TRANSVISION 2004

Art and Life in the Posthuman Era

August 6 to 8, 2004

University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sponsored by the World Transhumanist Association

Co-sponsored by the Extropy Institute, Immortality Institute, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Longevity Meme, Changesurfer Radio, Betterhumans.com, Transhumanist Arts and Culture and The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

For more information and to register:
www.transhumanism.org/tv/2004/

Friday August 6, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

1:00 PM to 3:00 PM - Introduction to Transhumanism seminar for journalists

3:00 PM to 6:00 PM - Registration

5:30 PM to 6:30 PM - Reception

6:30 PM to 8:00 PM - Buffet dinner

8:00 PM to 9:30 PM - Keynote address by Steve Mann (JJR McLeod Auditorium)


Saturday August 7, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

8:30 AM to 9:30 AM - Registration and breakfast

9:30 AM to 10:30 AM - Opening Keynote Address:

Aubrey de Grey "The feasibility and desirability of indefinite youth: recent advances from unexpected quarters"

9:00 AM to 4:00 PM - Art exhibits and displays (Location: JJR. McLeod Auditorium Foyer)

10:45 AM to 11:45 AM

Panel 1: Managing Risks
- Mike Deering "Telluris of Cyborgs: Safety Passage through Great Filter of Evolution" (with Pavel Vassiliev)
- Michael Vassar "Nanotech Safety is AI Safety"
- Mark Walker "The Ship of Fools: An Argument for Surviving Apocalyptic Risks through Cognitive and Ethical Enhancements"

Panel 2: The Emerging Transhuman Culture
- Jende Huang "Humanism and The Culture Wars"
- Dale Carrico "Vulgar Biocentrism Among the Technophiles"
- Kip Werking "The Transhuman Condition"

Panel 3: Public Policy
- Anders Sandberg "Transformative Technology, Patient Culture and Health Policy"
- Robin Hanson "The Future of Debate"
- Simon Smith "Automatic for the People: How Humans Can Benefit from the Rise of Machines"


12:00 PM 1:00 PM - JBS Haldane Award Banquet

Address by Ron Bailey


1:15 PM to 2:45 PM

Panel 1: Nanotech
- Mike Treder "Making a Safe Transition into the Nano Era"
- Tihamer Toth-Fejel "Self-Replicating NanoMachines: A Kinematic Cellular Automata Approach"

Panel 2: Writing and Publishing Transhumanist Books
- Ramez Naam, author of More than Human (2005, Doubleday/Random House)
- Ron Bailey, author of Liberation Biology (2005, Prometheus)
- James Hughes, author of Citizen Cyborg (2004, Westview/Basic)

Panel 3: Babies and Puppies
- Linda MacDonald Glenn "Vexation of Viability: Arbitrary or Valid? (Legal and Ethical Issues in ARTs)"
- Jeff Medina "Transpuppyism? The Status of Non-Humans in Transhumanist Ethics"

3:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Panel 1: Social Change
- Phil Goetz "Calibrating Accelerating Change"
- Mark Hopkins "The Fourth Wave"

Panel 2: Art, Reproduction and the Future
- Linda Wallace "Female Infertility and Reproductive Technology: An Artist's Perspective"
- Monica Bock "Art and the Maternal Experience"

Panel 3: Human Enhancement
- Tihamer Toth-Fejel "A Critical Look at Leon Kass and Transhumanists on Ageless Bodies: Enhancement and Degradation of the Human Person"
- Natasha Vita-More "Posthuman Prototypes Debate Their Own Design"

8:00 PM to 9:30 PM - Keynote presentation by Stelarc (JJR McLeod Auditorium)



Sunday August 8, 2004 (JJR McLeod Auditorium)

8:30 AM to 9:30 AM - Breakfast

9:30 AM to 10:30 AM

Panel 1: Aging
- Joao Pedro de Magalhães "The genetic network of human ageing: a system-level approach"
- Rafal Smigrodski "How to buy new mitochondria for your old body"
- Aubrey de Grey "Removing toxic aggregates that our cells can't break down"

Panel 2: The Future of Intelligence
- Michael Anissimov "Enhancing Intelligence; from Neurohackers to Self-Improving Ais"
- Sean Kearney "Can Social Software Increase Human Intelligence?"
- Stelarc "Avatar and Machine Intelligence"

Panel 3: TBA
- Richard Maxwell "The Conscious Clock"


10:45 AM to 11:45 AM

Panel 1: The Future of the Body
- Kenneth Evans "Random Feed Switch Every Twenty Five: Gender and Technology in Transmetropolitan"
- Robin Zebrowski "Posthuman AI: How Recognizing the Importance of the Body Will Change Things"

Panel 2: Uploading and Immortality
- Ben Hyink "Toward Non-Fatal Uploading: A New Framework"
- Allen Randall "Quantum Miracles and Immortality"
- Peter Passaro "Reimagining Uploading"

Panel 3: Transhuman Art and Aesthetics
- Simon Levy "The Fractal Beauty of Emergence: Re-envisioning Intelligent Behavior in Man and Machine"
- George Dvorsky "The Impact of Enhanced Humans on the Future of Art and Expression."
- Jerry Paffendorf ”Digital Worlds: Networked Online Gaming as Extension Not Diversion”

12:00 PM 1:15 PM - Closing Address:

Nick Bostrom "Human Enhancement: Answering the Why Question"

------------------------
James J. Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director
World Transhumanist Association
transhumanism.org
Box 128, Willington CT 06279 USA
secretary@transhumanism.org