John C. Haughey Ilia Delio

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Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series VIII, Christian Philosophical Studies, Volume 6 General Editor George F. McLean

Humanity on the Threshold Religious Perspectives on Transhumanism

Christian Philosophical Studies, VI

Edited by John C. Haughey Ilia Delio

Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Humanity on the threshold : religious perspectives on transhumanism / edited by John C. Haughey, Ilia Delio -- first [edition]. pages cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series VIII, Christian philosophical studies ; Volume 6)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Humanism, Religious. 2. Theological anthropology. 3. Technology-- Religious aspects. I. Haughey, John C., editor of compilation.

BL2747.6.H87 2013 2013034662 202'.2--dc23 CIP

ISBN 978-1-56518-288-2 (pbk.) TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface v George F. McLean Introduction: Are We Aspiring to “Matters beyond Our Scope?” 1 John C. Haughey

Part I. Transhumanism

Chapter I. “Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe” 7 John F. Haught Chapter II. Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 21 Ana Bazac Chapter III. “Transhumanism Critically Assessed” 41 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’Ambrosio

Part II. The Human in Transhumanism

Chapter IV. “Human Betterment: A Case Analysis” 63 Kevin Fitzgerald Chapter V. “Teilhard de Chardin’s Ultrahumanist Worldview” 77 Ilia Delio Chapter VI. “Putting the Human into Transhumanism” 97 Howard Gray

Part III. Human Practice and New Creation

Chapter VII. “A Preferential Option for the Earth” 113 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck Chapter VIII. “A Necessary Entanglement: SpaceTime and Afterlife” 127 John C. Haughey Afterword 151 Ilia Delio

Appendices Notes on a Seminar on Transhumanism with Jürgen Habermas 155 George F. McLean Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 159

Contributors 191 Index 195

PREFACE

GEORGE F. McLEAN

The project on “Faith in a Secular Age” began with two research teams. The first team studied “Humanity on the Threshold: Religious Perspectives on Transhumanism,” It met some five times for the determination and extended discussion of its theme; the verbatim extends to some 125 single-spaced pages. It is indeed a unique instance of coordinated, in-depth theological discussion of one of great developments of our times, namely, the effects of science and technology on the understanding of our very nature as human persons. Hence it would seem truncated to present this report without some account and extended sample of the team’s deliberations. Indeed, the central concern of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP) has always been the promotion of in-depth work in philosophy and its relation to all modes of human experience and understanding. The following is then an attempt not only briefly to indicate the direction of the deliberations, but to present a substantive sample of the deliberations carried out by such a research team in action. In this case the first and second of the five meetings consisted in developing a list of the concerns which the team brought to their discussion of transhumanism. This was taken especially as an understanding that technology had the capability and was in the process of pushing humanity against the borders of its nature as hitherto understood. Somewhat counter intuitively it was noted that as technology depended on science as abstractive and reductive it focused attention on a relatively narrow range of reality. Hence, it would be important for the team to situate its efforts in a broader and wider context. This was marked by a number of characteristics: the inner emergent and dynamic, the creativity of desire; and the uniqueness and social character of freedom, all of which should evoke a reverence for human nature. In this light a number of pairs emerged in need of reconciliation: mind and body, freedom and control, ethics and ontology, midwifing and creation. By the third meeting – the verbatim of which alone reaches 50 pages – it became clear that not only had each of the participants chosen to address a distinctive part of the issue but that each approached their work with a related but yet distinctive concern in mind. This gave promise of the broad yet subtle range of vision exemplified in their papers. Moreover, for actually experiencing the discussions – to be as it were present in them – we are in the unique situation of having a vi George F. McLean complete verbatim of the whole series of meetings. If printed it would constitute an entire book in its own right, but as part of the present volume it is feasible to reprint only a few edited selections. Included here are not only a summary of the session with Jürgen Habermas but the verbatim of the team’s discussion of three specific issues. The first is the basic material character of human life; the second is whether, in what sense and to what degree the transhuman is a desirable objective for humankind. What appeared here is that, while transhumanism is generally developed on a reductively materialist and scientific basis, this team would see a vast fund of meaning over and above that confine. This was suggested by the above list of insights, factors and concerns which emerged in the first two meetings marked especially by the inner dynamic and uniqueness of freedom. Hence, the discussion of whether and in what terms a materialist transhumanism might or might not be a desirable goal was followed by a third exploration of an explicitly transcendent, spiritual dimension of the meaning and exercise of human life. It thereby engages the issue of humanness as a whole, rather than as a disjunction of matter and spirit. This issue is central to the present irenic efforts to find the human value of the secular. All three of these discussions are presented in an appendix in a form only slightly edited for purposes of literary expression. This provides a truly unique opportunity to observe theology as a process – indeed as a struggle – and thereby to take part in the very act of theological discovery through dialogue. It constitutes a great learning tool enabling one to observe how scientific, social, spiritual, etc., concerns shape theology and conversely how the sacred texts inspire and guide social life in a secular age. After this the team returned for two additional sessions in which they sought a unifying focus for the project as a whole. Candidates for this were: value, person, prayer, unity, evolution vs technology, culture, difference vis a vis community, autonomy vis a vis authority, affectivity, and the trilogy of vitality, subjectivity and creativity, to which was added beauty. Throughout there was a explicit desire not to eliminate, bypass or transcend the human as understood by science and further implemented by technology, but to deepen and enrich the human with an emphasis upon its continuity and deepening evolution and enrichment. In this light the work provides a truly positive reading of transhumanism. INTRODUCTION

ARE WE ASPIRING TO “MATTERS BEYOND OUR SCOPE”?

JOHN C. HAUGHEY

When one goes to the doctor it’s not surprising to find out that a new version of our old pill has been developed. Pharmacology is not standing still. And when we open the newspaper it’s not surprising to find a new generation of software or hardware being advertised making yesterday’s purchase seem as wise as having bought a covered wagon. Technology and the sciences have been hard at work even while we sleep, it seems. We are all the better for this inventiveness and innovation. A new industry has grown alongside of these breakthroughs. It is a naming industry which has few authors, but many subscribers, maybe most of us. Though it does not have a name, describing it goes something like this: we are getting beyond our limitations by our own hands; we are seeking immortality immanently. This industry leads us to believe that it is only a matter of time before technology or science will overcome the present obstacles to our well-being. Presumably we all experience the promise which deeper scientific probes and further developments in technology are delivering now or soon will. The expectations generated by these kinds of breakthroughs were behind the establishment of an international organization in 1998, called The World Transhumanist Association (WTA). Since then it has evolved somewhat both organizationally and in its nomenclature but it retains its enthusiasm about the enhancements of the conditions of human life. The secularity of its ethos is unmistakable. The spokespersons for this transhumanist ethos are few. But some of them scale their expectations about human prowess so high that they expect religion will become passé, since science and technology are beginning to deliver the goods that the faiths have believed only God can. One of the most exuberant of transhumanism’s voices is Ray Kurzweil’s. His utopia expects that the human mind has a destiny of super-intelligence through uploading by means of electronic neuroprosthesis. Our neurons, he believes, will be enhanced exponentially by a conversion into machine minds. For example, his 2005 book: The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Penguin Press). Another authoritative voice is the founder of the WTA, Nick Bostrom. This Oxford philosopher is enthusiastic about the 2 John C. Haughey potential perfectibility of humans. He is sure that genetic engineering will bring us much further than we have imagined. Further intervention into the ageing process, for example, is within reach. One of the best sources to tune in on the conversations going on about transhumanism is the electronic Journal of Evolution and Technology. There is an ambiguity about transhumanism, not in its aspirations but in how it expects them to be delivered. What is beyond our scope and what is within it? The image of the tree of knowledge in the middle of the Garden of Eden comes to mind. There were any number of trees for Adam and Eve to eat from but only one which was not to be eaten, implying that we are relatively autonomous but not absolutely so. We are to cultivate the Garden so that our well-being is possible but dominion over our mortality is a matter beyond our scope. Over the course of the last two years the authors of the chapters in this volume have gathered a number of times to mull over where we are about this topic of transhumanism. In general we were trying to map the terrain between what is humanly doable and knowable,and what is humanly beyond us. Are we trying to construct a new tower of Babel, or are we just beginning to live up to the challenge latent in our genes? To be human, collectively and individually, is to be vectored towards a more, a “magis”, a tomorrow that just has to be better than yesterday. To help us get there, there are the promises of the natural sciences and the breakthroughs of technology. Transhumanism which is the gathering point of the essays in this volume is an anthropologically descriptive category but, of itself, it is normless. So it can be easily arrogated to convey the belief that it is only a matter of time before the natural sciences and developing technologies will deliver on the promises the religions have been holding up to us since time immemorial. Those who call themselves transhumanists as well as all who are inadvertently of the same mind are an amorphous group. We, the authors of this volume, are indebted to them because their aspirations have helped us to differentiate two different kinds of transhumanism, one whose scope is wholly immanent and non-theistic and the other which is both immanent and transcendent. These essays have a theological bias without at the same time being an apologetics. While they combine a profound respect for the developments humanity has achieved and its further aspirations, they do not expect that even at our best we will be able to deliver the kingdom of God or an acceptable facsimile thereof. Our bias is that neither autonomy nor secularity by themselves will suffice or be satisfied or satisfying. A transhumanism, on the other hand, which looks for a good beyond what our scientific and technological prowess can achieve can help us to both enhance our condition and take the measure of our Are We Aspiring to “Matters Beyond Our Scope”? 3 limitations. Try as we might we will not be able to produce the immortality we seek. One of the happier moments of our very interesting project was a day spent with Jürgen Habermas, who deserves the reputation of being one of Europe’s reigning “public intellectuals”. He read with interest our chapters in manuscript form and chose to bring his well-known methodological agnosticism to bear not on what we wrote but on transhumanist aspirations themselves. He wondered whether the actual and promised enhancements that are in the works (in general, what he called “eugenics”) might be jeopardizing something as foundational as how we human beings have come to understand the meaning of our lives. Habermas was as challenged by some of the vistas transhumanism envisions as we who are the authors of this volume have been. He wondered whether the challenge of those vistas is putting “man” on the brink of losing his self-authorship by blurring the lines between life and an-organic matter. More concretely, whether the human “path to salvation” is going to be eventually attained through biotechnological interventions. The alternative is to stay the course which the religions of the first axial age mapped out even though they gradually came to see the mythical for what it was. A sense of the chapters: The first and the last chapters of this volume operate like book ends. In the first, John Haught sets transhumanism in a theological context by viewing the universe in an anticipatory way. He elaborates on how the biblical motifs of promise and liberation “provide fertile constraints within which any future technological transformation of human persons and our planetary habitat may be carried out.” The next two chapters, 2 and 3, bore down on transhumanism analytically in different ways. Gennaro Auletta weighs the pluses and minuses of its trajectory. Transplants and their integration, genetics and computer view of the mind/brain, culture and the canalizing of personhood are some of the issues he and his two colleagues at the Gregorian University in Rome weigh in on. Kevin Fitzgerald’s essay gets even more particular. His case study peeks under the disparities in the world views people have of what “betterment” means. His study reflects on the tensions that developed between the worldview of the Native American tribe who live near the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai, in contrast to the way the team of scholars from Arizona State University understood what constitutes the enhancement they were trying to bring about for them. Whose betterment is better? Chapters 4 and 5 have a connection to one another and to the volume’s topic. Ilia Delio’s spells out a transhumanist world view the 4 John C. Haughey parameters of which are as cosmic as the Christian faith can go. It is the world view of Teilhard de Chardin, a 20th century visionary whose ideas remain remarkable. They are still being fruitfully plumbed by her and by many others. Howard Gray does two things in his chapter. One is he brings to light the way Ignatius Loyola would have addressed transhumanism, that is by supplying a method whereby a person can be enlightened about themselves by petitioning for the graces he believed God would give one. But he introduces this method by reflecting on four universal human experiences of self-transcendence: hospitality, friendship, suffering and reorientation. Chapters 6 and 7 also have a consonance. Nancy Tuchman and Michael Schuck’s piece looks at how we humans have been affecting our planet, negatively. But they are not content to simply be exasperated by our anthropocentrism. They have been reversing the direction by a number of concrete practices that describe how in one place, Loyola University Chicago, is educating students to think and act in a way that makes a “preferential option for the earth”. My own chapter is interested in the changed understanding we humans have come to in 20th century physics about space and time. As a result of these new insights into the parameters in which we live, the chapter goes back to our traditional understandings about the after-life to see how the new physics might have us revisit some of the scriptural symbols that have conveyed after-life and see it in a new light. Finally, there is an afterword done by my colleague and this volume’s co-editor, Ilia Delio, O.S.F. This volume was undertaken as a first step of the project of The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP) on “Faith in a Secular Age”, designed with Charles Taylor. Subsequent volumes concern both the socio-political order and the emerging disjunctions between Church and people. Grateful acknowledgment is extended for the support received through the RVP from the H. and L. Bradley Foundation and the Raskob Foundation. I also wish to thank Anthony Brenninkmeyer and the Cushman Foundation for their support of Woodstock's Science and Theology project for the last couple of years. Enormous gratitude is due the authors who undertook their careful work with generosity and without compensation. It is also due to the wonderful staff at Woodstock who are used to catching falling stars and putting them in the basket of publications. I am especially grateful to Ginny Novak without whose labors this manuscript would not have come to birth in this book. PART I

TRANSHUMANISM

CHAPTER I

TRANSHUMANISM AND THE ANTICIPATORY UNIVERSE

JOHN F. HAUGHT

Not all directions are good for our advance: one alone leads upward, that which through increasing organization leads to greater synthesis and unity. Here we part company with the wholehearted individualists, the egoists who seek to grow by excluding or diminishing their fellows, individually, nationally or racially. Life moves towards unification. Our hope can only be realized if it finds its expression in greater cohesion and greater human solidarity. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin1

Technological expertise is on the brink of reshaping the human world and its environment more dramatically than ever before. Current scientific developments and expectations in the fields of genetics, robotics, nanotechnology, information science, artificial intelligence, evolutionary biology and neuroscience are raising unprecedented ethical and theological questions.2 How far may those who have control of the emerging technologies go in transforming human beings, and indeed the whole of terrestrial life, in the future? How far may they go, both practically and morally, in altering what Christians have for centuries understood to be God’s creation? New scientific ideas and techniques are opening up the prospect of radically tailoring not only what it means to be human, but also what it means to be part of the natural world. Will new technologies eventually take us to a point where no clearly defined human nature, at least as known by earlier generations, any longer exists? In evolutionary terms will there come a point where a sharply delineated “human species” will be supplanted by something quite different? After Darwin the notion of any clearly distinct “species” has already become quite suspect, especially now that evolution has come to be understood as the flow of populations of genes from one generation to the next. New

1 Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, trans. Norman Denny (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 75. 2 Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies – and What It Means to Be Human (New York: Doubleday), 2005. 8 John F. Haught discoveries related to the human genome have already apparently made it possible to reconfigure radically our inherited bodily forms and behavioral inclinations, perhaps eventually transforming the entire species, into a shape now unpredictable. Sensitive artists, dramatists, philosophers, ethicists and theologians are now envisaging a wide spectrum of possible outcomes, many of them intriguing, many others potentially monstrous. My contribution to this topic is to explore the possible contribution Christian theology might make to the building of a worldview appropriate to any future application of the emerging new technologies. Since Christians make up a large percentage of the world’s population, it is important to ask whether their visions of the future are able to accommodate or instruct the purveyors of transhumanism in a significant way. I argue here that Christian faith and its rich traditions, especially the biblical motifs of divine promise and liberation, can provide fertile constraints within which any future technological transformation of human persons and our planetary habitat may be carried out. A continually more nuanced scientific understanding of the subatomic world, the manipulability of genes, the plasticity of brains, the rules of evolutionary change, and a host of other scientific insights now provides homo faber with a nearly irresistible opportunity to revamp everything in our world radically, including ourselves. But should we do so, and, if so, how far may we go? To ignore this concern would be irresponsible theologically since the future of human existence and creation itself is at stake. Theologically speaking, how may those informed by Christian tradition interpret transhumanism within the context of a biblically based worldview. Obviously we cannot expect from the Bible a specific or detailed set of ethical directives by which to orient future technological experiments. However, I take it as axiomatic, at least for Christians, that the biblical theme of justice, along with Christian hope for the ultimate liberation and fulfillment of creation will inform theological attempts to understand and respond to transhumanist adventures.

THE NEED FOR A COSMIC PERSPECTIVE

Without attempting here the unprecedented work of developing a thoroughgoing theology of transhumanism, I would at least want to emphasize, along with many environmentally sensitive people today, that an excessively anthropocentric preoccupation with technology’s implications for humanity’s future and for the meaning of personality is ecologically inappropriate. In other words, it is essential that theology ask what the implications of transhumanism are not just for Earth, but also for the future of the universe. As a result of developments in Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe 9 science, educated people now realize that the human drama on planet Earth is a recent episode in a much larger cosmic journey. New scientific awareness of evolution, geology and cosmology suggests that the human story is one of many emergent chapters in the larger journey of the universe. Consequently, questions about the human future are inseparable from a concern about the universe and its own destiny. A circumspect theological treatment of the possible outcomes of transhumanist adventures, therefore, needs to keep in view the ongoing story of life and the still uncertain future of the universe itself. Unlike our religious ancestors, we now realize that we live in a world that is still coming into being. The fourteen billion year old cosmic drama recently laid bare by astronomy, astrophysics, geology, biology and other sciences is almost certainly far from finished. Christian theology, it bears repeating, needs to place its questions about transhumanist projects within the unfolding of this yet unfinished universe. The enormous amount of time that has transpired since the Big Bang may, for all we know, turn out in the long run to have been only the dawn of the universe’s coming into being. This cosmic perspective means that theology must ask what specific role humans may now have in the process of bringing the world to the fulfillment promised by biblical tradition. Christians are not accustomed to thinking about the long-range future of the universe. Early Christians expected an imminent end to terrestrial existence, and our subsequent theologies and eschatologies have usually been so otherworldly and even escapist that the physical universe has seemed to be superfluous in the final scheme of divine creation. However, we can still take from the New Testament its imperative to make this world ready for the coming of God.3 What Christianity is about, when viewed in terms of the New Testament vision of reality, is not the forsaking of Earth and the universe, but preparing our habitat for the coming of God. This process of cosmic transformation begins with our own metanoia, that is, our own self-transformation, along with that of our ecclesial, social and political communities, in expectation of the parousia. Because of our ties to life’s evolution and the universe’s emergent development, our own human transformation involves the liberation of matter and the whole of life along with us. The authentic life of faith consists of expecting that God’s promises for the world will be fulfilled, as entailed for example in Luke’s portrait of Mary as the paradigm of faith. In the light of science, however, we realize more fully than ever that Christian expectation applies to the whole scheme of things, and not just to humanity and its future. Ever since Darwin and Einstein the

3 See, for example, N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008). 10 John F. Haught linkage of humanity to the long struggle of life and to the even longer drama of cosmic process has become so fully substantiated that it no longer makes sense for theology to separate God’s promise of renewal and ultimate human liberation from questions about cosmic destiny. The inclusive Christian call to personal, terrestrial and cosmic transformation in anticipation of God’s coming, I suggest, must be the starting point of any truly contemporary theology of transhumanism. Now that science itself has demonstrated our seamless connection to the whole cosmic story, any transhumanist project must be subjected to a critical investigation concerning what it might mean for the Earth’s future along with that of the whole cosmos. Is it not the case that the newly emergent opportunities for technological change on earth are now placing the universe itself on the verge of undergoing an explosive new chapter in its own dramatic unfolding? It is now axiomatic among scientifically educated people that human history is not the whole show, and that the story of the universe itself may turn out to be one in which the human period on earth will eventually have been relegated to the status of a transitional chapter. In the remote cosmic future, we must ask, will human history appear to be anything more than an ephemeral crossing-over to more fascinating episodes in an enormously inventive cosmic drama whose final outcome is currently unknown? It is not wild imagination, I believe, but the spirit of Christian hope and love that awakens this question today. What role will impending technological adventures have for what we now realize to be the long cosmic epic (one that occurs perhaps alongside a large plurality of other universes than our own)? As we wait “in joyful hope” for the coming of God’s kingdom, in what specific ways should theology understand and evaluate current and future attempts to shape or redirect the evolution of life and nature as we know them now? Let us look at three possible theological responses to these questions.

THREE THEOLOGICAL OPTIONS

One reaction by theology to transhumanism is to demonize from the very outset any dramatic changes to the natural status quo. Knowing how to change humanity and nature technologically is not enough to justify doing so morally. The risks are too great. The precautionary principle is surely applicable here if anywhere. This first approach’s reluctance to implement transhumanist dreams arises from a laudable sense of the intrinsic value of nature, life and persons. Many devout Christians and members of other religious traditions – including especially those of native peoples – are opposed to any radical disturbance of nature. Altering natural processes is permitted only when required for human survival and when sustainability is Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe 11 guaranteed. At its best, this approach could be called sacramental. It values “creation” for the simple reason that nature’s most valued elements – clean water and fresh air, bright sunshine, the fertility of soil and the extravagance of life – are revelatory of God. It is because of nature’s transparency to the divine that Christian sacramentalism relies on various facets of matter and life to symbolize how God influences and energizes human lives. Nature has always mediated the divine to those rightly disposed. So, religiously speaking, why would we want to make major adjustments to the natural world at all, especially if such alteration risks the destruction or the impairment of a universe which, despite our lack of gratitude, has already been so extravagantly generous a gift? If we lose nature, says the Catholic environmentalist Fr. Thomas Berry, we also lose God.4 Sacramentalists such as Berry are especially aware of the environmental disasters that have accompanied the Industrial Revolution, nuclear technology, the deployment of complex and expensive modern weaponry, energy-wasting transportation and countless other modern inventions. Science has made technology possible, but with such inventiveness comes enormous environmental waste and other calamitous results. Consequently, sacramentalists will be extremely wary of transhumanist projects. Scientific knowledge, at least as it has been applied so far in modern times, has had many positive outcomes, but it has also made possible the engineering and extermination of millions of human beings and the ruination of immense swaths of our planet’s ecosystems. Space technology is now spreading its waste over the heavens as well. The sacramentalist, therefore, wonders whether the gains of scientific technology really outweigh the horrors that the same technology portends. Would not it be especially naïve on our part, therefore, to suppose that transhumanist technology would be able to avoid an unprecedented abuse of persons and their natural settings. At the present time in human and cosmic history is it pragmatically prudent, religiously fitting or morally appropriate to undertake dramatic changes to God’s creation? Ethically speaking, does not a sacramental sense of nature require conservation rather than transformation? And religiously speaking, would not a radical alteration of life and humanity make nature more opaque to transcendent mystery than ever before? Would not transhumanism eventually obscure rather

4 This is a constant theme in the writings of Thomas Berry. See especially his Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988); see also my critique of Berry in The Promise of Nature (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 104-06. 12 John F. Haught than reveal the sacred mystery that religions take to be the ultimate environment of all finite being? A second theological response to transhumanist proposals would claim that the sacramental alternative is unnecessarily cautious, insufficiently open to the full liberation of life, and too indifferent to the inherent openness of our unfinished universe to new creation.5 A pure sacramentalism fails to realize that if transformation is essential to human existence it is also essential to the natural world with which our existence is interwoven. In spite of its claim to cherish and revere the natural world in the face of scientifically enabled technologies, the sacramentalist’s reserve is ironically unnatural itself. Is not transforming our environments along with ourselves essential to the very definition of human being? Are we so unlike other animals that we are obliged to keep our hands off of the physical universe altogether? How softly must we “tread upon the earth” without diminishing our human potential? After all, even most nonhuman species have to transform their own environments to make them livable. Spiders weave webs, and beavers build dams. Environmental habitats are not just “out there” to be filled in or adapted to, but they are in some measure products of their inhabitants’ co-creativity and co-evolution. If it is natural for animals to alter their natural settings, should not it be all the more so for ourselves? Humans, quite naturally, survive and thrive only because of their capacity to change their environments artificially. Who then is to say where a transhumanist extension of our creative instincts must start or stop? Who is authorized to lay down fixed boundaries where human inventiveness must cease and people must settle down passively into eternally established routines. Are we directed to be so fearful of the future, and so suppressive of what seems to be to our native tendency to change ourselves and bring new things into existence? Let us refer to this second theological approach as activism. An activist theology seeks to take advantage of our new understanding of the fact that life is a still unfolding drama, that the cosmos is a work in progress, and that humanity’s vocation is one of extending the creative process into an indeterminate future. Is it necessarily the case that this more aggressive approach, when applied to the topic of transhumanism, will be contrary to religious reverence for nature and incompatible with a coherent theological vision of creation? Would not it be a violation of human nature and dignity, as well as an irresponsible abandonment of our vocation before God, to suppress our creative capacities in the way a pure sacramentalism seems to demand?

5 Here I have in mind, for example, some tendencies in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. However, I do not wish to imply that Teilhard is a perfect exemplar of this second type. Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe 13

A theological activist would claim that the relatively new technologies of late modernity are not unambiguously evil. Rather, they are essential to bringing “more being” into the evolving drama of life and the cosmic epic.6 Realistically, we must expect new experiments occasionally to go awry. Even though offshore oilrigs may sometimes blow up, kill workers and contaminate our seas, does this mean we have to stop drilling oil offshore altogether? Are not there always tradeoffs when technology tries out new experiments? In a way, is not that life? In biological history a risk of temporary chaos accompanies every increase in emergent complexity, but does this mean that no experiments and risks should be taken at all? If nature had not previously allowed for blind alleys and dead ends in its evolution, matter could never have reached the point of complexity that allowed for the eventual emergence of living and thinking beings. Is not it possible that the universe has other such risky, dramatically creative chapters in reserve? If so, is not now the appropriate time to begin experimenting with transhumanist opportunities? In spite of possible dangers and even disasters, so says our typical activist, Christians should still not remain opposed to new experimentation, including even the transformation of our species into something quite different from the present biological and anthropological status quo. Why should we not assume that the universe has in reserve abundant creative potential, and that the natural urge of human beings to create must be allowed to express itself for the sake of maintaining an essential feature of our own sense of cosmic continuity and human dignity? Is not it conceivable that the Spirit of God and God’s vision of new creation sponsor the complicity of human beings in renewing the face of the Earth not just by conservation but also by reasonable invention and prudent intervention? We seem to be torn, then, between a sacramental quietism on the one hand and an impiously assertive adventurism on the other. The specter of transhumanism brings back before us the never fully resolved theological conflict between Pelagians, those who rely on human effort and activism, and quietists, those who are content simply to receive the world as a gift and leave it at that. Is there perhaps a third theological alternative, one that avoids the extremes of both proposals just outlined, while remaining true to the biblical themes of promise and liberation (including especially the theme of prophetic justice) and to the crucial Christian affirmation of the dignity of human persons? Here I shall

6 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin often talks about evolution as a process of creating “more being”: Activation of Energy, trans. René Hague (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970), 231-43; and How I Believe, trans. René Hague (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 42. 14 John F. Haught outline such a proposal, one that for lack of a better name I call promissory. According to this third perspective, it is not only possible but also obligatory for Christian theology to support the natural instincts of human beings to participate in the ongoing creation of the universe of which they are a part. However, this involvement must be carried out within the context of constraints such as those I list below. Theology is faithful to its biblical roots as well as to evolutionary biology, cosmology and other sciences whenever it fosters the responsible but always prayerful exercise of human creativity. To be “responsible and prayerful” means to be concerned that all future creativity adhere – in an analogous way at each new stage – to the general format by which “more being” has already been emerging in the drama of life in the universe. To be more specific, I believe there are (at least) three inviolable rules of life, or evolutionary criteria, that any enhancement of God’s creation by human beings must follow as a condition of appropriate future transformation.

1. Concern for an intensification, rather than diminishment or endangerment, of vitality. Life must increase rather than decrease. If it fails to increase (become more) it stagnates and dies. In order to understand what true vitality means, however, we need first to ask how living beings differ from nonliving. Here I believe it is helpful to understand, at least as a starting point, what the philosopher Michael Polanyi calls the “logic of achievement” as the quality that makes life special. Living beings, Polanyi notes, are defined by their capacity to strive.7 Striving is what sets them apart ontologically from lifeless and mindless kinds of being. Intuitively we all experience living beings as distinctly alive primarily because we tacitly recognize their capacity to try, and hence the possibility of their either succeeding or failing in their endeavors. Evolutionists implicitly recognize the “conative” or striving character of life whenever they talk about the “struggle to exist.” They would not use such terms as striving or struggling when referring to inanimate objects or processes. Physical and chemical processes taken alone do not strive but instead adhere to deterministic routines blindly and unfeelingly. On the other hand, precisely because living beings are capable of striving (even if only to stay alive), their mode of existence is irreducible to the mechanical determinism operative in subsidiary

7 Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1967); “Life’s Irreducible Structure,” in Knowing and Being, ed. Marjorie Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1969) 225-39. Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe 15 physical and chemical processes. Whether the striving that goes on in living organisms is that of a parasite searching for nourishment, a reptile seeking its prey, or a human being reading books in quest of the meaning of life, in any of its countless manifestations vitality means, at the very least, the capacity to strive. So there is clearly a duality (not dualism) of ways of being in the universe, and it is remarkable that living beings, by virtue of their capacity to strive, stand out so distinctly from their inanimate backdrop. As far as transhumanism is concerned, therefore, the question is whether the capacity to strive, that is, to follow the logic of achievement, will continue to remain an essential aspect of the universe. Will vitality still be an actuality in future transformed modes of terrestrial and cosmic reality or will everything be subject to complete mechanical control, human scheming, or computational algorithms? In other words, will the need to strive, an essential attribute of vitality (as well as of moral and religious existence), survive the possible transformations to come. The transhumanist project is itself an instance of human striving in accordance with the logic of achievement, but the more formally transhumanist projects reduce life and intelligence to inanimate mechanical processes – which is the goal of much contemporary biology and cognitive science – the more likely is the expulsion of vitality from the sphere of being. To the extent that nanotechnology and cognitive sciences realize the goal of artificializing life and intelligence, the more serious becomes the question of whether vitality can survive such a transformation. The more we seek to replace striving beings with entities that do not function according to the logic of achievement – and this includes the whole sphere of artificial life and intelligence – the more urgent becomes our concern about the survival of life into the indefinite future. As of now, it is hard to imagine how even the most complex and sophisticated future technologies will possess the attribute of centered striving essential to living beings as we know them now. Polanyi rightly insists that it is “personal knowledge” rather than the impersonal methods of science that allow human beings to recognize the domain of vitality in the first place.8 The very fact that academicians have set departments of biology administratively apart from those of physics and chemistry is ultimately due to a tacit acknowledgement that all living beings share with us humans the trait of striving. Only because we humans, as personal organisms, are striving beings (examples of which are our longing to understand, our desiring to know, and our struggle to find out what is good) are we able to recognize intuitively the trait of striving that makes other related beings instances of vitality.

8 Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964). 16 John F. Haught

My point then is that it has not yet been demonstrated how any artifact or technological product could itself be alive – and hence contribute to the increase of vitality on our planet – even though technologies will probably continue instrumentally to assist and expand our personal struggles for knowledge, power or whatever. We can imagine all sorts of ways in which new technologies may amplify and improve human endeavor (striving), but will robots or other sophisticated inventions ever become centers of striving themselves? In what way will transhumanists intensify rather than diminish vitality in the cosmos? As far as I know there has so far been little if any consideration by transhumanists of the logic of achievement essential to all instances of vitality. As of now it is difficult to imagine how the centered striving that defines our own vitality could ever become implanted into artifacts. Since humans share with other living beings the trait of striving and, along with it, the possibility of tragic defeat, will a transhumanist world still have beings that possess the capacity for tragedy that accompanies life’s defeats? Will they be capable of hope, a power essential to the enkindling of further striving? Human and nonhuman modes of life are bound together in a poignant common effort. All living beings are part of an anticipatory universe that has so far, at least when surveyed over the long run, been intent upon bringing about “more being.” But if the transhumanist world is one that will have left behind the capacity to strive, exchanging for it technologically engineered projects operating only in accordance with mechanically or chemically deterministic processes, will that be an enhancement in the story of life? Or, instead, would it not itself amount to a great terrestrial and cosmic tragedy?

2. An increase in the intensity of subjectivity. Reflection on the fact of striving leads us to posit in each living being at least a minimum of centeredness, interiority, or what we may refer to as subjectivity. An undeniable trend in the universe’s evolution so far has been that of bringing about a gradual increase in sentience, perceptivity, consciousness, and – at least in human beings – self-awareness, moral aspiration, freedom, the longing for love, and other qualities of inner experience. All vital striving must have a subjective center in which the experience of trying, succeeding or failing is registered. Otherwise, living beings would be indistinguishable from physical processes that do not strive or feel in any sense. The center of striving in each living being lies in the ontological domain of subjectivity, an immediately palpable but unobjectifiable reality. Each subjective center by definition eludes the objectifying methods of modern science and engineering. At present, transhumanist idealization of future forms of intelligence ironically leaves out any considerations of the domain of subjectivity whose Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe 17 attentiveness to the data of experience, whose striving for insight, and whose desire to know comprise the core of all human cognition. Since scientific method can deal only with what is impersonal and objectifiable, it has no direct access to interiority, withinness, centeredness or subjectivity. Nevertheless, every subject and every mental event is no less part of the natural world than rocks and rivers, and so we cannot expect to understand what nature is really all about unless we take into account the fact of subjective experience. To take subjectivity adequately into account, therefore, we need to practice a wider form of empiricism than conventional science utilizes. We have to employ a “wider empiricism,” or what Bernard Lonergan refers to as “generalized empirical method” in order to understand the real world. This wider kind of empiricism insists on exploring the knower’s own intelligent subjectivity as indispensable to understanding the natural world comprehensively.9 Transhumanist projections, like other dreams of scientists and engineers, are still usually conceived narrowly in terms of the modern picture of a world without subjects – that is, the world as conceived of by modernity since Descartes.10 In contrast to modernity’s world without subjects, true empiricists must not push their own or anyone else’s subjectivity – or for that matter the subjectivity of any sentient being – out of sight. Unfortunately, though, transhumanist dreams at present are still burdened with the scientistic assumption that nature is inherently mindless and impersonal, that is, devoid of the inestimable reality of subjectivity. As long as expectations of a transformed humanity lack an appreciation of subjectivity they promise a considerably diminished rather than enhanced cosmic future.

