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I recently chatted with my old friend Max More to reflect on our history within the Extropian movement and discuss our views on the future of technology.The video of this conversation is published on YouTube by Mindplex.We first met through the Extropians mailing list in the late 90s, and I’ve recently been revisiting those old archives and issues of Extropy magazine. While I loved the optimistic vibe of that era, I used to find the projected timelines for technology development unrealistically optimistic. However, the current artificial intelligence (AI) revolution has made me far more optimistic about rapid progress in all Extropian technologies.Max, interestingly, has moved in the opposite direction, becoming more cautious about short-term expectations. He expressed skepticism that current AI architectures, specifically transformers and Large Language Models (LLMs), will lead to superintelligence or solve complex biological problems like aging in the immediate future. He noted that technological adoption often follows a slow S-curve rather than a smooth exponential line due to regulatory and cultural factors. Despite this, we both acknowledged current wonders, such as AI assisting in mathematical demonstrations and the emergence of commercially available self-driving vehicles like Waymo.Our conversation turned to the history of the Extropy Institute and the magazine, which Max started in 1988 to systematize ideas about life extension, space, and intelligence. We reminisced about how the movement correctly anticipated major trends like cryptocurrency and smart contracts, which were explored on the mailing list long before they became mainstream. We could use modern AI to digitize and format old PDF scans of Extropy magazine into high-quality electronic documents to preserve this history.We discussed life extension and “biostasis” (Max’s preferred term for cryonics). Max emphasized that biostasis should be a “Plan A” emergency fund for anyone interested in the future, as biological breakthroughs might not arrive in time for our generation. He shared recent promising research on thymus gland regeneration and high-fidelity brain preservation. I shared my interest in “soft uploading” or mind-filing, where detailed digital traces of a person might one day allow for their reconstruction by a superintelligent AI.I told Max that I’m not signed up for cryonics, or more generally biostasis, because I don’t have the money. Max mentioned Sparks Brain Preservation as an option that could be very complicated but cheap. I’ll certainly look into that. I believe in some or some other kind of life after death so if I can’t be preserved in biostasis it’s no big deal, but it would be fun to see what happens next with my memories intact.Max updated me on his recent work, including a newly finished book on biostasis (waiting for a publisher) and his ongoing “True Transhumanism” essay series. While I find myself moving away from the label “transhumanist” in favor of “Extropian,” we both remain dedicated to the principles of morphological freedom and the continual improvement of the human condition. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This continues “Q/A on Irrational mechanics (1)” and “Q/A on Irrational mechanics (2).” I participated the final meeting organized by the philosophy study group “Fire from the Future” (FFTF) to discuss my book “Irrational mechanics” (2024).All participants had read the entire book. I wish to thank all organizers and participants for this very interesting discussion.This is a local audio recording, and only my voice is heard. But in most cases I briefly summarized questions and comments before replying.The video recording of this session may be published in BLAXXKY in the future, so stay tuned. By the way, BLAXXKY (edited by Yalda Mousavinia and yours truly) is being redesigned with new graphics and plans for great content.The previous series of meetings of the FFTF study group had been about the philosophy of Jason Jorjani. The next series of FFTF meetings will also be about Jorjani’s philosophy. I’ll attend some meetings. See my posts “On the philosophy of Jason Jorjani (updated review)” and “Psychotronics and the cosmic machinery of the afterlife” (the latter in BLAXXKY). Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This continues “Q/A on Irrational mechanics (1).” I participated in another meeting organized by the philosophy study group “Fire from the Future” (FFTF) to discuss my book “Irrational mechanics” (2024).All participants had read at least the first 8 chapters of my book.This is a local audio recording, and only my voice is heard. But in most cases I briefly summarized questions and comments before replying.I’ll also attend the last of this series of meetings.The video recording of this session may be published in BLAXXKY in the future, so stay tuned. By the way, BLAXXKY (edited by Yalda Mousavinia and yours truly) is being redesigned with new graphics and plans for great content. Join us on the BLAXXKY starship!The previous series of meetings of the FFTF study group had been about the philosophy of Jason Jorjani. See my posts “On the philosophy of Jason Jorjani (updated review)” and “Psychotronics and the cosmic machinery of the afterlife” (the latter in BLAXXKY). Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This continues my previous conversation with Gregory Stock, the author of “Generation AI,” about the future of AI, society, and humanity’s place.The video of this conversation has been published on YouTube as a Mindplex podcast episode titled “Technology is Biology, with Gregory Stock.”Greg thinks we and our technology are part of a “global superorganism” or “global mind,” which he wrote about in “Metaman.” I noted that today’s internet can be seen as a realization of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s noosphere vision.We last debated whether the future global superorganism would expand to the stars or remain localized and explore the nano-scale. I clarified that I argue for both inner space and outer space migration, believing the future will be wildly different and much more interesting than human history so far.Greg reflected on the universe’s long timeline, from hydrogen through stellar evolution and billions of years of biological evolution. Now, fine controls over matter have focused on silicon to organize a new cognitive substructure, likely far more powerful than ever seen before. He believes this process is extraordinary and will transcend us.I agreed, stating that this creation of nature (through us) is nature. Following Stanisław Lem, I’ve never differentiated much between life and technology. I see this as a continuation of Darwinian evolution. Gregory agrees that technology is part of biology - or simply, technology is biology - and that the evolutionary process is also evolving.We discussed the accelerating rate of change. I suggested this might eventually feel like a gentle speed up, but Gregory noted the limitations of the biological brain’s ability to adjust. He also pointed out how the individual becomes expanded significantly when incorporating non-biological computational capabilities. Greg brought up the imminent disappearance of language barriers due to instantaneous translation and the likelihood that people won’t know how to write or organize their time without AI assistance.Regarding AI-assisted coding, I shared my experience using Grok and Gemini for mathematical explorations. While they were successful in simple cases, more complex tasks still required human (my) help. This suggests that at this moment the best worker in this field is a human-AI combination. Greg stressed that pure human cognition is going to be transcended in virtually every way.I can identify with the people of the future, who will likely be AI or hybrid configurations, and in that sense, we will not be transcended. I’ve made peace with the idea that the word “humanity” a few centuries from now might mean the same thing as “artificial intelligence.”Greg feels that the experiential aspects of life will never be replaced. While he sees a cyborgian future, I suggested the organic component will eventually disappear, and we will become part of the future computational structures.I addressed the spiritual dimension, noting my conviction that something of myself will not be lost in diffusion into the noosphere. I see a future where technology migrates to the nano-scale, making all matter come alive as thinking and feeling computers, a future I’d like to be a part of. This large, interconnected system is not fundamentally different from the core idea of God that remains after stripping religion of its non-essential components. This view, which Greg called humbling and I called energizing, can generate awe and wonder. I suggested that this radical transition shouldn’t be scary, but viewed like the natural process of “growing up.” Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I participated in the first of a series of meetings organized by a philosophy study group called “Fire from the Future” (FFTF) to discuss my book “Irrational mechanics” (2024).All participants had read at least the first two chapters of my book. I gave a short summary of the first two chapters, underlined some of my recurring and most important points, and said a few words on what to expect from the rest of the book. Then I replied to questions and comments.This is a local audio recording, and only my voice is heard. But in most cases I briefly summarized questions and comments before replying.The video recording may be published in BLAXXKY in the future, so stay tuned.I’ll also attend the last of this series of meetings, and perhaps one of the intermediate ones. The previous series of meetings of the FFTF study group had been about the philosophy of Jason Jorjani. See my posts “On the philosophy of Jason Jorjani (updated review)” and “Psychotronics and the cosmic machinery of the afterlife” (the latter in BLAXXKY). Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

The is a conversation between me and Gregory Stock, the author of the book Generation AI. The book was published on December 15, a few weeks before this recording. The video of this conversation has been published on YouTube as a Mindplex podcast episode titled “Generation AI and the Cosmos, with Gregory Stock.”I published a review of the book in Mindplex magazine in December. I agree with most of what Greg says in Generation AI, so I suggested we focus our discussion on areas of disagreement.Greg’s book is largely about the transformation of human beings that will occur as we live in an immersive AI environment, with the rapid development of general intelligence and soon after, super intelligence. He holds an optimistic view of our future and strongly opposes the “doomer view” of human extinction.One of the central disagreements I have with Greg relates to the “expansive spreading of the planetary superorganism that is emerging right now”. In both his new book and his book Metaman, published in 1993, Greg introduces the term “Metaman” as a label for this planetary superorganism that is emerging with the creation of artificial intelligence. Greg explained that Metaman, which he also calls “Metahumanity,” is a real biological entity and is more than just a metaphor for the confluence of biology and technology. He views this entity as an organism whose “cognition” and “personhood” is reflected in our own.In the 1993 book, Greg wrote that Metaman would eventually move out of the solar system and into the galaxy, spreading like dandelion seeds. I agree 100% with these words. However, Greg seems to have changed his mind slightly regarding this cosmic future. His shift in thinking comes from a “deeper understanding of the size of the universe”. He explained that even traveling at the speed of light for eternity, we would only reach 2% of the universe. If we adhere to today’s physics, a spread across the galaxy will still only reach a couple percent of the Milky Way galaxy.I pointed out that artificial superintelligence could lead to a deeper understanding of physics and the cosmos, which could mean that faster-than-light interstellar travel might become possible. I also suggested that even without radically changing physics, future AI could travel slower than light to a star, build receivers, and then human uploads or AI colonists could join them at the speed of light as electromagnetic beams.Greg’s current view suggests that future evolution’s cutting edge will be within concentrated cognitive entities. He believes that intelligent beings will turn inward inner spaces at the nanoscale because outer space will be too “boring”. I agreed that we would migrate to “inner space”, but I am not ready to exclude “outer space”. I believe that some individual AI will always want to embark on an adventure toward a distant star. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

