Dinorah Delfin

“To Love or Not To Love?” Illustration by Dinorah Delfin

Yesterday, while still in excitement about Elon Musk’s recent announcement of Neuralink’s first human trials starting next year, I came across an interview by media host and science communicator Allen Saakyan with Dan Faggella, founder of Emerj (a market research platform focused on AI), and I’d love to share some thoughts!

Mr. Faggella is deeply passionate about Virtual Reality, Brain-Machine Interfaces, and Artificial Intelligence. Like myself, he is also driven by a desire to address ethical questions regarding the application of emerging advanced technologies in everyday lives – He has established communications with the UN to discuss sustainable plans for the future and avoid a potentially destructive arms-race global dynamic towards a digital monopoly.

Mr. Faggella talks about two crucial questions for humanity to address: what is the trajectory of human intelligence (what is the point of it), and how do we get there without killing each other?

I believe the role of Human Intelligence is to become ever more complex (whatever form this may take) so that LIFE has a better chance to spread across the Universe. I also believe in a mathematical, fractal, and cyclical reality. Our connection and relationship to the macro and microcosms is no accident, it is physics. We have had a basic understanding of the world of atoms, and beyond, for thousands of years, not from digital computers, but from observation and exploring Nature. 

Recently, I’ve been studying Dante’s Divine Commedia, and I have learned that the central issue in the poem is the role of Intelligence and Reason. This complex and multi-dimensional literary masterpiece centers around the idea of “conversion” – the main character realizing he wasn’t part of the solution, but the problem. The poem illustrates a stark contrast between the faculty of knowing and the faculty of choosing – If we don’t know things it is hard to make the right choices, but even if we know the right things, we don’t always make the right choices (humans usually strive to lower this probability).

In the interview, Dan and Allen talk about how to ensure that the Transhumanist transition happens in a way that maximizes humanity’s potential towards indefinite permanence. Mr. Faggella offers several responses: “The best possible scenario would be through uploading or some degree of Brain-Machine Interface.” … “The very idea that cognitively enhanced people would get together and agree on things on earth is completely inviable.” … ”Our expansion of vastly greater degrees of creativity and capabilities have to happen in the virtual world because if it happens in the physical world, we are killing each other.” … “People don’t want what they say they want, they just want the fulfillment of their drives.”

Is the future Mr. Faggella illustrates – a society driven by the “fulfillment of drives” controlled by “substrate digital monopolies” – one we want? This future, as Mr. Faggella remarks, has nothing to do with the accumulation of virtues or the preservation of what makes us not just Humans, but Humane – e.g. Reciprocal Love. 

Without LOVE there is no reason for LIFE to continue. Literally. Love relates more to Intelligent Creation than to Intelligence. Feelings of love, or high vibrational frequencies, enable GROWTH, complexity, creativity, and a strong immune system. Low vibrational frequencies are linked to stress and high anxiety levels which make the body sick and susceptible to all kinds of degenerative diseases. Love exists in many forms throughout all living systems – As above so below.

Digital technology, just like any tool, is meant to help humans maximize our innate capabilities, and Planet Earth is to be regarded as one of the Most precious legacies and source of wisdom. All sentient beings matter, and Humans, in particular, want to be in full control of our lives and destinies. 

Our physical, carbon-based reality isn’t a perception, but a re-interpretation of ideas. Technologies like VR’s and BMI’s are best when used to enhance our physical reality and relationships with other beings. Humans desire to safeguard our Individual Psyches and Sovereignty over our Individual Consciousnesses and Physical Expression. Let’s aim towards a future where we use advanced technologies not only to teach our body to leverage, on-demand, the power of universal wisdom to heal and regenerate itself, but also to leverage this universal wisdom to design systems that will protect all sentient beings from any suffering.

In the interview, Mr. Faggella talks about establishing Sustainable Development Goals with the United Nations for humanity “to get on the same page on what is after people (posthumans), and to figure out a way to have a non-arm-race global dynamic to get there”. As an active member of the Transhumanist Movement and an Officer of the United States Transhumanist Party, I’d like to kindly extend an invitation to discuss these very important and pressing topics and, along with Mr. Fagella, get involved with the UN and similar organizations.

There are many reasons to be optimistic about the future – there is no limit to where our imagination can take us. Dante’s Divine Commedia is, after all, a reminder that Epic Transpersonal Meta-Narratives also come with happy endings. 

Here is a link to Dan Faggella’s Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyBGgE6wYR0

Dinorah Delfin is an Artist and the Director of Admissions and Public Relations for the U.S. Transhumanist Party / Transhuman Party. 

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