As Toynbee tells it inHistory:Whereas Zeus has no other wish than to preserve his position in a static eternity, Prometheus is an insatiable creator, a kindler of fire, a probing progressive mind-a mythical personification of the growth process, the Bergsonianlan vital apocalyptic Toynbee Inaddition, Geraci offers a reductionistic interpretation of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic,presuming it is caused by a breakdown of a proper social order and a sense of alienation(pp Arnold Toynbee Geraci is mistaken when he insists that the AI movement isapocalyptic (adventus) in Apocalyptic AI: Religion and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence,Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 76:1 (March 2008) 138-166 Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) inA Study of History(1934-1961) emphasized alternating challenges to civilization, followed by leaderships responses Sebastian Sebastian Seung Geraci Luigi Galvani Leonardo da Vinci Sebastian Seung, an outsider to transhumanism, described it as havingaccepted the post-Enlightenment critique of reason, yet not giving up on usingreason to achieve grand ends that could give meaning to life individually orcollectively:The meaning of life includes both universal and personal dimensions Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) referred to a life force and Goethe called itGestaltung There have been great individuals who were able to synthesize art and science, such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Goethe and Santayana 46In light of these understandings of the future, it is clear that the concept with whichtranshumanists work is the future as futurum, the future as a futurologist would grasp it An oak tree is the actualized futurum of a potential that already exists in the acorn But human advance is also subject to divine judgment Increased human intelligence cannot on its ownaccomplish what it will take divine grace to make happen I will distinguish between two types of futurist thinking: futurum relying upon growth orprogress versus adventus which anticipates the advent of the new But the transformation ofthe human heart so that it exudes benevolence and justice requires divine grace To Goethe evolution meant inward fulfillment, to Darwin it meant Progress Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) and Goethe sought for a rational morphology that would explain the mechanisms that generate similar organisms 16 Lines from Goethes poetry inFaust II(1832) point directly towards the extropic ideal of excellence: Hasten into bold adventure, while the common herd wanders hesitantly to and fro! There is nothing a noble spirit cannot achieve, if he understands and seizes his opportunity Goethe described history as living nature 63 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 Volumes (New York: CharlesScribners Sons, 1941-1942) 2:240 Amy review Carolyn Pirtle Carolyn Pirtle signal strength detectors, frequency detectors, signalstrength difference detectors, etc futurum Neuron 2 sends a Neuron signal to1 itselfsends at a connection signal to itself orsynapse atconnection C22and or tosynapse neuron C11and 1 at connection to neuron or 2, synapse at connection C21 orsynapse C12 ofthe type -- if the strength of the 1stinput In signala dendrite, is greater the signal than S1,andis sent tothe the strength neuron of the 2ndinput signal is less than S2, then switchon action An, i grace Goethe divine 4) The INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR objectionSome critics are concerned that promoting superhappiness may lead to what one may call, informally, "inappropriate" behavioural responses 71 Langdon Gilkey, Reaping the whirlwind: A Christian Interpretatio of History (New York:Seabury Press, 1976) 223 advent Think about the people with damaged visual neurology who cannot remember what it was like to see, who cannot imagine the color red or visualize two-dimensional structures 34 Jrgen Moltmann, Jrgen The Moltmann,Future of Creation, TheComing translated of God: by Christian Margaret Eschatology Kohl (Minneapolis:Fortress (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, Press,1979) 1471996) 25 Quite like Niebuhr, Moltmann comments: Everythingthat can be used can also be misused Reinhold Niebuhr Riemann Arnold Fermat Jeffrey In her review of Her, Carolyn Pirtle, theassistant director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, describes the ending scene as follows:The utter simplicity of this momentAmy resting her head on Theodores shoulderis incarnational, almost a moment of communion, for it is their human embodimentKoopman33that makes this moment possible But a motivational system of high-functioning gradients of superhappiness may be extremely adaptiveifthat's the behavioural phenotype we want for our children By contrast, genetically predestined superhappiness