Jason Silva talks about this first-of-its-kind event. Transcendent Man Live will be a powerful discussion about the meaning of immortality and it becoming reality by 2045 as well as other implications of accelerating technologies. The evening will begin with a brief presentation by inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil. After that it followed by a provocative panel discussion, which will incorporate clips from the critically acclaimed documentary
TRANSCENDENT MAN
Jason Silva: You know what, I find it really, really exciting to see Ray Kurzweil and the whole ethos behind the singularity being sort of accepted and translated into the pop-culture vernacular. I mean, really what Barry Ptolemy and his film, “Transcendent Man” has artfully done is found a way to frame and contextualize these ideas in the medium of film. Really cinema is the most powerful way to move, you know, the hearts and minds of people, to sort of excite them in that kind of visceral, guttural way, you know. Also to give people the chills by framing these ideas in ways they can relate to. By humanizing the fact that we are extending what it is to be human and addressing the meaning of immortality, if that makes any sense.
You know it’s interesting because people talk about the fact like when the astronauts first went to space. We saw the earth from the vantage point of space, we needed a new story of who and what we were and I think in the face of the law of accelerating returns this exponential growth in information technology that’s now infusing biology and infusing matter with biotech and nanotech and you have physicist Freeman Dyson saying that in the future a new generation of artists are going to be writing genomes with the fluency that Blake and Byron wrote verses, we see technology as an instrument that human beings use to extend themselves just the same way we use the alphabet and language to exchange information through time and space and everything else is just an amplification of that.
So the singularity contextualizes and frames it in a way that as Ray Kurzweil beautifully succinctly puts it. At the end of The Singularity is Near, it turns out that we do matter after all. We are central, you know, with our brains, and our ability to create virtual models. You know, opposable thumbs are modest looking thumbs has been enough to usher this second force of evolution called technology and it will not end until the universe is at our fingertips. I think it’s a really exciting time to be having this discussion as you guys can probably tell from the fact that I’m vibrating with electricity so thanks for the opportunity.
Transcendent Man LIVE: A Conversation About the Future. Live with Ray Kurzweil.
NCM Fathom, Ptolemaic Productions and Therapy Studios Present One-Night Event on August 3 in Nearly 500 Select Theaters. Broadcasted LIVE from the Lincoln Center in NYC.
This first-of-its-kind event will be a powerful discussion about the possibility of immortality. This comes in reality by 2045 as well as other implications of accelerating technologies. The evening will begin with a brief presentation by inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil, followed by a provocative panel discussion, which will incorporate clips from the critically acclaimed documentary TRANSCENDENT MAN.
Panelists include Kurzweil; Barry Ptolemy, filmmaker; Deepak Chopra (Live via Teleportec); Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc.; Michio Kaku, physicist; Tan Le, technology entrepreneur; and Dean Kamen, inventor. With pre-recorded remarks from former Vice President Al Gore, Quincy Jones, Bill Maher, Elon Musk and others.