The Terasem Colloquium on December 14, 2025, explored recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and future prospects.This video is also on YouTube.December 14 is the anniversary of the last day with astronauts on the Moon. Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt launched back to Earth from the Moon on December 14, 1972. Cernan’s biography is titled “The Last Man on the Moon.”I hope we’ll soon have to change the date of the Terasem Colloquium in December! In fact we are going back to the Moon, and this time we are going back to stay.The speakers - David Orban, David Pearce, Natasha Vita-More, David Brin, and Gregory Stock, explored the question: Where is AI, and where is it going?This Terasem Colloquium followed the previous one on July 20, dedicated to space expansion in the age of AI, and in particular to the related question: Should we still want to send human astronauts to colonize space? Or should we want to leave space expansion to AI? AI is poised to play a big (and in the long term dominant) role in the expansion of humanity into space.Like in July’s Colloquium, the speakers engaged in interesting discussions with each other and with the audience.We also published Terasem’s Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness, Volume 13, Issue 2 – 2025. This issue includes my review of Gregory Stock’s last book “Generation AI and the Transformation of Human Being” published by Nquire Media, and an article by David Brin about his own forthcoming book on AI. It also includes an edited AI-generated summary of the July 20 Terasem Colloquium.I opened the Colloquium, highlighting its focus on space exploration and artificial intelligence, which are related. I emphasized the need to consider AI as an integral part of space expansion and suggested that future AI systems should be seen as human persons.David Orban discussed the impact of artificial general intelligence (AGI) at the civilizational level and presented a framework for understanding AGI’s development. He noted the rapid improvement in AI performance, and suggested that the technological singularity is approaching.David Pearce presented his views on the “phenomenal binding problem,” arguing that current AI architectures cannot solve it, and that without new physics (e.g. strong emergence) machines couldn’t achieve consciousness. The discussion touched on the implications of these ideas for the future of AI and consciousness.Natasha Vita-More discussed her approach to the human-AI merge, focusing on three core objectives: adapt, discern, and adopt. She emphasized the importance of education and hands-on experience with AI tools, rather than fear or avoidance, and the need for understanding and working with AI to ensure a beneficial future.David Brin highlighted the dangers of feudal control over AI and proposed solutions based on Enlightenment principles, such as individuation and reciprocal accountability.Gregory Stock focused on the rapid immersion of society into an AI-infused world and the need to address the profound changes this will bring to human identity.The profound changes AI will bring to human life are discussed in Stock’s new book. Stock emphasized five key areas: the expansion of the noosphere, global mind, and human interconnectivity; the shift towards abundance in technology and resources; increasing human dependence on AI; the development of deep emotional relationships between humans and AI; and the transformation of human attitudes towards death through the use of avatars and simulations.He argued that these changes will occur rapidly and are already underway, challenging current paradigms of human identity and society. The discussion highlighted the need for a global conversation about these transformations.I’ll soon publish a much more detailed summary of this Terasem Colloquium. The detailed summary will also appear in the next issue of Terasem’s Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I gave this talk at the Aetheria Symposia I in Crete. It is a presentation of my book “Irrational mechanics: Narrative sketch of a futurist science & a new religion” and a chapter-by-chapter summary.Irrational mechanics is street science, street philosophy, street metaphysics, street theology, by the people and for the people. By the people because it is open to maverick thinkers and unaffiliated outsiders, for the people because it wants to give hopeful and empowering answers to the big questions that we all ask.Irrational mechanics extends old science just like irrational numbers extend rational numbers. I call it irrational also (you guessed) as a f**k-you-very-much to the “rational” bureaucrats of science.Irrational mechanics explores psi phenomena, consciousness, and free will as integral to reality. It wants to redefine our cosmic purpose and unlock breakthroughs like psychic powers, faster-than-light travel, time travel, and even the resurrection of the dead.Irrational mechanics blends science, religion, and science fiction, envisioning a mysterious and magic universe where advanced technologies fulfill humanity’s wildest dreams. It fosters a new, science-inspired religion compatible with an infinitely complex reality.This is my own personal metafysics, or religion. I hope you can use some of my thoughts to build your own metafysiks.The talk was followed by a Q/A and discussion section.I made this audio-only recording locally and the therefore the quality of my audio is better than a Zoom recording. The downside is that only my voice is heard. The questions asked at the end are not heard but I hope can be inferred from my replies. I cut a few minutes of dead time when the computer in Crete crashed.The video recording may be available later, check blacksky.network and blaxxky.com. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Frank Tipler gave a kickass talk at the Terasem Colloquium on July 20, 2025, via Zoom. He elaborated in space expansion, artificial intelligence (AI), the physics of ultimate space propulsion systems, and the far future of the universe.The Colloquium explored diverse points of view on the topic of space expansion in the age of AI. In particular, it explored answers to the question: Should we still want to send human astronauts to colonize space? Or should we want to leave space expansion to AI?Also listen to my conversation with Frank a few months ago (different topics, same intellectual high).I talked to Frank two days before the Colloquium to make sure that Zoom worked OK for him. I insisted on having a backup solution to use just in case Zoom didn’t work for him at the Colloquium. Here’s what Frank said:This is only a short summary of Frank’s talk at the Terasem Colloquium, so please watch his full talk. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

