To celebrate the publishing of my new book, Beyond Machine Man: Who we really are and why Transhumanism is just an empty promise! I'm pleased to share my three public challenges to Homo Digitalis, the transhumanist subspecies of Machine Man:
The I'm my Brain Challenge
The Ant Challenge
The Simulation Challenge
Happy reading!
Excerpt 1 from chapter Homo Digitalis:
For a little more morbid fun, let's formulate The I'm my Brain Challenge to all enthusiastic transhumanists, asking them to prove Machine Man right that we are just creations of our brains, that consciousness is created by mere unconscious matter.
A perfect candidate would surely be Elon Musk, the flamboyant multi-billionaire, founder and chief executive of many high tech companies, including Neuralink Corporation that develops implantable brain–machine interfaces (BMIs). His transhumanist credentials are impeccable: he invested a cool $100 million into this venture, believes that we live in a computer simulation (more on that to come!), and so on and so forth.
He could always have the very latest model of his company's devices implanted into his brain, one that could somehow or another help him communicate with the world, at least by spelling words using Morse code that get displayed on a computer screen for us to read.
Then, upon his eventual but definite physical death, remove his brain. Connect the main blood vessels to a machine that keeps pumping his own blood through the brain. Ensure that it is sufficiently oxygenated, filtered, and supplied with enough glucose to keep everything running smoothly. If need be, jump start the brain with an electric jolt or two.
Liberally inject neurotransmitters (like serotonin, noradrenaline, dopamine etc.) a bit here and there, as needed. And to keep Elon in high spirits, add a good dose of ethanol and THC once in a while. Or anytime upon demand. He could keep busy listening to music, hearing or reading books, maybe even watching movies, depending on the implant's features available at the time of his demise.
Elon would become the first immortal in the history of the world, sales of his products would simply skyrocket, and we could all stay entertained and enlightened reading his Tweets live streamed directly from his genius brain.
And should he ever have enough of it and said so, we can always pull the plugs and power down everything. But hopefully, he would allow us to send his brain to Mars on one of his rockets and become our roving reporter, so to speak, tweeting his latest insights and observations literally from the last frontier that separates humble humans from becoming posthuman gods.
Another great contender would of course be Mark Zuckerberg, the multi-billionaire founder and CEO of Facebook who also likes to dabble in transhumanist endeavors. He is widely rumored to be a cyborg already anyway, so he might as well prove us all right by becoming the world's first full-fledged cyborg. The real deal.
Anyway, let's see who will take up the challenge first, if anyone. If not, why not? There's nothing to lose and much to gain! Or maybe, not so much...
[end excerpt 1]
Homo Digitalis believes that they are the most rational people ever. They claim to only believe in what science says. Yet amazingly, most actually don't seem to know what neuroscience really says about who they are. ~ Beyond Machine Man
Even a most detailed temporary snapshot of our brains will not magically make us alive again when it is run as a software version on a computer that operates an artificial robot body. ~ Beyond Machine Man
Excerpt 2:
To emphasize scientists' collective ignorance about the nature of life, let me formulate The Ant Challenge to Machine Man scientists around the world:
Take your time to analyze everything that makes up an ant, all the atoms and molecules it is made of. You may even copy their DNS but you must assemble the double helix and everything else from scratch. Atom by atom, molecule by molecule.
Now let's see who can first create a living ant, followed by a whole living colony that fully functions just like natural ant colonies. Can't do it? Try to do it by first creating the egg of an ant, also atom by atom, if that is easier for you (hint: it isn't). Success is measured if a living ant emerges, having undergone the usual (for nature) complex metamorphosis from egg to larvae to pupae. Good luck!
And good luck they will need indeed. A great deal of it. Probably over billions of years. Just like the Darwinian Theory postulates. But of course, transhumanists would already be quite happy to somehow or another move in to some kind of cloud computer cyborg organism with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. How likely is that?
We have seen that we don't know what life is and how it really came about. Or where it is located, if indeed it has a specific location. Furthermore, we can't transfer life, like beam it over from one to another body or to a robotic entity of whatever kind. There are no actual or theoretical technologies that could teleport life from one still living mouse to an already dead mouse whereas the first would now be dead and the other one suddenly alive.
Where and how do we take what and put this what into where? Scientists just don't know any of these answers. Not in the slightest. And building some kind of new man-made vessel that could replace our old bodies is not possible either. Synthetic biology or nanotechnology is currently and for the foreseeable future not remotely close to be able to meet The Ant Challenge, not to speak of creating an actual human body.
While robotics has made some significant progress in the manufacturing of things or the remote-controlled operation of killing machines, ants have far superior abilities and functions than the very best of modern robots. By a very large order of magnitude. They are also far smaller. And use only a tiny fraction of energy.
Ants have only about 250'000 neurons in their brains and nervous systems, yet they can instantly process huge amounts of data streaming in from a wide range of sense organs (touch, vibrations, heat, light, smell, taste, temperature, humidity, chemicals).
They communicate with each other using pheromones, sounds and touch, and closely cooperate on many undertakings: from engineering and architecture to logistics or complex problem solving; from interactive teaching, common attack or defense, the cultivating of both crops and livestock, to actual slave-raiding and keeping.
The world's best engineers can't make a robot that comes even remotely close to mimicking a teeny tiny ant that can lift 5'000 times its own body weight! So what exactly are the chances that we will so very soon be capable of creating an artificial robot version of the incredibly complex and actually rather perfect human body?
Likewise, today's top engineering talents cannot replicate a flagellar motor, the rotating wheel a unicellular bacteria uses to specifically (randomness or a dispersive nature were ruled out) relocate itself to a friendlier, more suitable environment (e.g. towards more light or oxygen). The engine can change its structure, is made of protein parts, and assembles itself only on demand, exactly wherever and whenever it is needed.
