Micah Redding - Transhumanism

A Better Apocalypse

micah — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:57:10 +0000

A few days ago, I delivered a talk entitled “A Better Apocalypse: Ancient Eschatology for a Transhuman World”. I gave this talk at the 2013 conference of the Morman Transhumanist Association, a group which I have been incredibly fortunate to become friends with over the past two years.

I would love to discuss this topic more broadly. To invite that conversation, I am posting the link to the video, the audio for download (can be loaded on mp3 player or phone), and an edited transcript of the talk.

Thanks for continuing to be part of important conversations.

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mp3 audio
youtube video

On May 21, 2011, I was sitting in a steel-roofed building as a powerful storm pounded down outside.

This is the day that Harold Camping had said the world would end.

After decades of bible study, he had become so convinced of this that he gathered thousands of followers, many of whom sacrificed possessions, jobs, and (in some cases) homes, to spread the message via billboards and radio across the country that this was humanity’s last chance — this was history’s last call.

And as we sat there with the building shaking beneath the storm, some of us joked, and maybe some of us were a bit nervous, about whether there might be something to it after all.

But of course, the world didn’t end. And the next day came, and Harold Camping went back to his studies, and his followers went back to their homes and their jobs and their bills, and to trying to make sense of living in a world that stubbornly refused to quit.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. The history of the West is in some ways the history of Christianity, and the history of Christianity, according to Albert Schweitzer, is the history of the delay of the Parousia, the continual disappointment of apocalyptic hopes, the failure of apocalyptic expectations.

Over and over, charismatic prophets and preachers have led their people into the wilderness to await the end. And over and over, they have been disappointed and disillusioned.

But what’s remarkable about all of these prophesied apocalypses is how profoundly non-historical they are.

What I mean is that they do not arise from social, or economic, political, or ecological issues. They do not arise from human choice or action. They draw a firm line, and declare that here history ends, and something else begins, that here everything you’ve known and worked for gets discarded, and here, something else takes its place. The line is so firm that nothing carries over, nothing is preserved.

It’s no surprise then, if those who have been influenced by this outlook, even when they didn’t leave their homes or jobs behind, have often found themselves losing interest in art, in science, in technology, in the ongoing struggle of the human race.

After all, if God doesn’t care about these things, why should we?

I’m convinced that this is a contributing factor to the growth of secularism in our world. If the most intensely religious people find themselves no longer interested in the life of the human race, then it will be the secular who will inherit the earth.

But there is another form of apocalyptic outlook, one that draws from a much deeper source than that practiced by Harold Camping and those like him; one that grew organically from the worldview of the ancient Jews.

The Jews believed that their God was intimately involved in the created order, and as such, his attributes — things like truth, justice, and freedom — became the primary factors in human history. They were always rising, always advancing, always moving forward, like an incoming tide rising up on the shoreline of the world.

But they believed this could be resisted. Like a tide or a flood, you could build barricades and barriers and walls to hold the water back. Empires could arise, Emperors could come to power, to kill and enslave thousands and tens of thousands, to the point where their power seemed not only inevitable but unstoppable.

But the Jewish outlook said that this could not last forever. A time would come when the rising force and weight of justice would finally overwhelm the emperors and empires, sweeping over them and bringing them down with a mighty crash.

This was the apocalyptic moment, the turning point in history, and the more intensely the power structures had resisted the force of justice, the more cataclysmic would be their ultimate undoing.

They saw this happening in their primal narrative, the Exodus. The Jews had been slaves in Egypt, crying out for relief from their oppression, and Pharoah had set his entire might and power against them, to ensure that their cries for freedom and independence were not achieved.

And for a while, the Jewish cause seemed hopeless, and futile, and foolish. But as the Exodus story tells it, even the power of the almighty Pharoah ultimately fell beneath the rising tide of freedom.

