Teilhard and Transhumanism

The Journal of Evolution and Technology of the IEET has a very interesting and thoughtful article by Eric Steinhart on Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism.

Teilhard is almost surely the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence. He discusses the spread of human intelligence into the universe and its amplification into a cosmic intelligence. More recently, his work has been taken up by transhumanist authors including Moravec and Kurzweil. Wikipedia: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest... In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from primordial particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere, and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is "pulling" all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way. To Teilhard, evolution unfolded from cell to organism to planet to solar system and whole-universe (see Gaia theory). Such theories are generally termed teleological views of evolution. Teilhard attempts to make sense of the universe by its evolutionary process. He interprets mankind as the axis of evolution into higher consciousness, and postulates that a supreme consciousness, God, must be drawing the universe towards him. Human beings, Teilhard argued, represent the layer of consciousness which has "folded back in upon itself", and has become self-conscious. Julian Huxley, Teilhard's scientific colleague, described it like this: "evolution is nothing but matter become conscious of itself. So in addition to the geosphere and the biosphere, Teilhard posited another sphere, which is the realm of human beings, the realm of reflective thought: the noosphere.

While the author is hardly the first to explore the relations between Teilhard's thinking and contemporary transhumanism, the article is a good and accessible summary of Teilhard's ideas written for transhumanist readers with some knowledge of the work of more modern thinkers like Moravec, Tipler and Kurzweil, whose ideas are used as entry points. Following Moravec, many transhumanists imagine our post-human mind children and Exes leaving the Earth and biology behind and spreading into the universe as pure information processors running on post-biological computational supports. In Teilhard's language, this is entering the pleroma: the critical point [where] future human intelligence will no longer be realized by any network of material particles and forces. We will cease to be realized by matter. This does not contradict the naturalistic thesis that we are entirely physical. It simply implies that not every physical thing is a material thing -- physics has deeper levels. The pleroma is physical, but its physicality is deeper than material... For Teilhard, spirit looks very much like energetic information. Spirit is software in action. As humanity becomes super-intelligent, it will cease to be material and will become purely informational. Future intelligence will cease to be materially realized. Evolution will pass into the pleroma. Steinhart explains Teilhard's pleroma with examples from the computational physics of Fredkin, Zuse and other scientists who consider information and computation as the basic fabric of physical reality at a fundamental level.

The resurrection of the dead is the religious concept that most transhumanist find harder to swallow. Perhaps because they had to make significant efforts to break free from religious upbringings, and are afraid of falling back into blind faith. As a religious person, Teilhard did not have any problems with the concepts of resurrection and afterlife: "For Teilhard, faith in Christ is the conviction that the cosmic process is tending to a final state in which all persons are saved. Salvation is the recovery and perfection of what is most personal in every human. Teilhard often writes about this salvation in psychological terms (e.g., in terms of consciousness)." The possibility of resurrection as re-instantiation of consciousness has also been discussed by more modern authors like Tipler and Moravec, who consider the resurrection of the dead of past ages as something that science and engineering may permit achieving in the far future.

Both Tipler and Moravec think that we may find ourselves resurrected in the far future as computational emulations of our current selves, and "copied to the future". I have illustrated this concept with the short video clip CA Resurrection, made with a Game of Life program. The protagonist pattern is doomed to certain death by interaction with an environment that, except in very carefully controlled conditions, is very unfriendly to the stability of patterns (sounds familiar?), but is copied before death and restored to life in a friendlier environment.

Universal Immortalists do not propose any specific engineering approach to resurrection, but consider it as an objective that future technology may be able to achieve, someday, based on future scientific advances. In his book ”Forever for All”, R. Michael Perry writes: “To that end, we dedicate ourselves to finding a way one day to bring back all persons who have ever lived, so they can join in our eternal adventure”. Perry considers resurrection as something that may one day be achieved by engineering, rather than by "supernatural" means, but I think Teilhard would not disagree. As I mentioned, most transhumanist don't like the concept of resurrection at all, and most religious people don't like the idea of resurrection as something that will be achieved by engineering, but I think this meme has a very strong potential to bridge the gap between transhumanism and religion.

