Questions and Answers about HyperMir
To look into the future, you need to shift your focus, that is, direct your gaze not at the current whims of sovereign geopolitical actors, but toward eternity.
On Overpopulation: Real Problems and Solutions
Throughout the history of humanity, approximately 100 billion people have lived on our planet. This number helps us grasp the scale: the nations, tribes, and cities of the past were remarkably small compared to the present day. And yet, even today, with a population of 8 billion, Earth is far from being physically overcrowded.
The problem of overpopulation, contrary to popular belief, is not related to a lack of available territory. There are vast, underpopulated lands and coastlines with far more suitable climates for living than, say, the United Arab Emirates—a country thriving in the desert. In China, the number of people per unit of area is 2.5 times lower than in England.
Abundance and Famine
By some estimates, global agriculture, even at its current technological level, is potentially capable of providing full nutrition for up to 40 billion people. At the same time, according to estimates from the UN and WHO (source), today on Earth, far from the shrieks of propagandists, between 12,000 and 20,000 people die from hunger and related diseases every day, and about half of that number are children under the age of 5. The depth of the platform is much greater than it may seem to those dwelling on the upper tiers.
In a world where several times more is spent on pet food than on saving those dying of hunger, its values and today's priorities are clear. Most of the children we fail to protect die not as a result of military conflict, but because of the very logic of the global capitalist system, which discards the surplus population unneeded by the economy away from television cameras. Today it is their turn to be devoured; later, the same inhumane logic will reach everyone else.
The True Nature of the Problem
Many modern problems are not technological, but managerial in nature. They are truly complex: it is not enough to simply send a hundred Boeings or tankers of pearl barley to Africa to stop people from dying of hunger there. The problem is far deeper and more systemic.
Developed countries, as before, plunder the periphery, and the especially developed ones successfully engage in unequal exchange with the developed. All this is still the foundation, the basic principle of the modern world order, and it directly relates to the current issues of overpopulation.
Multifactorial Environmental Impact
Pollution, depletion of natural resources, the energy crisis, overcrowding, poverty—this is precisely what is meant when discussing overpopulation, rather than the absence of physical space itself.
The Technological Capacity of the Planet
The number of people the planet Earth can sustain at a sufficient standard of living without critical harm to the environment directly depends on the level of technological development of civilization.
History demonstrates this dependence clearly. New technologies—from simple improvements in land reclamation and agronomy to modern advances in genetic modification—continue to increase food production. Each technological leap expands the planet's "carrying capacity."
The environmental problems we observe today are largely the consequence of using intermediate, imperfect technologies. The outdated industry of the past polluted the environment several orders of magnitude more than modern enterprises with closed-loop production cycles.
The Nanotechnological Revolution
When humanity masters molecular nanotechnology in its mature form, a qualitative leap will occur in solving all resource problems. This technology will allow:
- To produce virtually any goods in an absolutely clean, efficient manner with a minimal production cost approaching zero;
- To eliminate the accumulated environmental damage caused by primitive production methods of previous eras;
- To recycle waste at the atomic level, turning it into useful resources;
- To create closed-loop production cycles where the concept of "waste" vanishes in principle.
It is in this direction that the primary scientific efforts of humanity should be concentrated. This is one of the most promising and yet achievable technological breakthroughs in the foreseeable future—the low-hanging fruit on the tree of progress.
The Cosmic Perspective
Nanotechnology will also make the colonization of space economically accessible. And here, it is important to realize the true scale of the resources available to humanity.
By cosmic standards, Earth is an insignificant, tiny grain of sand in an ocean of matter and energy. Every second, an amount of resources is naturally dissipated in space that exceeds by billions of times everything the human species has used in its entire history.
One would need an extremely limited imagination to fail to envision a more creative use for all this matter and energy.
The Right to Choose
If, for example, after thousands of years of life, a person wants to conclude their journey, then what is wrong with that?
True evil is when a person's life is cut short against their will: a sudden catastrophe, an incurable disease, violence, old age. These are the causes of death that the philosophy of Cosmism stands against.
Unexplored Horizons of Being
It is entirely possible that, in the end, no one will ever want to die, as life itself and what it can contain will surely be augmented with hitherto unknown, unfathomable possibilities, qualitatively improving what we today call living and existing.
Smartphones, television, YouTube, computer games—all this is something wondrous and unimaginable for those who lived just a hundred years ago. Surely, in the future hyperworld, many new and unthinkable things will emerge as well.
More than likely, people will be able to live through entire calendar, «scenario» lives—as a participant in one era or another, with full immersion in the fabric of events. It is possible to realize even a kind of reincarnation, but with the individual retaining their memory of the past.
The Biochemistry of States
It is important to address a fundamental point often missed in discussions about immortality. Life weariness, apathy, loss of interest in existence—all these are, ultimately, matters of biochemistry, not inevitable consequences of accumulated knowledge and experience.
Modern antidepressants and psychotherapy are technologies of intervention from a conditionally stone age compared to how it is potentially possible to adjust a person's internal homeostasis.
We are approaching the threshold of an era where one's mental and physical internal equilibrium can be regulated and tuned in the best possible way.
This does not imply compulsory happiness or a «chemical paradise». It is about the possibility of maintaining a natural, optimal state of the psyche for a full life— clarity of perception, emotional depth, creative energy, the capacity for wonder and joy.
The Nature of Pioneers
A radical increase in life expectancy is an entry into uncharted territory, where encounters with unpredictable, perhaps even dangerous effects are inevitable.
A segment of humanity has always sought to transcend boundaries, to explore or claim new lands. They sailed vast oceans, ventured into space, scaled Everest, explored the depths of the Mariana Trench, and achieved unbelievable athletic results. All these are different forms of the beyond and the overcoming of the limits of the possible.
Stepping beyond the habitual limits of life is a just as natural manifestation of the essence of human nature and the inherent drive within us to overcome boundaries. This will inevitably happen, one way or another—it is, if you will, our species' destiny.
Stages of the Great Transition
Universal technological resurrection, as spoken of in the philosophy of cosmism, is intended not as a one-time act, but as a gradual, carefully managed process. The pace of "extractions" from the past can and must be regulated, carrying them out as the receiving civilization becomes ready for it.
This is a fundamentally important point: we are not talking about a chaotic flood of the future with billions of reborn individuals, but about phased integration, where every step is carefully calculated, taking into account potential problems and risks.
Technological Prerequisites for Abundance
Today, directions are already visible that will lead humanity to an economy of abundance, when the cost of producing any items, food, and even buildings becomes practically zero. Likely, friendly artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, or the convergence of AI with robotics will be sufficient. Of course, something else may also appear.
Nanotechnology — Operating Principle and Capabilities
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the atomic level, creating interconnected networks of nanorobots, i.e., nanofactories. The understanding of the prospects of this direction by our country's leadership led to the creation of JSC "Rusnano", which was headed by Anatoly Chubais. We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.
Perhaps the most elementary thing that can potentially be done with nanotechnology is a 10×10 cm diamond. The calculated creation time, according to Eric Drexler, is about an hour. The starting material is carbon. A symbolic cartridge for this task could be filled even with ordinary graphite from a simple pencil: graphite and diamond consist of the same substance, differing only in the structure of the crystal lattice.
Nanotechnology operates at the atomic level, and it is precisely such structures that nanobots will be able to disassemble and reassemble.
Giving humanity many cheap diamonds does not bring significant benefit. The task — to print, say, a hamburger, and perfectly accurately, with all the intracellular organelles of the meat damaged by heat treatment — is much more difficult, tens or hundreds of times more difficult than with a diamond. Theorists have not found physical reasons why this would be technically unfeasible.
Revolution of Production
By developing nanotechnology to a level that allows the creation of bread or meat, humanity will gain the ability to produce practically anything — from a perfect copy of a Swiss watch to an entire car. For mature nanotechnology, there is no fundamental difference what to create, if the structure of the object is described in detail. The description given above is, of course, simplified, but the essence of nanotech is in these very possibilities.
