Continuity of Consciousness

My new novel, Even God Herself, is available here: https://a.co/d/c4sQ9l3

Even God Herself is a philosophical science fiction novel centered on a team of scientists, human and otherwise, whose creative genius leads to the development of unprecedented technologies that can resolve humanity’s fundamental problems.

In this near-future tale of revolutionary societal transformation, world-renowned neuroscientist Swati Mohan Shinneman and her colleagues at the Institute for Applied Cybernetics have a dream: to change what it means to be human—and beyond. No biggie.

This confederacy of visionaries creates mind and virtue-enhancing technologies that can uplift humanity, enabling them to interact from a cooperative state of enlightened compassion. To accelerate this process, they design a MultiMind uploaded-being, combining the knowledge of top human experts with the world’s first sentient AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)—with a quirky sense of humor to boot.

Swati’s research is opposed by the anti-transhumanist activist group, LuddAnon, while simultaneously supported by hyper-rich benefactors and a mysterious consortium with a need to redeem itself for past transgressions.

Warning/Guarantee: This is not your standard dystopian science fiction fare.

Rather than a typical story propelled by psychologically flawed characters—bent on pitting their ‘all too human’ impulses for coercion and conquest against one another—this is a tale of what humanity might achieve if it could rid itself of its self-destructive, aggressive tendencies. 

The protagonist and her coconspirators strive to manifest the optimistic sentiment of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek: ‘We are an incredible species. We’re still just a child creature. We’re still being nasty to each other around the world, and all children go through those phases. But when we grow up, man, we are going to be something.’ In this sense, Even God Herself is humanity’s ‘coming of age’ story. 

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Praise for Even God Herself…

“It is a lot easier to convince the public to take big ideas and future

scenarios seriously if they see them vividly portrayed in fiction, as

writers from Mary Shelley to Ayn Rand have discovered. In Even God

Herself Chris Armstrong is in this proud tradition, exploring a future

with technologies of physical, cognitive and moral enhancement. But

that turns out to be just the beginning of a provocative ride.”

—James J. Hughes, American sociologist and bioethicist,

Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging

Technologies, associate provost for UMass Boston, Author of

Citizen Cyborg, and co-editor of Surviving the Machine Age

“Chris T. Armstrong’s fantastic new novel does what all amazing

books do; it presents and challenges huge truths within a background of drama and discovery. You are sure to enjoy it!”

—Zoltan Istvan, American transhumanist, journalist,

entrepreneur, political candidate, futurist, and author of

the philosophical novel, The Transhumanist Wager

“If there were such a thing as healthy intellectual cocaine, this would be it. A futuristic and visionary injection directly into your brain, compressing the long future into a bolt of transhumanist ideation that will rewire your brain.”

—Max More, Strategic philosopher, founding transhumanist,

author of The Extropian Principles

“Read this book for your own sake and for the sake of humankind: ‘Nothing to lose but our limitations and our suffering.’ A truly other-worldly experience and a lot of fun. Drama, deicide, romance, sex (2.0), humour, peace, love, HOPE—what’s not to like ?!”

—Joern Pallensen, Transhumanist-existentialist, vegan,

free speech fundamentalist, and provocateur of sorts

“A fast-paced piece of epic Golden Age science fiction written in the 2020s. The heroine, a super-scientist on steroids, is building awesome ultra-tech. But then an unexpected collaboration leads to even more awesome ultra-tech. Fans of vintage science fiction will love this book, but ‘woke’ readers will keep turning pages as well.”

—Giulio Prisco, futurist, and cosmist

“Mr. Armstrong has beautifully captured the spirit of creative transformation that fuels all the institute’s endeavors. If you want an insider’s view of the processes and personalities that brought it all to fruition, you can do no better than read his incisive account. I give it my highest recommendation. Eleven stars!”

