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Lincoln Center, New York City, June 2013
Global Future 2045: Towards a New Strategy for Human Evolution, Congress Proceedings
GF2045: On the Path to a New Evolutionary Strategy
Dmitry Itskov
Founder of the 2045 Social Strategic Initiative
Abstract: During our congress we will devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between scientists, prominent figures from society and industry and representatives of the world’s major spiritual traditions in order to discuss the prospects of android robotics; brain-computer interfaces; cognitive neuroprostheses; engineering of the human brain; human consciousness and more. The congress will discuss key topics such as the transformation of humanity; intelligent evolution; the emergence of an immortal meta-intelligence at the planetary scale; and much more.
In fact, the scientific and social technologies that will be discussed can form the basis for the next and the first self-directed evolutionary step of mankind. Will this next evolutionary step create new problems for humanity? Probably, but if we do not take it, will we be able to overcome today’s existing crises?
I am certain that if we want to continue to develop and change civilization for the better, we should resolve this evolutionary dilemma and create a new evolutionary strategy taking us to a society based on the five principles of high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technology.
Guided by scientific expertise, we need to ensure that the objectives and deadlines of the scientific projects of this new strategy are realistic. Via the media and in public forums, we must make the compelling case for the necessity and benefits of future societal transformations, and gain public support. We must lay the foundation for the openness and accessibility of future technologies, and make the idea of further self-directed evolution part of the new culture of society.
I believe that the new evolutionary strategy should be considered at the level of large public and transnational organizations and government leaders.
The Global Future 2045 congress is dedicated to these issues... and more.
Transcript
I am glad to meet you here. Before I begin my introduction speech I would like to say that I am not a well-trained public speaker. I will probably use my notes and what I will tell you will not sound perfect because English is not my native language. Several years ago I had a kind of spiritual transformation which helped me and forced me to take the responsibility for what I am doing now and to try to do my best to change the situation in the world which we have now and try to start helping people, to try to save lives, and invest my time and effort in the future, the new future which will be much better than this time of multiple crises, this time when people suffer and die.
I would like to say that during the conference we will be paying attention and learning interesting facts about android robots, brain-computer interfaces, cognitive neuroscience, mind engineering, and many other interesting topics. But I would like you to think about considering what you do here as not just being about technologies, amazing technologies, but as part of a new evolutionary strategy for humanity. Actually the motto of the conference is “Towards The New Strategy for Human Evolution”.
We, the team of the 2045 initiative, have a special name for this strategy: We call it Evolutionary Transhumanism. While realizing this Evolutionary Transhumanism we need to create and realize two revolutions: First a spiritual revolution, we need this to make sure that people will benefit from the technologies, and that we raise the level of public consciousness, to be safe with that kind of technology that we hope to develop. The other revolution is techno-scientific and the aim of it is to develop the means of transferring one’s personality/one’s consciousness to a non-protein, more capable body carrier.
People call me a dreamer, and even some colleagues of mine call me a dreamer, but this dream, this huge future that we are going to create, I think it is worth dreaming of because in this future people will be young, beautiful, they will not suffer from illnesses and diseases. They will have multiple bodies not just one. The biological body will be able to live on earth and the non-biological body will be able to travel the cosmos. In the hologram-like body people stay in places where you cannot stay in the physical body. This kind of body will probably be radiant as the Russian scientist Tsiolkovsky called it. He was known to have probably the similar dream because he wanted humanity to be transformed to a kind of radiant humanity which will be not even material but from some sort of energy.
In this world of the future there will be no diseases, no death, no hunger, no wars, no tensions between nations, and on the contrary there will be abundance, freedom, creativity, and everyone will be concentrating on spiritual self-improvement I believe. Scientists are very rational and they don’t actually like talking of dreams, they prefer to deliver and not to overpromise from the very beginning. But what I want to emphasize is that that dream helps the speculation that we have in the project, can actually drive the science. During the whole history of humanity curiosity investigated interests the thirst for new discoveries have actually driven the science and encouraged the science. So obviously what we are going to develop through the realization of the Avatar project is not a speculation at all. It is realistic and I hope the Congress will show that we have enough ground to claim that it is realistic.
I wanted to draw attention to the fact that this kind of technology is already being implemented. We are going to live longer and longer and we are going to cure our bodies and we are using technology to do that. We don’t want to look like the Borg from Star Trek, right? We want the technology not to spoil our natural biological body, we want the technology to help it to become better, to get rid of suffering, to get rid of death. So what I suggest is to stop thinking of the technology as a tool which just repairs the body, as just a means of fixing sicknesses and aging.
I suggest that we start thinking of the technology as a possible megaproject which we can compare to megaprojects of the past, such as the nuclear project and the space project, and I think it is worth concentrating on the Avatar project and perceive of it as something strategic, something global, to benefit from, and to create the new species which will be free from the biological limitations of our original natural body. But we need to make sure that this project will be absolutely scientific and has very good scientific grounds, and we need to combine practicality and creative approach in it.
We need to be sure that the results of those developments will not be used for military purposes but will be used for humanitarian purposes. We need to make sure that these types of technology will be available for everybody. In parallel as I mentioned we need to develop the spiritual side, the spiritual aspect of the project of the initiative because what we want is that our lives will have new meaning and new goals, new senses. Otherwise we will not be able to have a transition to the new civilization of five high principles as we call them., which is high ethics, high morality, high science, high spirituality, and high technology. We need to start shaping the future which we want to have in 2045 right now, because we otherwise we will not be able to solve our monetary problems. We need to move ahead rapidly.
To finish this introductory speech I would like to address some groups of people, especially knowing that there are many journalists here and this message could be spread worldwide. I would like to address politicians, because they can and they need, even for themselves, to support our strategy, because the strategy will help us to organize the world as politicians claim they want it to be. It will help us to create a humane and really free world. Then I would like to address public figures, because people really listen to them and they can help us create some sort of social demand for the strategy. And then I would like to address the scientists, because they are actually the essential element in this strategy. They can help make the strategy real and feasible. I want them to be more open to people like myself and help me not just to be practical but help me to have a dream which is very rational and which has scientific support. And now I would like to address the businessman, because if we don’t start investing in this sort of project right now probably in the future according to the biological limits there will be nothing to sustain, because of death. So even if it is just donation right now, and maybe it will be donation because there is no business yet of health technology right now, but even with donation I think in the future we will get the best advantage we can have, because we will have life and happiness and real freedom. And I would like to address spiritual figures, because we really need their wisdom in realizing the strategy and need their advice on how to develop ourselves spiritually and how to develop the potential of our consciousness.
I see my main task and mission as being to initiate the discussion of the strategy of evolutionary transhumanism with the different governments and at the level of the United Nations. I think that the strategy could be a real and perfect plan for government leaders not just for the next few decades but for thousands of years. Obviously, there is nothing more global nowadays. I would say that this strategy could be the new standard for the human rights and democracy. It is a human rights issue, because people need to have the right to live, an option to live, not to die.
So let me officially open the congress “Towards a New Strategy for Human Evolution”. Thank you.
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