October 2012

So what is ‘Terasem’ exactly?

For more on Terasem…

This article is part of our series of posts discussing Terasem. It is written by Khannea Suntzu and cross-posted from Giulio Prisco’s web blog Turing Church, where our material on Terasem also appears. Giulio describes our mutual good friend Khannea, as “…a restless walker on the wild side who likes to tell the bare and blunt truth.

“She is a blogger, and a far leftist critic of exclusive corporate culture, and the confluence of technological self-empowerment, paired with money. She travels the world making surprise shock rock presentations with a fine mix of dystopian, utopian and cosmist/cosmicist angle.”

Khannea publishes her thoughts on contemporary topics on her main blog.

Khannea views the world from Second Life

If there is one “transhumanist”-inclined movement out there I really admire and appreciate it is Terasem. I had the pleasure of interacting with its founder shortly before and after my attendance at Transvision 2010. For those who don’t know, the founder of Terasem is the very successful Martine Rothblatt, who was at one time the most highly paid CEO of the Washington DC area. So its safe to conclude that Terasem is in large part a derivative entity of Martine’s ambitions and ideological packaging.

Martine has been exceedingly generous to me, when sponsoring my attendance to Transvision 2010, as well sponsoring the creation of a (simplified) replica O’Neil Habitat. This construction was done before and for Transvision 2010, and it was put on display at the actual event and thereafter transported to Florida, where it is still accessible at the main Terasem hub down at Satellite beach in Florida. The model construction project was conducted in large part by Simon Deering, and he was paid in full for the project. While I was visiting Milan in 2010 I had my own goal set, which made me interact in the most interesting manner with Aubrey de Grey, who I have since come to love and respect more and more. Simon Deering has since then passed away due to cancer. He was diagnosed shortly after doing the project for Terasem, and entered chemo in the middle of 2011.

Anyway – I can safely say that as a human being I have enjoyed great blessings as direct fall-out from my sponsorship of the Transvision 2010 event in Milan and I have come to be very grateful of Martine’s direct intervention to sponsor me. This makes me a subjective and positively inclined critic towards what Terasem is (or what it might be) so all who read this article should do so with some scrutiny as to the nature of my sympathies and motives.

Terasem itself is several things, depending on whom you talk to. I have talked to many people, none of which I will will mention here. Not everyone approves of me writing about the concept of Terasem, and while reading this article many may be gnashing their teeth at reading these words.

I started my involvement with Terasem in 2007 or so, as a project to build a sim in Second Life. At that time SL was still regarded by quite a few people as promising, and these days it is regarded as less than promising. Second Life is a very liberal medium, that attracts people that prefer a range of very persistent freedoms. Increasingly (between 2008-2012) SL has attracted people who have a penchant for taking sexually unorthodox and generally rebellious views, which makes SL by comparison feel “icky” from a political, corporate or consensual viewpoint. While in 2007 SL did not suffer from a public distaste backlash, but it sure does these days, and most importantly corporate (and other) interests have come to feel cautious when interacting with Second Life. In SL there are “perverts” and “trolls” and other assorted unpalatable folks, and as a result SL widely causes alienation with people (majorities) that prefer conventionality (or prefer not to be left embarrassed by association).

I confess to having an extremely freedom oriented demeanor and just “my” general appearance (I feel very intimate affinity with my SL avatar, to the point I insist my SL avatar is a mental prosthetic of my being) in SL offends some people. I confess to very persistent unorthodox sexual urges, and these urges have considerable impact over my life’s choices, and ever since I have come to explore the visualization medium of SL I have come to more internalize the value system espoused by SL in my own personal (real) life. I have as a result acted in a manner that clearly alienated some people in Terasem, even though I was (at the time) building for them. I do however invite you all reading this to visit SL, specifically the two sims I had a hand in constructing; namely Terasem and Marbina. The latter name is a contraction of the name Martine and Bina (who in turn is Martine’s spouse). The sims are a tad outdated by 2012 standards but they are still OK.

The worldly incarnation of Terasem is many things – a presence in Second Life. A manifestation of Martine Rothblatt’s deepest held beliefs. Nevertheless – In many ways Terasem is still a mystery to me. Terasem is a place for social gathering. Terasem is a large body of dependants and adherents. It is a registered church. It is a charity. It is a political entity. It is a freedom and (sexual/human) rights organization. It is a speculative futurist and techno-progressive organization with spiritual overtones. It is a tool for the benefit for its members and its founder. It is a place of considerable generosity (Fred and Linda Chamberlain were welcomes in its care and loving retirement a few years ago). It is a great number of extremely disjointled and incoherent web sites. And it may be a place to unwind for a great number of people.