—Swati Mohan Shinneman, computational neuroscientist,

founder of the Institute for Applied Cybernetics

“I have read many accounts on the future of humanity, from hard sciences to the intangibles of human interactions. What fascinates me about Chris Armstrong’s book is his stylized perspective of humanity’s future that eludes the empirical in favor of the imagined.”

—Natasha Vita-More, PhD Founder of the Transhumanist Movement,

Executive Director, Humanity+, Inc.,

Founder, Center for Transhumanist Studies,

Lead Scientist, Verif Preserv of Memory

“Chris has produced a book that’s fizzing with important ideas, strong characters, and themes that are core to the future of humanity. The narrative contains versions of key exchanges of viewpoints that often arise during real-world gatherings of futurists and transhumanists – versions that are provocative, insightful, and engaging. I foresee that in the years to come, real-world conversations will, in turn, often refer back to the dialogues and actions in Even God Herself.

“Different readers will likely reach a variety of conclusions about which parts of the plot are credible and which parts are more hypothetical. But in all cases, minds will be stretched, in very healthy ways!”

—David Wood, Chairman of the London Futurist Group

You can download the eBook and paperback here: https://a.co/d/c4sQ9l3

Even God Herself is a philosophical science fiction novel centered on a team of scientists, human and otherwise, whose creative genius leads to the development of unprecedented technologies that can resolve humanity’s fundamental problems.

In this near-future tale of revolutionary societal transformation, world-renowned neuroscientist Swati Mohan Shinneman and her colleagues at the Institute for Applied Cybernetics have a dream: to change what it means to be human—and beyond. No biggie.

This confederacy of visionaries creates mind and virtue-enhancing technologies that can uplift humanity, enabling them to interact from a cooperative state of enlightened compassion. To accelerate this process, they design a MultiMind uploaded-being, combining the knowledge of top human experts with the world’s first sentient AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)—with a quirky sense of humor to boot.

Swati’s research is opposed by the anti-transhumanist activist group, LuddAnon, while simultaneously supported by hyper-rich benefactors and a mysterious consortium with a need to redeem itself for past transgressions.

Warning/Guarantee: This is not your standard dystopian science fiction fare.

Rather than a typical story propelled by psychologically flawed characters—bent on pitting their ‘all too human’ impulses for coercion and conquest against one another—this is a tale of what humanity might achieve if it could rid itself of its self-destructive, aggressive tendencies. The protagonist and her coconspirators strive to manifest the optimistic sentiment of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek: ‘We are an incredible species. We’re still just a child creature. We’re still being nasty to each other around the world, and all children go through those phases. But when we grow up, man, we are going to be something.’ In this sense, Even God Herself is humanity’s ‘coming of age’ story.

---

Praise for Even God Herself…

“It is a lot easier to convince the public to take big ideas and future scenarios seriously if they see them vividly portrayed in fiction, as writers from Mary Shelley to Ayn Rand have discovered. In Even God Herself Chris Armstrong is in this proud tradition, exploring a future with technologies of physical, cognitive and moral enhancement. But that turns out to be just the beginning of a provocative ride.”

—James J. Hughes, American sociologist and bioethicist, Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, associate provost for UMass Boston, Author of Citizen Cyborg, and co-editor of Surviving the Machine Age

“Chris T. Armstrong’s fantastic new novel does what all amazing books do; it presents and challenges huge truths within a background of drama and discovery. You are sure to enjoy it!”

—Zoltan Istvan, American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, political candidate, futurist, and author of the philosophical novel, The Transhumanist Wager

“If there were such a thing as healthy intellectual cocaine, this would be it. A futuristic and visionary injection directly into your brain, compressing the long future into a bolt of transhumanist ideation that will rewire your brain.”

—Max More, Strategic philosopher, founding transhumanist, author of The Extropian Principles

“Read this book for your own sake and for the sake of humankind: ‘Nothing to lose but our limitations and our suffering.’ A truly other-worldly experience and a lot of fun. Drama, deicide, romance, sex (2.0), humour, peace, love, HOPE—what’s not to like ?!”