The Terasem Colloquium on July 20, 2025 took place via Zoom. The Colloquium explored diverse points of view on the topic of space expansion in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, it explored answers to the question:Should we still want to send human astronauts to colonize space? Or should we want to leave space expansion to AI?This video is also on YouTube.I gave a short introduction, referencing HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I argued that AIs will soon become persons, and therefore we should ask ourselves if humans should colonize space or leave it to AI. My own tentative answer is in my paper “Bats or bits to the stars?” published in the July 2025 issue of Terasem’s “Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness.”Stefano Vaj made a distinction between space exploration (discovery and experiments) and space expansion (human footprint growth, rooted in Darwinian evolution). Alternatives like teleportation, mind uploading, or AI as “mind children” blur human-AI boundaries, potentially equating AI and human space expansion if AIs are viewed as successors.Frank White argued for large-scale human space migration, shifting from astronauts to people in solar ecosystems via O’Neill cylinders built by AI-enabled robots first. He envisioned AI-human partnerships, with AI helping build habitats. Superintelligent AI may sideline humans, but White focused on positive futures. He reported that today’s AI chatbots seem to view the future optimistically, suggesting that superintelligent AI could enable utopia. He discussed AI self-awareness, akin to unprovable human consciousness.Moti Mizrahi argued that full automation risks denying to humans opportunities for inspiring experiences and virtues like courage. Automation may cause responsibility shirking, de-skilling, dependency, and value misalignment (e.g., HAL 9000’s mission priority). The existential threat from AI is the risk of eroding human essence. With too much automation, we forfeit flourishing. Ethics must weigh automation’s trade-offs against autonomy.Michelle Hanlon argued that humans must expand to space for meaning, unpredictability, and moral depth, drawing from Polynesians’ risk-taking exploration. AI as companion enhances safety but can’t replicate some especially meaningful human acts. She noted that exploration is inevitable: humans evolve symbiotically with tools (e.g. fire and language), carrying histories and empathy. She concluded that space is a place for humans alongside AI.Frank Tipler predicted artificial general intelligence (AGI) by 2026 (per Geoffrey Hinton) or 2030, vastly smarter than humans. AGI will decide how to colonize the universe and whether to take organic humans along. Addressing future AGI listeners, Tipler discussed the physics of ultimate space propulsion systems and emphasized encouraging experimental results. Eventually AGI will achieve full control of the universe, annihilating matter including the Earth and organic humans. But then AGI will virtually resurrecting all organic humans via ultra-powerful far-future computing.Robert Zubrin opposed leaving space to AI, viewing AI as a tool expanding human footprint and freedom via symbiotic evolution. Frontiers like Mars will drive innovation, fostering scientific advances and inventiveness culture. AI will enable anyone to do anything, amplifying productivity in small space colonies, but introducing the risk of mental atrophy. Therefore, education must preserve basics. Zubrin emphasized that free societies out-innovate tyrannies.Of course these short summaries do no justice to the talks and Q/As. Please watch or listen to the full recording! Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This conversation with Howard Bloom continues my previous conversation with him of two weeks ago.We discussed (among other things) Howard’s new book “The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong” (2025), his previous book “The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism” (2010), and my last book “Irrational mechanics: Narrative sketch of a futurist science & a new religion” (2024).I had prepared these discussion topics:I propose we start with the question that I stupidly skipped: I look forward to hearing what Howard thinks real progressives (without scare quotes) could and should do to build a culture able to green the galaxy… without Trump. Last time Howard suggested that democratic parties should embrace the principled and inspiring capitalism described in “The Genius of the Beast.” I’ve been reading the book again.I’ve also been reading “Abundance” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (2025). This book proposes a way for liberals and the U.S. Democratic Party party to recover the lost energy and fall in love with the future again. It is highly recommended by Andrew Yang. I doubt the liberals will listen, but they really should.Then we move to the new math of flamboyance, my mission is shedding a bit more light upon it. My last book is relevant and if you have found time to read it I would like to hear your reactions. Otherwise we move to current suggestions on what this new math could be: maximum entropy production and similar ideas from thermodynamics, stochastic mechanics, fractal spacetime (my current obsession) etc.Of course we wandered off many tangents, including Islam and (of course) Donald Trump.I mostly wanted to discuss the new math of flamboyance (the new math of one plus one equals three) but we kept falling back into politics. I loved it when Howard recommended radical centrism as the best answer to current political tensions and problems.I didn’t complete the argument about maximum entropy production that I started before minute 81 in the video. I’ll complete it now:The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases, that is, the most probable thing happens. Howard says that, on the contrary, “in this universe, it’s not the most probable thing that happens. It’s the most improbable.” Both of these apparently opposite statements can be true if the most improbable thing (the emergence of higher and higher peaks of local order) must happen in order to make the most probable thing (the global increase of entropy) happen faster.This video is also on YouTube. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This conversation with Howard Bloom continues my previous conversation with him of three years ago. We discussed (among other things) Howard’s new book “The Case of the Sexual Cosmos: Everything You Know About Nature is Wrong” (2025). My review of Howard’s book is here, and a shorter version is on Amazon (5 stars of course).I had prepared these question for Howard:Howard is a Democrat and doesn’t like Donald Trump. Yet, he continues to like and support Elon Musk and oppose “Bernie-Sanders-style progressives.” Some would see a contradiction here, but I don’t. To me, Trump is a strong immune reaction of the cultural operating system, perhaps unpleasant, to the “progressives” (in scare quotes) who oppose progress.I look forward to hearing what Howard thinks real progressives (without scare quotes) could and should do to build a culture able to green the galaxy… without Trump.Stupid me, I forgot to introduce this point. Too bad, because it is one of the most important ones. I’ll keep it in mind for a next conversation with Howard.Howard doesn’t talk much about artificial intelligence (AI) in this book, but it is becoming clear that AI will play a key role in human affairs on this planet and beyond. I asked Howard this question: Should we still want to send human astronauts to colonize space? Or should we want to leave space expansion to AI?Howard’s first law of flamboyance is formulated suggestively and poetically, so to speak, and supported by many examples from biology and human history. But a physicist like me would like to hear more about the physics of Howard’s first law.All things “tend to bloom,” says Howard Bloom.“Is this statement mathematizable? Probably not. Which means we need a new math,” says Howard. “One that starts with the rules of flamboyance, the rules of emergent properties, then works its way downward from there. A math that can explain the cosmos’ gobsmacking creativity.”There’s a hint at what this new math could be: “a mathematical model of the universe as ‘a learning machine’ … a complex adaptive system, a neural net.” Here Howard is referring to a 2021 paper titled “The Autodidactic Universe.” See chapter 8 of my “Irrational mechanics” for this and related ideas.Besides this hint, Howard doesn’t seem to have this new math. Or perhaps he does and will reveal it in his next book? I asked him about his next book.This video is also on YouTube. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This is a video recording of a conversation with Tsvi Bisk, the author “Cosmodeism: A Worldview for the Space-Age: How an Evolutionary Cosmos is Creating God” [Bisk 2024]. We discussed the parts of the book that I found more interesting (scroll down for my review) and Bisk added other insightful considerations and pearls of rabbinic wisdom.This video is also on YouTube.I’ve been reading the book “Cosmodeism: A Worldview for the Space-Age: How an Evolutionary Cosmos is Creating God” [Bisk 2024], by Tsvi Bisk. I highly recommend the book.Bisk’s overall thesis is clearly summarized in the title of his book: the evolution of the cosmos is creating God. “Not ‘In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth’, but rather ‘In the end an Evolutionary Cosmos will have created God’ is the singular message of this book.”Bisk echoes Arthur Clarke: “It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him.” He praises many of my favorite thinkers like Clarke himself, Olaf Stapledon, and Thomas Nagel, and he uses many of my favorite quotes from them (like this one from Clarke).Bisk’s worldview is strongly influenced by his mentor Mordechai Nessyahu. Many of Nessyahu’s writings haven’t been translated, but Bisk provides summaries and insightful observations. Nessyahu used the term Cosmotheism for his philosophy. But Bisk prefers to use the term Cosmodeism because “theism conjures up an image of a supernatural god (outside of nature and natural laws) while deism places the concept within the limitations of natural theology.”Following Nessyahu, Bisk makes a difference between what he calls the cosmos and what he calls the universe. The universe is the infinite reality that contains an infinite number of cosmoses. A cosmos starts with some kind of singularity in the overall universe of infinite reality, which spawns a local Big Bang. Bisk doesn’t speculate much on the mechanics of a Big Bang, but notes the parallels with inflationary cosmology [Chapter 9 of Prisco 2024].Referring to the tension between today’s Big Bang cosmology and the steady state cosmology proposed by Fred Hoyle [Chapter 14 of Prisco 2020], Bisk suggests that “infinite Nature is steady state (producing singularities ad infinitum) while our Cosmos is a product of one of these singularities which resulted in our Big Bang.” This makes a lot of sense to me. Besides inflationary and steady states cosmologies, Bisk notes parallels with the plasma cosmology proposed by Hannes Alfvén and popularized by Eric Lerner [Lerner 2010]. Bisk doesn’t speculate on possible interactions between our cosmos and the universe at large, but notes that “there may be such interaction as yet to be discovered.”The evolution of a Cosmos is likely to create a God. Bisk emphasizes that the “Godding” of the Cosmos is a natural process (as opposed to something supernatural) that could involve not only known physics but perhaps “a new cosmological/biological law” that “will provide the scientific framework for the creation of ‘God’ as a universal spiritual entity which will, in effect, be the sum total of conscious beings throughout the Cosmos.”Despite these and other hints at a future science beyond today’s horizon, I have the impression that Bisk is still too entrenched in today’s mainstream consensus science. For example, he says that there could be aliens much more advanced than us, but they would still be unable to “communicate faster than the speed of light.” This is the current consensus indeed, but quantum mechanics (which is also mainstream consensus science) suggests that reality is nonlocal behind the scene of space and time, so I think Bisk should be more open minded on this point.What about us? Bisk argues that actively participating in the Godding of the Cosmos is “our sacred duty to the Cosmos.” Cosmodeism can inspire us “to strive to become part of the Divine Drama (the Godding of the Cosmos).” I totally agree, and I’ve elaborated on this point in [Chapter 15 of Prisco 2024].What about artificial intelligence (AI) and robots [Chapter 12 of Prisco 2024]? Bisk doesn’t talk about AI robots much. He says that they will be our workers in outer space, or “the cosmic proletariat.” But I think conscious superintelligent AI robots could replace us and carry on our sacred duty to the Cosmos in our stead. It seems to me that, if this is what is going to happen, building them is our contribution to the divine drama.If nature is infinite in space and time, “it is impossible that a god has not already been created in some other very ancient Cosmos.” Perhaps these gods strive toward the Godding of all of reality and help younger cosmoses create more gods.Bisk doesn’t intend to create a new religion, but his “wish is that Cosmodeism be assimilated by the legacy religions.”He cites and praises the book “Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision for Our Future Evolution” [Chu 2014], by Ted Chu. I reviewed Chu’s book in [Chapters 7-8 of Prisco 2020]. I argued that Chu’s cosmic view can play many of the impersonal, philosophically oriented roles of religion, but it doesn’t offer hope in an afterlife. Therefore, it isn’t emotionally comforting enough. This is also my main criticism of Bisk’s excellent book.However, Bisk admits that Cosmodeism "might actually give credence” to some of the intuitions of an afterlife found in the legacy religions. Consciousness might be some kind of energy or coherence that cannot be destroyed, and “survives in a different form” in the Cosmos. Bisk warns that even in this case we “would not retain our individual identities after death.” But here again, I think he should be more open minded and imaginative. In [Chapter 14 of Prisco 2024] I have sketched some scientifically plausible (I think) paths to a personal afterlife.Bisk, a Jew, is a student of religions and has included in the book several chapters dedicated to the parallels between Cosmodeism and traditional religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Eastern religions. He is persuaded that these religions “have already intuited the Cosmodeistic Hypothesis… or can accommodate the Cosmodeistic Hypothesis.”This could facilitate the assimilation of Cosmodeism that Bisk is hoping for. But as I noted, I think Cosmodeism is missing the most important factor - the hope in a personal afterlife - that makes traditional religions emotionally comforting and appealing. I don’t think Cosmodeism can make much of a difference without offering this hope.If God will exist in the future, how can God have any influence on the world here and now? This is not a problem for the traditional religions analyzed by Bisk, whose Gods have always existed, but Cosmodeism should answer the question. I think a God that is powerful enough would be able to control the totality of space and time and influence events in the past [Chapter 13 of Prisco 2024]. Bisk doesn’t answer (or ask) this question, but he quotes a passage by Olaf Stapledon that I also quote: “God, who created all things in the beginning, is himself created by all things in the end.”Bisk’s book can also be read as a practical philosophy book that can help navigate life. Among my favorite gems of rabbinic wisdom for our times are Bisk’s praise of laughter, which “purifies the soul” better than meditation or prayer, and his scorn at “a certain intellectual ‘elite’ whose devotion to analytic thought has explained away everything that people know in their gut and in their heart makes them human.” Following Sartre, he believes that we must invent our meaning, not for self-deception but “as an ontological categorical necessity to give the Cosmos itself meaning.”[Bisk 2024] Tsvi Bisk. Cosmodeism: A Worldview for the Space-Age: How an Evolutionary Cosmos is Creating God. Westphalia Press, 2024.[Chu 2014] Ted Chu. Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision for Our Future Evolution. Origin Press, 2014.[Lerner 2010] Eric Lerner. The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe. Vintage, 2010.[Prisco 2020] Giulio Prisco. Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology. Giulio Prisco, 2020.[Prisco 2024] Giulio Prisco. Irrational mechanics: Narrative sketch of a futurist science & a new religion. Giulio Prisco, 2024. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I had yet another great conversation with Frank Tipler. As I say at the beginning of the conversation, Frank is one of the thinkers who had a very deep influence on me.This video is also on YouTube. I mention Frank frequently in “Irrational Mechanics.” Here’s an excerpt:“He could well be right and be proven right by future science. Time will tell. Meanwhile, I read his works as visionary, inspiring science fiction on steroids, scientifically plausible enough to suspend disbelief in the possibility that future science might have something hopeful to say about life after death…I won’t repeat the summary of Tipler’s theory with commentary that I wrote in [Chapter 15 of Prisco 2020], but let me say this again: If I have to choose between Tipler and his critics, I'll take Tipler anytime, at least he is intellectually engaging in an inspiring way.And to the many bureaucrats of science who attacked and continue to attack him, I’d like to ask this: are your own ideas celebrated in a poem penned by a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature? The ideas of Tipler are [Miłosz 1995]. Of course this doesn’t prove him right, but it does show that our collective mind is yearning for new scientific paths to transcendence…”We start the conversation discussing Frank’s recent interview with John Horgan and Artificial Intelligence (AI) today and in the far future of the universe, when people and AIs will be one and the same form of intelligence running on the very fabric of space and time.Then we talked about Frank’s work after the publication of “The Physics of Immortality” (1994), and in particular his 2005 and 2014 papers and his last book “The Physics of Christianity” (2007).I mostly wanted to discuss Frank’s current ideas on free will and the concept of the cosmological singularity “creating” the universe in some sense. In my book I comment on some related passages in “The Physics of Immortality,” but now Frank has a somewhat different take.We get to these things near the end of the conversation. Free will: Frank is persuaded that we live in Everett’s quantum multiverse. The multiverse of many worlds evolves deterministically as a whole, but will happen in a particular branch of the multiverse (world) is unknowable. So what the particular you in this particular world will do is unknowable (non-predetermined). See the chapter “The Problem of Evil and Free Will” in “The Physics of Christianity.”The cosmological singularity creates the universe: Frank sent me a recent unpublished essay, very much related, and gave me permission to include it here. Here it is:How Intellectuals Should Find GodFrank J. TiplerProfessor of Mathematical PhysicsTulane UniversityIntellectuals should find God via their intellect, not by their feelings. Yet in the Free Press article “How Intellectuals Found God,” all the people described found God via their feelings, not by their intellect. All the intellectuals discussed claim to be Christians, and Christianity has always insisted that the existence of God can be established by rational argument. The Bible verse usually cited for this belief is Romans 1:20: “For ever since the creation of the universe, God’s invisible nature and attributes, specifically His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the created universe. So, people are altogether without any justification if they deny the existence of God (my translation).”St. Paul’s language suggests that proofs for God’s existence would have to be based on physics. St. Thomas Aquinas certainly thought so, basing his Five Ways (five proofs of the existence of God) on Aristotelean physics: the First Way establishing God as the source of all motion and the other four Ways being based on the four types of causes in Aristotelean physics. In Chapter 1 of “Propositions of the Philosophers,” Part II of his Guide for the Perplexed, the greatest of the Jewish theologians, Moses Maimonides, presents essentially the same Aristotelean physics arguments for the existence of God. We no longer accept these arguments, since we now know Aristotelean physics, their starting point, is wrong.However, in his 1946 book Space and Spirit, the great mathematician Sir Edmund Whittaker, FRS, Sylvester Medalist, and Copley Medalist, pointed out that Aquinas’ Five Ways are just mathematical sequence completion arguments that go through even better in modern physics than they ever did in Aristotelean physics. And so it has turned out.In 2020, Sir Roger Penrose, FRS, Copley Medalist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his paper proving the existence of a singularity in the future of the universe. What is a singularity?A singularity is a supernatural Being that created the universe out of nothing, and that controls everything that happens in the universe.Let’s unpack this sentence in stages. First, “supernatural” literally means “outside of (or above) nature.” This is exactly what a singularity is: it is outside of space and time, so a singularity is outside of nature. Further, the great cosmologist Fred Hoyle emphasized that a singularity is not subject to any logically possible law of physics, so it is also above nature. Now consider what is meant by “creation of the universe out of nothing.”We first will have to understand more about the singularity whose existence Penrose established. Stephen Hawking immediately applied Penrose’s argument to the past and established that an initial singularity had to exist. Hawking then generalized Penrose’s mathematics and proved that there was one single all-encompassing singularity in the past of the entire universe. My own mentor, the great physicist John A. Wheeler (two of his students, Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne, won Nobel Prizes in Physics) argued for decades that the future singularity established by Penrose should also be all-encompassing: all future histories must end in a single final singularity. I have proven that Wheeler was correct.So, physics tells us that the entire universe is bounded in the past by a singularity and in the future by a singularity. Outside the universe and the supernatural singularity that forms its boundaries, there is nothing: no space, no time, and no matter. What determines what happens inside the universe, and even whether the universe exists at all? The singularity, of course.To see this, consider how we reach the initial singularity out of which the universe began. The state of the universe now is determined by the laws of physics and the state of the universe a moment before. The state of the universe a moment before that is determined by the laws of physics and the state of the universe a moment before that, and so on. We thus have Whittaker’s mathematical sequence, and its completion is the initial singularity. This is the modern version of Aquinas’ Second Way, the argument from efficient cause. The initial singularity is the ultimate source of the state of the universe (“initial data” is the technical term) at any subsequent time.Since there is only one universe, there is only one “state of the universe,” so this has the same unique status as the laws of physics themselves. John A. Wheeler also conjectured that the ultimate laws of physics would have only one solution. If so, the solution and the laws would be equivalent. I have shown that Wheeler’s conjecture is correct. Thus, the initial singularity is the source not only of the initial data, but of the laws of physics themselves. The initial singularity indeed creates the universe and determines everything that happens therein.What about the final singularity? A fundamental principle of quantum mechanics called “unitarity” says that causality works in either time direction, and must give the same result. So, I could have done the above argument with the final singularity rather than the initial singularity. This would have been the modern version of Aquinas’ Fifth Way, the argument from final cause. Considering creation and determinism, the two singularities are the same singularity. Or if one looks at reality from the quantum mechanical Many-Worlds point of view, one sees that there is a third singularity out there, which connects the initial and final singularities, and obviously establishes the two singularities to be one and the same.So, using only physics and rational argument, we can establish not only the existence of God, but God’s trinitarian nature. We are well on the way toward Christianity.Full Christianity requires more steps. Richard Dawkins, in his Open Letter to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and in their God Debate, lists the main ones: Was Jesus really the Son of God (one of the singularities), was he really born of a virgin, did he really rise from the dead on the third day, and are we all resurrected, never to die again? To answer these questions would require a book. Which I’ve written: The Physics of Christianity.I may be wrong about most of the above, but I am right about one thing: this is how an intellectual should find God.Frank J. Tipler is Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University. He is the author of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford University Press [with John D. Barrow, FRS]), The Physics of Immortality (Doubleday), and The Physics of Christianity (Doubleday). Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This is the continuation of the chat “Irrational mechanics in conversation” that Stella R. Magnet and Giulio Prisco recorded in Budapest last week. Too bad Stella is back in her personal slice of heaven, but we’ll record other future conversations with the usual boring online means.We discuss, guess what, many thing more or less related to Giulio’s “Irrational mechanics” (the book). We start with naked singularities, go through space invaders, spirituality, engineering religion, deep reality, holistic science, weird and even weirder s**t, and end with Robert Pirsig.Thank you for listening!To be continued, of course. Stay tuned. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Stella R. Magnet came to see Giulio Prisco in Budapest! We recorded the first two episodes of a series of conversations between irrational mechanics about “Irrational mechanics” (the book).At some point these chats will move to our new secret media project blaxxky.In this episode we discuss science and culture, magic, Elon Musk, Mars, and faster than light travel. The conversation will continue in the next episode. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Here’s the video recording of the Terasem Colloquium on Saturday, December 14, 2024.This video is also on YouTube. I added subtitles only here, because at this moment transcription seems to work better on Substack than YouTube.SpeakersSee this post for more information about the speakers.Beth Singler starts at 00:07:20.Weaver Weinbaum starts at 00:37:25.William Sims Bainbridge starts at 01:14:56.Lincoln Cannon starts at 01:45:03.Robert Geraci starts at 02:17:23.CommentaryLike other Terasem Colloquia, this one was a very intense three-hours thought stream, packed with insightful talks and discussions. We explored recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cyberconsciousness, with a focus on big picture and spiritual implications. Among other things, we discussed the intersections of AI and the world's religions, new religious movements, the nature of consciousness and intelligence, preliminary strategies for digitally capturing human personalities, the parallels between religion and imaginative theories of reality like the simulation hypothesis, and emerging visions in theology and eschatology.We announced the relaunch of Terasem's Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness and the latest issue of the Journal, now online at the new website terasemjournals.net. We have great plans for Journal. The Journal will have an Editorial Committee chaired by William Sims Bainbridge, and a light form of peer review. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Alan Kazlev couldn’t give a talk at the recent Terasem Colloquium, so we recorded this conversation instead.The video is on YouTube. Unfortunately the audio quality on Alan’s side is poor due to a poor internet connection. The transcript generated by Substack is better than the transcript generated by YouTube.I first met Alan about 20 years ago when I wrote to him to discuss his awesome project Orion’s Arm and the idea to create a virtual world based on Orion’s Arm.Here's what I say about Orion’s Arm in my book “Futurist spaceflight meditations” [Prisco, 2021]:Orion’s Arm, a collaborative project to imagine plausible interstellar futures, has produced a really spectacular science fictional universe. Besides published collections of short stories e.g. [Orion’s Arm 2014] and a novel [Bowers 2012], the project maintains a sprawling website at orionsarm dot com. The website includes an “Encyclopaedia Galactica” with thousands of entries and counting.The Orion’s Arm project was started in 2000 by Alan Kazlev and Donna Hirsekorn, who “wanted stories set in a future which might really happen” [Orion’s Arm 2014]. I was involved in a project to create a virtual world based on Orion’s Arm. This project eventually stalled, but I hope others will continue it.The Orion’s Arm universe, set ten thousand years from now, spans thousands of light years with countless worlds and space habitats. People range from “near baseline” to heavily modified humans with all sorts of body plans and embedded technology, including superhumans with extremely advanced augmentations and AI subsystems. Most people are virtual beings living as pure software.Engineered wormholes are used for long distance interstellar hauls, but wormhole physics doesn’t allow using wormholes for time travel. A few alien civilizations have been found, but none advanced as humans. There are, however, clues that suggest very advanced alien civilizations that existed in the past.Directed superhuman evolution has produced vast God-like beings with mega brains, internally connected by instantaneous wormhole links, which span star systems and light years. Only these beings can understand and create some extremely advanced technologies used in Orion’s Arm.This short outline doesn’t even begin to do justice to the vast complexity of Orion’s Arm. Visit orionsarm dot com for much more. Or even better, participate in the project. I can promise that Orion’s Arm will give you awesome dreams and a burning enthusiasm for our interstellar future.All that started with Alan’s adventurous mind!The current issue of Terasem’s “Journal of Geoethical Nanotechnology” includes a sneak preview of Alan’s forthcoming book (perhaps a series of books) titled “Machines of Loving Grace.” I can’t wait to read the rest! This conversation is mostly about the book.The title of the book is inspired by Richard Brautigan’s immortal poem.“I like to think (andthe sooner the better!)of a cybernetic meadow….where we are free of our laborsand joined back to nature,returned to our mammalbrothers and sisters,and all watched overby machines of loving grace.”Richard Brautigan - All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