Imagine a future where you download a template file from the Internet and, on a home nanoprinter about the size of a large microwave, recreate a dish created decades ago by the best Italian chef. The starting materials for such devices are a set of chemical elements from the periodic table.
Nanorobots, like ants in a colony, will be able not only to create but also to disassemble. A garbage dump that has accumulated for decades can be disassembled into constituent elements and turned into blocks of raw material for nanoprinters. The same robots are potentially capable of building structures with properties unattainable for modern materials. In the long run, this technology will allow terraforming and developing whole planets.
Inflation of the Term
Unfortunately, in the media space, the word «nanotechnology» has undergone semantic inflation. The prefix "nano-" began to be added to anything — "nano-washes", "nano-tractors" and other marketing chimeras appeared.
In reality, applied achievements are so far limited to nanofilms or carbon nanotubes, used to improve the characteristics of some materials and other minor improvements.
Behind this information noise, the understanding of the truly revolutionary prospects of molecular nanotechnology in the public consciousness has become blurred and almost lost.
To implement civilizational breakthroughs comparable in scale with space flight or controlling nuclear fission in a reactor, startups are not suitable. Tasks of such scale are economically impractical and therefore not of interest to venture capital; for their implementation requires a will of a different order.
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Another technology capable of fundamentally changing our world and social order is this artificial intelligence in synergy with robotics.
The best modern humanoid robots are already approaching human levels in their ability to manipulate physical objects. Their main limitation is insufficiently developed cognitive abilities, «brains». But this is a matter of time: when the accumulated improvements cross into a new quality, a phase transition will occur, and truly intelligent robots will be able to replace humans in almost all areas of physical and intellectual labor.
Important Distinction: AI vs IR
Here it is critically important to distinguish between two concepts:
- Strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) — this is a highly efficient tool, an assistant, capable of solving complex tasks, but not possessing self-awareness and true autonomy. It is a perfect servant without its own desires, self-awareness, or fear.
- Artificial Reason (AR) — this is qualitatively different: a full personality on a non-biological carrier, possessing self-awareness and free will.
One can predict in advance some potential problems with motivation, which in humans is predetermined by evolution and the features of their biological architecture. However, this issue goes beyond the scope of the current discussion.
In any case, AR raises fundamental ethical questions and the need for legislative consolidation of the rights of such beings, as well as a ban on their exploitation.
Before the creation of a real AR, unlike strong AI, it seems to be still very far — despite the speculation of the creators of modern neural networks, often calling "reason" what it is not in essence.
Social Consequences of Automation
The prospects for total automation cause many justified concerns: what will happen when people are no longer needed by employers?
However, when replacing a person with a robot, the amount of material goods does not decrease — it increases, because the robot works more efficiently and around the clock. Even a fraction of a robot's productivity is enough to provide a stable income for a laid-off employee. Thus, the matter is not in production itself, but in the fair (or not very fair) redistribution of the created goods.
Today's concerns about how much it will cost to "extract" or how many years you will then have to "work it off" will surely become archaic.
Wasted Wealth
Humanity is already potentially very rich, but spends most of its available resources unproductively or outright in vain. To understand the scale of the problem, consider a few examples.
Gold
Why does humanity continue to mine gold? For a specific company, the answer is obvious — profit. Gold is a measure of value, a protective asset, liquid state reserve.
But from the perspective of humanity as a whole, we have already mined enough gold for all practical needs for centuries to come. To continue mining means to burn resources for the sake of increasing the reserves of metal that lies in vaults for no reason.
World gold mining is the creation of an illusory value of about three thousand tons of metal per year. Using the same resources — human labor, energy, equipment — one could keep the salaries of all participants in the process and additionally build hospitals, develop science and education, produce food, and send it as humanitarian aid.
The Concept of the Common Cauldron
If we imagine humanity as a single system with a common cauldron of resources and benefits, then each of us, through our activities, either adds real benefits to this cauldron or removes them, creating only an illusion of usefulness, and sometimes deliberately destroying what was created by others — for example, in a competitive struggle.
You can earn a living by creating wealth — producing food, building houses, healing people, teaching children. And you can earn money by creating calamity for others.
If you think about it and are honest with yourself, you can realize what exactly to a greater extent you create with your activity — wealth or calamity, and what the organization of which you are a part creates. In most cases the answer is obvious: either you contribute, or you parasitize, or you destroy benefits created by others.
The Price of Confrontation
Asserting narrow national interests to the detriment of general human interests creates a colossal scale of resource waste. Military-industrial complexes, armies, navies, military bases — all this consumes gigantic resources without creating real benefits.
In the course of armed conflicts, there is a direct destruction of accumulated wealth, not to mention human tragedies.
This is, of course, not a call for naive pacifism, but an attempt to draw attention to the price humanity pays for its inability to reach agreement. The lack of rational optimization and low efficiency at various systemic levels are largely caused by contradictions between private and general interests, as well as our division into clans of these interests.
This inefficiency manifests itself everywhere — both in large and small matters, and the total loss of benefits is measured not in percentages, but in multiples.
For humanity to achieve immortality and resurrection, it must first and foremost achieve forms of unity. Without a great unifying idea common to all mankind, man is a competitor to man, or even an enemy. This is one of the key significances of the philosophy of Russian Cosmism.
Science without results
The modern academic environment is often more concerned with the number of publications, citation indices, and obtaining grants than with real breakthroughs. The motivation system for scientists is built in such a way that it encourages the imitation of activity, rather than the achievement of results. A scientist who has published a hundred mediocre articles is more successful in this system than one who works for years on a single breakthrough discovery.
Innovation without innovation
The startup scheme, effective for certain tasks, is mechanically applied everywhere, even where it is inapplicable. Innovation budgets are "absorbed" by people who do not even understand the difference between innovation and modernization. An appearance of vigorous activity is created in the absence of significant and much-needed progress.
Substitution of goals
Transnational corporations, through aggressive marketing, are no longer just trading — they are shaping life guidelines, creating artificial needs, focusing everything solely on their own profit.
People are offered to fill the existential void formed by the loss of genuine meanings with consumption.
A monstrous inversion has occurred: people have turned into merely a resource for capital. But capital should serve as a tool for unlocking human potential, and not the other way around.
The path to genuine abundance
The transition to an economy of abundance is not just a technological challenge. It requires changes in social relationships, overcoming contradictions between private and general interests.
Technologies — nanorobots, AI, controlled thermonuclear fusion, and others — will provide tools. But the use of these tools to create genuine abundance, rather than new forms of inequality and exploitation, will require a conscious choice by humanity in favor of cooperation over competition, the common good over private gain.
In the context of the project of universal resurrection this means that it is necessary not only to create the technological base of abundance, but also to resolve fundamental social contradictions.
Otherwise, abundance will exist side by side with artificially maintained scarcity, where the sum of technologies will serve to deepen inequality, rather than to liberate man.
Science of Happiness: From Philosophical Questions to Technological Solutions
What is happiness? Are all people capable of experiencing it? How does happiness differ from joy? If joy is only a temporary state of the psyche, is it possible to prolong it by orders of magnitude? And if all necessary conditions for happiness seem to be present, but there is no happiness itself—what is the cause?
Even the definition of the concept of «happiness» is a topic for a grand philosophical conversation. Ask different people how to achieve happiness—and you will get noticeably differing answers. The proposed recipes will turn out so individual that you will not find a universal formula.
Many do not even fully realize that success and happiness are two completely different summits, often located in opposite directions.
From where comes happiness, from where comes boredom—people know not, science is silent
The basics of happiness-science are not taught in schools. It is surprising: such an important aspect of human existence remains outside the framework of systematized education. «The Institute of Happiness on Tverskaya» sounds more like a curiosity than the name of a serious scientific institution. Practically no one works on applied happiness-science methodically, in a scientific manner.
Perhaps the time for this has not yet come—as long as other priorities seem more important. There are psychoanalysts, coaches, personal growth gurus, but in general, on this most important issue, people are left to their own devices: searching, striving, stepping again and again on the same rakes from generation to generation.
