By Michael Blade, Copyright 2012

I recommended you first watch this video before reading the short story bellow.  There is another video at the end of this story as well.  This video is "In the beginning was the code: Juergen Schmidhuber at TEDxUHasselt" which leads into the following science fiction short story written by me, Michael Blade.

My original story was written before watching this video, but it fits so well into the necessary background understanding for the story I decided to include it as a prequel-mashup. You see the future, time travel and the afterlife itself are very different than we normally come to imagine, especially inside the universe of where this story takes place.  Anyway off on a tangent here . . .  I'm excited about the fact that Zac Finger wants to do a comic book of this short science fiction series! I'm still working on a way to substantiate free will through the use of reverse-time-simulation and the concepts introduced in this story.  And now finally the story . . .

Time Sim, by Michael Blade © Copyright March 2013

I speed down the dusty Las Vegas desert highway in my sports car, hoping not to be late for my meeting. I just lost a lot of money playing Blackjack at the casinos. Thinking to myself, obviously things are not going well; best to get back to the business of honest writing. Although the last book sales were flat and actually a flop, all is not lost. My agent just called to informed me some one named Harry Wells has asked to meet me personally to discuss a possible Hollywood movie script deal for one of my science fiction stories.

This could be it, the big one, winner winner chicken dinner! If this works out I could retire to the good life, somewhere maybe on an island with great weather and beautiful surroundings, peacefully fading into oblivion for the rest of my life.

By Michael Blade, Science Fiction Blogger “Transhuman Singularity”, February 22, 2013

Image1 : Front page of the Drupal Viradu Science Fiction Themed Virtual World register account and install viewer to get connected website 

This is a summary about me operating my own virtual world, you have to understand it was an exciting early days for me and independently hosted virtual worlds...  

It all started many many years ago (back in 2007) in Second Life titled the Science Fiction Cafe. It was a place for sci-fi lovers to meet and discuss their favorite books, movies, TV and general over all science fiction concepts. I hosted and moderated the meetings and we received attendees from various parts of the world, mostly Europe in different time zones. People where willing to get up in the middle of the night to meet in a virtual space thru text messaging and their avatar. We even had an avatar costume party! Although we didn't give any prizes some people showed up in their avatars as characters from science fiction.

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionI...

Paul Davies speculates "Biological intelligence will be a transitory phase in the evolution of intelligence in the universe."  I have include a link to this very important video which should start at 47.53 on the slider...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=z5vPLSj3cNs#t=47m53s

Science Fiction © Michael Blade 2010

Muffy was a loyal pack dog on the locally collapsed time-day of his death, which varied in fractal quantum probability across a multitude of bifurcated futures or space-time universes.

Thanks for the feedback, unfortunately I have had to shut off commenting because of runaway ad spamming by f*cking spambots!  I am a firm believer in humanity and human survival traits.  I also am a firm believer in the fact that the future for our current form of human will always be distopian in some way shape or form.  Philip K. Dick had that right, as well as Wells, Orwell, Asimov, Clarke and Shelley.  Humans are selfish, self-centered, greedy, jealous beings.  They also are wonderful, loving, caring, sharing and altruistic animals as well.  An interesting dichotomy.  I would never want to engineer out such characteristics, genetically or otherwise.  However, that said the violence and wars are really a waste and there is no ideal government in my mind, not a human one.  Giving control over to a AI may not be any better, especially if that AI isn't part human itself.  Therefore, integrating an AI-human meta-mind maybe a wiser course.    You have the emotions and compassion of a human with the logic-intellect of a machine; a group mind emergent superorganism.  You still retain the human creative element, beauty still exists, but becomes more rich and complex, our understanding and tolerance of each other expands.

By Michael Blade, Copyright  All Rights Reserved, January 2013

I will start by trying to define my understanding of what it means to be transhuman. This may not be your understanding or even the general understanding, but so be it. I will not enter into the debate on whether we should even attempt to be transhuman or what would be the negative consequences of such an undertaking. I leave that to other discussions, which believe me of I have had many.

To be transhuman implies that you are also human, or once were human or derived from human genetic stock (DNA), basically having a human ancestor, maybe AI of a scan human derived variety (born or unborn), possibly AGI integrated. It implies you are more than human, transitioning, on the way to becoming posthuman, human plus, H+, a new species entirely, etc. Hopefully not H-.

