Fred Alan Wolf

Visionary Fiction and Transhumanism, Part 2
|

Visionary Fiction and Transhumanism, Part 2

We ended Part 1 stuck between the opposites of Matter, represented by the infernal machines, and Spirit, as epitomized by abstract ideals. Transhumanism, by definition, seems positioned in the former category, the Dalai Lama’s “half machine,” and our visionary viewpoint in the latter, what His Holiness calls “a stream of consciousness.” That these two elements, one inanimate and the other animate, might join in some unnatural marriage to rival or supplant the current human model was seen, to put it kindly, as far out.

Visionary Fiction and Transhumanism, Part 1
|

Visionary Fiction and Transhumanism, Part 1

I can’t totally rule out the possibility that, if all the external conditions and the karmic action were there, a stream of consciousness might actually enter a computer. –His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
This startling statement made by the renowned leader of Tibetan Buddhism knocked me off kilter on first reading it. It had a similar effect on the renowned physicist who reported it.