Spiritual practices, personal growth trainings, the concept of Maslow's pyramid, traps like the goals to earn a million dollars—all this is at times clumsy attempts to fill the vacuum of systematized knowledge about happiness. Without some kind of scientific foundation, these approaches remain fragmentary and contradictory.
State Priorities and Human Happiness
The truth is that states simply are not yet concerned with individual happiness. Their care for citizens is expressed in social benefits, accessible healthcare, landscaping of cities, development of infrastructure and education. All this, of course, is important and necessary—but it is only the foundation.
Still, for states, it is more priority to create a new weapon or launch satellites, to surpass a potential enemy, than to ensure the happiness of concrete people participating in this race. It might seem that this is how it should be—simply because no one has seen how it can be otherwise.
In the future, the lives of all people, happiness and its qualitative characteristics will become the primary all-planetary priority. Well, what other priority could there be for a world of people?
«Today, the main word that Russia should promote is the word "happiness". We are a country of human happiness»,
Let the USA continue to assert that they have freedom and democracy. Russia should declare that its priority is the happiness of its citizens. This could be an excellent competitive ideology.
Some today may skeptically smirk: «What Russian happiness?» Go to the regions, to the hinterland, see how people there survive on meager wages and pensions.
Prosperity, of course, is necessary—this is an important, although insufficient condition for happiness itself. Happiness is hidden not so much in the money and consumption themselves, although when there is no money at all, it is difficult to agree with this statement. From what, then, does it consist? How does this magic appear in the soulfulness of people? With what should it be watered and fertilized?
Judging by the cultural code, by the archetype of a special notion of justice, where truth is more important than profit, — where else, if not in Russia, to talk about this and try to build it? After a new variant of its self-assembly, naturally.
For now, however, what is observed is more an overall ideological vacuum, and not viable attempts in some regions to put together the word «happiness» from the letters «h», «e», «l», «l».
Warning from the Laboratory: Experiment «Universe 25»
In the context of reflections on happiness, the experiment «Universe 25» is extremely instructive. This was the twenty-fifth attempt by the ethologist John Calhoun to build a mouse paradise, and all previous attempts ended equally tragically.
Despite the abundance of food and water, the absence of external threats and diseases, comfortable temperature, and sufficient space, the mouse colony inevitably degraded and died out.
After the initial growth phase, a period set in which Calhoun called the «behavioral sink» — a breakdown of social ties, aggression, apathy, refusal to reproduce. In the end, the entire population died, despite full material abundance.
People, of course, are not rodents, but some tendencies of modern civilization cause disturbing analogies. Depression is becoming an epidemic in the richest countries, birth rates are falling precisely where material conditions are best, and social atomization is growing, clearly correlating with the growth of prosperity.
Transhumanist Approach: Engineering of Happiness
Transhumanists believe that radical interventions are permissible and desirable to restructure the human organism, including the systems responsible for emotional states.
In the future, when science manages to deeply and accurately understand the biochemical processes of the brain, adequate intervention into the internal reward system, given to us by evolution, will also become possible.
By influencing neural, immune, and endocrine systems, people will be able to literally manage their mood and state, adjusting it for current tasks — whether it be creativity requiring inspiration, or complex cognitive processes.
Likely, in the process, an ecological balance will be found — «the keys to happiness», and not just a way to receive a permanent high from any activity. We are, of course, not talking about chronic narcotic intoxication, but about the permanent maintenance of a natural, optimal psychophysical state necessary for a full, productive, and joyful life.
Biotechnologies of Youth
In the future, biotechnologies and cognitive technologies will be applied to maintain physical and emotional youth. This includes not only healthy hormonal homeostasis, but also optimization of all other vital signs.
Imagine a state when there is always energy, clarity of thought, emotional openness — when you both want and can. This will become a composite element of that very Man-Made Paradise, of which the philosophy of Cosmism speaks.
The Illusion of Happiness in the Era of Consumption
Today happiness often turns out to be only a lure — an animation on a screen, hanging from a bracket nailed to one's head. It is impossible to approach this screen: wherever you go, it will move with you.
People are in constant encirclement of images of happiness. The ritual of consumption teaches a person to portray delight from what is essentially imposed fuss.
All mass art breaks off with a happy ending, which deceptively extends happiness into eternity. All other scenarios are as if forbidden.
Even a fool understands that behind the next turn of the road — old age and death. But the fool is not allowed to reflect, because images of joy and success bombard him from all sides.
Biological Tragedy
Of course, there are temporarily happy people. But few in our world can be happier than their own body. And the human body is unhappy by its nature — it is busy slowly dying.
We strive for happiness in bodies biologically programmed for degradation and death. Aging is not just an accumulation of years, it is a gradual decline of all functions, including the ability to experience joy, enthusiasm and love.
In the context of the project of Russian Cosmism it means that resurrected generations must return not just to life, but to a life filled with genuine happiness — not illusory and fleeting, as it often is now, but deep and stable, based on overcoming the biological causes of unhappiness and suffering themselves.
Man is satisfied not absolutely, but relatively.
People whom we admit into our circle are our rivals, vigilantly watching every success and defeat of ours. We compete with them, even if we think that it is not so, and they try to surpass us. We constantly check each other's luck and achievements. Friends must become witnesses of our success, but they do not want too much for luck to smile on you wider than on them. We are jealous of our friends, and they are of us, since these are the markers by which we measure our growth.
One can understand and accept, even with cold contempt, that all of us participate in a rat race with each other. But we do not want to leave this race. We want to win in it and thereby miss that we could have chosen something completely different.
Someone else's failure can be easily endured, but to come to terms with someone else's success is incredibly difficult. People sometimes even unconsciously or consciously distance themselves so as not to envy, not to be angry — at themselves (for the absence of happiness) and at the other, who, it seems, has more goods, and thus happiness.
Recommendation on the Topic
As one more reference, we can recommend a lecture by Andrey Kurpatov «How to become happy?», prepared for the III Forum of Social Innovations of the RF. on YouTube
Diversity and Transformation: On the Value of Every Personality in the Resurrection Project
The Danger of Selection
The attempt to select or make only correct «little angels» out of all humanity — would be a clear mistake. The necessity of dividing into those worthy and unworthy of salvation is a very archaic notion of correctness. It was, perhaps, intentionally embedded earlier, in revered religious texts, with the aim of indicating the true direction of the moral vector and simplifying complex ethical nuances.
One should not forget that religious texts were written for people living more than a thousand years ago, and not for our contemporaries.
Striving to sterilize and refine humanity according only to our current ideas of good, we will inevitably lose something important that goes beyond the limits of these always very limited personal ideas.
Metaphor of Seeds
Each person after «withdrawal» should be perceived as a seed. Each such seed from the past represents a unique combination of genes, experience, cultural context and life circumstances. Precisely in this uniqueness and diversity of personalities lies their enduring value.
A seed is potential, not the final form. Falling into new soil, each resurrected personality will be able to continue their unique evolution, receiving fundamentally new, unprecedented opportunities and tools for personal development and transformation.
Together this diversity of personalities will create even more intelligent and diverse movement. Life is movement, and we can only assume where and why it is directed.
Perhaps, in this way the Universe strives to realize itself through the myriads of our personal little perspectives of view and understanding. Perhaps, learning and development are basic properties of living matter, embedded in its source code. Perhaps, there is a certain design that we are not yet able to fully comprehend.
But one thing is clear: diversity, even excessive diversity, is critically important for life. In uniformity and sterile «correctness» there is no movement, which means there is no life.
Transformation through Immersion
«Withdrawals» represent a multiple increase in the potential diversity of human experience and activity. Getting into a new environment — possibly partly directed for soft adaptation, — the resurrected one will find himself involved in a quest of circumstances and life situations that will inevitably begin to change him.
