Ray Kurzweil, meet Epictetus and Carl Sagan...
"The astronomer Carl Sagan, one of my scientific role models when I was a kid, invited us to reflect on the fact that we literally are stardust: the chemical elements of which we are made originated after the explosion of a supernova somewhere in the neighborhood of the solar system, and billions of years of evolution later such matter became the very molecules that constitute our bodies. It is a wonderful, awe-inspiring thought.
But the converse of that is what Epictetus is getting at: we will, again literally, return to dust, recycling our chemicals, allowing new living beings to take our place in the workings of the universe. It doesn’t matter whether those workings have a point or whether they are just what they are: either way, we came from cosmic dust and we will return to cosmic dust. If anything, this should make us even more appreciative of the infinitesimal interval, from a cosmic perspective, during which we are alive and we eat, drink, and love. Regret at the anticipation that this interval will end is not just irrational but entirely unhelpful.
And yet, some people are not persuaded of this at all. On the contrary, a number of techno-optimists think that death is a disease that should be cured, and they are investing good money in the effort. Broadly speaking, they call themselves “Transhumanists,” and quite a few of them can be found among the white male millionaires in Silicon Valley, where many of the world’s most influential tech companies are located.
Perhaps the most famous and influential of the bunch is Ray Kurzweil, a futurist (someone who thinks he can study and predict the future) currently working at Google to develop a software capable of understanding natural language. Kurzweil has a number of important achievements under his belt, including the development of the first omni-font optical character recognition system. Age sixty-eight at the time of this writing, he has been arguing for some time that the way to immortality will be to upload our consciousness into a computer, which he claims will be possible any day now. Indeed, we better manage that feat before the so-called Singularity, a term invented by the mathematician Stanisław Ulam to describe the moment when computers will outsmart people and begin to drive technological progress independently—and perhaps even in spite—of humanity itself.
This is not the place to explain why I think the whole idea of a Singularity is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of intelligence, or why “uploading” our consciousness to a computer is extremely unlikely to ever be possible, since consciousness is neither a thing nor a piece of software. Here I’m more interested in the chutzpah displayed by people like Kurzweil as well as by his almost cultlike following, who think of themselves as so important that they ought to, godlike, transcend the laws of nature itself, never mind the fact that they are spending inordinate amounts of money and energy that could be directed toward ameliorating actual, urgent problems the world faces right now, or the disastrous ethical and environmental consequences of their success (if it were possible).
Who, exactly, would have access to the new technology, and at what price? If we succeed in becoming physically immortal—the alternative to uploading hoped for by some Transhumanists—will we keep having children? If so, how would an already diseased planet sustain the thirst for natural resources of a population that grows so relentlessly and manage its ever-escalating production of waste products? Ah, but we will expand beyond Earth! We shall colonize other worlds! Never mind that we still don’t know of any other habitable worlds in the galaxy, or that we have no clue about how to get to them, if they’re out there.
The more I think about Transhumanism the more the word hubris, famously invented by the Greeks precisely for such thinking, seems awfully appropriate. The likes of Kurzweil simply don’t want to leave the party, it seems to me, no matter what the cost, and regardless of how privileged they have been while attending it. Which is why I imagine him having this conversation with Epictetus: “No, I wanted to go on feasting.” “Yes, those at the Mysteries too want to go on with the ceremony, and those at Olympia to see fresh competitors, but the festival is at an end. Leave it and depart, in a thankful and modest spirit; make room for others. Others must come into being, even as you did, and being born must have room and dwellings and necessaries. But if the first comers do not retire, what is left for them? Why will nothing satisfy or content you? Why do you crowd the world’s room?”"
"How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life" by Massimo Pigliucci: https://a.co/bIKCHBh
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