Mixed Quotes of Transhuman Interest

The future lies in the hands of those who are able to give the coming generation good reasons to live and hope.
Pierre Teilhard DeChardin

Apocalypse is by no means inevitable
Jim Rice

Spacekind of the Earth Unite! You have nothing to lose but your gravity!
Dale Amon

Society's only real 'progressives' are the deviants and mutants. Look at evolution - fish who didn't deviate never became amphibians; frogs who didn't mutate never became reptiles; conformist snakes never became mammals , etc. Normal Humans will remain humans, and they'll be subjugated by the digital monsters of the next few millenia.
Jim Goad, ed. of _ANSWER ME_

All intelligent problem solvers are subject to the same ultimate constraints - limitations on space, time, and materials.
Marvin Minsky, quoted in Blasts from the Past, 10 Years Ago in Byte, Byte magazine, April 1995

Fear Controls Knowledge. Knowledge Controls Fear.

What is the point of life if it ends in death?
John de Rivaz

One would normally define a "religion" as a system of ideas that contain statements that cannot be logically or observationally demonstrated... Gödels theorem not only demonstrates that meathematics is a religion, but shows that mathematics is the only religion that proves itself to be one!
The World within the world. J D Barrow.

Maybe we're about to radically change the operating system of the human condition. If so, then this would be a really good time to make backups of our civilization.
Bruce Sterling

Cogito, ergo Omega est.
Richard Lubbock

To treat something as conscious when it turns out not to be is a little foolish.

To treat something as not consious when it turns out to be is an ethical outrage.

So the time will come when we must give the benefit of the doubt.
malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon)

God loves space! After all, He made an awful lot of it.

I once met a Luddite.
He told me that
the ultimate evil of our
technologically-preoccupied society
would be realized when man suceeded
in uploading himself into the computer.

I disagree. I think it will bring us one
step closer to God.

Julie Ann Petersen

The most important skill is the skill to learn new skills
Paul Bourke

Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.
Henry Van Dyke

I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them.
Isaac Asimov

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

If I bind my future I bind my will. If I bind my will I strangle creation.
George Bernard Shaw, , Back to Methuselah(1921)

cryptocosmology- sufficiently advanced communication is indistinguishable from noise - god is in the least significant bits
fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham)

"After all, we're all human."
- Picard
"Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever!"
- Riker

The task of thinking is based upon selection and weeding out; Remembering everything is weirdly similar to forgetting everything. Most things people do shouldn't be remembered. Maybe forgetting is good.
Gary Wol,

Frank Ogden says that parents often ask him what profession their children should prepare for. His response is: "A profession that you've never heard of."

Instead of trying to specify a system in full detail, specify it only somewhat. You can then ride on the dynamics of the system in the direction you want to go.
Stafford Beer

I have never grown up, but I will never stop growing.
Arthur C. Clarke

Technologies, by themselves, are value-neutral. Human use of technology never is. This bitch won't fly unless we get out and push it, and it won't crash into the ground unless we point it at it. We determine the end points of our own work.
Mark D. Pesce

By the year 2020, there will be a whole new industry built on remembering the year 2000.
Alvin Toffler

Exuberance is Beauty.
William Blake

What is now proved was once, only imagin'd.
William Blake

Timothy Leary so nicely suggests within Chaos & Cyberculture, "Reality designing is a team sport"(1994).

My mother used to tell me: "Do the best that you can with the tools that you have, and as soon as you can, get better tools."
Romana Machado

The dullard sees no eros in fine champagne; the sorcerer can fall intoxicated on a glass of water
Hakim Bey

Simplicity This is a recipe for managing complexity with simple elements, taken from the book "Out of Control - The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World" by Kevin Kelly, which I very much recommend. This comes out of robot research, and (of course) biology:

1. Do simple things first
2. Learn to do them flawlessly
3. Add new layers of activity over the results of the simple tasks.
4. Don't change the simple things.
5. Make the new layer work as flawlessly as the simple.
6. Repeat, ad infinitum.

"Complexity is grown from simple systems that already work."

Pessimist's Definition of Optimism : Failing to learn from life.
Optimist's Definition of Pessimism : Failing to learn to live.
Martijn Faassen

As Max More put it: "Life and intelligence must never stagnate; it must re-order, transform and transcend its limits in an unlimited progressive process. Our goal is the exuberant and dynamic continuation of this unlimited process..."

Learn as though you were going to live forever,
Live as though you were going to die tomorrow.
Old Hebrew Saying

Instead of just letting life happen, I'm going to make it happen for me.
Denis Waitley

Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.

Uploading isn't a >H goal because it's one step closer to some mythical and unknowable perfection, but because it'll be jolly practical.
Dr. Rich Artym

Astonishment is the only realistic emotion.