A person will begin to evolve mentally, reconsider his prejudices and attitudes, with which we are all overflowing. He will especially succeed in this if experienced mentors help him — those who have already passed a similar transformation.
Through new understanding, everyone will be able to look differently at their past, at actions — their own and others'. Understand their deep reasons and through this understanding, perhaps, forgive what seemed unforgivable.
Octaves of Perception and Empathy
Not only the new things that a person is able to understand with his mind will change personality in the future, but also what he is able to feel. And here we approach the concept of the sensory limitations of man himself.
Today, each individual has a rather limited range of perception. A general of special services, who spent half his life patching up borders from external threats; a pop artist, living in a world of fame and worship; a girl, meditating for many years in an Indian ashram, — all of them are on the same planet, but inhabit completely different worlds. Their sensory ranges are mutually almost inaccessible.
Imagine: the full range of possible feelings, sensations and states — is like a piano the length of a barge. But roughly one octave from this grandiose instrument is available to each person now.
Someone was more lucky — such people perceive several octaves, and the world is richer and more diverse for them. Someone was less lucky — they play the symphony of their life on only three notes.
Someone pathologically pounds on one key, acquiring money and power on a scale that drives entire states into poverty, and all the rest of the diversity of life simply does not touch him — he is deaf to these frequencies.
Distortions, dependencies and limitations of this kind can be treated through the expansion of the range of perception and raising the level of openness to the new.
A complex approach will be required, including both event therapy and direct technological intervention — perhaps even through partial voluntary reimprinting and restructuring of the dopamine reward system of the organism.
Elon Musk's Neuralink project in the future promises not only reading specific thoughts, but also emotions — their recording in high resolution and subsequent transmission to another person. Someday it will be possible to share a whole personal worldview, which in itself can lead to a radical reassessment of values.
It will be possible to read and transmit not only positive experiences. Almost a million dead civilians during the war and the humanitarian catastrophe after it in Iraq — for us now it is just statistics, as well as data on Libya, Syria and other conflicts.
But what did the survivors feel, whose homes were destroyed, fates ruined, relatives killed? If people had access not only to biased news, but to the very sensations and experiences of the victims in real time, if they could feel the true scale of the tragedy — completely different decisions would be made. And they would be made, probably, in a different way.
From Disunity to Unity
Groups of primitive hunter-gatherers usually did not exceed 100–150 people, where all tribesmen knew and felt each other perfectly. Agriculture allowed to significantly increase the population, but as a result of such scaling people lost mutual ties and became globally disunited. This gave rise to systemic contradictions — and those who learned to use them.
Potentially various approaches are possible — social and technological — for restoring lost unity. Perhaps, the Internet itself will transform into a semblance of a collective mind, becoming a kind of extension of personality for each individual, then significant decisions will be made through some form of direct collective consensus, and not at parliamentary hearings by a bunch of corrupt representatives.
It is difficult to predict the specific mechanisms of these changes. But it is important to understand: the past is not a sentence. What seems so important and unforgivable now, in the future may be perceived as old childish quarrels, which have completely lost their significance.
Civilization of forgiveness
The project of universal resurrection is not just a technological achievement. It is a project of creating a civilization, capable of accepting all the diversity of human experience, including its dark sides, and transforming this diversity into wealth.
Each resurrected person is not an object for judgment, but a subject for development. Each personality, whatever it was at the moment of death, will receive a chance for transformation, for the expansion of their perception, for understanding and forgiveness.
In this context «withdrawals» — are not just a return to life, but an invitation to participate in the grandiose project of the formation of a new, more complex and harmonious form of intelligent life.
Forms, where diversity is not a source of conflict, but a basis for a symphony, where each note, even a dissonant one, finds its place in the general harmony.
Is this a utopia? Perhaps. But the entire history of humanity — is a movement from the impossible to the possible. And if we learn to resurrect the dead, then we will also learn to create conditions for their genuine transformation and integration — into a unified, but infinitely diverse whole.
Power and Architecture of Security for a Hundred Billion
The modern order is based on the power of some people over others and the monopoly right of the state to violence. By habit it is difficult to think in some other system of representations, it is difficult even to allow the very existence of an alternative — a world, where power as such is absent due to uselessness.
All our history — is a chronicle of dominance and subordination, hierarchies and revolutions, tyrants and liberators. We are soaked with this quite martial paradigm — powerlessness seems a synonym of chaos.
Technological Freedom or Total Control?
In a purely hypothetical variant of realization of a society of the future, possibly, one person physically will not be able to hit another without their consent. No acts of aggression — verbal, psychological, physical — will be possible, if the addressee does not want to accept them.
But how practically to realize such, while staying in a biological body, is not yet clear. One can, of course, fantasize about neuro-interfaces, blocking aggressive impulses, or nanobots, paralyzing muscles during an attempt of violence. But who will control these systems? And will they not become an instrument of total enslavement under the pretext of absolute security?
Hierarchy as a Necessity?
Today's systems have built-in hierarchies, without which they inevitably fall apart. Is it worth to dream of rights and freedoms, separated from responsibility — or in general from a regulator in the form of power structures?
Now we can at least calmly reflect and philosophically discuss this topic, without fearing the rack of the inquisition or crucifixion by the decision of a Roman procurator.
Anarchism — is a general name of systems of views, which deny the necessity of forced management and the power of person over person. Anarchists stand for self-government, there exists a multitude of various currents, which often diverge in those or other questions, from secondary to fundamental ones. Directions of anarchist philosophical thought include a wide spectrum of ideas from extreme individualism to stateless communism. A part of anarchists denies in general any kinds of coercion and violence, for example — Tolstoyans, representatives of Christian anarchism.
Vulnerability of Any Architecture
The very presence of a presiding structure in the HyperWorld — is an explicit vulnerability:
- Centralized power can be compromised from without.
- It can mutate from within.
- Control can be intercepted.
- Loss of relevance of the management system can occur — and then its destruction will happen because of contradictions, caused by new circumstances and understandings in the mechanics of social interactions.
A decentralized system of management and power also is not devoid of flaws and vulnerabilities. How to create a code with an unbreakable basis of statements and principles for centuries and millennia?
If its principles must be flexible — the question arises: to what extent, and to what degree can they transform? If one lays down rigid basic foundations — they will grow old and become shackles.
Considering, that the speech is about the fates of at least a hundred billion people, mistakes in the basic architecture are able to lead to catastrophic consequences.
A Jar with Spiders or Harmony?
The approaches applied today to the provision of social compromise are not simply imperfect — they are unstable even in the scale of centuries. The history of the XX century — is a collapse of all big ideologies: communism, fascism, and now also liberal democracy, which is experiencing a deep crisis.
It seems, that in the foundation of the HyperWorld one will have to lay principally other approaches to regulation. But which ones?
A world of people, devoid of common principles, ideas and convictions, inevitably mutates into a jar with spiders, devouring each other. Is it possible in general the existence of real humanistic systems without super-coercion — in the person of super-ethics of God?
Root of Wars
Some kind of common presiding ethics, arranging priorities, is necessary, so that the system does not fall apart from internal contradictions. A new ontology and on its base a new ethics it is possible to formulate on the basis of the ideas of Russian Cosmism.
But what to do with those, who this ethics will not want to share? And what in the future this minority (or majority) surely will try to do — simply because it is strong and can?
Here it is — the indestructible root of wars. But is it so indestructible? And is it necessary in general to destroy it?
Stakes and Responsibility
We are reasoning not of an abstract political philosophy, but of the potential fates of a hundred billion resurrected. A mistake in designing the social architecture of the HyperWorld can turn out to be a eternal hell for billions of beings.
Inaction — is also a choice. To leave everything as it is — means to doom humanity to the eternal reproduction of cycles of structural violence, only now in the scale of a immortal civilization.
The paradox is that for creating a world without power there may be required a unprecedented concentration of power. Someone must will have to make a decision about the basic principles of the HyperWorld. Someone must will have to realize them. And this «someone» will receive power, surpassing the power of all tyrants of history taken together.