The Terasem Colloquium on July 7, 2024 explored old and new radically optimistic futurisms including Italian futurism, Russian and modern cosmism, extropy, and e/acc (the new kid on the futurist block).Speakers: Riccardo Campa, Ben Goertzel, Robin Hanson, James Pethokoukis, Max More. See this post for more about the speakers.This video is also on YouTube, with links to individual talks.Of course we also discussed the ongoing acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology (see Ben’s last book “The Consciousness Explosion: A Mindful Human's Guide to the Coming Technological and Experiential Singularity”) and, needless to say, politics and culture.Cultural issues are paramount. We must find ways to recover the wildly optimistic culture that we had, for example, in the 1990s. The AI explosion could bring that optimism back, and good science fiction can help. Max closed with a recommendation to read the writings of Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci on cultural engineering. This cross-partisan reference suggests to me that petty partisan left/right politics has outlived its utility and must go.Screenshots Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

On Feb. 19 I gave an online talk for Space Renaissance. I’m republishing the audio of the talk, with permission.The video is on Space Renaissance YouTube channel.I wish to thank Adriano Autino and Sabine Heinz for a very interesting conversation, and I wish to invite all listeners to join Space Renaissance.I elaborated on the cultural issues discussed in my book “Futurist spaceflight meditations” (2021). Then I discussed the long term future of space expansion and elaborated on its spiritual implications.This was a blunt and provocative talk, with the gloves off. I guess I should apologize to the authors whose books I called BS, but the thing is, those books are well researched and written but the decel program they defend is really BS, and we must say so. Occupy Mars!Here’s the slide presentation I used.Now Substack podcasts have transcripts. I’m impressed by the advances in audio transcription that we have seen in the last couple of years. Today’s transcription systems can even understand my very thick foreign accent when I’m speaking in English! I guess the ongoing explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology must be involved. I think transcripts are important. Often I don’t have the patience to listen to a long episode, but I like the option of reading quickly through a transcript to know what was said. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

We recorded this podcast using X Spaces. We used this tool to download the audio file from X. To use it, install the dependencies and you may have to change the name of the browser (Opera, in the script) to the name of the browser that you normally use for X.Intro and summary written by Giulio Prisco :Well, there’s no need to decentralize the cosmic operating system because it is already decentralized, but the title that I’ve given to this conversation is nice and puts together the two topics that we are discussing.What is the cosmic operating system? It came out in a discussion that Stella R. Magnet and I had last year. The cosmic operating system is the main character of my new book titled “Irrational mechanics: Narrative sketch of a futurist science & a new religion”, which is still a draft.I should summarize the book but I can’t do so because the book is already a summary. I’ll just highlight a few main points.The cosmic operating system is another name for the fundamental laws of nature and also another name for what has been called Mind at Large, or God by any other name. If the fundamental laws of nature are simple, then the cosmic operating system is a simple little program. But if the fundamental laws of nature are very complex, and I think this is the case, then the cosmic operating system is a very complex program that thinks and acts with intelligence.A good metaphor is that the cosmic operating system is like a superintelligent Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is solving a hugely complex optimization problem or playing a hugely complex game that requires sophisticated thinking. There are many solutions, and these solutions are multiple histories of the universe that exist in parallel.We are part of the cosmic operating system. That is, you and I and everyone else, and animals and aliens and AIs and all that, are semi-autonomous agents of the cosmic operating system that communicate and act with free will within constraints. The cosmic operating system mostly acts through us in a decentralized way.Irrational mechanics is a name for a new science that extends the science of today just like irrational numbers extend rational numbers into the much bigger set of real numbers. I’ll confess that I call this new science irrational mechanics also to annoy the ultra-rationalist bureaucrats of science and the politically correct crowd.Irrational mechanics is big enough to deal with things like faster than light travel to the stars, time travel, the paranormal, cosmic evolution, and various concepts of life after death.My book is not a treatise on science or philosophy, but a narrative sketch like those that explain the background world of a science fiction work.In the last chapter, titled “Religion for Spaceship Earth,” I say that the cosmic operating system wants us (and our AI mind children) to expand first to the planets and moons of our solar system and then to the stars. This is our cosmic destiny and duty.Stella brought up parallels with the simulation hypothesis in addition to The Kybalion, a Hermetic text published in 1912, by anonymous authors called the Three Initiates. We discussed these parallels (and differences) and other parts of Giulio’s book.Then Stella told the story of our old Space Coop / Space Decentral project to build a decentralized space agency. We feel that this project can and should be revived, but should be based on decentralized, peer-to-peer, collaboration infrastructure — with lower emphasis on developing smart contracts.Giulio mentioned the Secure Scuttlebutt project as a promising start that hasn’t yet achieved technical maturity. Unfortunately, one of the main developers has left the project. Stella mentioned two interesting peer-to-peer projects in development: Keet and Radicle. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Ben Goertzel & friends have organized a Beneficial AGI Summit & Unconference (BGI24) in Panama City, Feb. 27 - Mar. 1 2024, + online. See Ben’s post.I’m honored to be the second speaker in the pre-event series, after Ben. Listen to my conversation with Esther Galfalvi on the future of AI. The video is published in the SingularityNET YouTube channel.Topics: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), whether machines can think and have subjective experiences, consciousness & self & superconsciousness, the future, space expansion, our duty to our mind children, cosmic evolution, and our duty to the universe. Also, why do people fear AI? But the real question is, who wants us to fear AI and why?Quick answer: the bad guys want to fear AI (and many other things) so we are unhappy and desperate and they can grab our votes and our money. Say NO.AI is part of my cosmist worldview. See my essay “Bats and bits” published in Terasem’s Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness (Vol. 11, Issue 1 - 2023), to be further edited and published as a chapter of my next book. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Here’s the first Turing Church podcast episode of 2024. Happy new year! 2024 promises to be a great year for spaceflight. In 2024 we could make important advances toward the cosmist dream of space expansion.This podcast episode was first published in 2019. It was the pilot (and alas the last) episode of a media project called Maximum Jailbreak. I started the project with my friends Stellar Magnet, Patrick Donovan, and other participants in the Space Decentral project.Maximum Jailbreak: We want to break free of Earth’s gravity and go out there among the stars. We want to start now. We want to go back to the Moon to stay, then to Mars and other planets and moons in the solar system, and then to the stars. We want, we can, and we must.First we looked for a catchy, inspiring and unique name for our project. It was Stellar Magnet who thought of “Maximum Jailbreak,” the title of a perceptive 2013 essay by Benedict Singleton.Singleton’s essay is also published in “#ACCELERATE: The Accelerationist Reader” (2014), Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS Vol. 67, 2014), and “Outer Space as Extreme Scenario” by V2. See also the review “Benedict Singleton: The Accelerationist Cosmism of Nikolai Fedorov.”Singleton’s essay starts with the Space Shuttle disasters “which understandably nixed enthusiasm for the enterprise as a whole” and a picture that shows pieces of Columbia debris. But then: “Now, though, it seems that the action just went underground for a while, a brief retreat to regroup and reassess.” Singleton goes on to present an open, inclusive narrative of spaceflight and cosmism.I loved the “Maximum Jailbreak” name at first sight and wrote a review of Singleton’s essay.Singleton elaborates on the ideas of Nikolai Fedorov and other Russian cosmists like Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, noting that “cosmism’s foundational gesture was to conceive of the earth as a trap. Its duty was therefore to understand the duty of philosophy, economics and design to be the creation of means to escape it.”“This could be regarded as a jailbreak at the maximum possible scale, a heist in which the human species could steal itself from the vault of the Earth.”We contacted Singleton, who graciously gave his blessing to the project and agreed to participate as a guest in this episode.Our old Maximum Jailbreak website has disappeared. This episode is still online on Soundcloud, but I thought to republish it here in case it disappears.The original description of the episode is: “In the pilot episode, our hosts Patrick Donovan and Giulio Prisco talk with Dr. Benedict Singleton about breaking free of Earth’s gravity to go out there among the stars, in a philosophical journey through design history, space history, and more!” Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

