Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Info-Mysticist is Not an RPG Character Class
It is after some extensive personal and academic reading that I feel the need to discuss this tonight, the idea of techgnosis, infomysticism, unity of identity, quest for self, quest for knowledge, the betterment of man, the next level, freedom of confinements, elightenment... call it what you will.
It's difficult to take utopia seriously. To most, utopia is something that seems completely impractical and naive, it isolates, it is unwanted. We are used to utopias as places of repressed or regulated social values and desires, strictly enforced for the higher good of the group. The invidiual's needs are made trifling, sinful, or wrong if brought up to be addressed or put before the group's needs. Usually, these kinds of utopias seem to be derived from the moral standards of one or a small group of individuals. Think of the Puritans, religious dissenters unhappy with their cultural environment, who left their native country to colonize here with the intent to better and isolate their own community, to denounce depravity and uphold moral purity.
We have all seen and read our share of books and movies where imposed utopias ultimately create dissent. Think of Brave New World, and 1984, and that one episode of Sliders where the quality of life is superb and things are great, except you have to participate in a lottery to be killed off. Other media explore what happens when a society strives to acheive a utopia that is eventually rejected and overthrown in favor of free will, as seen in The Matrix and Aeon Flux
These examples are ultimately anti-utopian. We will gladly bear our faults and vices however many times over if we can also keep our individualistic traits and freedoms. In the classic anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, a secret organization strives to force the "evolution of mankind" to the next stage through the Human Instrumentality Project, believing that the merging of all the human minds on earth into a single consciouness will bring about the end of human suffering. Ultimately, the decision of entering this new stage of human existance is left in the hands of a troubled 14-year-old boy. On the verge of choosing the Instrumentality, he rejects it, believing that humans must endure strife in order to understand how to better themselves.
The idea of uniting minds into a single entity, or striving towards a united consciouness is, of course, not something recently created by science-fiction authors. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French thinker who died in 1955, developed the techno-mystic concept of the Omega Point, "where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity," well before the advent of the internet. In 2006, only a solid decade has passed since the internet entered the household, and we have already begun to share massive amounts of information. We're capable of exchanging music, images, and text, all at once, to anyone and everyone who wants it. There is always an audience, even if we only ever see our own computer screens. The creation of art and expression of self requires much less effort than it ever did before. We are connecting to each other.
In many ways, it is this evolution through connection that can be considered the true utopian vision, where man can eventually cast away his mortal shell and exist purely as consciouness, or that man improves upon himself so much through technology that he becomes something more than a man. Transhumanists, for example, support the use of new technologies and sciences in an effort to enhance and eliminate perceived faults of the human condition, such as aging and disease. As the DC superhero, Static, explains to a befuddled Green Lantern when they encounter each other in an alternate future timeline, with the aid of medical technoloy, "sixty is the new thirty." Medical technology is already well invested in the quest to better man: bionic arms and hearts to replace missing or defective ones, nanomachines to repair injured soldiers on the battlefield, special printers that can weave tissue into specific organs... plastic surgery and colored contact lenses, quests for the isolation of "fat genes," the cure for cancer... We constantly desire to transcend our current boundaries.
In the science-fiction television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, technology has reached a point where, among other cybernetic enhancements, it is possible to install powerful computers directly into the brain, a process called neural augmentation. These devices, called cyberbrains, give a person "vastly increased memory capacity, total recall, as well as the ability to view his or her own memories on an external viewing device. Users can also initiate a "telepathic" conversation with one or more Cyberbrain users, just by thinking it." Most striking is the ability to temporarily switch or permanently transfer bodies. In fact, a main theme of Ghost in the Shell the movie involves the main character, Motoko Kusanagi's contemplation of her humanity. She is merely a cyberbrain in a cyborg body, and not even all of her brain matter is orignal anymore - what is it, then, that makes her human?