promises tomorrow's children "larger-than-life" personalities, uncompromising integrity, and a willpower stronger than anything neurologically feasible today Stephen Long John Mauldin Long signal Roger Schank All that's needed for selection pressure to get to work here is a partially heritable slight preference for children who are modestly more temperamentally happy [or less gloomy] than oneself John Owen Prospective parents will shortly be choosing the personalities/genetic make-up of their future children rather than playing genetic roulette visual One key figure was Reinhold Niebuhr, long time professor of social thought atUnion Seminary in New York, along with one of his disciples, Langdon Gilkey, the lateprofessor of theology at the University of Chicago 71Gilkeys theological judgment reiterates that of Reinhold Niebuhr and was shared by theinfluential school of neo-orthodox theologians subsequent to World War II David Zindell Homo Sapiens unambiguous superhappiness Langdon Gilkey For such a Power, to whom numbers were true semantic primitives, Fermat's Last Theorem and the Goldbach Conjecture and the Riemann Hypothesis might beobvious Moltmann Each connection Cijor synapse possesses a correspondingweighting factor wijthat is used to multiply the signal strength ofthe signal coming through the synapse I successfully evolvedoscillator circuits, signal strength detection circuits, line motiondetector circuits etc Seung Karl Pearson and Statistics: The Social Origins of ScientificInnovation Geraci rightlyrecognizes that the transhumanists replace divine action with evolutionary progress (p usually celebrate In order to explain the proof, one must introduce a new notation, due toDonald E Deitch, Jeffrey (1996): ?Menschliches und K?nstliches,?Kunstforum International132, p Gilkey Attendees at the spring session came from all over the globe and included John Mauldin, a best-selling author who writes aninvestmentnewsletter; Stephen Long, a research director at the Defense Department; Fernando A Paul Karl Pearson Paul Virilio For example, one such attempt--by Roger Schank and John Owen--is to devise an algorithmic definition of creativity children In the "Requiem for Homo Sapiens" series of novels by David Zindell (Neverness, The Broken God, The Wild, and War in Heaven), the verb "cark" is used for uploading one's mind (and also for changing one's DNA) The notation is usually a small arrow, pointing upwards, here abbreviated as ^ 65 Martin Luther, Luthers Works, American Edition, Vols Only eschatologicallyonly at the advent of GodsKingdom which will come by an act of divine gracewill unambiguous fulfillment be possible 63 The ambiguity of which Niebuhr speaks is the Wheneverpresent it comes potential to spiritual created health, by human the realism freedom, of Luthers namely, Reformation the potential becomes to choose Niebuhrsprescription evil and chaos aswell as what is good and fulfilling dreamworld Madame de Stal And in turnwe wouldnt have chi-square or regression if Karl Pearson hadnt been so anxious to provide hisparticular form of Darwinism with a proper scientific basis (Norton, 1978, p Iain Thompson Charles Perrow One executive sullenly declines to participate in another robot design exercise because no one in his group will consider making a sexbot Perrow Because the theologian looks forward tothe advent of divine transformation, he or she can celebrate anticipatory transformations broughtby advances in science and technology introduce Seienden (Four notes: First, by "neural injuries" I do not mean anything derogatory - it's just that a person missing the visual cortex will not have visual semantic primitives I will explicate briefly the positions taken by neoorthodox theologians suchas Reinhold Niebuhr and Langdon Gilkey, who helped make us aware that progress isambiguousthat is, all technological advances can be pressed into the service of either good orevil Theodore Twombly Virilio, Paul (1994):Die Eroberung des K?rpers It is due to the French philosopher Paul Virilio that we have a substantial analysis of the phenomena of movement and pace in the history of modernity It is amazing to read Emerson and find so much of his thought and values still current in Americas intellectual tradition If the total signal strength is abovethe threshold firing value of the neuron, it will fire, i Martin Heidegger Zeit circuits novels ConclusionEscaping Reality: Present and FutureHer is a transhumanist love story Dopfer, Kurt (2005) In Kurt Dopfer,ed The term "semantic primitive" describes more than just the level at which symbols are discrete, compact objects In fact, Knuth's arrow notation may not be the most powerful algorithm that fits into C(Knuth) states I am counting the primitive link types as being included under "semantic primitives" Niebuhr A Perceptual Transcend occurs when the semantic structures of one generation