Steinhart argues that transhumanists should study Teilhard's writings, not only as part of the history of transhumanist philosophy, but also because of their relevance to the memetic war between religion and transhumanism, which is beginning to develop and can only become much more intense. The conclusions of the article: Transhumanism and Christianity share common themes and are likely to meet soon in a fateful way. Conservative Christians stand ready to condemn transhumanism as a heretical sect and to politically suppress the use of technology for human enhancement. A study of Teilhard can help in this defense... As the cultural profile of transhumanism rises, conservative Christian groups are beginning to notice it. There are two ways this encounter can go. On the one hand, the encounter can involve mutual hostility. The transhumanists and conservative Christians will denounce one another as enemies. Each side will attack a cartoon version of the other. Such hostility could be fatal for transhumanism in the West. On the other hand, the encounter can be more diplomatic. If transhumanists learn more about the similarities between Christianity and transhumanism, they can respond carefully and successfully to attacks. Since Teilhard is clearly in favor of the use of technology for human enhancement, and since his arguments for human enhancement are developed within a Christian framework, a study of Teilhard can help transhumanists defend against religious conservatives.

In space nobody will have to poop

Of course, a well known anti-transhumanist has reacted to the recent YES! to Transhumanism statement with a blog post titled Yes!Trons Defending "The Transhumanist Core" from the HumanityPlusTrons.

The author claims not to take seriously the "batshit crazy" transhumanists, which I find difficult to believe it considered the time he spends writing about them. One wonders whether he has any life or real work to do. I must admit to reading his blog frequently, because he is a very good writer who usually has intelligent (other) things to say when he forgets for a moment his obsession with transhumanists, but of course I do not bother reading his posts against transhumanists (50% or more of the content of his blog). Also, I don't need reading them because I already know his arguments empty words by heart, like "how can we account for the conspicuous prevalence in actually existing transhumanist-identified discourses of questions of personally overcoming ageing, death, embodiment, material history (as stakeholder contestation), conventional cognitive and morphological traits and capacities, or on imagined but presumably proximate technoconstituted entities who are assumed to exhibit such overcomings". Typical Carrico's bull writing style, taken from his complains against of the Oxford English Dictionary which, in a new entry, defines transhumanism as “a belief that the human race can evolve beyond its current limitations, esp. by the use of science and technology”.

His summary of "the whole let's freeze our brains while awaiting the Robot God to immortalize us in a cyberspatial paradise "program"" of the Cosmic Engineers is "In a nutshell, in space nobody will have to poop".

The author is not obsessed only with transhumanists, but also with poop, which he considers as a symbol of The Sacred Body: “it is true that life is lived in bodies, and that bodies are various and vulnerable and mortal and hungry for connection, and that embracing embodied life demands an embrace of all this about bodies. To deny their variation, their vulnerability, their mortality, their sociability is to deny the body”, that will save us from the body-loathing of “Transhumanists who want to talk about living forever in computers and not having bodies that have to poop” because they are “dispirited at the prospect of continuing to have to poop or whatever it is that freaks you out so much about bodily life”.

In other words poop, also known as shit or, in its bovine form, bullshit, the sublime act of sitting on a toilet to crap, is what makes bodily life worth living. Even better if it is a long and painful crap, to remind us that we live in A Mortal, Frail And Vulnerable Body. The author makes this point often with, very appropriately, long and painful verbal diarrhea Diarrhea. To which, I can only reply that I have nothing against poop, but somehow I do not consider it as a central defining feature of my human identity, and can even think of a couple of other things that make life more worth living.

YES! to Transhumanism

http://cosmeng.org/index.php/YES%21_to_Transhumanism

YES! to Transhumanism

Transhumanism is both a reason-based worldview and a cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability, for those who choose it, of fundamentally improving the human condition by means of science and technology. Transhumanists seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.