Have a look at the jumble of interconnected yet inconsistently themed web sites that the Terasem tree has spouted over the years.

terasemfaith.net
terasemfaith.org
terasemcentral.org
terasemweb.org
terasemmovementfoundation.org
cyberev.org
terasemjournals.org
lifenaut.com
personalitymd.com
terasemradio.com
truthsofterasem.wordpress.com
teraseminfoculture.com
tmovementfound.lifenaut.com
terasemyoga.wordpress.com

Special mention needs the spiritual side of Terasem (and the Yoga!). Terasem central mythos comprises an amazingly rich tapestry of very sincere and very well-considered statements on the future of humanity, transhumanity and posthumanity. These statements are distilled in “The Truths Of Terasem“. Despite these being sometimes a raging inconsistent mess, they are truly telling of deeper internal truths at the heart of their respective founders. Terasem reflects the visions in often grandisose statements on the destiny of humanity, which can be witnessed at the Terasem Podcasts. These podcasts would be for many people of an exceedingly arcane nature – unless you are well versed in science fiction, transhumanist folklore and futurology.

Let me Gossip. At the Martine Headquarters we find a colorful cavalcade of characters.

There is of course Martine, who I shall characterize as increasingly mysterious and elusive. Martine Rothblatt (and her wife Bina) has increasingly become a mystery to the people I talk to. Some insider information is that she is investing heavily in (survivalist?) real estate in New Hampshire. I would not call Martine the typical prepper – but I do now she seems to have stopped investing in charity projects around 2009 (or so I have been told) and at that same time I get the impression from hearsay she started investing heavily in what appears to be “personal survival” related articles in the real world. I have heard second-hand whisper of investments in various out-of-the-way real estates in Canada and Northerly United States. I have heard talk of snow cats and thick forests and underground structures beneath elaborate mansions that can only be reached after travelling hours by car, using very precise directions. I I were to extrapolate the essential parts from this is would be a personal conclusion that a few years ago Martine (who is an incorrigible optimist and cheerleader for optimist thinking) has concluded the world is in a rather dismally unstable state, and as such “the world” could collectively implode. I need to add that Martine (hearsay) donated heavily to the Obama campaign in 2008, and donated considerably less (or nothing) in the ongoing campaign. I have yet to affirm truth or falsehood about what Martine’s current objectives and expectations are. She is (still?) worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. Martine Rothblatt is richer than Mitt Romney. She is heavily invested in corporations (such as United Therapeutics) that at this time can only expand. Yet I understand that she also suffered quite some loss of book value in the 2008 crash.

An interesting note is the story of her daughter, Jenesis. Jenesis is a delightful creature I had the fortune to interact with in Second Life. She used to work at United Therapeutics in 2010 and I would characterize her as being unhappy at the time. She was treated with contempt by her colleagues there, which struck me as just mean. Jenesis may have been the reason Martine founded United Therapeutics (the story has been hyped by many media) and this is just an awesome statement of ambition and love. My personal observation is that this entire tale didn’t leave Jenesis always equally happy. She strikes me as a very sweet and delicate creature, and I find her very likeable. But I also understand that her life as “the boss’s daughter” must have been hard on her, exceedingly so considering the possible addition that Martine has been often absentee as a parent.

At the Terasem estates we find another restless soul named Gabriel. Many refer to Gabriel as the “pastor” of Terasem. He is the effective (de facto) community organizer of Terasem. Many describe him as a get up and go kind of entrepreneurial spirit that has done it all. He is happily married with kids (an assortment), but has had a checkered past with many experiments in life, having gained wisdom at some expense. Again, Gabriel was not always rewarded for his restless nature in life, and has seems to have had his own issues with a very ambitious and liberal thinking set of mothers. Yanno, “Parents”. 🙂

Terasem is a most interesting cultural phenomenon in one way. Terasem represents a sincere spiritual attempt to codify a largely materialist yet staunchly posthumanist body of thinking and philosophy. I am absolutely convinced the statements (truths) mentioned above will be quoted for centuries. The ideas espoused by Terasem strike me as having been influenced to a great extent by people such as Anders Sandberg, The Moores, Chardin and Tipler, as well as many other great thinkers. I can only state that these ideas strike me as extremely relevant and valid for my thinking.

