Transhuman Page

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TAZ/Temporary Autonomous Zone: A mobile or transient location free of economic and social interference by the state. [Hakim Bey]

TECHNOCYTE: A nanoscale artificial device (especially a nanite) in the human bloodstream used for repairs, cancer protection, as an artificial immune system or for other uses. [A Sandberg 1995]

TECHNOCALYPS: The fusion of utopian dreams and apocalyptic fears of the millennium [Michael Grosso]

TECHNOSPHERE: An expanding sphere of civilization/technology, spreading outwards using von Neumann Probes or simple colonization. Judging from how most life behaves, it will gradually restructure matter and energy inside itself in various ways. Due to the finite speed of light it can only spread slo wer than lightspeed. [Mitchell Porter].

TELEOLOGICAL THREAD: A sequence of goals following each other. Refers to the possibility of strong morphological freedom, where individuals can change all their properties and their configuration; only the general goals may stay the same, and they may drift forming a teleological thread. [Alexander Chislenko, Technology as extension of human functional architecture]

TERRAFORM: To change the properties of a planet to make it more earthlike, making it possible for humans or other terrestrial organisms to live unaided on it, for example by changing atmospheric composition, pressure, temperature or the climate and introducing a sel f-sustaining ecosystem. This will most probably be a very long-term project, probably requiring self-replicating technology and megascale engineering. So far Venus and especially Mars looks as the most promising candidates for terraforming in the solar system. See also the Terraforming and Ecopoesis page and topical words: terraforming. [Jack Williamson 1938]

THEORETICAL APPLIED SCIENCE: Theoretical applied science is the study of technology that is based on conservative and contemporary scientific knowledge, but have not yet been created. Especially it studies what is possible and impossible according to known physical laws. [See Theoretical Applied Science by Nick Szabo.]

TITHONUS SYNDROME: The consistently negative portrayal of immortality in fantasy and science fiction. Based on the Greek myth of Tithonus, who was granted eternal life but forgot to ask for eternal youth [S.L. Rosen]

TIPLER CYLINDER: A theoretical way of time-travel is using the spacetime warping around a very massive, infinitely long cylinder rotating near the speed of light around its axis. [Originally described by Frank Tipler in "Rotating Cylinders and Global Causality Violation" Physical Review D9, 2203-2206 (1974)]

TIPLERITE: A person with religious faith in Tipler's Omega Point Theory (So far very rare, if any). ["The Tiplerite Church" was mentioned briefly in The Nanotech Chronicles by Michael Flynn]

TRANSBIOMORPHOSIS (TRANSBIOLOGICAL METAMORPHOSIS): The transformation of the human body from a natural, biological organism into a superior, consciously designed vehicle of personality. [Max More, August 1991]

TRANSCEND: v. To become vastly superhuman and incomprehensible for unaugmented beings. [Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep]

TRANSCENSION: The transition between humanity and posthumanity [Erik Moeller, June 1996]

TRANSCIENT: A very advanced and fast being. [Tom Morrow, April 1996]

TRANSCLUSION: A thing existing in more than one place at once; virtual copying of information used in hypertext systems, such as Xanadu. [Ted Nelson, Byte, September 1990]

TRANSHUMAN: Someone actively preparing for becoming posthuman. Someone who is informed enough to see radical future possibilities and plans ahead for them, and who takes every current option for self-enhancement. See also the Extropian FAQ for their definition of Transhuman. [Term: FM-2030, Are You A Transhuman? Def.: Max More (The word was used earlier by Damien Broderick in The Judas Mandala 1982(of which an excerpt called "Growing Up" was published in Galileo 1976), and in "Transhuman 2000" by FM-2030 in Woman in the Year 2000 (Ed. Maggie Tripp) in the 60's or early 70's)]

TRANSHUMANISM: Philosophies of life (such as extropian perspectives) that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life- promoting principles and values. See the Transhuman Principles, Definitions of Transhumanism and the Extropian FAQ for their definition of Transhumanism. [Max More, 1990]

TRANSHUMANITIES: Art, literature, and other aesthetic media for transhumans (or transhumanists). [Mark Plus, 1990]

TRAPDOOR FUNCTION: A function that is easily computable, but whose inverse is very hard to compute unless an extra bit of information is provided. The term is used in cryptography. See the Cryptography FAQ.

TURING MACHINE: An idealized computer consisting of an infinite tape and a read-write "head" which moves back and forth on the tape, reading and writing, according to a rule set that refers to i) what it sees on the tape ii) an internal "memory" state.

TURING TEST: Turing's proposed test for whether a machine is conscious (or intelligent, or aware): we communicate via text with it and with a hidden human. If we can't tell which of our partners in dialogue is the human, we say the computer is conscious.


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Anders Sandberg / asa@nada.kth.se
2000-03-11