This question is perhaps the most poignant one regarding utopian visions. If we manage to eliminate disease and prevent aging, if we are able to integrate ourselves with computers so intimately that our consciousness can exist beyond a flesh and blood shell, what of our original humanity shall remain? More frightening is asking this question while considering the possible existence of intelligent or sentient machines, "artificial" beings that are capable of expressing emotion and posessing memories. In the dystopian film, Bladerunner, the main character, Rick Deckard, comes to question his own assumed humanity when he realizes one of his memories was obviously implanted by another person. Similarly, the character Rachel, a non-human replicant, believes herself human because she has memories of her childhood. Another replicant, fully aware of his nature, rebels against it, insisting that his posession of memories and desires makes his existence worthwhile.
Thinkers such as Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge predict that in the very near future the computational power of machines will increase so much that it will develop an intelligence greater than our own, and propel us into a technological singularity, the results of which can't even be imagined yet. Kurzweil, a transhumanist and futurist, perceives the singularity as another stage of the evolution and immortality of man:
This concept is what I believe to be true utopia as we envision it today, not a world where everything is perfectly regulated, perfectly happy, but a world where the state of human existance has been altered and transformed into something new. Though Kurzweil's Singularity has numerous critics and likewise numerous flaws in argument, we climb towards this reality with every passing day. The advances of medical technology, computing capabilities, and human integration with machine and internet are at once fantastic and mundane through its gradual introduction. We are well aware of the impact of previous inventions on society: steam-power, cars, telepgraphs, television, cellular phones... the list goes on - but nothing seems to compare to this newly developing stage, which is encompassing all aspects of our culture. We are becoming cyborgs without our realizing it, we have become cyborgs. The future seems scary, but only because it appears to be so fantastic. We forget how easily we adapt to something when it is gradually introduced. The transhumanist, techgnostic "utopia" might not be so far-fetched and frightening as we believe it will be, and maybe, one day, we'll reminisce on what it was like before the days of android-human civil rights and buying things with money.
Of course, this is all taking for granted that capitalist globalized governments and corporations won't take absolute control of all this fancy developing technology...
It's difficult to take utopia seriously. To most, utopia is something that seems completely impractical and naive, it isolates, it is unwanted. We are used to utopias as places of repressed or regulated social values and desires, strictly enforced for the higher good of the group. The invidiual's needs are made trifling, sinful, or wrong if brought up to be addressed or put before the group's needs. Usually, these kinds of utopias seem to be derived from the moral standards of one or a small group of individuals. Think of the Puritans, religious dissenters unhappy with their cultural environment, who left their native country to colonize here with the intent to better and isolate their own community, to denounce depravity and uphold moral purity.
We have all seen and read our share of books and movies where imposed utopias ultimately create dissent. Think of Brave New World, and 1984, and that one episode of Sliders where the quality of life is superb and things are great, except you have to participate in a lottery to be killed off. Other media explore what happens when a society strives to acheive a utopia that is eventually rejected and overthrown in favor of free will, as seen in The Matrix and Aeon Flux
These examples are ultimately anti-utopian. We will gladly bear our faults and vices however many times over if we can also keep our individualistic traits and freedoms. In the classic anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, a secret organization strives to force the "evolution of mankind" to the next stage through the Human Instrumentality Project, believing that the merging of all the human minds on earth into a single consciouness will bring about the end of human suffering. Ultimately, the decision of entering this new stage of human existance is left in the hands of a troubled 14-year-old boy. On the verge of choosing the Instrumentality, he rejects it, believing that humans must endure strife in order to understand how to better themselves.
The idea of uniting minds into a single entity, or striving towards a united consciouness is, of course, not something recently created by science-fiction authors. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French thinker who died in 1955, developed the techno-mystic concept of the Omega Point, "where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity," well before the advent of the internet. In 2006, only a solid decade has passed since the internet entered the household, and we have already begun to share massive amounts of information. We're capable of exchanging music, images, and text, all at once, to anyone and everyone who wants it. There is always an audience, even if we only ever see our own computer screens. The creation of art and expression of self requires much less effort than it ever did before. We are connecting to each other.
