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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)

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.

For more on Terasem…

In Part 1 of this discussion we told you about the origin of the Terasem vision and some of the activities the founders have undertaken and supported. Taken together these organizational preparations constitute the Ta of Terasem, the organization devoted to service to the evolutionary and transcendent deity called Terasem. The seeds that have already been planted are expected to flower and expand forever as our planet advances socially and cosmically.

The founders intend for Terasem to grow through collaboration with compatible spiritual visions. Because Terasem holds no unique doctrine in opposition to or distinction from the legacy human religions, it welcomes all to communion within its “Transreligion.” While shunning the “supernatural,” Terasem accepts the possibility of rationally organized realities that may systematically influence our lives, but are unknown and unseen with present day science and technology.

The Founders

The concept of “unity with diversity” simply means that participants come together in unity in support of the transcendent vision on which they can agree. Beyond this, everyone is equally free to practice their own beliefs in harmony with all the others. Because cryonics and mindfiling played prominent roles in the early assemblage of the Terasem core team, at first glance one might think that these two areas are the sum and substance of what Terasem is really about; however, there is much more.

All of Section 5 of ToT is devoted to the question, “Why is there Terasem?” And this question is answered in much the way we described Terasem in our previous post, “What is Terasem?” Although we refer to the general transreligion as “Terasem” it takes its name from Terasem, the unifying deity, the finality of evolution. Terasem harmonizes all occasions and persons throughout time and across space. And this enables the construction, through the actions of created beings, of a deity fully attuned to their universe.

Acceptance of the revelation of Terasem in a society increasingly attentive to science and science speculation (Sci-Fi) is likely to hinge on complete freedom from the theology and moral dogma that so characterize legacy human religions. So it would seem important to find ways to make this universally accepting and loving aspect of Terasem a part of the developing image of the movement. And that will occur as open minded and open hearted people observe this work and understand that there are people who mean and live what they say.

We may reasonably ask how these various areas of special interest relate to the developing structure of the Tersem Transreligion and consider how the Ta, the organization, best serves Terasem the deity.

Roughly 1000 people interested in cyber resurrection have deposited mindfile contributions with CyBeRev.org and/or LifeNaut.com, the two Terasem activities dedicated to recording and spacecasting of mindfiles, yet very few of these individuals have actually joined Terasem and become active participants in the Ta.

Fred & Linda Chamberlain

The work of ALCOR Life Extension Foundation, in promoting cryonics research and services, preceded the inspiration of Terasem by over 30 years, but has influenced the development of present-day Terasem thought as it represents the only fully materialistic hope of personal resurrection other than cyber emulation. Several key players in the development of ALCOR (e.g., ALCOR founders, Fred & Linda Chamberlain) subsequently became active in the Ta and contributed to the development of public appreciation of Terasem through their writing, podcasting, and long engagement with the community.

Although the current activity of the Ta is materialistic in its approach to the realization of joyful immortality, the actual text of ToT 5 is speculative, forward-looking, destiny-guided, and transphysical in its import. Many transhumanists call themselves “atheists” without getting into details about what they don’t believe in. Within the Ta, many joiners are similarly minded; however, they are able to accommodate the vital concept of Terasem (a deity evolved by creature action to serve creature needs in a vast and perfected universe) without apparent mental strife.

Some concluding thoughts on the evolution of the Ta can be found in Part 3.

For more on Terasem…

Editors Note: The purpose of this post is to continue a public transhumanist discussion of the Terasem Transreligion. Our previous post “What is Terasem—A Vitological Viewpoint” spoke of the transcendent vision of Terasem as a deity, evolved through creature effort, and addressing universal creature needs for joyful immortality and unity in diversity.

A complementary topic is the nature of Terasem as a constructed, ideal deity, understood by an examination of the past, present, and future of the human effort to begin the realization of Terasem in planetary affairs. The founders of the human cult named, “Terasem Movement Transreligion” have being working to develop Terasem’s world mission that supports their cosmic vision of joyful immortality. This post begins this review of the evolving Terasem “organization” today, named the “Ta” of Terasem in Truths of Terasem.

Terasem is the evolving deity of finite space and time. Essential ideas of this evolutionary deity previously appeared primarily in writings about the Omega Point, ranging from Teihard de Chardin to Frank Tipler. This transcendent deity has been an active participant throughout all human affairs, growing in influence as human consciousness has learned to reach out to the future beyond immediate needs of simple survival. It draws the vital expectations of individual humans towards their destiny as contributors to and agencies of the deity called Terasem.

In 2002, while viewing a Space Shuttle launch from a Florida beach, Martine Rothblatt found inspiration in a remarkable vitological vision, which she subsequently composed in writing and published as “Truths of Terasem” (ToT). You can hear her describe this experience and her own thoughts about the development of Terasem at Telexlr8, starting 40 minutes in. You can also read and download the entire ToT.

Terasem Joiners in Vermont

ToT itself includes both the conceptual framework for a final, unified universal consciousness (ToT Section 5.0) and an organized vitological cult, potentially devoid of partisan doctrines, special pleadings, and other abuses of privilege so often seen in human religious cultures.

In the eight years since initial publication of ToT, the founders have established and endowed a number of organizations for management, continuation, and preservation of various Terasem activities. Currently much of the focus is on cryonics and mind uploading R&D, as well as spacecasting of mindfiles. Terasem also supports unique products of technical craftsmanship, such as David Hanson’s Bina48, a demonstration of state of the art control of facial expressions combined with an affective chatbot based on the person of Bina Aspen Rothblatt, the co-founder. In addition, Terasem supports serious academic and legal debate about the rights of synthetic persons (clones, robots, uploaded mind simulations) through its Journals.

Terasem Home in Bristol, VT

Terasem maintains physical centers of activity in Melbourne, Florida, and Bristol and Lincoln, Vermont. A new wilderness property has been under development in Stratford, New Hampshire for the past four years. A number of Terasem “Joiners” live in these areas. In addition, Terasem formally recognizes locations in varying stages of development include New York City; Washington, DC; and Magog, Quebec—all locations where the founders and other joiners have an established personal presence. In general, any recognized location or committed individual or group is considered a “center of critical consciousness” and a potential formal part of the Terasem Ta.

These physical and economic arrangements, which continue to expand, are laying a very strong foundation for the future work of the Ta of Terasem, although it remains to be seen just what that future work will be and what sort of organization will develop to support it.

This completes Part 1 of our overview of the function of the Ta of Terasem. In Part 2 we we will examine the founders’ apparent and expressed intentions for growth of the Terasem vision and the ongoing realization of joyful immortality as a central part of this “transreligion.”