In a message dated 7/7/00 12:37:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
natashavita@earthlink.net writes:
<< Frank Tipler has never been my personal transhumanist Guru.
Immortality is not just about physics, although his ideas are
certainly worth reading and learning about. Placing too much
emphasis on technology and not enough emphasis on cultural change
may paint us into a corner. I think it would be far reaching
to develop the skills to implement change to get us to the future.
>>
My own personal ambitions lead me away from the political-cultural since both
can be fraught with ideological danger. If we can provide some concepts that
are appealing to both the scientist and nonscientist; the religious and the
atheist, then you have, indeed, changed society without being consumed by
ideology. People can adapt their own world-views to meet a new and
spectacular set of facts, such as the Final Anthropic Principle (assuming
that it is correct) and it will change every society that learns of it. There
are two major contenders (so far) to Barrow and Tipler's theory. One is by
Hans Moravec and his Neutronium Computers, the other is by Max Tegmark and
his Universe Ensemble. There shall surely be others. We need technology,
otherwise it will be misunderstood as a "new ager" fantasy.
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