Title: 10th JCU Posthuman Studies Workshop: Exploring Space Ethics and the Posthuman Frontier

Date: 16th of March 2024

Location: Aula Magna, John Cabot University. Via Lungara 233, Rome, Italy

Keynote Speaker: Prof. Mirko Garasic, Roma Tre University

Organizer: Prof. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner: www.sorgner.de

Overview:

As humanity ventures further into the cosmos, propelled by technological advancements and a relentless curiosity, the ethical implications of our actions in space become increasingly profound. The “Exploring Space Ethics and the Posthuman Frontier” workshop seeks to engage students, scholars, researchers, ethicists, policymakers, and industry professionals in a profound dialogue about the ethical dimensions of space exploration and the emergence of the posthuman era.

Workshop Themes:

1. Space Exploration and Environmental Ethics:

Discussing the impact of space exploration on celestial bodies and the potential consequences for extraterrestrial ecosystems.

Exploring sustainable practices and responsible resource management in space endeavors.

1. Transhumanism and Space:

Examining the ethical considerations surrounding human augmentation, AI integration, and the merging of humans and machines in the context of space exploration.

Ethical dimensions of human modification for prolonged space travel and habitation.

1. Legal and Policy Challenges:

Analyzing the gaps in current international space law and proposing ethical frameworks for governing human activities in space.

Addressing potential conflicts and ethical dilemmas arising from private and commercial space ventures.

1. Inclusive Space Exploration:

Exploring the ethical imperative of ensuring equitable access to space exploration opportunities for diverse communities.

Discussing the social and cultural implications of space colonization and its impact on different groups.

Call for Papers:

We invite students, scholars, researchers, practitioners, and thinkers to contribute to the “Exploring Space Ethics and the Posthuman Frontier” conference by submitting original research papers, case studies, and theoretical perspectives that delve into the complex ethical landscape of space exploration. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Ethical frameworks for space exploration and colonization.

Transhumanism and the ethical implications of human enhancement for space travel.

Environmental ethics and the impact of space activities on celestial bodies.

Legal and policy considerations for governing space activities.

Inclusive approaches to space exploration and the representation of diverse voices.

The ethical dimensions of human-machine collaboration in space exploration.

Submission Guidelines:

Format: Abstracts should be in English and between 250 and 500 words long.

Length: 20 minutes talk/10 minutes discussion

Important Dates:

Abstract Submission Deadline: 10^th of February 2024

Notification of Acceptance: 18^th of February 2024

Conference Date: 16^th of March 2024, 2-8.30pm

Submission Platform:

Please submit your abstracts and papers via email: metahumanities@gmail.com

There is no conference fee.

Join us in unraveling the ethical complexities of space exploration and shaping the posthuman narrative as humanity reaches for the stars. Together, let’s explore the frontiers of space and ethics, ensuring a responsible and ethical trajectory into the cosmos.

6^th JCU Posthuman Studies Workshop

Animaloids and Plantoids

70^th Anniversary of Transhumanism

Dedicated to the Huxley Family

Increasing attention for animals and plants by ethologists, biologists and cognitive scientists has developed from early modernity, that is to say, since exploration into worlds other than the human has been used as a way to overcome anthropocentrism. Starting with explorers like Sybilla Merian in the XVII century, or writers like Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the XVIII century, Alexander von Humboldt and Ernst Haeckel in the XIX century, we find more and more scholars involved in the new field of inquiry, among whom biologist Julian Huxley and his brother Aldous, being fascinated in different ways by living beings that show surprising factors of intelligence and beauty.

Julian Huxley was central for the development of posthuman studies, as he coined the term transhumanism in the year 1951. 2021 is the 70^th anniversary of transhumanism, which we celebrate with this event. In his article “Knowledge, morality, and destiny” he defined transhumanism as follows: “Such a broad philosophy might perhaps best be called, not humanism, because that has certain unsatisfactorily connotations, but transhumanism. It is the idea of humanity attempting to overcome its limitations and to arrive at fuller fruition; it is the realization that both individual and social developments are processes of self-transformation” (Huxley 1951, 139).