3. An increase in creativity. Creativity means increasing rather than diminishing the vitality, subjectivity and aesthetic intensity that the universe has already brought into being before us and without us. Human creativity now and in the future must be tutored by an understanding of how creativity has already been happening, prior to our own appearance in evolution. Theologically speaking, creativity means participation in the divine task of bringing something new into existence. It means not only conservation (which indeed is absolutely essential) but also a realization that the world remains open to new

9 Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, 3rd. ed. New York: Philosophical Library), 72; John F. Haught, Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 10 See, Alan B Wallace, The Taboo of Subjectivity: Toward a New Science of Consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 18 John F. Haught creation up ahead. It is the function of a biblically based transhumanist praxis not only to conserve life systems on our planet but also to take measures that will foster opportunities for the emergence of unprecedented forms of life and the enhancement of vitality, subjectivity, diversity, relationality and creativity in the future up ahead. As long as transhumanist projects contribute to this enhancement, they would seem to be justifiable. For this reason I think it unwise for theology to espouse an exclusively sacramentalist and conservationist approach. At the same time I am opposing here any transhumanist adventures that fail to consider prayerfully their possible impact on the already realized cosmic values I am discussing in this section. I take a purely sacramentalist approach to be insufficiently concerned with how an appreciation of human dignity depends upon a sense that we are entitled by God to bring new and unrepeatable kinds of being into existence. But I also predict that any transhumanist experiments that fail to respect, protect and enhance such values as vitality, subjectivity (including consciousness and freedom), and creativity (whose measure is aesthetic intensity) would amount to a tragic end to the story of life. Failure to align ourselves faithfully and docilely with the values that have already been established in the emergence of the universe could lead the cosmos into an abyss. From a Christian point of view, such neglect would be equivalent to spurning the coming of God’s kingdom. If our creativity, for example, were to conform only to what human beings desire at any particular phase or moment in our history, the consequences will be fearsome. After all, human desiring is always subject to perversion. Christian faith’s requirement is that human aspiration always be accompanied by patient hope and courageous waiting. According to the approach I am advocating here, before participating in any transhumanist trials, measures need to be taken to ensure the liberation of life, respect for persons, the flourishing of both nonhuman and human community, and the ongoing creation of more being in the cosmos. The theological scheme that frames this proposal is one in which nature itself is seen not only as sacrament but also as promise. Our unfinished universe is not yet fully revelatory of the divine. It awaits future creativity and development. In light of the theological recovery of eschatology in the 20th century I am especially partial to a theology of hope according to which all of Christian theology is concerned about the future and hence must be bathed in the extravagant flood of covenantal promises that the Bible associates with the God of creation and renewal. Our God is a God of promise, the One who opens up an ever new future – not just for Abraham, Israel, and the Church, but also for the whole universe. The divine invitation to move Transhumanism and the Anticipatory Universe 19 into an open future of new possibilities applies to the fourteen billion- year-old cosmic process and not just the human future. Hence, I believe that the idea of the “promise of nature” ideally provides the basis for a scientifically informed Christian theological understanding and evaluation of transhumanist projects. Beginning with the premise that nature is pregnant with promise, we may view the universe as anticipatory being. In the context of biblical hope let us highlight the fact that from its very beginning the universe has been open to a whole series of dramatic future transformations. Transhumanism reminds us that we may anticipate still more dramatic outcomes in the future. Theology needs to take into account scientific cosmology, planetary science and evolutionary biology in order to understand and appreciate the inherently restless and adventurous character of finite being, so as to awaken our own creative restlessness intelligently, responsibly and reverently. Thus, as I have proposed, we may glean from a study of the cosmic process a baseline set of criteria (vitality, subjectivity, and creativity) that place necessary boundaries around all efforts we make toward future transformations of nature, life, humanity and cosmos. Cosmological, geological and biological accounts of cosmic events teach us that nature has always had a dramatic character. The storied picture of nature began to emerge clearly only in the middle of the 20th century after careful reflection on the scientific theories of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein as well as the new discoveries by astronomy and astrophysics. Prior to that time it was primarily the human story that constituted theology’s main horizon and focus. However, now that we understand nature as an ongoing creative process, the question is whether it carries a wider meaning than that of simply being a home for the human adventure. For our purposes here the context of an unfinished cosmic process provides an intellectual setting in which theology may forge an illuminating alliance with scientists and futurists. It allows Christian theologians to discern the ways in which nature, as it has emerged over billions of years, has given rise to more and more interesting and increasingly sentient, conscious and creative modes of being. Four billion years ago, in the sudden arrival of life and biogenetic processes on earth, the universe underwent an “information” explosion.11 It is meaningful now to ask how this dramatic breakthrough connects with the biblical motifs of liberation and promise. More recently, with the emergence of complex brains and minds on our planet (and perhaps

11 Holmes Rolston, III, Three Big Bangs: Matter-Energy, Life, Mind (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 41-88. 20 John F. Haught analogously elsewhere in the universe) the cosmos began to undergo a “thought” experiment. And much more recently, with the emergence of social organisms, life began to undergo a “cultural” transformation, one that, at least on earth, has included the invention of language, economics, politics, education, artistic expression, religious hope and scientific inquiry. Currently, with the appearance of transhumanist dreams, human beings are at last witnessing what may turn out to be a distinctively new chapter in the unfolding of our far from finished universe. I believe that theology must approach the specter of transhumanism with the reverence of the sacramental approach, the spirit of adventure and creativity of the activist dreams of new being, but also with an eye to enhancing rather than diminishing the values of vitality, subjectivity and creativity so central to the very being of the universe. CHAPTER II

HUMAN WORTH ON THE THRESHOLD OF ITS TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION

ANA BAZAC

Abstract: In fact, this paper is about social philosophy: it questions the social consequences of the technological transformations of man and how they will be managed. The social significance results from and is emphasized by the ontological approach to man. AI (artificial intelligence) has such a predictable consequence upon the human being that it has to be conceived of from an ontological point of view.

I do not want to talk about what happens to humans as they are living longer, with lives improved and enhanced by medicine and bioengineering and about how they strive for a more capable, physically able body. I want to focus on the influence technology has on the human mind and classical human values, and whether old-style humans, as we knew them, are still going to be amongst us – are any classical human values going to be left to guide us or are we on the way to becoming super-intelligent humans guided by motives and ideals we do not yet fully comprehend? Is “technological singularity” upon us? “Technological singularity” is a term which has been introduced by Vernon Vinge, and it refers to the point of no return, the threshold one passes over and breaks, leaving all other people behind. Is it possible that passing this threshold will change our assessment of global problems and turn us from pessimists into optimists? For the moment, it seems rather that the optimistic theory of engineered singularity seems rather to transfigure a deep social pessimism. The result of the examination of both the consequences of AI on the human being and the social use of the present revolutionary science and engineering is the conscience of the contradictory state of man: from one standpoint, this state demonstrates the power of human reason, even though this reason would transform the human being as such, while from another point of view it shows the weakness of human reason and the social translation of this weakness, which generates a waste of human capabilities and lives. Thus the problem here is not to answer the dilemma of using our better reason and pass over the threshold of technological singularity, nor is it caving in to our lesser reason and rejecting AI and the option of 22 Ana Bazac going past the point of no return, but to discuss the social stakes at this present moment of choosing. The present era is on the threshold of the future transformation of the human into a technological singularity, but at the same time, it challenges the future of mankind as such through the present social (political) use of scientific discoveries. Therefore, this paper questions how the worth of man at this moment of technological transition is manifesting, and we do have to accept that both the better/optimistic and lesser/pessimistic reasoning will have a say in our action about technological singularity. Keywords: AI, Theory of Technological Singularity, philosophy, man, human person, kairos, science, technological risks, society, politics.

Warning

The person is the concrete expectation and prospect of the human being. The person is a specific human, and only from this concreteness do we conceive of the notion of person and personhood. When we are worrying about the worth of man, that is, the manner in which any certain person is treated by his/her fellow creatures, we think first of all of how his/her dignity could be menaced by some inimical circumstances, leaving his/her esteem and merit less valued by others. Just as humankind is revealed through the real facts, thoughts, and lives of the specific persons forming this species, the real dignity of a person – namely his/her merit, appreciation, and the due he/she deserves – is the result of the consideration of other persons. Philosophers have consistently emphasized that humans are creatures who freely shape their nature and evolution and that these “spiritual intelligence(s) think and decide “all possibilities.”1 Thus, they have too optimistically suggested that human characteristics and human reason would be “the most evenly distributed thing in the world.”2 In fact, although the will and choice exercised in order to attain self-esteem and self-realization belong to the individual, they reflect the social and historical circumstances where the consideration of others is crucial. If this consideration were missing, and if the lack of human possibilities for the future erased opportunities, people would be far from the circumstances necessary to demonstrate their human dignity. If

1 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man (De hominis dignitate, 1486), http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Mirandola/ 2 Descartes, Discourse on Method (1637), Part 1, http://public.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/descartes. html Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 23 they are not dignified, if others no longer consider them as worthy of representing human dignity, they become indignant: in Latin, in + dignatio means just the opposite of dignity, and the awareness of the situation where others no longer treat a person with respect for his/her humanity, but treat him/her indigne – unjustly, with cruelty, shamefully. Nowadays, we are facing waves of worldwide indignation against the disregard of the right to be considered, each of us, as a unique human person, because indignation is the natural human answer to undignified behavior. Indignation belongs to the human person, not to the abstract man. And because the worth of the human person is jolted, the worth of man as such is jolted.

About Ontology, Humans, and Technology

The need to understand the trans-temporal essence of man – even though this essence and this understanding have a concrete and historical content – has for a long time generated the preoccupation of philosophy with the being and, within this preoccupation, with the ontology of the human. However, there is no such a philosophical domain as the “ontology of the human.” The main object of philosophy is just the human. The human is both the mediating term and the object upon which the philosophical reflection practices. If ontology is the decrypting of what belongs to human existence (including human understanding and representations),3 the “ontology of the human” is rather a metaphor for the main analysis and object of philosophy. From this standpoint and in this broad sense, the ontology of the human means putting man first, that is, philosophical humanism. In a stricter sense, the ontology of the human configures what phenomenology, ethics, social philosophy, political philosophy, and the philosophy of knowledge elaborate. The metaphor of the ontology of the human presupposes an integrated representation of human complexity, composed of many fragments. According to this view, the ontology of the human highlights the features and specifics of man in his relationships with the world of objects as well as the world of subjects. An issue of these relationships is “the conscience of the present, when historical thinking and utopian

3 Jacques Derrida, “Le supplément de copule. La philosophie devant la linguistique” (1971), in Jacques Derrida, Marges de la philosophie, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1972, p. 218: “Aristotle tended to re-conduct the analysis to the place of turning up, or to the common root of blended language and thinking. This place is of the ’being’....But also how the being is said, how is said what is it, by the fact that it is, as it is.” 24 Ana Bazac thinking fuse.”4 An example of this fusion would be the theory of engineered singularity. But there is also the ontology of the objects people create and use. Related to our problem, the ontology of technology researches the possibilities illustrated by technology through the externalization of “human capabilities through technique and technical devices,” and, at the same time, the internalization of “the way these machines work inside the human being (in both its mind and behavior).”5 But all these types of possibility belong just to the human (if essentia is possibilitas to exist, as Heidegger showed6), the two ontologies converging and overlapping. One last word here is that this ontological and epistemological process of convergence and overlapping means that we cannot conceive of the human as separated from the technology he creates, which transforms him, contributing to the construction of his humanness: “We have always been, and therefore are, ‘cyborgs’ needing external prosthesis in order to act, think, create, and define ourselves.”7 If that is true, what are the consequences of the present development of technology upon the worth of man?

Theory of Engineered Singularity

As it was coined, “engineered singularity” is a technological discovery8 that changes in a rapid and radical way the state of things and

4 Jürgen Habermas, “La crise de l’État-providence” (1984), in Jürgen Habermas, Écrits politiques (Paris : Éditions du Cerf, 1990), p. 124. 5 Ionuţ Isac, “The Ontology of Technology – Assumptions and Meanings,” in (eds. Viorel Guliciuc and Emilia Guliciuc), Philosophy of Engineering and Artifact in the Digital Age (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), p. 115. 6 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927) (Malden, MA., Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 55-57; but also M. Heidegger, Letter on Humanism (1946), Translated by Miles Groth, http://wagner.edu/depertments/pscyhology/ sites/wagner.edu.departments.psychology/files/download/Martin%20Heid egger-%20Letter%20On%20'Humanism'.pdf – Possibilitas means here conscience of risks, risk-assuming, but also prevention of humanly undesirable events. 7 F. Kaplan, “Intégration, incorporation, interface – l’évolution des systèmes techniques,” Association F Gonseth, Cahiers de l’Institut de la Méthode, 31 (Janvier 2009), St-Imier, Switzerland, p. 13, in the translation of Ionuţ Isac, “The Ontology of Technology – Assumptions and Meanings,” p. 114. 8 The researchers who proposed the entire program of technological singularity insisted on the appearance of smarter-than-human intelligence (AI) as the main technological revolutionary event that would change the position of man in its even cosmic environment. See Vernor Vinge, The Coming Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 25 the state of the world. In fact, it signifies the discovery of artificial intelligence that would transform, through different ways, the definition of man himself, of his singularity in the framework of natural and engineered things. Man becomes a new human being, formed by both traditional natural parts and artificial parts managed by artificial intelligence, and then, finally, since intelligence is what generated the crowning of man as the dominant and superior being on Earth, man himself is dethroned by AI. There are three scenarios of engineered singularity: first, the more classical one – the rise of the intelligent robot surpassing the human brain and directing it onward; the second, which is the specific unification of AI and the human brain; and the third, the biomedical one, through nanotechnology and neuroscience. The first two scenarios are the basis of the new post-human entity. In the competition of these perspectives, even though the first seems to be the closest idealogically to the founding fathers of the theory as such, the second would be the most probable, at least as a step toward an absolute dethroning of the human brain by technology. Thus, let us accept that the second scenario is the core of the theory of engineered singularity: the new mind – natural plus AI – will generate a new kind of sapiens sapiens,9 who is still named only as posthuman or trans-human. In fact, he will name himself. If we support the first scenario, the most radical, then the post-human or trans-human being appears more clearly. Anyway, the theory points out the consequences of the technological possible: the emergence of a new superhuman being by whom the entire environment will be transformed and new significances of this environment and its clash with the new rational being will be grasped. Engineered singularity challenges an epistemological break or rupture10 within “normal science”11 and philosophy, for it poses not only the transformation of the means of man (the instruments and objects) but

Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era, 1993, http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Singularity/sing.html. But there are other technologies of smarter-than-human intelligence, such as: direct brain-computer interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain (or “smarter minds creating still smarter minds,” (Why Work toward the Singularity, http://singinst.org/overview/whyworktowardthesingularity/), genetic engineering, ultra-high-resolution scans of the brain followed by computer emulation. All of these are emerging technologies. 9 Sapiens sapiens – entity conscious of his intelligence. 10 G. Bachelard, La Formation de l’esprit scientifique (Paris: J. Vrin, 1938), pp. 27, 74. 11 Th. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 23. 26 Ana Bazac also the change of the subject, the man himself. In ancient times, the human conscience used to consider the object – whether material from the world outside him, or the products of his mind – as subordinated to it. The object was that on which man acted, while the subject was him, the actor, or his mind and spirit, although his life and will were influenced by the inimical environment: he was the one who chose the kairos of his action over this environment. At least, this was the common representation, including the common representation of philosophy. But engineered singularity is a concrete unity of object and subject, an artificial human being with artificial intelligence acting over his natural basis – an object has become subject and a subject has become object – this special subject is the new singularity, for it is/will be mastering the decision and is/will be the criterion of all criteria. As bio-integrated AI, or as AI and human intelligence synthesis, or only as AI, the new subject is overthrowing once more Aristotle’s ϋποκείμενον, since this time it could be considered to be subsistent to the attributes of existence. Thus it is transiting from “the closed world” of the old representation of the mind and the subject, to use Koyré’s expression. The problem of engineered singularity has appeared in order to keep alive the conscience of the necessity to forecast the results of the technological developments on the entire society. The main aspects to be foreseen certainly belong to technology as such, but they are not the only ones. Although technological developments are moving within an uncertain and open space, the purpose of the research into technological singularity is to transform the unanticipated consequences into anticipated ones. In this respect, research into engineered singularity is situated under the sign of Prometheus. That is why it would be sad to take this research only as a cheap technophile tendency, not difficult to uncover.12 At the same time, the analysis of the imaginary background of a theory is important to understand its social motives and power within human activity.

The Worth of Man

As David Chalmers shows,13 the theory of engineered singularity as the evolution of super-intelligence poses some interesting analytical problems: whether this super-intelligence could constitute itself as an

12 See N. Bøstrom, interviewed by Jean-Paul Baquiast, 15 octobre 2005, http://www.automatesintelligents.com/interviews/2005/sept/bostrom.html. 13 D.J. Chalmers, The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis, 2010, http://consc.net/papers/singularity.pdf. Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 27 infinite artificial intelligence,14 and if this would ever be better from a human standpoint. But the theory is also important for a “continental” philosophical outlook: that which is preoccupied not only with the final result of the AI engineering facing the present common problems of mankind, but also with man as “residual” output within the process of AI engineering. The premise of this approach takes into account that logos – the human reasoning, the human capacity to create the logical world of the understanding and its objects, its ideas – is that which differentiates man from the animal that is his origin. Man is, therefore, his own creature,15 by developing his ability to think and to articulate what he thinks, and by enjoying this ability and the colors of this new ideal world he configures. By doing so, he grows up as a special being within the terrestrial world of beings: as a being nurtured from the world of culture he creates. Man is a cultural being and important are the means by which he maintains and amplifies the human cultural characteristic of his existence. The world of culture as such reflects the contradictory tendencies of man as natural, artificial, and social being. Consequently, there is continuity between AI research and what is essential in man as a “genuine” being, which appears following the transformation generated by the information technologies (IT). Indeed, the virtual world generated by the present IT does not change the culture-specific characteristics of man:16 “It is in being virtual that we are human: since it is human nature to experience life through the prism of culture, the human being has always been a virtual being. Culture is our ‘killer app’: we are virtually human.”17 At the same time, evolution means transformation, thus discontinuity: for we are not clever enough;18 with all the networks of

14 IT and sciences have been optimistic about the rapid rhythm of the evolution of intelligent machines creating more intelligent machines (this is the concept of “speed explosion”), but the practical process has so far shown that this rhythm is slower than was prefigured. 15 V. Gordon Childe, Social Evolution, N. Y., Henry Schuman, 1951, p. 169; but also T. Taylor, The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 16 K. Lee, The Natural and the Artefactual: The Implications of Deep Science and Deep Technology for Environmental Philosophy (Lanham: Lexington Books, 1999), pp. 49-62, 123-148. 17 T. Boellstorff, Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 5. 18 J. Lovelock: 'We Can't Save the Planet', 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm. 28 Ana Bazac scientists for responsibility,19 maybe the “virtual worlds do have significant consequences for social life…in virtual worlds we are not quite human – our humanity is thrown off balance, considered anew, and reconfigured through transformed possibilities for place-making, subjectivity, and community…the layers of contingency within the category of virtually human, rather than exiling such contingency into a category of the post-human and thereby retrenching the borders of the human itself.”20 Finally, it is important to mention two aspects. The first is that another scenario is adding to the theory of engineered singularity: the “collective intelligence” resulting from the explosion of IT.21 The second is that there is a time overlap of the discoveries of AI and human bioengineering with the contradictions and shortcomings of the present civilization and relations of power. This is the reason for the problem of the adaptation of man to himself,22 through the emphasis of the ill-fated consequences of human industries and the means23 to re-direct their evolution. At the same time, it seems most probable that the technological engineering of man will exceed present man’s ability to control his industries. Nevertheless, man is and will be the model of AI: because conscience is more than intelligence, the complex historical construction of man is and will be the pattern of the development of AI as conscience. The evidence that there is between man and machine a relationship closer than that supposed by some thinkers does not annul this source of

19 See INES (International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility) for Peace and Sustainability), http://www.inesglobal.com/news- 2010.phtml. 20 T. Boellstorff, op. cit. 21 This insistence on the collective intelligence could be joined to Marx’s collective worker. But see also Could the Internet Become One Giant Evil Entity? http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/internet-become- evil-entity/8678. 22 F. Rebufat, L’industrie humaine sera-t-elle la fin de l’homme ?, 7 décembre 2010, http://www.vivagora.org/spip.php?article789. 23 One is the research of the principle of precaution and its functioning. Another one could be an engineering of large consultations, see Gilbert Gouverneur, L’« ingénierie de concertation » pour coller à la réalité sociale, novembre 2007, http://www.vivagora.org/spip.php?article174, and S. Parkinson, Science and Technology: Making a Difference, 16 October 2010, http://www.sgr.org.uk/sites/sgr.org.uk/files/Manchester-scitech-difference.pdf. Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 29

AI: on the contrary, it supports both directions in the creation of engineered singularity.24 However, following Pico’s observation, and even though being the model of the new AI creature, man as such will not survive: technological singularity will not be human.25 Therefore, theoretically, the worth of man seems to be at the same time denied and assured by engineered singularity: denied – because the new creature will exceed the human logical capabilities to solve the problems; assured – since the pattern, not only of logic, but also of goals, is human.

Intermezzo with the Problem of Risks

The agglomeration of the consequences of the modern and postmodern industrial revolutions – that is, of the modern and present technology and science – and the evidences of many bad, and even tragic, manifestations of the human civilization have been the basis, as we know, of a rich literature. It is important to mention here the theory of risks as one of the main theories concerning both the ontology of technology and the ontology of the human. According to this theory,26 modern society has developed the paradoxical coexistence of the progress of civilization through science and technology, and the risks of this progress have multiplied. Moreover, at present, the risks are not only systemic (confronting the entire world and resulting from the world development of R & D), but seem to be no more imputable to anyone (there would not be a concrete responsibility), and cannot be compensated through insurances. At the same time, the theory mixes the natural and human causes and catastrophes, by focusing only on their occurrences and denying the technical and social possibility to prevent serious human error.

24 See H. Leggett, Robot Teaches Itself to Smile, July 9, 2009, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/robotsmile/, also the Psi-Theory (Dietrich Dörner) and the cognitive architectures. 25 Pico della Mirandola, ibidem:”a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in human flesh.” 26 See Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity (1986), London, Sage, 1992; Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society (1991) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998); Ulrich Beck, World at Risk (2007) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008). See also Ulrich Beck, « C'est le mythe du progrès et de la sécurité qui est en train de s'effondrer », Le Monde, 25, 03, 2011. 30 Ana Bazac

This point of view illustrates rather a “pragmatic sociological fatalism:” “What we could do is to study, to prepare us, but…” Or, we have to remember that: 1) modern technological development has been integrated into a precise and specific social framework, so that the rhythm, paths, and objectives of technological development are not neutral and cannot be understood simply as resulting from the logic of knowledge, and 2) at least from the second half of the twentieth century on, scientists have taken into account that technological change could be anticipated, and that that anticipation allows the reduction of the possible negative consequences of discoveries, but that the final decisions do not belong to them. As long as the risks were not so high – or, rather, were pushed outside the countries hosting the scientific research – and obviously because of the ideology of political neutrality of scientists they embraced, most researchers did not focus on the social consequences of their deeds. (In a sense, one could say that the theory of engineered singularity is just reflecting the composed situation of aggravating global problems and ideological inertia of the intellectuals). But the last years – and now Fukushima – send us to another approach. Obviously, and leaving aside the concrete partial preventing of risks inside the technological projects, one cannot neglect the fact that nuclear plants were constructed near the ocean in a high seismic risk region. No one expected a 9-degree earthquake and a tsunami, but the engineers knew very well that, in case of accident, the highly radioactive water in the pressure vessel of a boiling water reactor would leak out of the damaged reactors and that the contaminated water leaking from reactors would flow into the sea. It is not here the place to discuss whether “the social needs of the population – including the need for a safe and environmentally sustainable energy system – are subordinated to the financial interests of the major corporations.”27 Indeed, there are social and political regulations constraining the technological treatment of risks.28 But we should not forget that technological change is, or could be, anticipated from a technical standpoint. The replication of technique is predictable. If one does not give full scope to anticipation and predictability, it is because of non-technological reasons. The framework created by these reasons has damaging consequences on the lives of millions of human persons, and the ability of these persons to understand the real stakes of social facts and political decisions is weakened by the media and a

27 Patrick O’Connor, Nuclear Power, Private Ownership and the Profit System, 24 March 2011, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/pers- m24.shtml 28 Isabelle Stengers, Au temps des catastrophes. Résister à la barbarie qui vient (Paris, La Découverte, 2009). Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 31 handful of professionals, who inject scepticism about the warnings of scientists29 and stir doubt concerning the scientific data and facts.30 The result of such a civilization, where poverty coexists with a shameful waste31 and the ecological challenges could, at least to a certain extent, be integrated into the functioning of the profit system,32 is the contradiction between so many theories providing illusions about the worth of the human person as opposed to the real situation of so many persons. For the time being, some researchers offer the theories which counterpose the impersonal risks to the model of risk conscience society,33 of sustainable economy beyond growth,34 of eco-sufficiency and ecological economics,35 of the common good,36 or the French model of décroissance. In all of these models, present mainstream neo-classical economics is replaced with revised concepts of economy, society, and progress, subordinated to the worth of every human person as the only way to demonstrate the worth of man.

Worth of the Human Person

The change of civilization realized by science and technology is not only a technological one; the change is out of the range of the “natural” order of things. In other words, the ontological change itself is sociological, because the power relations of the present society are framing the technological transformation: they are choosing its criteria, the rhythm of the changes, the domains of the preliminary application, the human persons selected as being able to face the challenges of the

29 Jules Boykoff, Reheating the Climate Change Story, 30 January 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/30/climate- change-climate-change-scepticism 30 Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt (N.Y.: Bloomsbury Pess, 2010). 31 Michel Rocard, Dominique Bourg et Floran Augagneur, « Le genre humain, menacé, » Le Monde, 2 avril 2011. 32 See the old observation of André Gorz, “Leur écologie et la notre,” Les Temps modernes, mars 1974. 33 Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Pour un catastrophisme éclairé, Quand l'impossible est certain (Paris: Seuil, 2004). 34 Herman E. Daly, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1997). 35 Tim Jackson, Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (London, Earthcan, 2009). 36 Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb Jr., For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1994). 32 Ana Bazac process, to conduct or manage it, to be considered as preferred models or disputable mirrors. The change under discussion takes place on a large scale, from the present chemical, biological, nano-technological manipulation of the human mind to the explicit intention of connecting the “natural” human mind with AI, and finally to the creation of what is called engineered singularity. Consequently, one could affirm that there is not only a logical discontinuity in the treatment and evolution of man – discontinuity realized through engineered singularity – but also continuity, as in sequential chemical, biological, nano-technological procedures participating in the ontological construction of man and the ontological transformation of the human being. This aspect of continuity is, again, not only the result of scientific and technological discoveries, but it goes on as part of political intentionality from inside “late modernity” (Mandel, Habermas). From a philosophical standpoint, the importance of this double determinism, technological and political, has to be highlighted. The worth of man is obviously challenged when confronting the concept and extension of possibility. Technologically, if something can be done, it will be: the guiding marks of the possibility of man would belong only to the inner logic of technology. But even this logic is legitimized by the traditional concept about the world of man: the return of the acceleration of scientific and technological discoveries37 are conceived of as aiming at the increase of consumption and profits, all human values being subordinated to the implicit reasoning that if something can be bought, then it will be beneficial. In fact, the technological transformation of man, and especially of his mind, follows the social logic of power relations. This phenomenon suggests that keeping the worth of man is manifold, and the intertwining contradictions faced by this desire to keep the worth of man cannot be ignored. One example is the precedent of the industrialization of health care. Leaving aside the excessive interpretation of both the author and the reader, we should not forget that Ivan Illich38 showed that the result of the industrialization of health care is pain and sickness, and restricts the vital autonomy of people. This result is iatrogenesis: the transformation of man into a dependent being and, at the same time, impregnated by illness induced by industrialized medicine and pharmacy. This is a social phenomenon generated not by the mere logic

37 Ray Kurzweil, The Law of Accelerating Returns, 2001, http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns 38 Ivan Illich, Limits to Medicine. Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health (1976) (London, Marion Boyars Publisher, 2000). Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 33 of medical discoveries, but one of the social frameworks within which these discoveries take place. “Iatrogenesis cannot be understood unless it is seen as the specifically medical manifestation of specific counterproductivity. Specific or paradoxical counterproductivity is a negative social indicator for a diseconomy which remains locked within the system that produces it… The recovery from a society-wide iatrogenic disease is a political task, not a professional one.”39 By using this pattern of understanding – which is consonant with Gödel’s theory that the last explanation of a system lies outside it –, we could obviously extrapolate it to many fields. One is, for example, the industrialization of food and distribution of food. The counterproductivity of these processes has to be considered when we speak about the worth of man and the values involved and supported by a being whose worth is cherished. But let us pass to the present chemical, biological, and nanotechnological manipulation of the human mind. This manipulation is related to both military and consumerist economic interests,40 and following its procedures, not only are cures developing, but also deeper dependencies. If the former example was sketched in Plato’s systemic prefigure41 of man as having to develop moderation and prudence as main values supporting the harmony of mind and body, warnings linked to the technological manipulation of the human mind are related to modern theories from Francis Bacon to post-Freudism. At a general level, the result of these processes is the first transformation of man as possibilitas to exist as such.42 Leaving Heidegger aside, the processes point out the consequences of technological possiblities: the emergence of a new superhuman being according to which the entire environment will be transformed, and new significances of this environment and its clash with the new rational being will be grasped. The direction of nanotechnology and neuroscience constitutes one scenario leading to the rise of engineered singularity.

39 Ibidem, pp. 8, 6. 40 While Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen, ”Energy and Economic Myths,” Southern Economic Journal, 41, no. 3, January 1975, http://dieoff.org/page148.htm, wrote that from the standpoint of power economy, “the production of all instruments of war, not only of war itself, should be prohibited completely.” 41 See Plato, Gorgias, 464d, 456a-b, 518c-d, and Republic, 376e, 404b-c, 372a, 372c-d, 373b-c, 373d, 373e, 425e, 426a. 42 Logos meaning what-is-made-to-be-seen, the essence of being, and what we see is always the same – the being – and different, as possibility to exist as such, see Martin Heidegger, ibidem. 34 Ana Bazac

By again coming back to Heidegger, the action over the possibilitas of man changes this possibilitas itself: man, that is, his subjectivity, becomes the object of manipulation, thus no longer seeming to be its subject. This scenario is obviously the application of scientific principles to the structures with which man is dealing. The scientific principles are the result of man’s research and discoveries, and to apply them intelligently (with ingenium, generated by ingenium) means to create new entities using physical laws. The development of engineering concerning the human being generates not only an improved body by replacing ill or non-functioning parts with artificial devices – thus illustrating Descartes’ metaphor of the human body as a machine43 – but also an improved mind. In its simplest model, the mind itself proves to be a machine – a set of reactions to parameters of inputs – and thus it could be accorded with artificial models of human intelligence. The artificial intelligence (AI) created first in the world of computational devices, external to the human person, comes to be engrafted to the natural mind. Human reason receives the unlimited capabilities of AI, and, since conscience is the differentia specifica of man in the family of animals (he is sapiens sapiens), the new combination of the genuine human mind and AI gives birth to a new kind of “man”: the engineered one. This engineered man – rather, this engineered mind – becomes a new singularity,44 as the vector of the future of all the discoveries and transformations of kosmos and logos. But concretely speaking about every human person, and surpassing the level of theories, it would be worth noting that the social conditions of the realization and generalization of the discoveries related to engineered singularity are intertwined with the hierarchy of the social conditions of the realization and generalization of a dignified life for a larger and larger number of human persons. As these last conditions are contradictory, excluding millions from the realization of humanness “in the comparatively humble sense of pleasure and freedom from pain, and in the higher meaning of rendering life – not what it now is almost universally, puerile and insignificant – but such as human beings with highly developed faculties can care to have,”45 as the imagined

43 See Ana Bazac, “The machine motif in Descartes,” Noesis, XXXV, 2010, pp. 71-87. 44 This new singularity could become immortal for the time being by uploading the brain's contents to a silicon support and then download it again into a new body. See Terrence Aym, http://www.helium.com/items/2029699- mind-uploading-immortality?page=2. Also The Digital Immortality Institute (DII). 45 J. Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume VIII, “A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, Being a Connected View of Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 35 realization and generalization of the discoveries related to engineered singularity – the destiny of a large number of anonymous human persons. Concretely, some scientific discoveries would have been helpful to the life of the human person worldwide, if these discoveries had not been treated economically from a short term private profit standpoint. We should not forget that, through the mediation of financing, many discoveries were postponed, and many even annulled; and that, by the agency of the same financing, some discoveries are channelled into an irrational and wasting use. The worth of the human person is quite low when the scientists’ warning about the necessity of bio-economic economy while seeing to the industrial comfort of the present generations by also seeing to the survival of the future by a pollution-free and rational use of energy and resources is neglected. The simple analysis of the financial funding of alternative energy research counter-posed to the armament and war expenditure46 illustrates this conclusion. For this reason, to discuss it only in terms of old benevolent intentions and theories concerning the human person is no longer sufficient. A theory which sets off the difference of phase between theory and practice is needed.