People accept their limitations so as to prevent themselves from wanting anything they might get.
Celia Green

I love thee, O Eternity.
Nietzsche

If not us -- who??? If not now -- when??? Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

there is a need for a future culture. there is a need for individual action. there is a need for thinking globally. there is a need for us to be better.
Marius Watz

Mortality is . . for mortals. I aspire for more than this.
Aaron Kfir

It is better to have a long and intese life than a short and boring life.
Felix Ungman

I think our grandparents were Victor Frankenstein. I basically am the kind of deeply unnatural creature that Mrs Shelley instinctively dreaded. I not only eat her sacred cows but I eat them with ketchup. While I take her point, I think that transgressive monstrosity and tampering with the life force are both a lot more fun than she suspected.
Bruce Sterling

In the information age, sharing can increase world wealth enormously, because giving information does not decrease your information.
John de Rivaz

Accepting that identity is relative means two things: that immortality is impossible, and that immortality is inevitable.
Eric Zetterbaum

Why do we have to keep making things better and faster? Are we not content with the highest living standards in human history? Is life not fast enough? Not convenient enough? What do we want?

Silly us; those questions don't matter! It's built into our soul-print: the musician will play, the writer will write, the tinkerer will tinker. Asking us to stop progress is asking us to stop all these things-- to stop *life*-- and we can't, not even if we wanted to. Progress is just what happens when people *live*.
Dave Dahl, If Buddha Had Been Born in 1970, Would He Be Using The Internet?

Godlike powers can be mass-produced and inexpensive
Carl Feynman

The sun will darken.
It keeps me awake,
since I'm immortal.

Aliens could never
be as alien
as another human.

Eva Eriksson

Spirited away
Upon Wings of Transcendence
The Stars are our home

Greg Bower

The senator described to me her vision of society. We're on a train, she said. A runaway train steaming furiously toward a collision with a concrete wall and all she wanted to do was to put on the brakes before it was too late. I say it's already too late. I say if we want to survive, forget about the brakes and stoke the boilers. Let's get up enough speed now so that no lousy wall of concrete can dictate our doom. Enough speed to thrust this train right through the wall. We all know that a straw, driven by a tornado, can pierce a fence post. We have to ride that tornado. We have to ride that train. We have to find out if there is life on the other side of the wall, because if we give up now we are going to crash. Only audacity and nerve can serve us now.
Linda Nagata, Tech Heaven

When men and women think, the first step to progress is taken.
Elizabeth C. Stanton

The most damaging phrase in the language is: `It's always been done that way.'
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.
Stephen Covey, First Things First

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.
Don Marquis (1878-1937)

No man knows enough to be a pessimist.
Norman Cousins

People's belief in their own local reality-tunnels keep us all far stupider than we ought to be..."
Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising

As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence, I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so.
Freeman Dyson, Infinite In All Directions

"One can imagine a time when men who still inhabit organic bodies are regarded with pity by those who have passed on to an infinitely richer mode of existence, capable of throwing their consciousness or sphere of attention instantaneously to any point on land, sea, or sky where there is a suitable sensing organ. In adolescence we leave childhood behind; one day there may be a second and more portentous adolescence, when we bid farewell to the flesh."
Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles Of The Future (originally published in 1958):

TH is a commitment to overcoming human limits in all their forms including extending lifespan, augmenting intelligence, perpetually increasing knowledge, achieving complete control over our personalities and identities and gaining the ability to leave the planet. Transhumanists seek to achieve these goals through reason, science and technology.
Nancie Clark

Unlimited individual freedom through reason and technology.
Nancie Clark

I have seen the True Path. I will not warm myself by the fire. I will become The Flame.

"All rising curves that show unwelcome trends in human affairs will approach infinity if extended far enough, but it is we who dictate the curve and not vice versa."
Niels Bohr, The Minds Sky

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Those in need of a helping hand usually fail to see the one at the end of their arm.

Tell me, I forget.
Show me, I remember.
Involve me, I understand.

Victor Hugo said, "There's nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow."

"Someone is going to make your product obsolete. Make sure it's you."
Edwin Land (founder of Polaroid)

If we haven't the brains to choose the best track --we should choose the track to better brains.

ADVENTURE To the silicon sailor, adventure is just a byte away.

ALERTNESS Stay alert.The future is going to be interesting.

BEHAVIOUR In times of chaos, panic, or rapid change, the bizarre rapidly becomes acceptable.
Frank Ogden Quote Book

"When I started bodybuilding I realized immediately that I had ultimate authority over my body and its appearance, and I loved that sense of power. You are what you wish to be."
Laura Creavalle

EARTH...If You Love It, Leave It

I know that the human condition will be radically changed through technical means. Much of this change will be painful, monstrous and horrible. Most mutations are disgusting failures, most experiments are failures. I accept this and I don't find it frightening.
Bruce Sterling

What have you become today?
Mitchell Porter

Of all our human resources, the most precious is the desire to improve.

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dreams of yesterday are the hopes of today, and the realities of tomorrow.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, though checkered with failure, than to take rank with those poor souls, who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

"Turn on, tune in, take charge."
Timothy Leary

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