—Joern Pallensen, Transhumanist-existentialist, vegan, free speech fundamentalist, and provocateur of sorts

“A fast-paced piece of epic Golden Age science fiction written in the 2020s. The heroine, a super-scientist on steroids, is building awesome ultra-tech. But then an unexpected collaboration leads to even more awesome ultra-tech. Fans of vintage science fiction will love this book, but ‘woke’ readers will keep turning pages as well.”

—Giulio Prisco, futurist, and cosmist

“Mr. Armstrong has beautifully captured the spirit of creative transformation that fuels all the institute’s endeavors. If you want an insider’s view of the processes and personalities that brought it all to fruition, you can do no better than read his incisive account. I give it my highest recommendation. Eleven stars!”

—Swati Mohan Shinneman, computational neuroscientist, founder of the Institute for Applied Cybernetics

“I have read many accounts on the future of humanity, from hard sciences to the intangibles of human interactions. What fascinates me about Chris Armstrong’s book is his stylized perspective of humanity’s future that eludes the empirical in favor of the imagined.”

—Natasha Vita-More, PhD Founder of the Transhumanist Movement, Executive Director, Humanity+, Inc., Founder, Center for Transhumanist Studies, Lead Scientist, Verif Preserv of Memory

“Chris has produced a book that’s fizzing with important ideas, strong characters, and themes that are core to the future of humanity. The narrative contains versions of key exchanges of viewpoints that often arise during real-world gatherings of futurists and transhumanists – versions that are provocative, insightful, and engaging. I foresee that in the years to come, real-world conversations will, in turn, often refer back to the dialogues and actions in Even God Herself.

“Different readers will likely reach a variety of conclusions about which parts of the plot are credible and which parts are more hypothetical. But in all cases, minds will be stretched, in very healthy ways!”

—David Wood, Chairman of the London Futurist Group

Dive into a fascinating near-future world of mystery and discovery…

Right up front, the headline: I quickly grew to love this book. It is now near the top of my list of favorite science fiction novels. But more than a typical science fiction novel. It is not tech that drives this story, but communication, communion. As one character puts it: ‘Communication is communion. When we communicate with others, we take something from them into ourselves, and give them something of ours.’

I could keep this review very short and merely second the sentiments of author Blake Crouch, who said of The Mountain in the Sea: it is ‘a wildly original, gorgeously written, unputdownable gem of a novel.’ Hear hear, Mr. Crouch! I, too, experienced the unputdownablenessossitude of this gem of a novel.

I typically read several books at once, cycling through each one in a reading session. But sometimes, I am compelled to set the others aside and immerse myself in a single story-world until that book is finished. Recent examples are S. B. Divya’s short story collection and her two novels. And now The Mountain in the Sea demanded I give it such singular focus.

On one level, it is a mystery, but not the typical who-killed-who. Rather, it is about discovering how to understand and communicate with different kinds of minds. An examination of the conscious experience of humans vs animals vs AIs, of different kinds. How differences in human—and other animals’—perceptual faculties shape their experiences, internal models of the world, and culture. How can we know (if) we are conscious? How can we know if others are conscious? Can an AI be conscious? Can an AI think they’re conscious but not truly be so? Same question for humans. An exploration of the capacity for abstract thought, in various beings, as evidenced by their use of symbolic communication. The quest to understand a language used by beings far different from humans, which brings to mind the similar process of discovering how to communicate with alien beings in the wonderful movie, Arrival—I’ve watched so many times—from the brilliantly crafted Ted Chang short story, Stories of Your Life.