Time

Singularity research shows that the anticipation of unpredictable facts is related to the problem of time, mainly to the propitious interval to question and develop singularity. In the Greek tradition, the opportune the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (Books IV-VI and Appendices),” ed. J. M. Robson, Introduction by R.F. McRae, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), Book VI, Chapter XII,http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_ _staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=247&layout=html#chapter_40043. 46 Global military spending hits high but growth slows, April 10, 2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/10/military-spending-idUSLDE733228 20110410: “Worldwide military spending edged up in 2010 to a record $1.6 trillion… Global spending rose 1.3 percent in real terms, a slowdown from 5.9 percent the year before as the economic downturn caused by the 2008 financial crisis hit military spending… U.S. spending +2.8 percent, European spending 2.8 percent…The Unites States, with costly military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, increased spending by 2.8 percent to $698 billion – about six times as much as China, the second-biggest spender, ahead of Britain, France and Russia. In 2009, U.S. spending grew 7.7 percent…The United States has increased its military spending by 81 percent since 2001…At 4.8 percent of gross domestic product, U.S. military spending in 2010 represents the largest economic burden outside the Middle East.” 36 Ana Bazac moment, kairos, is the only propitious interval to act, specifically, to act efficiently. If one loses time by delaying the realization of big discoveries,47 one loses human lives and humanly-lived lives.48 The decision concerning the kairos, rhythm, and content of developing singularity does not depend only on scientists (thus on the specific logic of science), but on politicians taking part in the power relations. Regardless of how they are persuaded by visionary researchers, politicians reflect the short term political criteria to judge the efficiency of the development of big discoveries and post-human state of man. This observation, based on the coexistence in the last 30 years of an exponential rhythm of apex science combined with the increase of wars, suffering, social diseases, and troubles, the ecological crisis, and the quest for natural resources, aims only to put a precautionary brake on the dreams concerning singularity. The scientific and technological revolution is real, but depends ultimately on political interests: what kind of discoveries and where they are to be implemented. For this reason, the attitudes of common people, their education and enlargement of horizon, (including the political one), and thus the development of their rationalism “all the way,” are important factors to counter-press the interests of domination and to realize singularity. The scientific revolution is not the only one in our society. But “a revolution may be ripe, and yet the forces of its creators may prove insufficient to carry it out, in which case society decays, and this process of decay sometimes drags on for very many years.”49 Constructed from a social viewpoint, this representation is somehow similar to Bøstrom’s possible trajectory of the future development of technology as “a stasis at (or close to) the current status quo.”50 But, as this trajectory would be improbable according to singularity theorists, a huge problem for philosophy still remains: why does the explosion of

47 See Nick Bøstrom, Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development, 2003, http://www.nickbostrom.com/astro nomical/waste.html 48 I doubt that this humanly lived life would mean to be happy (only) through “safe and effective methods of controlling the brain circuitry responsible for subjective well-being,” Nick Bostrom, “The Future of Humanity,” in Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen, Evan Selinger, and Søren Riis (Eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Technology (New York, Palgrave McMillan, 2009), see http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/future.pdf, p. 16, quoting David Pearce, The Hedonistic Imperative, 2004, http://www.hedweb.com/hedab.htm. Besides this aspect, I agree with Pearce on many points. 49 Lenin, “The Latest in Iskra Tactics, or Mock Elections as a New Incentive to an Uprising,” 1905, http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/ /oct/17b.htm. 50 Nick Bøstrom, “The Future of Humanity,” p. 15. Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 37 knowledge and technological realizations coexist with so many signs of social decay, suffering, and injustice? And would the paradigm of engineered singularity be sufficient for the future representation of man? What kind of society is allowed by technological singularity? What is the luddite tendency51 within the futurist literature, which is quite different from the man’s lack of power to control and manage his technological results? Does the popular concern about technology and human power not superpose the academic one? Are they not surprisingly similar? And do we not need a social view as a meta one (as the technological one is)? Indeed, “transhumanism offers (what one might call) the safest unsafe passage into the future, that is, compared to the alternatives specified” (for it attacks the epistemic or cognitive obstacles against the stopping of the trend toward the extinction of humanity).52 In this respect, it is a necessary warning that our society has not yet attained the Type 1 civilization in the Kardashev scale. But it has to do with less waste and human suffering.

The Threshold upon Which We Find Ourselves

Taking into account the present social conditions worldwide, the starting point is the predominance of capital as the unique manager of the right to existence of whoever and whatever, thus of whatever possible future: every possible fact has either to adapt to this condition or disappear. Consequently, the engineering of man has to consider this social framework and, obviously, to question it. This attitude is necessary in order to efficiently navigate between the Scylla of pessimism53 and the Charybdis of technological optimism. Indeed, engineered singularity implicitly presupposes the old model of “human evil by nature.” Since the present society is at least contradictory, if not difficultly flattering for a rational being, only a posthuman status would solve the problems issued from the former irrational status (but would it?). To surpass this pessimism and not to fall down in

51 See Bill Joy, Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html 52 Philippe Verdoux, “Transhumanism, Progress and the Future,” Journal of Evolution & Technology, 20 (2), 2009, p. 60 (http://jetpress.org/v20/verdoux. htm). 53 A form of pessimism is the retro prescription – renunciation to the technological progress; another one – paternalism, where the control of technologies belongs to a limited number of decision-makers; see the critique of pessimism in David Brin, Singularities and Nightmares: Extremes of Optimism and Pessimism about the Human Future, http://lifeboat.com/ex/singularities.and nightmares. 38 Ana Bazac technophile imagery54 is possible through the social standpoint. Otherwise, technological optimism without questioning the social framework of the implementation of such a revolutionary technology is a deus ex machina type of reasoning. Indeed, science would be the last messianic hope in a secularized society. The literary trope deus ex machina is, however, a kind of laic deviation from religion as such. It consists in putting forward an improbable event to intervene in the evolution of facts, but the author, and the spectators as well, know perfectly that this deed is a fiction, and that they have to admit this fiction only for the sake of the drama as such. Unfortunately, real life is not equivalent to a play; therefore people know that they have to strain their efforts in order to become themselves the “machine”55 ordering the course of life. From this standpoint (and

54 Technophilia is the ideological trend which asserts that the progress of technology would somehow solve automatically the social problems of humankind. We have to note that Marx’s theory about the determinism of the productive forces over the productive relations is not at all technophile. Let us remember the feed-back of the productive relations and the principle that “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society,” Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface, 1859, http://www.marxists.org/ archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm. Abundance, thus the suppression of rarity, is the result of technological development. But, if rarity is the ontological figure of mankind (Sartre), abundance does not follow automatically from the technological development: rather, it is mediated by the social relations and institutions. This is the reason why Marx was not preoccupied with rarity and abundance, but with their causes and conditions. Concerning the above-mentioned capital as the main social condition of the forging of the future, it is noteworthy that the model of salvation from the dangers menacing mankind is, in literature or movies, copying the capitalist model of relations and mentalities. 55 The Greek μηχανή – ingenious invention, machine of theatre, with stopgap, slyness, artifice. Μή is the root signifying a negation in a hypothetical sense, meaning that the thing one speaks about would be uncertain, presumed, and even inadmissible. From this root, an entire family of words emerged: μηχαναω – to imagine, to arrange with art, to combine for a precise purpose, whence to produce, to cause, to occasion (as well as in negative senses: to conspire; μηχανεύς – invention, ingenuity; μηχάνευσις – apparatus, device; μηχάνησις – machine; μηχάνημα – ingenious invention, mechanism, machinery; μηχάνητικoς – able to invent; μηχανικός – able to work, constructed by the art of the mechanic (engineer), the art to construct a machine. In this sense, Irving John Good, Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine, 1965, http://www.stat.vt.edu/tech_reports/2005/Good Human Worth on the Threshold of Its Technological Transformation 39 secondly), technophile optimism by those who do not join the technical aspects to the social ones is a mixture between a religious impulse and a deus ex machina symptom: it suggests a kind of hope that a fragmentary approach, as necessary as it is at a first level of science, would solve a unitary or total problem; and also a kind of postponement within one’s own conscience of the necessity to frontally surpass the fragmentary. In fact, technophile optimism is only a characteristic of thinking, far from a lack of respectability. It has different consequences, and the problem is to maximize the good ones, by completing the foresight of big technological discoveries with social features. The idea assumed here is that present trends in the development of technology are opposing the political structure of society, and this contradictory coexistence prepares a contradictory future. Consequently, political responsibility is as important as scientific and technological competence. If so, the questions and answers have to transgress a somehow abstract level which deals with man as an individual. In this respect, a major problem is the representation of future relationships between engineered singularity and its engineered fellows; between engineered singularity and society (what kind of society could issue from the historical bifurcation that will be engineered singularity?); between engineered singularity and culture. Another question is how engineered singularities will master their sentiments, how strong these will be, and, if it ever constitutes itself, which form of belonging to community/society/world it will have. And because domination/ submission has not only been the fundamental social relationship but also the means to taming people and to accord them to the level of civilization, will engineered singularity ever be more tamed? If this taming does not mean subordination and disciplined atomization, then the application of (post)human rights has to be observed. Consequently, the present relationships between the dominant ends of private property and the model of man have to be considered. Do we imagine future engineered singularity on the mass level as mentally impoverished as many of the present average people because of the restrictions imposed by the intellectual property on free and high standard information? And, because present individuals feel they would be passive objects of the macro-processes exceeding them,56 how will future engineered singularities surpass this situation, if ever?

TechReport.pdf, wrote that man would construct within his own mind the principles which form the architecture of the new super-intelligent machine: “man will construct the deus ex machina in his own image.” 56 Miguel Benasayag, « Information, réflexion, discussion », La Revue mensuelle n° 86 Robotique, vie artificielle, réalité virtuelle, http://www.admir- 40 Ana Bazac

The acute awareness of the threshold we are on does not follow from an idealistic view about intelligence shared by the researchers of singularity,57 but from a very pragmatic interest: that of giving the effort to control the evolution of technological singularity as much creativity as humankind can manifest and offer. Any loss or waste of human lives and possible human creativity weakens to a great extent the human answer to engineered singularity and seems to repeat the kind of primitive attitude manifested until now and even at present: the attitude of those who lead the destiny of society without counting the suffering and death of the ruled, or who consider this suffering and death as inherent and “collateral damage,” “compensated” by the “general progress of civilization.” But could we accept this type of judgment, at the present level of technological evolution and scientific conscience? From its techno-centric perspective, the theory and, moreover, the movement of technological singularity seems to counter-pose to this judgment a humanistic preoccupation, care, and confidence. In which direction, then, would the human be transformed? Which are the ethical, practical, and technological aspects of this transformation? And would this process contribute to man’s rising on superior levels of intelligence and humanism, or, on the contrary, to his descending to lower-than-human stages? What global catastrophes are possible through AI technological developments and how could they be avoided? What will the future of intelligent life be? Which methods and compulsions would this intelligent life face, and what kinds of solutions will the new AI and nanotechnologies need to find? But now we are only in the waiting-room of the possible end of man’s own creation. This situation only pushes us toward the deeper understanding of the significance, both positive and negative, of the actions about which human is wondering.

outes.asso.fr/larevue/2007/86/chroniquebbl.htm. 57 See Why Work Toward the Singularity, http://singinst.org/overview/ Whyworktowardthesingularity/: the “transition of intelligent life on Earth to a smarter and rapidly improving civilization with an enormously higher standard of living.” CHAPTER III

TRANSHUMANISM CRITICALLY ASSESSED

G. AULETTA, I. COLAGÈ and P. D’AMBROSIO1

THE PROBLEM AT STAKE

Humanity has always taken advantage of technology for assisting its control on the environment by both counterbalancing physical impairments and empowering human natural resources. From this general point of view, concerning our last-generation technological tools and devices, we think that the present situation is not substantially different relative from any past epoch. Indeed, the introduction of the wheel, scripture, printing, airplanes, and electricity, to mention some examples, have transformed the relations among humans and the human culture itself. All these technological means, have been essential not only for enhancing the biological human capabilities but also for opening new channels for human expression, communication and social organization. However, technological advances raised a wide range of problems, involving scientific and cognitive matters, environmental and social factors as well as ethical, philosophical and even religious or theological concerns. Therefore, introducing some revolutionary pieces of technology needs to be carefully and critically assessed case by case. New technologies raise irrational fears. For instance, we may recall how public opinion reacted in a very alarmed way against the introduction of trains and cars: some journalists assumed that overcoming 20 mph would have seriously damaged the human body. In such situations a critical assessment of the new possibilities opened by the most advanced technologies, as well as of the dangers and difficulties that such changes represent, may be very useful. Indeed, even when those technologies turn out to be fully positive, the problem of their cultural and social assimilation still remains. This critical assessment should be done at very different levels, using serious scientific analysis, since we cannot deal with these kinds of problems without resorting to the general scientific knowledge about the physical constitution of our world, its biological domain as well as the human intelligence and consciousness. Although there are some communalities between recent developments and previous ones, there is a new feature of technological

1Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome; Corresponding authors: I. Colagè ([email protected]), P. D’Ambrosio ([email protected]). 42 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio evolution that marks a point of discontinuity: while until recent times technological evolution mainly consisted in the production of external tools designed to more and more efficiently perform a number of tasks (like observing celestial bodies by means of telescopes or small entities with microscopes) some of the most recent developments go in the direction of implementing computer-engineered devices into the human body so to improve or even radically change the fulfillment of some biological functions. Such a goal has become one of the core themes of a recently arisen movement called “transhumanism.”2 Starting from the question whether the current status of humankind represents an end or just an early stage of evolution such that human nature is still a “work- in-progress”, transhumanists envision a pervasive use of technological means to overcome human limitations and enhance physical, psychological and intellectual capabilities. It is a matter of fact that in the last few decades, significant scientific-technological achievements have been reached that opened previously unimaginable possibilities in this direction. For example, recent experiments revealed the monkey’s capability to control movements of artificial devices by coupling them with the electrical activity of neuronal groups of the primary motor cortex.3 These developments may allow designing neuroprosthetic devices. Scientists regard such achievements as promising perspectives for rehabilitation procedures.4 However, transhumanists wish to promote sophisticated technologies able not only to alleviate suffering or heal injuries and (congenital or acquired) handicaps but also to enhance the current human biological capabilities, overcoming some of its limitations. Neuroprostheses are a crucial part of this program. Building and

2 N. Bostrom, “The Transhumanist FAQ: A General Introduction”, World Transhumanist Association; see: www.transhumanism.org. (2003); later www.humanityplus.org, especially Secs. 5 and 7 for some history of the movement. 3 J. Wessberg, C.R. Stambaugh, J.D. Kralik, P.D. Beck, M. Laubach, J.K. Chapin, J. Kim, S.J. Biggs, M.A. Srinivasan, M.A.L. Nicolelis, “Real-time Prediction of Hand Trajectory of Cortical Neurons in Primates”, Nature 408 (2000): 361-365; M.A.L. Nicolelis, “Actions from Thoughts”, Nature 409 (2001): 403-407; F. Cincotti, D. Mattia, C. Babiloni, F. Carducci, S. Salinari, L. Bianchi, et al. “The Use of EEG Modification Due to Motor Imagery for Brain- computer Interfaces”, IEEE Transaction in Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering 11 (2003): 131-133. 4 See, for example, M.D. Serruya, N.G. Hatsopoulos, L. Paninski, M.R. Fellows, J.P. Donoghue, “Instant Neural Control of a Movement Signal”, Nature 416 (2002): 141-142; Jeannerod Marc, Motor Cognition: What Actions Tell the Self, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 43-44. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 43 implanting artificial tissues and organs, using drugs and pharmacological findings, as well as molecular and genetic engineering are all welcome means to enhance the present human condition. The last frontier (the dream) for many transhumanists is the so-called mind uploading, i.e. “the process of transferring one intellect from a biological brain to a computer.”5 Mind uploading would bring many advantages according to the transhumanist program: avoiding biological senescence, radical cognitive enhancement, the possibility to have back-up copies of oneself and, last but not least, living forever. Alluring as it may appear, the transhumanist dream raises several serious questions. Some of them are scientific and cognitive. Let us start with these.

TRANSPLANTATION AND INTEGRATION

The first crucial question is about the extent to which we can substitute organic tissues or whole organs with artificial devices, as well as assist the body with implanted chips, without undermining basic functionalities or even the unity of the organism. Already Aristotle6 discussed the so-called Theseus-ship paradox: up to which point can we assume that a ship remains the same after having progressively substituted all of its parts? We think that this question is at the very core of transhumanism, and has deep biological, medical, and ethical consequences. As a matter of fact, organisms cyclically substitute the whole of their biological matter. However, as again Aristotle remarked and more recently Varela7 recalled, a living organism is characterized by autopoiesis, i.e. the ability to transform external matter and energy into an internal cycle of self-production and -reproduction. This means that the organism demolishes and rebuilds its own structures by self- maintaining a formal and structural unity. It is possible to consider the unity of an organism as a dynamic process, yet the capability of organisms to preserve some key properties and functions should be recognized along the whole of the process. In other words, the general lesson that can be drawn here is that the organism is able to assimilate external matter and energy through its metabolism according to its own

5 N. Bostrom, “The Transhumanist FAQ” Subsec. 2.6; N. Bostrom, “The Future of Humanity”, in J.-K. Berg Olsen, E. Selinger, S. Riis (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Technology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 207-208. 6 Aristotle, De Gen. et Corr. 7 F.J. Varela, H.R. Maturana and R. Uribe, “Autopoiesis: The Organization of Living Systems, Its Characterization and a Model”, BioSystems 5 (1974): 187-196. 44 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio structures, functions, programs and goals, which remain in a way unchanged. The issue is also relevant when considering local tissue- transplantation or even transplantations of whole organs like the heart. In those cases, a very common phenomenon is the rejection of the transplanted tissue or organ. This shows that, already at a pure biological level, we cannot simply put a structural component, no matter how efficient in itself, inside the body of an organism since the latter needs to somehow acknowledge the extraneous biological item as its own. This is even truer when we deal with artificial devices. This recognition process is paradigmatically featured by the immune system, which is precisely based on a sharp distinction between the biological self and what pertains to it on the one hand, and the non-self, that is the external environment, on the other, thanks to precise mechanisms of information selection and control.8 Any organism, indeed, processes specific signals from its environment in order to modify or condition its immediate surroundings with the aim of improving its survival chances. This demands a very delicate integration of several sorts of functions and activities whose equilibrium may be very easily disrupted by inappropriate substitutions or interventions. This constitutes the basic biological integration that characterizes any organism. More sophisticated is the case of the brain, namely the central organ for controlling and monitoring the organism’s actions on the environment and for processing sensory information providing feedback to the control system. Here, the issue of mind uploading appears in all its troublesomeness. Usually, impairments of certain organs or functionalities, or even implementation or reimplementation of new or old functionalities, induce reorganization of the neural circuitry and of the map that the brain has of the body9.Already in the 1960s, it was shown that after removal of the visual cortex, cats can recover some visual ability with appropriate environmental stimulations reorganizing in this way their neural networks10. So, when dealing with

8 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology: Dealing with Information from Bacteria to Minds (New York, Oxford University Press, 2011), Subsec. 12.4.4. 9M. Konishi, “Centrally Synthesized Maps of Sensory Space” Trends in Neurosciences 9 (1998): 163-168; J.P. Donoghue and J.N. Sanes, “Peripheral Nerve Injury in Developing Rats Reorganizes Representations Pattern in Motor Cortex” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA Washington, 84 (1987): 1123-1126; P. Giraux, A. Sirigu, F. Schneider, and J.M. Dubernard, “Cortical Reorganization in Motor Cortex after Graft of Both Hands”, Nature Neurosciences 4 (2001): 691-692; Jeannerod, Motor Cognition, 34-35. 10 James M. Sprague, “Interaction of Cortex and Superior Colliculus in Mediation of Visually Guided Behavior in the Cat”, Science 153 (1966): 1544- 47. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 45 implementation of artificial devices, even in the simple case of a common leg-prosthesis, a certain amount of time is necessary for the brain to integrate and control the new kinematics and dynamics induced by the prosthesis. This shows that the brain organization is continuously upgraded through the individual’s movements and interactions with the environment, and that the brain as such provides a sort of second-level integration with regards to the basic biological one. Finally, we may speak of a third level of integration when higher cognitive mental and psychological processes are involved, as it is the case with human consciousness, insights, sense of personal identity across time and so on. Such processes demand a coherent and integrating unity, generally requiring a whole-brain state able to connect even distant neural regions, and that may be seriously damaged through several neurological or psychological impairments. Even more modest implantations of devices in the human brain for empowering. specific capabilities and functions could turn out to be more difficult than is usually assumed. It might be possible to enhance specific functionalities if these are relatively modular, as it is very often the case for lower-level cognitive abilities (specific perceptual abilities or motor performances). But this is barely the case when we deal with intelligence and especially the capability to have insights, as well as the human consciousness11. Trying to control the whole brain could finally result in a sort of enslaving it to a machine, which would be detrimental to high-level cognitive functions and also to the preservation of personal identity. Therefore, when we consider the possibility of implementing new devices in the body and the brain we must carefully ask whether or not they might prove noxious to one of these three levels of integration. In pursuing their dream of mind uploading, it seems that transhumanists overlook this issue. It is now known that the human brain at birth is highly immature (at least with respect to other mammalian species, primates included) and that the interactions with the physical, biological and social environment are crucial for the development of a mature brain12. Such interactions are mediated by the body and, as we have seen, the brain’s connectivity networks are continuously modified by the

11 Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Sec. 21.3-21.4 12 J.P. Changeux, A. Danchin, 1976, “Selective Stabilization of Developing Synapses as a Mechanism for the Specification of Neural Networks”, Nature 264 (1976): 705-712; Gerald M. Edelman, Neuronal Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, (New York: Basic Books, 1987); Edelman, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of Mind, (New York: Basic Books 1992); Changeux Jean-Pierre, The Physiology of Truth: Neuroscience and Human Knowledge, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2009). 46 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio interactions with the (physical, biological and social) environment throughout the whole lifespan. Furthermore, the emotional system is increasingly acknowledged as crucial also for cognitive functions and conscious decision-making processes.13 And it is well-known that it also relies on the endocrine system and has strict relations with somatic happenings. As a consequence, it should be clear that the brain co-develops with the whole of a person. Even the transplantation of a brain would likely result in a violent rejection. We could probably assume, as a limiting and fanciful case, that it would be possible to transplant a brain in an infant body, especially in the first stages of such co-development. However, even considering this possibility practicable at all (which is not so evident), the fact remains that the result of the intervention would be the integration of the brain in the new body, so that this brain would no longer be that of the person from whom it was taken, but rather the one co-developing with the infant’s body. If we consider that the mentioned mental and psychological processes of integration are very fragile, we may well expect that the continuity of the person would easily be lost through this procedure. Therefore, realizing the dream of mind uploading would at least require:

oThe capability of producing an accurate map of the neuronal connections of a brain, oThe ability to single out and artificially implement the mechanisms and processes by which the brain upgrades itself in its interactions with the environment, oThe capability of reproducing the minute and both-ways interactions the brain entertains with the body.

This also implies the possibility of implementing an artificial “body” able to reliably simulate, for the uploaded mind (or brain), the real body that is crucial for brain development, upgrading, maintenance and proper functioning. The aim of mind uploading while preserving the same personal identity,14 or the transhumanist program aiming at assuring a continuity of the human self beyond the death (of the body), seems to be ill-grounded, affected by many serious counter-arguments.

13 Damasio Antonio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (New York: Harcourt, 1999). 14 N. Bostrom, “The Transhumanist FAQ” Sec. 2.6. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 47

GENETICISM AND COMPUTATIONALISM

The scientific background on which transhumanists have conceived their research program is rooted in old-fashioned scientific research. We would like to show this in relation to two main problems: the role of genetics in the organism’s development and the computational view of the brain. Transhumanists encourage genetic manipulation in order to lower the risks of malformations or diseases as well as to enhance brain capabilities and cognitive functions. The problem here is represented by a naïve view of the complex relations between genotype and phenotype, and by a conception of the organism that is too mechanistic.15 Neither the mature phenotypes nor the brain structures are directly determined by the genome. Rather, they are the results of very complex developmental processes in which several environmental inputs and endogenous activities are involved, implying the impossibility of foreseeing the results of an hypothetical genome sequencing and of programming possible designed enhancements to be obtained.16 It is very likely that such a process cannot be predetermined or controlled due to its intrinsic complexity. Let us now consider what this means for the brain in particular. It seems to us that the transhumanist conception of the brain (and of the mind) is too simplistic as essentially based on a computationalist view.17 The conception of the brain as a mere computing machine is obsolete and is grounded on misunderstanding both the features of computers that we could eventually implement and the functionality of the brain. It is even not in accord with the way any organism works. All organisms, bacteria included, have the capability of controlling their environment, of being able to address and even of actively searching for specific environmental signals denoting the presence of vital resource. This implies the fundamental ability of appropriately representing and referring to such resources according to vital needs and goals.18

15 N. Bostrom, Sandberg Anders, “The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement” in Savulescu Julian, Bostrom N. (eds.), Human Enhancement, (New York: Oxford University Press 2008), 379. 16 L. Wolpert, R. Beddington, T. Jessel, P. Laurence, E. Meyeroviz and J. Smith, Principles of Development, (New York: Oxford University Press 2002); Scott F. Gilbert, Developmental Biology (Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer, 2006); G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Ch. 11. 17 N. Bostrom, “The Transhumanist FAQ”, Subsecs. 2.3, 2.4, 6.1. 18 G. Auletta, “Teleonomy: The Feedback Circuit Involving Information and Thermodynamic Processes”, Journal of Modern Physics 2 (2011): 136-145. 48 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio

Obviously, the problem is much bigger in the case of humans, since they make use of symbolic systems. The ability of humans to manipulate symbols allows them to excogitate solutions and models that are unprecedented in our universe, whereas computers, passively following the instructions contained in their program (elaborated by human engineers), simply cannot reach that level of activity, in spite of what has been maintained in the framework of semantic computationalism.19 Indeed, symbols are a form of dealing-with- information that is typically human.20 Symbols (different from signs or icons) do not have a direct representational import but are conventionally associated with some content. They are things that are shared between a sender and a receiver, through which the receiver tries to provoke an adequate representation of the referent in the receiver. The creation of a symbolic system requires a twofold process of internalization and externalization. Internalization is due to the fact that symbols, lacking an immediate representational aspect, constitute an internal and closed system of semantic and syntactic relations. The external character of symbols, on the contrary, is essentially pragmatic and, therefore, social: a symbolic system, to exist as such, must be used and practiced within a community that shares it, which demands that symbols be connected with a public combinatorics of physical items (phonemes, written marks, gestures and so on).21 Some may think that the human symbolic capability may be reduced, in one way or another, to the brain activity. Of course, the brain substrate, especially the various brain excitation patterns that always accompany higher mental functions, is necessarily required. However, such brain patterns are not symbolic in themselves but are essentially representational.22 It should also be considered that the brain processes are likely to be canalized by the mind activity. A clear hint at that may be found in the long-range action planning (J. Searle’s “prior intentions”)23 that is able to frame specific action-segments (Searle’s “intentions in action”). Moreover, the brain excitation patterns are not the only necessary “material substrate” for the mental symbolic activity, as it requires the resorting to external physical items (as seen), as well as to the environment and the social interactions mediated by our bodies. Summing up, the idea of mind uploading turns

19 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Subsec. 6.1.2. 20 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Ch. 19. 21 M.D. Hauser, 2009, “The Possibility of Impossible Cultures”, Nature 460 (2009): 190-196. 22 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Ch. 13, especially Subsec. 13.1.2. 23 J.R. Searle, Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Jeannerod, Motor Cognition pp. 1-8, 62-66, and 135-143; G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Subsec. 14.1.3. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 49 out to be encouraged by a limited and misleading view of the brain and the mind that does not take into account all the sophisticated aspects and the deep intertwinement of the biological, physiological, environmental and social components involved. 24

THE TRANSHUMANIST STRATEGY

Having seen the background of transhumanism, we may ask about the perspectives. From this point of view, we may consider two main issues:

(1) The transhumanist hope of achieving at least partial results; (2) The posthuman as a transhumanists’ “blind perspective”.

Re: point 1). We have to admit that transplanting brains and mind uploading is not the only thing transhumanism is about. Indeed, particular solutions have been envisaged or emphasized to deal with a number of concrete problems. The common, general tenet is the employment of pioneering technology to improve human capabilities25, and it is acknowledged that partial results are welcome in the transhumanist perspective: Success in the transhumanist endeavour is not an all-or-nothing matter. There is no “it” that everything hinges on. Instead, there are many incremental processes at play, which may work better or worse, faster or more slowly. Even if we cannot cure all diseases, we will cure many. Even if we do not get immortality, we can have healthier lives. Even if we cannot freeze whole bodies and revive them, we can learn how to store organs for transplantation. Even if we do not solve world hunger, we can feed a lot of people.26 Given all these good endeavors, we do not see what the transhumanist approach actually adds to the current hard work that is being done for these. It envisages a rather liberal and futuristic approach with respect to the experimentation and intervention on the human subject; on the other, it seems to rely on scientific views that are at times not sufficiently updated and in line with the most recent developments, as we have tried to show. Therefore, a more careful assessment of the matter seems to us quite relevant as we need to understand what the

24 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Secs. 24.4-6. 25 Bostrom and Sandberg, The Wisdom of Nature 26 N, Bostrom, “The Transhumanist FAQ”, Sec. 6.3; see also N. Bostrom, 2011, “Perfection Is Not A Useful Concept”, interview to The European, 13.06.2011; also at: http://theeuropean-magazine.com/282-bostrom-nick/283- perfection-is-not-a-useful-concept. 50 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio limits are of technological developments that can be predicted in the span of 50 years or so, and which are, therefore, the correct and reliable research strategies that we should undertake. Let us point out that the transhumanist claims involve also a number of deep ethical issues. It has also been acknowledged that the status of ethical debate on new technological developments is significantly behind with respect to the impressive rate of technological development itself.27 The notion of “existential risk” has been introduced that takes into account those threats which, should they be realized, would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potentials.28 This notion is also intended to provide the background for delineating political and ethical indications and prescriptions to the purpose of avoiding (or at least lowering the probability of) unintended direct or indirect catastrophic consequences of the technological development on our species.29 However, as the transhumanist strategy involves a direct application of experimental procedures aimed at intervening on the equilibrium characterizing the integrity of human subjects, our main point is that such an approach should take into account the different aspects of the human person and therefore be scientifically assessed mainly in relation with the three levels of integration of the human organism and person we referred above. Furthermore, we think that it is worth trying to frame these issues also within a responsible philosophical and theological view addressing fundamental anthropological questions. The issue of humanity is indeed too big a question (which raises a considerable amount of collateral problems) to be confined in some specific field of studies. This should be the reliable ground on which rooting the debate on the future of humanity. Therefore, setting aside ethical and social aspects, it might be too soon to undertake experimentally invasive research project on the human subject that we are just now beginning to understand in its multifaceted complexity.

Re: point 2). The final goal of the transhumanist strategy is to establish a posthuman being “whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards.”30 On this view, a transhumanist is “simply” a person who encourages the reaching of such a “new being” by applying

27 Ibid. 28 N. Bostrom, “Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards”, Journal of Evolution and Technology 9 (2002(, esp. Secs. 1 and 2. 29 Ibid. Sec. 9. 30 N. Bostrom, “The Transhumanist FAQ” Sec. 1.2. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 51 advanced technological means to the present-day human organisms. Because of the many different approaches envisaged in the transhumanist movement, the notion of posthuman is irremediably vague and subject to much speculation. It is also explicitly admitted that “it is difficult for us to imagine what it will be like to be a posthuman person.”31 Thus, as the posthuman-state to be reached is, by definition, so undetermined and unspecified, the transhumanist may stop worrying about the specific steps to be endorsed to reach such a state. The only methodological imperative that should animate the transhumanist would be something like: do all what may conceivably enhance the present human condition and, sooner or later, a posthuman will emerge as a consequence of such process. This kind of argument, however, seems to us to explain away the real problem at stake, i.e. the one of envisaging a concrete and manageable scientific-technological research strategy able to lead to specific results. In other words, a clearer understanding of the aims to be reached and the means to be employed should be a prerequisite for endorsing and engaging scientific and technological research programs like the one claimed here. This casts some doubts on the actual effectiveness of this approach in solving the specific problems which humanity faces. No ambiguity should be left about the connections between the current concrete problems, the way to solve them or at least to cope with them, and the ultimate goal of the posthuman condition.

CULTURE AND SELF-CANALIZATION

Notwithstanding the limitations and worries so far expressed, transhumanism actually grasps a fundamental dimension of humankind: the tendency to improve its conditions, to overcome its limits, to elevate its status to a higher level, and even to defeat death. This has been a connatural attitude of humans expressed in the search for truth, in arts and literature, in moral thinking, in religious beliefs, and so on. From this standpoint, the appeal of transhumanism to consider “the future of humanity as an inescapable topic” is to be acknowledged in its real and concrete import.32 The point that we want to make in this section, however, has to do with the context, means and perspectives for such a topic to be appropriately faced; we shall argue that the human tendency to improvement has its proper place in the exclusively human phenomenon that is culture.