In my opinion transhuman is a form of self directed evolution through technology and shaped by societal forces, this is assuming that an individual has the free choice. Growing out of this kind of thinking comes a multitude of branches for alteration-augmentation; possibilities in the base human from very minor to very extreme.

Listed here in no particular order and very possibly incomplete are:

• Cyborgs, robotic, all manner of electronic augmentation, new senses, AR

• Transpecies DNA alteration/insertion, Synthetic DNA alteration/insertion

• Incorporation of symbiotic organisms, altered-designed new function organs giving new capabilities

• Neural augmentation, cognitive extension into cyberspace/internet/cloud

• Complete life-logging all senses, thoughts, experiences, complete digital uploading, substrate independence, integration with Artificial Intelligence, genome-connectome-envirome packaging

• Robotic telepresence from simulated being, android (meaning synthetic artificial body, appearing human), meat cloned body linked to upload, telepresence into organic being (like “Avatar” the movie), rented bodies

• A group mind social integration, global brain, hive mind, multiple consciousness functioning as one entity, omni-conscious being/experience possible human-machine-system-super-organism

• Digital Avatar with AI augmentation and augmented reality/virtual reality, cellular network telepathy-sensory-memory-communication and backup storage

Having taken a good general high-level attempt at defining some of the possibilities, it becomes obvious that the permutations are really very large and diverse and it is impossible to predict at any granular level what a transhuman can actually be or become. That said, I will try to illustrate one extreme possibility with my limited understanding of the technologies involved, many which do not exist yet, others which are rapidly progressing or formulating.

My very extreme transhuman will have no categorical name (just yet), but will have certain qualities. Any sexual identity will be possible, he, she, it, we, other, multi, none; completely selectable. If that bothers you, please stop reading right now, you are not ready yet. He will be substrate independent, having a connectome which is uploaded and simulate (siman: simulated human). He will have physical presence in a real clone grown body with a cyborg- transpecies-synthetic genome. He will have access to a tool set and catalog for self-modification, tweaking.

He can exist as multiple telepresent android-robots in space colony situations. His “digital packaging” allows him to be simulated in multiple complete virtual or augmented reality situations. He can be

telepathically linked to other minds through the cellar network, or like wireless neurally integration infrastructure, with define exchange protocols for sensory, memory, communication and storage both in the virtual simulation and remote entity.

Able to spawn thousands of copies of himself, complete separate tasks and reintegrate the multitude of experiences. Eventually he could become a swarm of nanomachines or integrate with AI's in a group planetary mind.

Traveling at the speed of light his digital package would be transmittable to the stars, instantiate at receiver stations in the local systems, visit and study planets as localized alien entities. Eventually he would become part alien as well, experiencing new emotions, living for hundreds of thousands of years, jumping from star system to star system and becoming a galactic human-machine lifeform, a true posthuman entity.

Eventually he may create a bubble universe or universe simulation. Existing in clouds of nanoparticles or even dark matter as a energy-super-computer-organism. This could also explain some of the fermi paradox. Or if he so chooses “go extinct”, but then how would that be any different a destination than our present species course?

Does tranhuman therefore imply a singularity?  No one can really know the answer.   It may be a tipping point for humanity or the greatest explosion of diversity in the human technological species we will ever know.

I'm going to leave this one completely open for commenting. 

The following information seems necessary for an alien species to be able to receive and properly simulate a human.  

What I meant by this diagram is that in the near future when it becomes possible to simulate human beings it will also become possible to package them up and serially transmit them to the stars for alien races to unpackage and simulate.  The data package transmited would include everything you need to know to construct the simulation, the human and the enviroment and culture.  The question of whether we should do this, have already done it or whether the human should know they are a simulation I will leave to you!

How Digital Transhumans Can Travel to Other Stars at the Speed of Light

By Michael Blade aka Michael McAnally, September 2012

My premise is simple, the only thing that travels as fast as light is light. Therefore if we wish to travel as fast as light we must be encoded serially in the form of light pulses, binary in nature. Of course if we want to travel to other stars we must provide for error correction within the encoded Digital Transhuman message package. The high-level problems to solve now become:

1. How do we encode a human mind with all its experience memories and personality into a digital form which can be transmitted to a star?