Julian Huxley had a brother who is at least as well-known as he himself, Aldous Huxley. Between Julian Huxley’s affirmative considerations concerning the impacts of technologies and those of his brother Aldous Huxley, the author of the critical novel Brave New World, there are significant tensions in terms of content. Julian Huxley also shares his fundamental evolutionary approach with his grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley, who distinguished himself as Darwin’s supporter. He was known as Darwin’s bulldog. Julian Huxley’s half-brother, Andrew Fielding Huxley, was also active as a natural scientist. He was a university professor of biology in London and even won the Nobel Prize, but is currently less well known than the other family members already mentioned. Julian Huxley was a university professor in London, too. In addition, he was the first general director of the UNESCO who made a significant contribution to the first Declaration of Human Rights.

During the 20^th century, evolutionary biology, embryology and evo-devo biology developed, from Darwin’s first insights, bringing together different fields that seemed unrelated until then. The XX-century neo-Darwinism, enriched by molecular biology, has confirmed the existence of genes common to different species, and in the XXI century research on and through the new technologies has reached an enormous level of refined observation and analysis…. Now we are allowed not only to enter animals’ and plants’ environments and behaviors more in depth, but also to steal from them the secret of their ‘technologies’ which explain their survival power. This research culminates in the field “biomimicry” and the construction of hybrids which may give birth to new species of animals and plants, as they do at the Centro di Microbiorobotica in Rome (Istituto Italaino di Tecnologia), or at the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, based in Florence. The construction of hybrids also called animaloids and plantoids shows animals and plants not as objects of inquiry, but models of imitation of their techniques.

Our workshop is developed in two sections, which will be held on the 6^th of March as well as on the 6^th of November 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjxNQuZN74m2QnkdZMPvgUA/videos

5th JCU Posthuman Studies Workshop

Truth, Relativism and the Posthuman Paradigm Shift

November 28^th (Saturday), 2020, 5.30 pm ~ 8.45 pm CET

Hosted by the History and Humanities Department of John Cabot University in Rome

https://www.johncabot.edu/history-humanities/

Charles Sanders Peirce once defined absolute truth as “whatever scientists say it is when they have come to an end of their labors”. Although Peirce was not a relativist, he could easily mock any idea of epistemological absoluteness, as it started appearing in the philosophical milieu to be clearly untenable. Yet, in recent years, we witness a new attempt to restore a definition of truth as independent of knowledge, of agency, of systemic relations; ongoing discussions on this issue have built philosophical currents such as Object-Oriented-Ontology, Speculative Realism, New Rationalism. Their need is to avoid the logical paradox of relativism: if all statements are relative, also this one just stated is relative, therefore something must be absolute. This impossible inference is reinforced by the ethical conundrum: if all moral stance is relative (to culture, language, history, etc.), then there is no way to utter what can be shared as good. This workshop aims to discuss the necessity of relativism – against those rationalistic attempts to ‘restore’ forms of dangerous universalism, which have been identified with the Western tradition – to be traced back to Plato and Descartes, among others – and with the claim to be the unique tradition able to reveal the ‘truth’, with the consequent dualistic discrimination of ‘error’. How to redefine the relativity of the truth without falling into paradoxes, that is, without jeopardizing the ‘common good’? How to avoid oldish dualisms, such as nature-technique; male-female; organic-cybernetic; human intelligence-artificial intelligence?

After the idea of facts being theory-laden, should the distinction fact/meaning be redefined? Or could we simply renounce to use the concept of ‘truth’, as a mere invention? Is the truth a game, played for its own sake, or for the sake of power? What are the responses by transhumanists and critical posthumanists? Which implications do the responses to the question of truth have for art and ethics?

“Indeed, even in the realm of knowledge these propositions became the norms according to which ‘true’ and ‘untrue’ were determined—down to the most remote regions of logic. Thus: the strength of knowledge does not depend on its degree of truth but on its age…” (Friedrich Nietzsche).

