Keith Wiley - Contemplating Oblivion

Interview with Keith Wiley, author of science fiction novel 'Contemplating Oblivion.  "A spectacular vision of the far future, in which the functioning of the mind is separated from the substrate of the brain, enabling light-speed interstellar travel and wild explorations of consciousness. Wiley depicts a society consumed with curiosity about the nature of consciousness, but also vexed by existential angst over the end of the universe, when even the immortals will perish."
—RANDAL KOENE PHD • Founder & CEO of Carboncopies.org • Founder of Minduploading.org • past Director of the Department of Neuroengineering at Tecnalia

Description: "Qualia: the quality or feeling of a conscious experience. Qualia can't be described, they must be experienced to be known. A million years in the future, physics is closed. Humanity has computerized the brain, solved death, and spread across the galaxy. The greatest challenge that remains is figuring out how a quadrillion immortal, nearly omnipotent humans might survive the eventual end of the universe.

Lysandra is a million-year-old quale-diver, a person who designs novel neural configurations in search of new conscious experiences—qualia. When she discovers a conscious state that hints at a solution to the universe-survival problem, the entire galaxy erupts with renewed excitement and hope. The final question to end all questions might be on the brink of a solution. But there are those who believe that surviving the end of the universe will destabilize the timeless cycle of infinite universes, leading to eternal oblivion, and they will stop at nothing to prevent Lysandra from completing her work."

Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9C5MJZT/

Many thanks for tuning in!
Please support SciFuture by subscribing and sharing!

Have any ideas about people to interview? Want to be notified about future events?  Any comments about the STF series?
Please fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mr9PIfq2ZYlQsXRIn5BcLH2onbiSI7g79mOH_AFCdIk/

Kind regards,
Adam Ford
- Science, Technology & the Future - #SciFuture - http://scifuture.org

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Avatar Polymorph - The Ethics of Boosting Animals from Sentience to Self...

Image
This video was posthumously published - RIP Avatar Polymorph.  The question of boosting the intelligence of animals other than humans, to the level of self-awareness and consciousness, is one that cannot be considered in isolation from the general process at work in the social and speculative movement known as Transhumanism. Transhumanism is partly about augmentation of the human body, for example by molecular computational nanotechnology (cell repair and DNA repair molecular machines, and rod logic molecular supercomputers for enhanced memory). More generally is is the movement to ‘self-directed’ evolution (replacing evolution by random mutation and natural selection). This was pointed out by myself in 1996 and by Damien Broderick in his book The Spike, which was the first popular book on the idea of the ‘technological Singularity’ (a time when technology surges forward based on accelerating computing). This is a radical movement away from evolution as we understand it, and unchos
Read more

Peter Singer - Extinction Risk & Effective Altruism

Image
Many Effective Altruists think a lot about the future, and there are questions of course in how much we should invest in trying to prevent small risks that we will become extinct. Another cognitive bias might be that we are not very good at accounting for small risks - we tend to dismiss them.  We can't see the difference between a 1 in 1000 chance and a 1 in 100,000 or a 1 in 1,000,000 is all that important. But really when you think about it, if there is a lot at stake, there is a huge gain in reducing the chance of risk from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 1,000,000.  Meaning it is only 1 thousandth as likely to occur...  And if what we are concerned about is the future of our species, and if we do value the idea that there should be human beings in the future, if you like the human story will continue, and that we hope there will be progress and that we will solve the problems that we are immediately faced with, and that eventually we will have potentially very large numbers of people, perh
Read more

The End of Aging - Short Documentary

Image
"The End of Aging'' mini-doco got first prize in the Longevity Film Competition 2018! Synopsis : "Aging is a technical problem with a technical solution - finding the solution requires clear thinking and focused effort. Once solving aging becomes demonstrably feasible, it is likely attitudes will shift regarding its desirability.  There is huge potential, for individuals and for society, in reducing suffering through the use of rejuvenation therapy to achieve new heights of physical well-being.  I also discuss the looming economic implications of large percentages of illness among aging populations - and put forward that focusing on solving fundamental problems of aging will reduce the incidents of debilitating diseases of aging - which will in turn reduce the economic burden of illness.  This mini-documentary discusses the implications of actually solving aging, as well as some misconceptions about aging.  The 21st century is a time of unprecedented change - we are
Read more