Khannea, Succubus in Second Live

Yet Terasem is also a religious denomination. Terasem has its own rite of passage that espouses a phenomenon known as ‘joinership’. In other words, Terasem is a religious advocacy entity that affirms membership, non-membership, truth and falsehood. This would be great, if only there was some level of consistency in the body of works such as Terasem. Sadly there is very little such consistency. There sure is a great amount of overlap, but frankly the cavalcade of websites and statements is very diffuse and has been labelled to me as consistent in its amateurishness. It strikes me the reason for this relative state of mess, is the way Terasem is organized. As it stands Terasem subsists largely on a (dwindling) body of donations. I know Martine still shovels money in to very sincere organizations such as the IEET, but she decreasingly sacrifices “tithes” on her own “church”. As a result the inner sanctum people of Terasem have been left on a dwindling diet of expense accounts, “or so I have been told” by a number of insider sources. A parallel crisis in the Terasem inner sanctums is that the founder duo, ‘Martine/Bina’ has become increasingly rare and sparse, being off ‘cavorting’ in exotic locations, or are left managing increasingly arcane corporate transactions. One could say Terasem is an organizational mess (where literally dozens of people have to wait weeks or months to receive email, phone or snail mail replies from management). Some describe this state of affairs as alternatingly “capricious” or “random” or “bizarre”, and there are some less flattering observational statements making the rounds. This raises the specter (or slander) that Terasem is little else than a contrived tax shelter being run by a bunch of overworked and largely leaderless lackeys. I have no way of ascertaining whether or not this is true or untrue but I would guess it isn’t. I can only observe the amazing competence Martine has shown in her many fields of endeavour is increasingly absent for her enlightenment she once radiated when she founded Terasem.

A wise counsellor once insisted I should not tangle with the horns of a genius multi-millionaire and “keep my damn mouth shut” (respectively “mind your own goddamn business, you viper”). Another wise councillor once described my “soldering transhumanism” as dangerous, since “transhumanism is still a frail bird at this stage”. I would not typify myself as so relevant that I might be classified as dangerous, so I am not that concerned about this article. I personally estimate only a few dozen people might read this account regarding my observations of Terasem so I would not credit myself as having even the slightest bit of impact, negative, constructive, amusing or otherwise. I do however care and feel concern, largely because I admire Terasem and its body of messages, and I feel Terasem is “on to something big”.

If only they got their act together.

1.2 How Immortality Works

También en español   The erotic is the foundation of a universe structured by the will of Love.

Love is the fundamental quality of our entire universe.

Love is present in every identifiable object, action, or occasion in all of time and space.

The action of Love upon physical reality is manifest as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Everything which contributes to these attributes of the universe survives as a permanent reality.

Death frees our soul–the knowledge, identity, and personality of our active super-consciousness–from the limitations of embodiment in a single biohost.

Once free, the soul inhabits the super-consciousness of a new avatar designed and developed specifically to provide for the needs of the surviving person.

This superior avatar establishes our literal presence, senses, and actions, even as we advance our education and experience of the universe beyond the planet of our birth.

There is a process, but this isn’t it.

In order for this to happen, there must already be in place, somewhere in the universe, a facility for accomplishing the transition of a person into an avatar.

Such a facility was necessarily put in place, with the required technologies, long before any of us needed its services, or even existed, for that matter.

This pre-existent cosmic organization obviously includes cosmic beings that operate these facilities.

We regain consciousness employing the senses of our new avatar.

Your avatar is a potentially powerful individual that is universally purposed, and personally identifiable as you, the new vessel for your own personal self-identity.

The animation and capabilities of your avatar are enabled by the content of your soul through living experience of meanings encompassing Truth, Beauthy, Goodness, and Love.

Unlimited training is available from an early age and throughout eternity to enable you to finally and fully realize all these potentialities as they are integrated within the unique pattern of your personality.

Human theologians have long argued about the role of faith vs. the role of service (“good works”) in development of the individual.

It is important to understand what is properly meant by “faith” in this discussion.

Faith has little or nothing to do with intellectual belief or theological knowledge.

True faith is the process by which one becomes aware of one’s personal immortality, described in the previous chapter as “A Course in Immortality.”

Not all people advance equally in development of super-consciousness during the (currently rather brief) human lifetime.

Thus souls that awaken with new avatars may be under-developed in some way, related to the degree they have valued Love while alive.

However, the opportunity for survival is available to everyone to start out on this path as soon as the expressions of Love—Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—come to play in your consciousness and establish themselves as eternal values.

Your vitality, your desire for existence, propels you towards eternity. If you want to survive, and act like it in mortal life, you will.

Track your destiny as a new immortal.

It is the development of the soul with the values of Love that determines what specific elements of your mortal experience survives as a part of your immortal self.

Having accepted that personal immortality is a normal part of growing up in the universe, the fear of death no longer has a stranglehold in our lives.

Having chosen joyful immortality, one’s attention naturally shifts to Loving—living Truth, doing Good, and making Beauty—for you see that this functions to propel you further in the universe.

With your gaze set on the vision of eternity, you understand the vast adventure that awaits you, and the foundation of erotic fellowship that amplifies your desires to genuinely love and serve others and makes possible many immediate joys of action and accomplishment.

Join me today and forever in the worship of the power of erotic joy.

Click here for 1.3 Where to I Fit In?

