Research to Date

A technological singularity would be the most revolutionary, rapid growth of technology that has ever occurred. Ray Kurzweil, certainly one of the most influential authorities on the subject, explains this change with the Law of Accelerating Returns. (1) An extension of Moore's Law, which originally described the exponential acceleration in computer hardware developments, it explains that the evolution of all human technology has followed an exponential curve. Billions of years passed before the first single-celled organism emerged, and hundreds of millions more to unintentionally create such an intelligent being as Homo sapiens. Since the development of science quite recently, human technology has come to a point that is unmatched by all technology from our past, combined. (2) This is the most basic assumption of my research, because without an exponential curve, the effects of human culture and biology would not approach the urgency it causes right now.
Anthropology must recognize these rapid changes in the light of exponential expansion of technology, as they change our mental and physical capacities by melding the brain and the rest of the body with computers, they enhance our biology by allowing us to engineer genes and neurons to increase favorable traits, and give us access to all the world's knowledge. The implications go far beyond anthropology and will necessarily be explained by interdisciplinary study and collaboration with realms outside of academia, within the internet user community that generates useful new inventions and applications.
To get a sense of just how far technology has come and how rapidly our societies have changed, take for example the progression of the internet search engine. For those who can remember, less than 20 years ago the search engine was something utilized only among an elite few, certainly not part of public consciousness. After the rise of internet search engines during the 1990's, the unlimited availability of information has become a normal part of life, embedded in every aspect of cultures affected by the internet, and accepted and perpetuated by "Generation Z" faster than any generation has latched onto a technology. The parallel with human biological evolution helps materialize this idea in one's mind: once a simple mammal evolved certain beneficial features, it builds off of every new characteristic previously attained and eventually turns into something that exceeds the original until it is so different as to become another species or genus. Transition
The term "Cyborg" (Cybernetic Organism) describes a biological organism that has been mixed with machine technology to enhance its natural capabilities. Humans are already cyborgs because of the intimate nature of their relationship with the internet. Brain-Computer Interface Technologies (BCI's) are remarkably more advanced than just 10 years ago and it is now possible to control electronic material by translating brain waves into demands in a computer. Companies such as CyberKinetics, Neurosky, and OLogic have created BCI technologies that allow a human brain to control a computer by turning brain wave signals into mathematical algorithms that evolve to "learn" the correlation between certain wave patterns and the desired command. Transition
Advances in human-machine interface technology are progressing in more ways than just reading brain waves to influence a computer, although I cannot stress the importance of that enough. Many researchers are questioning the functionality of immobile plastic pieces like keyboards and non-interactive screens that limit the user's interaction with a computer. In 2006, Jeff Han of New York University introduced an intuitive, touch screen computer that nearly eliminates human-machine interface barriers by conforming to the user's hands instead of the user conforming to the computer. This type of computer intuitively reacts to a person's hands on the screen as if they were moving real, physical particles. (3) Going even further, Researchers at the MIT Wearable Computing Lab have created the most interactive computer system to date that can be projected on any surface by the user. The most remarkable characteristic is that a camera attached to the body can recognize simple hand gestures such as taking a picture by creating a square with fingers or drawing a watch on the wrist. It then takes the picture or connects to the internet to project the desired information onto the surface the user has chosen for the moment. This kind of revolution in computer technology should do away with the traditional computer that keeps users in one place and limits information retrieval from the web. Being able to connect every physical environment we confront with unlimited information about objects in that space will expand human capabilities beyond the imagination. Human biology is being fundamentally altered as well by manipulating preexisting organic material, and creating nano-scale robots, both used to augment the body.
Nanotechnology is accelerating faster than my research can keep up with, and the understanding of nanorobotics will usher in a new age of medicine, biotechnology, and computer technology by using nanoelectromechanical systems to assemble nanoparticles that will eventually be able to target certain biological structures (e.g damaged cells) and fix them inside the body. If we develop the ability to extend human life as long as we want by repairing damages on the cellular and molecular level, then human illness would theoretically diminish. This of course has enormous implications for human values regarding life and death, and what it means to be human in the first place. Our species certainly is something special, and the most incredible thing that makes us special is our unique intelligence that has far surpassed any other organism we've encountered. This brings me to my next point: scientists are coming closer to understanding our intelligence so much that artificial machine intelligence is something to be taken seriously.
Artificial intelligence has been developing for over half a century, starting with the most basic program such as the General Problem Solver in 1957, which could find mathematical proofs for theorems. (2) From the ideas put forth so far in this 50 year discussion, the question is not whether A.I will develop beyond human abilities, but when it will evolve to such complexity. The influence of A.I can be seen in the cars we drive, search engines, bots and spiders scanning through unfathomable amounts of data, powering search engines and personal computers. We are at a point where A.I is used by government agencies, companies, schools, and individuals only for recreation. Most of the data translation people are able to accomplish would be impossible without some sort of A.I program behind it. Take for example a spider bot. Its function is to scan data, analyze, and file certain information at speeds and with precision that humans could never accomplish alone. Without this type of computer program, the internet would not exist as it does now, giving anyone the ability to find almost any information on the web.
To put this information into perspective and appreciate the incredible implications for our future, consider this: The human brain evolved over millions of years to reach the state it is in now, the most intelligent organism on the planet. That brain then became conscious of itself and is now manipulating naturally occurring elements so far as to create entirely new non-biological intelligent beings. This is all a naturally occurring process just as a beaver dam occurs naturally through selection pressures to create the beaver. The questions for anthropologists are vast. My research focuses on the current state of BCI, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and RFID's, and their affects on human interaction while using these technologies. Internet use and availability of technology to the average consumer in industrialized areas has become not just a luxury or recreation, but so much a part of daily life that it is nearly impossible to avoid.
Developing technology that extends lives by making humans part non-biological and incapable of degeneration will transform our morals, values, and culture beyond recognition. Artificial intelligence is assumed to develop to a point where human and robot minds are indistinguishable, or to go beyond human minds in their ability to process qualitative information. For cultural anthropology, the most interesting aspect of the changes is in the shift of identity and the enormous changes in communication techniques. Suddenly, humanity will find itself in a society influenced by non-biological minds with their own opinions and their own cultures. A global consciousness will develop out of the countless communication technologies by connecting distant ideas. We already see this in the age of the internet. For me, many of the questions are unanswerable but somewhat predictable. I will describe the relevant technologies and incorporate them into the group's collaborative study.


