance to humankind in intellectual, moral, physical, mental and spiritual development.

We invite all interested specialists: scientists, politicians, mass media personalities, philosophers, futurologists and businessmen to join the "2045" strategic social initiative. We welcome all who share our vision of the future and are ready to make the next jump.

The main objectives of our movement are:

1. To achieve the support of the International community and create conditions for international co-operation of interested specialists around the "2045" Initiative.

2. To create an international research center for cybernetic immortality to advance practical implementations of the main technical project – the creation of the artificial body and the preparation for subsequent transfer of individual human consciousness to such a body.

3. To engage experts in the selection and support of the most interesting projects in the quest to ensure technological breakthroughs.

4. To support innovative industries and create special scientific education programs for schools and institutes of higher education.

5. To create educational programs for television, radio and internet, to hold forums, conferences, congresses and exhibitions, and to establish awards and produce books, movies and computer games with the view of raising the profile of the initiative and spreading its ideas.

6. To form a culture connected with the ideology of the future, promoting technical progress, artificial intellect, “multi-body”, immortality, and cyborgization

milestones_small_en.jpg

milestones_small_en.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm interested to hear some perspectives on this.

It seems outlandish at first take, but if you read into some of the articles, science appears to be rapidly catching up to science fiction.

Do you see it as feasible that within our lifetimes that large portions of society will be forsaking their human form and taking up residence inside avatars, or eventually bypassing the use of any physical vessel and existing solely inside a global supercomputer mind?

Personally I find it quite disturbing.. I'm not very surprised by the concept in itself, it seems inevitable that at some stage humanity will want to merge ourselves with technology, and a huge number of people are already joined at the hip to their electronic devices..basically living through them already, so uploading consciousness directly into a technological medium seems a logical next step. What I see most concerning is where the balance of power lies with this.

Suppose that at some point in the future, this becomes possible, if you uploaded your consciousness into a holographic world, how much control do you then have over your existence? You are not able to oversee the process of your uploading yourself, how will you ensure you are uploaded as you really are, not tweaked and edited and programmed to fulfil the agendas of those who uploaded you?

And if you are uploaded, and you leave behind your physical brain for a new, synthetic brain, are you still you? I would think that you are then just a clone of how you were at the moment you were uploaded, and to me one of the defining points of our individual existence is that we are always continuing to change. Will your consciousness develop in the same way inside an artificial brain as it would in your previous biological brain?

When inside these programmes, will you ever actually have any freedom, or choice? If you give ultimate control over your entire perceptual reality to a global organisation, what rights do you actually have left? They make your reality, they transfer your consciousness into a receptacle of their design, and they have the power to determine all of your experiences there-on-in. If you give up your body and assimilate into a virtual world, what is left that can be ultimately defined as really you? Or really your own?

What would become of the planet if we forsake physical reality in exchange for virtual reality?

They are talking about it in terms of a global solution, yet realistically if it ever happens the power is likely to be centralised, with a very few number of people making decisions, and the rest as consumers.

It leads me to wonder...

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Does the concept of humanity rely on residing in a human form, or is it something more than/less than that? :huh:

Personally I feel very uneasy about interfacing with any electronic medium in an organic/consciousness-related way as the potential for 'hijacking' of consciousness and the organic form is way to high imo. :unsure:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think that you would so fundamentally change from being human to being cyborg..."in the transition" ....so what would be the point?

life is simple...you awaken from dream state...you go about your day doing that which you desire...you sleep & dream......The "life time" is an assemblage.. of chapters...driven by desires...and restrictions associated with age.......Whereas to be a code in a machine...potentially free of restriction....What would drive "desire".....free of hormones...no lust...no need to conquer or control.....no body ..no need to sleep....or dream perhaps....what's the point of existing ...sooner or later the novality would ware off ...the pointlessness of existence would be all pervading...the program could be adjusted...to provide a peaceful..blissful existence ..perhaps...but for what...to bare witness to endless time..................its our limitations that make us human......they get us up in the morning.....

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Consciousness is unique to the individual as I perceive it. Even when in a group consciousness, you still retain your own. I wonder about the scenario of your own consciousness being uploaded and then duplicated. It just wouldn't be the same. It would be hell. Imagine never being able to sleep, go for a walk in the bush, drink a cool glass of water, hold your beloved hand...

This concept is akin to pondering infinity. There is always something else outside of the universe, whatever it is, it is always there with no boundaries.

I'm so glad that I've made the decision to opt out as soon as I can. Give me some land and my woman. the rest of the world can go its own insane way...

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i find it a bit childish or at least the way it was written, as though in this era you can plot a course more than a few years ahead. planning is one thing but it seems more like a story outline when nobody knows which of these technologies will be feasible, which unexpected technologies will arise, socio-economics of it all and whether the supervolcano blows tomorrow.

high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies? are we talking about legal weed all of a sudden? is that how we take what we're doing now and embiggen it with a mighty prefix?

impressions aside, i think it might be possible to encode consciousness into a machine. maybe that's all consciousness is and we just need to translate it into silicone. however i think when a computer can be modeled after a human consciousness, it would be more functional as a purpose built unit which simply copies some or many aspects of the human mind. imagine a super godzilla computer with the most advanced OS roughly on par with an intelligent human, and then as you'd expect with any intelligent human sooner or later, imagine it shares one of it's dumb-as-dogshit opinions which it insists is valid. disappointing huh? the pinnacle of our technology, we've created one of the people bill hicks was talking about! nah, if a computer and it's OS can mimic a human mind then they've already exceeded the human mind, you just need to take out the dumb bits.

you've gotta wonder about the motivation to live forever?

it seems far more likely, and more desirable, that by 2045 we've cured virtually all disease including ageing. we can still drive a robotic bruce willis around from our bedroom, but i suspect that regular activity would still be crucial for health.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Dna/rna. Were already imortal. Unless some huge cosmic meteorite dildo comes along a fucks us to death.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Electronicly controlled lsd would be intresting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×