Half-Drag Photos Spark International Conversation on Sexual Identity

Leland Bobbé  is a New York photographer who has found himself at the center of attention in the Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Bisexual (LGBT) community. His amazing  Half Drag  photos are split down the middle with one side showing a man without makeup and sometimes even with a beard. The other side shows the same man in full drag including makeup, hair, and jewelry, taking viewers instantly into the juxtaposition.

We wanted to know more about how the photos came about. Were they just photo-shopped or were two different photos pieced together? No, says Bobbé, “they were all done with one shot,” which means that the makeup is done that precisely.

Perhaps no one is more surprised at the popularity of Half Drag series than Bobbé himself. “I never expected this to go viral in the way it has. It has taken off beyond my expectations,” although they were meant to provide a provocative social commentary on gender identity, normative ideas about gender roles, and the traditional male/ female paradigm.

The importance of his work reaches beyond the LGBT community — it has had an impact on many people’s understanding of sexual orientation and gender expression. Straight men and women are caught by surprise at the work. The transition from drag to man is severe, yet beautiful. It apparently makes people question their own concept of gender, sparking an  international conversation on the subject.

Madame Rosebud Neo Burlesque

His portrait series of burlesque artists had a showing at New York’s Museum of Sex. These photos are more than just portraits, they strip away the glitz and glamour of the stage — leaving only the true human condition. Portraits such as Madame Renee Rosewood put a face to popular fantasies such as S&M. “I shot these portraits from 2009 – 2011, as classic portraits so they would look very real and honest, not posed and glitzy like most of the burlesque performer portraits I’ve seen,” said Bobbé.

When asked where he finds the amazing people who are the subjects of his work, he said, “Sometimes I find people on the streets, in stores, Facebook, anywhere I see someone that looks interesting. For my Half-Drag project I found most of my subjects through Facebook.” He finds inspiration in classic music and movies and lists  the Beatles, Pretenders, Ramones and The Godfather movies as his favorites. “I like them all for different reasons but they all contribute to my attitude and state of mind.” If he could photograph anyone, dead or alive, it would be John Lennon.

Vivienne Pinay Half Drag portrait

So what is his next project? “I m working on a project called New York City Wall Art. These shots are of New York city walls with layers of peeled posters that when isolated become very interesting to look at.”

Let a thousand turtles fly, in the quest for joyful immortality

For more on Terasem…

This article is part of our series of posts discussing Terasem. It is written by our friend Giulio Prisco and cross-posted from Giulio’s web blog Turing Church. Please read the “Truths of Terasem” (ToT) and join the discussion.

Starting to write this post I noticed that, by Internet serendipity, IEET Managing Director Hank Pellissier had just published an article titled “My Favorite H+ Philosophers – David Pearce, Martine Rothblatt, and Ursula K. Le Guin.” Hank’s article should be a wake up call for the transhumanist community. “Transhumanism isn’t a viral phenomenon,” he says. “The rest of the world – most of our family and friends, right? – don’t grok our enthusiasm. ‘Read the books!’ we suggest. ‘Boring,’ they retort. ‘Not my thing.’

Hank proposes to complement the aseptic, ultra-rationalist, hard-technology oriented “traditional” formulation of transhumanism, with alternative softer, fuzzier and cozier formulation for Social Empaths (SEs): those (a large majority) who “want a softer, cuddlier, easier, gooier, goofier, happier Future. They want a culturally rich world that values aesthetics, modulations in tone, nuance, fantasy, intuition, satire and lyrical metaphor. [They] want to share and process feelings. SEs want to communicate intimately, with delicious, extravagant language. SEs want to be sensitive, tender and occasionally childlike.

I am an unrepentant, in-your face, old-school transhumanist who looks forward “to abandon the meatbag and jump rapturously into The Singularity with a chemically-preserved brain ensconced inside a metallic Russian 2045 cyborg [Hank’s words].” This IS my thing. But, like Socrates, I know that I don’t know, and I try to be honest enough to admit it. In particular I don’t know how to give our ideas the immediate, powerful emotional appeal that they deserve. But others do.

Hank says: “Already, we have several writers with the words and wisdom we need for this purpose; we just haven’t been listening to them,” and lists three of them: the great science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin, and our teachers and friends David Pearce and Martine Rothblatt, the founder of Terasem.

I have been associated with Terasem for a few years, and I formally joined in 2011 (video below). I think the nice and warm new-age look and feel of Terasem is our best chance to build bridges to the very large, scattered communities of spiritually oriented persons. Terasem offers a formulation and interpretation of transhumanism more emotionally appealing to persons with artistic and spiritual inclinations, which will help communicating our beautiful ideas in a simple and effective format and give happiness, hope, a sense of wonder, a sense of purpose and peace-of-mind to a multitude of seekers. At Terasem meetings, both online and in brickspace, these powerful feelings are communicated also with the help of yoga, readings, music, poetry and songs, which create a stimulating “magic” experience for all participants.