1.) http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=1%23691
2.) http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
3.) http://www.cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/

Here are links to some very informative websites if you want to learn more about BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) Technological Developments

http://www.thinkartificial.org/ This is a blog site with tons of links to other sites and categories such as A.I and Machine Interfaces.

http://www.neurosky.com/
A company that produces incredible BCI technologies such as in the video below where a person controls a video game only by using his mind: Check out a video about them on YouTube as well:

http://www.ologicinc.com/
"OLogic is an embedded systems research and development company with a focus on robotic applications, and bringing robotic technologies to life in non-robotic product domains."

http://regen.eyetap.org/
This is eyeTap Labs, exploring "Existencial Technology", "Wearable Computing", and "Mediated Reality" to name a few endeavors. Must See! They produced the techology used below for the 2003 DECONism Gallery.

Electroencephalography: Want to know just HOW BCI technology is possible? It's called Electroencephalography, and it is a blossoming field that allows such inventions to flourish! Check out our beloved Wikipedia for more info and plenty of links.

http://eyetap.org/deconism/

A Musical Brainwave Performance at the DECONism Gallery in 2003. "REGEN3 will present the latest developments in EEG brainwave music research, by presenting an ensemble comprised of Toronto jazz musicians playing music which is driven and altered by the brainwaves of the audience. Audience members can become part of an advanced mass EEG system which uses audience brainwaves to control the music and lighting environment: a truly 'smart' building. Join us and see what happens when the mood of the environment is "regenerated" by the collective consciousness of the attendees."

Presentation: Transhumanism and the future of identity

Here is the presentation I gave in class on Tuesday 3/10:

Transhumanism is going beyond our biology by melding human and machine and eventually creating non-human conscious entities.

The brain evolved over millions of years to get to the state of self-awareness that it now has.

VERY few organisms have this biological characteristic.

What we see now is the process of natural selection creating a self-aware brain, understanding itself (our science/technology), creating a new biological form (genetic/neural engineering), and creating a new form of mind that is not a result of a brain evolved over millennia (Artificial Intelligence).

So what happens to natural selection?

•Neural Engineering/Cybernetic technology allows for further development in:

•Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Technologies:

–BrainGate, created by the company Cybernetics in 2003, allows brain to control computer with thoughts, not action from the rest of the body.