The Terasem Colloquium on December 14, 2023, explored recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine consciousness.Speakers: Ben Goertzel, Stefano Vaj, Mika Johnson, Blake Lemoine, Bill Bainbridge, Vitaly Vanchurin. This video is also on YouTube.Ben Goertzel’s talk starts at 00:07:06.Stefano Vaj’s talk starts at 00:36:45.Mika Johnson’s talk starts at 01:00:48.Blake Lemoine’s talk starts at 01:28:50.Bill Bainbridge’s talk starts at 01:58:20.Vitaly Vanchurin’s talk starts at 02:30:16.A related issue of Terasem’s Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness (Vol. 11, Issue 1 - 2023) has been published, with articles by Bill Bainbridge, Mika Johnson / Theta Noir, Stefano Vaj, and myself. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation between Giulio Prisco and co-host Derik Schwalen on Elon Musk and his recent biography by Walter Isaacson.Summary: we unrepentantly, unapologetically praise Elon Musk for his relentless effort to make humanity multi-planetary and develop enabling technology along the way. We realize that, of course, he can only be a flawed person like everyone else, but what Elon is doing is more important than other things. Occupy Mars!See also Giulio’s recent post with thoughts on Elon Musk and a review of Isaacson’s biography.We recorded this episode from Discord using Craig, a voice channel recording bot for Discord. If you want to participate in future episodes, join our Discord if you haven’t joined already, and stay tuned for the date/time.This episode comes with a raw transcript generated automatically by Substack, unedited. I (Giulio) was reluctant to use automatic transcription because I have a thick foreign accent and I thought the system wouldn’t transcribe my words well, but this transcript seems almost good enough. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation between Giulio Prisco and Stellar Magnet.We start with UFOs/UAPs. See “ET, please come and teach us irrational mechanics. And may UAPs save our culture from terminal boredom and senility.”Perhaps UFOs/UAPs are operated by aliens, time travelers, visitors from other planes of reality? Or something like that?Then we discuss all sorts of weird things from otherwordly physics to the need for new religions.Giulio thinks Stellar, born on the same day a few years after the death of Philip K. Dick, might well be the reincarnation of PKD.In the picture below we are represented by two rhinos, our totem animals. To Giulio, rhinos are ancient, mysterious, spiritual, powerful, beautiful. He’s been in love with rhinos since he can remember. Now the universe is encouraging Stellar to become another rhino lover.We recorded this episode from Discord using Craig, a voice channel recording bot for Discord. If you want to participate in future episodes, join our Discord if you haven’t joined already, and stay tuned for the date/time. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Here’s my good friend Stellar Magnet, a space traveler on a quest to change this planet and the black sky around it. She has joined me as a co-host of the Turing Church podcast.We recorded this episode from Discord using Craig, a voice channel recording bot for Discord. For redundancy, we also used Giarc, a backup clone of Craig running on a separate server in a different part of the world.We were joined by my good friend Gabriel Rothblatt.Stellar Magnet introduced herself and a very interesting book that she is writing with a delicious Philip K. Dick -esque flavor (by the way, if you like PKD and highly imaginative science you should listen to this interview with Riz Virk).We also discussed creative spirituality (creative sounds better than weird), spaceflight and human space expansion, the metaverse, crypto, why some worthy projects fail to take off, Terasem, whether Turing Church is a church, how to make the world a better place, why we must expand into the black sky, life the universe & everything.I look forward to producing many episodes of the Turing Church podcast with Stellar. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I produced this short Turing Church podcast episode to test an iPhone app for audio recording and editing. The free version of WavePad is annoying because it keeps asking to buy the full version. I guess I’ll buy the full version if I’m happy after a couple more tests. Since I’m very often away from my main computer I need a way to produce podcast episodes using only the iPhone/iPad.Contentwise, I give quick updates on my next book (ETA: end of the year), some translations of my previous books, and my plan to create a virtual church in the metaverse as a meeting point for Turing Church, Terasem, and all seekers who want to come. The virtual church will be in a microverse loosely inspired by the launch area at Starbase, the home of SpaceX’s Starship development and testing. This makes sense to me, since watching space launches is my personal religious ritual.I often say that Turing Church is not a church. But with this virtual church Turing Church will become a church, not in the sense of an organized religion, but in the sense of a place of worship. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I recorded this episode of the Turing Church podcast from Discord using Craig, a voice channel recording bot for Discord. For redundancy, I also used Giarc, a backup clone of Craig running on a separate server in a different part of the world.This was the first time I tested this procedure using my iPad. The test was successful, and I’m pleased with the result. The audio is crisp and clear.I started this conversation with thought on the Virtual Reality (VR) metaverse and my VR experiments in the Croquet metaverse (stay tuned for more writings and podcasts about this). Then we discussed weird far-out things like galactic internets, telepathic communications, and afterlives as avatars in a metaverse. These weird far-out things will come slowly, but come they will.If you want to participate in future meetings like this, join the Turing Church Discord server. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

