[extropy-chat] SEX! (Re: Martine Rothblatt and bemes)

Thu Nov 9 22:11:07 UTC 2006

Now that I have your attention - (Anders are your reading ..?  Robert?)

Can someonebody answer PJ's question?  I want to hear your answers.

N

Original Message:
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From: pjmanney pj at pj-manney.com
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:21:24 -0500
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Martine Rothblatt and "bemes"

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<P>Cool!  Thanks for your perspective.  Very groovy stuff!</P>
<P>I agree that Martine's ideas are transhuman and I like her take on
"bemes" a lot.  I caught her presentation at the IEET conference at
Stanford in May and thought it was the most visionary and provocative thing
I saw there.  But I also thought I might run the idea by the "Identity
Police" on the list and get their (varied) opinions, because I know that no
logical inconsistancies would get past their eagle eyes.  ;-)</P>
<P>But I guess I got no takers.  :-(</P>
<P>Hope all is well with you, Natasha.</P>
<P>Thanks again,<BR>PJ<BR></P>
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<TR>
<TD width=5 bgColor=blue> </TD>
<TD>At 07:43 PM 11/8/2006, you wrote:<BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Hey, was anyone going to answer my question about Martine
Rothblatt's concept of "bemes" as a valid concept of future
identity?</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Just some morning thoughts, but probably nothing
of consequence to answer your question PJ:<BR><BR>To be or not to be?  We
have to "be" to be a future identity.  It seems that Bemes can take any
form - and, because of this the very concept of  how "identity" is
configured is an issue.  Identity as a set of "information pattern" or set
of "information patterns" is an exciting topic.<BR><BR>My talk at the
Fourth Alcor Technology Conference on "
<H2><FONT size=2>A Talent for Living: Cracking Myths of Mortality" 
</I>opened with and continued to focused on Shakespeare's line:   
</FONT></H2><A
href="http://www.natasha.cc/techtalk.htm">http://www.natasha.cc/techtalk.htm
<BR><BR></A>""To be, or not to be"<I> <BR></I>wrote William Shakespeare in
Hamlet in Act III, scene 1, <BR>"that is the question: ..."In my
presentation at the aforementioned technology conference, I made a poetic
statement based on my practice at that time, which was media-animation and
poetry:<BR><BR>"... To beto liveis what we do. It is our talent, our
business and our pursuit of well-being which we must carry out. The
refinement of this built-in talent currently separates us from other life
forms. It is our native, intrinsic talent, calling for the creative
challenge to do somethinganythingas long as we are "doing." To be, we
must do. If not, we are busy dying. ...<BR><BR>(pause with algorithmic
images on scene)<BR><BR>"When I think of our culture, I see it as a body of
electronically connected data filtering messages into its appendages. Out
into the capillaries of culture, our technology has become far more
exacting and more robust than our biological bodies. Our biological bodies
are far too inadequate to keep up with our ideas and the new landscapes we
venture. From the telegraph to telecommunications, from the Net into Space,
it is no longer just the written symbolthe wordbeing transported, we are
the new transportees."<BR><BR><BR>I do not necessarily see identity as
transportees or Martin's excellent Bemes as an entirely separate
philosophical outlook than the transhumanist life view, but as an integral
part of a complex extropic system.  For example, Automorph Art is an
extropic subset of Transhumanist Arts which developed in the 1990s and is
intently based on "being as art."  <A
href="http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/art.html">http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/art.
html</A>   Because it is within the extropic genre, it is understood that
his automorph being as art is the actually practice of improving oneself,
which is inclusive of the positive ideas presented and described in
Martine's philosophy of Bemes.<BR><BR>So, as you can see, I see that
Martine has a valuable idea.  :-)  However, I do not think it is separate
from or counter to transhumanism, but included within transhumanism as a
constructed category of interrelations, or at least a complimentary,
valuable aspect thereof.<BR><BR>Right now I am writing a paper on "SEx -
Skin (as a symbol of the boundaries of identity) Exobody" for a conference
in Brazil on the future of identity.  ... <BR><BR>Beme-ing forward
-<BR><BR>Natasha<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>PJ<BR><BR> <BR>>Robert writes <BR>> <BR>>> On 10/31/06, Lee
Corbin <<A
href="https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/webmail/mailDetail;jsessionid=3
D226EDDED85DD69EF895DE7DCDB6107.TC132b?__frame=_top&__lf=AdresseUebernehmenF
low&__sendingdata=1&resyncFolder.Doit=true&resyncFolder.TreeID=leftNaviTree&
createMail.Action=create&createMail.To=lcorbin%40rawbw.com&__jumptopage=mail
New&__CMD[mailDetail]:SELWRP=resyncFolder&__CMD[mailDetail]:SELWRP=createMai
l"> lcorbin at rawbw.com</A>> wrote: <BR>>> <BR>>> > But what happened to *me*
in there? I'm more than my memes, pal. <BR>>> > Don't forget my memories.
<BR>> <BR>>> Well memories are memes and at least some of them are
essential <BR>>> components of the survival and reproduction processes.
<BR>> <BR>>Memories are memes??? That does violence to the concept so far
<BR>>as I understand it. Memories are more like raw data; for one thing,
<BR>>they're very seldom contagious. Beliefs are something else, and
<BR>>are indeed memetic. <BR>> <BR>>> > That's me, maybe. I don't want to
"become", especially if the end <BR>>> > product is not me. I would rather
"are". As you put it. <BR><BR>What about Martine Rothblatt's concept of
"bemes?" <BR><BR><A
href="http://www.imminst.org/conference/Martine.ppt">www.imminst.org/confere
nce/Martine.ppt</A>
<BR><BR>PJ<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>extropy-cha
t mailing list<BR>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org<BR><A
href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat">http://lis
ts.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</A> </BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><FONT size=2><A href="http://www.natasha.cc/">Natasha </A><A
href="http://www.natasha.cc/">Vita-More</A> Cultural Strategist - Design
Media Artist - Futurist PhD Candidate, <A
href="http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/researchcover/rcp.asp?pagetype=G&page=273">P
lanetary Collegium </A>Proactionary Principle Core Group, <A
href="http://www.extropy.org/">Extropy </A><A
href="http://www.extropy.org/">Institute</A> Member, <A
href="http://www.profuturists.com/">Association of Professional
Futurists</A> Founder, <A
href="http://www.transhumanist.biz/">Transhumanist Arts & Culture</A>
<BR><BR></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman, Times"><I>If you draw a circle
in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, then that is a
closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the circle and
everything outside the circle, then that is an open system perspective. -
</I>Buckminster
Fuller<BR><BR><BR></FONT></P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></BODY>

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