31 Ibid.,Sec. 1.2. 32 N. Bostrom, “The Future of Humanity”, 186-189. 52 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio

Transhumanism is a cultural movement essentially related to a way of thinking about the human condition. It represents an anthropological conception and anthropological problems. What addresses this kind of a problem is a more mature, scientifically based, and philosophically elaborated anthropological background that, as we shall see, can avail itself of theological tenets. The need to take into account these three disciplines (namely, science, philosophy and theology) for the problem at hand is because many areas of research (and of reality) have been endorsed by one of the three and abandoned by the others, while the issue of who the human being is a core theme for all of them. To begin with, it is worth trying to understand the phenomenon of human culture in an evolutionary perspective with a special focus on the systems of inheritance. The most acknowledged form of inheritance in evolutionary biology is, of course, genetic inheritance. All the life forms resort to this mechanism for transmitting to future generations the genetic information necessary (but not sufficient) to build a new organism belonging to the concerned species. It is worth mentioning that very elementary living beings, like bacteria, have genetic mechanisms to ensure inheritance, and show a high level of genetic variability. This is also ensured by the so called horizontal gene transfer, which is the acquisition of genetic sequences from other cells of the same or a different species without any parental relation. So the bacterial “model” of dealing with environmental uncertainty is to intervene in the generation of variance itself. A recent achievement in biology has been the acknowledgment of another mechanism of inheritance: the epigenetic one. Roughly speaking, this mechanism is active in all the organisms that have some form of development or growth that moves from an immature individual to a mature phenotype. This accounts for a deep and complex interconnection between the organism and its environment, so that in most cases an environmental niche is established enabling the effects of natural selection. This niche represents the context in which subsequent generations grow and live. The multicellular eukaryotic model for dealing with environmental uncertainty is to intervene in the mechanisms of selection thereby making their effects more likely. Now, in our view, culture should be considered a third form of dealing with environmental uncertainty: inventing a new form of inheritance, that is, of transmission of information to subsequent generations.33 Culture, indeed, may be defined as a set of behaviors, tools, traditions, and learned skills that are symbolically shared by the

33 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Sec. 9.8; Jablonka-Lamb 2005, pp. 119- 46 and 162-66. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 53 members of a community and are phenotypically transmitted from one generation to another through non-genetic channels.34 Moreover, culture may be regarded as the human’s way of transforming, rebuilding, and arranging the environment. In this sense, it represents the specific way humans construct their environmental niche. Therefore, culture has an adaptive value. In order to understand this point, we should first consider that, in general, adaptation means an organism’s increased capability to control its environment. This in turn implies an increased capability of exerting information control.35 In a previous section we have already seen some of the characteristics of the human symbolic activity. Culture presupposes symbolic activity and constitutes the context in which the latter develops. Shared symbolic systems (i.e. cultures) represent a new and highly efficient form of dealing with information. Perhaps, the most striking adaptive trait of culture is that it makes information production and management cheaper and more accurate.36 For instance, by reading a textbook on molecular biology, it is possible to assimilate in a few months what has required the joint effort of hundreds of research teams over many decades. The symbolic activity of humans, in its two-fold dimension of internalization and externalization, gives rise to a mental space. Symbolic mental activity allows for virtually unlimited outcomes. This feature of the mental symbolic activity enables humans to elaborate notions (like infinity, irrational or imaginary numbers, God, etc.) and conceptual frameworks (e.g. elaborated action plans, scientific theories, political systems, cults, and so on) that have no direct representational content and linkage with the physical reality, as well as to combine all of them recursively. This potential limitlessness, however, is always constrained in any specific cultural manifestation. A culture, indeed, is constituted by a well-defined set of rules, fundamental assumptions, practices, conventions, strategies for future developments and so on. Such a set is determined and deliberately accepted by the members of the community identifiable with that specific culture. Therefore, the human being shows a unique capacity for determining the conditions of life in which the members of a community and their descendants are forced to go on. Moreover, in such a process we often discover that the parameters defining the problem at hand also strongly confine the possible solutions. Even in the cases in which there is a certain initial variability, as time goes on, most humans converge on

34 G. Auletta, Cognitive Biology, Subsec. 22.3.1. 35 G. Auletta, G.F.R. Ellis and L. Jaeger, 2008, “Top-down Causation by Information Control: From a Philosophical Problem to a Scientific Research Programme”, The Journal of the Royal Society Interface 5 (2008): 1159-1172. 36 P.J. Richerdson and R. Boyd, Culture and Evolutionary Process, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 113. 54 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio certain technical or conceptual solutions that are considered more appropriate. Thus, such constraining process is conventional but not arbitrary, and it is in this sense that culture is intrinsically characterized by what we call self-canalization. Briefly speaking, we may say that every radical choice we make in our life, which orients our efforts and energies towards the pursuing of a general goal or a mission in life, is an act of self-canalization that we renew in everyday engagement. For example, we may acknowledge such an act when a person deliberates to become a physician, a marathon runner, a cook, or even in the case of a religious conversion, thus undergoing training, discipline and sacrifice. Self-canalization refers to humans voluntarily subjecting and bending themselves to principles or laws that they realize are not dependent on their will although the paths leading to such discoveries are freely chosen and fully contingent. Indeed, the motivation to undertake a certain training is always irreducibly individual, but the result that one can eventually produce, if relevant, has a value that immediately transcends the individual dimension. This is especially true for knowledge in the course of our experience. Thanks to our commitment and creative but rationally pondered efforts, we can unveil general truths or constraints in nature to which we freely submit our reason (or will). We reach those truths, yet they go far beyond our capacity of wielding our arbitrary power on them, thus requiring an acceptance or an assent37 to them as something ultimately received rather than produced. The progressive discovery of truths about the natural world proceeds essentially by formulating theoretical hypotheses related to observed phenomena and successively testing them. Theoretical hypotheses are in general abstract constructs resulting from human free invention and imagination. In the course of the scientific enterprise, some of these theoretical elaborations achieve a certain degree of universal validity as the research we undertake grasps essential regularities actually present in nature that can account for a large number of different phenomena. Therefore, we may see how an intellectual enquiry, obviously carried out through contingent ways of investigation, brings a universal dimension of intelligibility standing beyond the particular standpoint of any single scholar, so that, in principle, all of them might converge on it. The knowledge that has been achieved in this way is precisely an example of what humans freely accept, choose to share, spread and further develop

37 J.H. Newman, 1870, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, (London 1870). Ch. 1, § 1 and Ch. 6). Newman stresses that an act of assent is not a mere reiteration of a conclusion but an act that gives an absolute acknowledgment to the conclusions that we draw from inferential processes. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 55 within a future-oriented perspective that also involves the education of our descendants. Seen in this perspective, the history of human culture tells the ways in which self-canalization has given rise to different social and communitarian contexts. When many people in a certain political- social context embrace a common ideal, individual radical choices may lead to radical historical changes, as for example in the case of the American Revolution. In more general terms, self-canalization should be regarded as the continuous generation of variety and novelty and the simultaneous free acceptance of constraints that restrict the space of possibilities. In this sense, self-canalization is a fundamental process through which our culture is grounded. It is important to stress that this process does not imply a determination or a denial of free choices by individuals. Rather, as the word suggests, it stands for the subsequent canalization of all our everyday choices under the guide of universal principles or laws to which we may partake typically as members of a human community that recognizes and shares those principles and laws. Therefore, the intrinsic character of culture is such that it continuously reinforces itself. The acknowledgment of formal truths and their voluntary acceptance, the process of education of new generations typical of any cultural system, the fact that humans voluntarily undergo learning processes, as well as the acceptance of laws, precepts and moral obligations are all evidences of the natural capability of humans to go beyond their purely biological dimension. Precisely here we see a possible point of convergence between our approach and the most interesting tenet of transhumanism: the grasping of the human tendency to improve its conditions, to overcome its limits, and to elevate its status to a higher level. However, whereas transhumanism seems to currently focus on the enhancement of the human biological organism, we see in culture (socially integrated technologies included) and the mental symbolic activity of humans the proper place for such tendency to be pursued. Indeed, culture historically represents a form of improvement, advancement and progress to which humans are naturally inclined and through which we transcend our individual perspective. Moreover, while transhumanism only considers the tendency of humans to “go beyond,” self-transcendence and acceptance of limitation provokes a theological inquiry.

ECOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Before turning on some theological considerations, let us approach some ecological implications concerning the transhumanist relying on technology. As is clear to everybody, current developments in technology may indeed endanger or seriously damage the ecological 56 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio system of our planet. Probably the only way to avoid the risk of Earth’s resources overexploiting and consumption is to be found in a responsible development and use of new-generation technologies. We think that the problem needs to be assessed starting from the clarification of the relations between highly complex organisms, and humans in particular, with their natural environment. If it is certainly true that these organisms are subject either to minimal and gradual fluctuations or to more radical changes of environmental conditions, it is equally true that they are able to actively modify or mould their surrounding environment according to their needs,38 in the process of niche construction.39 We may say that the ontogeny of a huge number of multicellular organisms, from insects to mammals, is deeply characterized by niche construction as the continual effort to consistently control environmental situations by both exploiting favorable conditions and overcoming unfavorable ones, as far as it is possible. Since the formation of a suitable environmental niche is a direct outcome of an organism’s action during its lifespan, often in interaction with other organisms, a local environment (i.e. a niche) can be recognized only in relation to the organisms living in it. Indeed, a process of co-adaptation between organisms and local environment is continuously at work. Moreover, since a perfect control on environmental conditions remains impossible even for the highest life-forms, we have to take into consideration the integration of pressures (coming from biological and not-biological surroundings) that affect (and select) organisms on one side and the outcomes of organisms’ cumulative work in niche construction on the other. The modifications introduced in the environment especially by the adult members of a population will contribute to determine the situation in which the next generations (also including members of different species) will grow and, in turn, perform a modifying action, thus bringing to a feedback process occurring over time, which has strong evolutionary relevance. Finally, the interactions between different species and different niches bring about the formation of even wider and more complex networks, that is, of ecosystems in which communities of organisms together with the physical environment turn out to be reciprocally dependent.

38 See, for instance, R. Lewontin, The Triple Helix, (Cambridge, Mass., 2000). Indeed, E. Schrödinger had drawn attention to the point. E. Schrödinger, Mind and Matter, Cambridge 1958. 39 F.J. Odling-Smee, K.N. Laland and M.W. Feldman, 2003, Niche Construction,(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003); Auletta Cognitive Biology, Sec. 10.3. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 57

Now, humans have developed maybe the most advanced way to build an appropriate niche with respect to any other known species, which also gives rise to particular effects on other species, on wider ecosystems rather than only on locally confined areas, and possibly on the whole ecology of our planet. This is especially true about technologies that have been produced since the twentieth century. Humans are the only organisms able to exert control on the natural environment reshaping and even reinventing it according to conscious purposes, desires, values, and spiritual exigencies. Typically, human symbolic thinking and communication represent a totally new way of relation between species. As we have seen above, the symbolic activity characteristic of humans allows for the structuring of a mental universe. This process may be regarded as similar to the way in which other organisms construct their local niches; yet, such a universe finds a particular distinctive character as it is symbolically shared in a dynamic process of social and linguistic interchange40. These capabilities allow for our continuous building of ideal models about possible relations of cause and effect with respect to the natural world that we inhabit. This is an abstract conscious operation in turn indispensable for designing tools and devices to purposefully re-invent our environment in countless different shapes. Culture then is the properly human way to create an adaptive ecological niche. Here we see a deep integration and entrenchment of the biological and the cultural dimension of humankind. Culture somehow absorbs the biological dimension of niche construction, and it does so exactly thanks to its self-canalizing character that gives to any fundamental human activity a deep projective dimension undertaken in view of its possible, expected and planned future effects. At the individual level, it is quite clear that no single choice or act is performed without thinking to its future effects and consequences. At a supra- individual level, the building of roads, aqueducts, ports, schools, monuments, churches and temples, and also, to a certain extent, communication systems, holiday villages, shopping centers and so on are always designed not only for their proximate employment but also (and sometimes mainly) for their future effects on life-style, welfare, market, advancement of knowledge and, in a word, enculturation of future generations. We wish to emphasize that any cultural tradition can exist only as far as it has a local character. A religious tradition, for instance, can exist only if there is some local event (like a miracle or a revelation) and if there are specific places considered as sacred. Even material culture (e.g. culinary or craft traditions) is always linked to the availability of

40 Auletta Cognitive Biology, Secs. 18.1 and 19.1. 58 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio locally specific supplies. Of course, material culture often affects other (and higher) cultural levels (think, for example, to the oriental ceremony of tea). Moreover, the limitations of the past technologies and the limited dimensions of populations had a less invasive impact on the natural environment thus preserving the local character of human cultures. As a matter of fact, today we find ourselves dealing with a transformation that involves the very meaning of cultural traditions. It seems, indeed, that mankind is more and more entertaining a radically different relationship with the environment involving the progressive abandonment of the local dimension in favor of the global one. It might even be said that whereas the animal’s niche construction is a limited local process of co- adaptation, the human species more and more tends to cope with the global (planetary) environment, thus expanding its reshaping capability to the whole Earth’s ecosystem, although the control of this hugely complex system still remains out of its reach. In any case, the objective tendency to cope and deal with the global environment technologically represents another qualitative difference that transhumanism points to. Transhumanists may perhaps still have a confused strategy but they have probably well understood this main trend of our epoch. However, the process we are experiencing is not simply a matter of technology but also the deep social transformation called “globalization”, which menaces the endurance of specific cultures. Such a development could wash out any kind of local traditions and devalue the concrete, local and even biological, roots of human culture. Faced with such an enormous problem we favor a process of discernment which will not dismiss our own traditions without finding anchor-points that are objectively more valuable.

DRAWING SOME THEOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS

One issue to consider is human stewardship with respect to the natural world. It is based on the acknowledgment that God entrusted the created world to our care. We think that stewardship may acquire its full meaning in the light of the new Creation (the second coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead). Another is an eschatological perspective that transcends but includes what we call history, nature or science.41 The coming of God’s Kingdom should not be conceived as a denial of the first (current) Creation in a kind of ontological dualism (earth and matter are bad and heaven is good), nor as an eschatological duality between the present age and the age to come.42 We should not forget that the Christian message deals with the resurrection of the whole

41 N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (London: SPCK, 2007), 83, 214-217. 42 Wright, 105-106. Transhumanism Critically Assessed 59 person. Accordingly, St Thomas points out that the intellect is the form of the human body to which it is united not accidentally, and that also the perfection of the body is required for beatitude.43 Thus, we expect God’s Kingdom to represent a transfiguration of the person and of the whole of Creation.44 Humans are called to take care of the created world in the perspective of the coming of God’s Kingdom “on earth, as in heaven” but this implies that we have to perform this duty without presuming to dominate the Earth (or creation): we are stewards of the created world rather than the absolute masters of it. We can only contribute to the realization of God’s providential plan, and not know whether we shall succeed or not.45 In other words, we are called to follow God’s will, putting aside the arrogance of elevating any of our ideas, ideologies, parties, society, group or whatever form a Utopia may take, to be the door or the leverage for the Kingdom of God. This demands great modesty but also a great sense of responsibility, requiring a deep engagement from both a moral and a religious point of view. Now, within the sketched theological context, we should take into consideration that an educated and responsible employment of new- generation technological means may eventually permit the performance our duty of stewardship46 toward the created nature in a beneficial way that, right until yesterday, was unfathomable as not having comparable historical antecedents. Indeed, today we have the opportunity to accomplish stewardship through a smoother control on the natural world without resorting to gross or rough mechanical techniques to transform the environment according to our needs. It is a matter of gently canalizing natural phenomena, maintaining existing constraints as far as possible and establishing new ones when necessary. We should also take into account that this may assume a crucial relevance in dealing with problems possibly derived from globalization (especially in the so-called Western societies and, now, in the developing countries) such as overconsumption and overexploiting Earth’s resources. Even if the technological development of the last few decades brought about ecological dangers and damages, subtler economic and political

43 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae.,I, q. 76, a. 1, a. 6;II.I, q. 4,a. 6. 44 Wright, 52-63, 104-119, and 159-176. 45 Wright, pp. 156-158. 46 Gen 1:26-28; Cathechism of the Catholic Church, LEV, Vatican City 1993; also at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM; Catechism numbers 2402 and 2415; see also Gray P.C.L. 2001, “Christian Stewardship: What God Expects from Us”, Lay Witness (September 2001). 60 G. Auletta, I. Colagè and P. D’ambrosio strategies based on innovative technological findings might well represent an adequate solution to the problem.47 Finally, as we have seen, one of the main focuses of transhumanists’ eagerness to employ new technologies to improve our condition is the issue of prolonging human life; some of the most radical transhumanists even believe humans will eventually become immortal. The most dramatic condition of humanity then is always the experience and contradiction between a mind that longs for universality and a body that is necessarily limited. Perhaps not by chance, Schrödinger considered dealing with time, and in particular the effort to overcome temporal limitations, as the theological question as such.48 Summarizing, by transcending our pure biological dimension and spiritually establishing a community with our Creator, we should elevate ourselves to be conscious partakers of His providential plan for the Creation. What is required for promoting stewardship is the passage from the (selfish) ability to canalize ourselves, and our own descendants, to the (altruistic) capability of canalizing the entire world by means of both our powerfulness and the awareness of the limits that we freely acknowledge. It is here that a qualitative change in the way we intervene on the world may bring us to implement the human dimension of self- transcendence in a more integral way. Self-transcendence has indeed been regarded in relation to the constitutive openness of the human being to the divine transcendent reality, to the possibility of recognizing it as independent of individual will or ideas, and to the faculty of freely adhering to it.49 This implies the acknowledgement that we are part of the created world, as any other created being, but also in the special position to become partakers in God’s care of creation.

47 B. Heap and F. Comim, “Consumption and Happiness: Christian Values and Sustainability”, in G. Auletta (ed.), The Relationships between Science and Philosophy: New Opportunities for a Fruitful Dialogue, (Vatican City: 2008, 107-130). 48 E. Schrödinger, Mind and Matter, (Cambridge: University Press, 1958) 149. 49 K. Rahner, Grundkurs des Glaubens. Einführung in den Begriff des Christentums, (Freiburg: Herder,1976). PART II

THE HUMAN IN TRANSHUMANISM

CHAPTER IV

HUMAN BETTERMENT: A CASE ANALYSIS

KEVIN FITZGERALD

As a child I was already engrossed in the fascinating world of science and technology. I found it amazing to discover how the world worked and what we could do to fashion our world to meet our own needs, challenges and desires. When I read about great scientists and inventors, one phrase almost always was part of their stories: they pursued their life’s work for the betterment of humankind. As Nikola Tesla stated, “Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.” In this sense, there is a “transhumanist” aspect to the human pursuit of scientific and technological advance. A fundamental, if not primary, purpose of this pursuit is to assist humankind in moving “beyond” its current list of troubles and challenges (whatever they may be in a particular historical timeframe) to a better future for most if not all. In this sense, I suppose, my own interest in science and technology has always been part of this kind of transhumanist vision for humankind. This language of technological advance and human betterment is also very much a part of the story various, self-identified “Transhumanists” tell regarding their work and hopes for the future. For example, Article 2 of the Constitution of the organization “Humanity +” (also known as the World Transhumanist Association) states: The goal of the World Transhumanist Association is to support discussion and public awareness of emerging technologies, to defend the right of individuals in free and democratic societies to adopt technologies that expand human capacities, to anticipate and propose solutions for the potential consequences of emerging technologies, and to actively encourage and support the development of emerging technologies judged to have sufficiently probable positive benefit.1 From this description one could easily assume that this so-called Transhumanist movement of our current times is, at least in part if not in total, an extension of the transhumanist project mentioned above that many have pursued for millennia, and that I also embrace. However, as one reads more of their material, a particular focus becomes readily apparent at least for this Transhumanist Association. In their description of their philosophy of transhumanism one reads:

1 http://humanityplus.org/about/constitution/, accessed September 2011. 64 Kevin Fitzgerald

Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades. “Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.” (Max More 1990)

Transhumanism promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities for elevating the human condition and the human organism, opened up by the advancement of technology. Attention is given to both present technologies, such as biotechnology and information technology, and anticipated future technologies, such as molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.2

This statement of their philosophy is emblematic of the emphasis these Transhumanists place on the potential of technology to deliver human betterment. In response, many of the more traditionally transhumanist individuals and groups, who support the development of technologies that have a good chance of providing positive benefits to free societies, do not interpret the Transhumanist movement of our times to be primarily focused on bettering the human condition. Concerns are raised by these more traditionally transhumanist individuals and groups regarding the uncritical and unsupported belief these more recent Transhumanist groups and spokespersons have in the capacity of science and technology not only to solve the most troubling problems faced by humanity, but also to take humanity beyond its historical and physical limitations. Too often these Transhumanists point to utopian technological interventions without paying sufficient attention to the inherent limitations and unintended consequences of any technological development. I, too, have raised this concern because the history of science and technology is replete with examples of missed goals and unforeseen harms that resulted from what appeared to be the best science and technology of the day.3 In order to address this tension between these different visions of how technology might be used to assist humankind in its efforts to

2 http://humanityplus.org/learn/philosophy/, accessed September 2011. 3 Kevin FitzGerald “Medical Enhancement: A Destination of Technological, Not Human, Betterment,” in: B. Gordjin, and R. Chadwick, (eds), Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity, New York: Springer (2008) 39- 54. Human Betterment: A Case Analysis 65 become better, it would seem that a constructive dialogue between both groups might result in a richer and more complete understanding of how humankind can best pursue technological development. However, this constructive dialogue among these groups would require both the assumption of good will and good intentions on the part of both Transhumanists and transhumanists [or “T/transhumanists”], as well as the establishment of a solid foundation upon which this interaction can reliably take place. To establish this good foundation for dialogue, there will need to be greater clarity regarding both the assumptions and presumptions held by each group, and actual outcomes that are desired. In other words, the fundamental presumption is that each group – transhumanists and Transhumanists – desires humankind to move beyond the problems and plagues of its present state, and even achieve better overall living conditions. However, their different approaches raise the following questions: what kind of beyond (i.e. T/transhumanism) is offered by each of these group’s different visions, and for whom might it indeed be better? Both T/transhumanist groups embrace science and technology, but in different ways. Are these differences in kind or degree? Do these differences indicate fundamental variances in the concepts and goals of human betterment that are being employed to justify and guide how our science and technology are to be pursued and used to achieve human betterment? If so, how do these variances cash out when the different T/transhumanist visions are applied? Human betterment – at least as it is usually presented by both these groups purporting to pursue it – involves the attempt to better the condition of all humans as opposed to the improvement of one human community at the detriment of others (e.g. via slavery or oppression). Though there may be disagreements among the various groups as to whom to include in the set of “all humans” (e.g. the preborn, the disabled, the dying, artificial intelligences or even certain animals as equivalent to humans), one can presume that the members of these groups do, for the most part, include one another as part of the human community to be bettered. Hence, one can reasonably argue that the T/transhumanist vision of human betterment that is most inclusive of all the goods and goals of all the various groups pursuing this benefit could well be the more acceptable approach for those who wish to achieve a real betterment for most if not all. Elucidating this vision is the purpose of this chapter: to look seriously at the goals and methods of these two groups within the larger T/transhumanist communities in order to ascertain what approach(es) may be the best to pursue in order to use technology appropriately to achieve human betterment for each and all. To begin this review, one must acknowledge the power and appeal of programs that promise such widely desired goals as decreased 66 Kevin Fitzgerald disease burden, poverty, hunger and injury, as well as increased lifespan, freedom, education and access to goods. One also cannot deny that science and technology have greatly benefitted humankind when one considers the impact on general health and lifespan the discovery of antibiotics has had, or how the printing press has advanced education and culture. However, one must also acknowledge that for many, if not most or even all, there is more to human fulfillment than reducing burdens and expanding knowledge. One way to clarify this situation is to ask people which they would choose to be: chronically ill yet much loved, or perfectly healthy yet despised by all? Granted people would most likely want to be perfectly healthy and much loved, but the point of the exercise is merely to point out the importance of human relationality as a key part of human fulfillment. From this example of the complexity of what human beings consider necessary for a fulfilling life, two questions come to the fore in the search for the more appropriate T/transhumanist vision: what is the betterment of humankind, and how can science and technology best serve this betterment? These questions are not new to human reflection, as one can trace them back through the millennia of recorded history. Hence, a good foundation for this investigation of T/transhumanist visions may well be found within the framework of these two perduring questions regarding what it is we humans really want and how science and technology may best assist us in obtaining it. Even with the focus described above, the scope of such a reflection would be enormous. Hence, in order to sharpen the focus a bit more, I will focus on an area of science and technology which is both very much at the cutting edge of some Transhumanist visions and also of some familiarity to me. This area is the intersection of genetic/genomic research and healthcare. With the discovery of enzymes that could cut DNA at specific locations, sequence DNA, and place the DNA into new and specific locations, genetic and genomic research in medicine has grown immensely. Enormous and expensive research projects such as the Human Genome Initiative and the Icelandic Health Sector Database have accelerated the pursuit of global genomic research and, consequently, individualized healthcare that will employ an individual’s genetic characteristics to tailor personalized treatments and disease prevention strategies. In addition, some look for the day when people will be able to manipulate their own DNA, or that of their children, to remove unwanted characteristics and add desired ones. All this and more comprise an increasingly active and controversial intersection of genomic research and healthcare. This intersection also provides a very useful lens through which one can achieve greater clarity regarding the dynamics of human betterment, how these dynamics can function within Human Betterment: A Case Analysis 67 different T/transhumanist perspectives, and the role of science and technology in providing such betterment. The area of specialization within healthcare research and treatment which arguably has the lead in applying genomic and genetic information to disease prediction, prevention and targeted therapies is oncology. There are already several genetic mutations that have been identified in a variety of tumors which have proven useful in creating targeted tests, drugs and therapies shown to increase the effectiveness and decrease the harms of cancer treatments. However, to achieve the level of benefits gained and harms avoided both oncologists and patients desire, much more information needs to be gathered not only regarding tumor characteristics, but also regarding patients’ genomes, environments, lifestyles, family histories, etc. All this information then needs to be placed in large databases where extensive comparison analyses can be done in order to tease out the precise differences that may allow healthcare professionals to predict more accurately how to treat different tumors in different individuals – and, best of all, perhaps how to prevent cancer in the first place. While this goal sounds broadly desirable, there are many challenges and pitfalls intrinsic to this pursuit. The creation of large medical databases with extensive personal information could increase the potential for infringements on privacy, insurance, employment and individual respect and dignity. Since, at the same time, greater access to this medical information would facilitate both research and treatment, questions of how to balance broad access and individual security are indeed a challenge. This tension leads to difficult questions. If everyone might somehow benefit from such large public medical databases, would everyone be required to have their information included? If all are required to participate, should all then receive equal access to whatever treatments come forth from research? What would we do with those who choose to not be involved? What of those who refuse to cooperate due to their group’s history of abuse at the hands of medical researchers and personnel, such as African Americans and Native Americans have experienced in this country? Basically these questions boil down to questions of how to evaluate and balance harm and benefits, and who decides how all this will be done? An answer too often forthcoming from biomedical researchers, as well as certain Transhumanist groups, is that the experts (i.e. themselves) should decide what should be done since they know best how the benefits might be achieved and the harm avoided. But this position begs the question because their evaluation of harms and benefits comes from their own embrace of their science and technology as the best solution to the problem. Might not other perspectives have equal if not greater insight into what benefits might be desired and what harms are deemed unacceptable? For example, major public health benefits 68 Kevin Fitzgerald might come most readily from relatively draconian interventions regarding behavior modifications – such as controlling what people eat, drink and smoke. At what point would such behavioral control diminish the benefit of enjoying one’s life to such an extent that the probabilistic gains of avoiding cancer pale in comparison? If the goal of such interventions is to promote health (from a medical perspective), or freedom and self-empowerment (from a Transhumanist perspective), then one can certainly question whether or not various physiological gains, such as reducing one’s cancer risk, are so easily and directly translated into personal or community betterment. Scenarios such as these illuminate how an overly technological Transhumanist perspective is susceptible to overstating the potential healthcare benefits to be achieved via science while downplaying or avoiding the humanistic challenge of balancing individual freedom and choice against behavioral limitations, both individual and community, intended to improve health and reduce healthcare costs. This tension in genomic research reveals the fundamental disconnect that can occur between the goals of human freedom and fulfillment versus those of human technical progress stated in the Transhumanist approach cited above. However, it is not just for these Transhumanists that this tension exists. This challenge of making choices in one’s life – as an individual or a community – in order to become better and make progress is also found in traditional religious reflections regarding self-improvement and fulfillment through self- denial and embracing one’s limitations, as well as in ethical reflections that weigh maximizing individual autonomy against communitarian or common goods. Hence, all groups that pursue the transhumanist goal of human betterment face this tension between the goods that are desired and the competing choices that exist for obtaining them. Since our desires and needs always outstrip our ability to fulfill them, we are forced to address this tension and to prioritize our needs, desires and resources, as we continually work to improve our current situation – whatever that may be. It is in the process of addressing limitations and prioritizing resources that some differences in T/transhumanist approaches becomes clear. For example, while many religious and ethical approaches do not rule out the use of science or technology to facilitate individual or communal betterment, these approaches are most often also not primarily or solely dependent on science and technology to achieve betterment either. It is this implicit or explicit reliance on technology to solve problems that is often at the core of current Transhumanist agendas and that often limits the concepts of betterment embedded in these agendas to those which are amenable to technological manipulation. Hence, options for bettering undesirable situations, such Human Betterment: A Case Analysis 69 as facing the reality or risk of a tumor, that include non-technical solutions – such as pursuing an inner acceptance and peace, and a more transcendent view of life, to help one face the crisis – are not a primary part of this Transhumanist approach, if they are even considered at all. With fewer options to choose from, these Transhumanists, and others with a primarily technology oriented approach, have little choice but to argue for the vast superiority of the technological tools they choose to employ for solving life’s challenges. This approach, in turn, makes them all the more dependent on framing life’s challenges in a way that makes them amenable to technological solutions. Hence, these Transhumanist claims for utopian futures use terms such as transcending our biological limitations and amplifying our intelligence and creativity as though doing such things will automatically solve the problems of our lives and take us all where we want to go [e.g. Ray Kurzweil’s www.singularity.com]. History provides ample evidence that technological advance does not necessarily result in human betterment, as other authors in this volume make clear. Taking this historical record into account, the most amazing aspect of a Transhumanist agenda such as Kurzweil’s “singularity,” where technology takes humankind so far beyond where it is now that we cannot even imagine how things will be, is the singularity of his perspective. All of human complexity and struggle is brought together in his one vision of what is best for humankind. Such narrowness not only ignores the lessons of history regarding the problems technology has created, but also the rich range of non-technological approaches to human betterment that have been developed as humankind has struggled to face the challenges of each era. Looking again at the challenges raised by rapid advances in genomic research, much can be learned about how little we really know regarding the complexities of how science and technology might be used to better our current human condition. A recent lawsuit and settlement regarding genomic research is a good example of how benefits and harms can be seen quite differently among the groups involved in research. This lawsuit involved a small, Native American tribe who live in and around the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai, and biomedical researchers connected to Arizona State University (ASU).4 Plagued by high numbers of tribal members suffering from type 2 diabetes, the Havasupai entered into an agreement with a research group from ASU. The agreement was for the researchers to study some of the

4 Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, “DNA Returned to Tribe, Raising Questions about Consent,” Science 328 (2010): 558; see also Amy Harmon, “Indian Tribe Wins Fight to Limit Research of Its DNA,” New York Times April 22, 2010, A1. 70 Kevin Fitzgerald

Havasupai people and see if a genetic susceptibility to diabetes could be identified and used as a basis for treatment. However, once the researchers obtained biological samples from the tribe for the research, they also used these samples for research in other fields such as schizophrenia and human migration. Such expansion of research centered on valuable biological samples is often seen as a great good in the biomedical research community. After all, the researchers reasoned, the more that can be learned, the more the people might benefit. However, when the Havasupai discovered that this additional research was being performed using their biological samples, they protested. The researchers responded that the tribal members had signed informed consent agreements that allowed for such ancillary research, and so they had every right to pursue it. In addition, the researchers thought the Havasupai would be pleased to know that all this other research was ongoing since it might lead to additional insights into other disease susceptibilities among their people, and could even help them know where they came from. The Havasupai responded that they were not interested in these other insights, and, in fact, felt harmed by research they considered intrusive and contrary to their own tribal traditions about their status and origins. The conclusion to this story is that the Havasupai sued ASU and the researchers, and won. They received their samples back and a significant financial settlement. Though this story is certainly not the first of its kind, it does provide a current example of how different communities (e.g. the Havasupai and the researchers) can have very different ideas regarding the benefits and harms the use of technology can bring about. While the researchers may feel secure in their scientific expertise regarding the merits of their work and the benefits it could offer the Havasupai, it certainly is part of the Havasupai personal empowerment and community betterment to be treated at least as equal partners in such research endeavors. This inequality of treatment among differing worldviews and narratives may be a key element to both the tension that exists between technophillic Transhumanists and those who disagree with their approach, and to a means for bridging this divide – at least to the point of engendering constructive dialogue. Two recent examples of engendering such constructive dialogs may help elucidate this point. In January of 2009, Georgetown University in collaboration with the United States Department of Health and Human Services invited several representatives of indigenous communities from around the world to gather to discuss how genomic research might be employed Human Betterment: A Case Analysis 71 among their communities in such a way as to provide broad benefit to the multiple communities involved.5 This dialogue was deemed necessary due to the interest genomic researchers have in exploring the genomics of indigenous communities, and the need such communities have for improved healthcare. In the process of setting up this colloquium, one Georgetown faculty member questioned the value of the meeting in light of the dire need among many indigenous communities for fundamental medical services such as adequate sanitation and basic medications. The response of the organizers was not to deny or ignore these fundamental needs, but to raise the additional question: “Yes, but have you asked them if they want to be involved in this dialogue?” Having received an affirmative answer from these representatives to our request for this dialogue, the focus of the colloquium was to facilitate an open and informed discussion of the potential benefits and harms of engaging indigenous communities in genomic research from both the indigenous and research perspectives. The results of the colloquium were both surprising and revelatory for all involved. The representatives of the indigenous communities showed remarkable interest in becoming involved in genomic research, but for reasons not at the forefront of the researchers’ interests. Instead of being focused on what specific advancements might come from the research, the indigenous community representatives were more focused on becoming equal participants in the process. Basically their perspective was that while they did acknowledge their need and desire for an immediate improvement to their healthcare situation, they also wished to take a long-term view and engage now in activities that would help insure that in twenty years their communities would be in step with cutting edge medical care and research instead of continuing to lag behind. However, for this engagement to happen the research methodologies would have to change to take into consideration their indigenous community values. For example, in mainstream clinical research the sine qua non of research participant involvement is the informed consent process. Each individual participant must be made aware of the research program and its inherent risks and potential benefits. While this approach is broadly