But please don’t make a mistake, dear reader, of thinking this is merely a cognitive science text disguised as a novel. Dear Mr. Nayler creates a rich world of conflicted characters struggling against their pasts, confronting present uncertainty and fear, while trying to build/discover a meaningful future. As the story develops, new layers emerge, where once was a different understanding built on prior assumptions. New angles, shifting perspectives and alliances, revelations. Aha moments. Increasingly intertwining storylines. Conquest vs compassion is a recurring theme. The impact of hyper-ambition on other beings. Compassionate solutions facilitated by intelligent strategery. As I was nearing the end of the book, I wondered where so much chaos and conflict would ultimately lead, with so few pages left. Was there time enough for any kind of satisfying resolution? But fear not, dear humans, despite the chaos and escalating sturm und drang (pardon my German), there is a real beauty in the end. Perfect in its simplicity.

Action-Packed and Thought-Provoking to Boot…

Wow, the deeper I got into Machinehood, the more I enjoyed it. It became a serious can’t-put-it-down situation for me. The last 100 pages was my favorite part, when it got into more philosophical details and debates about rights for all intelligent/sentient beings, whether biological or machine.

Loved the pacing…the ups and downs all the way to the climax and resolution. There were so many pieces to be discovered by Welga, the protagonist, and I loved how they all began fitting together, but not always in the ways I expected.

From a writer’s perspective, I am so impressed with the whole world Divya created…the Machinehood manifesto, Josephine Lee’s backstory, all the technologies and how they affect individuals’ lives, economics, culture, etc. I don’t remember another book that gave me this feeling of such a masterful unfolding of the details of the plot and how those interacted so well with the unfolding of the characters’ histories and motivations…and this is her first novel. Highly recommended. I’m eagerly looking forward to her next novel.

A collection of adventures from a fascinating and capacious mind…

I adore this collection. Such creativity and variety. There is a great spectrum of beings, from an ordinary family to slightly enhanced humans, to greatly enhanced humans, to radically altered posthuman beings in space. Also, a spectrum of ethnicities/cultures, and gender orientations. Mostly sci-fi themes, but also some fantasy elements in at least one story.

If you want to expand your mind and light up your brain with new and inspiring perspectives, this collection will do it for you, I have no doubt. Eleven stars!

Elise Bohan doesn’t shy away from our most difficult challenges.

As a transhumanist myself, I agree wholeheartedly with the quote by Anders Sandberg on the book’s cover: “This is the book I want to give to friends who ask, ‘but what is transhumanism, really?”’

Future Superhuman will surely challenge you to think and rethink and confront many ideas previously taken for granted: our beloved “sacred cows—the untouchable, immutable constants of our reality, from ageing and death to childbirth and embodiment.”

Bohan urges us to “start thinking bigger than humanity, bigger than biology and bigger than this planet.” We need to upgrade our thinking and confront our situation in the 21^st century: “Our brains are adapted for a Palaeolithic world. But they are not purpose-fit for a global civilisation of this scale.” “We are first and foremost animals who carry many vestigial inheritances in our design that no longer serve us well.” “That’s why the next step in our civilising process must be to change our animal programming by tweaking our biological natures and upgrading our bodies and minds.” To make these changes, “we’ll need help from minds that are less tribal, myopic and self-interested than our own. Our most crucial task in the 21st century is to invent them.”

According to Bohan, we are now living in a “make-or-break century.” Her prescription is to look beyond our “blind spots”—to places where we may be “most afraid to look.” This is where she feels “the most radiant forms of growth are kindled—in individuals, and the species.”

Perhaps most importantly, this book can serve as a catalyst to inspire deeper thinking about our tremendous challenges and foster more creative ways to nudge our apish dispositions away from tribalistic, fear-driven endarkenment and toward brighter paths. In effect, Bohan is simply exhorting us: Do better, dear humans, before it’s too late.

A richly layered, evocative, and compelling world…

I received an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) from WorldCon.

Meru begins by laying out some explicit first principles called “The Axioms of Life” and “The Principles of Conscious Beings,” which serve to extend the ethical circle that encompasses what is considered to be alive/conscious and must be protected as much as possible. These ideas are fueled by the panpsychist view: “All matter possesses some level of consciousness.”