Visionary, bold and fun. That is what transhumanism has always been.

Transhumanists have always sought personal improvement; to free themselves from all the limitations of biology; to radically upgrade their mental and physical faculties; and to beat a path to the stars.

This is what transhumanism is. What it has always been. This is what transhumanism ought to continue to be.

With due concern, we fully and deeply realize that there are, have always been and will continue to be complex scientific, technical, cultural, moral, societal and political challenges to deal with. They require careful assessment, planning, and leadership. These challenges need to be met head on with due courage, forbearance, focused attention, rationality, compassion, empathy and wisdom.

We must and will continue to do our best to overcome them. We will persevere to mitigate their potential and actual dangers, while safeguarding the maximizing of their potential and actual benefits.

Some however are advancing that transhumanists should abandon their efforts at realizing -or even promoting- their radical futurist worldview... in favor of exclusively -or at least primarily- focusing on today's world issues. Transhumanist organizations should, in their view, become nothing more than nice, soft spoken, moderate, ethical, responsible and politically correct quasi-mainstream social clubs.

To such suggestions and proposals, we unequivocally say: NO!

As citizens, we have to and will do our best to play an active and positive role in today's world.

But that is not what transhumanism at its origin and core is about. There are numerous suitable organizations within which transhumanist citizens can and should play an active and positive role in today's world, including organizations in the environmental movement, political parties and movements, philanthropic organizations, research institutes, commercial enterprises.

We however categorically refuse to abandon our core original transhumanist vision of a radically better future for our species and ourselves.

We say YES to transhumanism. To the undiluted, unadulterated, uncompromising original core of transhumanism, that is.

This Position Statement YES! to Transhumanism was collaboratively authored by members of the Order of Cosmic Engineers - http://cosmeng.org/.

Review of The Physics of Christianity, by Frank Tipler

Most readers know that I am very interested in the ideas of Frank Tipler. I consider myself a Soft Tiplerianist in the sense that I relate deeply to Tipler’s high level concept that future technology may be able to resurrect the dead of past ages by some kind of “copying them to the future" and, in the spirit of “There are more things in Heaven and Earth...”, allow myself to contemplate such possibilities. There may be a point where consciousness becomes a important factor in the destiny of the universe, where conscious beings develop the capability to choose and build the universe they _want_ to inhabit, and invite the dead of past ages to join the party by copying them to the future. I have used “Soft Tiplerianism” to indicate this soft rationalist, high level and not detailed concept that will, I hope, be detailed and realized by future scientists and engineers.

In The Physics of Immortality, Tipler proposed that intelligent beings of a far future epoch close to the gravitational collapse of the universe (the so called Big Crunch) may develop the capability to steer the dynamics of the collapsing universe in such a way as to make unlimited subjective time, energy, and computational power available to them before reaching the final singularity. Having done so, they may wish to restore to consciousness all sentient beings of the past, perhaps through a “brute force” computational emulation of the past history of the universe. So after death we may wake up in a simulated environment with many of the features assigned to the afterlife world by the major religions. (from my Interview with Frank J. Tipler of November 2002).

I don't think we know enough physics to guess the specifics of how our descendants in the far future may do spacetime engineering, and I don't think we can guess the motivation of beings very different from us. In other words we cannot know _how_ they will be able to engineer spacetime, and we cannot know _why_ they may choose to resurrect sentient beings of past ages. But I think in The Physics of Immortality Tipler makes a good case to show _that_ future sentient beings may be capable of spacetime engineering at the grandest scale. He shows that some high level visions of religions, such as the cosmic role of life and consciousness and the possibility of the resurrection of the dead, may be basically compatible with science.