2. Once transmitted to a selected star, how is the received signal instantiated into a virtual environment, robot or cyborg-organic body?

    

   So part of the second question is how do we get a receiver station setup on a remote star possible many many light years away? That is assuming of course we can't count on an alien intelligent to revive us per our detailed instructions transmitted with our message package and construct a suitable container for our consciousness. I am going to propose a light sail microstarhip technology as one solution to this problem.

What would an uploaded human mind be able to do?
 
Assuming hypothetically that we could achieve such a feat, and that we don't digress into arguments of whether it actually has a soul, or the same identical fidelity as the original.  Or just how long it would take to do such a thing? Or whether we should do it, and many other such debates.

I ask again, what would just such a human uploaded mind be capable of? What are it's parameters?  Maybe it’s possible to guess. We do understand ourselves somewhat given our evolutionary history.  That in of itself is a somewhat frightening thought! But I will continue . . .

Seven billion and counting, that's the number of human beings living on the planet Earth as of this writing. That's a lot of creatures consuming the resources of the planet and not always in a way that is replenishing and sustainable to the current healthy ecological state of the said shared biosphere!

What can be done? Well we could eat each other, as in Soylent Green. Become even more efficient at killing each other, for whatever stupid sub-human behavior, probably oil or some other dwindling resource, as we constantly seem to be doing.

Or maybe, just maybe we could evolve . . . I mean technologically evolve. Enhance ourselves to become more than just physically human. Human + (plus) technology. Am I talking evil Nazi Eugenics? NO. Am I talking smart phone ---> Star Trek Borg implants, Matrix simulated realities, AI controlled cultures like The Forbin Project? Space expansion through human technological evolution? SMILE? Honestly, I don't know. But certainly something we can't imagine yet.

Imagine a time in the somewhat distant future in which a large part of humanity has left the Earth and spread across the galaxy. Science Fiction you say, yes it is now, but we know science fiction has a tendency to come true. Suffice it to say many examples exist and I wont go off on a tangent listing even a few of them them.

Back to humanity sown across our galaxy . . . recently I was asked a question about a poem I wrote called “Posthuman” by one of the readers. The question was, “What is the core message or theme of your blog post Posthuman- A poem?” I found the question to be interesting and want to share my answer with you all here.

Copyright by Michael Blade aka Michael McAnally, September 2012 Transhuman Singularity

My premise is simple, the only thing that travels as fast as light is light. Therefore, if we wish to travel as fast as light we must become light,  encoded serially in the form of light pulses, binary in nature. It follows, if we take this projected path traveling to the stars on light waves we must provide for error correction within the encoded Digital Transhuman message package. Other high-level problems to solve now become:

I am a Hummingbird, By Michael Blade, Copyright 2012

After my body died the surgeons put me in a hummingbird. It took a while to get use to having my perspective darting around so quickly, but my mind had finally adapted to it. At least that was what my neuro-psychologist told me. Maybe it was so.

Back when I started writing this blog (May 25, 2008), I wrote a post titled 

EDITORIAL: Life on Mars?  Dead or Alive?   Science Fiction???

That post still holds true today.  My feelings haven't changed.  You may say it doesn't matter what I feel, life either exists on Mars or it doesn't and my feelings have no effect on the true outcome of the scientific findings.  I say you're wrong, like Schrodinger's Cat is dead . . . only one can be true, HOWEVER recent findings suggest I was right!  I want to be in a universe where life exists not just on Mars, but many worlds in our solar system and even around other stars.

I say it is important we find life on Mars, doing so will motivate colonization throughout the solar system.  It will transform the common popular perception of the universe.  It might wake us up from our narcissistic parochial views of life in the universe.  I believe that can ultimately only be good for humanity and its long term survival, whatever we eventually become.

That leads into something I wrote below, which I will repost here:

Pure Speculation: Species Consciousness and What We Should Do About Alien Contact and Human Survival?

Where are all the aliens?   One of the things that puzzles me the most these days, and maybe a few others as well, is the Fermi Paradox.

Again, where are all the aliens?   The galaxy and universe should be rightly teeming with them.   Or at least I would like to believe and see it so myself.

Assuming the evolution of life on Earth is a normal example and a relatively common happenstance; and that of course it is a big assumption, but let's continue on anyway.