This story became projected out on the world, the lens through which they saw the Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire, and every other violent and brutal regime in history. The prophets would rise up, and use what the scholars call apocalyptic language — just as we use poetic language in our songs to highlight the dramatic significance of small romantic events, they used poetic language to highlight the incredible human significance of these moments in history. And so they spoke of the stars falling from the heavens, the sun refusing to give its light, the moon going dark, the rivers running red — calling back to the Exodus story, to the plagues on Egypt — to let their hearers know that although these empires seemed unstoppable, that ultimately this was just another Pharoah, just another Egypt, that would not have the final world.

And so the Jews didn’t see one apocalypse at the end of history, but many scattered throughout it — everywhere that good and evil met in conflict, and good, sometimes through prolonged and painful struggle, succeeded, this was a moment when the truth broke through, when the nature of reality was revealed, freedom flowed forth, and the arc of the universe could be seen.

And far from drawing them out of the world, this apocalyptic viewpoint drew them more deeply into it. If truth and justice and freedom were always rising, then one could have the courage to take a stand even when it seemed hopeless, (and tell the truth, even in a world of darknesss), knowing that your efforts were never wasted, that your struggle was not in vain.

But they also saw the profound significance of human action. Because history was not predestined, but was incredibly contingent — every crisis needed a small group of people to become a channel, a small hole in the wall, through which freedom and justice could begin to pour.

And so, drawing from this powerful outlook on the world, the Jewish people stood for a level of human dignity and significance unprecedented in ancient times.

But this isn’t just something that happened in ancient history. It’s something that has had an impact much closer to home, in recent American history, in the person of Dr Martin Luther King jr.

Martin Luther King grew up in an environment saturated with the language and viewpoint of the Jewish prophets. And so, when he began to envision and call into being a better future, he drew upon their words and their outlook to highlight the incredible significance of that moment in history, the importance of individuals choosing to stand on the side of freedom, and the profound consequences of ignoring the voices of the oppressed:

“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice”

And far from drawing people out of the world with his prophecies of a better day, his words drew people more deeply into engagement with their world and their moment in history.

As spiritually oriented transhumanists, I think one of the most significant things we have to offer, is a better way of looking at the future. And we have choices — choices in how we talk about it, choices in how we portray it.

One of those choices is an apocalyptic outlook that, throughout history, has led to disappointment and disillusionment and despair.

Another of those choices is an apocalyptic outlook that draws from the deepest parts of our religious heritage, and which for thousands of years, has inspired people to some of the most profound acts of honesty, courage, and love, the world has ever known.

The argument for basic theism

micah — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 07:00:33 +0000

Some Simulation Argument flowcharts

micah — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:50:53 +0000

The simulation argument conversation.

Finite or Infinite?

Broadcast From The Singularity

micah — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:33:44 +0000

Since our second official episode just went up, I thought it would be good to point out that I'm doing a podcast. This podcast is about the future, the Singularity, and what it's like to experience life on the curve.

So far, we've had some great conversations. Our first episode was about art and technology and the future of the two, and our latest episode is about whether we are pessimistic or optimistic about what the future holds.

Please check it out, subscribe in iTunes, and spread it around to anyone you think might be interested. Also, send your ideas and questions, or let us know if you'd like to be a guest!

Broadcast From The Singularity - Episode 2: Which side are you on?

Christianity is Transhumanism

micah — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:34:42 +0000

Wesley J. Smith has written a short piece entitled Christian Transhumanism is an Oxymoron.

For those of you who are interested in either Christianity or transhumanism, I want to make this very clear:

Christianity is transhumanism.

It’s not just that they are compatible. Christianity is a distinctly transhumanist viewpoint that sprung up in the first century, and set out to reshape both the world and human nature.

In order to see that this is so, let me pull the most universally significant phrases from Wikipedia’s definition of transhumanism:

Transhumanism…affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition…to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities

This is the philosophical core of transhumanism, and the fundamental core of the biblical story - a narrative which from back to front is an expression of the idea of human identity as perpetually fluid and self-transcendent.

