I WANT TO BELIEVE
A collaboration between David Vintiner & Gem Fletcher
Transhumanism is the belief that human beings are destined to transcend their mortal flesh through technology. They believe our biology constrains our experience of reality and refuse to accept what nature has given us. From bionic eyes, designing new senses and extending life expectancy, these individuals are redefining what it means to be human.
The work of the individuals in this book demonstrates how optimising our brains and bodies could revolutionise and redefine humanity. As human architects, we are only limited by our imagination. The profile of transhumans is as diverse as its applications, from artists and CEOs to academics and bedroom hackers.
Although these ideas have long lived on the pages of comic books and sci-fi novels, the movement—now a reality—is starting to disrupt industries and individuals in meaningful ways. With technology evolving at an unprecedented rate, further change is imminent. This book documents a critical moment in time as we enter the next chapter in human evolution.
Book Info:
I Want To Believe will be published by Gost in May 2020
Introduction by Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
Support on Kickstarter
Do you want to live forever?
For many Transhumanists, life extension and immortality is the goal. Through experimental genetic engineering, tissue regeneration and stem cell treatments, they hope to extend the life of the human body anywhere from twenty to 500 years longer than the average lifespan. Meet the people who want to make this a reality.
Alexey Turchin (Moscow, Russia) is a life extensionist. He is the author of several roadmaps to help humans face future threats including The roadmap to Personal Immortality, The Map of Alien Risks and How to Survive the End of the Universe.
‘The human of the future will be the best human who ever lived, plus all the new possibilities enabled by us merging with machines. They will be able to change age, sex, appearance and abilities as well as be immortal.’
KrioRus (Moscow, Russia) is the first company outside the United States to provide cryonic services including preliminary preparation, perfusion and preservation of cryopatients at ultralow temperatures. They have cryopreserved seventy-one people and thirty-six animals so far. All patients are kept in liquid nitrogen waiting for the time when they will be revived.
‘People should stop burying their heads in the sand. Each of you will die, and cryonics is the only means that can help withstand death. Personally, I want to live forever and sincerely wish the same to everybody.
– Director General of KrioRus Valeria Viktorovna Udalova
Kevin Warrick (Reading, UK) is a pioneering professor in Cybernetics and considered by many as the worlds first cyborg. Kevin instigated a series of experiments involving the neuro-surgical implantation of a device into the nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer. This enabled him to have a symbiotic connection with a robotic hand. He could control the hand using his own brain signals from anywhere in the world, as well as sense what the robot hand was feeling.
Dr Caroline Falconer (London, UK) Virtual reality has been successfully used to study and treat psychological disorders such as phobias and post traumatic stress disorder but has rarely been applied to clinically relevant emotions other than fear and anxiety. Self-criticism is a ubiquitous feature of psychopathology and can be treated by increasing levels of self-compassion. ‘Embodying Compassion in VR’ (2014) enables the development of self-compassion as a treatment for depression and anxiety disorders through embodiment.
Neil Harbisson (Barcelona, Spain) was born with achromatism, a rare disease that renders him colourblind. Rather than overcome achromatism, Harbisson created a new sense to go beyond the human visual spectrum—in 2004 he had an antenna implanted into his skull. The antenna allows him to perceive visible and invisible colours as audible vibrations, including infrareds and ultraviolets.
As a Cyborg artist, he uses his new sense to explore identity, human perception and the connection between sight and sound. He can listen to Warhols, paint with sound and write music based on what he sees around him.
I WANT TO BELIEVE
A collaboration between David Vintiner & Gem Fletcher