One wants to hope, that by the moment, when such decisions become necessary, humanity will evolve enough, so that to form a generally accepted image of embodiment of a new global compromise. A detailed plan of transition, which we now even cannot imagine — how people of the XVIII century could not imagine the internet-democracy.
And for now it remains for us to think, argue and seek. Because from the quality of our search depends, whether the future will become a paradise of freedom or a hell of good intentions.
Trap of freedom
Production of the BBC, 2007 — «The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom?»
This is a superb film about the crisis of humanism. Why do politicians so often speak of freedom, but the more one hears this word from them, the less freedom turns out to be in society?
The director of the film researches the origins of what is happening scrupulously, like a surgeon, cutting layer by layer the strata of the political and social arrangement of Western civilization and presenting to our gaze that, of what we forgot — or even did not guess.
Freedom of Choice of Appearance in the Era of Radical Longevity
Representations about a certain correspondence of age and appearance in any case will be strongly changed, as soon as freedom appears to change this very appearance radically. The complex technology of canceling the aging of the human organism and its rejuvenation — is in itself a noticeable intervention into appearance.
Potentially it is possible even to rewrite the genome of a living organism in each cell, in each mitochondrion, and directly in the process of its vital activity — on the base of the principles of the already existing technology CRISPR/Cas9, for which in 2020 the Nobel Prize was awarded.
Appearance as a Choice
A person of the age 200 or 500 years, most likely, will look so, as he wants himself. He can — like a gray-haired energetic elder, he can — like a youth or a girl, and he can — also like a certain character from a computer game or a film. Appearance will be a matter of choice.
Probably, the first transformation of appearance will be a long process, since the psyche will require time for adaptation for comfortable preservation of self-identity and identification. Subsequent transformations, if they are required, will be able to occur and faster, but the first of them will carry rather a cosmetic, rejuvenating and health-improving character.
Change of Social Norms
The very representation of people about appearance and patterns of necessary correspondence will change. Many spouses, probably, will somehow in advance and jointly discuss their planned modifications.
Children, «extracted» before their parents, upon desire will be able to the date of the first meeting to bring their bodies into correspondence with the images of that, how their relatives remember them. A very smart toddler can, of course, produce on unprepared parents a shocking impression — in such cases, as a variant, plus 8–12 years, so also the parents, probably will recognize the appearance. In any case their feelings, most likely, will manifest themselves.
Adaptation to New Reality
Much attention will be paid to the psychological adaptation of the «extracted». One of the elements will be the recreation at first of the habitual setting — possibly, even individually of a concrete house, apartment, assortment of food and goods in the nearby shop and similar. Such kinds of local retro-simulations.
The Nature of Aggression and Ways of its Transformation
Aggression, violence and the struggle for dominance in hierarchies are, undoubtedly, a part of our biological nature. By trying to sterilize and refine only, in our opinion, the good, we inevitably lose something very deep and important in our essence. Besides, any 'correct' upbringing cannot reshape all manifestations predetermined by biology — genes cannot be brought up. You can force a lion to perform in a circus, but how will such an unnatural daily life affect the quality of its life.
In any case, 'withdrawals' imply completely dissimilar people, already formed as personalities from different historical periods, with different upbringings and moral principles, which will differ greatly even from modern ones, not to mention future ones.
Legacy of Winners
We are all, living now, — descendants of winners, the continuation of the best of the best, super-predators, super-cunning ones, who have repeatedly passed the harshest natural selection. At the same time, to seriously believe that there is no evil in you, — is, of course, a mistake. Everyone has a shadow, often not even realized or suppressed for the time being.
This inner evil can take hybrid forms, manifest itself not openly, but, for example, from the position of a representative of the true point of view, true religion, law, justice or even good. Our evil gives itself the right to act as it acts, often tries to act in a socially approved way or at least have a strictly personal justification for what it is doing.
Much more sympathetic looks a character like Thomas Shelby, who realizes who he is and what he creates, than a scoundrel whose last refuge is patriotism. Each of us is a carrier of evil, and to think that it is not in you, being in a biological body, — is very naive.
The devil begins with foam on the lips of an angel who believes in his righteousness and enters the battle for a holy just cause. The spirit of hatred is eternal in the struggle for a just cause. And thanks to it, evil on Earth has no end. Since I understood this, I believe that the style of polemics is more important than the subject of polemics — subjects change, but the style creates civilization.
Externalization of Evil
Precisely the non-acceptance of evil in oneself leads to its externalization (transfer) to others — for example, to a fictional figure of a certain tyrant who is supposedly to blame for everything, or to a group of dissenters. Holding on in goodness, sometimes even especially 'enlightened' and Zen-knowing ones are unable to hold back the boiling of internal shit. This pressure seeks an exit, finds it in personal attitude towards some 'categories' of other people, in spoken words, in the very position of supposedly being higher than others.
Understanding and accepting evil in oneself gives more freedom and more genuine choice. In each of us, in the same DNA chains, there is also good. Science has yet to unpack messages in this language of nucleotides for a long time and understand deeper and deeper who we are, part of what we are and what we transmit.
In different ways, organized and individually, we try to restrain and suppress such natural manifestations of our biological nature, try to fence ourselves off from our nature and even protest, stating that man is not an animal.
Possible Solutions
There can be several solutions for the future. A curious concept is shown in the series 'Westworld' (2016). One can correct the very essence of man — not necessarily by such rough methods as in the film 'A Clockwork Orange' by Stanley Kubrick. However, with any variant of such correction, limitation, coercion arises, that is, all the same old 'violence for good'. There will be resistance to this, a new way of dividing into friends and foes will be born, and, as a consequence, again some war.
One can try to go another way. Create places where the manifestation of everything that is unacceptable in civilized society is allowed — 'war zones' or special rules. Not everyone will want to visit such places, probably even a minority, but for the common good it is necessary to think about this minority too.
Bad are not even wars in themselves, but that into these events become involved those who absolutely did not want this.
Zones of Special Rules
If your lot is war, or at a certain stage of life your whole essence requires such events, experiences and experience, it is not necessary to search for an ideology justifying actions or a local truth. Go to a place specially created for such purposes with limited risks, to get into which is possible only by desire, and to drop out — only in accordance with the conditions stipulated initially.
Conditions in this case can be very different: territory with firearms or, say, only swords and arrows; one can include in the contract even the possibility of dying completely and finally — with an extremely low probability.
The basic principles are simple: if you want to have the opportunity to commit violence, cause harm, damage and some suffering, be ready to receive this yourself in the same range of the chosen. All are in equal or almost equal conditions — those who risk more, should, probably, also receive more opportunities or some starting advantages.
Lives need to be preserved for everyone by means of the same technology of 'withdrawals', if other probabilities are not spelled out in the contract. Not so simple as in a computer game, of course — after 'lethal' damage to lie around for several months in a hospital of the times of WWII under shelling can be quite an adventure, as well as to hang out then as a cripple for several years in all this historical reconstruction.
What happens in zones of special rules stays there, is not carried out afterwards into the world where inhabitants do not want to be involved in violence. The described is not even a concept, but rather just a direction of thought.
War as a Way of Learning
Probably, wars and confrontations in the modern world are also such a way of learning, where victory is an arbiter and an incorruptible judge. Sometimes truth is not born in a dispute, it is recognized only in battle. Who exactly should decide what is better — capitalism or socialism? Who subsequently should declare that the optimally reasonable combination of the first and second in a single system? How can this be stated so authoritatively and undeniably that everyone agrees? Is it necessary for everyone without exception to agree and not look for other, better ways anymore?
Maybe wars in the future will remain not only in the form of historical simulations for those wishing to take part in such. Wars as a way of learning can become different, even more diverse, since in their essence they are even now primarily informational. At their core is a struggle of meanings, different vectors of movement, a dispute of different truths, composing together one pattern.
One would like to hope that in the relatively near future it will be possible to somehow remove such rough manifestations of confrontations as tanks, shells and similar lethal weapons. The hope that we will subsequently succeed in correcting everything with the help of 'withdrawals' or something similar — is so far only a hope.