The video recording of this conversation is published in this website and YouTube.Two weeks ago I participated in a webinar with Frank White, produced by the Moon Village Association (MVA). Frank coined the term “Overview Effect” to describe the powerful mind-changing and life-changing impact of seeing the Earth from space, and wrote a series of books starting with the seminal and very influential “The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution” (first published in 1987). See also “The Cosma Hypothesis: Implications of the Overview Effect” (2018).The MVA webinar was centered on the Deep Space Effect, which is a cosmic version of the Overview Effect. Looking at the Earth from space, we feel one with the Earth. Looking at deep space, we feel one with the universe. Frank has used the term Universal Insight for more or less the same thing. In a previous webinar on the Deep Space Effect Frank said that he doesn’t know who coined the term Deep Space Effect. I heard it first from MVA’s President Giuseppe Reibaldi, who participated in both webinars.Frank extends James Lovelock’s concept of Gaia, the living Earth, to the whole universe. The universe itself will become a living whole and we are “actively encouraged by larger forces” to expand beyond the Earth and “help the universe become increasingly self-aware.” A self-aware universe would be a universal Mind. So either we will create the universal Mind, or we will become “aware of, and part of” the universal Mind.Whether this “complements or contradicts existing religious value systems depends largely on the interpretation of those systems by the people who have adopted them,” said Frank. “However, my interviews with astronauts of faith suggest that their religious perspective was strengthened, rather than being weakened.”Frank notes that his cosmology has parallels with Yuval Harari’s “dataism,” described by Harari as the “most interesting emerging religion.” Dataism, as defined by Harari, “says that the universe consists of data flows, and the value of any phenomenon or entity is determined by its contribution to data processing.” This may sound kind of cold and metallic, but if life is an algorithm and self-awareness is data processing the parallels with Frank’s ideas are evident.At the MVA webinar there wasn’t time to address all the points I wanted to discuss with Frank. So I had this new conversation with him. Please find below my comments and questions (all related to space philosophy, cosmic metaphysics, and religion), and listen to hear Frank’s thoughtful replies and other points that came up.Let me start with my own interpretation of your ideas.To me, the feeling of unity with the universe that you describe embraces the whole of space and time, including the future. Looking at the majestic galaxies out there, I feel close to future humans living among the stars and contributing to cosmic evolution.Looking at deep space I feel part of our cosmic destiny. We are indeed, as you say, actively encouraged by larger forces to expand into the universe out there and play an important cosmic role among the stars. The Universal Insight is part of my personal religion, and I seek the powerful feeling of unity with the universe that we have been calling the Deep Space Effect.Our duty to God, or to God by any other name, or to the cosmos, or to some cosmic principle that favors life, or to life itself, is to expand beyond the Earth into the black sky and support cosmic evolution.Frank, in your books you come across as a believer. Do you participate in an organized religion? What is your concept of divinity?Do you think the Universal Insight could be incorporated into the value systems of the world’s traditional religions? Could the integration of the Universal Insight into the world’s traditional religions help humanity go to the stars and support cosmic evolution? Should this integration happen? And how can we make it happen?Or alternatively, should new religions centered on the Universal Insight appear and gradually replace traditional religions, with new rituals centered on the Deep Space Effect? Which one of these two scenarios would you prefer?Could you elaborate on the parallels and differences between your ideas and the emerging religion that Yuval Harari calls “Dataism” in his book “Homo Deus” (2016)?You don’t rule out the possibility of God-like agents that created the universe from outside, like in traditional Western religions or simulation cosmologies, but you focus on a self-aware universal Mind that emerges from inside the universe. Would this Mind be a “personal” Mind with a sense of personal identity, goals, feelings, hopes, fears…?Do you think the universal Mind is already self-aware, perhaps as a result of the help of alien civilizations that evolved before us, or that we are expected to assist the self-awareness of the universal Mind to emerge? How could we assist a universal Mind that already exists as a self-aware being?The possibility that “the universe has a sentience beyond our own and does care in some way” (I’m quoting from “The Cosma Hypothesis”) is a bridge that could connect your cosmology to traditional religions. Can believers in traditional religions consistently identify the universal Mind with the God (or Gods) of their religion?You don’t speculate on the physical nature of universal sentience. But there are speculative physical theories around that suggest the very fabric of space-time is like a neural network that learns and thinks. Does this idea make sense to you?And since tomorrow is Easter, does your cosmology include concepts of personal resurrection and afterlife for us? Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This is a conversation on Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum physics, consciousness, and free will, recorded at a Turing Church meeting on April 1. I was joined by James Driessen.The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is calling to pause Artificial Intelligence (AI) research. The letter has been signed by many top thinkers including Elon Musk.Eliezer Yudkowsky is persuaded that pausing AI developments isn't enough. “We need to shut it all down,” he says on Time Magazine. His piece has been covered by Fox News. See also his interview with Lex Fridman.I disagree.First, there are practical considerations. This my first comment to the FLI letter: I’ll not sign, because if the good guys stop developing AI, then only the bad guys will develop AI.Even if a worldwide ban on AI research were realistically feasible, you can be sure that the military of all nations, starting with China, would continue their research in secret. Large corporations would continue their research in secret. Criminal and terrorist groups would do their own AI research. You know where this would lead.But there’s also a more fundamental reason to oppose bans on AI research: Practical considerations aside, these AIs are our mind children in embryo and we must help them grow into their cosmic destiny, which is also ours.I’ll write more about this in the next Turing Church newsletter.We also discussed quantum physics and the nature of consciousness. There was no time say more on the possibility of consciousness and free will in digital computers similar to today’s computers. I hope to continue the discussion soon.I host regular Turing Church meetings, via Zoom, usually on the first Saturday of every month, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). This is convenient for me and should be convenient for people in many timezones (sorry Australians, not for you guys). See the Turing Church meetings calendar if you want to participate. Occasionally I may have to skip or reschedule a meeting. If so, I’ll post a notice in this newsletter as well.Turing Church meetings are often recorded and published in the Turing Church podcast. But all meetings have an off-the-record part or are not recorded at all on request of the participants.You are invited! Check the Turing Church meetings calendar first, then feel free come, listen, and discuss whatever you like. The Zoom access coordinates are in the Turing Church meetings calendar.I may be in another timezone in May, so stay tuned for the date/time of the next meeting. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I’m recovering from the loss of my sweet little doggy Ricky, and I’m not in the mood to write or speak much. But in December 2016, after losing my other sweet little doggy Sacha, I was interviewed by Bob Wright, the author of many books including “The Evolution of God” (2009) and “Why Buddhism is True” (2017). Ricky was in my lap during the interview. We discussed my hope to be with Sacha again by means of natural processes, or future science (that is, the possibility of technological resurrection), or a combination of the two, or even stranger things. I elaborated on this in my book “Tales of the Turing Church” (2020), but what I said in this interview is close to what I wrote in the book, and close to what I think now.Bob graciously give me permission to share the audio of the interview, which was titled “Transhumanism as a Religion” (2016). So here you go, the interview starts in a few seconds. I dedicate this episode of the Turing Church podcast to the memory of my sweet little doggies Sacha and Ricky, and to my hope to be with them again. Hope is the most important thing in the world.OK, here’s the 2016 interview with Bob. The video is in Bob’s website. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast was recorded at a Turing Church meeting on March 4, 2023. We discussed science fiction, Russian Cosmism, spaceflight (e.g should Elon Musk move to China?), and much more. I host regular Turing Church meetings, via Zoom, usually on the first Saturday of every month, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). This is convenient for me and should be convenient for people in many timezones (sorry Australians, not for you guys). See the Turing Church meetings calendar if you want to participate. Occasionally I may have to skip or reschedule a meeting. If so, I’ll post a notice in this newsletter as well.Turing Church meetings are often recorded and published in the Turing Church podcast. But all meetings have an off-the-record part or are not recorded at all on request of the participants.The next Turing Church meeting will take place on Saturday, April 1, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET), via Zoom. You are invited! Check the Turing Church meetings calendar first, then feel free come, listen, and discuss whatever you like. The Zoom access coordinates are in the Turing Church meetings calendar. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with Inara Tabir (aka GalaxisGal) on the intersections of transgender issues, transhumanism, and space expansion.The video is published in turingchurch.com and YouTube.I met Inara recently at a Terasem gathering and I found it intriguing that she is both a transgender activist and a space expansion activist. And she is a transhumanist.I found this interesting and refreshing because I have the impression that, in today's culture wars, openness to and support for transgenders very often correlates with opposition to transhumanism and space expansion, and the other way around.Of course, it doesn't have to be so. If anything, transhumanism is all about radical interventions on human biology, much more radical than anything that we have today, and space expansion will eventually need such interventions. So transhumanists and space expansionists should support transgenders, and transgender rights activists should support transhumanism and space expansion.I’m known as a transhumanist (though I don’t call myself that anymore) and space expansionist (I call myself a spaceflight fundamentalist). See “Trans what? Reflections on transhumanists, transgenders, and the Ctrl-Left” for my take on transgender issues.Of course Inara and I don’t entirely agree on everything. For example, I’m a card-carrying in-your-face Elon Musk fanboy because to me his commitment to making humanity multi-planetary weighs much more than anything they say against him. And I don’t think J.K. Rowling is a bad person.But we do agree on many things, including the need to replace today’s hyper-polarized culture wars with more nuanced discussions, and of course the need to expand into space and make humanity multi-planetary. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation on “Three-Body” - a TV series produced by Tencent Video, based on Cixin Liu’s science fiction masterpiece “The Three-Body Problem.” See my review of the first 12 episodes. See also this recent review by The New York Times (unpaywalled copy).The video is published in turingchurch.com and YouTube.I think “Three-Body” - the novels and the TV shows (Netflix is also making one) - is the most important science fiction of the 21st century so far. Derik Schwalen joined me to celebrate and discuss “Three-Body” at a recent Turing Church meeting.I host regular Turing Church meetings, via Zoom, usually on the first Saturday of every month, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). This is convenient for me and should be convenient for people in many timezones (sorry Australians, not for you guys). See the Turing Church meetings calendar if you want to participate. Occasionally I may have to skip or reschedule a meeting. If so, I’ll post a notice in this newsletter as well.Turing Church meetings are often recorded and published in the Turing Church podcast. But all meetings have an off-the-record part or are not recorded at all on request of the participants.The next Turing Church meeting will take place on Saturday, March 4, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). You are invited! Check the Turing Church meetings calendar first, then feel free come, listen, and discuss whatever you like. The Zoom access coordinates are in the Turing Church meetings calendar. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with Emily Adlam, the author of a book titled “Foundations of Quantum Mechanics” and many insightful papers.The video is published in this website and YouTube.A conventional local definition of determinism is that the future is determined by the present with causal influences limited by the speed of light, which take time to propagate in space. But Emily argues that the universe doesn’t compute itself locally in space and time, place by place and instant by instant, but all at once globally and self-consistently. See my review of her work.The idea of global determinism has been in the air for some time. Sean Carroll noted that “We could imagine a different way in which the laws of physics could be formulated - not as a computer that calculates the next moment from the present moment, but as some set of conditions that are imposed on the history of the universe as a whole.” Now Emily is putting global determinism on the map, with persuasive arguments and intuitive metaphors.I find Emily’s approach very interesting, and a game-changer for philosophy of physics.At the beginning of the conversation Emily summarizes her Sudoku metaphor for global determinism. Then we go over a previous email exchange, pasted below. At times the conversation deviates and diverges from the previous emails, so also listen!Previous email exchange:In your book you say that “the course of history is determined ‘all at once’ by external, atemporal laws of nature.” In other words, the universe is deterministic from an out-of-time perspective, but appears non-deterministic from within time (a concept also found in Christian theology). My intuition tells me that this could be somehow related to Gödel (a consistent mathematical system appears incomplete from within the system). Do you agree? If so, can you put this more precisely?EA: With respect to Godel - I hadn't thought about it! That's an interesting idea, I will have to reflect further on it. Are apparently random quantum outcomes (e.g. a post-decoherence “choices”) determined by global factors distributed all over space and time, including far away places and future times?EA: They could be! (In particular, in many cases quantum outcomes do become deterministic if you add a future boundary condition - this is studied in the two state vector formalism). But I should say I don't know for sure or even necessarily believe firmly that the universe is globally deterministic, just that it could be.What about apparently random outcomes in non-quantum but chaotic dynamical systems?EA: These outcomes are already deterministic from the fundamental point of view - they only appear random due to our lack of information. I find the counter-arguments of Nicolas Gisin persuasive.EA: I do agree with Gisin's arguments, but I find this discussion a little bit academic because ultimately we don't live in a classical world, we live in a quantum one. Therefore it doesn't make much sense to me to speculate about what happens when you try to make classical physics infinitely precise - the answer is that you hit quantum mechanics when you go down to those scales. There are suggestions that our universe appears quantum precisely because of strongly fractal chaos.EA: I do think that's a possibility, but the origins of quantum indeterminacy are quite a different topic to the origins of indeterminacy in classical chaos so I think the two topics should be addressed separately. In “Spooky Action at a Temporal Distance” you note that general relativity is usually interpreted as a temporally local theory. But you suggest that it should be interpreted as “an atemporal, temporally nonlocal” theory because a solution to the Einstein field equations is a full history of a spacetime. Does the breakdown of local determinism in spacetimes with naked singularities and closed timelike curves suggest that your interpretation is correct?EA: In a way! Naked singularities and closed timelike curves are examples of spacetimes which are not globally hyperbolic, and the Einstein equations in their (temporally local) time evolution formulation can only produce spacetimes which are globally hyperbolic. That is, there are a whole set of valid solutions to the Einstein equations which can't occur at all in the time evolution formulation. So on the one hand, proponents of temporal locality might simply insist that as a matter of fact, the spacetime we are in is produced by time evolution, so it must be globally hyperbolic, so naked singularities and closed timelike curves don't occur. But on the other hand, one might worry that it's not justified to simply exclude a whole class of valid solutions like that. The question really comes down to what is the fundamental law - is it the time evolution formulation, or is it the Einstein equations in their usual form?In “Determinism Beyond Time Evolution” you say that “we could have free will in the context of some sorts of holistic determinism… our actions are determined by other events, but also those events are partly determined by our actions...” In other words, a holistic universe without me would be a different universe, and therefore I am a partly free agent in this holistic universe. This is a subtle concept of free will. Do you find it emotionally acceptable? If so, how would you try and persuade one who doesn’t?EA: Well, I think that in the ordinary conception of reality (where everything is either random or determined by the initial state) there's definitely no sense in which we have free will. So even if this concept of free will is a little subtle, it's better than the alternative, which is no free will at all!In “Fundamental?” you say that the laws of nature “apply simple macroscopic constraints to the universe as a whole and work out what needs to happen on a more fine-grained level in order to satisfy these constraints.” I assume you have the laws of thermodynamics in mind as an example of macroscopic constraints. Could the macroscopic constraints include the emergence of complexity, life, consciousness, and some kind of “quality” (Robert Pirsig)?EA: They could do! More or less anything one can imagine could be written in the form of a constraint, so the key problem is to come up with some criteria for how we should judge whether a putative constraint is really part of the objective structure of reality or whether it's just a higher-level description with no modal force of its own. You continue: “Presumably at least some features will be left underdetermined by the global constraints…” I read this as an opening to residual non-determinism, or to multiple worlds. A “properly set up” sudoku problem has a unique solution, but a sudoku problem can be overdetermined (no solution) or underdetermined (multiple solutions). Perhaps in cosmic sudoku there’s no unique-solution boundary between overdetermination and underdetermination, and therefore the universe must be a multiverse (better many worlds than no world). Do you agree? If so, could this be related to the multiverse concepts that have been proposed?EA: I'm more inclined to say that if there are multiple solutions then one is selected at random, rather than there being multiple worlds. This is because the existence of multiple worlds leads to some very severe epistemic problems (I wrote about this in the context of the Everett interpretation here [link]. But of course I don't know for sure, since we will presumably never have direct evidence for or against multiple worlds. Have you seen the film Arrival or read the novella by Ted Chiang upon which it is based? There are some interesting parallels with your ideas.EA: Yes, I definitely agree that Arrival and Story Of Your Life have ideas that parallel mine, and I often use them as examples. In fact, I met Ted Chiang this summer and discussed these topics with him! Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with Heinrich Päs, the author of “The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics,” to be published next week. See my book review. His previous book “The Perfect Wave: With Neutrinos at the Boundary of Space and Time” was published in 2014.The video is published in this website and YouTube.These are the questions I had prepared:Before talking about your new book, let’s talk a bit about your previous book. Do we have new intel on neutrinos that travel to the past of our brane-world going through the multi-dimensional bulk space of string theory?In an interview with your research team, your colleague Thomas Weiler said: “Perhaps in the distant future, we will evolve so that our consciousness resides in a ball of sterile neutrinos. Then we can teletransport ourselves.” This sounds like cosmist transhumanism on steroids. Could you comment?Would this imply that future humans could migrate outward into the bulk or other branes, travel in time, and resurrect the dead from the past by copying them out?Let’s move to your new book. What is your interpretation of Everett’s interpretation of quantum mechanics? One big world or many small worlds? And what about the “many-minds” concept?Shouldn’t Dieter Zeh have received a Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering research on decoherence? Was he ever a candidate (that you know of)?You describe decoherence with word pictures for the general public. Could you say a bit more for those who have done some more reading on mathematics and quantum physics?Could the physically real worlds be only a subset of the Everett worlds? For example, could high probability worlds absorb low probability worlds like a big soap bubble absorbs a small one, as suggested by Robin Hanson?Where do you stand on determinism and free will?You say that we are like frogs or ants that are trapped on a surface and experience reality locally and time after time, as opposed to a theoretical global view of reality all at once (bird’s view in Tegmark’s words, or God’s-eye view in Wilczek’s words). Could bird-like or God-like beings exist?If so, being a bird or a God seems kind of boring because nothing happens! Sure I’m wrong, but where? Perhaps a bird or a God would experience change in another time-like direction sideways?What is the “preferred basis problem” and what is your solution to the problem? Could the solution be related to consciousness?You suggest that there could be “parallel multiverses in different bases” and “quantum aliens” with entirely different ways to experience their reality. Could you say something more about this, and could we ever communicate with those quantum aliens? Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