Tipler has been criticized, by both sides, for mixing religion with science. He has also been criticized for making wrong scientific assumptions. For example, it appears that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and that the universe, left to itself, will never enter the gravitational collapse phase which is a prerequisite for the Omega Point scenario to happen (see below for Tipler's proposed workaround). As a Stone Age (20th and 21st centuries) scientist, Tipler is certainly wrong on many points that will be corrected by future scientists. But dismissing him as a crank is really like dismissing Leonardo as a crank because his aircraft sketches wouldn’t fly, which is just stupid. Leonardo was a genius who got the _concepts_ right, and later engineers equipped with more detailed knowledge have realized his visions.

I have read the new book of Frank Tipler, The Physics of Christianity, only recently, because it has received some very bad reviews from very smart people like John Walker. In his new book, Tipler tries to zoom much below the higher level concepts described in the first book and show that some specific myths of a specific religion, Christianity, may be basically compatible with science.

The first part of the book is a concise summary of fundamental physics as it is understood today. Tipler does not use mathematics, but I don't think the book is really understandable to people with no background in theoretical physics. To those who do have a background in physics, I recommend reading also the professional versions of his summary: The structure of the world from pure numbers and Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything. Tipler assumes Everett's Many World Interpretation of quantum physics as the only viable and valid interpretation, and claims that, contrary to the opinion of most theoretical physicists, Feynman and Weinberg developed in the 60s a basic skeleton of a valid theory of quantum gravity. Intrigued by this claim, I am reading the Feynman Lectures on Gravitation. I am unable to judge the validity of Tipler's claim at the moment -- I was trained in theoretical physics and, with some effort, I am still able to read and understand Tipler's maths and physics, but alas not fluently enough.

After his summary of modern physics, Tipler refines his Omega Point model of the far future history of the universe and suggests that, by purposefully annihilating baryons, sentient life will be able to stop the accelerating expansion of the universe and start its gravitational collapse, which is a necessary prerequisite for his Omega Point scenario. I don't know if our descendants will choose or need to do that, but I am very keen of the "fix what you don't like" transhumanist attitude attitude supported by Ray Kurzweil‘s last sentence in The Age of Spiritual Machines: “So will the Universe end in a big crunch, or in an infinite expansion of dead stars, or in some other manner? In my view, the primary issue is not the mass of the Universe, or the possible existence of antigravity, or of Einstein’s so-called cosmological constant. Rather, the fate of the Universe is a decision yet to be made, one which we will intelligently consider when the time is right”. According to Tipler, life will choose a big crunch in order to achieve an Omega Point, and resurrect sentient beings of past ages in appropriate computational realities fueled by the unlimited computing power available.

The diagram above, which is the heart of Tipler's cosmology, has time on the vertical axis and the radius of the universe on the horizontal axes. Reality is really a multiverse in Everett's MWI sense, and different branches of the multiverse (universes) are shown as different curves in the diagram. All universe begin and end as singularities. Another singularity (the vertical line) is found "at the edge of the multiverse" and can be defined as the limit of all paths across universes, at a constant time and heading to smaller sizes. It can be seen that Tipler thinks that intelligent life will be able to trigger a gravitational collapse (perhaps through baryon annihilation) in all universes.

In the second part of the book, Tipler tries show that some specific myths of a specific religion, Christianity, may be basically compatible with science. He identifies the three singularities in the diagram with the three persons of the Trinity. The Son, Jesus, can be identified with the singularity at the edge of the multiverse. The virgin birth of Jesus, his incarnation, his resurrection, and several specific miracles are discussed and "explained" in terms of modern physics in the framework of Tipler's cosmology. Well...

With his extensive knowledge of physics and religion, Tipler tries to show that his conclusions are plausible and even proposes falsifiable experiments to prove them. But I think the second part of the book is "not in the same universe" as the first one, and much less interesting. I find it off-topic like, say, describing in detail the provincial geography of the Earth in a cosmology essay on the large scale structure of the universe. I am very interested in Tipler's cosmic vision and interpretation of the fabric of reality, but I just don't find "details" like the virgin birth interesting enough.

