The Book of Barely Imagined Beings

Thirty-sixth in a  series  of notes and comments on The Book of Barely Imagined Beings Chapter 27: Zebrafish page 369: watching the...

Julian Savalescu and Ingmar Persson write : Modern technology provides us with many means to cause our downfall, and our natural moral psy...

As if they were needed, reminders -- one and two -- that human enhancements are most likely to be seen first and predominantly in the mili...

If what is or is not an ethical truth is contingent on the types of biological organisms that we are, then changing the types of biological...

You may think there will be less Change than I am suggesting, and you may be right, but it is hard for me to see why. It is possible that t...

Never mistake a clear view for a short distance. -- Paul Saffo , quoted in The Coming Superbrain .

This interview with Ray Kurzweil (whose Age of Spirital Machines I reviewed in '99) is fascinating. So much seems credible. [1] Th...

On the wilder shores, perhaps, Michael Anissimov wonders whether the only way to escape a scenario in which billions of people are killed ...

It may or may not be altogether true. It does make for a good story: Konstantin Saradzhev [had] almost superhuman aural acuity: between two ...

It seems feasible that over the coming century human nature will be scientifically remodelled. If so, it will be done haphazardly, as an ups...

This is rather odd but worth a look.

Rob Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye. He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthet...

...but probably not as the Buddha meant it. David Pearce of BLTC does a Hedonistic Imperative spiel for H+ magazine which appears to ho...

Many bioconservatives are addicted to a notion of humanness that is very specific to Judeo-Christianity. [But] when you look at India and T...

'tis but a scratch . I'm going to a conference on global catastrophic risks which runs from 17 to 20 July in Ox...

In the future there will be no more human beings. This is not something we should worry about. -- writes John Harris (in Who’s afraid of a ...

The entire history of humankind to date is a mere instant compared with the eons that still lie before us. All the triumphs and tribulations...