–Brain (Neural) Implants that allow for direct brain-computer interaction: Cochlear Implants (hearing), Pacemakers.

–Chronic Electrode Implants: Electronic devices implanted into the brain. They record electrical impulses or stimulate the neurons using an outside electrical source. Implications in simulating damaged senses or senses not natural to humans.

•Machine-Human evolution revolution. Machines evolving MUCH faster than we did…

•Neural Engineering: Already formed brain can be engineered/adapted to fit with computer pieces (eg Matthew Nagle-BrainGate) using electrode implants.

•Literal “Intelligence Supplements”: Already do this with internet-human/computer interface will become blurred line-already see this (MIT, 3D Computer Interface)

•Artificial Intelligence Developments:

•Recursive Formula-“Recognition-Based Pruning Algorithm” (Kurzweil) Ex. Draw with best chess player in the world in 2002.

•Not just replication of human thought processes. Rather, machine “thought”, with sometimes human model.

• Quantitative ability far surpasses human abilities, Qualitative abilities in humans mark the difference. (eg data analysis)

•What will happen to previous notions of human identity?

•EVERYTHING will be radically different including: the way we interact, language, sexuality, sexual reproduction, values, religious belief, recreation, dogmas, emotion, ethics, perception, biological evolution, biological “necessities”, etc…

•How will machines develop an identity within a world created by humans (including their own awareness)?

George the Chatterbot

Cyberkinetics: Controlling Machine with the Mind

Presentation Preview for Jessica's Research on Mind-Machine Identity and Interaction.

This week I will give a presentation on the research I have done so far on the topic of Transhumanism and the vast array of technologies we should see with it including, but not limited to: Cybernetics, Neural Engineering, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics, and Brain-Machine interface technologies such as Cyberkinetics (controlling machine with the mind). I will present the most relevant technologies and a few of Ray Kurzweil's ideas about exponential growth and the technological singularity, then bring these ideas back to my basic research questions with the following points:

1.) Technology is developing at an exponential rate. Those technologies that transform human-computer interface into a more intimate relationship, are expanding both human and computer capabilities.

2.) These capabilities include change in the intelligence of humans by connecting the physical brain to a computer and the internet to access information otherwise more difficult to attain, and a change in computer intelligence by developing stronger A.I technology.

3.) As in Eisenstein's ideas about the revolutionizing printing press, a human ability to access all of human knowledge using technology that melds the brain to the internet will cause a fundamental change in human identity, the product of self-awareness.

4.) If computers too become self-aware as is a human brain, then an entirely new concept of person will emerge, beyond what we could ever imagine in the past. Ray Kurzweil says that A.I will exceed natural human intelligence which has been unrivaled by everything else on Earth until now.

5.) What we see is the natural process of biological evolution developing a brain with consciousness, understanding itself (human science and technology), and creating a new form of itself by both manipulating biological evolution (genetic and neural engineering), and creating non-biological consciousness with computers.

I will mainly focus on machine and human consciousness when it is dramatically altered using technology, and the future of identity and personhood. Drawing on the idea of the singularity and transhumanism/posthumanism, I will describe current predictions of how human behavior will change. The acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, creation of new technologies to increase

Monkey Controls Machine with Brain: Miguel Nicolelis

Jeff Han demonstrates Incredible Touch Screen Human-Computer Interface: TED Talk : 2006

Bionic Eye Interfaced with the Visual Cortex of the Brain: From "The Human Body: Pushing the Limits", Discovery Channel

Jessica Ice's Methodology Proposal: Posthuman/Computer Identity

Given the nature of my research, I will not be doing ethnography like many of the other researchers in the KSU Digital Ethnography Anonymity Project. Instead, my research focuses on questions about the future.