We start at 5.30 pm CET

The event will be live streamed on the youtube channel entitled Metahumanities: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjxNQuZN74m2QnkdZMPvgUA?view_as=subscriber&fbclid=IwAR3hYIkVW4HIWgRn8FLagjIcgvZFUOUKvpQBomuv8Z4vCAbZYulOWf_GgjU

5.30 – 5.45 pm

Introduction by the Organizers: Brunella Antomarini, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Chryssi Soteriades

5.45-6 pm

Natasha Vita-More

https://natashavita-more.com/ (keynote speaker)

Truth? Not Without an Error-Correction Playbook

6-6.15 pm

Francesca Ferrando

http://www.theposthuman.org/

6.15-6.30 pm

Dinorah Delfin

https://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.dinorah.delfin

Subjectivity Is Free Will

6.30-6.45 pm

Barış Gedizlioğlu 

https://independent.academia.edu/%C4%B0Bar%C4%B1%C5%9FGedizlio%C4%9Flu

Epistemology of fittingness

6.45-7pm

Chryssi Soteriades  

https://it.linkedin.com/in/chryssi-soteriades-chrysoula-sotiriadi-32741a1a2

Conveying Ethical Insights though Literary Narratives

7-7.15pm

Natalia Stanusch  

https://hashtagart.blog/author/nataliastanusch/

Pixelated Truth: The Digital Image as a Medium

7.15-7.30pm

Brunella Antomarini 

https://johncabot.libguides.com/JCUAuthorspublic/Antomarini

‘Truth’ is a theory of errors

7.30-7.45pm

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner 

www.mousike.de

Fighting for Dominance

7.45-8pm:

Giacomo Marramao

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Marramao (keynote speaker) 

The People: An Unsaturated Signifier

8-8.15pm

Dario Cecchi

https://www.lettere.uniroma1.it/users/dario-cecchi

Political Relativism: A Challenge to Post-Humanism?”

8.15-8.30pm

Massimo Dell’Utri 

https://www.uniss.it/ugov/person/3439

The Many Faces of Truth

8.30-8.45pm

Final discussion

We end at 8.45 pm

During the workshop, we will talk about everything from sex robots, to non-binary accounts of sexuality and post-gender theories. Please contact Prof. Sorgner, if you are interested in attending and/or participating in the event the event: www.sorgner.de

Will sexual identity be nothing more than a myth, a fictional narrative, in posthuman times? What does sex mean, if it exists independently of reproduction, and maybe also independent of living organisms? Is it still sex, if humans are intimate with robots? Why has sex been associated solely with living organism? If evolution has provided the strategy of mating on behalf of the reproduction of the species, whereby sexual pleasure was a side-effect, could we envisage, or detect an ongoing evolutionary and experimental transition toward an inter-species, hybrid, non-binary quality of sexual attraction independent of any reproductive goals? Is ‘body’ pure embodiment (in anything that can host it)? Is a computer with sensors, which is an embodied robot, an entity with a body?

Are instincts such as shame, love, narcissism, passion formed by cultural selection or are they engrained in organisms as such? How would women (cross-culturally encouraged to protect their bodies from sexual pleasure) re-define sex away from its ‘history’, and closer to the condition of the cyborg? Is the binary distinction between men and women at all feasible, given that the distinction is closely connected to that of sexual attraction as well as reproduction?

Keynote speaker:

Maurizio Balistreri: https://www.senzalinea.it/giornale/intervista-a-maurizio-balistreri-autore-di-sex-robot-lamore-al-tempo-delle-macchine/

Trudy Barber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8LQFdeNiSw

Organizers:

Brunella Antomarini

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Where?:

John Cabot University, Via della Lungara, 233, 00165 Roma RM

When?:

Saturday the 1st of February 2020 from 10 am until 6 pm.