Whereas humans of the past visited ecological devastation on Earth and Mars—through terraforming—by viewing them as merely planets, collections of resources, to be exploited, the more nuanced and inclusive “Alloy” view recognizes various gradations of “beings,” “evolved beings,” “life-forms,” “constructed minds,” etc. There is also a view that planets “are nonliving conscious bodies.” 

Our “posthuman descendants called Alloys,” are genetically engineered, with significantly longer lifespans, including the ability to be renewed through rebirthing. Alloys can take on a wide variety of physical forms that may include wings, tails, chromatophores for communication, and more. There are also Constructs, which can be small or extremely large, depending on their function: some may be space vessels—with the ability to carry one, or a great many passengers—or entire factories, but they are still, fundamentally, conscious beings.

Alloys took it upon themselves to repair and restore the environment of Earth and restrict and control humans to limit their negative impact on the environment, including disallowing settlement of other planets. They view humanity as afflicted with AAD (Aspiration and Avarice Disorder). Alloys adhere to the aphorism: “Ambition and materialism lead to greed and exploitation.” Some humans push back by forming an association called, the Society of Humans with Ambitions. The story centers around a young woman, Jayanthi, who petitions to be allowed to live on another planet, Meru, to prove that humans can now live in harmony with their environment.

On the level of storytelling, Meru has it all. Alliances, bonds, and bigotries are constantly being formed, broken, and reshaped as characters attain more knowledge and experience, leading to quite a bit of growth and evolution in each main character’s arc. In the second and third acts, it’s plot-twists galore, keeping those pages a-turnin’, as opposing forces employ ever cleverer—so they think— ‘strategeries’ to try to outsmart their adversaries. You will likely confront some new ideas and worldviews that will cause you to think, rethink, and think some more. And there is certainly no shortage of emotional tugs to your heartstrings as well.

S.B. Divya has created a richly layered, evocative, and compelling world to dive into, and you will surely be the better for it. Enjoy!

https://turingchurch.net/a-great-companion-to-a-great-novel-chris-armstrong-and-zoltan-istvan-a760b02d5c94

My book is available on Amazon in paperback and eBook. Here’s the link: https://amzn.to/3cchOom

At Any Cost: A Guide to The Transhumanist Wager and the Ideas of Zoltan Istvan by Chris T. Armstrong is a guide and analysis of the philosophy, characters, and plot, of the controversial philosophical novel, The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan.

The eBook will be free on Amazon for 3 days 1/26/2021 through 1/28/2021. Amazon free eBook link: https://amzn.to/3cchOom  

Website: http://transhumanistwagerguide.com/

#transhumanism #zoltanistvan #transhumanistwager #futurism

The Transhumanist Wager is the controversial philosophical novel published by Zoltan Istvan in 2013. It was A Top 5 Amazon book; #1 Bestseller Science Fiction and Fantasy; #1 Bestseller Philosophy; and Winner Visionary Fiction – International Book Awards. It “tells the story of transhumanist Jethro Knights and his unwavering quest for immortality via science and technology.” In this guide, we will explore all aspects of its philosophy, characters, and plot, featuring insights from Zoltan himself, including:

* In-depth character profiles

* Transhumanist philosophical foundations: real-world and fictional

* Pitfalls of misinterpretation to avoid

* Timeline information

* Transhumania’s advanced technology and what made it possible

* Detailed analysis of Jethro’s speeches and dialogs with “questions to ponder” at the end of each section

* Jethro’s pre-war strategy

* Drivers of the post-war economic and technological boom

* Nietzschean connections

* Philosophical, thematic, and stylistic kinship with Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead

* Transhumanist libertarian vs. techno-progressive perspectives

* Parallels with real-world proto-transhumanist, FM-2030

* Materialistic vs. Spiritual Transhumanism

* and more…