The Biblical Story of Humanity

The very first chapter of the Hebrew bible sets out to define human identity. In an explicit rejection of the Babylonian creation myths, which portrayed human beings as slaves of the divine, the Jewish creation story portrays human beings as created to participate in the acts of God. Right at the beginning, humans are given the task of cultivating the earth, naming and categorizing the cosmos, and beginning the process of technological innovation. ¹

Through the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Jesus, we see the continual embrace of bold new ways of being human and of living in the world. The story focuses on the power of individuals to change history, the power of intellect and imagination to transcend circumstance, and the importance of foresight in overcoming limits to human growth. This is what the bible means by faith.

When we arrive at the New Testament, we see Jesus fully living out his human identity as a participation in the acts and creativity of God. And in a way no other human had before, Jesus confronts the looming threats to human growth and progress, and succeeds in opening a path to the future.

The apostle Paul is quite explicit that Jesus was spawning a “new humanity”. This humanity was no longer going to be limited or defined by the things that bound it before - geography, politics, race, gender, or the circumstances of one's birth. This humanity was going to be limitless, drawn into the infinite upward spiral towards God.

The Fuel of Our Transformation

This brings us to the crux of Wesley Smith’s argument. In Christianity, our transformation is fueled by God. In transhumanism, we desire to transform ourselves.

But to put these in contrast is to misunderstand them both.

Grace is not the thing that removes our ability to act, certainly not the thing that forbids action. Grace is the thing which enables us, which empowers us to do what is needed.

We all live by grace. You and I are only here by virtue of the free gifts bestowed on us by generations of ancestors. Our very survival depends on the infrastructure built by successive civilizations, each one building on the one before.

But this grace wasn't given us so that we would stagnate, refusing to act. Neither was this grace given us so that we would be limited by what had been done. On the contrary - this grace was given us so that we would act, and in acting, contribute something to others, a further grace for the broadening of possibility and the future.

Christianity is not just compatible with the desire to reach beyond ourselves, it is the call to reach beyond ourselves, in recognition of and empowered by the grace bestowed upon us.

The Works of God

In Christianity, we are called to do the works of the one who sent us - the works of healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and bringing life to the dead. In doing so, we join in the work of God, and embrace the true meaning of humanity.

Some might argue that since Jesus healed the sick through supernatural power, modern medical technology has nothing to do with Christianity. But the opposite is true - Jesus healed as a sign of the direction of God’s work. In his signs, Jesus tied the material and the spiritual together, and called us to utilize our skills and our technology towards compassion.

In fact, all of humanity's technological efforts arise hand in hand with our spirituality. The scientific process itself is a spiritual endeavor of cooperation, honesty, and tolerance, and it is not something that humanity has always been able to sustain.

So our desire to advance science and technology is as much a spiritual exercise as it is a material one.

This is exactly what we see in Jesus - a very practical concern for people's material well-being, coupled with the realization that ultimate progress can only be sustained through spiritual development.

The Purpose of Suffering

Wesley Smith suggests that Christianity sees redemptive value in suffering, while transhumanism tries to avoid suffering altogether.

But Christianity never seeks out suffering for its own sake. The suffering in Christianity is always the struggle to rescue others and to overcome adversity. It is the heroic effort of enduring on behalf of the world.

It is the same in transhumanism - we struggle and suffer now so that we may eliminate sufferings from the world. We fight to eradicate disease, to achieve freedoms, to turn back the clock of aging.

In Christianity and transhumanism, we neither embrace suffering nor flee from it. Instead, we see it as the necessary evil we must pass through in order to achieve a better world.

The End of Ends

A popular Christian eschatology suggests that the entire cosmos will shortly be terminated, putting an end to our meaningless efforts, and our futile obsessions with material reality. This would suggest that Christianity and transhumanism are diametrically opposed - transhumanism trying to hold on to a world which Christianity is trying to get rid of.

