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I received a solicitation by e-mail because of my “interest” in transhumanism from the “Terasem Movement Foundation” offering a Web site that will—for free:

...preserve one’s individual consciousness so that it remains viable for possible uploading with consciousness software into a cellular regenerated or bionanotechnological body by future medicine and technology.
Wow. Can they do that? Uh, no. From the Web Page:

A chatbot can read the user’s profile and respond to general-knowledge questions. “In the future, the chatbot will become increasingly knowledgeable about the user’s profiles and mindfiles, and infer information from tagged multimedia files,” according to Bruce Duncan, Managing Director of Terasem Movement Foundation. Lifenaut.com is also “designed to test the hypothesis that conscious analogs of people can be brought to life based on sufficiently detailed mindfile data,” according to a statement on the Terasem Movement Foundation website.

Huh? Oh! It’s based on the famous “Terasem Hypotheses” which state that:

1) a conscious analog of a person may be created by combining sufficiently detailed data about the person (a “mindfile”) using future consciousness software (“mindware”),and (2) that such a conscious analog can be downloaded into a biological or nanotechnological body to provide life experiences comparable to those of a typically birthed human. We call this event Transferred Consciousness (TC). If even the first part of the two Terasem Hypotheses is shown to be true, the conscious analogs will be independent persons with rights and obligations dependent upon their capabilities.
Okaa-ay, but I’m sure there’s a buck expected to be made somewhere in all of this. It looks to me like it may be the sale of “longevity products” and of other items for which ads will be sent to people who subscribe to the newsletter. But for all you transhumanists out there yearning for immortality, here’s your chance!

Ain’t America great?


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