To transcend means to "go beyond," but this need not compel us to an ornate dualist view that regards transcendent levels of reality (e.g., the spiritual level) to be not of this world. We can "go beyond" the "ordinary" powers of the material world through the power of patterns. Rather than a materialist, I would prefer to consider myself a "patternist." It's through the emergent powers of the pattern that we transcend.

The story of evolution unfolds with increasing levels of abstraction.

Biological evolution is too slow for the human species. Over the next few decades, it's going to be left in the dust.

When you talk to a human in 2035, you'll be talking to someone that's a combination of biological and non-biological intelligence.

Sometimes people talk about conflict between humans and machines, and you can see that in a lot of science fiction. But the machines were creating are not some invasion from Mars. We create these tools to expand our own reach.

We appear to be programmed with the idea that there are 'things' outside of our self, and some are conscious, and some are not.

So what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket, what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.