A Glorious Future

By John G. Messerly, Ph.D. | 21 December 2013
Reason and Meaning

(This article was reprinted as “Our Glorious Future” in Humanity+ Magazine, July 17, 2014)

While teaching courses in the computer science department at the University of Texas at Austin, I came to believe that 21st century technologies—especially nanotechnology, genetics, artificial intelligence and robotics—will transform reality. In the process humans will become post-human; that is, our descendants will evolve to resemble us about as much as we do the amino acids from which we sprang. Moreover humans and their post-human descendants will understand and control matter, life, and mind. I view these developments as part of cultural evolution which itself is a part of cosmic evolution, with both processes producing higher and more complex forms of life and mind.

However at the moment the above is science fiction and subject to trillions of variables. Contingent factors beyond our imagination will lead to some unimaginable future, or no future at all. Thus evolutionary progress is not inevitable, and in no way do our views entail technological optimism—technology can be used for good or ill. But even if our technology can lead to a glorious future, it could be halted by terrestrial or celestial disasters, or by dogmatists, zealots, religious fanatics, and others who oppose progress. The opponents may have legitimate fears about the repercussions of future technologies, but they may also be guided by ignorance and irrationality. They may long for a past paradise, fear what they don’t understand, believe they possess a monopoly on the truth, or think humans subservient to super beings. But for whatever reasons they oppose change, preferring stasis and stagnation to dynamic, progressive evolutionism. They prefer to prevent the groundswell of initiative, creativity, inventiveness, perseverance, and hope that drive evolution forward. They are fearful that the new world will render them and their beliefs, anachronistic. They are the enemies of the future.

But if the surge of cosmic longing presses forward, then higher forms of being and consciousness will emerge, and the universe will become increasingly self-consciousness. This is the story of cosmic evolution, of a universe becoming self-conscious through the creation of conscious beings. Humans are not an end, but a beginning. They need not fear imaginary gods, but need instead to have the courage to create minds more powerful than the gods. Let the dark ages not again descend upon us—let our most fantastic longings be realized. Let us have faith in the future.

Reprinted with permission from the author.

John G. Messerly received his PhD in philosophy in 1992. He has taught at St. Louis University and The University of Texas at Austin. He is currently an Affiliated member of the Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity Group localized at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, and an Affiliate Scholar of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

"The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Transhumanist, and Scientific Perspectives" by John G. Messerly. https://t.co/QbFX4MIC9f pic.twitter.com/qsrrXGLyby
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) March 7, 2018