V
VACCIME:
(pron. vak-seem) Any meta-meme
which confers resistance or immunity to one or more memes, allowing
that person to be exposed without acquiring an active infection. Also
called an `immuno-meme.' Common immune-conferring memes are "Faith",
"Loyalty", "Skepticism", and "tolerance".
See also entry in the memetic
lexicon. (Glenn M. Grant.)
VASTEN: To enhance one's mind strongly ("to
become vast"), related to transcending.
[David Zindell, The Broken God]
VENTURISM:
An immortalist transhumanism founded
on the principles (1) to do what is right, understood as implying the
benefiting of intelligent life and the reduction or elimination of abuses
to the same; and (2) the advocacy and promotion of the worldwide conquest
of death through technological means. See The
Society for Venturism Home Page [David Pizer, 1986]
VIEWQUAKE: Insights which dramatically
change one's world view. [Robin
D. Hanson]
VIRIAN: Of or relating to the Church
of Virus.
VIRION: The infectious unit of a virus.
2. (capitalized) A carrier of the Virus
meme-complex. [Duane Hewitt]
VIRTUAL
COMMUNITY: A community of persons not located in close physical
proximity but forming a cultural community across computer networks.
VIRTUAL
RIGHTS: Rights given for convenience to a partial; these rights
are really rights of the person whose partial it is, rather than of
the partial itself. Similar in some respects to currently existing corporate
rights. [Max More, July 1991; See Cryonics, November 1991]
VITOLOGY:
The study of any life-like system, including biology and artificial
life. [Max More, December 1991]
VIVISYSTEM: A systems with lifelike
properties (adaptability, complexity, evolvability, resilency etc.),
such as ecosystems, alife, economies and
minds. [Kevin Kelly, Out of Control 1994].
VON NEUMANN MACHINE: A machine
which is able to build a working copy of itself using materials in its
environment. This is often proposed as a cheap way to mine or colonize
the entire solar system or galaxy. An early fictional treatment was
the short story "Autofac"
by Philip K. Dick, published in 1955, which actually seems to precede
John von Neumann's original paper about self-reproducing machines (von
Neumann, J., 1966, The Theory of Self-reproducing Automata, A.
Burks, ed., Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.). See also the John
von Neumann page at Xerox.
VON NEUMANN PROBE: A von
Neumann Machine able to move over interstellar or interplanetary
distances and to utilize local materials to build new copies of itself.
Such probes could be used to set up new colonies, perform megascale
engineering or explore the universe (see the Far
Edge Party).
Transhuman Page