Ultra-rationalist “bureaucrats of philosophy” usually dismiss “hippie new-age attitudes”, but we should not forget that the hippie new-age attitude of the 60s shaped the Internet technology revolution. Perhaps we had the right attitude in the beautiful, visionary anti-authoritarian 60s, and we should recover it to shape new transhumanist technology revolutions.

My experience with new-agers is that, yes, they are easily deluded or scammed, and yes, they move from a guru to a new guru, from crystal therapy to energy pyramids and then to pyramid scams, but they are intellectually and spiritually alive, perhaps more alive and awake than others; they seek something beautiful that they cannot define.

Terasem offers good answers to the big spiritual questions of life, death, immortality, meaning, and our place in the awakening universe, yet its worldview and philosophy are firmly rooted in science with no concession to “supernatural” realms beyond science. I think Terasem has a huge potential to bridge the gap between the 60s and the 10s, cosmic visions and technology, spirituality and transhumanism, hard and soft rationality.

I cultivate the excellent habit of rationality and consider it as a very useful tool. But rationality is indeed a tool (a useful means to achieve a desired result), and not an end in itself. Rationality is an excellent screwdriver, a powerful tool to work with screws, but it is not the best tool to work with nails. Open-minded soft rationality is a much better approach to life than dull, fundamentalist rationalism.

Spiritually oriented New Age seekers often have powerful intuitions, beyond what current science can analyze. Their visions form an aesthetic layer that colors their (and then our) perception of the universe and, even when they are not entirely correct, inspire scientists and engineers to turn visionary dreams into actual reality.

For example many mystics, and some scientists, believe in  telepathy and extras-sensory perception (ESP), and many scientists think that it is all crap. I am open to the possibility that some yet undiscovered science may provide solid theoretical foundations and experimental evidence for ESP, and I am also open to the possibility that ESP may not exist. In science, we let experiment decide.

But ESP will exist. Soon we will have brain implants linked to our thoughts and to the Internet. These implants will give us instant telepathic communication with others, and the ability to access the Internet in our minds and see what happens elsewhere. Brain implants will also permit influencing, by thought alone, physical objects in remote places via appropriate actuators. So, regardless of whether or not we possess native ESP abilities for telepathy, remote vision and psychokinesis, the mystics are right anyway. If we have no native ESP, we will engineer ESP someday soon. See the recently published Human+, a novel about transhumanism and spirituality by Martin Higgins, for a fascinating fictional account.

Many mystics believe in supernatural phenomena beyond the reach of science. Many ultra-rationalists believe in a soon-to-be-found Theory of Everything to explain all that happens in the universe with a few elegant formulas. I think they are both wrong: nothing is beyond the reach of science, but Shakespeare’s “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” may remain true forever. You can count up to any number, and there will still be infinite numbers beyond. Similarly, our growing scientific understanding of the universe may always find new fractal depths of unexplained phenomena, to be explored by future scientists, in an endless explosion of diversity.

The balance of diversity and unity, in the quest for joyful immortality, is one of the key intuitions of Terasem. In 2002, while viewing a Space Shuttle launch from a Florida beach, Martine found inspiration in a remarkable vision, which she subsequently composed in writing and published as “Truths of Terasem” (ToT).

See the video embedded below and the annotated transcript produced by Fred and Linda Chamberlain (pasted below), which is also available as an audio podcast, with the other 100 episodes of Fred and Linda’s Truths of Terasem podcasts, the most comprehensive writings about Terasem so far.

“I’ll share some personal part of Terasem’s beginnings! It really began in March, 2002 when I was out, on the beach, up on the Space Coast of Florida, doing a morning meditation, at 6 a.m., and suddenly, I felt two ‘presences’ around me, so I immediately opened my eyes, and I witnessed, quite to my surprise, the blastoff of the Space Shuttle STS-109, on its way to the Hubble telescope. This was Columbia. I then felt a presence, immediately behind me, and I turned around, and found myself eye to eye, with a large Lanternback turtle sea turtle, which was clearly trying to make its way back into the sea. And I was in its way.

So, this was kind of startling, because it was pretty much dark, still, and an epiphany poured into me, through the triangular vector of the shuttle’s light blasting across the sky, and the Lanternback turtle’s consciousness, streaming into my own, and I felt a very strong, triangular force of energy between the shuttle, the sea turtle, and myself.

