In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity (...) that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation. (shrink)

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of (...) our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. (shrink)

We develop and test a trickle-down model of how authentic leadership at the department level flows down the organizational hierarchy to encourage team leader authentic leadership and consequently, promotes team and individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Analyses of multi-level and multi-source data collected from a total of 487 employees comprising 122 teams, 47 departments, and 4 different working areas of a major public sector organization in Taiwan show that team leaders’ authentic leadership mediates the relationship between departmental authentic leadership and individual-level (...) leader–member exchange. We also found that intra-team trust completely mediates the influence of team authentic leadership on both team helping behavior and individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Finally, the results reveal that self-concordance mediates the influence of team authentic leadership on individual-level supervisor helping behavior as well as the influence of individual-level LMX on individual-level supervisor-directed helping behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Although euthanasia is seen as the problem of the individual will and as one’s right to privacy, to a better quality of life or to a dignified death, it has major institutional implications. They are closely related to the juridical system, to the way of understanding state involvement in protecting the individuals and respecting their freedoms, to the institutional system of health care, to the government rules that establish social, political or professional practices. The public debate around the topics related (...) to the human condition, like euthanasia, grants a special force to public communication, to organizational communication, to communication in professional environments, to physician-patient communication and, more generally, to interpersonal communication. In this text we emphasize the importance of public debate on euthanasia from the perspective of organizational ethics, of medical deontology, of patients’ rights, but especially of elaborating public policies and national programs, and we underline the importance of the need to establish protocols for health care, as well as to build a framework of democratic communication. (shrink)

The Purpose is to analyse problems of individual freedom in mystical currents of Hesychasm and Sufism comprehensively in the territory of Ukraine. It deals with issues of Hesychasm and Sufism origin, mystical practices features and their overflowing borrowing on the way to Truth by God finding. Methodology. With a view to the reconstruction of a holistic world view of the desert in their deification of personal freedom, the author uses methodology of humanitarian analysis, and the phenomenological method – the study (...) specifics of the mystical way of knowing reality and comparative method − the study and comparison of different types of mystical-religious movements in the synthesis of the history of philosophy, philosophy of religion, psychology, phenomenology and the history of religion. Scientific novelty.Watching the life of the monks Optina Pustyn can trace the genesis hesychast tradition from the time of Paisius Velichkovsky. The influence and the use of spiritual advisors fundamental hesychast texts "Philokalia" in secular name and in the empyreal world alike are researched. It is proved that in the spiritual practices of Hesychasm and Sufism Set the true path to God. The mystics’ efforts in aspiration of perception of the Truth were reconstructed, as in Christian practices of an unexpected irradiation of cognition Omnipresent and in the knowledge of Jehovah in Sufism through «gentle-hearted message» which is opened to receiving spiritual vision and the gift of God without volitional intentions of the observer. Conclusions. The author concludes that despite the existence of schools and practices, personal manifestation of union with God through the freedom of own will devoted in listening of spiritual life – own heart, is dominant in Hesychasm and Sufism mystical currents. The main secret of mystics was not a transfer of theoretical knowledge through the generations, but the apparition of truth through his own aspiration to knowledge, in the unbearable austerity initiation experiences obtained enlightenment, happiness deification, the anguish of love. This barrier was the form of sense that needs to be empathized but it is impossible to learn. (shrink)