Jason Silva, director of the documentary, Turning Into Gods, explains “revelatory ecstasy,” and why he’s so very excited.
Current TV host and Filmmaker Jason Silva is really, really excited. Really. Excited. His forthcoming documentary, Turning Into Gods (still a work in progress), promises to be an orgy of “techno-optimism.” Through a series of interviews with millennial luminaries like Ray “The Singularity” Kurzweil and gerontologist Aubrey “don’t touch the beard” de Gray, he’ll explore the ways that technology might allow humanity to transcend its biological limitations—like solving the “problem” of physical death. Sounds far out, but after a few minutes talking to Silva, we couldn’t help believe that it might not be far off.
You’ve coined a phrase, “revelatory ecstasy”—what gets you there? What makes you most excited these days?
Revelatory ecstasy is the transcendent effect of simultaneously having compounding epiphanies and insights while feeling really, really euphoric. It’s somewhat similar to the experience of “aesthetic arrest,” but perhaps less stillness and instead more kinetic. It’s the sense of being moved and awed by a sense of ‘revelation,’ an insight that is so profound. It makes so much sense to you in that moment, the concept and moment so beautiful… that it overwhelms you with pleasure. I live for these moments—I believe we can engineer them. Transcendent effects occur when something is greater than the sum of its parts. A human being, for example, is the transcendent effect of trillions of cells. I believe evolution is a move toward greater and greater complexity and organization. Transcendence is akin to evolving. One example of revelatory ecstasy is the moment you realize you’re in love with someone in the throngs of passion. I’m really excited about human ingenuity… what I see happening with information technology… the way it evolves exponentially, is ushering in an era where technology is more and more indistinguishable from magic. We are embodying the promise of being the music makers and the dreamers of dreams. Synthetic biology is exciting to me. Nanotechnology, artificial intelligence… all overlapping revolutions unfolding before our very eyes. I get inspired by beauty, symmetry, sublime complexity, films. Art! Ideas! and TED!
Are some people afraid of what you are doing?
I’m simply trying to celebrate and make people aware of just far far we’ve come and how far we can still go. We must all remain uncompromising child-voyagers and retain a child’s eye view of what might be, as Alan Harrington said. I like to agitate people out of their stupor with the kind of content I make. I want to create transcendent, visceral effects… Turning Into Gods is more poem than anything else… This is how I feel.
Have you thought through the negative consequences of immortality? If we solve the problem of death, what could go horribly wrong?
Technology has always been a double edged sword. Fire can burn or it can cook our meals. I suppose every advancement comes with a set of risks… But again, I consider technological progress and the redefining of our boundaries as fundamentally part of evolution. Finding a cure for death via biotech and nanotech is simply a continuation of us applying our creative wizardry to overcome our limitations and evolve. It’s up to thought leaders and influentials to extend their efforts to use our power for good.
Not only are your ideas pushing the boundaries on science, but Turning into Gods is a provocative idea on its own. Tell us about your beliefs about God.
I’m not a religious person. I like Joseph Campbell’s definition of god as a metaphor for that which is beyond our intellectual grasp… except I also think we will augment our intelligence with technology in an exponential fashion, so that ultimately nothing will be beyond our intellectual grasp. I call my new doc film Turning Into Gods because I really liked Stewart Brand’s line: “we are as gods and might as well get good at it”… We already have the power to either destroy ourselves or radically redefine ourselves for the better. So the responsibility we have is to get good at using this power for the right things.
Death is a profound loss of everything and everyone we care about… human consciousness is a profound pattern… a mindfile, if you will.. housed in a finite hard drive with no backup… battling entropy until we perish… we need a new substrate… we need backups… we need to reverse engineer the brain and immortalize ourselves.
We’re trying to explore the question here of “What does it mean to be a good man?” Can you tell us your own thoughts around what it means to be “good?”
I think to be a good man means to inspire others to strive for excellence. Excellence in all forms—we must strive to do magnificent things. We must apply our creativity and ingenuity to overcome problems and limitations. To be good is to love passionately, and stand tall, proud and heroic. If we do this, the universe will fly like a bird.
TURNING INTO GODS - 'Concept Teaser' from jason silva on Vimeo.
Jason, if you’re out there, I want to personally thank you for pointing out some of the best doorways. Further, that mashup surfboard you are riding is super kind, and ageless. One of my favorite things about your delivery is that you are so obviously stoked on life, and you obviously wish the stoke upon us all. One question: My friend Jake Felice defines “stoke” as “the good feeling that you get when you realize you are not going to fall”. The lack of fear [of falling]. It sounded odd at first, but made sense upon consideration. Is his version… Read more »
“think to be a good man means to inspire others to strive for excellence. Excellence in all forms—we must strive to do magnificent things. We must apply our creativity and ingenuity to overcome problems and limitations. To be good is to love passionately, and stand tall, proud and heroic. If we do this, the universe will fly like a bird.” Wow! Although I do believe that we continue after death — you might say that our lifetime files are uploaded to merge with our spiritual mainframe — and therefor don’t need physical hardware to sustain our memories or continue our… Read more »