Recent technological advances have opened new possibilities for the development of assistive and medical tools, including prosthetic limbs. While these limbs used to be hard objects with the same shape as limbs, prosthetics are now softer and look more realistic, with some also integrating robotic components that considerably broaden their functions.
Despite these developments, most commercially available robotic limbs cannot be easily and intuitively controlled by users. This significantly limits their effectiveness and the extent to which they can improve people’s quality of life.
Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Imperial College London recently developed a new soft prosthetic hand that could be easier for users to control. This system, presented in a Science Roboticspaper, leverages a new control approach that integrates the coordination patterns of multiple fingers (i.e., postural synergies) with the decoding of the activity of motoneurons in people’s spinal column.
Two new papers document progress in neuroprosthetic technology that lets people feel the shape and movement of objects moving over the “skin” of a bionic hand.
Exploring posthumanism and transhumanism: the future of human evolution.
Discover the fascinating realms of posthumanism and transhumanism! 🧠✨ How will future technologies redefine humanity? Join us as we explore the ethical implications, potential benefits, and groundbreaking advancements that could lead to a world where humans transcend their biological limitations. Will we embrace a future where mind and machine merge? Find out in this enlightening journey into the future of human evolution! 🌟
Theurgy was a system of magical practices in the late Roman Empire. It was applied Neoplatonism. The theurgists aimed to enable human bodies to assume divine attributes, that is, to become deities. I aim to show that much of the structure of theurgical Neoplatonism appears in transhumanism. Theurgists and transhumanists share a core Platonic-Pythagorean metaphysics. They share goals and methods. The theurgists practiced astrology, the reading of entrails, the consultation of oracles, channeling deities, magic, and the animation of statues. The transhumanist counterparts of those practices are genetics, self-tracking with biosensors, artificial intellects like Google and Siri, brain-computer interfaces, programming, and robotics. Transhumanist techno-theurgy shows how Neoplatonism can be a modern philosophical way of life.
00:01:27 What is Russian cosmism? 00:12:51 The religious side of cosmism. 00:17:13 Cosmism as a response to the challenges of the 20th century. 00:25:20 Nature as a temporary enemy and eternal friend. 00:40:21 Pavel Florensky, the Russian da Vinci. 00:46:08 Plant life as a spiritual ideal. 00:51:17 The father of the Soviet space program, and his weird spirituality. 01:03:59 Cosmism and transhumanism: Compare and contrast. 01:09:01 Cosmism as a Russian propaganda project.
Fitzgerald says cyborg search and rescue beetles or cockroaches might be able to help in disaster situations by finding and reporting the location of survivors and delivering lifesaving drugs to them before human rescuers can get there.
But first, the Australian researchers must master the ability to direct the movements of the insects, which could take a while. Fitzgerald says that although the work might seem futuristic now, in a few decades, cyborg insects could be saving lives.
He’s not the only roboticist creating robots from living organisms. Academics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), for example, are implanting electronic pacemakers into jellyfish to control their swimming speed. They hope the bionic jellies could help collect data about the ocean far below the surface.
Step Into the Future with The Cybernetic Singularity: The Syntellect Emergence 🎧 The groundbreaking third volume of The Cybernetic Theory of Mind series by Alex M Vikoulov is now available as an audiobook!
Ecstadelic Media Group releases a new non-fiction audiobook The Cybernetic Singularity: The Syntellect Emergence, in addition to a previously published Kindle eBook, part of The Cybernetic Theory of Mind series. Written by Alex M. Vikoulov; Narrated by Virtual Voice; Foreword by Antonin Tuynman, PhD; Format: Audible audiobook (Press Release, Burlingame, CA, USA, November 16, 2024 09.23 AM PST)
The Cybernetic Singularity: The Syntellect Emergence is a visionary exploration of humanity’s impending transition into a post-biological state of existence, where artificial intelligence, advanced cybernetics, and collective intelligence converge to form a unified Global Mind. As the third installment in The Cybernetic Theory of Mind series, this book delves into the transformative potential of AI and the emergence of hyperconnected “infomorphs” — substrate-independent minds transcending biological limitations. It examines the profound philosophical, technological, and existential implications of this evolutionary leap, which may redefine what it means to be human. The book also introduces key concepts like Cybernetic Immortality and Experiential Realism, suggesting how we might engineer a future of infinite creativity and bliss.
With the Syntellect Hypothesis as its foundation, The Cybernetic Singularity presents a roadmap to the ultimate phase transition of civilization — the awakening of a universal consciousness network capable of synthesizing knowledge, experience, and purpose at unimaginable scales. From the rise of transhumanism to the development of a planetary superorganism, the narrative connects cutting-edge scientific insights with metaphysical musings on the nature of reality. Opening with Norbert Wiener’s quote, “The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence,” the book invites readers to contemplate their role in this grand cosmic drama. Whether you are a technophile, philosopher, or futurist, this volume is an essential guide to understanding and embracing the dawn of the Syntellect Emergence.
My output on my personal blog has been low lately. That’s largely because I’m pushing hard to finish a complete draft of my book on biostasis. If I can keep up the pace, I expect to finish a draft around the end of the year or in January 2025. The blog entries I have written have been on our group blog for Biostasis Technologies. Subscribers will probably enjoy my October 29 entry:
I look at the origins of effective accelerationism (e/acc) and its unacknowledged roots in extropian transhumanism as well as in several Singularitarian writers. Noah Smith has noted the “extropian enthusiasm” of e/acc. The original essays by the e/acc founders can be difficult to distill down so I outline the basics of e/acc and then survey the many flavors of accelerationism. I point out errors in e/acc’s contrast with transhumanism. That is followed by a critique of the injunction to “follow the will of the universe.” Despite errors and shortcomings I conclude that e/acc is more right than wrong. From the perspective of the central important of life extension, I outline what might be called long/acc or longevity accelerationism.