I am asking questions about the future of identity: what is personal identity, when does a non-human machine possess a personal identity, and how do technological developments that blur the lines between non-human and human identity change the behavior of both entities. After all, nearly everything a self-reflecting entity does is dependent on how it understands it's existence. Therefore, there are huge implications that come with a shift in this understanding of oneself. A posthuman/bot revolution would transform the traditionally biological human and usher in a new kind of person, one that is not biological, yet still intelligent and possibly self-aware. Yet, humanity has thought of itself as the ultimate intelligence of the universe (that we know of), and this affects the ways we behave towards each other and other creatures. We have already created machines that mock our personal characteristics to some extent (e.g chatterbots), and this has quickly changed the way we understand ourselves. As technology progresses faster than we can keep up with, we must step back and ask ourselves, who am I as a human, and what is that/who are they as a machine? Let's explore the meaning of personal existence in light of computer technology... :)

As I said, my research will not be ethnographic, but instead will consist of mainly literature review and teaching myself the relevant technological concepts (which are many) in order to apply them to social theory about the future of identity. I will do an extensive literature review, looking mainly at the kinds of technologies that have been proposed in the past few years, when those technologies were theoretically feasible, and those that have actually been created. I will analyze these technological advances not with any claim of much practical knowledge in the computer and biochemical sciences etc., but instead rely on people in relevant disciplines that are regarded as experts within their field.

This methodology must be very interdisciplinary because it requires a certain understanding of computer science, biology, psychology, philosophy, nanotechnology, chemistry (e.g molecular nanobots), and of course anthropology.
So far, I have read many of the most prevalent thinkers in tranhumanist/posthuman theory such as Ray Kurtzweil, Hans Moravec, and Nick Bostrom. I will also be analyzing the ideas of those opposed to transhumanism and writers who believe rapid technological changes will bring about more bad than good or a change in culture that is detrimental.

However, although it is easy to get caught up in the philosophical aspects of technology, and I will cover this, I do not want to stray far from my current research question of how technology will change personal identity, human or non-human. Therefore, I will focus less on analyzing their good or bad nature, and instead I'll focus on their affect on identity, interaction, ideology, society, etc. I hypothesize that if the understanding of human and computer as persons is changed, then social nature will be radically changed. I believe it is also very important to analyze the existing cultural ideas we have about the future of technology and humanity. I'll note that different cultural traditions have very different ideas about robots, dystopias, A.I, and the future of other technologies that always affect our opinion on good/bad or predictions about the future.

In formulating my own ideas I will first read everything I can on the subjects of personhood, technology, (especially artificial intelligence), and computer-human interaction on the web and off, as well as the theories of mind from psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. This will certainly be a traditional research format of reading and forming my own hypothesis afterward. I also want to stress that, although I find transhumanism to have many desirable ideas, I will remain objective during my research by critically analyzing theories and hypothesis put forth by writers.

The Best Lit. Review You'll Ever Read. :) A History of Transhumanist Thinking and the Future of Machine/Human Consiousness.

The computer programs that humans use can be considered symbols in a complex alphabet, and the internet its language. This language is perpetuated by far over a billion people on Earth already, and an internet connection is all one needs to become a participating speaker. Humans are not the only speakers in this intricate language. Software applications known as web bots patrol the internet, performing tasks a human could never take on alone. Spimes will change the way we interact by applying information from the web into the physical world. Never in our past have humans created machines that function with such useful or destructive artificial intelligence, interacting with billions of people everyday. Web bots have revolutionized our commerce, politics, entertainment, theft, and online communication networks that compose the massive collection of different cultures exposed to the internet.

Everything we have ever associated with human behavior must be reconsidered and redefined within the context of bots. These bots analyze, create, collect, and distribute inconceivable amounts of data and respond to human or bot-produced stimuli, facilitating a vast array of desired outcomes by the people who use them. The untrained observer cannot distinguish between internet bots and other humans, and eventually the lines between human and computer program will become as inconspicuous as has the written word.

How will the new humans be defined in this interaction in cyberspace? My research focuses on the implications that cyberbots have on our concepts of individuality and anonymity of personhood stretch bring the imagination to a vision of transhumanism: a boundless accumulation of human creativity and knowledge that seems to assemble itself in the vast encyclopedia of the internet.