An epiphany surged through me, that there were three principles, or three values, which united all life, all reality, indeed the entire multiverse, and these were that the purpose of the multiverse, the solution to the multiverse, was to balance diversity with unity, in the quest for joyful immortality; that the shuttle, Columbia, was a balance of diversity and unity in the quest for joyful immortality; that the Lanternback turtle, was a balance of diversity and unity, in the quest for joyful immortality; that everything was a balance of diversity and unity, in a quest for joyful immortality.

I slid myself out of the way, of the Lanternback turtle, and it slowly, but without delay, pushed itself toward the sea, which wasn’t far away. As it did, the shuttle quickly arced out of my sight, smaller and smaller although the contrails were visible as the sun began rising, and again the triangular energy between the turtle and the shuttle remained connected to me, and downloaded to me the entire gist of the Truths of Terasem.

It was like I received this multi-gigabit download that still had to be processed, in the way one uploads a video but you can’t see it yet because it’s processing, or uploading a file and it still needs to be processed. I was totally blown away. I stood up, and it was like I was walking on air. I walked a couple of hundred feet to where my soul-mate and partner Bina was resting, up above the seashore. I shared with her what’s happened, and we slid right into the most wonderful, the most erotic lovemaking that anyone could imagine, and it was through this erotic lovemaking that those Truths of Terasem that were downloaded to me in an epiphany, channeled by the shuttle and the turtle, became written into my soul, just as suredly as a file is written into a digital or magnetic medium.

I spent the rest of 2002 trying to print out what was in my mind and soul from that March 1st morning, and it took me the rest of 2002, and some final pieces only really made sense late in October 2002, when my partner Bina experienced extraordinary pain, and somehow that pain jelled the remaining pieces of the Truths of Terasem. Since that time, I’ve been committed to spreading the message of the Truths of Terasem, about diversity, unity and the quest for joyful immortality, and the spreading of it, I feel, has been really wonderfully successful.”

Mystics throughout the ages have had the powerful intuition that everything in the universe is deeply connected to everything else to the point that, in a fundamental sense, everything is one. Today’s science seems to confirm it: the correlations between two entangled particles with a space-like separation (each is out of the light cone of the other), which cannot be explained by speed-of-light signaling between two separate parts of the physical universe, tell us that the two particles are really one in some sense that our everyday intuition is not equipped to visualize.

As long as the two entangled particles are not observed, each one is in a weird quantum state (for example a superposition of spin-up and spin-down). According to the popular Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, this weird quantum state “collapses” as soon as it is observed. So the first observation (for example of particle A) defines the result of a future observation of the other particle. But if the separation between A and B is space-like, according to Einstein there is another, equally valid frame of reference, where the observation of B comes first. So we cannot say which observer, A or B, collapses the system. This seems to say that, in some sense, also the two observers are really one.

The last two paragraphs may be difficult to follow, but many mystics have contemplated the fundamental unity of consciousness. In my Terasem joinership video below I say “I am You, You am I, and We are One,” parts of the collective consciousness of Terasem. The physics above shows that this is not only a poetic image, but also a scientific concept.

Imagine a room with many windows. From one, you see a busy city street. From another, you see a quiet, green garden. From another, snowy mountains. The perceptions are different, but the Mind who perceives is One. When a person dies, the blinds of a window go down, but the Mind has many other windows to look at the world from. When we die, we will just continue to live as someone else. Actually, we will continue to live as everyone else, and we are everyone else right now (don’t hurt others, because you would hurt another you).

Note: there is a simple way to formulate this concept that does not involve weird physics, based on the observation that “I am,” the bare feeling of existence, may be the same for everyone. I first encountered this intriguing thought in Rudy Rucker‘s Infinity and the Mind.

Some wise persons find that this is good enough. But most of us cherish our individuality (memories, experiences, thoughts, and feelings) and we don’t want to accept personal death. The diversity of individual minds is an important part of the unity of Mind, and must be preserved.

Terasem supports cryonics, the preservation of temporarily departed persons’ bodies and brains at very low temperatures until they can be revived by future technologies. It also supports, via its LifeNaut and CyBeRevprojects, personal data storage services for biological samples and “mindfiles,” that will 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. Mindfiles (there are about 12,000 so far) are stored online. Future AI programs, Terasem believes, will use a mindfile and a person’s DNA to create a digital clone of that person that can interact with future family members and others, and subjectively think and feel that (s)he is the continuation of the original. More on mindfiles in a forthcoming post.

Terasem is open to the possibility of future resurrection of the dead (even those who did not leave mindfiles behind) by “copying them to the future” with exotic future science. We can find hints in the Truths of Terasem, for example: “Souls of our ancestors come back to life when we emulate their lives and their environment.” I am persuaded that a ‘Third Way’ synthesis of science and spirituality, open to the possibility of technological resurrection, is very appealing to both the mind and the heart.