It is a million times smaller than a grain of sand, can rotate up to 100'000 rpm, and almost instantly changes its direction to wherever it wants to go. Obviously, there is no machinery we can build that comes even remotely close to this kind of miniaturized marvel of biological engineering. Beaten by a single-celled bacteria (without a PhD).
So very little is understood about the absolute biological marvels that are our bodies yet widely ignorant transhumanists feel the need to improve them anyway. They can't build anything that comes even close to a humble bacteria, yet they delude themselves to be smarter than nature itself; masters of the universe. But no robot will ever match or beat the biochemical, electrical or self-replicating abilities of a single human cell. And that includes any and all hypothetical nanorobots or molecular machines. Just consider this example:
The microscopic mitochondrion, an organelle or subunit inside every most tiny human cell, is called the powerhouse of the cell as it generates most of its supply of chemical energy as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). In addition, it is capable of the seemingly magic feat of a biotransformation of elements, like changing Sodium to Magnesium (Natrium Na + H = Mg), Potassium to Calcium (K + H+ = Ca), or Magnesium to Iron (Mn + H = Fe).
All human cell types contain mitochondria (with the exception of mature red blood cells); one muscle cell contains thousands of these tiny biological wonders that are thousands of times smaller the size of the world's smallest computer chips. They even have their own DNA (called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA) and synthesize their own proteins. In short, it is most unlikely to need any improvements by transhumanist control freaks fearing death.
[end excerpt 2]
Not knowing any of the basic answers to all of the crucial questions however is certainly no obstacle to diehard disciples of transhumanism and their newly-found religion for atheists. And a religion it sure is; it is featuring all the required hallmarks and dogmatic beliefs. ~ Beyond Machine Man
Ultimately, transhumanism is just an empty promise by people who are mortally afraid of dying. ~ Beyond Machine Man
Note: I had great fun totally debunking the beliefs of the we-live-in-a-simulation-crowd (like professor Nick Bostrom, Elon Musk, etc.) with way too many arguments to mention here. This third challenge is just a tiny little part of it. Excerpt 3:
To anyone ever contemplating to code and run their own ancestor simulation, trying to prove that we actually already live in a simulation, let's formulate another little challenge to highlight the actual complexities involved. Introducing, The Simulation Challenge to all current and coming generations of Homo Digitalis:
'I will believe that we live in a computer simulation if you can design a computer game where all players are fully aware of their environment, make fully autonomous and totally individual decisions about anything at anytime; they can affect and change the environment of the game itself, as they wish – all without any input of the video game designer.'
'Furthermore, all of billions of human simulations can procreate and produce new baby players that grow up, are also fully conscious, with free will and the capacity to change whatever they like in their virtual world, including permanently deleting its parents, or anyone else in whatever manner they see fit.'
'Speaking of terminating, all players must be able to get injured or permanently crippled while playing, bleed real blood, and when they die or get killed they really are dead. In other words, there are no extra lives that can be earned or the like.'
'We must be able to collect and analyze all blood that gets spilled and it has to have all the different blood types with totally individual blood profiles. Oh, and did I mention that every of the billions of players must have a totally unique DNA besides all different finger and voice prints? Of course, the irises of every individual's eyes too must be as unique as they are here, in our proposed present simulation.'
'Moreover, gravity must fully apply in this simulated universe world to be created, along all of the other laws of physics and thermodynamics, to include quantum physics and facts. There must be irreversible time that progresses from the past, through the present, into the future. Yet time and space has to be relative too.'
'And that simulated world needs to exist in an equally endless and expanding universe, like the one we inhabit, filled with countless trillions of synchronized galaxies, stars and planets.
Show me a computer game like that and I will become a true believer too. Otherwise, keep dreaming, or rather, playing!'
[end excerpt 2]
It is not particularly surprising that video gamers who like to waste their real lives in fake worlds have a hard time distinguishing between what is real and what is not. They simply extrapolate from their favorite pastime to believing that we all, not just them, live in a computer simulation. ~ Beyond Machine Man
The fact that we do have free will proves that we don't live in a simulation; free will cannot be simulated otherwise it wouldn't be free. ~ Beyond Machine Man
All quotes may be freely republished provided they are left unchanged and full credit is given.
To dig a little bit deeper into the book, see:
my Autor of the Month feature on GrahamHancock.com
”Arne Klingenberg, author of Beyond Machine Man, is a featured author on my website this month. Arne’s book takes the reader on a deep dive into what it means to be human, the root of our inherent flaws and the nature of consciousness.”
~ Graham Hancock
To read some empowering, enlightening and entertaining quotes, see:
Beyond Machine Man Quotes
Beyond Machine Man: Who we really are and why Transhumanism is just an empty promise!is widely available in Hardcover, Paperback or as an Ebook. E.g. in the USA from Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Kobo, Booktopia in Australia, Waterstones in the UK, and Hugendubel in Germany.
Topics covered include: #philosophy #consciousness #neuroscience #psychology #psychiatry #transhumanism #posthumanism #minduploading #mind #brain #brainscans #brainmapping #emotions #memory #medicaldrugs #pharmaceuticals #physicians #health #mentalhealth #fears #depression #anxiety #subconsciousness #consciousmind #unconsciousmind #self #identity #ego #society #racism #technocracy #politics #AI #artificialintelligence #robots #robotics #bionics #science #research #physics #quantumphysics #life #intelligence #immortality #biology #biochemistry #CRISPRCas9 #DNA #geneediting #geneticengineering #astrophysics #evolution #transpermia #nanotechnology #simulationtheory #machineman #beyondmachineman #homocredo #homomysticum #homodigitalis