Nick Bostrom, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford University, and director of The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, wrote a descriptive paper, A History of Transhumanist Thought, that outlines the philosophical traditions leading up to ideas of human enhancement.
Enhancing human biology through technology is not something new, and Bostrom points out that philosphers such as Nietzsche believed that humans would overcome their very-mortal biological state and become something beyond human, as they already had developed technology even in that time that could extend human life far beyond average natural death. This is an important component for a pro-tranhumanism argument: death has always been the ultimate source of suffering, and we have always searched for ways to alleviate it. An idea that has been in opposition to transhumanist thinking is that there is a natural order, a gift from God that should not be disturbed, Bostrom writes. This is one of many origins of anti-transhumanism including the anti-technology based Luddites, others who fear military domination through technology, and Marxist thinkers concerned that high-tech machines will be used for domination over the working class by Capitalists. Bostrom calls these thinkers the "bioconservatives", who believe that human enhancement would create far too many problems than it would alleviate.
I cannot summarize everything in this article, but the important concepts to know are that history is packed with attempts to live longer (thus the development of modern medicine) and in the 21st century, as we create new technologies very rapidly, essentially two different schools of thought have arisen in response: those who oppose the idea of extreme biological enhancement and combination of human and computer, and those who believe it should be avoided for a variety of reasons. Of course, let us not forget the majority of the world's population that is not apart of this discussion, let alone aware of it at all.

From a technologically "conservative" standpoint, such as that of Francis Fukuyama, biotechnology is a problem. In his book, Our Posthuman Future, Fukuyama says that "...the most significant threat posed by contemporary biotechnology is the possibility that it will alter human behavior and thereby move us into a posthuman stage of history". (pg.7) Getting closer to my research questions, Fukuyama addresses that biotechnology is not a series of tech advances that exist only in medicine. Indeed, the brain is increasingly affected by these advances, and the mind does not exist without the brain. The most important aspect about biotechnological breakthroughs is that they revolutionize the understandings and capabilities of the human brain, and thus the human mind. This means that our understanding of a mind's identity and personhood will be radically different as the brain becomes mapped and computer parts impose on our brains in order to enhance its natural capabilities. The areas of anthropology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology and neuropharmacology and plenty of others will become more sophisticated. "All of these areas of scientific advance have potential political implications, because they enhance our knowledge of, and hence our ability to manipulate the source of all human behavior, the brain." (pg.19), Fukuyama writes. This sentence is somehting that both tranhumanists and those opposed to it will agree on. However, it is the way they percieve it, to be either more beneficial or more harmful to our species, that separates them.
Fukuyama is not alone in this view, many other respected thinkers such as George Annas, Lori Andrews, and Rosario Isasi, all bioethisits, have proposed that inheritable genetic modification be considered a crime and ask that legislation be put into place to stop it. (Bostrom,2005)

One of the most famous people in tranhumanist thought is Ray Kurtzweil (http://www.kurzweilai.net/) . There are tons of articles on his website from a vast array of thinkers outlining the tranhumanist agenda. Kurzweil has consistently been apart of the discussion since as early as the 1960's. In an article posted on his website entitled, "Why We Can be Confident of a Turing Test Capability Within a Quarter Century", he describes the technologies that will bring machines closer to artificial intelligence and closer to human-like behavior. A computer's ability to understand, translate, and create language that passes a Turing Test (the proposed test to demonstrate computer intelligence) is one the the most hurdles to jump when it comes to creating artificial intelligence.

A.I then, will be the most revolutionary accomplishment that relates to my research. That is, the more sophisticated A.I gets, the more blurred the lines between human and computer consciousness become. Another key idea that Kurzweil discusses is that technology progresses exponentially instead of linearly. Elizabeth Eisenstein has described how different technological revolutions, such as the invention of the printing press, have completely shifted cultures into new realms of existence. Once a new technology is introduced, different frames of cultural consciousness are able to flourish. If technology is indeed increasing in its complexity, availability, and abundance at an exponential rate, then the future will consist of technological advances beyond our control , yet we would be completely integrated with it; we would become the machine and the machine would become us. In this article Kurzweil points out that computers can already in 1999 machines could guide missiles, play ping-pong, recognize faces, play chess, and a plethora of other things. That was ten years ago. In 2006, George the chatterbot was recognizing patterns in language and responding with remarkable accuracy. Computer software is marketed that can recognize human speech patterns and translate them into another language. Igor Aleksander, in his book World in my Mind, My Mind in the World, says that machines can be used to understand biological consciousness in an "uncluttered" way. He describes the virtual brain (which he claims will surely develop) as "a malleable vehicle with which to ask questions such as, under what conditions does it sustain being conscious and what is it to be unconscious but still functioning?" (Pg.1) This will have huge implications in the human brain, because it could reach the point of being unconsciousness technically, yet still "plugged-in" to a computer and thus still interacting in the web, the ultimate shift in a state of consciousness.