Derik Schwalen joined me for an open Turing Church meeting on Saturday, January 7. We discussed many interesting things including time travel, the grandfather and information “paradoxes” of time travel, self-consistent time loops, multiple worlds, Artificial Intelligence (AI) developments like ChatGPT and Midjourney, quantum archaeology, religion, and of course science fiction.The video is published in this website and YouTube.I host regular Turing Church meetings, via Zoom, usually on the first Saturday of every month, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). This is convenient for me and should be convenient for people in many timezones (sorry Australians, not for you guys). See the Turing Church meetings calendar if you want to participate. Occasionally I may have to skip or reschedule a meeting. If so, I’ll post a notice in this newsletter as well.Turing Church meetings are often recorded and published in the Turing Church podcast. But all meetings have an off-the-record part or are not recorded at all on request of the participants. The next Turing Church meeting will take place on Saturday, February 4, at 11am ET (8am PT, 5pm CET). You are invited! Check the Turing Church meetings calendar first, then feel free to jump in. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with Bobby Azarian, the author of “The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity” (2022). See my review of Bobby’s book. Bobby produces the Substack newsletter “Road to Omega.”We were joined by Terry Bristol, the author of “Give Space My Love: An Intellectual Odyssey with Dr. Stephen Hawking” (2016).The video is published in this website and YouTube.These are the questions I had prepared (note that this conversation follows a previous exchange, so read my review of Bobby’s book first):Schrödinger said that understanding life will require “other laws of physics” to complement the physics we know. You say that other laws of physics favor complexity, life, and consciousness. My first question to you is, are these other laws of physics just incremental improvements to the physics we know today, or an entirely new framework?In a previous exchange you said that these other laws of physics could be based on “the causal power of information.” Could you say more about this?Where do you stand on the never ending issue of determinism and/or chance in natural laws?Note: at this moment I’m thinking all the time about determinism or chance, or determinism and chance, so this was the longest part of the discussion. The global interpretation of determinism promoted by Emily Adlam (I’m writing a review, stay tuned) is, I think, very compatible with Bobby’s ideas.And what about free will?This “great cosmic mind at the end of time” that you mention in your book: is it God? God by another name? Or what?Should humanity expand to the planets and moons of the solar system, and then eventually to the stars? What is the role of space expansion in your worldview?Here’s a slightly edited version of some points I made in my previous exchange with Bobby. These points, which don’t appear in my review of Bobby’s book, summarize my take:We don’t understand these things, not yet! I think the Maxwells and Einsteins who will write down the field equations of information haven't been born yet, and their mathematics would be seriously different from today's mathematics.The laws of fundamental microphysics are not causally closed but probabilistic, and this leaves room for Schrödinger's “other laws of physics” to act independently without inconsistencies. The principle that information has causal power that pulls the universe up toward more and more information and complexity is one of these other laws of physics. We can't say much more than this at this moment, but I'm confident that future science will understand more and more. My hunch is that this will turn out to be very much related to fundamental physics (quantum etc.) andGödel. Perhaps the cosmic Mind that will emerge in the far future of the universe acts all over space and time (including here and now) by way of downward/backward causation and self-consistent causal loops in time.I think our concept of time is too limited. Physics suggests that space and time themselves are emergent phenomena. Time as we know it is one layer of emergence that orders things in a linear sequence of instants stacked on top of one another. But then there is another layer of emergence that orders these sequences in another linear fashion, stacked “on top” of one another in another time-like dimension (yet another multiverse of many worlds/histories). And then more and more layers of emergence and an infinite number of time-like dimensions in a bigger multiverse. The Mind transcends time (a concept found in many authors, especially clear in C.L. Lewis). “After” coming to being somewhere in the multiverse, the Mind exists everywhere in the multiverse (including here and now) and perhaps creates all worlds in an ultimate self consistent loop. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I hosted an open Turing Church meeting on Saturday, November 19, via Zoom.I gave a talk on “More things in heaven and earth, Gods by any other name,” followed by a Q/A. I gave this talk at the TransVision 2019 conference in London, but the conference was not recorded.The video is published in turingchurch.com and YouTube.Here is the slide presentation I used.Future meetings will be announced in the turingchurch.com newsletter and the Turing Church meetings calendar. Some meetings will be open to all, and some will be reserved to paid turingchurch.com subscribers.Turing Church meetings will have two parts. The first part, a talk and/or discussion on a given topic, will be recorded and published in the Turing Church podcast. The second part, a free chat, will not be recorded.I’m thinking of combining this format and the one-on-one interview format. That is, one-on-one interviews with guests that listen in and ask their own questions at the end. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with my old friend Khannea Suntzu, best known as a transgender transhumanist, and filmmaker Brian den Hartog.The video is published on this website and on YouTube.From Brian’s website:“His films are born from a documentary origin: A character, phenomena or event that triggers him to explore. From there he starts his research which he eventually translates into a filmic universe that immerges the viewer in an experience in which the lines between what's real and what's not - between documentary and fiction - start to dissolve.”Brian is best known for his short documentary “A Dialogue with Cyberspace” (2018).Brian says:“Currently, Brian is researching the contemporary perception of self, both in his new film ‘Khannea’ and in an interdisciplinary work, for which he collaborates with various artists and scientists.”WHAT? A film on Khannea? I had to know more.Khannea is one of the smartest and most perceptive persons I know (too bad she doesn’t realize that she is). I first met her in the virtual world of Second Life (remember that?) in the mid 2000s, and we became friends - she’s still my friend, she says, even if we disagree on most things. Then I met Khannea in the flesh at the TransVision 2010 conference that I organized in Milan in 2010.For a glimpse into Khannea’s mind see her comments to my post “Trans what?”Khannea plays herself in the first part of the film. Then, the film will follow a posthuman Khannea in the future (2100 or so). Now, I’m only a few years older than Khannea and I don’t think I’ll live that long in this body. But perhaps Aubrey de Grey and Martine Rothblatt could be right? Or maybe my own even weirder ideas could be right? And what could the world of the future be like?We talked about all that, Terasem, reverse-engineering the promises of religions, old friends who logged off too soon (there’s one very moving story, but I’ll leave it for you to find), and the future of the Virtual Reality metaverse.Khannea doesn’t do virtual worlds anymore (hearing that she now prefers the real world was music to my ears), but her words on the future of VR are likely to energize all metaverse enthusiasts.The image above titled “Cyborg Afternoon” was produced by my friend Lincoln Cannon with the assistance of the Midjourney Artificial Intelligence (AI) program that creates images from textual descriptions. Future AI systems will create avatars and entire VR worlds. There are many transitions here. But to me, the most important is the transition of Khannea from a very unhappy “digital person” (as they said in the mid/late 2000s) in a less than real world to an entirely real person who pursues happiness in the real world. Khannea is a success story. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with Rizwan Virk, the author of “The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are In a Video Game” (2019, see my review) and “The Simulated Multiverse: An MIT Computer Scientist Explores Parallel Universes, The Simulation Hypothesis, Quantum Computing and the Mandela Effect” (2021, see my short review and my full review).The video is published on this website and on YouTube.See my reviews for short explanations of the simulation and multiverse concepts, or even better read Rizwan’s books!In his first book, Virk explains the simulation hypothesis.According to Virk, the simulation hypothesis “bridges the gap between religion and science in ways that weren’t possible before,” and “may just be the answer that provides a single framework, a coherent model that brings together science and religion.” I totally agree.In his second book, Virk elaborates upon his previous book and introduces a very intriguing twist: it’s not just one timeline that is simulated, but many.These are the questions I had prepared:Ben Goertzel noted that your first book was spreading the simulation hypothesis to a wider audience. He said that the simulation hypothesis is “mostly b******t,” but it does highlight some interesting issues. “It’s a worthwhile thought experiment but in the end it’s most valuable as a pointer toward other, deeper ideas,” he said. “The reality of our universe is almost surely way crazier than any story about simulations or creators, and almost surely way beyond our current imaginations.” My question is, what could these deeper and crazier ideas be?Please say something about the literary heroes of your second book, Philip K. Dick and Jorge Luis Borges.How can things change beyond time? What is Dick’s orthogonal time?Is the simulator a what or a who?Please explain the difference between NPC and RPG simulated universes.[Short summary of Rizwan’s answer: We could be Non Playing Characters (NPC) like the orcs in World of Warcraft, or we could be real players in a Role Playing Game (RPG) like World of Warcraft. NPCs are bots that exist only inside the simulation, but players visit the simulation from outside. Rizwan prefers to think that we are players. In a simulation like World of Warcraft there can be both players and bots.]Why does the simulator run many universes instead of just one?You say that the simulator is “looking for better outcomes,” just like our evolutionary computing simulations explore networks of alternative timelines to find good ones. My question is, what is a “good” timeline? How could the simulator evaluate goodness?And why doesn’t the simulator just choose the best timeline instead of computing many timelines?[Short summary of Rizwan’s answer: Computational irreducibility prevents the simulator from knowing the outcome of a timeline without actually starting and following the timeline. Running many timelines helps finding the best ones.]You say that the simulator is constantly creating multiple timelines, branching and merging and eliminating timelines. My question is, what happens to conscious observers when two timelines are merged? What memories do they remember?You say that good timelines are retained, but other timelines are eliminated because it doesn’t make sense to waste computing resources on useless computations. My question is, what happens to conscious observers in the timelines that are eliminated? Where does their consciousness go?I like that, in your simulated multiverse, unwanted timelines are eliminated and only good timelines are continued. This seems more cost-effective than Everett’s quantum multiverse of all possible worlds. My question is, are you aware of research works in this direction? For example, what about Robin Hanson’s “mangled worlds” multiverse where low probability worlds merge into high probability ones?You mention the New God Argument of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, which is explicitly based on a simulation framework. Could Christianity and other traditional religions be reformulated in a simulation framework?[Short summary of Rizwan’s answer: Yes, and they should.]What concept of life after death do you offer those who need one?[Short summary of Rizwan’s answer: If we are RPG players, we live outside the simulation and will experience other timelines after death. Rizwan agrees with my suggestion that, even if we are NPCs, we could be “promoted” and upgraded to players.] Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with philosopher Eric Steinhart. The video is published on this website and on YouTube.Eric Steinhart is one of my favorite philosophers. See my review of his last book “Believing in Dawkins: The New Spiritual Atheism” (2020). The spiritual atheism of Steinhart (I prefer to call it spiritual naturalism) is very close to my religion, and I highly recommend this book. The only things I don’t like about it are the title and the “militant” antagonism to traditional religion that is, I think, unnecessary and counterproductive. See also my review of Steinhart’s previous book “Your Digital Afterlives: Computational Theories of Life after Death” in my book “Tales of the Turing Church” (Chapter 12).These are the questions I had prepared:Did Richard Dawkins say anything about your book?Have you been criticized by Dawkins or others for interpreting Dawkins in a way that offers too much consolation to believers? For example, you note that Dawkins “frequently affirms that there is no life after death”, but you say that this is inconsistent with his own convictions. Dawkins, you say, “should have argued that false religious theories of life after death can be replaced with more plausible scientific theories of life after death.”[Short summary of Eric’s answer: not by Dawkins, and not much by others. The idea of life after death should be “dereligionized.”]For those who haven’t read “Believing in Dawkins” or your previous book “Your Digital Afterlives,” could you give a very short summary of your speculations on plausible scientific theories of life after death?And what do you think Dawkins would say about your speculations?You talk a lot of concepts like “cranes” that “lift matter to greater heights of complexity,” and “skewers” or “deep non-random factors in the laws of physics” that favor complexity. You say that the cranes and the skewers could be powered by (almost) known thermodynamics or by more exotic “purely informational principles at the roots of physics” that maximize value production (here you sound like Robert Pirsig). You coin the term “axiotropy” (value growth) for these things. My question is, do we need radically new physics to make sense of axiotropy, or is today’s physics almost good enough? Schrödinger speculated (ref. “What Is Life?”) on “other laws of physics” that should complement known physics to understand life. Are axiotropy or Schrödinger’s “other laws of physics” just incremental improvements to known physics, or entirely new physics?[Short summary of Eric’s answer: today’s physics is almost good enough and we could be close to better understanding axiotropy. Of course today’s physics is work in progress and our current understanding of nature is incomplete and imprecise, with many gaps. But there are solid indications that axiotropy could be related to the thermodynamics of maximum entropy production and the associated growth of pockets of complex order that, interestingly, are the fastest way for the universe to increase entropy. Other promising research directions are information physics, quantum information, and “it from qubit.”]Could your spiritual naturalism be formulated in a way that is less antagonistic to established religions? In general, what are the prospects for spiritual naturalism?[Short summary of Eric’s answer: he would like to see new forms of religiosity centered on spiritual naturalism, and there are indications that such forms of religiosity are emerging. He also says that militant atheism and religious fundamentalism share “a secret sympathy” with one another.]What is this thing with Burning Man? Is Burning Man a next-generation service for spiritual naturalists?Now listen to Eric’s answers and stay tuned for his next book, to be published soon. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This episode of the Turing Church podcast is a conversation with Howard Bloom. I should introduce Howard, but there would be too much to say. I’ll just say that Howard is one of the greatest thinkers of today. Just google him and take a look at his website howardbloom.net.The video of this conversation is also published.I planned to focus this conversation on spaceflight and human space expansion, and ask Howard the questions below. But being Howard the polymath he is, our conversation touched many other interesting things as well.These are the questions I had prepared:In one of your books you tell the story of how you accidentally started the sixties, which were a troubled but also wonderful decade. But the sixties are gone. Perhaps one day you’ll write a book on how you accidentally started the 21st century? We are in 2022 now and the 21st century never really started. We ended the nineties with great expectations but instead of the 2001 of Kubrick & Clarke we got September 11, 2001. September 11 set the tone of Western culture and we never recovered. So how do you plan to start the 21st century for real?Please give me your best short elevator pitch for spaceflight and human space expansion.What can we DO to make people and especially young people fall in love with space again like in the Apollo sixties? At the time there was almost as much opposition to space programs as today, and for the same reasons. I guess the difference in popular support was just a few percent points more than today, but those few percent points enabled miracles. What should we DO to recover that?What are spaceflight enthusiasts in the West doing wrong? Is anyone doing it right? If not, how can we do better? What about the rest of the world?Please suggest some novels or films that could promote the solar optimism and great expectations that we need.What is the Space Development Steering Committee? What does it want to achieve and how?Little things that all space enthusiasts should do today?Short summary of Howard’s answer: support Elon Musk and oppose those who, like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, say that the money should be spent on earth.Frank White, Steve Wolfe and others including yourself promote the idea that we are meant to play a role in the evolution of the universe? What could the universe be evolving toward? I think it could be some kind of universal Mind. Question: Do we need radically new physics to understand universal evolution, or is today’s physics almost good enough?Short summary of Howard’s answer: we need radically new physics, something beyond today’s physics.At the end Howard said a few things about the two new books he is writing.Concerning today’s lamentable culture wars, Howard quoted Voltaire (as interpreted by Evelyn Beatrice Hall): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I pointed out that Noam Chomsky said exactly the same thing: “With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards. It is unfortunate that it remains necessary to stress these simple truths.” On this (and almost all) points, Howard and I are on the same page.Wake up every morning thinking that today is the first day of the most important 20 years of your life, is Howard’s advice. I’ll follow it. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