In summary, and in reply to Hank’s article, Terasem extends the aseptic, ultra-rationalist, hard-technology oriented “traditional” formulation of transhumanism with compassion, love, and spirituality. I wish to invite all those who find traditional transhumanism too limited and restrictive to take a look, and I am persuaded that the Terasem approach has much more potential to appeal to the masses.

Martine Rothbtlatt’s talk begins at about min. 40.

My Terasem Joinership video

A sea turtle flies past a Terasem infinity sign in the sky (SN 1987A)

The FBI in the Palm of Your Hands

With the release of iPhone 5 and its clear success, Apple is making great strides to entrench itself as the most widely used smartphone. What is surprising is that iPhone sales have been strong since release despite the fact that a few weeks prior, it was reported that the FBI may be tracking iPhone users.

According to various news outlets, 12 million iPhone and iPad device identifiers were swiped from an FBI computer by hackers associating themselves with the group Anonymous. Luckily for consumers the hack was meant to expose the tracking that was going on and not to compromise any individual accounts. To further credit this attack, the hackers posted one million unique identification numbers that were verified by a third party.

This begs the question, why is the FBI monitoring and tracking people via their iPhones? On what grounds is this legal? What starts to make things even stranger is the fact that almost a month after this story broke the FBI stated that Android phones, iPhone’s competition, are prone to malware and viruses. Why did the FBI specifically single out Android phones? This statement does give more credibility to the claims made by Anonymous. If the FBI had managed to hack iPhones or make a deal with Apple, it would be in their best interest to get everyone using an iPhone.

This doesn’t mean that people should rid themselves of their iPhones, but it does mean that a critical eye must be placed on the FBI and their actions. Monitoring what people spend their time doing is a step in the wrong direction; a step further from freedom. How can a person be free when their every move is scrutinized? How can someone express themselves when there is the possibility that every word they say, every action the take, can be twisted and used against them? The very technology that is suppose to allow us a new degree of freedom, bring us all closer together, can end up destroying the very foundations of liberty.

One can expect that the reasoning behind this blatant breach of constitutional rights will be to protect the country from terrorists or any other vague evil out there. How much more freedom will be lost to ensure our safety? The FBI has stayed quiet about this hack and the public seems to have grown apathetic. Benjamin Franklin said it best “they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

With a Desire to be Free

I’m not good with beginnings. Never have been. I’m more of a middle and end guy. Beginning from a previous end is one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn. For the past year or so, I’ve considered myself a nomad. I’ve traveled to three continents and back. I’ve worked. I’ve lived. I’ve seen. I’ve toured. I got lost. I spent three months without unpacking my suitcase before having to repack it to venture out on another excursion.

.

All of this was done under the assumption that it wouldn’t be done. You see, my travels abroad were not endorsed by my mother and father. They wanted me to get a job and start saving money and live with them. That was something I couldn’t do, nor could I have explained to them why it couldn’t be done. I defied their request and promptly boarded my flight at 10 one rainy night.

This all started years prior on a cool Southern afternoon. I was ready to board my flight back to the Northeast Corridor and return to school. That evening, I would tell my mother that I am gay. I would lose all that I knew and would have to rebuild my character, my soul, my sense of self, from the ground up. Years of reflection have told me that it was this sense of self that I lost. I spent two years under constant fire–hearing the likes of “no mother raises a faggot,” “you are not God’s best,” “you are going to die and burn in Hell,” “you won’t be able to handle your life.” Worse was how she said it and that my father never defended me. It was how my mother looked at me as if she were looking at someone who was not her child.

She did look at me like I was not her son. She did criticize who I was. She was wrong. She is wrong. That experience taught me that I have more power over who I am than I initially thought. You’d think it to be common sense, though if who you are is never challenged, you never realize all that you are or could be.

This is why I now consider myself an advocate.

Any one of us who have been admonished by anyone–society, close friends, family–are desperate to be understood. We are desperate to be free. We want to live our lives and be who we are without any pressure of conforming.

Conformity. Funny word, that one.

Why do people feel the need to conform? What about our societal structure tells us that we should conform to this small pool of potential selves? I simply told my mother that I am gay. You, the reader, could have told your father that you want to be an artist, not an engineer. You could have told your mother that you wish to not be called by a gender-specific pronouns. You could have told your best friend that you no longer understand the value of organized religion and will stop attending religious services.

.

The point is, we all have a desire to be free. Though we live in a country that calls itself free, do you not find it ironic that freedom is actually hard to come by?

Hello. My name is Philip. My story is not new. My story is not the worst one or the best one out there. But I believe in history: you must know where you have come from to figure out why you believe what you believe and what you can do to change that or enhance that belief system as you grow into the future. I am not perfect. I don’t want to be. What I want to be is a sponge that soaks up information and thoughts and spits out more and more questions. So let’s get started.

