Contents of the Aleph Handbook Introduction 1 Philosophy and Theory What is Transhumanism? 5 The Goals of Transhumanism 6 Human Development 7 Bibliography 9 The Transhumanist Principles 15 Transcend! 15 Pragmatism 15 Spread of Ideas 15 Success 15 Diversity 16 Evolution 16 About this Document 16 The Transhuman Vision 19 Threats and Possibilities 21 On Becoming Posthuman 25 Humanism and Transhumanism 25 Are Posthumans Possible? 27 The Posthuman Goal 29 Techniques and Tools Living a Transhuman Life 37 A Method for Planning a Transhuman Life 39 Find your Goal 39 Specify Your Goal 39 Find the Sub-Goals 40 Turn Sub-Goals into Practice 40 Update 41 Five Things You Can Do to Fight Entropy Now 43 References 47 Rational Thinking 49 What is Rational Thinking 50 Sceptical Thinking 51 Critical Thinking 52 Empirism 53 The Scientific Method 54 Reproducability 55 Falsifiability 55 Occam's razor 56 Statistics and Logic 56 Mental Traps 57 Belief 58 Authorities 58 Taboos and Paradigms 59 Common Sense and Intuition 59 Conviction 60 Language 60 Relativism 61 Prejudices against Rational Thinking 61 Intellectual Virtues 63 Final Words 65 Excercises 66 Literature 67 Creativity 69 Preparation 70 Incubation 70 Insight 70 Verification and Implementation 70 Preconditions for Creativity 71 Methods for Creative Thinking 72 Inversion 72 Analogy-Metaphor 73 What if? 73 Discontinuity 74 Questions 74 Brainstorming 75 Tools and Tricks 76 Imitation 76 Visualization 76 Take Notes! 76 Randomness 77 Dreams 77 Chemical Tools 78 Anchoring 78 Music 79 References 79 Memory, Memory Techniques and Study Skills 83 The Structure of Memory 83 Short Term Memory 85 Long Term Memory 86 Things That Affect Memory 87 Organization 87 Senses 87 Recognition is easier than Recall 88 Motivation 89 Processing 89 Surprise 90 External factors 90 Memory Tecniques 91 Words and Names 92 Lists 93 Numbers 94 Episodic memory 95 Study Skills 96 Useful Literature 98 Improving Your Sleep 101 What is Sleep? 101 The Uses of Sleep 103 Planning Sleep 104 Biphasic Sleep 104 Triphasic Sleep 105 Polyphasic Sleep 106 General Advice 107 Dreams 108 Jet-Lag 109 Summary 110 Literature 110 Life Extension 113 What Will You Die of and How Do You Avoid It? 114 Arteriosclerosis and Heart Disease (50%) 114 Cancer (21%) 114 High Blood Pressure and Stroke (8%) 115 Chronic Lung Disease (4%) 115 Pneumonia and Flu (4%) 115 Diabetes (2%) 116 Accidents (2%) 116 Other Causes 116 How Do You Age and What Can You Do About It? 117 The Circulatory System 117 The Immune System 117 The Hormone System 117 The Skeleton 117 The Nervous System 118 The Skin 118 Why Do You Age and What Can You Do About It? 118 Limited Life Substance 119 Genetic Mutation 119 Genetic Program 119 Hormone System 120 Wear 120 Waste Products 121 Cross-Linking of Proteins 121 Free Radicals 121 The Immune System 121 Mesuring One's Health and Age 122 The Body 122 Organ 123 The Blood 124 The Nervous System 124 Nutrient Supplement 124 Antioxidants, minerals and multivitamins 125 CoQ10 125 Bioflavionoids 125 Fatty Acids 126 HormoneS 126 Acetyl-L-Carnitin 126 Conclusion 127 References 127 Caloric Restriction 129 Introduction 129 Some Theory 129 CR "How To" 131 Preparations 131 Getting Started 132 Adjusting to Your New Lifestyle 133 What To Eat? 134 Tips 135 Think About 137 Health and Exercise 141 Excercise 143 Diet 144 Web-Literature List 145 The Aleph Association Introduction to Aleph 149 Aleph Activities 149 Managing Projects 150 Project Planning 151 Funding 152 Final Report 152 How An Association Works 152 Position Paper on Medicine 155 The Right to One's Own Body 156 The Right to Morphological Freedom 157 On Medical Definitions 158 Summary 159 Implications 159 Education 159 Development 160 Acknowledgment of Enhancing Therapies 160 Basic Health 161 References 161 Position Paper on Cryonics 165 What is Cryonics? 165 Is Cryonics Feasible? 167 The State of the Art 168 Aleph Activity 168 References 169 Position Paper on Education 171 Knowledge Culture 172 Don't Rely on Institutions 173 Individual-Based Education 174 Only Individuals Who Want to Learn Can Learn 174 A Sketch 175 Basic School 175 Higher Education 176 Learning Infrastructure 177 How Do We Get There? 179 Summary 180 Literature 181 Reference Questions and Answers about Transhumanism and Aleph 185 On Aleph 185 On Transhumanism 186 On Technology and Science 190 Transhumanist Dictionary 199 Further Reading 207 Philosophy 207 Art 207 Life Extension 208 Natural Sciences 209 Nanotechnology 209 Net Resources 210 Organizations 211 Posthumanity 211 Psychology 211 Fiction 212 Space Colonization 213 Society 213 Technology 214 Transhumanism 214 Multidisciplinary 215 Thinking 216 Index 219