5 “Developing a Framework to Guide Genomic Data Sharing and Reciprocal Benefits to Developing Countries and Indigenous Peoples: A Colloquium,” January 7-8, 2009, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Hosted by the O’Neill Institute of National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, and the Personalized Health Care Initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (see http://aspe.hhs.gov/sp/reports/2009/genshare/report.shtml). 72 Kevin Fitzgerald accepted in the U.S. and European cultures, it does not have the same acceptance in other cultures where such important decisions are not in the hands of individuals but are reserved to family, tribal or community processes. Hence, community-based informed consent processes are being developed around the world to address this situation. This difference, however, is not merely a logistical one. These different approaches to decision-making highlight fundamental differences in relationality and social structure that can bring to light deficiencies and opportunities for improvement in all the communities involved. By entering into this dialogue with the intention of seeking to learn about one’s own community perspective in light of the insights from other communities, while offering what light one’s own community might have for them, all involved receive insights they might never achieve otherwise. One can then argue that this approach does provide for human betterment on multiple levels, even before any technology is advanced or applied. In light of this experience, one can question whether or not the technology-driven Transhumanists are in fact offering a better human future. If one’s approach to human betterment is confined to the opportunities one’s chosen technologies can provide, then is this Transhumanist approach actually forcing people to choose among fewer options that may not include options they would otherwise choose? Hence, a strict Transhumanist approach could result in science and technology dictating what human betterment is rather than humans discerning and deciding how to better their lives both individually and collectively. As the examples show, people require a different kind of freedom to work out their relationality and relationships than the mere freedom offered by the Transhumanists where each individual gets to choose what technologies to employ to become whatever the technologies allow. This Transhumanist emphasis on what science and technology can provide has its appeal in appearing to increase our freedom from various ailments or burdens via technological manipulations. However, even within this limited range of intervention, the possibilities of success are reduced by both the usual failures that occur in the development of any technology (i.e. who will be the first subjects exposed to these new technological options, and what will happen to those involved in the inevitable failures that do not achieve the desired ends?), and the usual problems with making any successful technological interventions available to all those who need or desire them. Both on an individual level, and on a community level, we need to be honest about the costs of pursuing even relatively straightforward technological solutions to widely accepted problems such as those in global healthcare (e.g. inadequate access to clean water and effective medications). Human Betterment: A Case Analysis 73

However, beyond fundamental opportunities for freedom from disease and poverty, human relationality and relationships also require a freedom for commitment to the other. Here the bottom line is what deepens and develops my love and care for the other: individual, community, human beings, creatures on the Earth, etc. Again, it may well be, and the hope is it would be, that certain technological advances will enhance this freedom for the other, but the basis for the choice to employ a given technology remains what is best for the growth and development of the relationship. This freedom for the other does not appear to fit easily with the Transhumanist emphasis on individual freedom to do whatever it is one wants to do with the technologies that are within one’s purchasing power. Considering the dynamics of the above examples of interactions among different communities and their different worldviews, what suggestions might be developed for establishing a more inclusive transhumanism that seeks the betterment of all humankind? First of all, one could begin with outlining the opportunities afforded by our rapidly developing science and technology to make changes in our current human situation. The issue of genomic research was the technology that provided the focus for the discussions cited above. The crucial step, then, is to hear from the various communities involved which changes they would see as desirable, and why, and which changes they wish to avoid, and why. This step helps to avoid conflicts such as that which arose between the Havasupai, with their focus on their diabetes problem alone, and the researchers, with their desire to pursue all the research they could do. The next crucial step is to hear from all the communities exactly how they would prefer to pursue any mutually agreed to goals. The differences of employing individual versus community based informed consent processes is a good example of this step. Hence, even if a technology is agreed to as a possible solution to a problem, the methods of applying that technology are of equal, if not greater, importance. Finally, it must be acknowledged that a good outcome of such a dialogue is not necessarily a signed agreement with all the details included. An equally good result may be a substantive beginning for future constructive engagement that enriches the relationships among communities, perhaps in completely unanticipated ways. Though this dialogue needs to take place on many levels from intra-family to international, an argument from the perspective of the principle of subsidiarity would conclude that the scope of the science and technologies involved requires substantive dialogue on national and international levels. This dialogue would include a diversity of traditional and cultural perspectives in order to generate a more synergistic and inclusive approach to setting guidelines and parameters 74 Kevin Fitzgerald for how science and technology are to be used, while also leaving room for more local discussions as desired. There are many examples of how such broad and inclusive public dialogues can be done. Relying again on personal experience, I offer as an example the deliberative processes undertaken by the now defunct United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society (SACGHS). A summary of its efforts can still be found on its website (http://oba.od.nih.gov/SACGHS/sacghs_home.html):

In its nearly 10 years of operation, SACGHS addressed all the major topics delineated in its charter: the integration of genetic and genomic technologies into health care and public health; the clinical, public health, ethical, economic, legal, and societal implications of these technologies; gaps in research and data collection; the impact of patent policy and licensing practices on their accessibility and availability; and how genetic and genomic technologies are used in other settings such as education, employment, insurance, and law. The Committee issued comprehensive reports and provided advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, which will provide the government with a solid foundation for addressing new developments in the ongoing integration of genetics into clinical practice and public health.

There are several features of this committee’s work that are applicable to the evaluation of the differing T/transhumanist approaches being reviewed. First of all, the committee was designed to represent a variety of differing perspectives regarding the implementation of genetic and genomic technologies. This diversity of perspective was considered essential to obtaining a more complete understanding of the potential benefits and harms these technologies might engender. If indeed T/transhumanism is about broad human betterment, then one can argue for a similar requirement of broadly diverse perspectives being included in any substantive dialogue regarding how best to pursue shared T/transhumanist goals. Secondly, the deliberations were intended to be relatively comprehensive in scope. The diverse perspectives of the committee usually generated an extensive list of concerns and issues to be addressed. A great deal of information had to be reviewed in order for a more complete understanding of the topic and its ramifications to be obtained. This breadth of information often prevented spurious claims and facile solutions from going unchallenged, as can happen in Human Betterment: A Case Analysis 75 deliberations among groups who are more homogeneous in their outlook towards and less rigorous in their investigation of a given issue. Hence, reflections regarding T/transhumanist agendas might also be required to delve deeply into both the potential and the limitations of any given proposal for human betterment – especially as seen by groups who have experienced the failures of such purported human betterment programs in the past. Finally, the committee’s work was placed in the context of integrating the new technologies into the larger context of the societal goods of individual healthcare and public health. This larger framework provided a heuristic within which various elements of the genetic and genomic technologies could be interpreted and evaluated, rather than merely being accepted as desirable because they are new and interesting. Hence, any grandiose claims for human betterment arising from a given T/transhumanist approach can be vetted within a larger context of human benefits and harms born from the accumulated experience of humankind’s long history of failed utopian agendas. It is crucial at this point to acknowledge that the proposal to emulate the practice of the SACGHS, or similar body of deliberation, is not based on any promise or premise of success in delivering clear or easy solutions regarding the pursuit of T/transhumanist agendas. The goal, instead, is to employ processes that have shown some merit in providing platforms for substantive and constructive dialogue around difficult and controversial issues. Hence, the true benefit of this approach is its real possibility for some movement towards a broad human betterment both in terms of the development of widely shared T/transhumanist goals and plans, as well as, and perhaps more importantly, the facilitation and encouragement of substantive engagement among various groups and communities which in itself has a long history of engendering human betterment. As mentioned from the beginning of this paper, it is clear that much good has come from humankind’s technological and scientific pursuits. Much more good is still desired, especially by both Transhumanist and transhumanist communities. What that good is, when all of humankind is taken into consideration, is not always readily clear. What is clear is that technologies can also cause great harm, both intentionally and unintentionally. In order to pursue the most favorable course for benefitting the most people, history, both ancient and recent, shows that open, substantive, and constructive dialogue offers a reliable path for obtaining goods that truly take most if not all involved in the dialogue beyond their current limitations to a greatly enriched future – even in the absence of any incredible technological advance. It is this well-trodden path that is offered again by the authors in this book as a 76 Kevin Fitzgerald way for all T/transhumanists to stride together toward a real betterment of all humankind. CHAPTER V

TEILHARD de CHARDIN’S TRANSHUMANIST WORLDVIEW

ILIA DELIO

BOSTROM’S THESIS

In his sweeping discussion of the history of transhumanism, philosopher Nick Bostrom traces the cultural and philosophical roots of transhumanist thought by saying “we have always sought to expand the boundaries of our existence, be it socially, geographically, or mentally.”1 The term “transhumanism” refers to technologies that can improve mental and physical aspects of the human condition such as suffering, disease, aging and death, “the belief that humans must wrest their biological destiny from evolution’s blind process of random variation...favoring the use of science and technology to overcome biological limitations.”2 The term was first used in the 1950s by Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous Huxley, advocate of evolution and friend of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In his Religion without Revelation Huxley wrote:

The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself – not just sporadically, an individual one way, an individual there in another way – but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.3

Huxley’s introduction of transhumanism is of interest for several reasons: first is the corporate nature of transhumanism. Huxley sees transhumanism as a positive step for the whole of humankind rather than as individual perfection or enhancement. The second reason is the openness of transhumanism to new possibilities and thus a deepening of

1 Nick Bostrom, “A History of Transhumanist Thought” Journal of Evolution and Technology 14.1 (April 2005): 1. 2 Archimedes Carag Articulo, “Towards an Ethics of Technology: Re- Exploring Teilhard de Chardin’s Theory of Technology and Evolution”, http://www.scribd.com/doc/16038038/Paper2-Technology. 3 Julian Huxley, Religion without Revelation (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979, reprint), 195. 78 Ilia Delio human nature. The human person is in process of becoming something new because humanity, like evolution itself, possesses a vital unfolding of spirit through matter. Huxley was a good friend and an influence on Teilhard de Chardin and together they grappled with human history within the larger cosmic evolutionary universe “despite their opposing views on whether evolution had a direction.”4 The interest of transhumanism for these two scientists was in view of evolutionary progression and they were less concerned about human perfection than the direction of human life. Although Huxley discussed transhumanism within the broad process of evolution, the term has come to be associated with technology, especially as Bostrom and the transhumanist movement have defined it. One of the early transhumanists, F. M. Esfandiary wrote that a transhumanist is a “transitional human, someone who by virtue of their technology usage, cultural values and lifestyle constitutes an evolutionary link to the coming era of posthumanity.”5 Esfandiary’s description is of interest because of its focus on the individual human as the point of technological enhancement. Transhumanists, as Bostrom writes, “emphasize the enormous potential for genuine improvements in human well-being and human flourishing,” through technological transformation.6 The object of transhumanism is to overcome biological limitations and strive for a better quality of life. Bostrom and other transhumanists seek to overcome human limitations that prevent the fullness of enduring life. Yet, it is precisely the natural limits of suffering and death that make evolution possible. Hence the aim to transcend humanity through technology bears within it the aim to end the evolution of organic life. While transhumanists applaud developments in technology, they lose sight of the role of technology in evolution. The word technology, from the Greek word techne, translates as art or craft, and was considered a domestic science in the ancient world, compared to intellectual science or the study of things that furthered intellectual knowledge. As a domestic science, technology was at the service of humankind, to alleviate the burden of work or to make work more efficient. David Noble claims that technology and religion have developed together in humankind. The human person created imago Dei is matter opened to spirit with a vocation to express this image by an

4 David Grumett, “Transformation and the End of Enhancement: Insights from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,” in Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement, ed. Ronald Cole- Turner (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011 forthcoming), 3. 5 Cited in Bostrom, “History of Transhumanist Thought,” 8. 6 Bostrom, “History of Transhumanist Thought,” 14. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 79 evolving dialogue with the material cosmos. The Incarnation imparts the perfect archetype and model of openness of matter to spirit and the ability of matter to serve as the medium of the spirit's self-expression and creative power. Noble draws a particular link between technology and Christianity, especially monastic life, where salvation and the development of useful knowledge were linked together. Technology was a means to enhance the whole of life, to perfect the spiritual nature of matter itself. By alleviating the burden of work, technology had as its aim the unfolding life of the spirit. It became a means of spiritual liberation insofar as the efficiency of work could create more time devoted to prayer and the contemplation of God. Technology and religion have evolved together and, as a result, the technological enterprise is suffused with religious belief.7

DID MODERN SCIENCE DISPLACE RELIGION?

Bostrom identifies the rise of transhumanism with the rise of modern science and technology which, as Francis Bacon wrote, promised “to achieve mastery over nature in order to improve the living conditions of human beings.”8 He maintains that as modern science developed in the Renaissance, medieval religion was dispensed; God became the unnecessary hypothesis. According to Bostrom:

The otherworldliness and stale scholastic philosophy that dominated Europe during the Middle Ages gave way to a renewed intellectual vigor in the Renaissance.... Renaissance humanism encouraged people to rely on their own observations and their own judgment rather than to defer in very matter to religious authorities.9

Bostrom’s sweeping dismissal of the Middle Ages fails to do justice to the fact that the roots of modern science began in the Middle Ages and developed in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. If one looks at the University of Oxford, for example, one can discover a rich, fertile period of medieval science in the thirteenth century which combined Aristotelian science and religious belief.10 Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253),

7 David F. Noble, Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 5. 8 Bostrom, “History of Transhumanist Thought,” 2. 9 Bostrom, “History of Transhumanist Thought,” 2. 10 For a discussion of medieval Franciscans and Science see Keith Warner, Franciscan Science in Action, 7, Franciscan Heritage Series, ed. Joseph P. Chinnici (New York: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2011). 80 Ilia Delio a lector at Oxford, was one of the first Scholastics to employ Aristotle’s vision of scientific reasoning to the study of light and optics, describing a physics of light that resonated with the modern Big Bang theory of the universe.11 Grosseteste’s scientific pursuits however were deeply religious, since he considered light as a metaphor of God. His student Roger Bacon (d.1292) used a combination of mathematics and detailed experiential descriptions of discrete phenomena in nature which set the stage for critical realism. Bacon was certain that scientific knowledge would someday give humans mastery over nature and envisioned the technical world of the future including submarines, automobiles, airplanes and other inventions that have become part of daily life.12 For Bacon, scientific knowledge was in the service of theology, the purpose of which was to help prepare for the second coming of Christ. Science and technology arose within Christianity not only because of contingency and the sense of linear time but also because of beliefs in salvation and immortality. The relationship between technology’s development and immortality became prominent after the Black Plague which devastated Western Europe, marking a paradigm shift in cultural and intellectual endeavors. Thomas Berry viewed Christendom’s turn towards salvific Redemption in the fourteenth century as a response to the Black Death in Europe.13 After the Black Plague the nature of human flesh to succumb to disease was every reason to distrust it. Millennial expectations were high as death lingered and technology developed as a means to foster spiritual preparedness for the coming of Christ. In the fourteenth century the Franciscan John Rupescissa (d. 1362), known as the Father of Modern Chemistry, produced a significant volume of writings on alchemy. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world and alchemy in particular could act as a defense against the plagues and wars of the last days. His melding of apocalyptic prophecy and quasi- scientific inquiry gave rise to a new genre of alchemical writing and a novel cosmology of heaven and earth. He developed the idea that evangelical men had to be provided with appropriate means of living,

11 Daniel P. Horan, “Light and Love: Robert Grosseteste and John Duns Scotus on the How and Why of Creation,” The Cord 57 (July/September 2007): 243-257. 12Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages (New York: Harcourt Books, 2003), 188-89. 13 Thomas Berry, “Traditional Religion in the Modern World,” in Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality, and Religion in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Mary Evelyn Tucker (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 4; Thomas Berry, “Christianity and Ecology,” in The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth, eds. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 61-62, 93. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 81 not only on a spiritual level but also on a material level which included the maintenance or the restoration of health; hence the need for alchemy.14 Technological innovations that could control nature and perfect the spirit could help prepare one for the second coming of Christ. Bostrom’s focus on science’s achievement at the expense of religion obscures the fact that modern science arose out of deep religious convictions. While metaphysical principles of causality and contingency provided a basis for scientific progress, the stark reality of suffering and death also contributed to the development of practical science. Technology became more sophisticated in light of religious beliefs rather than as a substitution for those beliefs. Whereas the Black Death gave new impetus to the rise of science in the Middle Ages, the prevalence of war and the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century gave new impetus to the rise of technology. Just as an apocalyptic mentality emerged after the Black Plague, so too, a new apocalyptic zeitgeist arose in the 20th century marked by war, industrialization and the rise of nuclear power. At the time Huxley and Teilhard de Chardin coined the term “transhumanism,” the computer or “thinking machine” was being developed. While its distal roots are in Renee Descartes’ cogito ergo sum and the priority of the mental over the material, the computer was developed by Alan Turing, a British intelligence office and cryptanalyst who developed the computer to decipher German codes. Turing believed that a thinking machine could be made to mimic human intelligence. In 1950 he developed a test in which a computer was set up to fool judges into believing that it could be human. The test was performed by conducting a text-based conversation on a subject. If the computer's responses were indistinguishable from those of a human, it had passed the Turing test and could be said to be “thinking.” John McCarthy coined the term “artificial intelligence” in 1956, defining it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.” Although the computer was invented for the purpose of intelligence, the potential of its power was quickly seized upon in a century of violent wars and rampant death. It is interesting that Bostrom highlights this point as well. He writes: “In the postwar era, many optimistic futurists who had become suspicious of collectively orchestrated social change found a new home for their hopes in scientific and technological progress.”15 The success of the computer to process complex information at speeds beyond human mental power has made its development attractive. Within a short span of fifty years,

14 Barbara Obrist, “Views on History in Medieval Alchemical Writings,” Ambix 56.3 (2009): 236. 15 Bostrom, “History of Transhumanist Thought,” 4. 82 Ilia Delio computer-based technology has become the principal organizer of modern life. Does technology now aim to fulfill what religion promises?

POSTHUMAN DREAMS

Although the development of modern science depends on technology, technology differs from modern science. We might describe technology today as the new philosophy of our time. Carl Mitcham notes, “a thousand or two thousand years ago the philosophical challenge was to think nature – and ourselves in the presence of nature. Today the great and the first philosophical challenge is to think technology...and to think ourselves in the presence of technology.”16 If the ancients grappled with the problem of being, today we must grapple with technology which has come increasingly to define being. Technology has become the mirror of our deepest desires. In its various forms, it is changing the human person. Noreen Herzfeld writes:

In today’s world, technology is central to our understanding of ourselves and the environment around us....Technology plays an undeniably greater role in our lives than it has at any previous time in human history. That greater role is also seen in the power to create something new....To create the new is to go outside of nature...the German existentialist Martin Heidegger observes that the ancient craftsman certainly made something new when he constructed a chair. A doctor might bring new health to a patient. However, neither imposed a new form on nature; rather, each worked with what is already implicit in the wood or the body....The new products of modern technology do not simply “disclose” or shape nature but transform and replace nature. In this way, modern technology gives us heretofore undreamed of power.17

Transhumanism is distinctive in its particular focus on the applications of technologies to improve human bodies at the individual level. The futurist Ray Kurzweil anticipates an increasingly virtual life in which the bodily presence of human beings will become irrelevant because of artificial intelligence (AI). Kurzweil claims that machine- dependent humans will transcend death through the virtual reality of

16Carl Mitcham, “The Philosophical Challenge of Technology,” American Catholic Philosophical Association Proceedings 40 (1996): 45. 17 Noreen Herzfeld, Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co- created World (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2009), 9. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 83 eternal life, possibly by “neurochips” or simply by becoming totally machine dependent. As we move beyond mortality through computational technology, our identity will be based on our evolving mind file. We will be software not hardware. By replacing living bodies with virtual bodies capable of transferral and duplication, we will become disembodied superminds.18 Margaret Wertheim notes that AI is spawning a philosophical shift, from reality constructed of matter and energy to reality constructed on information.19 Books such as Digital Being point in the same direction: information has come to define reality. This leads to the notion that “the essence of a person can be separated from their body and represented in digital form – an immortal digital soul waiting to be freed – an idea she [Wertheim] sees as medieval dualism reincarnated.”20 A new term cybergnosticism has been coined to describe the “belief that the physical world is impure or inefficient, and that existence in the form of pure information is better and should be pursued.”21 Michael Heim sees strong links between AI and Platonic, Gnostic and Hermetic traditions insofar as they emphasize the goodness of spiritual reality and corruption of material reality, an idea consonant with cyber life and posthumanism. Heim writes:

Cyberspace is Platonism as a working product. The cybernaut seated before us, strapped into sensory-input devices, appears to be, and is indeed, lost to this world. Suspended in computer space, the cybernaut leaves the prison of the body and emerges in a world of digital sensation.”22

The myth of technology is appealing and the power of technology is seductive. We now have the power not only to evolve ourselves but to direct the course of evolution. Whereas in biological evolution nature influences or mutually interacts with the species, in technological

18 Kurzweil defines the singularity as the point at which machines become sufficiently intelligent to start teaching themselves. When that happens, he indicates, the world will irrevocably shift from the biological to the mechanical. See Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (New York: Viking, 1999), 3-5. 19 Garner, Stephen R. “Praying with Machines: Religious Dreaming in Cyberspace.” Stimulus 12. 3 (2004): 20. 20 Garner, “Praying with Machines,” 20. 21 Garner, “Praying with Machines,” 20; D.O. Berger, “Cybergnosticism: Or, Who Needs a Body Anyway?” Concordia Journal 25 (1999): 340-345. 22 Michael Heim, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 89. 84 Ilia Delio evolution, species controls nature. In the human person biological evolution has become technological evolution, and evolution has become directed toward a new, emerging posthuman species, techno sapiens. Are we heading towards a postbiological world? Alfred Kracher opines that nature and technology have become at odds with each other, forming competing myths. “Nature is not an object that we must strive to overpower by our inventiveness,” he writes, “but rather that we are ourselves are part of nature and need to acknowledge nature’s autonomy for the sake of our own survival.”23 The influence of computer technology on human organic connectedness is cause for concern. Once people of the earth, we have become a people of the screen. Is web-based technology uniting us more together through a new sense of community or is it creating a new dualism of mind and body, matter and spirit that opposes the whole ecological movement of interrelatedness? Not all technologies are culprits of dualism, however, since there are areas of technology that can promote the good of the earth. Those technologies which enforce an unhealthy dualism, however, draw our attention away from the earth, stoking our desires for more perfect and controlled lives. R. Cole-Turner points to the pelagian lure of technology which “offers the illusion of a managed grace”; the self that can fix itself up without changing itself.24 Technologies of the self, whether a cyber self or new genetic self, “are self-asserting rather than self-transforming, enhancing the ego rather than surrendering it to a greater reality and purpose.”25 The illusion of self-control through technology, according to Cole-Turner, is a selfish control. We believe we have created the means to control the self when in truth we have only increased the power of the self to control, leaving the self-unchanged yet self-changing, uncontrollable yet more controlling. Technology is not out of control because it is a real power, he states, but because “we cannot control what is supposed to control it: namely, ourselves.”26 Technologies which promise a world liberated from suffering and death aim towards a postbiological world, seeking to transcend biological limits and uncertainties. R. Louv points out that nature means natural wildness, biodiversity and abundance. It serves as a blank slate

23 Alfred Kracher, “The Diversity of Environments: Nature and Technology as Competing Myths,” in Creation’s Diversity: Voices from Theology and Science, eds. Willem B. Drees, Hubert Meisinger and Taede A. Smedes (New York: T&T Clark, 2008), 78. 24 Ronald Cole-Turner, “Biotechnology and the Religion-Science Discussion,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, eds. Philip Clayton and Zachary Zimpson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 941. 25 Cole-Turner, “Biotechnology and Religion-Science,” 941. 26 Cole-Turner, “Biotechnology and Religion-Science,” 942. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 85 upon which a child draws and reinterprets the culture’s fantasies….a creation that is somehow richer than the scientifically accessible world, because it interacts more intimately with a person.27 A thoroughly domesticated nature, he states, can no longer fulfill this role. When the artificiality of a random number algorithm such as a computer game replaces the surprises of natural richness, we lose something of human biological life. We lose the sense of what it means to be created, dependent, contingent and finite. Kracher writes: “Nature offers healing...but it can frighten… and this fright serves a purpose, to awaken in us our dependency on God, the earth and other people.”28 He goes on to say that “a planet ruled by predictability where all contingency is eliminated is also a planet dominated by unchecked evil.”29 This is an important insight. If we can control our relationships, our loves and our dislikes, we not only control evil unwittingly but we can become evil unknowingly. Harmony requires wildness – the unpredictability of nature, the contingency that makes the world what it is – a sense of astonishment, wonder and awe. Transhumanists who look to a postbiological world free of suffering and death are willing to sacrifice the organic whole at the expense of perfecting the human. A world deprived of suffering and death, however, cannot evolve. The very human limitations we want to eliminate, suffering and death, are the most important elements for the evolution of life. By artificially controlling our destiny we cut ourselves off from the rich depths of evolving life.

TEILHARD DE CHARDIN AND CHRISTIAN TRANSHUMANISM

Eric Steinhart has described Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as a forerunner of transhumanism, saying: “Transhumanists advocate the ethical use of technology for human enhancement. Teilhard's writing likewise argues for the ethical application of technology in order to advance humanity beyond the limitations of natural biology.”30 Teilhard, he claims, envisioned a cyber world as the next level of evolution, anticipating current trends in transhumanist philosophy and inventions.

27 Kracher, “Nature and Technology as Competing Myths,” 83. 28 Kracher, “Nature and Technology as Competing Myths,” 84. 29 Kracher, “Nature and Technology as Competing Myths,” 84. 30 Eric Steinhart, “Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 20.1 (2008): 22. http://jetpress.org/v20/steinhart.htm. While Steinhart’s argument is cogent, I do not believe that Teilhard sought to transcend biological limits through technology but to deepen the whole biological process of life. 86 Ilia Delio

But is Teilhard’s transhumanism on the same level of Kurzweil and others who anticipate a postbiological era marked by techno sapiens? David Grumett states: “Teilhard would not accept all transhumanist assumptions and values and could not himself be described as a “transhumanist” without careful qualification.”31 Indeed, two significant points distinguish Teilhard from AI transhumanists: 1) the location of transhumanism within evolution and 2) the vitality and openness of matter to spirit. As one of the initial advocates of transhumanism, Teilhard is aligned to Huxley’s original use of the term. Evolution and the openness of matter to spirit not only set Teilhard apart from AI transhumanists but enable him to describe evolutionary humanism that engages life for the whole cosmos. Transhumanism is best understood for Teilhard as an evolutionary process and he saw an important role for technology in the progression of evolution. Evolution is not a blind, random process, he claimed, but one with meaning and purpose; evolution has direction. It is a process of creative union, a progression toward increasing consciousness active at all levels of reality, beginning with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. He considered matter and consciousness not as two substances or two different modes of existence but as two aspects of the same cosmic stuff. The within is the mental aspect and the without is the physical aspect of the same stuff.32 He links evolution of the mind with the concept of physical and psychic energy. The human person is integrally part of evolution in that we rise from the process, but in reflecting on the process we stand apart from it. He defined reflection as “the power acquired by a consciousness to turn in upon itself, to take possession of itself as an object...no longer merely to know, but to know that one knows.”33 Following Julian Huxley, Teilhard wrote that the human person “is nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself.”34 The human person is “the point of emergence in nature, at which this deep cosmic evolution culminates and declares itself.”35 Ultimately, Teilhard indicated, evolution is the unfolding of consciousness through the dual processes of complexification and convergence. The evolutionary vigor of humankind, he indicated, can wither away if we should lose our

31 Grumett, “Transformation and the End of Enhancement,” 2. 32 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, trans. Bernard Wall (New York: Harper & Row, 1959). 33 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 165. 34 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 221. 35Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy, trans. J. M. Cohen (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969), 23. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 87 impulse, or worse, develop a distaste for ever-increased growth in complexity – consciousness.36 Teilhard recognized that there is a unifying influence in the whole evolutionary process, a centrating factor that holds the entire process together and moves it forward toward greater complexity and unity. His faith led him to posit Christ, the future fullness of the whole evolutionary process, as the “centrating principle,” the “pleroma” and “Omega point” where the individual and collective adventure of humanity finds its end and fulfillment, and where the consummation of the world and consummation of God converge. What we anticipate as the future of evolution is “the mysterious synthesis of the uncreated and the created – the grand completion of the universe in God.”37 Hence evolution has a goal and direction and tranhumanism must be considered within this larger direction.

