Chapter 11 The Emotional Nature of Post-Cognitive Singularities Jordi Vallverdú 11.1 Technological Singularity: Key Concepts Let’s begin by defining three, key concepts: Singularity, Post-cognition and Para-emotions. (i) Singularity: It is widely accepted that the world is on course for a technological Singularity—“an event or phase that will radically change human civilization and perhaps even human nature itself” (Sotala and Yampolskiy 2015). On what basis do we anticipate such a radical Singularity event? Such changes can be inferred from two different scenarios: (a) The emergence of artificial, super-intelligent agents (i.e. software-based syn- thetic minds), and (b) The emergence of a ‘post’-human race (a thesis defended by trans-humanists positing a technology-driven evolutionary change in humans’ mental and physical capabilities). It is argued that such changes would follow an accelerated growth pattern, reaching a singular point relatively soon. In its final stages, this process will create an ‘intelligence explosion’. Consequently, two different kinds of entities are predicted under the Singularity umbrella: enhanced humans and artificial devices (initially created by human beings). In this chapter I will refer to both as kinds of ‘entities’, rejecting the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ as outmoded and just plain wrong. Both entities will be under global, evolutionary pressures. J. Vallverdú ( ✉ ) Philosophy Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, E08193 Bellaterra (BCN), Catalonia, Spain e-mail: Jordi.Vallverdu@uab.cat © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017 V. Callaghan et al. (eds.), The Technological Singularity, The Frontiers Collection, DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-54033-6_11 193