Ultimate Foundation
Ultimate foundation — is the answer to the question, for what exactly personally you are ready to kill and die, in a situation when you do not want either one or the other by itself. Even without an honest answer to yourself to this question many people (on the planet as a whole) are capable of doing both, led by a kind of «wind of history». Specialists at the same time are capable of blowing in their ears so that warriors do not think at all about personal 'ultimate foundation', but simply perform what is wanted from them.
There is no place for war only in the space of love.
There is no place for war only in the space of love.
Evolution of ideas about paradise and the nature of a miracle
To a serf peasant, if he is hungry, cold, and everyday life is filled with hard labor and cultural narrowness, the idea of Paradise as a reward for the hardships and deprivations of earthly life may seem very logical, fair and holistic.
Legends of Paradise
Islamic Paradise includes carnal pleasures. There are legends about how some warriors who shared food with spiritual leaders were poured psychotropic substances into their food. Then in a sleepy state they were transferred to a special place where there was unprecedented luxury, gold and splendor in all surroundings: fountains of wine, many beautiful obliging women, an abundance of different dishes. Having allowed a short time to enjoy all these charms, the warriors were again stupefied and returned back to the table with the spiritual leader, after which they placed in their heads the idea that this was supposedly shown a part of paradise, and they will be able to get there after death if they are faithful, ready to give their lives and keep secret what they saw.
These warriors had never seen anything so delightful before and could not even imagine that such a place was generally possible to create by hand. A wonderful, in general, was the method of recruiting devoted military leaders and personal bodyguards.
Transformation of Meanings
Today, representatives of the middle class of developed countries have access to noticeably more than kings from the past. At the same time, what exactly such a reward for 'correct behavior' awaits these people in Paradise becomes less obvious, since everything conceivable is quite realistic to get on earth. For many people, their faith is enough to follow religious dogmas — for many people, but not for all.
The value of the extraterrestrial and unthinkable — how to evaluate it for yourself? Eternal life in Paradise in itself and the impossibility of dying even with such a desire can, probably, turn out to be a torment. After all, the value of eternal life is subjective and depends on personal attitude towards it, which can change over millennia: 'eternal — good', 'non-eternal — bad' — this is a very strong simplification, simply so far few act think so far ahead.
It is not customary to critically discuss all this in the religious community. The main thought of these sentences is not that there is no God or no paradise, but that our ideas about it — what it is, where it is located and how all this can be arranged — are quite possibly simplified, incomplete and archaic. The descriptions of Paradise themselves were created by people and for people living centuries and even millennia ago.
Conceptually, paradise is still presented as simply something very good, immeasurable by earthly measure, inaccessible to full understanding and sensation. In other words, it is proposed simply to believe that you will be good there, and it is positioned as a super prize.
The Choice is Obvious
But the obvious truth for today is that the majority of modern people will choose, when the opportunity itself appears: either to take no action, grow old and then go to the 'last judgment' of the Almighty, or to extend their earthly life by a century in a young healthy body with the help of biotechnology, and then extend it again, and again. This choice is exactly the same as taking medicines prescribed by a doctor or not.
Using the argument of the existence of divine Paradise in the context of bribing a person with it simply sounds somewhat vulgar, since this is all the same coercion, only through a carrot. As, in general, implies the argument of the existence of hell. How one must 'love' people to send a part of them then to a special place full of fire, smoke, heat, suffering, pain, so that they suffer, burn, choke, scream, cry forever and ever until the end of time. Something is wrong here..
Paradise Engineering
Potentially possible are different approaches to paradise engineering, that is, the construction of a man-made 'paradise on Earth'. For example — one of them draws attention to the fact that we ignore the biochemical roots of our poor health, and suggests a transition to the post-Darwinian era. Speaks about the possibility of totally eliminating pain and suffering itself. The hype of political parties, geopolitics distract us from what actually should be done.
Evolutionarily pain/pleasure, avoidance/striving are the driving force, stimuli for development and learning. Is it possible for intelligent life to replace this engine with a more modern one, working on other principles and fuel — the question is rather open, but people will try for sure.
Search for Great Hope
Alternative historical development, with the ascent of man, the 'new word' — what is it now? In a multipolar world, parts of which, as before, will build up power in an effort to confront, or even destroy each other? Or will multipolarity in itself make the interactions of participants more fair and less bloody? Rather — the opposite. Where is the hope, historical, big, and for what?
God-manhood — is the ideal state of humanity as a limit, the completion of the earthly historical process. The idea of God-manhood received philosophical interpretation in the works of religious thinker Vladimir Solovyov. This is an image-dream, which accompanies, in the opinion of philosopher Berdyaev, humanity striving for 'truth — the meaning of its own existence and freedom'.
Nature of Miracle
A few paragraphs about miracles.
In short — there aren't any, but they happen, and this statement implies that there is no contradiction. A miracle is a part of objective reality, a possibility that always exists, only it is hidden from us. It is that possible which is completely absent in our ideas about reality.
If something suddenly bursts into our personal, always limited reality tunnel, something that, according to our ideas, cannot exist there at all, then such a situation cannot be ignored. The incident demands a place, demands an explanation, and by its very presence already transforms our reality. About a true miracle, until it happens, we probably won't even be able to say that it is impossible, because we are not capable of posing the question itself — possible or impossible. We can't even imagine that such a thing can happen at all, and suddenly "BANG" — and it has already happened.
Probabilistic and true miracle
Suppose a person drowned in an icy mountain river, and 30 minutes later he was pulled out, and resuscitation specialists returned him to a full life. Or a person spent years on a life support machine, and then for some reason came out of a coma. These situations are not about a true miracle, but about a probabilistic one.
The resurrection of Lazarus by Jesus, if such a fact really took place, is a miracle. Although Christianity is not the first religion in which the resurrection of the dead is mentioned: for the Jews, contemporaries of Pontius Pilate, the resurrection of Lazarus could be perceived as an event completely unthinkable, confronting them with a fact that simply cannot be, about which they never thought as possible or impossible. For them, an event of such scale is a miracle.
Manipulation by miracle
The Mayan priests, understanding certain regularities, could predict the dates of solar eclipses, which they used to strengthen their own authority and power. Staging entire shows on these days, making sacrifices and slipping their own interpretation of the event beneficial to them to their ignorant people, for whom what they saw, of course, was a real miracle. A similar trick, but with a lunar eclipse, was cynically used by Christopher Columbus, intimidating the Indians in Jamaica so that they would supply his people with provisions.
A modern light show produced by a laser installation can create the illusion that columns are dancing near a building, and other amazing visual metamorphoses. Showing such a thing 300 years ago in the Vatican, and also highlighting in the process the face of the ruling pontiff of those years on St. Peter's Cathedral, it would only remain to tell one's interpretation of what happened to the amazed public. Why is this not one hundred percent proof of the existence of God? Would many be able to doubt such proof presented in the form of a revealed miracle?
A miracle is only a manifestation of what lies beyond the limits of our personal knowledge and understanding of the world. For people who will live in 300 years, we are now just as ignorant and wild as those Catholics who burned tens of thousands of witches at the stake might seem to us.
The problem of integrity of personality: boundaries of "I" and "not I"
Caterpillar, pupa and butterfly, into which they will then turn — is it one creature or three different ones? Obviously, these are three completely different organisms in structure and functionality. Then why do some people think that this is one creature, only at different stages of its development and transformation? What exactly unites these three completely different organisms into one? Remember your current answer to this question if you already have one.
Thought experiment with separation
Let's conduct a thought experiment. Imagine that a person in a certain operating room of the future was "cut" in half into two equal parts from the top of the head and below. Then special medical robots build up both halves from extraneous matter, perfectly copying the missing body parts to the whole. As a result, two completely physically identical and living people are obtained. They wake up in different rooms, after which one of them, without being informed about what happened, is sent to a loving family, and the other — to a conditional concentration camp.
