Words&Dirt

“The cosmic understanding of humanity I have presented here is complex but can be boiled down to three main points: (1) the human is a transitional being in the long-term sweep of cosmic evolution; (2) the evolution of humanity and its culture was made possible by our sense of freedom (free will) and understanding of nature; and (3) the potential exists for our species to create new beings that will fulfill our destiny and that of the Creation.

The coming elevation of humanity will be realized by passing on its central insight and judgment (or human wisdom) to higher beings in order to amplify the wisdom.  What is central for humanity is not to be found in our biology; rather, it is to be found in our transformative potential for the universe and possibly beyond.

Pointing out the cosmic value of humanity does not devalue the attributes that we normally consider human or humane.  We have developed a dazzling array of wonderful lifestyles, institutions, technologies, art, science, faith, and so on.  The noble goals we have for ourselves––freedom, liberty, morality, and happiness––are still worth pursuing.  But rather than treating these goals as ends in themselves, I have shown that we must ask what a prosperous and happy humanity is for.

When Immanuel Kant said we should treat each human being as an end, not merely as a means to some further end, he was concerned about the proper relationship between human beings, not about the direction of human evolution as a whole.  It is unfortunate that even the more enlightened prophets usually let their imagination stop at some static Utopia on Earth or paradise in heaven after death in spite of all evidence pointing to an ever-increasing acceleration of change.  It is time to step outside ourselves and place the meaning of our existence in a cosmic context.

From the cosmic perspective, we cannot be the ultimate being––nothing ever was and nothing will ever be.  As with any other species, the human being is not a perfectly designed shell to house the soul.  A person, as the shape of its Chinese character suggests, does not stand still but continues to move forward.

For those immersed in the Western monotheistic religious traditions, there is no need to fight Darwin’s idea that we are ‘merely’ the outcome of a trial-and-error process.  It is nothing short of a miracle that ‘mindless’ natural evolution generated a wonderful mind capable of reflecting on this creative process and shifting it into a higher gear.  Likewise, for secular humanists, there is no need to regard ourselves as nothing but a freak accident in a random universe.  We are not the first but simply the latest manifestation of cosmic evolution, which for billions of years seems to be heading toward more order and more interconnections––in other words, more meaning.  We are fortunate to live in this universe; but that fortune means little if we don’t take advantage of it.

Self-evaluation is always trickier than sizing up others.  If the first cell had a thinking mind, surely it would have regarded itself as the world’s ultimate being; the same would be true for the first multicellular organism, the first animal species, the first animal species with a brain, and first land animal species, and so on.  We know they would have been mistaken, and future minds will know that those of us who hold the same self-regard are also wrong.  By the same token, if the first generations of cells or the primitive animals had believed that the evolutionary process was so random that it could not have had any discernible trend, we are here to prove them wrong.  And again, the future Cosmic Beings will show that the process has much further to run beyond the stage of humanity.

From our human perspective, it is natural to believe that evolution is all about creating a world for us to live in, or that God cares about us and loves us.  We have no choice but to use our intuitive minds to understand everything that is related to us.  But at the same time, we have the rational mind to ask why this is the case.  The source of creation and order (often conceived as the cosmic God) rewards us for understanding the universe.  Let us ask ourselves: how can we express gratitude toward the Creation?  Reciprocal altruism is embedded in us by natural selection as a manifestation of the nonzero principle.  Combined with science, altruistic love is probably the best emotion we can use to understand the cosmic perspective.

Humanity is a critical transitional being, and there is nothing wrong or sad about our transitory status, given what we know about human nature.  We know that, structurally, we are a peculiar mix of our ancient animal heritage and a newfound rationality and higher consciousness.  The realistic view of this super-mammal, with its narrow limits of physiology and psychology shaped by a particular evolutionary path on Earth, can be a source of both existential despair and eternal hope.  Humanity is neither a perfect, eternal form designed by some supernatural being, nor just a ‘naked ape.’  The human being is the most advanced known result of Cosmic Creation, although that status is temporary.

In a sense it is true that the human is created in the Creator’s (God’s) image, because of its ability to create.  Humanity has created an incredible array of artifacts and cultures like no other animal.  Consciously or unconsciously, we have been learning how nature creates––a process best characterized as ‘creative destruction’––and in the process we have been building up the capacity for the ultimate creation, which is creating something better than the creator (humanity) itself.

Only when we fully accept and utilize our unique ability to create can we become truly significant.  In a sense, we are like the orca, or ‘killer whale,’ which, as described in the prologue to this book, sits at the top of the food chain in the ocean, but it occasionally jumps out of the water and sees magnificent landforms.  Just as the orca cannot return to the habitat that we might imagine it longs for, humanity cannot fulfill its cosmic potential by itself––but it can participate in its fulfillment by creating CoBe as the being that inherits humanity’s spirit and continues its quest, leading ever closer to fulfillment of the Cosmic Vision itself.

The appearance of human intelligence and higher consciousness is perhaps comparable to the appearance of the first cell on Earth.  Both of these were truly momentous events.  The emergence of cell life involved the first complex biological organism with metabolic pathways and self-replication.  But that was not the end.  Much more exciting things had yet to materialize––life would spread to the entire surface of the Earth and develop millions of different species, with many organisms consisting of billions of specialized cells.  Through countless long and uneven paths, with several mass extinctions as well as many quantum leaps along the way, suddenly human beings emerged to reflect on the past and to initiate the next act of Cosmic Creation.

Can anything be more grand and thrilling than this?”

––Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision for Our Future Evolution, by Ted Chu, pg. 387-90

“‘So,’ she said, looking not at Sensia but out at the desert, ‘what is to become of me, Sensia?’

The older woman looked at her.  ‘Become of you?  You mean what happens now, where do you go?’

Still not daring to meet the other woman’s gaze, she nodded.  ‘Yes.’

What a strange, almost absurd situation to be in, she thought.  To be in this perfect but…self-confessed simulation, talking to a glorified computer about her fate, her life from this point on.  What would happen next?  Would she be left free to wander and somehow make a life within this virtual world?  Would she be in some sense returned to Sichult, even to Veppers?  Could she simply be turned off as just a program, nothing genuinely alive at all?  The following few seconds, the next sentence out of Sensia’s unreal, virtually modelled mouth, would like as not turn her life one way or the other: to despair, to triumph, to outright annihilation.  It all came down––unless she was already being deeply deceived about where she was and who she was really talking to––to what was said in the next moment.

Sensia blew her cheeks out.  ‘Largely up to you, Lededje.  You’re in a nearly unique situation so there’s no particular precedent, but zero documentation or not you’re essentially a fully functioning, viable independent mind-state and incontrovertibly sentient, with all that implies regarding rights and so on.’

‘What does that imply?’ Lededje asked.  She was already feeling relieved but she wanted to be sure.

Sensia grinned.  ‘Only good things, really.'”

––Surface Detail, by Iain M. Banks, loc. 1561-70