But this idea has almost nothing to do with orthodox Christianity or the biblical story. The biblical story is about the transformation of the world, not the abandonment of it; the redemption of our strivings, not their futility.

This is the meaning of Jesus himself.

In Jesus we see the unification of the human and the divine, the embrace of both our physicality and our limitlessness. Jesus shows us that our world is not to be abandoned, but transformed; that life is not futile, but full of hope. In his bodily existence, he affirms our science, our technology, our medicine, our present reality and our future potential.

And so every end in Christianity is the end of boundaries, the end of constraints, the end of limitations. Every end is a possibility, drawing us past the hopelessness of short-term thinking, past the mentality of current limits, and toward the eternal rise of life, compassion, and progress.

This is Christianity, and this is transhumanism.

Even the famed Garden of Eden story is not about a pristine environment, intended to be the eternal home of mankind, but about the establishment of the minimum viable set of conditions for the launching of humanity's own task of cultivating and tending the world. ↩

Miracles and the Anthropic Principle

micah — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 06:06:42 +0000

The universe appears to have been fine-tuned for life.

It's astonishing, really. The physical constants (like the strength of gravity or the number of spatial dimensions) seem to have really improbable values, and those values just happen to be precisely the ones which allow creatures like us to exist.

The Anthropic Principle states that this is to be expected - after all, if the universe weren't fine-tuned for life, then we wouldn't be here to observe it.

Of course, that's not an explanation, just a statement. It doesn't tell us how the universe came to be fine-tuned, just that we should expect it to be. Since we are here observing the past, we should expect to see the past "conspiring" to bring us to this point.

So let's take this idea a little farther. If the human race is fragile (as it seems to be), then we should expect to see many close calls in our history. But for all of those close calls, we should also expect to see improbably heroic escapes. After all, if we didn't heroically escape, we wouldn't be here. ¹

This idea has some consequences.

For one, we should expect to see greater numbers of these improbable events clustered around turning points in history. The more significant (dangerous) the turning point is, the more we should expect to see improbable events cluster around it.

In fact, we might even be able to use improbable events as a way of pinpointing otherwise unnoticed "close calls" for humanity. Similarly, we could use extremely unlikely physical constants to identify previously unknown requirements for life.

Further, as human life becomes more robust and resistant to danger, we should expect to see the occurrence of these improbable events drop dramatically. Not only would improbable events decrease over time, but looking back, we should see a "heroic age" in which many improbable things happened.

Let's make this concrete.

Let's suppose that Moses crossed the Red Sea just like Exodus describes. According to the text, Moses and the Israelites were fleeing from the Egyptians, and then found themselves trapped between the armies of Egypt and the sea. There was no way out.

That's when a strong wind began to blow. It blew all night, beating back the water, opening up a pathway for them to cross on dry ground. They crossed the sea, escaped the Egyptians, and survived.

Many people have proposed theories about how this could have happened naturally, and in fact, there is nothing in this account that violates the laws of physics. But for it to have happened at precisely that crucial moment in Israelite history is staggeringly improbable.

Unless it had to. If the survival of the Israelite people was crucial to human survival and existence today, then no matter how improbable that event was, it is exactly the kind of thing we should expect to see.

Later on, when the Israelite people became more established, we would expect to see fewer such events. And at whatever point their national existence stopped being crucial to human survival, those events would stop.

Please note that I'm not saying this is the case. I don't have any way to establish this kind of connection between human survival and ancient Israel. And I'm not a textual expert - I can't speak to whether this account records a historic event or not.

But if we were pretty certain that something like this happened, then it would be good evidence that this moment in history was crucial to the survival of humanity as a whole. And conversely, if we were pretty sure that the Israelites were instrumental in the survival of humanity as a whole, then we would have good reason to suspect that these sorts of accounts were more than mythology.

