Ted Chu on the Cosmic Goal of Humanity

 Futurism  

Ted Chu recently conducted a talk about his new book, "Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential," and why the creation of Cosmic Beings should be our goal for the future.

Recently Dr. Ted Chu, author of Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision of Our Future Evolutionspoke to a small group about his cosmic vision for humanity, and beyond.  The video, in three parts is available from Chu's YouTube Channel.

The lecture gives an overview of Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential, and keys in on what the famous futurist Alvin Toffler may have misinterpreted as the Third Wave in the 1980's.

"What we should aim for is not happiness of humankind, but to really justify human existence by identifying human beings' position and responsibilities in the universe."

Toffler first wrote that the The Third Wave was represented by the I.T. revolution and was preceded by the agricultural and industrial revolutions, but Chu disagrees. Pointing out economic indicators he instead places Toffler's Third Wave as just a continuation of the industrial revolution.

He evaluates that the advent of computers did not have the kind of Singularity effects that were seen by the agricultural or industrial revolutions, but provided the economic stimulus to continue the industrial revolution through the past few decades. The real Third Wave Chu states is post-Human.

Chu uses this background to explain what he thinks should be the new goal of humanity: "What we should aim for is not happiness of humankind, but to really justify human existence by identifying human beings' position and responsibilities in the universe."

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Because the global economy was doing well, Chu states that the clear ideological underpinnings of a new goal for humanity did not have any incentive or attraction.  He says that the transhumanism and Singularity thinkers also lack ideological clarity on how to move humanity forward.  Now, however as the reality of technological obsolescence is taking hold and the economic picture is not so rosy, the time is right to look at what humanity's purpose is.  Looking at it from an objective standpoint, humans are a bottleneck to economic growth in a future of smarter-than-human artificial intelligence or genetically modified super-intellligent entities.

The future, according to Chu is create Cosmic Beings, or what he calls CoBe. This is really just a continuation of evolution, what he calls the most important idea in history.  We must experiment and we must eventually create a new species to succeed us according to Chu. "Call them transhumans or cyborgs, but I like to call them “CoBe” (the Cosmic Being)," says Chu.  Along with this, Chu proposes a new version of religion.

Lawerence Wollersheim, executive director of UniverseSpirit.org says Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential is a motivating and inspirational overview of what it means to embrace the best of evolutionary transhumanism and be a responsible universe citizen. The author also presents the "next generation" specifics on what the "new" concept of conscious or intentional evolution in alignment with evolutionary science looks like.

According to Chu, we now know how to create our successors with the help of robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology; and we need to begin this work now to prevent technological obsolescence and race with the machines or the role of humans in the global economy will gradually diminish in favor of these more efficient advanced devices and autonomous entities.

Chu was formerly chief economist of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and was also chief economist at General Motors. He has spent the last 15 years in the intensive study of posthuman evolution. He currently lives in Abu Dhabi.


SOURCE  Ted Chu's YouTube Channel

By 33rd Square

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