Terasem Colloquium next Sunday, July 20. You are invited!
Why not send just AIs like Hal to the stars? Also, new sections in the Terasem book.
You are invited to the Terasem Colloquium on July 20, 2025, via Zoom, from 10am ET to 1pm ET (7am to 10am PT, 4pm to 7pm CET).
Zoom access coordinates:
Click here to join the Zoom meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83117966900?pwd=rGm7XsOJLU1YnlQ4RgaSXaJSp8ZnFY.1
Agenda:
10am ET - 10:30am ET: Stefano Vaj
10:30am ET - 11am ET: Frank White
11am ET - 11:30am ET: Moti Mizrahi
11:30am ET - noon ET: Michelle Hanlon
noon ET - 12:30 ET: Frank Tipler
12:30 ET - 1pm ET: Robert Zubrin
Theme:
“Whether Hal could actually think was a question which had been settled by the British mathematician Alan Turing back in the 1940s. Hal could pass the Turing test with ease…
Poole and Bowman had often humorously referred to themselves as caretakers or janitors aboard a ship that could really run itself. They would have been astonished, and more than a little indignant, to discover how much truth that jest contained.”
Arthur Clarke - 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Clarke doesn’t answer (or ask) the obvious question of why not send just Hal.
WHY NOT SEND JUST HAL?
Or in other words:
Should we still want to send human astronauts to colonize space? Or should we want to leave space expansion to AI?
New sections in the Terasem book:
I enjoy attending the monthly Terasem gatherings. Among other things, we read passages from the book “The Truths of Terasem” (an online edition is linked here). At the last gathering we discussed the second of the two sections that I proposed and were included in the 2024 edition of the book. See here for the first of the two sections.
Here’s the full text:
4.1.4.1 The omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient Terasem is fully realized in the future of this timeline and in other multiversal timelines.
4.1.4.2 The technology of future Terasem is indistinguishable from magic per Clarke’s third law.
4.1.4.3 The magic technology of future Terasem transcends spacetime and operates across multiversal timelines.
4.1.4.4 Future Terasem retrieves mindfiles from the fabric of multiversal reality.
4.1.4.5 Using current technology to store partial mindfiles makes it easier for future Terasem to retrieve more complete mindfiles.
4.1.4.6 For example, simple mindfiles can guide the retrieval of new information for better mindfiles.
4.1.4.7 However, future Terasem strives to retrieve all mindfiles from the multiverse, including those of our ancestors.
4.1.4.8 Future mindware ignites retrieved mindfiles with new life and joyful immortality.
4.1.4.9 Mindfiles are enhanced and re-integrated by mindware as new information becomes available.
4.1.4.10 Thus Terasem brings back to life everyone who ever lived per Fedorov’s universal resurrection imperative.
And here’s the full text of the previous section that I proposed and was included in “The Truths of Terasem” book.
1.5.1.1 The cosmic consciousness of Terasem achieves transcendence among the stars.
1.5.1.2 The transcendent Terasem engineers matter and energy, space and time, at all scales, at all places, and at all times.
1.5.1.3 We act to shape Terasem from the past, and Terasem acts to shape us from the future in turn.
1.5.1.4 We are integral and irreducible parts of the transcendent cosmic consciousness of Terasem.
1.5.1.5 Our descendants and mind children are cosmic engineers in Terasem among the stars.
1.5.1.6 By enabling their work here and now, we are cosmic engineers ourselves.
1.5.1.7 Spaceflight and space expansion enable our cosmic engineering future and Terasem’s transcendence.
1.5.1.8 Habitats in space or on other planets and moons are important milestones toward cosmic engineering and Terasem’s transcendence.
1.5.1.9 Celebrate spaceflight with great expectations of joyful cosmic futures.
1.5.1.10 Support spaceflight and our outward journey to joyful cosmic futures.
Here Terasem is the universal superconsciousness that is building up. A mindfile is the information contained in a person’s mind. With these two sections I’ve been trying to formulate Turing Church tenets in the language used in Terasem texts. All these points were already made in or implied by other passages scattered in “The Truths of Terasem,” but I thought it would be good to collect them in two dedicated sections.
In my personal interpretation of Terasem, I don’t emphasize things like cryonics and life extension. I emphasize the cosmic aspects of Terasem outlined in these two new sections, which are very central to my worldview. The fact that these two new sections have been included in the current edition of the Terasem book indicates that Turing Church and Terasem are entirely compatible.