We can apply this to any culture or miraculous claim. Just as with the Anthropic Principle, we have no answer as to how these things might happen. All we have is a suggestion of where to look, and of how to interpret what we find. ²

Of course, an alternative is that we never experience close calls at all. I'm not sure how to measure the probability of never experiencing a close call, so I'll leave that thought experiment up to you. ↩
In the end, miracle stories could hold a truly practical value. By highlighting close calls in our history, they could alert us to dangers we might otherwise never have noticed, and looming threats that we may still have to face. ↩

Why I am speaking at the Mormon Transhumanist Conference

micah — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:40:40 +0000

Late last year, I explained why I (a non-Mormon) had joined the Mormon Transhumanist Association. I felt like religious people hadn't been interfacing with the future to any appreciable degree, and that those who were spiritual and religious needed to speak out on the issues that rapid change and technological acceleration are causing.

This weekend, I'll be speaking at the Mormon Transhumanist Association Conference, trying to take up my own commission, talking about what it means to be human in the Jewish and Christian narrative, and what that entails for ourselves and our future.

Identity, after all, is where it always starts. Identity was the battleground between ancient Judaism and the blood-gods, and between Christianity and imperial paganism. And identity will increasingly mark the battle-lines around which our culture will fracture.

It's more important than ever that we have these discussions. If you can be involved in something in your area, do it. If you can get to Salt Lake City, join me. If you can join or start a local discussion, please do so.

The Most Powerful Being and the Simulation Argument

micah — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 06:03:15 +0000

As a disclaimer, this is a thought experiment, not an attempt at a scientific argument.

Okay, so continuing my thoughts on the Simulation Argument, I'd like to throw in some possible additions to it.

The More Powerful Being Argument

If more powerful beings create more simulations
And less powerful beings create fewer simulations
Then we are probably in a simulation created by a more powerful being.

The hole in this argument is that it is possible for a "long-tail" to be in effect, where the mass of less powerful beings create more simulations in total than the total number of simulations created by the more powerful beings. Someone better equipped mathematically will have to help me out here.

But I think that this argument would still hold under either of the following conditions:

A. If the power distribution follows an exponential curve, where the last being in the sequence would be more powerful than all the other beings combined.

B. If the power distribution follows the Pareto principle, and 20% of the beings hold 80% of the power.

If an entity's ability to create simulations advances with technological progress, and if Moore's Law continues to hold, then we'd have condition A. If resources are allocated according to prevailing standards, and that continues to hold indefinitely, then we'd have condition B.

We can take this further.

The End of Time Argument

If the number of simulations increases exponentially over time
Then we are probably in a simulation created very near the end of time.

The Most Powerful Being Argument

If the most powerful being creates more simulations than every other being combined
Then we are probably in a simulation created by the most powerful being.

These both, of course, are operating on the basis of condition A.

And finally,

The Infinite Being Argument

If there exists a being (or beings) who creates an infinite number of simulations
Then we are probably in a simulation created by an infinite being.

Could such a being exist? I have no idea. I have no idea how we would establish that, other than looking at the broad scope of the multiverse, and suggesting that it might be possible.

But these arguments as a whole seem suggestive to me, indicating that if we are in a simulation, it is probably one created by an extremely powerful being near the end of time. And that would explain why we don't keep getting "Out Of Memory" errors.

The Simulation Argument, remixed

micah — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:22:23 +0000

The other day I published my Introduction to the Simulation Argument, to some interesting reactions. Although it's a very simple argument, the mental contortions one has to jump through make it difficult for many people to grasp. So let me recap and generalize a little.

If there are intelligent beings
And if they create simulations
Then simulated worlds will outnumber non-simulated worlds.

Fairly simple so far, right? Okay, let's make it personal:

If simulated worlds outnumber non-simulated worlds
And if we can't tell the difference
Then we should assume we're in a simulation

That's the tough step for most people, and leaves you working back through the chain of arguments to see where things went wrong.