Sponsorship:

The event is sponsored by the Department of History and the Humanities of John Cabot University Rome: https://www.johncabot.edu/

By the way, there is a new high class book series dedicated to Posthuman Studies:

https://schwabe.ch/produkttypen/reihen/posthuman-studies/

The oldest publishing house in the world, Schwabe publishing (founded 1488), deeply rooted in the humanist tradition, embraces the intellectual engagement with one of the most significant debates of our time: Posthuman Studies: From Critical Posthumanism to Transhumanism. The series explicitly targets the international audience. All books will be peer-reviewed, copyedited, and internationally distributed. Please submit your manuscipt to Prof. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, if you want it to be considered for this book series: www.sorgner.de

Here you find some more information about this newly launched high-class book series:

http://beyondhumanism.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Flyer_Call-for-Manuscripts_Final_low.pdf

Please also consider the following book series dedicated to the topic “Beyond Humanism”:

https://www.peterlang.com/view/serial/BEYHU

If you merely wish to publish a paper, please consider submitting it to the “Journal of Posthuman Studies” which was launched by Penn State University Press in 2017. It is the first academic journal explicitly deDicated to the posthuman:

http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html

AI: Ontology, Ethics, Aesthetics

3rd Posthuman Studies Workshop

Organized by the History and Humanities Department of John Cabot University

Organizers: Brunella Antomarini, Francesco Lapenta, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

SEPTEMBER 21, 10am-6PM

Boardroom

GUARINI CAMPUS

JOHN CABOT UNIVERSITY,

Via della Lungara 233

Rome, Italy

 

Towards General AI? The next challenge

 

In the humanistic tradition, it used to be upheld that only humans count as persons, and that personhood established a hierarchy, and unique moral status, of humans vs non-human species. Many believe that after Darwin this dichotomy is no longer plausible. All entities which have self-consciousness and the capacity to have cognitive abilities, agency and suffer, seem to deserve a special moral consideration. Yet, there are differences with respect to the capacity of suffering, depending on the qualities entities possess, in terms of consciousness or sentience. The decisive questions are the following ones: is sentience necessary for personhood? There are humans which cannot feel physiological pain. Should they not count as persons? Cognition might not be dependent on consciousness either, as there are indications for the possibility of non-conscious cognition. Or, viceversa, cognition can also lead to a type of cognitive suffering, which AIs with sensors (embodied AIs) could also realize.

These ethical considerations create the background against which a vibrant discussion is emerging about the moral status of non-organic entities such as AIs and Robots. And what are the moral and ethical responsibilities of humans in relation to their different and possible developments. The contemporary and possible future evolutions in AI seem to challenge the organic mind/brain bases of cognition, self-consciousness, suffering and the definition of cognitive abilities such as intelligence and creativity.

One issue is whether there is some structure common to both, or whether the AI ‘creativity’ is envisaged as the next evolutionary step, an emergence which cannot be broken down into simpler elements or anything that compares to, or it is an exclusive function of the organic chemistry (flesh-metal or wet-dry opposition). After the failure of the first cybernetics to use AI as a model of the brain, and after general systems theories developing from the second order cybernetics, there might be a new attempt to consider the character of the relationship between organic cognition (probable inference) and artificial cognition (big data).

And finally whether you assume AIs or robots are supposed to reproduce human abilities, creativity and aspect, or evolving on their own; develop human like cognition, morals and ability of suffering, or redefine their biological and human definitions, a question persists about the moral agency and responsibility of humanity in the development of these technological evolutions, and their effects on the environment in which they will eventually co-exist. The moral dilemma of the possible futures questions the human choices that will lead to a more or less desirable future, and whether it’s at all possible to define it, and whether it’s at all possible to ethically guide and control them, or if in a somewhat uncontrollable and competitive Darwinian evolution, as in nature’s own amoral evolution, they will follow their own unpredictable path to redefine consciousness, creativity, intelligence and our human hegemonic moral ambition.

 

10-11.30 am: Section I – Systemic relationship brain/AI

12-1pm: Keynote speaker: – Domenico Parisi from Rome CNR

1-2.30pm Lunch Break

2.30-4pm: Section II – Privacy, Power, and Financial Potential; AI Governance; The Moral Status of Complex Algorithms; New Juridical Issues

4-4.30 pm: Coffee Break

4.30-6pm: Section III – A new ‘techne’ bentween Art and Science

If you wish to receive further information or would like to participate in the workshop, please contact Prof. Dr. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner: ssorgner@johncabot.edu

Beyond Anthropocentrism

2^nd Posthuman Studies Workshop

When?
Saturday 9 February

Where?
Aula Magna
John Cabot University
Via della Lungara 233
00165 Rome, Italy

On behalf of the Department of History and Humanities, Brunella Antomarini, Silvia Panizza and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner are honored to present a one-day workshop on the increasingly pressing question of the limits of the human, this time approached by questioning the boundaries between humans and other animals.