Blue sunrises, Philip

Images by: Nyttend – WikiCommons and J. Billinger – Media Wiki

What is the Function of Terasem?—Projecting to the Near Future (3/3)

For more on Terasem…

In Parts 1 and 2 of this discussion we explained some of the factors which contributed to the current development of the Ta (the organization) of Terasem and raised the question of whether and how Terasem, as a transreligion, might be seen as attractive by parts of the transhumanist community.

The Joiners and supporters of the Terasem philosophy and vision now must deal with the realities of a developing Ta. Specifically, what really needs to be done by the Ta to advance the cause of the Terasem Transreligion or to bring consciousness of the cosmic reality of Terasem to greater public attention? Or should the joiners and supporters be trying to do anything in this regard?

At Stratford, New Hampshire

At present, the founders largely control the direction of material development of the Ta, but have declared themselves open to new visions of joyful immortality beyond the materialistic. What should be the role of the Ta in advancing awareness of Terasem as a universal transreligion? Or is any form of outreach desirable or appropriate? Martine Rothblatt (in her talk to the Turing Church Workshop) warned against overly rapid development as unlikely to produce a lasting result.

One might ask “how lasting a result?” Given the scope of the Terasem vision, as revealed in ToT 5 and many other materials, the answer must clearly be “eternal”—and that is a very long time!

Small, extremely secretive cults guarding fragments of truth (e.g., Hemetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Argentium Astrum, Ordo Templi Orientis, Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Great Brotherhood of God, Thelema, etc.) have tended to flourish only as long as their founders remained in agreement on the direction and objectives of the organization, and as long as new recruits were readily available. While the theologies of such groups have had great influence in modern transhumanist thought, the groups themselves are but historical footnotes in the advance of human enlightenment. Close-held secrecy regarding great truths does not work but adoption of fantastic mythologies (as possessed by human evolutionary religions) does not seem to hinder the spread of ignorance, bigotry, and confusion .

If we define Terasem by exegesis from ToT 5, then Terasem gives us an opportunity to develop a Ta consistent with its principles that will endure forever and uplift the planet. In short, the total vision of Terasem is a universal cosmic reality (once Terasem is fully developed). By comparison, the Ta today is the result of large investments of time, energy, and assets by the founders and early joiners, but is necessarily small in relation to the vast size of the task at hand. How might or should this small community of seriously committed supporters take direct, intentional action to advance the grand vision of Terasem?

As increasing numbers of transhumanists are considering and speculating on the religion-like aspects of tranhumanist beliefs, the Terasem Transreligion stands at a major crossroads in examining belief and approach. Is one aspect of development (the material support systems) of greater or lesser importance than the complementary aspect of educating humanity about the true potential and significance of the Terasem vision?

If you care about the future of transreligion on this planet, I hope you will join us in exploration of these issues.

 

What is Family?

(Tabién en español)

A particularly important idea that really answers the question, “What is family?” is that a family is what we make it.

Yes, the nuclear family with a mother, father, and two children may sill be considered the norm, but in reality, non-traditional families are a rising majority. a subject that I began to learn more about during a few of the panels at Woodhull’s Sexual Freedom Summit. Speakers such as Diana Adams and Anita Wagner Illig explained to their audience that there are many other groups that can be considered family, even if their family format is not exactly mainstream: a single mother and her children; a lesbian couple, a sperm donor who wishes to take an active role in the child’s life, and the child; a gay couple, their child, and a surrogate mother; one parent, a child, and grandparents; and, polyamorous groups such as a married couple and their other partners. These may not be the individuals that people normally associate first with the word “family,” but that doesn’t make their love and devotion for each other any less real. They are all important example of what a family really is.

Creative Commons: Gay Ray

Creative Commons: Gay Ray

Fortunately, a wider view of family is starting to become more common throughout society. LGBT and polyamorous groups are now able to adopt children and California has even proposed a bill that could allow for the possibility of legally recognizing 3-parent families. Though the term “family” was undefined, UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 16) gave us the right to family since 1948, which doesn’t itself define what a family is.

Article 16.

  • (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
  • (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
  • (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State

(The Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

It is a fairly recent development that this idea has reached beyond that of the nuclear family, which, again, no longer describes the majority of families in this country. Now that this definition gives LGBT families legal recognition, there is hope that in the future, we will be able to share this same right freely with all non-traditional families.

Creative Commons: Eric Ward

Editor’s Note: On September 22, 2012, at the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit, Woodhull’s Executive Director Ricci Levy announced the official launch of it’s newest campaign, The Family Matters Project, “Woodhull recognizes the diversity of family in the United States and our goal is to protect our fundamental human right to family by eliminating discrimination based on family structure and relationship choices.” Summit attendees were among the first to contribute by filling out cards describing why family means to them that will appear as part of this national campaign..