For most people, the part where it goes wrong is the idea that we can't tell the difference between a simulated world, and a non-simulated world. But that's our usage of the word "simulation" here. We're assuming that with the right technology and skill, someone could create a simulation so real, the participants wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

You may question whether that would even be possible. In that case, we're back to step 2, "...And if they create simulations".

This step hinges on intelligent entities being able and willing to create the simulations. If they die out before they figure out how to do so, then they're not able. If they have the capability, but somehow choose to never create any simulations, then they're not willing.

But keep in mind what we're saying. Just two simulated worlds would make the Simulation Argument valid. Just two simulations in all of history.

If you're saying that these simulations will never happen, you're saying that for the next trillion years, no intelligent being will ever create a realistic simulated world.

Given how realistic our simulations are getting these days, it seems to me that if no one ever creates a fully realistic simulation, it's because something pretty drastic happens. So...are you feeling lucky?

An Introduction to the Simulation Argument

micah — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:39:09 +0000

In 2003, Nick Bostrom published his Simulation Argument, and shook the landscape of philosophy.

The basic idea is easy to describe.

For the past few decades, we've been building simulations of the world around us. We created Simcity, and then the Sims, and then one after another, a barrage of increasingly realistic video games.

We can only imagine this trend will continue. Our games and simulated worlds will become more and more complex, more and more concrete, more and more capable of deceiving us into believing they are reality. Until one day, they do.

Sometime in the future, we will manage to create a simulation that will convince us, in every way, that it is real. It may not happen until 2050, or 2150, or til the year 3000. But it is almost certain that we will eventually do so, and that once we've done it, we will do it over and over and over again.

One of the things that we will simulate is our own past. After all, we currently play Oregon Trail, and make slideshows out of our old photo albums. Why wouldn't we try to experience them as in-depth as possible? Why stop with photos and video? Why not re-live the past as it really was?

In the next million years or so, we will have created trillions upon trillions of such simulations, including an unimaginable number that simulate this moment right now.

But if the number of people experiencing this moment as a simulation is in the millions or trillions, and the number of people experiencing this moment as reality is just one, then we have to ask ourselves whether or not we are, in fact, in the simulation right now.

In fact, it's obvious that if we accept the above sequence of events, then the probability that we are in a simulation is overwhelming.

We can and should generalize this argument. The basic premise that in all realities (whether past, future, in other galaxies or in other universes) where sufficiently capable intelligent beings exist, they will create an almost infinite number of simulated worlds.

In any reality which allows simulated worlds to exist, the simulated worlds will outnumber the real worlds, trillions to one.

Thus, the vast majority of beings will exist in simulated worlds.

And every intelligent being should make the assumption that their world is a simulation.

There are two basic objections to this idea, which leads to what I describe as the trilemma: Suicide, Censorship, or Simulation.

The first one (suicide), argues that these virtual worlds never come into existence because every intelligent civilization ultimately destroys itself before becoming capable of such simulations.

If this is true, then we should expect that humanity will die out in the very near future, probably before the end of the century.

The second one (censorship), argues that all intelligent beings will see these simulated worlds as being unethical, and will permanently ban all such technology.

Note that for this to impact the argument, it's not sufficient that one country or species ban the practice. It actually requires that every country, every race, every species in every world, ban the practice for all eternity.

This brings us to the third scenario. If intelligent species don't all die out, and if they don't all ban the practice, then we're left with the inevitable conclusion:

Virtual worlds outnumber real worlds, and we're living in somebody's simulation.

What are we to make of this?

I have more to say on the subject, but I think the basic idea holds firm. This isn't the traditional "maybe the world is a dream" musing, which starts with doubt about what we know and experience. This argument starts with the assumption that the world as we know it makes sense, and ends up concluding that if so, then the world as we know it isn't real.

But this brings us to a question about what reality really means. And that's what I want to talk about next.