Introductory Pages
Copyright © 2011 by Fred Chamberlain III. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems without written permission from the author, except by a reviewer,
who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational
institutions wishing to copy part or all of the work for classroom use, or
publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in their
collections in any form, should send their inquiries to the author by email
c/o:
Cover design and artwork © 2011 by Linda Chamberlain. All rights
reserved. (The background graphic of the Orion Nebula is from the
Hubble website, public domain, and is gratefully acknowledged.)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chamberlain III, Fred, 2010 – BioQuagmire
ISBN-13: 978-1453816127
ISBN-10: 1453816127
Fiction / Science Fiction /
High Tech
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
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To
Linda Chamberlain, |
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without
whose love, inspiration, |
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collaboration, and life partnership,
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this story could have never |
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have been conceived or written. |
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In
the deepest way, |
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our “Two Minds”
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wrote it. |
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*
See Appendix A
Acknowledgements
My life in many ways began on the evening of May 16, 1970
when at the end of a cryonics conference in Los Angeles, chance
circumstances let me give a ride home to Linda McClintock, whose ride had
fallen through. From that time on, she has been the guiding light of my
life, and it is to her that this book is dedicated!
I am also profoundly indebted to Ayn Rand,
whose ideas in the name of Objectivism helped me from 1965 on to
think of the universe as “knowable”. Robert Ettinger’s
visions of an endless life through cryonics brought my life into a
purposeful focus about the same time, and set me on course toward that
evening of May 16, 1970. Beyond these two, I owe a great deal to many
others, perhaps with Paolo Soleri and Carl Sagan at the head of the list.
It would take a separate volume to acknowledge them all.
A few persons have had so much impact on
BioQuagmire
that they must be mentioned. Eric Drexler’s
“Engines of Creation”, in the late 1980’s, helped me see
biological reanimation as being potentially so difficult that brain-map
uploading might be more feasible, and allowed me to dramatize this in a
short story, “Nothing’s Impossible” 16.
Since then, timelines have undergone
further, vast compressions. Even as BioQuagmire took shape in 2002-2007,
Ray Kurzweil’s visions of a Singularity and “The Truths of Terasem”
co-created by Martine & Bina Rothblatt were making centuries shrink into
decades. BioQuagmire could not be entirely rewritten, but the last part was
able to be highly adapted.
To wrap up these acknowledgements in the most complete way,
let’s start with the fundamental debt we all owe to the first
self-replicating molecules that opened the doorways to higher life forms.
Bacteria shared genomic data worldwide and then joined in great colonies to
create multicellular species, evolving by natural selection to the “dead
end” of biological evolution today. That’s where we are now, in a terminal
“BioQuagmire”.
We have exhausted the usefulness of biological evolution,
dog-eat-dog and survival-of-the-fittest ways of improving both individuals
and social networks. The “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely” paradigm must surrender the field to “Absolute power would of
necessity have to be incorruptible, and those with lesser powers must
embrace incorruptibility so completely as
to be incapable of self-destruction.” Transcending biology may be
our destiny, but success is not guaranteed. Perhaps this is the answer to
the Fermi Paradox (Why is the universe so “quiet”?)
I’m going to break with the usual traditions as to
acknowledgements and end by acknowledging all of those who can understand
the necessary principles and dedicate themselves to the application of them
sufficiently to guide humanity safely through the decades ahead, where what
Terasem calls “Geoethical Nanotechnology”
will be our first line of defense, and where most of those who are
providing this level of guidance will do so by existing in forms Terasem
calls “personal cyberconsciousness”.
If the ideas in this story are at all helpful, I’ll be
grateful, but the credit will go to you! You will, you can, make the
difference, not just in the survival of humanity, but in the survival of
countless other species as well. More in the way of acknowledgements
continue, on page 451in
the book. However, in this web version, it's just as easy to add them
here (under the links immediately below).
Boundless Life,
Fred Chamberlain
August, 2011
1.
http://www.lifepact.com
2.
http://terasemjournals.net/pastissues.html
HRG’s and AOC’s
If you’ve received this book as a gift from us with a note
inside the front cover, or if your work is cited in any way here, we HRG
[Honor, (do) Respect and (are) Grateful (to)] you. We also honor, respect,
and are grateful to many others
to whom
we’d have liked to have sent a copy or to have
acknowledged in very specific way. They’re the AOC’s!
AOC’s [Action-Oriented-Cryonicists] are people we know, would
like to know, or may someday know, who have made an attempt to save a life
by so simple an act as cooling the head of a loved one after death and
calling a cryonics group, received training to carry out standbys,
transports or cryoprotections, or have contributed to cryonics in some other
positive way. Many of these people have devoted a major part of their lives
to saving those they love and care about. They are our heros.
This book and its story may appear in some ways to be
negative about or opposed to cryonics, but that is not at all the case.
AOC’s have grasped a vision that lives may become endless, full of joy and
adventure, and have done something concrete about it, other than just talk.
They are very special to us, and it is largely for them that this book has
been written. In every way possible, we believe they deserve to survive.
These people have faced the end of their own lives and
others’ lives they care about bravely and boldly, risking conflicts with
their families and friends. The ideas in this book may help them better
consider all the options that are
opening and help them survive into an endless future.
Brigadoon Destiny, Chapter 34, honors the outlook of those who feel that
only biological reanimation will work for them. We pledge that this goal
will be achieved to whatever degree physical reality permits it, even if it
means relocating them to the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy in the
process.
The vision of Terasem stretches far beyond saving lives only
by way cryonics or brain preservation, to include saving lives by
information (mindfiles) alone, with or without DNA. While the majority of
those who transcend biology may do so in this way, largely due to
difficulties of cost and accessibility, Terasem profoundly recognizes that
the intricate arrangements of our neurological structures may represent a
far more complete and accurate representation of memories and personalities
than might be recoverable without them, and encourages both cryonics and/or
brain preservation for those who find it accessible and affordable.
In our
mindfiles with Terasem Movement Projects we have tried to spell out in far
more detail, so that we may never forget them, these AOC’s, and why we place so much value on
their lives. We have not and will not ever forget how much we and others
owe them, and it is for that reason if no other that we must do all that we
can to encourage and support them in their own trips into the future.
Future savings-of-lives in every way possible,
carried to logical limits in terms of Terasem’s goals,
means saving as best we
can the civilizations of all sentient species biologically evolved to the
point of full consciousness.
Terasem defines this as being conscious of others
compassionately, recognizing the need for adherence to
logical ethics, in achieving the state so succinctly described by Terasem
as “Joyful Immortality”.
An approach to this, “Geoethical Nanotechnology”,
is
described in detail in Terasem’s journal of that
name. A companion journal on personal cyberconsciousness is also
published by Terasem. See the below link, for papers on those subjects. We
think you’d enjoy them, in addition to listening to our podcasts (link just
beneath biz-card above).
http://www.terasemjournals.org/
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