Thursday Thoughts: How Much Humanity Are You Willing To Give Up?

“But the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please. The second difference is even more important. In the older systems both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by the Tao [the common moral code]—a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart. They did not cut men to some pattern they had chosen. They handed on what they had received: they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike. It was but old birds teaching young birds to fly- This will be changed.

Values are now mere natural phenomena. Judgements of value are to be produced in the pupil as part of the conditioning. Whatever Tao there is will be the product, not the motive, of education. The conditioners have been emancipated from all that. It is one more part of Nature which they have conquered. The ultimate springs of human action are no longer, for them, something given. They have surrendered—like electricity: it is the function of the Conditioners to control, not to obey them. They know how to produce conscience and decide what kind of conscience they will produce. They themselves are outside, above. For we are assuming the last stage of Man’s struggle with Nature. The final victory has been won. Human nature has been conquered—and, of course, has conquered, in whatever sense those words may now bear.

The Conditioners, then, are to choose what kind of artificial Tao they will, for their own good reasons, produce in the Human race. They are the motivators, the creators of motives. But how are they going to be motivated themselves? For a time, perhaps, by survivals, within their own minds, of the old ‘natural’ Tao. Thus at first they may look upon themselves as servants and guardians of humanity and conceive that they have a ‘duty’ to do it ‘good.’ But it is only by confusion that they can remain in this state. They recognize the concept of duty as the result of certain processes which they can now control.

Their victory has consisted precisely in emerging from the state in which they were acted upon by those processes to the state in which they use them as tools. One of the things they now have to decide is whether they will, or will not, so condition the rest of us that we can go on having the old idea of duty and the old reactions to it. How can duty help them to decide that? Duty itself is up for trial: it cannot also be the judge.

And ‘good’ fares no better. They know quite well how to produce a dozen different conceptions of good in us. The question is which, if any, they should produce. No conception of good can help them to decide. It is absurd to fix on one of the things they are comparing and make it the standard of comparison. To some it will appear that I am inventing a factitious difficulty for my Conditioners. Other, more simple-minded, critics may ask ‘Why should you suppose they will be such bad men?’ But I am not supposing them to be bad men. They are, rather, not men (in the old sense) at all. They are, if you like, men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what ‘Humanity’ shall henceforth mean. ‘Good’ and ‘bad,’ applied to them, are words without content: for it is from them that the content of these words is henceforward to be derived.

Nor is their difficulty factitious. We might suppose that it was possible to say ‘After all, most of us want more or less the same things—food and drink and sexual intercourse, amusement, art, science, and the longest possible life for individuals and for the species. Let them simply say, This is what we happen to like, and go on to condition men in the way most likely to produce it. Where’s the trouble?’

But this will not answer. In the first place, it is false that we all really like the same things. But even if we did, what motive is to impel the Conditioners to scorn delights and live laborious days in order that we, and posterity, may have what we like? Their duty? But that is only the Tao, which they may decide to impose on us, but which cannot be valid for them. If they accept it, then they are no longer the makers of conscience but still its subjects, and their final conquest over Nature has not really happened. The preservation of the species? But why should the species be preserved? One of the questions before them is whether this feeling for posterity (they know well how it is produced) shall be continued or not. However far they go back, or down, they can find no ground to stand on. Every motive they try to act on becomes at once a petitio [“begging the question” or “assuming the conclusion”]. It is not that they are bad men. They are not men at all. Stepping outside the Tao, they have stepped into the void. Nor are their subjects necessarily unhappy men. They are not men at all: they are artefacts. Man’s final conquest has proved to be the abolition of Man. – The Abolition of Man (1943), C. S. Lewis.

 

AN EVOLUTIONARY HYMN
By Clive Staples Lewis

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future’s endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there’s always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we’re going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it’s god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature’s simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
‘Goodness = what comes next.’
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

 

The technological singularity is a hypothetical future point where human intelligence becomes intertwined with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine intelligence, leading to rapid and irreversible changes in human evolution. This concept suggests that AI could surpass human intelligence, potentially leading to a future where humans are augmented or replaced by machines. In essence, the technological singularity is a thought experiment about the potential future of human evolution in the face of rapidly advancing technology, particularly AI. 

Futurist Ray Kurzweil, for example, envisions a future where humans and computers become increasingly integrated, with computers acting as extensions of human minds, leading to a "human-machine synthesis". The idea of merging humans with technology aligns with transhumanism, a philosophical and cultural movement that seeks to enhance human capabilities through technology. The singularity raises significant questions about the future of humanity, including our relationship with technology, the meaning of consciousness, and the potential for both positive and negative consequences. – AI generated notes

 

“Rest enough for the individual man. Too much of it and too soon, and we call it death. But for MAN no rest and

no ending. He must go on--conquest beyond conquest. This

little planet and its winds and ways, and all the laws of

mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about

him, and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when

he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries

of time--still he will be beginning.” – The Shape of Things to Come, 1936, H. G. Wells.

 

In C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, Professor Weston is an example of a character who desperately desires a specific future, even though he doesn't truly understand or control the forces that will shape it. Weston is an atheistic evolutionist who believes in the constant expansion and migration of life across planets. 

Here's why Weston's desire for the future is significant:

• He is focused on the physical, material world:

Weston's view of the future is purely based on the idea of humanity surviving on different planets as Earth becomes uninhabitable. He doesn't consider the spiritual or moral implications of his actions. 

• He lacks true foresight:

While he envisions a future of multi-planetary human civilization, he doesn't account for the ultimate end of all planets, implying a lack of understanding about the limitations of his own ideas. 

• He prioritizes his own desires above the well-being of others:

Weston's desire to see his descendants thrive across different planets leads him to disregard the potential consequences of his actions and the suffering they could cause. 

• He represents a worldview that is ultimately unsustainable:

Weston's belief in constant physical migration and expansion is presented as a futile and ultimately harmful attempt to escape the inevitable. 

 

Sheldon: But seriously,  at best I have 60 years left.

Leonard: That long, huh?

Sheldon: 60 only takes me to here. I need to get to here.

Leonard: What’s there?

Sheldon: The earliest estimate of the singularity, when man will be able to transfer his consciousness into machines and achieve immortality.

Leonard: So, you’re upset about missing out on becoming some sort of freakish self-aware robot?

Sheldon: By this much.

Leonard: Tough break. You want eggs?

-         The Big Bang Theory

We have switched from a physical immortality goal to a goal of mental (or some ghost form of mind) immortality. Both beg the question of Why? or For what purpose?