EVOLUTION AND NOOGENESIS

Teilhard did not view evolution with a naïve realism but was acutely aware of internal forces that could thwart the direction of evolution toward the Omega Point. He was concerned about the use of resources, limited food supplies, and whether or not an expanding population would be able to live amiably and in peace with each other under conditions which he no longer described as “convergence” but “external compression.”38 He saw the choice to be between political totalitarianism or some new breakthrough into a new state of human “unanimization,” the emergence of an ‘ultra-humanity.’”39 The forces of history acting on humanity must either complexify it causing humanity to evolve or force humanity to wither. He described humanity as facing an insurmountable “wall” and the human reaction as being either the extroversion of “escape” or else the introverted pessimism of Sartre’s “existentialism.”40 The danger he worried about most is that humanity, in losing its faith in God, would also lose what he called its “Zest for

36 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, trans. Norman Denny (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 213. 37 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Les Directions de l’Avenir (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973), 97. 38 Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, 235. 39 Teilhard, Future of Man, 270-280. 40 Richard W. Kropf, “Teilhard and the Limits to Growth: The Evolutionary Dynamic toward ‘UltraHumanity,’” 8. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Halifax, Nova Scotia, June, 2010. 88 Ilia Delio

Living.”41 He questioned whether or not the human race having experienced “a scientific justification of faith in progress was now being confronted by an accumulation of scientific evidence pointing to the reverse – the species doomed to extinction.”42 The only solution, he indicated, is not “an improvement of living conditions” – as desirable as that might be; rather the inner pressures of history are the catalyst for evolution toward more being. The evolutionary ascent of human beings occurs in stages, according to Teilhard. In the first stage of its evolution, humanity expanded in both quantity (number of persons) and in quality (psychological and spiritual development). During the long period of expansion, physical and cultural differences isolated the peoples of the Earth from each other as they spread to fill the Earth. At the beginning of our present century, with most of the habitable surface of the Earth occupied, the races began to converge. Teilhard points to the heightening organo-psychic human development (that is, the process of socialization) which began 30,000 years ago, as an indication that evolution marches on. The birth of the tribes, of the empires, and of the modern states is the offspring of the great movement of evolution towards socialization or collectivization. We have reached the end of the expanding or “diversity” stage and are now entering the contracting or “unifying” stage. The human is on the threshold of a critical phase of super-humanization: the increasingly rapid growth in the human world of the forces of collectivization, the “super arrangement” or the mega- synthesis.43 At this point, Teilhard’s theory runs counter to Darwin's in that the success of humanity's evolution in the second stage will not be determined by “survival of the fittest” but by our own capacity to converge and unify.44 The most important initial evolutionary leap of the convergence stage is the formation of what he called “the noosphere.”45 In his Phenomenon of Man Teilhard describes the noosphere:

41 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Activation of Energy, trans. René Hague (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970), 229-243. 42 Teilhard de Chardin, Future of Man, 298-303. 43 Articulo, “Towards an Ethics of Technology,” 5. 44 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 243. 45 Teilhard de Chardin, Future of Man, 204. “In the 1920s Teilhard coined the word noosphere in collaboration with his friend Edouard Le Roy. Derived from the Greek word nous or mind in the sense of integrating vision, the noosphere describes the layer of mind, thought and spirit within the layer of life covering the earth.” Ursula King, “One Planet, One Spirit: Searching for an Ecologically Balanced Spirituality,” in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on People and Planet, ed. Cecelia Deane-Drummond (London: Equinox, 2008), 82. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 89

The idea is that the Earth [is] not only becoming covered by myriads of grains of thought, but becoming enclosed in a single thinking envelope so as to form a single vast grain of thought on the sidereal scale, the plurality of individual reflections grouping themselves together and reinforcing one another in the act of a single unanimous reflection.46

The noosphere is a psycho-social process, a planetary neo- envelope essentially linked with the biosphere in which it has its root, yet is distinguished from it. Unlike the AI transhumanist blend of biology and machine, Teilhard’s noosphere is a new stage for the renewal of life and not a radical break with biological life. If there is no connection between noogenesis and biogenesis, Teilhard said, then the process of evolution has halted and man is an absurd and “erratic object in a disjointed world.”47 Just as Earth once covered itself with a film of interdependent living organisms which we call the biosphere, so mankind's combined achievements are forming a global network of collective mind.48 Hence, the noosphere is a sphere of collective consciousness which preserves and communicates everything precious, active and progressive contained in this earth’s previous evolution. It is the natural culmination of biological evolution and not a termination of it, an organic whole, irreducible to its parts, destined for some type of superconvergence and unification.49 Although mass communication technology was just beginning to develop in Teilhard’s time, he appreciated the role of machines in the emergence of the noosphere. In his Future of Man he wrote of “the extraordinary network of radio and television communications which, perhaps anticipating the direct intercommunication of brains through the mysterious power of telepathy, already link us all in a sort of ‘etherized’ universal consciousness.”50 Teilhard predicted the evolution of the computer as the “brain” behind the noosphere and thus the catalyst for the next step of evolution. He writes:

Here I am thinking of those astonishing electronic machines (the starting-point and hope of the young science

46 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 251. 47 Robert J. O’Connell, Teilhard’s Vision of the Past: The Making of a Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 145. 48 Michael H. Murray, The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin (New York: Seabury Press, 1966), 20-21. 49 W. Henry Kenny, S.J., A Path through Teilhard’s Phenomenon (Dayton, OH: Pflaum Press, 1970), 110. 50 Lawrence Hagerty, The Spirit of the Internet: Speculations on the Evolution of Global Consciousness (Matrix Masters, 2000), 33. 90 Ilia Delio

of cybernetics), by which our mental capacity to calculate and combine is reinforced and multiplied by a process and to a degree that herald as astonishing advances in this direction as those that optical science has already produced for our power of vision.51

His anticipation of what computers would do for us was twofold: first, they would complete our brains through instantaneous retrieval of information around the globe so that what one person lacks is immediately provided by another, and second, they would improve our brains by facilitating processes more quickly than our own resources can achieve them.52 Teilhard’s vision of the noosphere as cybernetic mind anticipated the emergence of cyberspace as a field of global mind through interconnecting computer pathways. With the rise of technology he saw a forward movement of spiritual energy, a maximization of consciousness and a complexification of relationships. Technology extends the outreach of human activity but it depends on a broader use of human activity and how humans control psychic, spiritual energy needs and powers.53

TRANSHUMANISM AS ULTRAHUMANISM

AI transhumanists look to a postbiological future where super informational beings will flourish and biological limits such as disease, aging and death, and perhaps even sin, will be overcome. Bart Kosko, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California writes: “Biology is not destiny. It was never more than tendency. It was just nature’s first quick and dirty way to compute with meat. Chips are destiny.”54 Katherine Hales, in her book How We Became Posthuman writes: “In the posthuman, there are no essential differences, or absolute demarcations, between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot technology and human goals.”55 She concludes with an

51 Teilhard de Chardin, Man's Place in Nature (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), 110. 52 Teilhard de Chardin, Man’s Place in Nature, 111. 53 Joseph A. Grau, Morality and the Human Future in the Thought of Teilhard de Chardin A Critical Study (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1976), 274. 54 C. Christopher Hook, “The Techno-Sapiens are Coming,” Christianity Today. www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/january 55 N. Katherine Hales, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 2-3. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 91 admonition: “Humans can either go gently into that good night, joining the dinosaurs as a species that once ruled the earth but is now obsolete, or hang on for a while longer by becoming machines themselves. In either case … the age of the human is drawing to a close.”56 Similarly Robert Jastrow claimed, “human evolution is nearly a finished chapter in the history of life,” although the evolution of intelligence will not end because a new species will arise, “a new kind of intelligent life more likely to be made of silicon.”57 While AI transhumanists aim toward a new virtual body, they also anticipate a new virtual creation where the earthly garden will wither away and be replaced by a much greater world, a paradise never to be lost.58 Teilhard’s vision of evolution was not apocalyptic but inherently creative. He saw the convergence of human and machine intelligence as completing the material and cerebral sphere of collective thought. His hopeful vision of transhumanism was a richer and more complex domain, constructing with all minds joined together, a collective or global mind for the forward movement of cosmic evolution. He did not see evolution as a disruption in the organic whole but instead a greater unification of the whole in and through the human person who is the growing tip of the evolutionary process. He wrote, “we should consider inter-thinking humanity as a new type of organism whose destiny it is to realize new possibilities for evolving life on this planet.”59 Whereas AI transhumanists look toward the emergence of techno sapiens as a new species derived from humans but different from humans, Teilhard did not anticipate the perfection of being through artificial means. For him evolution is progression toward more being:

...it is not well being but a hunger for more-being which, of psychological necessity, can alone preserve the thinking earth from the taedium vitae...it is upon its point (or superstructure) of spiritual concentration, and not upon its basis (or infra-structure) of material arrangement, that the equilibrium of Mankind biologically depends.60

56Ibid. 57 Cited in Theodore Roszak, “Evolution and the Transcendence of Mind,” Perspectives Vol. 1, no. 2 (1996). http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=274. 58Hans Moravec, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind (New York: Oxford University, 1999), 143ff. 59 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 20. 60 Teilhard de Chardin, Future of Man, 317. 92 Ilia Delio

Teilhard distinguished “more being” from “well being” by saying that materialism can bring about well being but spirituality and an increase in psychic energy or consciousness brings about more being.61 He imagined psychic energy in a continually more reflective state, giving rise to ultrahumanity.62 He insisted that technology is the means of convergence and the noosphere is the evolutionary convergence of mind through technology; humankind does not dissipate itself but continually concentrates upon itself.63 Hence the noosphere is a superconvergence of psychic energy, a higher form of complexity in which the human person does not become obsolete but rather acquires more being through interconnectivity with others. In this respect the Noosphere is not the realm of the impersonal but conversely it is the realm of the deeply personal through convergence or the bringing together of diverse elements, organisms, and even the currents of human thought. The noosphere is not merely a cyber world of virtual being but a medium of collective consciousness that enhances more being. Teilhard wrote: “It is a mistake to look for the extension of our being or of the Noosphere in the impersonal. The Future universal cannot be anything else but the hyperpersonal.”64 Teilhard repeatedly used the language of ultra-humanity to emphasize the need for humanity to enter into a new phase of its own evolution. The value of science, he indicated, could only be for the deepening of spirituality, since knowledge increases mind and mind deepens spirit. He wrote: “However far science pushes its discovery of the essential fire and however capable it becomes someday of remodeling and perfecting the human element, it will always find itself in the end facing the same problem – how to give to each and every element its final value by grouping them in the unity of an organized whole.”65 Teilhard saw the insufficiency of science to effect the transition to superconsciousness. “It is not tête-à-tête or a corps-à-corps we need; it is a heart to heart.”66 Hence integral to the noosphere is the necessary role of love and “the rise of our inward horizon of a cosmic spiritual center...the rise of God.”67 A theogenic process of love at the heart of cosmic evolution, now at the level of the noosphere, is far different from the transhumanist trend of individual perfection or

61 Grau, Morality and the Human Future, 275. 62 Kenny, A Path through Teilhard’s Phenomenon, 105. 63 Teilhard de Chardin, Future of Man, 316. 64 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 260. 65 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 250. 66 Teilhard de Chardin, Future of Man, 75; Kenny, A Path through Teilhard’s Phenomenon, 138. 67 Teilhard de Chardin, Future of Man, 120. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 93 posthuman techno sapiens. Whereas AI transhumanists view consciousness as an epiphenomenon in the evolutionary process, Teilhard described evolution as the process of unfolding consciousness. He indicated that ultimate knowing is love which draws together and unites in such a way that new complexified being transcends individual being; it is the emerging body of Christ.68 The evolution of noosphere is a new collective consciousness that enables a more profound union in love and thus a deepening of being that reflects more unified soul and greater wholeness.

ULTRAHUMANISM AND CHRISTOGENESIS

While AI transhumanism can seem self-serving at the expense of community or cosmic wholeness, Teilhard saw ultrahumanism less as alteration of the human person than as the next level of evolution and expansion of community through greater unity. Philip Hefner states that technology is either pointless in the long run or an expression of the fundamental self-transcending reality of God.69 Teilhard too saw the evolution of the noosphere and the emergent ultrahumanism as fundamentally religious in nature. Christ is the Omega Point, the goal of the universe and the evolver in its convergence toward unity. Through the inner law of convergence-complexity, God is being born from within; salvation is “becoming one with the universe.”70 A fundamental difference between Teilhard’s ultrahumanism and AI transhumanism is the role of religion in evolution. AI transhumanists such as Kurzweil see technology as the fulfillment of what religion promises; however, techno-salvation is centered on the individual. Teilhard did not see technology as self-perfecting or self-asserting; rather technology furthers religion which is the heart of evolution. He wrote: “Religion, born of the earth’s need for the disclosing of a God, is related to and co-extensive with, not the individual human but the whole of humankind.”71 As we advance from individual consciousness to collective consciousness, we see that reality is a single organic evolutionary flowing. For Teilhard, the noosphere is not simply a new

68 He would describe it in two essays written in 1950, the first of which (dated January 6) described his belief “On the Probable Coming of an ‘Ultra- Humanity’” (Future of Man, 270-280) and the second (dated January 18) began with the title in the form of a question: “How May We Conceive and Hope that Human Unanimisation Will Be Realized on Earth?” (Future of Man, 281-288). 69 Philip Hefner, Technology and Human Becoming (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 84-86. 70 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, How I Believe, trans. René Hague (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 81. 71 Teilhard de Chardin, How I Believe, 61. 94 Ilia Delio level of global mind; rather the new level of global mind is the emergence of Christ because the human person is “the arrow pointing the way to the final unification of the world in terms of life.”72 Technology therefore not only advances noogenesis but noogenesis continues christogenesis. Through a collectivization of consciousness, Teilhard saw the possibility of a new global unity in love. Reflecting on the future of humanity, he envisioned an eventual convergence of religions so that the emergence of Christ would ultimately not be limited to a single religion but would be the convergence of psychic, spiritual energy, the unification of the whole.73 In a 1950 talk to the Congrès Universel des Croyants he stated that “…the various creeds still commonly accepted have been primarily concerned to provide every human with an individual line of escape” and for this reason they fail to “allow any room for a global and controlled transformation of the whole of life and thought in their entirety.”74 This stance, Teilhard insisted, can no longer be: “No longer is it simply a religion of individual and of heaven, but a religion of mankind and of the earth – that is what we are looking for at this moment, as the oxygen without which we cannot breathe.”75 He describes the noogenic Christ as “a general convergence of religions upon a universal personal center of unity who fundamentally satisfies all religions.”76 Technology plays a key role in evolutionary convergence, enabling the emergence of global mind and collective consciousness; however, the endpoint is not technology or techno sapiens. For Teilhard the end is Omega, the total unification of being-in-love. The transhumanist Christ does not supercede biological evolution; rather as

72 Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, 224; Kenny, 99. 73 Teilhard de Chardin, How I Believe, 77-85. 74 See Ursula King, “Feeding the Zest for Life: Spiritual Energy Resources for the Future of Humanity,” http://www/metanexus.net/Magazine/tabid/68/id/- 9359/Default.aspx. 75 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy: Enlightening Reflections on Spiritual Energy, 240. 76 Teilhard de Chardin, How I Believe, 85. In a recent paper on religion and globalization (“Human Religious Evolution and Unfinished Creation”), sociologist Jose Casanova notes that in our globalized era all religions can be reconstituted for the first time as de-territorialized global imagined communities, detached from the civilizational settings in which they have been traditionally imbedded. Through internet and mass migration, each world religion is being dissociated and reconstituted on the global level through interrelated processes of particularistic differentiation, universalistic claims and mutual recognition (p. 15). World religions are becoming more at home in the presence of one another than at home, a point that speaks to Teilhard’s evolution of world religions toward convergence and unity-in-love. Teilhard de Chardin’s Transhumanist Worldview 95 biogenesis yields to noogenesis, so too Christ emerges as greater unity in love. Transhumanism is ultrahumanism, the deepening of being in love.

CONCLUSION

The exponential growth of technology today and the aims of AI transhumanism can seem prima facie to signal the end of humanity as we have known it. But a closer examination of this development shows an apocalyptic mentality with platonic ideals. Rooted in deep religious convictions of immortality, suffering and death, AI transhumanism has sought to replace religious beliefs with technology. In doing so, however, it threatens to thwart evolution by substituting the artifice for the life of matter thus disconnecting matter and the life of the spirit. Evolution is religious to the core, according to Teilhard, because of matter’s openness to spirit. His vision offers a thoroughly incarnational view of transhumanism, seeing the role of technology as a positive one toward greater convergence and unification of humankind. The emergence of technology within evolution impelled Teilhard to highlight the link between religion and technology as the most important one at this point in the evolutionary process. Whereas AI transhumanists aim to replace religious ideals with technological achievements, Teilhard saw that technology could further religion. In his view the next step of evolution brought about by technology is the convergence of religions which means that in order for the process of evolution to move to the next level, religions must unify. Hence the next stage of evolution is not dependent on technology as AI transhumanists propose but on the spiritual power of religions. Teilhard following Huxley saw that evolution is not a mechanical process of inert matter but a dynamic unfolding of life, spirit and consciousness. Without organic matter, spirit cannot deepen and complexify. Hence religion is not outside the realm of technology but integral to its purpose and development. World religions must awaken to their role in evolution and seek to unite because the convergence of religions is necessary for the ongoing genesis of Christ. Evolution proceeds towards the Omega Point not by information or enhancement of the individual but by the convergence of humanity and the deepening of relationships in love.

CHAPTER VI

PUTTING THE HUMAN INTO TRANSHUMANISM

HOWARD GRAY

Transhumanism espouses the continual exploration of the ways that human ingenuity and technology can move beyond the presumed limits of nature.1 Consequently, insofar as transhumanism moves beyond presumed boundaries, it represents a quest for transcendence. This essay examines alternate forms of transcendence, first as a human experience and then as one religious tradition that explores and builds on that human experience. From this discussion of human and religious transcendence some questions and approaches emerge that offer a challenge to transhumanism as a displacement of the human and the spiritual. Simply put human inquiry centers not only on problems waiting to be solved by science and technology but on abiding human mysteries that define what it is to be human and constitute a foundation for religious ways of dealing with those mysteries. First there will be an introductory reflection on the role of the human spirit or soul in asking questions about life, followed by a contemporary narrative that illustrates the human spirit or soul in action. Following these introductory reflections is an examination of four human experiences of transcendence: hospitality, friendship, suffering, and reorientation. Finally hospitality, friendship, suffering, and reorientation will be examined as offered in one spiritual tradition, that of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, a centuries-old method for exploring religious experience. The human soul and a narrative of its action. Think of soul as “the human individual’s inherent capacity for selfhood, self-awareness, and subjectivity, the principle of human knowing and responsible freedom.”2 One of the ways in which the human soul expresses itself is through inquiry: Why is this so? Or What does this mean? But the human soul also expresses itself as assertion, testimony, and aspiration: I am called to be a doctor, an engineer, a businessperson. Or I believe in the nobility

1 Nick Bostrom, “A History of Transhumanist Thought,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 14.1 (April 2005) I; also the essay contributed by Ilia Delio, OSF. 2 Suzaane Noffke, O.P. “Soul,” The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, ed. Michael Downey (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993), 908. 98 Howard Gray of the human heart and its capacity to love and to cherish and its vulnerability to be hurt and to undergo loss Or I expect that after death I shall face God. The human soul is the source of thought, imagination, and decision. The human soul expresses itself through the body but it is not reduced to the body. The human soul moves beyond; that is, transcends, the limitations of time and space; yet it is dependent on the world around it as the source for its inquiry and as the foundation for its knowledge, technology, or art.3 The novelist Larry Woiwode illustrates the human experience of soul and its intuition of transcendence in his memoir-essay, “A Fifty- Year Walk.” He recalls his solitary walks through the Illinois woods of his boyhood.4

The places I most liked to walk were outside any sign of habitation – in the carved gap of a railroad line or along a dirt road that led through the pastures or cornfields to a woods. When I walked I thought of others who had walked this way before, and the only one I had heard of who had walked as much as I seemed to walk were the apostles of Jesus Christ [along with Jesus, of course], and a U.S. president who once lived in the area of Illinois where my family was living – Abraham Lincoln.5

And then he recounts a specific experience of walking and beginning to sing aloud, addressing the beauty of the world about him:

Now as I sang and walked, matching the words to my right- left pace, I saw rough trunks crowd close, their shadows lying on leaves and needles they had shed, all of this closeness intertwining in a way that caused the light I saw striking my feet to take on substance. The chill of a presence slid over me as if I were shedding leaves myself, and I stopped and looked up. The patterns of the scribbled multitude of twigs and the matching gaps of designated light matching the movements of the limbs were as much a song or shout as what I sang. This was the earth, these its trees in multitude

3 Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, Seeking the Face of God (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003). 4 Larry Woiwode, “A Fifty-Year Walk,” The Best Spiritual Writing 1999, ed. Philip Zaleski, Intro. Kathleen Norris (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1999), 315-323. 5 Ibid., 315-316. Putting the Human into Transhumanism 99

of beauty, twigs to branches to trunks, the sky and space brimming with angels and voices that would soon break into appearance or speech. I felt no terror, gripped by a presence of greater substance than my mother’s hand, and tears of laughter leaped out like the appearances and voices that seemed so imminent. One presence was here, I saw, as I turned with my face raised, in the trees and sky and the earth that supported me as I turned. This presence had put all this in place to teach me about myself and its own qualities and makeup: God. I had been instructed to love Him, but the words of English I knew could not approach the language pouring from everything around me with a familiarity that aroused in me a wordless love that for the life of me I could not define.6

Then at fifty Woiwode underwent a crisis that drove him back to his experience as a twelve-year old boy. In gratitude and forgiveness, Woiwode experiences anew this movement of boyhood spirit, “as I listened to a language leaping past time and entering me in a beginning I could not begin to explain, or would not have been able to, until I sat down and reentered that fifty-year-old walk.”7 Woiwode’s reflection illustrates the working of spirit and soul capable of reason and remembering, of treasuring the memories of the past and placing these within the struggles of the present, and embracing the sensory reality of the world that surrounds one and yet acknowledging in awe the sense of a presence within and beyond. In other words, what are some of the human experiences that dramatize or witness to a spirituality? Woiwode offers a narrative of the transcendence of the human spirit. Spirituality is the study of “the process that leads to life- integration through self-transcendence toward the ultimate value that one perceives.”8 Woiwode’s narrative presents such an experience of life-integration, a bringing together of past and present, to confront a personal crisis by confirming a set of personal values that deeply

6 Ibid, 317-318. 7 Ibid., 323. 8 Sandra M. Schneiders, “Religion vs. Spirituality: A Contemporary Conundrum,” Spiritus 3.2 (2003): 166; Schneiders, “The Study of Christian Spirituality: the Contours and Dynamics of a Discipline,” Christian Spirituality Bulletin I (Spring 1998): I, 3-12, Mary Frohlich, “The Spiritual Discipline, Discipline and Spirituality: Revisiting Questions of Definition and Method,” Spiritus, 1.1 (2001): 65-78. 100 Howard Gray penetrated his memory and enlivened his present search for meaning and direction. What are the characteristics that describe the human spirit? How does the spirit reveal itself in life? While there are many characteristics of a soul’s education which could be evoked, we will look at four: hospitality, friendship, suffering, and reorientation. Each of these represents an aspect of soul-education; that is, the process whereby a man or woman can become aware of the power of transcendence. Transcendence is the power to move beyond oneself either in insight about the life one lives or about the depth with which one lives it. In a closer examination of these four characteristics this sense of soul education, of learning about self-transcendence, will become clearer.9

I. The older tradition of hospitality has been somewhat usurped by its contemporary use in restaurants and hotels, signifying a professional etiquette or a refined social milieu that welcomes paying guests. However, more recently there has been an effort to retrieve the biblical and ethical meaning of hospitality, while acknowledging that “the scriptures did not invent hospitality.” In an essay entitled “Jesuit hospitality?” James Keenan synopsizes contemporary research about hospitality in scripture, church history, and moral theology. Beginning with the data from Genesis where God is pictured as a Divine Host, ministering to the created guests, Adam and Eve, “[t]he divine practice of hospitality becomes normative for God’s chosen people and is rewarded....Because hospitality is normative, any act of inhospitality is an offense to God...”10 In the Christian narrative Jesus can be seen as an inheritor of this hospitality tradition, both as one who himself was not received and as one who received those who most needed to know God’s forgiveness and favor, the sinner and the Gentile – the ethical and ethnic outsider. Nowhere is the centrality of hospitality underscored more than in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.11 In this narrative Luke artfully integrates the inclusion of the outsider – the Samaritan – as the exemplar of true hospitality and the teaching of Jesus about the primacy of living hospitality. Within this parable lie the elements of true hospitality in the

9 Howard Gray, S.J., “Soul Education: An Ignatian Priority,” A Jesuit Education Reader (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2008), 195-208. 10 James F. Keenan, S.J., “Jesuit Hospitality,” Promise Renewed, Jesuit Higher Education for a New Millenium, ed. Martin Tripole, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1999), 230-244, cf. 231. 11 Luke 10:25-37, in this analysis I am indebted to Brendan Byrne, S.J., The Hospitality of God, A Reading of Luke’s Gospel (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000). Putting the Human into Transhumanism 101 fourfold action of the Samaritan: hospitable in his seeing, hospitable in his affective acceptance, hospitable in his outreach, and finally hospitable in his incorporation of others in this welcome and care of the stranger. Unpacking these four actions of the Samaritan offers a multi- layered understanding of hospitality as an exercise of the human spirit. In the parable the priest and the Levite pass by the victim abandoned at the side of the road. Each sees the victim abandoned on the road but each deliberately passes by to the other side of the road to avoid any contact with the victim (cf. Lk. 10: 31 and 32). It is the Samaritan who truly saw the victim, not as an impediment to his journey or as a curiosity but as a wounded and abandoned brother whose condition cried out for attention, for the hospitality that allows the stranger and outsider to have a place in one’s consciousness (cf. Lk 10:33). The Samaritan’s receptive seeing is close to the contemplative opening of the heart to the reality of life in all its complexity and messiness. Such openness to the reality of the other can only take place if one is willing also to risk entrance into another world, the realm of imagination. It is this willingness that marks the action of the Samaritan. The action of engaged seeing is coupled in the narrative with the second action, experiencing compassion (Lk 10: 33). The compassion of the Samaritan is not a fleeting sentimentality but a profound, womb-like emergence of care that emerges from identifying with the other, a “seeing” that moves into identification. Again, just as hospitable seeing is an openness that accepts what one sees in its totality, so compassion is an affective identification with the human situation of the other, here to the victim’s pain and abandonment, his vulnerability and humiliation. The wounded sojourner remains a human being whose only claim on the heart of the passerby emerges if the passerby becomes the neighbor. For compassion comes from a welcoming heart; it does not come from command and it must be wary of manipulation and trickery. This is precisely why the parable is so artful. The victim does not dramatize his plight, he simply is his plight. The third action of the Samaritan is important because it moves into the core of hospitality, which is not simply to enter into the world of the other but to offer the goods of one’s world to another. Luke elaborates the various actions of the Samaritan by which he gives whatever he has not simply to serve the victim but to bring the victim into his life. Note how the Samaritan does not simply give “things,” but donates symbols of his own humanity: his presence (“he went to him”); his very clothing (“he bandaged his wounds,” which implies that the Samaritan tore his own clothing to make the bandages); his supplies (“having poured oil and wine on them” [the wounds]); his physical exertions, time, and monies (“he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him”). In these actions, the Samaritan has 102 Howard Gray not merely discovered the stranger but has, as it were, redeemed the stranger through his concern and practical response. The Samaritan has merged his life and integrated his journey with that of the wounded stranger. The fourth action of the Samaritan, in which he enlists the aid of the inn keeper to sustain the care of the rescued victim, is ironic. The inn keeper is not a professional helper. He is a business man, intent on making a living from customers who pay. What the Samaritan does is to expand his service and bring the inn keeper into the act of compassion that characterizes his own involvement. Thus the Samaritan’s compassion is generative, as it passes beyond himself to the innkeeper. This is an important dimension in the parable. The action of compassion involves a change in social structures and mentalities. It transcends an individual good deed and evolves into a communal event. Significantly, when the gospel narrative returns to the exchange between Jesus and the lawyer, Jesus asks simply, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the one who fell into the hands of the robber?” The lawyer avoids the word “Samaritan,” answering simply, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus closes the discussion with a straightforward command, “Go and do likewise” (Lk 10:36-37). The practice of hospitality is a thread that holds the fabric of Luke’s gospel together.12 It is also the first of the characteristics of soul- education, of learning how to transcend prejudices and fear to include the stranger into the network of one’s life as a personal responsibility. For example, in the Christian tradition hospitality marks the reception of new life as the family incorporates the baby into its midst, giving not only life but entrance into the human community. Death similarly marks the end of life as those who are left behind care for the body of the deceased with love and reverence. The rites of mourning are signs of solidarity not only with the person who has died but with those who also mourn his or her loss. Birth and death mark our lives; but hospitality transforms both physical events and makes them instances of the human spirit endowing the physical event with meaning and symbol.

II. Another characteristic of the human spirit is its capacity for friendship. Like hospitality friendship must be liberated from contemporary tendencies to make it merely an acquaintance or simply a commodity. Rather, friendship is a mutual love that inspires and challenges each person to live a life of affectionate concern so that each – the friend and the befriended – may become a good person.13 This is a

12 Ibid. 13 While the literature on the this topic is dense I am indebted to: Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993); Bernard Putting the Human into Transhumanism 103 simple description; but if we unpack its significance, we will come to the richness of spirit that friendship connotes. First, the mutuality of genuine friendship is based not on utility or physical attraction. The mutuality of friendship is a love, a desire for the true good of the other. Attraction is certainly a part of friendship but attraction is not the constitutive element. Or better, the attraction is towards the good that the other already embodies. The good is based not on gain or pleasure but on the present and potential growth in being and doing the ethical good. In friendship each honors the integrity of the other, his or her best ambitions, and supports the other’s struggle to live in harmony with one’s non-negotiable values. This is the inherent value of genuine friendship. Within the Christian tradition the richness of friendship is attested by the Last Supper declaration of Jesus to his disciples, “I call you friends” (John 15:15). A further aspect of genuine friendship is that it reverences the mutual freedom and autonomy within the relationship. Coercion or seduction corrupts friendship. The bonding of friendship is a commitment to growth and development. The true friend delights in the accomplishments of the friend and wants these accomplishments to be enhanced and to flourish. Because there is no human growth without the concomitant freedom to assess one’s strengths, gifts, and potentialities, an authentic friend assists in this self-examination and self-discovery. Moreover, a true friend exults in the accomplishments of the friend. Whatever competition exists, for example in sports or in intellectual rivalry, the competition is a wholesome challenge. However, being human, friends will experience moments of jealousy and envy; but each will also recognize these as temptations that could weaken or even destroy a friendship. The struggle to sustain the essential goodness within a friendship, its openness of mind and heart, means that friends can confide to one another even those things that could threaten their relationship, including jealousy or envy. Another aspect of friendship is trust, which allows such openness to flourish. Within a true friendship there is a potential intimacy, which shows itself in the communication of ideals, values, and affections. Communication is the heartbeat of friendship; but the trust friends have in one another is, as it were, the blood of that heartbeat. A friend opens

V. Brady, Christian Love, How Christians through the Ages have Understood Love (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003); David R. Burrell, C.S.C, Friendship and Ways to Truth (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000); Donald X. Burt, OSA, Friendship and Society, An Introduction to Augustine’s Practical Philosophy (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999); The Norton Book of Friendship, eds. Eudora Welty and Ronald A. Sharp (New York: Norton, 1991), particularly the editors’ introductions, 27-33 and 35-41. 104 Howard Gray herself to her friend because self-revelation, when offered in mutual trust, expresses the communion of that intimate self; that is, the place of personal dreams, dearest desires, and ardent ambitions. It is also the place of heartaches and vulnerabilities, of personal failures and deepest disappointments, of long-buried discouragements and even raw heartaches. Without the communication of what makes a person who she is, there is no friendship. There may be acquaintance or camaraderie but friendship is the gift freely of oneself to another self. In summary, friendship is a love that fosters mutual freedom and trust. The goal of friendship is not a mutual admiration society nor is it to close oneself off from other relationships. The goal of friendship is to foster goodness and to share that goodness with the world beyond the friendship. For example, a marriage ought to be a bonding of friends who find their friendship enriched and completed by the generative life it gives in children, in church, and civic service, in the hospitality that marks their home and draws other friends into their circle of love.

III. The third characteristic that describes the human spirit is its capacity to suffer. Suffering is not a good in itself. But suffering is a condition of the human. But do not animals suffer? Animals experience pain – physical and maybe emotional. We deplore the inhumanity of animal torture or abuse. We can be skeptical about facile assertions that the human as a superior species can use animals and engineer the animal world in any way it wishes. The concern here is not to explore the nature of animal suffering but simply to acknowledge its reality. Human suffering – physical, psychic, and spiritual – has proved to be again and again a common human symbol of frailty, frustration, and finality. Human suffering involves loss on many levels.14 First, there is the loss of security and peace. For example, when someone beloved dies, the surviving partner experiences a profound loneliness and even abandonment. Someone who offered the hospitality of friendship is gone. Someone who expressed love in words and deeds becomes mute and absent, leaving the spouse, the child, the parent, the friend alone in a way he or she may never have experienced before or wanted never to experience again. In loss we experience the existential aloneness that is a profound alienation from life, joy, and hope. Suffering confronts a man or woman with the limits of rational control, of being able to give a persuasive argument that can explain away the pain. Whether that suffering is physical, psychic, or spiritual

14 An eloquent reflection on suffering is that of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hours of Gold, Hours of Lead; Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindberg, 1929-1932 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanowich, 1973), Introduction, 177- 182. Putting the Human into Transhumanism 105 there lurks in the midst of suffering the deep outrage that asks, “Why?” For example, someone can explain the genesis and progress of a cancer; but knowing about the disease does not remove the disease or the terror that moves through a person’s heart at facing the ordeal and its threat. Suffering triggers the frustration of not knowing why one must bear this burden. Furthermore, suffering – when borne in human communion – can lead to a profound insight about the solidarity that binds humans in the agony of loss and its seemingly insoluble quest for meaning. The endurance of suffering does not come within its pain, anguish, or isolation. The endurance comes out of the human solidarity that others offer in moments of suffering. Those who have suffered understand the meaning of suffering. Their personal experience can extend to others who undergo suffering now, helping them to bear the isolation that results from suffering. Wisdom emerges from the acceptance of limitation and the surrender to mystery. So, too, courage and endurance are not automatic emotional by-products of suffering. They emerge through the accompaniment of others in those moments when suffering would draw us into the waves of doubt and despair. The human community cannot take away personal suffering; but the human community can help one bear its consequences. There is suffering that radically tests the foundations of personal identity and challenges confidence that life is good. In such moments the one who suffers does not want moral or religious platitudes. The protest against suffering and the tears that evidence it must be heard and understood. One thinks of the tears and anguish of Jesus before loss and death:

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!’ (Luke 19:41).

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep (John 11:33-34).

Neither Luke nor John explains the tears of Jesus; they simply report them. Jesus protests the lost opportunity for Jerusalem and the loss of his friend Lazarus. These are revelations, offering not solutions but accompaniment. The human reality of suffering is inescapable, even for Jesus. 106 Howard Gray

But present, too, is the support of the human community and the narratives of faith that attest to the human and divine accompaniment that supports our protest and anguish in confronting pain and loss. Hospitality and friendship have the power to transcend the loneliness, isolation, and frustration of suffering. The transcendence of suffering does not entail the denial of human suffering. It is the power of the human spirit to be touched and to help a brother or sister to bear the burden of suffering, to move from individuality to solidarity and from solidarity to community.15

IV. The fourth characteristic of the human spirit is reorientation. Reorientation implies a variety of experiences; but for the purposes of this essay, consider the movements from alienation and isolation to the incorporation effected by hospitality, the movement from acquaintances or even enemies to reconciliation and even the possibility of friendship, and the movement from suffering to resignation or even to hope. Each of these movements is triggered by something within a man or woman that inspires, motivates, or “pushes” a person to a new reality that is more inclusive, more communal, and more potentially human because it challenges one to grow and to develop. To reorient is to move in a new direction, to initiate a fresh beginning. This fourth characteristic integrates all the other human characteristics. In Christian revelation the Risen Jesus is the rich exemplar of this movement towards reorientation. The narratives of his risen life are narratives of hospitality, friendship, and consolation of those who were shaken and caught in corporate and individual confusion and doubt. The Risen Christ appears to console those who had cast their human hopes in him not to confront those who had crucified him. He restores them to community and to a new vision of their life and their work, a vision that would embrace the world not shrink from the world. Significantly, they are called to go out to the whole world and to transform it. It is important to note that reorientation not only specifies one of the key human experiences but is present within all the other human experiences cited above – hospitality, friendship, and suffering. For unless individual men and women move beyond their isolation and reach out to others, there is no hospitality. Unless men and women reach out to one another in mutual trust and confidence, there is no friendship. Unless men and women break through suffering by offering and accepting compassion, suffering leads to isolation and loneliness. The experience of reorientation is a “reaching out,” moving beyond one human condition – e.g., isolation, fear of the stranger, and withdrawal because of pain or suffering – to another level of human experience.

