This is a really fascinating film, pretty wild ideas. I am repeatedly frustrated though, given the language of the film is English (understanding that the filmmaker is Belgian) but whenever there is a french speaker, there is little or no translation, which for a non-french speaker like me, leaves me with a hole in the film. I hate missing pieces! argh!

In all honesty. This is propagandic rubbish! That smells BAD. It is nonsense for nonsense. Not a single viable reason for this anticipating feeling, it is aiming to produce. Problems of humanity are not intellectual ability of an average mind, it is upbringing and conditioning of that mind ... The parallels to the holy spirit were just outside (Far of!!!) the logical abilities of the language. Except the desire to FART loudly this will satisfy NON of your essential wishes, nor will it remove the problems you are facing on daily basis.
Please fill free to interpret this critic in any logical sense you find aplicable.

very informative docu.
thank you very much
i love this page!

........WE WILL BECOME ... THE TRANSFORMERS ! hahahahaha no but seriously, this was a GREAT movie ! one thing was missing tho... SUBTITLES!!!! those few minutes meant a lot to me...

Had a brief look at it now. I couldn't read it even if I wanted to. Too many words I don't know (I'm Norwegian, and I don't speak English fluently) mixed with something that is already hard to comprehend at 2am doesn't go down too easily.

I agree that neither side can win this argument as of yet (and when one can, we'll probably have evolved to something even harder to account for).

I just have this very strong sensation of free will, especially when I decide to do something irrational just to piss off whoever it is that might be controling me most of the time (be that myself (soul), my brain (chemical reactions), God (meh...), the one who's imagination I exist in (yeah, I read Sophie's World), or something else).

I would like to partake in scientific experiments on the brain; to see what physically happens when I focus on a thought, compared to when I perform it; to see if there's any difference if I focus stongly on a movement with the intention of actually performing it, vs. focusing on it knowing that I won't.

I do agree with you, wikepedia references are poor and not academically sound, however it is just a quick one that can be easily read.

I have also read parts of Libet's literature behind the study and it is rather convincing. There are many arguments against certain interpretations of Libet's results as well, however these arguments do not deny the concept that conscious action is preceded by the unconscious so called build up of electrical charge in the brain dubbed readiness potential.. the argument usually tends to take the following structure..

..'Imagine a car, there is not one specific part causing (or directing) the functions of the car as a whole, moreover the coordinated functioning of all parts simultaneuosly (including consciousness )'.

Recently i attended the international Darwin conference (don't ask me why this issue came up here) which originally triggered my interest in this field. It included a presentaion from a scientist attempting to protest the interpretation of Libet's findings. This however came under a lot of scrutiny from other scientists and when Nobel prize winning professor or neurosciences Gerald Ederman was asked to comment on it, he said something like.. 'let us leave the interpretation to philosophers'

Its really an argument that can not be won (as of yet), it seems it is popular to now believe that free-will is just an illusion, whether that is the actual case is still a matter for debate.

I dont know, or perhaps the fact that i dont know is just inevitable, either way it's pretty interesting!

(I won't read the wikipedia article, as I've seen how easy it is to manipulate/abuse it. I'm boycotting).

I don't buy the part about us only reacting with predetermined reactions to different stimuli. 99,99% of our actions might be of that kind, but not absolutely all.

Do this for me, then tell me that you did it because it was predetermined; Hold your hand out in front of you. Don't move it. Now concentrate with your mind that you want to bend one of your fingers. "Tell" your body to bend that finger, and follow it intently with your consciousness while performing the action. There was no stimuli to trigger that action (except from me telling you to, of course). You can't say that you don't have free will, when you can do that (think of your own thing to do to make it more effective).

We go through most of our lives without actually being conscious of our movement (we couldn't do much if we had to focus on doing it). It takes a lot to control your body, to not make movement you hadn't intended with your consciousness, but when you do it, when you only do what you decide to with your mind, then YOU take control and override the predetermined path.

If it wasn't for this consciousness, we (given enough knowledge about quantum physics and the brain) would be able to predict how everything would evolve, no matter who and what was involved. Because we have this way of interrupting, that is not possible.

One day someone might discover how the human brain works (in depth, not just the superfluous about movement and emotions), and if we (the human race) are still alive then, we might find out what consciousness is.