Of course, most Christians do find them very important. But when I hear hoof beats I think horse not zebra. So, regardless of the validity of Tipler's speculations in the second part of the book, I still think of Jesus the son of Joseph as a great _man_, one of the greatest of our history. The Mind near the Omega Point may well choose to consider Jesus, among the countless sentient inhabitants of spacetime, as especially worth of attention and encouragement, but I don't think it will need to mess with the details of human biology, or with the chemistry of water and wine. I think the first part of The Physics of Christianity is a great book, a revised and streamlined version of The Physics of Immortality with some new very interesting insights and more intuitive metaphors. But I don't care much for the second part.

My resignation from the WTA / H+ Board

I have resigned today from the Board of Directors of the World Transhumanist Association, soon to be better known by its new name Humanity+.

I can see that a majority of the Board intend to take Humanity+ to new directions, more moderate and mainstream, perhaps more thoughtful, ethical and socially responsible, but also less radical and visionary. Humanity+ may become a nice, soft-spoken, moderate, ethical, responsible and politically correct quasi-mainstream social club, with only vestigial ties to hardcore transhumanism. I respect the opinion of the majority, and wish Humanity+ all the best. At the same time, by resigning I have expressed my very strong personal disagreement.

Note that, while I denounce what I perceive as watering down the transhumanist message of the late lamented WTA, and regret changing the nature of one of the few global transhumanist organizations, I am fully persuaded that Humanity+ can play an important positive role in today's world. As a moderate, mainstream organization with some ties to transhumanism, Humanity+ may eventually make moderate versions of transhumanist ideas more easily accessible and acceptable to the world of mainstream science, culture and policy making, and to the public at large. So I will support Humanity+ and do my best to collaborate on ad-hoc basis. But I don't think I have much more to offer. Like everyone, I only have limited time available, and I will dedicate it to promoting a more radical and visionary interpretation of transhumanism.

Almost two years ago (even Cassandras can be right at times) I wrote a blog article on Transhumanism, young whores and old bigots. I still subscribe to each and every word I wrote in this article, which can explain my position in more detail.

Le mie dimissioni dal Board della WTA / H+

Come ho appena finito di scrivere nella versione in inglese, oggi mi sono dimesso dal Board della WTA, o Humanity+.

Qualche spiegazione (questa versione non è una traduzione, ed è più esplicita dell' originale):

Una chiara maggioranza nel Board ha intenzione di snaturare l' organizzazione, riducendo il peso della sua componente transumanista e accentuando l' impegno sociale e politico "mainstream", l' etica, la protezione degli uccellini, aiutare le vecchiette ad attraversare la strada, e cose di questo tipo. Contro le quali, siamo chiari, non ho assolutamente nulla (anzi). Credo fermamente nell' importanza dell' impegno sociale, l' attività politica, la cultura, il reddito minimo garantito, i diritti civili, la protezione della natura, l' analisi e prevenzione dei rischi, il diritto alla salute e all' educazione, eccetera eccetera eccetera, e non mi limito a crederci ma cerco anche di fare qualcosa di utile quando e come posso.

Ma tutte queste cose non c' entrano un CAZZO con l' ipotetica necessità di rinunciare al transumanismo. È perfettamente possibile essere transumanista e impegnato politicamente, transumanista e attivista sociale, transumanista e intellettuale d' area, transumanista e filosofo, transumanista e professore, transumanista e scrittore serio, transumanista e femminista, transumanista e membro di Greenpeace... Non solo il transumanismo non è incompatibile con l' impegno nel mondo "reale" ma, al contrario, può rafforzarlo permettendo di inquadrare le attività quotidiane in una visione "cosmica" che, per alcuni, può costituire un importante aiuto psicologico e offrire grandi riserve di energia, speranza e pace interiore.