Where will the personality go that existed before this operation? Was the personality destroyed (killed) in the process, or did it split, and now it is the same person, but with two bodies, whose interconnection of sensations is broken? Where did the esoteric soul go, if such existed, and could it remain in only one of these bodies?
One can change the thought experiment and not cut in half, but assemble with the help of the same medical robots a copy exact to every atom, immediately after which make it so that information is not preserved about which person is the original and which is the assembled copy. If no differences can be found, then can we assert that this is the same individual? If it turns out that a year ago he committed a crime, put both in prison or what? If the court cannot afford to make mistakes and punish those who did not commit the crime personally, then is it possible to avoid guaranteed punishment by creating a copy of oneself in one way or another?
Similar questions, to which it is unclear how to answer at all, will appear more and more with the development of technology. What if in some technical artificial way we preserve the connection of sensations in this pair of people, create a constant connection in the original and his copy, synchronize common memory, sensations, emotions, vision? Will it be possible then to say that this is one person located simultaneously in two different places?
From philosophy to engineering
From a purely philosophical field, the question of the integrity of personality has already moved into the field of engineering today, where it has acquired an ethical character. For example, during operations for the partial separation of hemispheres in patients with epilepsy, which were practiced in the 60s. Symptoms began to appear that after the operation there are now two personalities in one brain, and they have divided control over the body, and even internal conflicts are possible.
Such dogmas as "one body always corresponds to one observer" very strongly obscure our eyes when analyzing the very problem of integrity and indivisibility of personality.
Illusion of simplicity
If you don't think about it, all this may seem simple. "I" is me, I have a head, I eat into it — what can be unclear here. ㋛ But if you dig a little deeper and try to understand what, exactly, we mean when saying "I", then a dangerous abyss opens up, and the edges of which are not visible.
Where is the boundary between "I" and "not I"? In fact, it is not as obvious as is commonly believed.
Violation of these natural obviousnesses leads to very serious consequences when we talk about the development of biotechnology and even about some already existing medical facts. We do not know how to interpret this, because our natural "cognitive intuition" simply lies to us. At the same time, this is literally a matter of life and death.
There is innate knowledge, a preset or what is formed automatically at an early stage of a child's development, namely the belief that "I" is my body, and "not I" is everything else. Such a simplified representation, if you think about it, is erroneous.
Body as a boundary
People sometimes lose limbs, some replace them with bionic prostheses, transplantologists transplant organs, and they even already install artificial portable mechanical hearts for a while. At the beginning of the last century, this was unthinkable. Today, given the realities, to continue to assert that "I" is my whole body is at least strange.
Where exactly is that observer located who interprets two different electrochemical signals from two different eyes as one picture?
When medical anesthesia was not as perfect as it is now, there was a variety of it in which the patient during the operation completely felt all the pain, but could not move and react at all, and subsequently after the operation did not remember what happened to him. The question is not whether it was permissible to use such anesthesia. Even earlier, limbs shattered in battles were manually sawed off in field hospitals in order to save life, and this was done without any anesthesia at all.
If an operation is necessary for the current preservation of life, should the patient be informed that with such anesthesia he will feel everything, or should one remain silent and assume that he will face such terrifying events unexpectedly and in complete helplessness? If you yourself do not remember and do not know, then are you ready to agree that such a thing happened or will only happen in the future not to you? And if you don't remember, but you know? This example is to the question of identification and subjective boundaries between "I" and "not I".
Digital immortality
In the series "Altered Carbon" all information about one participant in the events is stored in the "cloud" on servers. All his memory, all data necessary to recreate exactly the same body. Constantly or from time to time, one can synchronize this data. If such a person is eliminated physically, then in the series he will be recreated fairly quickly by special machines, property rights and power will pass to the recreated one.
These circumstances make it meaningless to kill him, say, with a simple shot in the head, but whether the recreated one is the same as the one before, and was there, in fact, the fact of the murder itself during the shot, or for the court it will be interpreted as only an attempt on him — the answer is not so unambiguous.
Brain as "I"
With the development of science, more and more people began to associate the subject of consciousness with the brain. Next in popularity follows the prejudice that "I" is my brain or even only a part of it (neural network). But then exactly which part of the neural network is "I"? Let's try to draw the boundary between "I" and "not I" again, physically separate one from the other.
And, if you think about it, it turns out that "I" is not the entire neural network, if only because even with noticeable losses in it as a result of a stroke or another illness or trauma, what we are accustomed to considering a personality is preserved. Every day, even in a healthy person, approximately 80 thousand neurons die irrevocably.
At what exact moment of time does the embryo acquire its subjectivity? At a certain stage, it has only two neurons — is this already a person or not yet? Then exactly how many neurons are needed to be considered a person? It will not be possible to reasonably name a number, one cannot draw a line somewhere in a continuous process. This is not about the ethics or unethics of abortions at one stage or another — this concerns, among other things, the lives of already adult people.
Embryo, girl and subsequently grandmother — is this all the same person, consciousness, personality, individual? And are these four words full synonyms or not quite?
Memory as "I"
There is also a variety of conviction that "I" is my knowledge and memory.
In case of memory loss (in the case of retrograde amnesia, for example), does it turn out, should one consider the person temporarily dead? Or are we satisfied that in general he looks similar on the outside, and therefore we will consider that this is the same person, and his life was not interrupted? Only here the copy looks even more like it and remembers everything completely, even if the original from the first thought experiment is far away at the same time. Similarity is not a criterion of identity.
A one-year-old girl and the grandmother into whom she subsequently turned do not have a common memory of events — then why do we consider them the same person? Almost all cells of the human body are renewed in one year, practically all the substance of which our body consists changes in a decade. Then what is the connection between the one-year-old girl and the grandmother into whom she will turn over the years? They are also completely dissimilar outwardly, they are not the same thing, they are different in all senses.
Such a girl and grandmother are, of course, the same citizen, there is no arguing here — SNILS and TIN are now generally issued immediately at birth. Only here a citizen — is just an invented, artificially created concept.
Identity in time
Integrity of personality in time is called identity. The conviction that my "I" a minute ago — was also "me", and in a year it will also be "me", — is our kind of belief, which, of course, is extremely necessary for evolution, goal-setting and other things, but proved by no one and nothing. In essence, this is just such an axiom, concept, fiction. If one accepts the idea of temporal integrity, then paradoxes arise — for example, one will have to admit that A = B (girl = grandmother), although from the point of view of formal logic and criteria this is obviously not so. So when did the girl die, if when there is a grandmother, the girl is no longer there?
Three sub-questions can be distinguished:
- The question of separating "I" from "not I" only in space.
- The question of division into "I" and "not I" in the period of life of one conscious organism (temporal integrity).
- The question of deep metamorphosis — is like in the case of significant transformation of the organism itself (and/or brain) from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Where is located and what determines in this the very "I", and at what moment does it disappear (die), if, of course, one accepts as true the idea that it generally perishes in this process?
Radical transformation
What if we launch a certain artificial program of transformation of a specific caterpillar into a living person or, conversely, a living person into a caterpillar? To gain and lose mass in this is not the biggest difficulty. Rather, the very essence of the thought experiment is important. Or not into a caterpillar, but into a dolphin, suppose, as intelligent as a person. Will we continue, as before, to congratulate him every year on his birthday? And if the metamorphosis occurs not into an intelligent dolphin, but into an ordinary one — try to determine at what exact moment it is required to declare that this is no longer a citizen, not a person, and it is time to deprive him of SNILS.
Proponents of transhumanism recognize the possibility and desirability of radical interventions in human nature with the aim of improvement, including of already living people. Where does the division pass between life, death and the birth of a new subject in the process of such a metamorphosis? Death can be imperceptible, not so obvious, not necessarily with the presence of a corpse and a funeral rite. What happens after performing certain surgical and not only operations on the neural correlate of consciousness, the brain? What technologies should be introduced, and which should not, because they will lead to implicit death?