Scientists are arrogant to draw conclusions about our mind, when they actually know next to nothing about it.

There are scientific studies that conclude that our consciousness/ free will is just an illusion anyway and all our actions are predetermined in the mechanical functioning of the brain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet

In this sense humans and/or all lifeforms are just mechanical in a sense.. we are all just highly complex chemistry that has arisen "naturally", with consciousness (or what some may call human spirit/soul) just being a process involved in this.

Like many new scientifical fronts of the modern era, the real issues stem not from capability of technology, but the philosophical implications of its usage.

From a personal point of view, some of the scientists in the second part seem rather mad, especially the one who wants to be god!

This documentary series was interesting up to the third clearly deluded part.

Things were going along well in this piece until it veered off into mystical, spiritual, absurd directions. Speculations of transhumanism tend sometimes to get misdirected that way. Realistic speculations of transhuman/posthuman futures can be serious and yet fantastical, thought stimulating and even enlightening without any of the supernatural mumbo jumbo.

On to the future baby!

hi father, long time no see

yes tell them my child

i am here my children

Hmm...for those that liked the movie "The Matrix", this would be a good documentary to watch.

Welcome back!

Like most trilogies, this one starts to veer off towards batty near the end. However, this was an interesting take on trans humanism.

Oh, and the "Transhuman Artist" lady was creepy.

Welcome back!

Thanks for the great doco's, this is easily the best site to visit on the web to find the best docos. keep up the hard work and update often! :D

Thanks for a warm welcome guys!

"I'm not saying there's something supernatural about it, but it's something we don't understand, and never will."

By that I mean that WE, the current humans, will never understand our own consciousness.

I don't consider our consciousness to be our ability to recognize ourselves and our needs. Most animals can do that (maybe not recognize themselves, 'cause they've never seen a mirror, only water-reflections, but neither could humans w/o being raised with mirrors).

I did get a more mechanichal view on animals by watching it tho'. I just read the book "The Human Animan", and I figure some of the lower forms of life behave fully as they are pre-programmed to (e.g. different reactions for different stimuli). This is proved by the fact that you can make some animals attempt to mate with something as long as it has the same colour as the females of that species do, even tho' it is clearly not one, and their vision is highly enough developed to see that.
Some higher forms of life have abandonded many of the inate abilities for the benefits of being able to adapt better to the circumstances they are born into.

My vision on consciousness is the ability to ponder. To invent. To consider philosophic questions. Everything you can do without any sensory input. I think that if you bereft an animal of all sensory input, it would simply lie there, because there were no stimuli (maybe the lack of certain senses would trigger some defense actions, but you know what I mean) to trigger its actions. I believe all animals without consciousness are highly developed machines, pre-programmed to react to different stimuli, and that they have no awareness whatsoever. Whether or not the highest developed animals except ourselves have consciousness is beyond me.

I'm consider myself an atheist, except maybe that I can't see that the consciousness works in such a mechanical way. I'm not saying there's something supernatural about it, but it's something we don't understand, and never will.

Like Jostein Gaarder said: "If our brain was simple enough for us to understand it, we'd be too stupid too understand it anyway."
When the human race has envolved further, then they might be able to understand our, their ancestors', brain, but they will not completely understand their own. Computers only do what they are programmed to, they can't "understand", so they're no help there.

But if you think about it...what is actually consciousness?
The ability to recognize ourselves in the mirror? - I believe we can make that.
The ability to recognize what we need to survive? - I believe we can make that too
Recognizing others as in different than us/ similar to other? - Possible.

Whats harder to make (or mimic) is probably our ability to learn from new experiences and adapt accordingly, but even that barrier might be broken someday.

Mustn't forget, living beings are machines too. Just made from a different material.

I really don't think we can manufacture consciousness.

Thanks for Posting these documentary. This is one of my favourite website.

" It has become appalingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity... MORALITY is of the highest importance, but for us, not for God. If we are good only because we fear punishment and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

Albert Einstein

" Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power; we have guided missiles and misguided men...; if we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values: that all reality hinges on MORAL foundations and that all reality has spiritual control...The Moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice."

" MORALITY is the basis of all things and
Truth is the substance of all morality."

Mahatma Gandhi