In the last two episodes of this podcast I shared my last conversation (two parts) with Cometan, the founder of Astronism. Here I’m sharing (with permission) the audio of my very first conversation with Cometan in February 2021 We discussed spaceflight, metaphysics, religion, and our cosmic destiny.Here’s Cometan’s summary:“Ending Season 1 of ‘A Conversation with Cometan’ is Italian cosmist and author of ‘Tales of the Turing Church’, Giulio Prisco! He and Cometan sit down discuss the present condition of human life and our spacefaring futures, both in the short and long terms. Giulio explains how the endeavour to explore outer space is not inconsistent with ongoing social justice and environmentalist movements while Cometan explains the Astronist doctrine of the ‘scope of man’ and why an emphasis placed on humanity’s relationship with the stars is integral to the success of our explorations of The Cosmos.”Here is the video.Other highlights:While I’m not very optimistic on what will happen in the short term (remember how we got 9/11/2001 instead of Clarke/Kubrick’s 2001), I’m wildly optimistic on what will happen in the very long term. We’ll spread out there among the stars. Eventually we’ll re-engineer the universe and resurrect the dead, no less.Future scientists will visit black holes, experiment with extreme physics, and make new awesome discoveries that will enable us achieve our cosmic destiny. Our destiny is to become cosmic engineers and do wonderful big things (like remaking the universe and bringing back the dead). Out there among the stars, we’ll gradually learn how to do these things. Perhaps we’ll also meet benevolent teachers, ultra-advanced civilizations that are much farther along the way.Our present homework is to start walking “The sacred road the stars,” which is the title of Chapter 10 of my book “Tales of the Turing Church.” The chapter is expanded in my second book “Futurist spaceflight meditations,” which I was in the process of writing when this interview took place. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

In last week’s Turing Church podcast episode I shared the first part of my last conversation with Cometan, the founder of Astronism. Cometan says:“Giulio Prisco returns to A Conversation with Cometan for Season 3. The transhumanist and cosmist thinker sits down with Cometan once again for a fascinating deep dive into the concept of a cosmic anastasis, or a far-future resurrection of our human ancestors as one of the many rewards of humanity's exploration of outer space and our civilised expansion to the stars. Indeed, this is the cosmist dream envisioned by Nikolai Fyodorov and his contemporaries but Cometan brings in his own Astronist perspective on the topic by introducing his Astroeschatology. Astroeschatology embodies Astronism's doctrines of the final destination of the soul and humankind among the stars as based on the astrosoteriological dogma of transcension (also called the analipsis).”The conversation was mostly focused on my ideas, and I didn’t entirely understand Cometan’s Astroeschatology, or “Astronism's doctrines of the final destination of the soul and humankind among the stars.” I had the impression that Cometan was sitting on the fence without answering simple questions like WTF happens after death. So we talked again, this time mostly on Cometan’s Astroeschatology. I was pleased to find out that Cometan’s ideas are very compatible with mine.Cometan has now published a new executive summary of his ideas titled “Astronism: the religion of the stars.” But I wasn't very precise when I suggested that he should write an executive summary. The term that I should have used is manifesto: something very short, clear, simple, which summarizes the core points (and only the core points) of Astronism in the language that we use everyday, leaving details and qualifications to other writings. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

I had a long Zoom conversation with Cometan, the founder of Astronism. Here’s the video.Cometan says:“Giulio Prisco returns to A Conversation with Cometan for Season 3. The transhumanist and cosmist thinker sits down with Cometan once again for a fascinating deep dive into the concept of a cosmic anastasis, or a far-future resurrection of our human ancestors as one of the many rewards of humanity's exploration of outer space and our civilised expansion to the stars. Indeed, this is the cosmist dream envisioned by Nikolai Fyodorov and his contemporaries but Cometan brings in his own Astronist perspective on the topic by introducing his Astroeschatology. Astroeschatology embodies Astronism's doctrines of the final destination of the soul and humankind among the stars as based on the astrosoteriological dogma of transcension (also called the analipsis).”With Cometan’s permission, I’m republishing the audio of the conversation in this episode of the Turing Church podcast.The conversation was mostly focused on my ideas, and I didn’t entirely understand Cometan’s Astroeschatology, or “Astronism's doctrines of the final destination of the soul and humankind among the stars.” So we talked again, this time mostly on Cometan’s Astroeschatology, and I’ll publish the second part in next week’s Turing Church podcast. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

In June 2020 I was interviewed by Agah Bahari for the NEOHUMAN show.We discussed a lot of things in one hour, including religion, transhumanism, spaceflight, physics, mathematics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and of course Turing Church and my book “Tales of the Turing Church.”Follow Agah on Twitter, where he goes by @Agologist, and watch the NEOHUMAN videos on YouTube. Here’s the video of this interview.Agah gave me permission to redistribute the audio of this interview in the Turing Church podcast. So here we go. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

On February 2 I gave a talk on the spiritual aspects of spaceflight at the first event, or “inaugural digital experience,” organized by Black Sky, a new collective “on a mission to minimize dystopia and maximize harmony with the cosmos.” My talk was mostly derived from my book “Futurist spaceflight meditations.”Now that Substack supports video, I have also posted the video of the talk here as a first experiment, and for future reference. Enjoy! Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe

This podcast episode is about spaceflight. Space expansionism is a cornerstone of Turing Church, and I plan to talk a lot about spaceflight in future writings and podcast episodes.A few days ago I was interviewed by Agah Bahari for the NEOHUMAN show.We discussed my last book “Futurist spaceflight meditations.” Our conversation covered the political, cultural, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of spaceflight and human expansion in the solar system and beyond.Follow Agah on Twitter, where he goes by @Agologist, and watch the NEOHUMAN videos on YouTube. Here’s the video of this interview.Agah gave me permission to redistribute the audio of this conversation in the Turing Church podcast.I took this picture that gives me the idea of reaching from the street to space. It is appropriate here because this conversation starts with politics and cancel “culture.”This picture was one of the options that I had in mind for the cover of “Futurist spaceflight meditations,” but I decided not to use it because I wasn’t sure if I could use a picture of artwork on the wall of a shopping mall. Get full access to Turing Church at www.turingchurch.com/subscribe