In many ways, it is this evolution through connection that can be considered the true utopian vision, where man can eventually cast away his mortal shell and exist purely as consciouness, or that man improves upon himself so much through technology that he becomes something more than a man. Transhumanists, for example, support the use of new technologies and sciences in an effort to enhance and eliminate perceived faults of the human condition, such as aging and disease. As the DC superhero, Static, explains to a befuddled Green Lantern when they encounter each other in an alternate future timeline, with the aid of medical technoloy, "sixty is the new thirty." Medical technology is already well invested in the quest to better man: bionic arms and hearts to replace missing or defective ones, nanomachines to repair injured soldiers on the battlefield, special printers that can weave tissue into specific organs... plastic surgery and colored contact lenses, quests for the isolation of "fat genes," the cure for cancer... We constantly desire to transcend our current boundaries.
In the science-fiction television series, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, technology has reached a point where, among other cybernetic enhancements, it is possible to install powerful computers directly into the brain, a process called neural augmentation. These devices, called cyberbrains, give a person "vastly increased memory capacity, total recall, as well as the ability to view his or her own memories on an external viewing device. Users can also initiate a "telepathic" conversation with one or more Cyberbrain users, just by thinking it." Most striking is the ability to temporarily switch or permanently transfer bodies. In fact, a main theme of Ghost in the Shell the movie involves the main character, Motoko Kusanagi's contemplation of her humanity. She is merely a cyberbrain in a cyborg body, and not even all of her brain matter is orignal anymore - what is it, then, that makes her human?
This question is perhaps the most poignant one regarding utopian visions. If we manage to eliminate disease and prevent aging, if we are able to integrate ourselves with computers so intimately that our consciousness can exist beyond a flesh and blood shell, what of our original humanity shall remain? More frightening is asking this question while considering the possible existence of intelligent or sentient machines, "artificial" beings that are capable of expressing emotion and posessing memories. In the dystopian film, Bladerunner, the main character, Rick Deckard, comes to question his own assumed humanity when he realizes one of his memories was obviously implanted by another person. Similarly, the character Rachel, a non-human replicant, believes herself human because she has memories of her childhood. Another replicant, fully aware of his nature, rebels against it, insisting that his posession of memories and desires makes his existence worthwhile.
Thinkers such as Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge predict that in the very near future the computational power of machines will increase so much that it will develop an intelligence greater than our own, and propel us into a technological singularity, the results of which can't even be imagined yet. Kurzweil, a transhumanist and futurist, perceives the singularity as another stage of the evolution and immortality of man:
"Raymond Kurzweil states his belief that the future of humanity is being determined by an exponential expansion of knowledge, and that the very rate of the change of this exponential growth is driving our collective destiny irrespective of our narrow sightedness, clinging archaisms, or fear of change. Our biological evolution, according to Kurzweil, is on the verge of being superseded by our technological evolution. An evolution conjoined of cogent biological manipulation with a possible emerging self-aware, self-organizing machine intelligence. The rate of the change of the exponential explosion of knowledge and technology not only envelops us, but it also irreversibly transforms us."
This concept is what I believe to be true utopia as we envision it today, not a world where everything is perfectly regulated, perfectly happy, but a world where the state of human existance has been altered and transformed into something new. Though Kurzweil's Singularity has numerous critics and likewise numerous flaws in argument, we climb towards this reality with every passing day. The advances of medical technology, computing capabilities, and human integration with machine and internet are at once fantastic and mundane through its gradual introduction. We are well aware of the impact of previous inventions on society: steam-power, cars, telepgraphs, television, cellular phones... the list goes on - but nothing seems to compare to this newly developing stage, which is encompassing all aspects of our culture. We are becoming cyborgs without our realizing it, we have become cyborgs. The future seems scary, but only because it appears to be so fantastic. We forget how easily we adapt to something when it is gradually introduced. The transhumanist, techgnostic "utopia" might not be so far-fetched and frightening as we believe it will be, and maybe, one day, we'll reminisce on what it was like before the days of android-human civil rights and buying things with money.
Of course, this is all taking for granted that capitalist globalized governments and corporations won't take absolute control of all this fancy developing technology...
// posted by Maggie @ 10:46 PM 