15 Wilken, The Spirit, 291-311. Putting the Human into Transhumanism 107

This “reaching out” is also a power that resides in the soul of men and women helping them to transcend their limitations to effect a new level of human existence – e.g., hospitality, friendship, and compassion. The power of reorientation, then, implies an acceptance of the mystery that resides within every human life. People are defined, then, not just by what they are limited in doing but also by their desire to transcend those limitations. This desire to transcend is an expression of soul and spirit. And this desire to transcend characterizes not only scientific and technological advances but also the phenomena of art, literature, music, and research. Let us conclude this section by suggesting that the stretch of transhumanism is a response to the same transcendent desire found in all human experience, and particularly in those experiences we call religious. The religious tradition is a rich storehouse of experiences of the spirit that can be in dialogue with transhumanism, learning from it and contributing to understanding it. While that religious tradition is deep and wide, I want to focus on one expression of the religious tradition, that of Ignatian spirituality, particularly as enunciated in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. The Exercises are a spiritual classic not so much for their content as for their methodology, as a way of engaging the human spirit and as a way of transforming the human heart.16 The Exercises are a Christian guideline that helps one undertake a pilgrimage through the commanding revelations of the Christian experience: creation, the reality of sin within a world of sinfulness but opened to redemption by the loving mercy of God, the advent of Christ – his person and mission – and his ongoing call to discipleship, the passion and death of Christ, and the resurrection. The Ignatian experience offers a variety of ways of approaching these Christian truths but the chief way is through gospel contemplation in which the one who undertakes the experience is asked to enter fully into the various scenes of the gospel narratives. Through this contemplative encounter, the person engaged in the Exercises can gradually discern a particular pattern of attractions that coalesce into a way of following Christ today. This decision to take seriously and most personally the following of Christ is called an “election,” signifying a mutual bonding between Christ and the one making the Exercises. Thus the experience of the Exercises is intended to be a contemplative enterprise which moves towards choosing a life that will further the Kingdom preached by and taught by Christ. The structure and methodology of the Exercises are organized around four weeks. These “weeks” represent not chronological time but

16 The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary, ed. George E. Ganss, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992, St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992). 108 Howard Gray a psycho-religious appropriation by the one making the retreat of those overarching Christian themes outlined above, e.g., creation, sin- redemption, the life and death of Jesus, and the Resurrection. Key to this appropriation is the role of the guide to the Exercises whose task is not merely to present and to explain but to adapt the dynamics of the “weeks” to the temperament, talent, and graces of the one making the Exercises. Ignatian guidance throughout the retreat is a discreet oversight that listens carefully especially to the affective reactions of the one making the retreat without any interference or manipulation. The aim of this spiritual guidance is to sustain integrity in one’s seeking and responding to the authentic overtures from the Holy Spirit. This discernment of spirits is an integral part of the Exercises because it leads to a sound and genuinely free election on the part of the one making the Exercises. Thus the dynamic of the Exercises is a mutuality of suggestions for prayer that engage both the revelation-narrative of Scripture and the variety of responses of the one making the retreat. The frame narratives of the Exercises contain a rhythm that incorporates the four movements of hospitality, friendship, suffering, and reorientation cited earlier. Thus Week I of the Exercises incorporates the welcoming overtures of God the Host in making creation a gift in which all creaturely reality – people but also the entire universe – seeks a harmony of inter-dependence and mutual service. When that harmony is disrupted by one’s personal sins or by sinful structures of injustice, hatred and enmity, jealousy and envy, and violence then the divine intervention of forgiveness and mercy offers an opportunity for reconciliation, mercy, and forgiveness. The God presented by Jesus, for example, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, is presented as a God who offers hospitality to the estranged and sinful. In brief, the dynamic of Week I of the Exercises is a prayer that offers a God of insistent and creative welcoming as the symbol of tireless and available love. In Week II of the Exercises the person and mission of Jesus Christ is central to the prayer and movement of the Exercises. The centrality of Christ is framed in language of friendship and intimate sharing. Indeed, the prayer offered continuously in Week II is to know, to love, and to serve Christ as a companion and a friend. Ignatius emphasizes the transparency of motive and total availability of Christ to any who want to be part of his mission and to draw closely to his affection and care. Only those capable of understanding friendship and possessing the maturity and generosity to enter into a union of friendship can appropriate the graces of Week II of the Exercises. Only those who want others to know Christ as the way, the life, and the truth can be comfortable with the mission offered by Christ. Putting the Human into Transhumanism 109

In Week III of the Exercises the one making the retreat enters into the harsh physical and psychological climactic struggle of Christ. The one making the Exercises holds in balance two realities: that Christ truly suffered and that this suffering was, ultimately, an insight into the Passion of God. There is no effort to escape the struggle Jesus undergoes in his suffering and the ultimate finality of his death and burial. The concomitant fidelity to his humanity and the fidelity both to the character of the Father who sent him and to the human family he was sent to save through that fidelity can be found in his willingness to undergo the varieties of human suffering – the loneliness, the betrayals, the false accusations, the brutality of the Roman soldiers, the cynicism of his own religious leaders, the indifference of the crowd, the anguish of those who loved him and could do nothing to help him, and even the spiritual darkness that seemed to envelop his final hours – Jesus witnesses to suffering in solidarity with the human. There is no divine escape, a feature of the passion and death that Ignatius emphasizes. But in the midst of his suffering Jesus also exhibits a constant willingness to forgive and to save; that is, a fidelity to his mission. Thus for the one making the Exercises Christ does not explain suffering or explain it away. The mystery of suffering is not resolved but absorbed in the radical goodness of Christ. In the first three weeks of the Exercises persons undergoing the experiences of Christ through contemplation can identify with his human appropriation of hospitality, friendship, and suffering. There is an affinity between the one making the Exercises and the Christ of the Exercises. The bridge of interpretation is the humanity shared by Christ and the one making the Exercises. However, in Week IV the method changes because there is a different human correlation between the Risen Christ and the one making the Exercises. In the contemplations of Week IV the focus is not on all that Christ did but rather specifically on his ministry of consolation to those who were his followers. Thus the Risen Christ practices hospitality by feeding his disciples at the shore of Tiberias and then commissioning them to continue his work in their lifetimes. In the upper room the Risen Christ empowers his disciples to give the peace he has bestowed on them to others, to impart his forgiveness through their ministry of reconciliation, and to make known his mission through their mission. The reorientation of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is to abandon their plans to walk another way and to rejoin the community and to announce the reality of the Risen Christ whose mission is to touch hearts with a new way of discipleship through the Holy Spirit. The reorientation of the Risen Christ is not distracted by any recrimination of those who betrayed him or who led him to trial or who crucified him. His reorientation is towards the way his message and his 110 Howard Gray work will continue to be carried on through the community of believers. The Risen Christ symbolizes enduring hope in the human family. The faith community becomes the instrument of reorientation, a renewed meaning of human life. This reorientation also serves as a way of reinterpreting who he is, of moving from Jesus of Nazareth to Jesus the Lord. This Risen Christ becomes central to the design of creation, symbolizes human destiny, and founds human solidarity. This presentation of the Risen Christ challenges the one making the Exercises to appreciate that religion is neither a pious nostalgia that obscures the challenge of human progress nor a wish fulfillment that ignores the need for continual human progress. Religion should be a call towards progress in all its senses. As a methodology the Exercises represent a way to explore religious insight and to clarify religious affectivity. In confirmation of this reorientation of life, the Exercises end with a contemplative prayer called the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love. The end of this climactic prayer is not to incite love but to celebrate the reorientation of love as an ongoing inventive exercise in discovering all the ways human reality reveals the actions of God’s creative, abiding, and laboring love both as the starting place for the human pilgrimage and as its destiny. These reflections on the methodology of the Spiritual Exercises are intended neither as a commercial nor as an exhortation. They are simply a witness by one who has both been touched by them and guided others through them. They are a way of achieving Christian authenticity. And that drive for authenticity unites both the transhumanist and the religious seeker. The transhumanist quest for unlimited human progress and mastery over nature is a quest for power. The religious quest, exemplified in the Ignatian Exercises but not exclusively so, is also an example of the quest for power, the power of love. The humanity involved in the transhumanist quest can never outgrow the need for acceptance and welcome, the need for intimacy and mutual acceptance, the need to find meaning in suffering through wisdom and compassion, and the need to reorient human experience into a vision for ages yet to come and for a people yet to be born. To put the human into transhumanism is to accept the humility of being human – incomplete yet wondrously oriented to strive for completion through human solidarity and the surrender to mystery. In the acceptance of this possibility human progress transcends striving into pilgrimage and pilgrimage into homecoming. PART III

HUMAN PRACTICE AND NEW CREATION

CHAPTER VII

A ‘PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE EARTH’

NANCY C. TUCHMAN and MICHAEL J. SCHUCK

Technological advances over the past 250 years have allowed human beings to live beyond their natural means, or in ecological terms, to exceed nature’s carrying capacity for their species. Many factors contribute to this phenomenon; most prominent among them are humankind’s unremitting curiosity about the universe, insatiable craving for a higher quality of life, deep desire to control nature, and astonishing ability to solve problems and build knowledge. These factors also fuel ‘transhumanism’, the idea that human beings can be freed from their biological limitations and technologically advance to a state of disease- free agelessness and high tech control over their own evolution.1 The factors that encourage human beings to live beyond their means and imagine a ‘transhuman’ existence have created a human paradox: qualities that differentiate humans from other species are destroying the very earth that supports the existence of all life. Examples of the human paradox abound. In modern times, the development of artificial ammonium fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and irrigation systems have increased per acre crop yields by up to 200 times greater than what nature alone can produce, making it possible to feed more people than the earth’s natural carrying capacity. When the extension of natural human life span by biomedical technology is added, the planet’s carrying capacity is further exceeded; more people with more years to consume more resources. The unintended consequences of advanced food production and biomedical technology exemplify the human paradox, as do modern developments in resource mining and industrial production. Greater sophistication in extracting resources and manufacturing products has provided millions of people in the modern world with such things as mass-produced textiles, electricity, automobiles, telephones, and the world-wide web, but the price paid for these methods and merchandise has been irreversible damage to earth’s air, water, soil, and vegetation systems. These are but a few of many examples of the paradox currently holding earth in a death grip. This paper argues that this paradox cannot be escaped solely by putting hope in future technological inventiveness.

1 Max More, Transhumanism: A Futuristic Philosophy 1990, http://www.maxmore.com/transhum.htm. Retrieved 2011-8-23. 114 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck

Technology will certainly be part of any solution to environmental destruction, but hegemonic technological imperatives driven by ideologies like transhumanism are not the answer. Rather, the human paradox has created an ecological crisis that must be met by human beings making a commitment to a ‘preferential option for the earth’. The ecological crisis calls all human beings and their communities to make this ‘preferential option’ – and an optimal population to model and spread such an ‘option’ is students, teachers, and the educational communities that nurture them. To unfold this argument, three environmental dilemmas that manifest the ecological crisis are discussed: world population growth, global climate change, and water shortages. With the urgency of these dilemmas shown, the argument turns to the needed human response in the form of a ‘preferential option for the earth’. The paper concludes with attention to the important role students, teachers, and their educational communities can play in making a ‘preferential option for the earth’ and the efforts currently being made in this direction by Loyola University Chicago.

THREE ENVIRONMENTAL DILEMMAS

The human paradox has produced many environmental dilemmas. Three of the most urgent are world population growth, global climate change, and water shortages. The range and depth of these conflicts is enormous.

World Population Growth

The twentieth century has witnessed an extraordinary growth of world population. From 1.6 billion in 1900, the number of people on earth has grown to over 7 billion.2 Eighty percent of that increase occurred in the last fifty years, with the world’s population currently growing at 1.2 percent annually. The present world population of 7 billion is projected to rise to over 9 billion by 2050.3 Most people on earth live at or near the poverty level and consume very little resources. Naturally, people in these circumstances aspire to consume more. Too often, the nation states within which they live pursue policies holding up North American tastes and consumption levels as the benchmark of success. But if every person on earth consumed at a level equivalent to the average North American, 5.3

2 U.S. Census Bureau, 2012. 3 United Nations. Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2000 Revision 2000 (ESA/P/WP.165). A ‘Preferential Option for the Earth’ 115 earths would be needed. Even without expanding consumption levels, the sheer addition of another one third as many people on earth over the next few decades further breaches the earth’s carrying capacity. Another dimension of the world population problem can be seen in terms of population density and arable land. Between 1900 and 1950, world population density (number of people per square km) increased from 13 to 19 people per square km. Today, world population density stands at 45 people per square km. The distribution of this density is very different between more developed regions with density averages of 23 people per square km and less developed areas with density averages of 60 people per square km. Add to this differential the fact that while the earth has 148 million km2 of land (36.48 billion acres), only 31 million km2 (7.68 billion acres) are arable. This means that average human density on arable land is approximately 1 person per 1.13 acre. Mass human migration from more dense, less arable regions to less dense, more arable regions is growing and already causing serious human displacement and social conflicts. The world population crisis also demonstrates demographic shifts. Most of the world population growth in the next 40 years will occur in developing countries like India, China and the countries of Africa. In these regions, population growth is estimated at 2.5 percent per year, doubling every twenty-nine years.4 The demographic age pyramid in these countries is very wide at the bottom (typically 25 years of age or younger) and very narrow at the top (few people over 75 years of age). In contrast, developed countries such as Japan, Russia, and the countries of Western Europe are now experiencing decreasing population densities and altered age demographics.5 Japan’s demographic age pyramid, for example, is upside-down compared to countries like India and China. Like a triangle standing on its apex, the Japanese age distribution shows that most people are over 25 years of age. One third of the citizens of Japan will be over the age of 65 by the middle of this century, adding enormous burden on the shrinking working class to support them. The global socio-political effect of reduced numbers of young people in the developed countries compared with youth population explosions in developing countries creates a more polarized world society with very destabilizing generational disparities. Unsustainable consumption levels, increased human dislocation, and skewed age distributions dramatically demonstrate the dilemma posed by world population growth. Many people identify this

4 Ibid. 5 Sarah Holt, World in the Balance: The People Paradox. A Co- Production of NOVA and Linda Harrar Productions (2004), transcript found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3108_worldbal.html. 116 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck environmental dilemma as the root cause of the current ecological crisis and are calling for concrete policy recommendations around population growth. But enforcing policies on human reproduction is fraught with ethical conflict. Policies that monitor population growth must also respect human rights and dignity. Respect for nature and respect for human life are integrally connected. For Roman Catholics, in particular, serious and courageous discernment will continue to be called for on the relation between their religious tradition’s approach to human sexuality and the question of world population growth. The Church is not unaware of this. For example: “The Church recognizes the serious problem of population growth in the form it has taken in many parts of the world”6

Global Climate Change

The increased consumer demand of a rising world population requires high quantities of energy. As such, it should come as no surprise that annual global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel consumption have steadily risen since 1750 and have quadrupled since 1950. An estimated 265 billion tons of carbon have been released to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. But carbon dioxide gas is not the only problem. While it is the most abundant of the ‘anthropogenic greenhouse gases’ (GHG), the others – which include methane and nitrous oxide – are vastly more potent. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that global atmospheric levels of GHG have increased markedly since 1750. Whereas the rise of carbon dioxide concentration has been due primarily to fossil fuel consumption and changes in land use, the increases in methane and nitrous oxide are due primarily to intensive agricultural practices. Today, the results of increased levels of carbon dioxide and other GHG are being experienced in the overall changing of the earth’s climate, increased frequency and intensity of catastrophic storm events, melting of polar caps and mountain glaciers, severe flooding in some areas of the world and severe droughts in others, desertification and wildfires, dramatic loss in crop production, shortages of freshwater, spread of vector-borne diseases, and loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. These last two functional losses alone create a positive feedback to more GHG emissions, causing even greater imbalance in the biogeochemical cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur – elements critical for life on earth.

6 Pope John Paul II Pontifical Council for the Family. Ethical and Pastoral Dimensions of Population Trends. 1994, http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/pc- Ftrend.htm. Retrieved 2011-9-15. A ‘Preferential Option for the Earth’ 117

In December of 2009, leaders of the developed nations came together at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen to address the impending environmental damage caused by GHG. While the regulatory outcomes from the Copenhagen Conference were minimal, the meeting marked the first time all world leaders openly acknowledged that GHG emissions are the major cause of global climate change. Acknowledged too, was the fact that if global warming surpasses a 2oF temperature increase, all life on earth will be severely threatened. Global climate change affects all living things. The most vulnerable biomes are deserts, savannahs, grasslands, and coastal areas. The most vulnerable humans are poor people living in developing nations possessing dry habitats – people with the fewest resources to respond with the resilience necessary for survival. Like world population growth, global climate change presents an immense environmental dilemma.

Water Shortages

The demand for clean, fresh water has risen steadily with increasing population and advanced agricultural technologies. In the twentieth century, water use has grown at twice the rate of the world population increase. Yet most water depletion is not due to direct human intake: agriculture accounts for approximately 70 per cent of freshwater consumption worldwide.7 Considering both human and agricultural consumption, per capita availability of fresh water on a global basis has fallen to nearly one third of its 1950 level. Assessments of the world’s water resources are commonly measured in terms of the ratio of water withdrawals to water supply. A ratio of less than 10 percent indicates the likelihood of few water resource management problems for a community. A ratio of 10 to 19 percent points to an emerging water availability problem. When water withdrawals reach the range of 20 to 40 percent, careful community management of supply and demand is needed to assure sustainability. Use in excess of 40 percent indicates serious scarcity, with surface and groundwater being used faster than it is being replenished. About one third of the world’s population lives in countries struggling with either serious water management challenges or outright water scarcity.8 Water shortages of varying degrees are increasing everywhere. In Yemen, for example, one out of three people do not have access to fresh drinking water. This number is expected to become two out of three by

7 United Nations, 2000. 8 Ibid. 118 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck

2025. As a result of global climate change, the glaciers atop Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro are receding at an alarming rate – glaciers that have supported human civilization and a lush biodiversity of plants and wildlife for thousands of years. Today, no water reaches the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, forcing people to move further and further toward the top of the mountain to obtain fresh water.9 A similar phenomenon is occurring in the mountaintop ice fields of the western United States where the melt water, which for centuries irrigated rich agricultural land, has been severely reduced. Because of the phenomenon of reduced melt water and increased agricultural water withdrawals, the Colorado River now dries up in the Sonoran Desert, long before it reaches its original end point in Mexico. Water shortages are triggering social conflicts around the world. In the Gaza Strip, for example, Israel owns the water rights and does not allow Palestinian farmers to dig deeper to obtain fresh water for cattle and crop irrigation. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, struggles over water rights spread across the border. India is involved because it invests heavily in Pakistani river damming and reservoir projects, activities that lower water flow volume to Afghanistan. As a further complication to this global water shortage problem, several multinational companies have moved into the business of water privatization. Suez S.A. and Bechtel are two multinational corporations that have increased their control over the world’s freshwater resources. Social conflict has followed. Soon after Bechtel obtained a contract from the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia to privatize the water supply (including the city’s rain water), citizen water bills increased by over 60 percent. This not only forced people to forego food and education to pay for their meager water allotment of 5 gallons per day, but also sent people out in the streets in violent protest and confrontation with the government. Like the cascading, interrelated challenges linked to population growth and global climate change, swelling water withdrawals, receding glaciers, and water privatization make water shortages one of the three most urgent environmental dilemmas facing the world today. These dilemmas are at the core of the ecological crisis so dangerously gripping biological life at every level.

A ‘PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE EARTH’

While advanced technology will be part of any successful release from the ecological crisis, it cannot be the central answer. When left

9 Albert Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. (New York: Rodale Publishing, 2006). A ‘Preferential Option for the Earth’ 119 unguided, the same human qualities that stimulate technological inventiveness – curiosity about the universe, craving for goods and services, desire to control nature – destroy the earth that makes these qualities possible. This is humanity’s paradox – or, what theologians might call ‘original sin’: the impulse humans possess to live beyond their means and, in so doing, bring earth beyond its carrying capacity. To remedy the ecological crisis, high tech innovation must be directed toward a deeper purpose than innovation alone. This guiding purpose must be moral commitment aimed at the protection of the earth. But to counter the lure of the human paradox, human beings must take up this purpose with a strong, personal commitment. Acting to protect the earth under current conditions of population growth, global climate change, and water shortages takes great moral courage. Before his death in 2009, the extraordinary environmental leader Thomas Berry posed a challenge to all human beings in The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. In his ‘grand challenge’, Berry called all people to: 1) deepen their awareness that human life is absolutely connected to and dependent upon the natural world, 2) see which of their daily actions and consumer choices deteriorate the environment, 3) become acutely uncomfortable with that knowledge, and 4) respond by changing their damaging behaviors and becoming protectors of the earth.10 The argument presented here is that Berry’s challenge asks human beings and their communities to make, in effect, a ‘preferential option for the earth’. Drawing on the notion of a ‘preferential option for the poor’ which has been a centerpiece of Christian, especially Roman Catholic, social ethics since the 1960’s, the ‘preferential option for the earth’ takes the core meaning of the originating phrase and reinterprets it in view of today’s needed response to the ecological crisis. A brief discussion of the context and meaning of the ‘preferential option for the poor’ will help clarify what is meant by a ‘preferential option for the earth’. In 1965, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) founded the Universidad Centroamericana Josė Simeón Cañas (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador. In the midst of a society still suffering the legacy of oppressive colonialism as evidenced in extreme poverty, military dictatorship, political repression, death squads, and impending civil war, Jesuits established this educational community to address the urgent needs of the country. The inspiration, rector, and martyr for the UCA was Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J. Under his guidance, the UCA fashioned an institutional

10 Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Bell Tower Publishers, 1999). 120 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck mission committed to addressing the needs of the poor. Given this mission, it was necessary for the university to, in Ellacuría’s words, “take sides, or rather, to opt” for the poor.11 This meant that “the objective around which the horizon and aim of university activity are focused is the structural transformation of society”. On this basis, the UCA came to be understood as a proyecto social. The UCA inspired – and was inspired by – the ‘preferential option for the poor’, a powerful phrase then emerging from people’s lived experience of faith and injustice in Central and South America. Articulated by Pedro Arrupe, S.J., then Father General of the Society of Jesus, and further emphasized by the Latin American bishops in their 1968 Medellín document, the ‘preferential option for the poor’ grew to become a vital principle of Christian social ethics and a true locus theologicus (source of theological knowledge) in the second half of the twentieth century. Though the ethical and theological study of this phrase is now vast, the central meaning of the ‘preferential option for the poor’ can be summarized in the following five points in a descending order of priority: 1) a commitment to radical social change founded on an unqualified rejection of the structural injustices operating in society, 2) an anticipation of personal hardship and social conflict in view of this commitment, 3) an adoption of lifestyles in solidarity with the poor – that is, avoiding occupations, activities, or ideologies that harm the poor, 4) a commitment to working and living among the poor with the goal of concientización – that is, assisting in the liberation of the poor from servile self-consciousness and encouraging them to act on their own behalf, and 5) openness to an experience of spiritual conversion through direct action with the poor.12 The earth is now in an ecological crisis analogous to the Latin American social crisis that first gave rise to the ‘preferential option for the poor’. There is an urgent need for human beings and their communities to make a ‘preferential option for the earth’, an option analogous to the option once made (and is still being made) at the UCA in El Salvador. Though this call to make a ‘preferential option for the

11 Ignatio Ellacuría, “Is a Different University Possible?” in: Towards a Society That Serves Its People: The Intellectual Contribution of El Salvador’s Murdered Jesuits. John Hassett and Hugh Lacey, eds. (Washington, Georgetown University Press, 1975). 12 Michael J. Schuck, “Loyola University, the Urban Poor, and the Bishop’s Letter on the U.S. Economy” in: The Catholic University and the Urban Poor. James D. Barry, ed. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1988). A ‘Preferential Option for the Earth’ 121 earth’ is not new, no discussion has yet detailed the steps outlined in the analogous option as presented here.13 The ‘preferential option for the earth’ expresses the central energy of the ‘preferential option for the poor’ and adapts its key points to the demands of the current ecological crisis. This ‘preferential option for the earth’ calls people to: 1) a commitment to radical environmental change founded on an unqualified rejection of actions and choices that systemically deteriorate the environment, 2) an anticipation of personal hardship and social conflict in view of this commitment, 3) an adoption of environmentally conscious lifestyles that reject ecologically unsustainable and harmful practices, products, and ideologies – that is, a living with nature, rather than from nature, 4) a commitment to working with local, regional, and/or international movements for environmental sustainability and 5) openness to an experience of spiritual conversion through direct action with and for the earth. For protection of the earth to come alive as a guiding purpose in personal and public life, people must come alive. Making a ‘preferential option for the earth’ is an act of people coming alive to the earth – a coming alive that empowers the moral courage necessary for resisting the lure of the human paradox. As Ignatio Ellacuría might say were he alive today: a ‘preferential option for the earth’ is the ‘coming alive’ needed for making not just an educational community, but the world itself a proyecto ecológico.

THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS AND EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITIES

There are lessons to be drawn from Ellacuria’s educational location and the work of an institution like the UCA. Educational communities remain optimal resources for addressing today’s environmental dilemmas. As Thomas Berry insisted, educational communities are the most important public institutions to enlighten and change people for protection of the earth. Colleges and universities, in particular, educate nearly all North American and European K-12 teachers, community organizers, religious leaders, cultural directors, business managers, policy makers, and government officials. Offering these – and all – people curricula that address the ecological crisis potentially sends individuals into the world who create changes that save the earth. Yet today, bold environmental leadership in educational communities is too often lacking. A brief discussion of this leadership

13 James Conlon, Geo-Justice: A Preferential Option for the Earth (Winfield, BC, Canada and San Jose, CA: Wood Lake Books, 1990). 122 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck deficit is necessary before returning to the ‘preferential option for the earth’ in relation to Jesuit education in general and Loyola University Chicago in particular. High school and college students today who have been exposed to the wonders and beauty of nature through their upbringing and education are commonly choosing courses in environmental science, sustainable agriculture, and bioethics. Many dream of careers where they can help protect nature by addressing global challenges such as population growth, clean energy, global climate change, and food and water shortages. Week after week they read texts and listen to lectures on these mounting problems, learning that they are more urgent than scientists thought even five years ago. Students run computer simulation models predicting how global temperatures will increase if current social practices continue, or if carbon emissions are reduced 50 percent by 2050, or if emissions are cut 85 percent by 2020. They find that even under the latter scenario, the planet’s prognosis is not good. These students care deeply about the earth, about biodiversity, the integrity of forests and rivers, about water rights and safe food. They care about the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation and devastating storm events on the poor. They care about conserving the planet for their lives, the lives of their future children, and generations beyond. They want to be members of communities that nurture the earth. They want to participate in movements for environmental change. As young people express these desires, they naturally look to older, more experienced mentors for guidance and leadership. However, when looking for direction from elders and teachers to take action against the environmental dilemmas that manifest the ecological crisis, students too often encounter lifestyle inconsistencies, intellectual timidity, and a desertion of moral responsibility. Most commonly experienced by students is the split between what their teachers say about the environment and what they do. They hear teachers give informed and powerful lectures on global climate change, the devastation of extractive industries, and the loss of biodiversity; but they wonder why few of their teachers, knowing this information, actually change their consumptive lifestyles. Public leaders exhibit the same inconsistency. Young people read and see Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, recognize how intelligently and passionately he understands the problem, but wonder at how he lives. Students bringing their passion for environmental science to university graduate programs too often encounter institutional cultures that reward intellectual timidity. University research favors the work of ‘unbiased’ intellectuals. If a scientist takes her results and fervently advocates for social change, a presumption arises that a bias existed in her research at the outset. As an illustration, it would be risky for a A ‘Preferential Option for the Earth’ 123 scientist to publicly declare that removing mountaintops in Appalachia by explosives to extract coal constitutes not only a ruinous loss of forest and stream habitats, but also an irreversible blighting of the region’s air and water. Scientists studying mountaintop removal can demonstrate that concentrations of heavy metals and other natural toxins released from the core of a mountain kill organisms in forests and streams, but they lose professional credibility if they suggest this is an immoral practice. Most egregious of all lapses in leadership is the view of teachers and other mentors that solutions to the ecological crisis will come only in the future – that it is up to the students of the younger generation to solve them. This does not come to students as a healthy challenge; rather, it comes as a burden – as if the problem is too large and impossible to face for those who understand it best. Students did not make the problems, yet the problems are theirs. They know that. But expecting young people to take sole responsibility for leading humanity out of the ecological crisis is a desertion of moral responsibility. In the people they most respect, students too often sense a disconnection between knowledge and action, research and advocacy, present and future. Lifestyle inconsistency, intellectual timidity, and desertion of responsibility create a leadership deficit at a time when environmental degradation urgently calls for leadership assets. With the encouragement of Father General Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., the over 200 Jesuit colleges and universities worldwide are addressing this leadership deficit in relation to the ecological crisis. An ‘operating consortium’ has been recently founded under the direction of the Secretariat for Social Justice and Ecology at the Curia Generalizia in Rome to focus Jesuit education worldwide on “our shared concerns about global environmental degradation which affects more directly and painfully the lives of the poor, with a view to enabling a more sustainable future for our world”.14 At the center of this consortium’s work is a recent special report entitled Healing a Broken World. Here, Jesuits and their collaborators are called to “go deeper” in commitment to the earth, to have a “change of heart”, a “transformative change in the way we respond to the urgent task of reconciliation with creation”. Knowledge and research is vital, but “recognizing the integrity of creation...is not enough.” More is needed. That magis is a “metanoia...to become agents of change

14 Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., “Depth, Universality, and Learned Ministry: Challenges to Jesuit Higher Education Today”, www.ausjal.org/files/Nicolas- 2010, pdf. Retrieved 2011-9-11. 124 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck ourselves”.15 In this, the Society of Jesus is effectively calling its constituencies and educational communities to make what has been described here as a ‘preferential option for the earth’. One of the twenty-eight Jesuit universities in the United States, Loyola University Chicago promotes an Ignatian approach to ‘transformative’ education: forming the whole person – mind, body and spirit. Such transformation must be rooted in deep appreciation for the need to protect the earth in a manner coherent with the university’s Jesuit and Catholic identity. Loyola University Chicago has pledged to transform itself into an environmentally sustainable urban university that shapes its students, faculty, staff, and administrators to become conservation-minded citizens who act responsibly toward natural resources. This pledge has taken three forms: policies that upgrade facilities, guidelines for changing behaviors, and new curricular programs. Extensive work has been done in retrofitting old buildings for energy efficiency such that between 2005 and 2011 the campus uses seventy percent less energy to heat and cool its buildings. Another pledge ensures that new buildings meet the United States Green Business Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification at the level of silver or higher. Similarly, new emphasis has been placed on reducing consumption and recycling materials with highest efficiency. The most ambitious aspect of this pledge, however, has been the development of new academic programs designed to raise awareness and affect change in behavior. In addition to adding an environmental issues course to the university core curriculum so that every graduate of Loyola has a certain level of environmental competency, two major institutional infrastructural investments have been made. These include the Institute of Environmental Sustainability (IES) and the Loyola University Retreat and Ecology Center (LUREC), facilities with programs designed to advance environmental literacy and allow students to put their knowledge into constructive action. The IES is an innovative academic unit emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach to solving climate change problems. It combines the university’s existing Center of Urban Environmental Research and Policy with a new Environmental Sciences Department. When completed, the IES’s new facility will include research labs, a large production and learning greenhouse, a clean energy development lab, and a LEED silver certified green dormitory for 400 students. IES student-operated programs such as a green café, biodiesel fuel

15 Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat. 2011. “Special Report on Ecology: Healing a Broken World”, Promotion Justitiae 106, 2011/2. Rome, Italy. A ‘Preferential Option for the Earth’ 125 production from waste vegetable oil, and production of natural gas from food waste give students hands-on experience with developing creative solutions to environmental problems at the local level. LUREC is a one hundred acre rural campus fifty miles northwest of Chicago with twenty acres of wetlands and twenty acres of oak hickory old growth forest. LUREC is an environmental sustainability demonstration campus where the water, food, and clean energy needed to operate the campus are nearly all produced on site; efficiencies in reducing consumption, and reusing and recycling materials results in very little waste being shipped off site. Students come to LUREC to participate in spiritual retreats, take summer field ecology courses, or design, develop, and operate their organic farm. While there, they engage in experiential learning, environmentally sustainable living, spiritual reflection, and physical work on the student operated organic farm. LUREC students survey the wetlands and forests, develop land management plans, monitor biodiversity recovery, and develop a long-term ecosystem data base that informs continued restoration. The student-operated farm is expanding its food production with low fossil fuel use and employment of careful soil and water conservation techniques. Students raise bees for honey, chickens for eggs, and make both biodiesel from waste vegetable oil and soap from waste glycerin. Business major work with environmental biology, philosophy, communications, and sociology majors to develop a farm business plan that sells goods, provides hands-on experiential learning, and facilitates an ethic of stewardship of the earth. From its optimal location as an educational community and with its optimal constituency of students, teachers, staff, and administrators, Loyola University Chicago is working to realize its pledge to become an environmentally sustainable university. In so doing, it is responding to the aspirations of Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., contributing to the work of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat, and building conditions for a greater possibility that students and teachers make a ‘preferential option for the poor’. In this, it is striving to become a proyecto ecológico committed – and alive – to the protection of the earth.