The question of what is "I", where the boundary passes between "I" and "not I" — is, perhaps, a central and pragmatic question in the life of each of us.
Resurrection or recreation
It is quite likely that in the future it will become possible to extract information (or calculate it mathematically) about the exact mutual arrangement of atoms of the entire body of a specific person from the past, say, a moment before the final stop of the work of his brain. having obtained such a full cast of the body and with the help of biotech atom by atom, it will be possible to assemble and revive him. Immediately start to reanimate, treat, rejuvenate. Will it be possible to call this a full-fledged resurrection or only recreation, that is, the creation of copies — is there a difference?
Perhaps physical and psychological continuity have some relation to the question of what should be considered a personality. If one accepts as true the idea that consciousness — is the continuous process itself, then do we die every time in sleep? From deep medical anesthesia or after clinical death, is already another person reanimated? Or how to relate to such an interruption of the process then?
In some questions, our everyday logic and intuition mislead us — in some cases such a delusion can even be proven, as, for example, in the Monty Hall paradox.
Migration of Consciousness
Biological matter is no different from the rest. According to current scientific understanding, what people consist of now was once part of the stars. What will happen if we try to smoothly carry out the migration of consciousness from a biological carrier to another? First, we replace one neuron with something artificial in design, but exactly the same in functionality, then another neuron, a cell, or even a small cluster. As a result of such sequential replacements, we will get a kind of cyborg with silicon or some other brains, steel fists, etc.
Someone might say that such a "cyborg" — is actually the same person, deriving identity from continuity, that is, from the fact that there was no such clear boundary when one could say that the person disappeared and the cyborg began. It is interesting, will the soul, if one exists, also move into a new synthetic body? If we assume that it will not move, but leave, then we will have to clarify — at what exact moment? How many neurons exactly need to be replaced to say with confidence that the soul has left the body? How can such questions be answered reasonably at all?
Soul and Matter
Applying a biochemical or microsurgical method to a fertilized human egg after its first division, we can separate the two resulting cells from each other, which will lead to the appearance of identical twins instead of one individual who would have developed from an undisturbed cell. Similar experiments have been successfully and repeatedly conducted with animals. A brief rough physical intervention would lead to the emergence of two lives, two personalities where before there was only one. In a sense, it turns out, it is so simple to create another life. Perhaps, one should consider that one life was destroyed and two created, since neither of those born will become what the original individual would have been. Who to ask what happens to the soul at this and at what exact moment, if anything happens at all?
If we assume that one twin obtained in this way will become a continuation of the one who was supposed to be born, and the other — not, although the division was absolutely symmetrical, this means that the material world contains incomplete information about its entire structure. Such an assumption is unpleasant and uncomfortable for strictly materialistic thinking.
If there is something in the universe that does not work according to physical laws, is controlled by an immaterial soul, then, probably, we can detect the fact of this influence and intervention and somehow measure and record it. Otherwise, what are we talking about at all, using the term "soul"? If we are talking about something that is not in the material world and does not affect it in any way, then we are talking about the non-existent in the ontological sense of the word. But if something is not in the material world, but exerts influence on it, then this is another matter — and then the fact of this influence, probably, can be detected somehow.
Brain Transplantation
Surgeons are already capable of transplanting hearts today, and eventually they will be able to transplant brains too. Imagine two male patients — one has brain sarcoma, the other has liver sarcoma, metastases, both are inoperable. As a result, say, a healthy brain is transplanted onto a healthy body. The result will be a man who can conceive children only through the body of another citizen, whom he acquired during transplantation. Whose name should be indicated upon discharge? How to deal with family and property rights? And a genetic paternity test, for example, subsequently to take from which part of the body? With souls, again, complete confusion.
On what grounds is it assumed that the soul is located exactly in the brain? Why not in the heart, for example, or, perhaps, distributed in the blood or somewhere else? Imagine a completely fantastic situation: four citizens change brains in a circle, and also in pairs — men with women. Where will their souls go in this case, can souls change not only the body, but also gender? Most likely, the opinion of another militant priest is predictable, who will declare that all such souls will go, of course, to hell. However, his position should be attributed to marginal. Such a position appears when there are no arguments, but there is still a desire to moralize, and instead of trying to answer complex questions, only one recipe is issued — to ban everything complex and incomprehensible.
Свобода самоопределения
Мы — это то, что мы о себе думаем, с чем себя отождествляем. Можно отождествляться с Наполеоном или с быком из притчи, верить, что «я» продолжится в моих детях, в созданных лично произведениях искусства, либо получит новую реинкарнацию в другом теле другой расы, либо даже продолжит своё существование в качестве представителя флоры или фауны. Мы вольны выбирать наиболее удобное или приятное нам тождество, верить в него, заниматься самообманом и пребывать в иллюзии.
Много вопросительных знаков в этом тексте. Ответов нет — если коротко, все гипотезы и предубеждённости при подробном рассмотрении несостоятельны. Но если захочешь занырнуть в понимание этих вопросов глубже, есть видео продолжительностью 3,5 часа — и вот там по-настоящему глубоко.
Creating the Future Together
Truly new unique thoughts — are like paths, laid in the darkness of unknown territories of the possible. Following you on them can pass also other people, re-evaluate, add their own, expand the track, and even altogether lay a lit highway in that same direction.
If at you there are or will appear your considerations about that, how can be arranged separate aspects of the society of the distant future, or your image of such future — tell about your ideas. One can describe them in a free format, or even in the form of a short fantastic story. Send to ru.cosmism@gmail.com or throw into the common Telegram-chat. This description can relate, for example, to certain ethical moments, rights, freedoms and their limitations, or to organizational-technical arrangement of all this hyperworld, that is the simultaneous coexistence of cultures from different historical periods with the possibility of migration of people from one era to another. Gradual filling of various territories with again arrived «extracted».
Where would personally you set off in such hyperworld in the first place? And after?
Anyone has a possibility to contribute their part, jointly to invent this future, to invent it, to draw, to detail, to propose visualization of the goal, senses to our species. To create «information field», collective image of the desired future, attention to it — and all this will work as a self-fulfilling prognosis.
Who and for what made us unlearn to dream?!
What Can Be Done
- Perhaps the most significant support to the «common cause» is simply to discuss the ideas of Russian cosmists with some of your acquaintances. The butterfly effect or the swarm of butterflies is rather underestimated for the long term. Moreover, we are all connected through about six handshakes — along the chain, information will eventually reach key participants capable of amplifying and developing it by retransmitting it. A most ordinary conversation about these ideas can have a noticeable effect on the distant future, since significant thoughts and words, like waves, repeatedly reflecting from people, go into eternity and give birth to our future.
- Support on Boosty.to fundraising to advertise the site and promote the ideas of RC.
- Send someone of your acquaintances a link to https://russian-cosmism.ru or share it in a chat or comment where you participate in discussions yourself.
- You can write new texts about RC yourself, retell existing ideas better and more clearly, supplement them with your own, formulate and ask other significant questions on the topic. Post something from materials about Russian cosmism at your place.
- Participate in RC meetings and projects in communities of like-minded people. Saint Petersburg — Scientific Society of Cosmists: https://космизм.рф + https://t.me/russian_cosmism Moscow — Portal of the N. Fedorov Museum-Library: https://nffedorov.ru + https://vk.com/muzejfedorova
- Report to ru.cosmism@gmail.com about errors found in the text — spelling, stylistic or factual, if you notice any.
- Explain to your children, when they ask about their own and your mortality, that, they say, if a special pill for old age is created, then all people will be able to live indefinitely long — while scientists have not yet invented such a pill. Such imprinting has a decisive influence on the subsequent reactions of the personality, the formation of its values and priorities, and ultimately — on behavior in general.
- Grow a heart in yourself that is not a cardboard box stuff with memes, but a piece of one of the elements. Our conscience creates ideals, and the mind looks for ways to achieve them.
The fate of our immortal lives is determined by the consequences of our words and deeds, which spread in waves, reflecting in eternity.