Human-centered thinking continues to come under scrutiny in the light of technological developments and of current environmental damages and harm to non-human animals. Therefore, this workshop addresses urgent issues of planetary importance, by redefining the concept of humanity and its special status, and the ethical concept of personhood.

Students, faculty, and external speakers will engage in debates on two key questions: the boundaries between humans and other animals, considered in their moral dimension, and the conditions for animal personhood.

The workshop will involve both JCU students and JCU professors, as well as external scholars, in three roundtable sessions.

 

Beyond Anthropocentrism
Saturday 9th of  February 2019
2nd JCU Posthuman Studies Workshop

11:45-12:00 Welcome address by the organizers

12:00 – 13:30 Should there be non-human persons? & Can ethics be non-anthropocentric?

Sheran Munasinghe Arachchige
Ihsan Baris Gedizlioglu
Jessica Lombard
Nicolas Lombardo
Eduardo Servillo
Camilla Palermo
Jessica Lombard
Steven Umbrello

13:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14:30 -16:00  Can ethics be non-anthropocentric?
Keynote speaker: Simone Pollo, La Sapienza

Alessandro Fazzi
Antonio Lopez
Silvia Panizza
Dario Cecchi

16:00 – 16:15
Coffee break

16:15 – 16:30
Video by Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico

16:30 – 18 Should there be non-human persons?

Alberto Micali
Brunella Antomarini
Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

THE WORK OF ART IN POST-HUMAN TIMES

 

Workshop on Aesthetics

by

Brunella Antomarini

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Programme:  AESTHETICS WORKSHOP 2018new1

Saturday September 8, 2018, John Cabot University in Rome

On behalf of the Department of History and the Humanities of John Cabot University Rome, JCU philosophy professors Brunella Antomarini and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner organize a one-day workshop which focuses on a new aesthetics as it is defined and made possible by emerging technologies.

Artists using biotechnological, digital, electronic or robotic tools to manipulate natural or artificial objects appear to create a new kind of art, which is neither gratuitous as “art for art’s sake” used to be, nor it is functional or instrumental to other disciplines. What makes scholars committed to reflect upon this emergent artistic field is the awareness of a significant transition to a new paradigm that does not consider the “human” (in its various types) as a fulcrum of artistic expression. Here, is where the notion of the “posthuman” becomes relevant.

The concept “posthuman” refers to a great variety of related reflections. The concept has come up within transhumanism as well as in critical posthumanism. In both discourses and traditions it has something to do with the impact of emerging technologies. However, it also has a great variety of meanings within the two traditions. It can either refer to a further developed human being as well as to a new understanding of human beings as non-dualist entities. In this way, the concept “posthuman” seems to be specific, but at the same time it refers to many different meanings with which the concept is associated.

The workshop will be an interactive and experimental event showing the in-progress character of these emergent perspectives. It will include artistic, social and philosophical contributions on “THE WORK OF ART IN POST-HUMAN TIMES”.

Keynote speaker: Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Director of Museo di Rivoli, Torino:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Christov-Bakargiev

Where?: John Cabot University, Via della Lungara, 233, 00165 Roma RM

When?: Saturday the 8th of September 2018 from 1 pm until 9 pm.

Sponsorship: The event is co-sponsored by the Department of History and the Humanities and the Department of Communications of John Cabot University Rome: https://www.johncabot.edu/

Please contact Prof. Sorgner, if you are interested in attending the event: www.sorgner.de

Papers on this and other topics concerning the posthuman can be submitted to the first Academic journal dedicated to the posthuman, the Journal of Posthuman Studies, which is being published by Penn State University Press since 2017: http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_JPHS.html