While researching the different approaches to my research, the future of the human identity and machine identity, every aspect of both, I have noticed that this is something that is extremely inter-disciplinary; in order to understand the implications that tech developments will have on human psychology, interaction, identity, and behavior, social scientists must have an understanding of new technologies, and those developing and programming transhuman-able technologies must understand the effects they will have on humanity. In my readings, there seems to be a gap between the social sciences studying this and the life and physical sciences developing new technology. One can find plenty of articles dealing with philosophy of this subject, however, there are few writers (that I have found) that discuss the implications of A.I, biotechnology, etc. and that are up-to-date with new inventions. I believe this is because new technologies develop so quickly.

In my research, I will focus on new tech developments as they happen, and use philosophical reasoning, and approaches from the social sciences as well as understanding how technologies function (to an extent :)) in organization and how that will affect human/machine identity concepts and abilities. I will not be doing ethnography, but rather, reading all of the relevant information, developing my own ideas, and integrating both into the digital ethnography research project. My research will probably be presented at the end of the project because it deals with questions about the future of humanity in regards to the technologies we present in the rest of the project, and other new technologies described by transhumanists and those opposed to transhumanism.

Cyber technology and the human identity: Warping human identity as the concepts of human and cyber robot begin to blur

There is no doubt that with the invention of the internet came a new way of predicting the future of human and machine. The idea of humans being mixed with technology (not a new concept) was not limited to the same tangible existence that humans have always had. I just recently read a ton of articles related to the topic of posthumanism, artificial intelligence, and cyber technology, and the effects on human/machine identity/consciousness/reality and I will have a concise literature review by tomorrow. One article, A History of Transhumanist Thought by Nick Bostrom, philosophy professor at Oxford University and director of the Future of Humanity Institute, summarizes much of the earliest ideas of human transcendence into a radically different species, the word first coined by Julian Huxley. Bostrom supports transhumanism and delivers the arguments of those opposed to the idea of a superhuman organism, mainly biological enhancement instead of merely treatment of certain ailments, although one should the difference between the two, if there are any reasonable ones.
Definitely explore Nick Bostrom's site, if you want to see some excellent philosophical arguments about the importance of transhumanist ideals.

The Journal of Evolution and Technology is a great source for this subject as well. I found a great article written by Kurmo Konsa, Tartu University, Estonia, entitled: Artificialisation Of Culture: Challenges to and from Posthumanism.

Konsa focused on something very important to my own research focus, that is, How do computer-simulated environments and the addition of computer programs that can mock human consciousness and intelligence affect the future of human identity? Just as important, how will the progression of computer "intellectual" ability affect machine identity in cyberspace and the physical world? There are no doubts that these realities are merging with each other more fully with every new tech development. Ray Kurzweil, along with plenty of other scientists, describes this situation as an exponential growth, non-linear technological progress. (See Below) Konsa went into detail in this article by discussing the concept of culture in a globalizing world in which all cultures are intruded upon by others. That is, if one can even describe culture as a "thing" to describe, which would require a kind of observable separation from "other" cultures. This is becoming extremely difficult to do with globalization and many social scientists propose that it is not in the ever-changing spirit of anthropology to stick with previous paradigms confined to the physical environment of culture.
Konsa states that: "Along with scientific development, it has become irrelevant to distinguish between metaphysical nature and culture" (pg.6) because both are understood as form of information processes. He goes through the "bottom-up" approach to "artificial culture": trying to recreate culture by using computer simulation and "top-down" approaches which fist focus on larger cultural situations and describe them using the environments in which they are enacted. For my questions, the most important point of this article was that cyber culture will become something infinitely more variable and complex than anything that can be created in the physical world because of the nature of the web.

Ray Kurzweil, famous for his career-long support of transhumanism (eventually posthumanism), has plenty of articles explaining the exponential growth of technological invention and which technologies he believes will come to expand and when. On his website, http://www.kurzweilai.net/ there was one of many articles addressing the issue of consciousness in machines and the effect on both human and computer perceptions of reality. One such article, "Will it be Consciousness"? talks about the future of consciousness in machines assuming that the technology will allow for interaction between subject and environment as indistinguishable from human and vice versa. Assuming it will happen, the existence of seemingly human machines will have enormous implications; the effects of such a blurring of consciousnesses will be enormous. I will continue this discussion in a literature review later today, so stay tuned.

PBS Special on the Cyborg Revolution: This is part of 1 of 9. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=beyond+human+part