Rinunciare alle proprie convinzioni filosofiche per inquadrarsi meglio nel mondo della gente mediocre non è una dimostrazione di serietà e maturità, ma una dimostrazione di perbenismo, meschinità, ipocrisia, mancanza di autostima, paura e, finalmente, stupidaggine. La WTA, o Humanity+ o come si chiama, ha smesso di interessarmi. Dedicherò il mio impegno transumanista a gruppi più radicali e visioni più interessanti e divertenti.

Dove va la biopolitica?

Riprendo a scrivere articoli in Italiano dopo vari mesi, con la promessa di farlo più spesso. Stefano Vaj, Segretario dell' Associazione Italiana Transumanisti, mi ha gentilmente inviato una copia del libretto - intervista Dove va la biopolitica?, a cura di Adriano Scianca: "Dove va la biopolitica? Perché tecnoscienza, genetica, ecologia, bioetica sono sempre più al centro dello scontro ideologico? Qual è, quale può essere l’avvenire della nostra specie e del nostro ambiente? Siamo davvero di fronte ad una trasformazione postumana? Stefano Vaj esamina le questioni essenziali del nuovo secolo alla luce della ricerca scientifica e del dibattito filosofico più recenti, proponendo risposte originali e concrete che si riallacciano all’eredità del futurismo e del sovrumanismo europeo.".

Il libretto, di appena 60 pagine di domande e risposte, si legge in un' ora e costituisce un utile riassunto dell' opera Biopolitica. Il nuovo paradigma, dello stesso autore, della quale ho scritto a suo tempo una breve recensione in inglese. Come (spero che) tutti sapranno il futurismo è stato un movimento artistico e culturale, chiaramente precursore di varie interpretazioni del transumanismo, del quale l' esponente più conosciuto è stato Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, l' autore del Manifesto del Futurismo della cui pubblicazione si avvicina il centenario. Che il movimento futurista sia stato a volte considerato, se non un alleato, almeno un precursore del fascismo, è un errore storico e filosofico. Bruce Sterling, che certo fascista non è, ha recentemente pubblicato su Wired il Manifesto del Futurismo in inglese, e ha parlato di futurismo (attraverso David Orban) in occasione di un recente convegno a Torino (versione in inglese - video in blip.tv - parte del video in Youtube).

Che cosa è il sovrumanismo? Secondo alcuni critici (vedasi anche la critica in inglese), si tratta di una pericolosa componente fascista, o neofascista, del pensiero transumanista, vicina allo spirito della Nouvelle Droite francese. Nelle parole di Vaj, invece: "La versione "fondamentalista", sovrumanista e postumanista, che io propongo rappresenta in ultima analisi lo sbocco obbligato di qualsiasi transumanismo coerente.". E alla fine del libretto, riecheggiando il linguaggio "eroico" di Marinetti: : "La nostra inquieta esplorazione del mondo, le tecniche che ne discendono, ci condannano a delle scelte, ci offrono dei poteri, ma non possono dirci cosa farne. Questo non appartiene agli ingegneri o agli scienziati o ai giuristi, ma ai poeti, agli "eroi fondatori" ed alle aristocrazie che sanno tradurre in atto l' oscura volontà collettiva della comunità popolare da cui emanano.".

Questo non mi sembra fascismo, almeno non come lo definisco io. Se questo è fascismo, allora sono fascista. Ma mi sembra più vicino al transumanismo eroicamente radicale, e radicalmente eroico, espresso ad esempio da Max More: "Cara Madre Natura... abbiamo deciso che è giunto il momento di modificare la costituzione umana..." e William Sims Bainbridge: "Abbiamo bisogno di un nuovo movimento sociale dedicato alla conquista dello spazio e capace di dare un senso di proposito trascendente ai settori dominanti della società... la condizione umana è estremamente assurda se non viene vista in un contesto cosmico capace di darle significato...". Preferisco il sovrumanismo e il sovversivo eroismo marinettiano ad alcune interpretazioni moderne del transumanismo, troppo asettiche e politicamente corrette, troppo caute e socialmente responsabili e, infine, troppo annacquate e mortalmente noiose.