CONCLUSION

Technology now allows human beings to live in a manner exceeding the carrying capacity of the earth. Unhindered human curiosity, craving, and power – further inflated by ‘transhumanist’ ideologies of cost-free happiness through high-tech innovation – reveal a human paradox: desires most characteristic of the human species are destroying the earth that provides all that is necessary for human and all 126 Nancy C. Tuchman and Michael J. Schuck life to exist. This paradox has created the ecological crisis. This crisis cannot be resolved unless human beings make a ‘preferential option for the earth’. Though the earth requires that all human beings make this ‘option’, a population in an advantageous position to model and spread this commitment is students, teachers, and their educational communities. In its longstanding tradition of transformative education, the Society of Jesus is calling its constituencies and institutions around the world to understand the need for structural alteration in response to the ecological crisis, alteration rooted in personal conversion – a change of heart that manifests action for the earth. CHAPTER VIII

A NECESSARY ENTANGLEMENT: SPACETIME AND AFTERLIFE

JOHN C. HAUGHEY

With each new archeological dig, the whence of the emergence of the species homo sapiens gets a little clearer. But since the dead do not talk, our individual and collective whither is not getting any clearer. This chapter presumes that the insights of physics about space and time should have something to say about our universal aspirations to get beyond their confining limits. Recent transhumanists like those represented by the World Transhumanist Association challenge the religious traditional scenarios of the afterlife by expecting human hands to deliver what the religions have had us hope for. My effort here is to see if the physics of spacetime read theologically can shed any light on the afterlife. All mortals have “skin in the game” about what can be known about this. Since our knowledge about afterlife is so meager this chapter does not promise the moon. What is tantalizing about the knowledge modern physics has come to is how to understand the character of space and time. Their curvature into one another had eluded human perception until 1905 when Albert Einstein posited their connectedness theoretically. So with this new knowledge I will invite the reader to imagine afterlife differently. The steps to be followed will be five. One, I will describe what I can understand about space and time, which is now called spacetime. Two, since this knowledge gives us a better idea about where we are, I will venture some ideas about what this says about who we are! Three, some theological musings about transhumanism in light of the properties of spacetime. Four: six epiphanies that can align this new spacetime with the old faith. Five: the intellectual conversion both physics and theology need to undergo. An appendix on the use of Scripture in making this connection.

MATTERS OF SPACE AND TIME

For most of human history space and time, if thought about at all, were seen as separate and as laws unto themselves, so to speak. Space was taken to be empty, a receptacle, an extension sine fine. And time was just duration sine fine. Two geniuses who took on the subject of 128 John C. Haughey space and time were Isaac Newton (d. 1727) and Albert Einstein (d. 1955). They went about the subject very differently, Newton synthetically, Einstein analytically, Newton with a religious bias, Einstein with a scientific bias. Newton kept space and time autonomous, each unaffected by the motion of bodies. Einstein aggregated them making them co-depend on the mass and velocity of bodies. He intuited space and time as curved. Turns out, Einstein was right – they are. To be more specific, for Isaac Newton space was boundless, static, and empty except for the universal medium of aether. He surmised that “a World Spirit” was entangled in this aether medium.1 He saw time as having started with creation and believed that it has kept on ticking in somewhat constant ways ever since, even before measurers had emerged to do the counting. Newton’s main insight had been about gravity. He connected the apple’s falling from the tree with the earth’s orbiting around the sun. But Einstein’s understanding was that space and time were wound tightly together and that common sense perceptions had to become more adult. His equations and theories, especially those of special and general relativity delivered the goods.2 Establishing the curvature of spacetime via relativity theory pries open one’s common sense world as the senses see it. Two examples. Measuring a line on a flat surface differs from measuring a line on the surface of a sphere. Another one: while any event obviously takes place at a unique time and in a unique place, its uniqueness is in part due to the spacetime location of the observers of the events. Ever since spacetime got twinned, and the curvature or warping of time with space and by matter and energy, our knowledge of the cosmos and nature has grown exponentially. As a theologian, I have an a-priori belief that ignorance about nature is ignorance about God and, in turn, about ourselves. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas would concur. So, a deeper

1 Both Einstein and Newton believed that there was this ‘Weltgeist ‘ (Spirit), which permeated everything, and that it was not bound to a specific place and that it could feel all events. This, according to a letter written by H. A. Lorentz to Einstein 1915. cf. God, Time and Eternity, William Lane Craig (The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001) 169. 2 Six books have been especially helpful in reading about spacetime. On Space and Time, ed. Shahn Majid, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); The Curvature of Spacetime, Harald Fritzsch, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); The Future of Spacetime, ed. Richard Price, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002); A Briefer History of Time, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, (New York: Bantam Dell, 2008}; the afore mentioned God, Time and Eternity by William Lane Craig; The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Real, Richard Panek (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 129 knowledge about space and time should have something to say to those whose faith has hoped for an immortality, the character of which was conceived long before this modern knowledge developed. Even though we do not experience spacetime as coinciding, it would be a mistake to see insight into this as simply a scientific or theoretical claim. It is nature, and nature better understood cosmologically, not circumscribed by subjectivism and anthropomorphism and geocentrism. With the realization that an object viewed had to take into account the location of the observer, we become more than measurers. We become interpreters. Though we can appreciate how each human being experiences each event differently, physics itself is not interested in what the subject and her subjectivity is bringing to it. But consciousness, even that of the most objective scientist, is not a tabula rasa. It brings something of its own idiosyncrasy to any event. The space we occupy in this universe is becoming bewildering because of what we are coming to know about deep space and the “heavenly” bodies in the universe. They are expanding inexorably and exponentially. Slowly we have gotten past our geocentrism only to find ourselves one of the fugitives among any number of our ‘neighbors’ who are disappearing from our sight. But into what are they and we expanding or going? As the planets get further apart presumably space itself expands. Does this mean that where there was not space before that it is being created by the expansion? Is empty space something or nothing? Is the expansion of matter into “outer space” an example of creatio continua? Does matter create space? These are questions of a non-physicist, admittedly. Physics and mathematics do not seem to ask them. Besides the size and enormity or sheer immensity of the universe, another unmistakable thing we have learned about space in modern times is how gravity affects it. We always knew that if an arrow were shot into space it would not go into an infinity but would curve and come back. Let’s imagine it escaped the immediate grasp of gravity, would it still hit something out there because is now estimated there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. We used to think of space as the nothing between somethings, a vacuum in other words, with occasional objects interrupting it. We now know not only that space is curved with time and time with space but also that within the universe there are three even more mysterious realities that our arrow would have to negotiate: dark matter (which makes up 23% of our universe), dark energy (which makes up 73%) and black holes. Both of these “darks” are major unknowns. More is known about black holes, but they are no less bewildering. They are called black because they swallow light. If something gets too close to these star-eating, light 130 John C. Haughey killers it will be unable to escape its gravitational grip and never be seen again. Our ignorance of all three of these, the “black” and “darks”, offend our common sense. Our knowledge of the universe, its origin, its destiny, is still very much at an early stage. Physics has come to see space and time as having four coordinates, not three. One is temporal, (duration) and three are spatial (extension), i.e. length; (longitude) breadth, (latitude), height (altitude). The physics of all of this has been arrived at by equations and mathematics. All of this makes me want to revisit what I had imagined about afterlife with my childhood images of it.

SO WHO AND WHERE ARE WE NOW?

The deeper our probes into the physical universe, the more its secrets are being revealed and simultaneously concealed. Again gravity – we know more and more about it and less and less. And on the very speculative edge of physics there is the question of ‘bubble universes’ which, it is imagined, predate but are contemporary with ours. In fact, calling the universe “ours” feels too parochial, maybe even lazy. So, the uni in the word universe is wobbling maybe even losing plausibility. Physics itself is contributing an ever deepening depth chart. It promises more intelligibility and delivers less. A Nobel Prize winner in physics, Steven Weinberg, whose book “The First Three Minutes” comments about the findings of his discipline: “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.” Dr. Vera Rubin, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, a specialist in “terrestrial magnetism” who has helped to make dark matter a major issue in physics is now saying: “I do not know if we have dark matter or have to nudge Newton’s Laws or what. I’m sorry I know so little; I’m sorry we know so little. But that’s kind of fun, is not it.”3 The more physics one learns the more one’s appetite is whetted to get from descriptions to explanation to meaning. Two of physics’ major theories remain unintegrated. Quantum mechanics is king in the microworld while relativity theory is king of the macroworld. Neither one is easily or ever fully grasped, let alone their connection. While the question of their integration is being sought it does not seem likely that a satisfactory meaning about who we are will come from either of these hypotheses alone or together.4 Of course there is meaning and meaning. A common sense meaning about space and time has always been accessible and available.

3 Dennis Overbye, “The Joy of Physics,” NY Times 12/29/09. 4 A valiant effort in this direction is The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (New York: Norton, 2003). A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 131

Things get more complicated once these two components are tied to one another. A traditional way of arriving at meaning has been to go from knowledge of physics to metaphysics. Spacetime metaphysically would certainly have to be seen as sui generis within the genre of being. It is a unique kind of being since it does not yield to being reified while at the same time is as ubiquitous as being. Whatever has being must have being in time and space, and by the same token, time and space must be. And from metaphysics to theology: the same five things could be said about God i.e. sui generis qua being; not reifiable; ubiquitous; somehow within the spacetime orbit; is. To take time and space separately and therefore experientially: First about time. We are able to become present to the past through memory and to the future through imagination, hopes, intentions and goals. Given our mortality, most humans seem to entertain a hope to get from being in this time to continuing in some way beyond this time. Further, throughout history people and their cultures have had an intuition about and have differentiated between chronological time and kairos time. Chronos time is tick tock time. Kairos time is experienced as a kind of intervention from beyond time! We are way beyond physics here but our various experiences of time have to be accounted for in trying to get to meaning. But the simple act of telling time is not the slam dunk it had been before space was pierced with planes and rockets and satellites and planes. Time on these devices does not register what it does on the ground from which these vehicles vault. Time is not the same as it was in a more innocent era. There is no universal “now” now. To add to the oddity, the cosmic micro radiation that was emitted from the Big Bang 13,700,000,000 years ago is now detectable. An even more immediate reminder of the oddity of time is the human construct of date lines. One can enter into the future by flying into tomorrow by plane without living out today or travel back into yesterday for that matter via the same conveyance. Secondly, about space: in most every city or village, humans have considered some places sacred so that they can connect themselves to eternity via these localizations. The need has been to capture the murky beyond by making a sacred space here. One might think of Peter at the scene of the Transfiguration: “Let us build three tents here” (Mt. 17;4). The Psalmist had his own space thoughts by imagining God as “telling the number of the stars and calling each by name.” (Psalm 147: 3-4) Astronomy is now finding out what kind of numbers God could be telling and that there has been a serious “undercounting” of their number in the universe. What have been called “dwarf stars” have been found to be exponentially more numerous than was even imagined from previous astronomical and astrophysical calculations. Some astronomers are 132 John C. Haughey saying now that we must stop using the Milky Way as a template for understanding the rest of the universe. The Milky Way had been taken to be the measure of other galaxies but now it is empirically evident that at least eight other galaxies consist of 100 billion stars each. It was one thing to get past our geocentrism with the help of Copernicus and Galileo but now it seems we even have to try to get over our galactic- centric way of thinking. This is the kind of cosmological factoid that makes one dizzy. Technology is helping us learn how little we know of the nature we thought we knew and are part of. As nature unfolds its secrets it is easy to lose one’s footing as prior meanings get shaken up. It would seem that without trying to develop a theology of nature to complement our growing knowledge of nature we will either become mute about the inexplicable or dubious about both its meaning and ours. One of the wonders of physics is its ability to invite us beyond yesterday’s findings into new and more capacious hypotheses and theories. It is a rapidly evolving discipline. It has a history of orphaning its last set of parents as it moves beyond yesterday’s experiments and theories to new findings and further hypotheses. To take one bird’s eye view of some of these jumps from one author, Stephen Barr, a physicist from the University of Delaware. A) The universe did not appear to have a beginning until the 20th century pretty much proved there was a Big Bang. B) With the laws of nature we anticipated we could pretty much predict the next series of findings about nature until the laws of physics with its quantum electrodynamics made everything much more untidy. C) It is only a matter of time before the computer and artificial intelligence will master the world of information at which time human intelligence will come to appreciate the inimitability and dimensions of the mind. D) We are moving beyond the determinism of earlier physics into the indeterminism of quantum. In general, Barr gives one a fresh appreciation of the unstop-ability of the mind for asking new questions and coming to new insights that keep unsettling scientific minds if they try to settle questions with answers that come only from nature. 5 The more cosmological factuality we compile the more explanation we need. Some experiences call for explanation. To cite one experience that dazzled me – It was in viewing the Imax 3D Hubble documentary at Washington’s Air and Space Museum. Three things were notable. One was the magnitude and beauty of the heavens which that instrument was able to access. Another was the degree of genius that went into constructing it. The third was the discipline, courage and know-how of the flight crew in successfully fixing a broken part of the

5 Stephen M. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 2003), 22-29. A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 133

Hubble capsule. They exited the capsule 320 miles away from planet earth, and tethered to it by only a small cord, got the job done. While marveling at the cosmic panorama unfolding before me I recalled a line in one of e e cummings poem’s: “so who cares if some one-eyed son-of-a-bitch has invented an instrument to measure spring with.” Who cares? I care, since the instrument enables one to see deeper into “spring”, as it were, than any pre-Hubble generation of human beings has ever been able to behold. This increased my wonder on three counts. One is how miniscule earth and we earthlings are within the universe. Two is how unique humans seem to be for developing the knowledge to construct something as complex as an instrument like this. Three is the wonder of the heavens. Hubble itself is a vivid reminder of the human appetite for trans- ing that humans carry in their psyches. We are constitutively vectored towards the beyond and not just of space and time but for further explanations and meaning. We become befuddled if explanation and meaning are not sought and, to some extent, attained. It does not seem right to glimpse the fact of the universe, its magnitude and silence and power and beauty and violence and then settle back into past, small-ball meanings. Science makes one marvel both at nature and human intelligence. As we come closer to understanding the mysteries of nature, the findings of science provoke new questions that old answers do not satisfy. Breaking out of old meanings into new ones not previously attained describes the history of human meaning making. If one is satisfied with the meanings about oneself and humans, so be it. But if these are not enough, the usual ways of finding and framing further reaches of meaning has been via philosophy or religion or theology. Philosophy’s preferred way is via theory. Theology’s preferred way is resourcement or seeking insight into old sources on the basis of new data. Theology’s history is one of trying to develop new meanings in the realm of transcendent meaning. More than any other generation we need to connect the meanings which common sense and theory can produce with those which transcendent meaning and interiority can generate and house.6 Absent knowledge of these variations, one has to be satisfied with living with scattered meanings that do not add up or connect to one another. In the next section I will reflect theologically on spacetime in light of the specific focus of this volume about transhumanism. What might our knowledge about spacetime, meager as it still is, tell us about both

6 For a good introduction to the thought of Bernard Lonergan cf. A Second Collection (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974) especially two chapters, one on Historical Mindedness and the other on The Subject. 134 John C. Haughey transhumanism and even about afterlife? I believe theology does have something to contribute to these vast vistas. While any alignment of them might sound like apples and oranges, in this 21st century a full effort at the connection between space and time is warranted.

THEOLOGICAL MUSINGS ABOUT THESE NEW FINDINGS

On the front lawn of my consciousness, otherness needs to have its say or strut its stuff. The other can be persons or ideas or world views or horizons or other faiths. Right now spacetime is having its say but its otherness is proving to be very ornery. I initially thought I could take it into my home but now it feels like I am the one needing to find my home in it. It is bringing me into its unboundaried capaciousness. The more I learn about it the more I am tempted to rid my lawn of it and settle back in the familiar, same old, same old. Making room for otherness is an on-going challenge. And the more radically other the other is the more one needs help to make room for it. The more I became open to the data of spacetime the more I had the feeling of tumbling. It’s humbling how puny our humanity is within the vast space and endless time this impersonal universe reveals. That being said, we humans are able to give it something it cannot give itself i.e. names. So rather than being rendered mute, the challenge is to name. Gerard Manley Hopkins observed that nature can “only be”; it has “no tongue to plea, no heart to feel.”7 Physics and mathematics and astronomy and cosmology have all been exercises in uncovering data and naming. Every discipline does this and will continue to. Nature has no tongue to name its parts. We do. While it seems to function fine without our intervention or without our being able to understand most of it, we are part of nature, emergent from it and unique in being able to have our say about it. Faith is the help I need for being spacetime’s guest and for taking on the task of naming it. Faith in two senses. First, faith in science, here physics in particular, its quest, its questions, its ability to hatch theories and to test them. Two, faith in God who equips minds to become open enough to take in the unexpected, howsoever bulky the other. Faith enables thinking and believing without seeing, just like the gift of hope enables hoping and love, loving. These powers are key to helping naming and meaning to go on, here bringing the data of science into a consonance with transcendent meaning. Faith in these two senses generates the capacity to enfold the new into the old, here to take the measure of nature’s spacetime in such a way that faith itself is informed

7 “Ribblesdale” in Gerald Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (New York: Penguin Classics, 1963), 51. A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 135 and science, too, can be if it chooses to. If reality is one, a mutuality should be possible. It’s one thing to become literate about nature; it’s another to develop a theological insight into it. A theological literacy grows by faith seeking understanding. It usually starts with questions. Some of mine come from the material already introduced: 1) Before matter came to be was there space or time? 2) What does believing that God preexisted creation imply about space? Of course, there would not have been a creator before anything was created but now that something other than God is, like the universe, the world, us, me, spacetime etc. – does “the made” make God the Creator? 3) Since the big bang, space and time and God have come to be contemporaries in some way; does that make space God’s space in the subjective genitive sense of it? Is not it the experience of believers that they are able to enter God’s space via their acts of faith, hope and love? They claim that these virtues enable them to have a sense of God in their space and their space in God. 4) Is there such a thing as outside of space or another space and time where the dead go after they depart this space and time? If indeed they do and there is such! 5) Does what has come into being necessarily cease to be or is there a “lived happily ever after” connection between the Maker and the made? 6) Since science posits the end of the universe as most likely (the 2nd law of thermodynamics says that stuff runs down) where would “eternity” take place? 7) Is the universe that we know in some ways just debris-to-be? How does the social imaginary of heaven connect to spacetime as it is now being discovered? The classical religions and their metanarratives were elaborated during the first axial period (circa 800 bc-200 ad) and were composed when humans’ cosmological knowledge was prescientific. Their cosmologies availed themselves of their immediate cultures and took their cues about space and time from these. Since a much more sophisticated cosmology and physics have come on the scene, the religions have needed to understand their faith stories within the frame of this updated knowledge. Faith and reason need to reinforce one another. The biblical image of the cosmos in the understandings of the writers of both the Hebrew and Christian Testaments was three tiered with Sheol a shadowy world underneath the earth and “the heavens” up above with the middle earthly tier the one we have our feet planted on. Although Biblical stories are always told within the framework of space and time, they tell us very little about space and time. One should, in fact, become formally agnostic about what is conveyed in the Bible implies about cosmology. And even within the relatively brief time of the Bible’s construction its space and time categories do a lot of shifting. The several Old Testament’s cosmologies, for example, depended on 136 John C. Haughey who was in their neighborhood or whose neighborhood the Israelites were in. In the New Testament, too, the cosmologies are local and three- tiered. For example, Lazarus ends up in “Abraham’s bosom” while the rich man who is in “the abode of the dead” wants his brothers to be warned so that they can repent and escape his lot – ironically, a loving thing to do. Abraham tells him “between you and us there is fixed a great abyss” which is uncrossable. (Lk. 16:19-21) But Revelation 21:2 does not have ransomed souls making their way to a disembodied heaven. Rather, it has the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth uniting the two in a lasting embrace. All of this framing has to be differentiated from what had been taken to be revelation though it has taken centuries and to see this and see that the framing is negotiable, making reframing legitimate, even necessary. So God out there, up there, and therefore heaven up there too and hell down there, and world here and now – these cosmological localizations do not work any more for personal or collective identity. “Heaven” and “Hell” were important ways for the prescientific Christian world view to locate itself initially. The many names used for the netherworld – Hell or Sheol or Hades – hint at the indeterminacy of the place of torment. Or Gehenna, which is mentioned seven times in Mark, once in Luke, once in John was actually a place, a rubbish heap at the edge of the old city of Jerusalem. It was a valley Jews called Ge Hinnon which Jesus and his hearers would have associated with fire, doom, a place into which God cast infidels, sinners, the wicked. It was a cursed place. So heaven as a place has been a convenient category for imagining union with God and us. It is a lazy descriptor for imagining the successful transformation of persons into communion with God. It invites the imagination to see physical death sublated by a new form of life and the physical not discarded but raised by the Spirit. The continuing malleability of the Christian imagination about it is evident in recent piety of Pope Benedict XVI: “heaven is Jesus.” N.T. Wright, the New Testament scholar, handles these localization issues with scholarship. His is not a prescientific understanding of the scriptural texts he has researched. Hence he describes heaven as “a picture of a present reality, the heavenly dimension of our present life…it is not a future destiny but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life.”8

8 N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 19. A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 137

SIX EPIPHANIES THAT COULD MAKE SPACETIME MORE DIAPHANOUS

John Ruskin, the 19th century art critic, commented that “the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way…to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion – all in one.”9 The great value of physics is its unrelenting empiricism, tantalizing hypotheses and sometimes startling findings. But it can also lead to bewilderment if it is taken to be the only source of understanding. In what follows I will suggest six theological themes that will try to complement the findings of physics in the sense of bringing a more complete meaning to them. A) the resurrection of Jesus; b) the new creation; c) the issue of time; d) a sacramental way of seeing spacetime; e) the ascension; f) the 2nd Coming. These themes are not elaborated in the spirit of apologetics but as ways that could give both the afterlife and transhumanism a different focus thanks to the evolving insights physics is developing about spacetime. Its insights provoke a theological reading which physics itself does not give. Each of these themes throws light on the other five.

Jesus’ Resurrection

The Christian Creed professes its belief “in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen!” Though resurrection had been a peripheral belief in the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Macccabees 7 was a rare exception), it moved front and center in the early Christian communities. This was because they experienced Jesus as having risen and believed this is what he underwent. Where has the resurrected body of Jesus risen to? Where is it/he now? Wherever it is, it cannot be beyond space since where a body is, it must be in a space. In what space, therefore, is the hoped for resurrection of the body that Christians have been counting on all these centuries? With Jesus’ resurrection, did he transcend spacetime, or exit spacetime, or transfigure spacetime – ours, this universe’s? If the body (his, someone else’s like Mary’s) is raised from the dead it has to be raised into some where. And since we have learned that time and space are locked together, the question of the where and when of this “after life” resurfaces.

9 Quoted in Alister McGrath A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Gifford Lectures) (Louisville, Ky: WJK Press, 2009), 29. 138 John C. Haughey

Belief in the resurrection of the body, first his, then others, and eventually ours (hopefully) makes Christianity sui generis in the history of the religions – not in the life after death part but in the challenge it sets for itself to supply behavioral evidence for experiencing his presence in the community of those who believed in him. The afterlife of Jesus was mediated through the medium of flesh and community. His appearances after his resurrection were the first instances of this. And Christians believing and communally experiencing themselves as the Body of Christ is the beginning of an answer to this question of the where of God in spacetime. St. Paul frames space and time in terms that broach the “first Adam, last Adam” epochs. Adam, the “first man was from the earth, earthly” but “the second man was from heaven.” Jesus was and is “the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” (I Cor 15:45-47) To be one with the first man is to inherit corruption. But to be one with and joined to the second man enables one to “inherit incorruption.”(v.50) Since “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (v.50) how does one inherit it? Through the Spirit. The resurrection of the dead came through a human being in whom the Spirit dwelt during his life and did not exit him in death. So, according to Paul, the Spirit takes what is earthy and transforms it into a new condition, one that includes the natural body but raises it to a condition that it would not otherwise attain without the Spirit. That which is mortal and corruptible is raised incorruptible and immortal. (v.53-4). But St. Paul may not have had the last word about what this resurrection thing is all about. Paul had said that “a natural body is put down (or sown) and a spiritual body comes up (or rises).” (I Cor 15:44) Lucan scholarship contends that Luke seems to be commenting negatively on this “spiritual body” image. When Jesus appeared to the eleven on the first day of the week they thought they were seeing a ghost. He said: “Why do such ideas cross your mind? Look at my hands and my feet; it is really I. Touch me and see that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I do.” (Lk 24: 38-9) So, he’s complaining: ‘Look I’m no less human than I was; stop spiritualizing me.’ But of the four Evangelists, John may have even a further word to say the on this matter.10 According to this study, the whole Gospel of John is addressing three questions. One is the way to God, the second is the where of God, the third is the how of Jesus as the answer to these as his identity is gradually revealed first to himself and then to the disciples. The three questions become intertwined in the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel at which point Jesus describes himself to his disciples in

10 Gitte Buch-Hansen, “It Is the Spirit That Gives Life”: A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John’s Gospel (Berlin: De Gruyter Press, 2010). A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 139 his last supper discourse as going away “to prepare a place for you.” (v.3) Thomas complains that they do not know where he is going nor do they know the way to follow him to this unknown place. (v.5) Jesus then describes himself as the way and the Father as his destination. He then drops a bombshell and obliterates the spatial here/there component of his identity and describes himself as already one with the Father: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”(v.10-11) Why did not the disciples see this communion of Jesus and the Father during his ministry through the words he spoke and the deeds he did? John’s answer is twofold. One was the weakness of the disciples’ insight into his identity because the Spirit had not yet been sent to enable them to see. But the deeper reason is because “the sin of the world” had erected a barrier that had not yet been removed because of which no one had been able to see the nexus between the way and the where and the who of God in Jesus. The promise Jesus makes, pending the sending of the Spirit (verses 16 & 26), is that he and his Father will come to those who are “true to my word” and they “will make their dwelling place with them.”(v.22) It is at this point in John’s Gospel that the denouement of the entire narrative takes place. It is after this Last Supper discourse and after Jesus’ crucifixion and death and resurrection. The radical conversion of Thomas from unbelieving to believing is what the Gospel of John was aimed at all along. The way, the where, and the who questions now coalesce and get answered through Thomas’ experience. He cries out “My Lord and My God” (John 20: 27-28) after putting his finger into the holes of Jesus’ hands and his hand into Jesus’ side. John’s Gospel had started with the assertion that the Logos was with God and proceeded with the assertion that the Logos was God. (John 1:1) It then proceeded with the assertions of the Logos becoming flesh and with Jesus enacting the truth of this through the words he spoke and and deeds he did. The revelation of his being one with the Father is the tie-in with the Prologue and Logos.

The New Creation

Transhumanism is an aspiration that is endemic to every human being. “More” has been scripted into humans’ bones, neurons, heart, feet, dreams ever since the species homo sapiens thought, felt, talked and walked about. Different versions of belief in what this whither or even more is have been envisioned throughout history. Different cultures supply different social imaginaries for people to inhabit. Through them different whithers are envisioned. The new creation in the New Testament is such an imaginary. 140 John C. Haughey

Those who are baptized into Christ are taught to see themselves as already participating in this new creation. According to Jesus it was aborning here and now not somewhere else or at some wholly future time. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:13) In this new milieu entered into by baptism, those who are baptized are able to acknowledge that Jesus is “Lord” of all humans and of nature. How are the structures of creation which include space and time (spacetime) to be understood as part of the new creation? We have the beginnings of an answer to this question with the symbol of Jesus’ body having been raised from the dead. The witnesses to his resurrection appearances testified that he was both the same after his crucifixion as he was before – yet different. This would lead one to expect that spacetime will be the same but different. The New Testament message is that the new creation is not a wholly future thing but something already in the present. The more we learn about nature the better we will be in knowing what it is and, therefore, who we are. This entails giving hospitality to the data of physics and the sciences. We are entangled with nature in its material particularity and overly prone to abstract and even spiritualize our identities out of their relation to nature and its empirical physicality and imagine ourselves as “made for higher things.” Be that as it may, we were made of lower things and need to bring them and us into an integration which names and lives in communion with nature, not in a supercilious circumvention of it. One author who is a master at the kind of integration I am recommending here is Raimon Panikkar.11 In his recent book he has named and cogently argued for the insight that sees the cosmos and the theos and the anthropos in an unbreakable unity. Faith needs to be experienced as “cosmotheandric” because the terrestrial, the divine and the human are “all in this together.” He articulates a whole that refuses to see these three as separated. He calls for a new mythos in order for the unitary character of the three to be understood in tandem rather than over against each as our earlier ignorances and supernaturalistic biases had us imagine. Panikkar’s is one of a number of new theologies of creation that would call humans to develop a stewardship identity because of our sameness with nature rather than one which has imagined its superiority to nature. A steward’s identity would make it natural for us to befriend nature rather than exploit it. If we let nature have its say, our naming of it and its origin and our destiny with it will be more mature.

11 Raimon Panikkar The Rhythm of Being (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books 2010). A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 141

Physics in general and spacetime in particular do not of themselves supply transcendent meaning, but the social imaginary of faith(s) can supply the frames that are capacious enough for us to make room for our positing of our meaning within them. If physics or the sciences were to claim that faith and science are incompatible, they would be making a claim to knowledge that is not scientific. And if the faiths make claims that are dismissive of science and its knowledge, the result would be equally ignorant. An atheistic transhumanism will become more appealing and probably more populated if the believing community is content to remain scientifically illiterate. The more we know about this creation the more we will be able to know about the new creation. This includes matters like spacetime. It would not do justice to intelligence to continue to produce afterlife scenarios that take place in a there beyond space and a then beyond time. Our faith that there is a new creation needs to include this creation. To be in Christ is to both be in the new creation (II Cor. 5:17) and to have responsibility to see and proclaim its inextricable entanglement with the “old” creation, even though our present knowledge of these is still slight.

Time and Jesus

Cosmological data like spacetime and the growing information we have about “the heavens”, their depth and height, length and age – tiny planet Earth within this limitless panorama – what explanation is there for this and how can our meaning come from this? The category of time vis-à-vis eternity is an important one to probe. Jesus’s words about time are provocative. The Gospel scenarios can be used imaginatively to explore one’s questions. There are several of these scenes that hint at connecting space and time. One of these is the scene between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. At the end of their dramatic tête-à-tête Jesus said to her “woman the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… but in Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:22-23) The Spirit will enable this and will do so by disconnecting the need for the sacred space of the temple and connecting the worshippers to “truth”, both their own and God’s. Three deconstructions are implied here by Jesus. One of these has to do with space, the other with time and the third with the antipathy the Samaritan woman and her people had for the Jews. Space and time were a dichotomy all the world had made before the 21st century. It has yet to deal with its antipathies. The second scene is the vision on Mt Tabor when Peter, James and John beheld Moses and Elijah in a cloud of light conversing with Jesus. I imagine Einstein would have been bemused by this 142 John C. Haughey transfiguration scene because spacetime gets transfigured. (Mt. 17, 1-9) The time of Moses, Elijah and Jesus are here conveyed as simultaneous and in the same space. After and before are conflated into here and now. The transfiguration invites one to expect more from our perceptions and senses than they ordinarily deliver. Once the three disciples come back to their senses they “look up and see only Jesus” but they have been invited to realize that the real has more layers to it than the here and now. The figures of Moses and Elijah symbolize the Law and the prophets. Their familiarity with Jesus and he with them confounds their common experience about space and time. The law and the prophets were in a communion with the new law and its prophet. The transfiguration scene opens layers Peter, James and John could never have imagined. Similarly, we certainly have known more about spacetime than any of the generations of our forebears could have imagined and we are only beginning to sense the import of its curvature. The Transfiguration scenario invites one to see with the eyes of faith Moses and Elijah and Jesus experienced in their simultaneity. They are a now. Peter, James and John who had gone up the mountain to pray with Jesus, had fallen asleep. The traditional adage “grace builds on nature” could apply here indicating that there is more to nature than what is going on “before our very eyes” or what ungraced rationality can see, and knowing can know more than information and science supply. Jesus’ faith in God had him invite his followers to see communions where things are not evidently in communion. It took several centuries in the early church for those who believed in him to be able to name his personhood’s stature as being in a Trinitarian communion. It might be noticed, too, that it has taken centuries before we could see how matter and energy have their own kind of communion. A third scriptural symbol for imagining spacetime can be found in the person of Abraham. In Jesus’ mind, as John conveys this least, those who are not taking his words about God seriously are materially of the stock of Abraham but not of his faith lineage. “The Jews” who rooted their identity in Abraham split into two groups over Jesus’ words. One group believed what Jesus taught was about God; the other group did not. Not only did the second group not believe what he was saying, but they became convinced that he was “possessed.” Jesus rose to the occasion by upping the ante and accusing the unbelieving group of having “a father” who from the beginning of time “brought death” to whoever listened to his voice. He was “a liar and the father of lies”. (Jn. 8:44) The one group heard and believed there was a consonance between Abraham and what Jesus was saying about God and about himself. Goaded on by dissidents on this occasion, Jesus declared “your A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 143 father Abraham rejoiced that he might see my day. He saw it and was glad.” (v. 56) There is an abridgment of time in these words. Even moreso in the final words of the scene: “Before Abraham was, I am.” (v. 58) This is hardly surprising for a Gospel that begins with the Prologue and the Logos who was in the beginning with God and was God and was made flesh. John’s Gospel is gathered around Jesus’ use of the word “the hour.” The Old Testament era did not even know this term for telling time. The Greeks and Romans began to employ it as a way of calculating the periods of the day and night. In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of his “hour” as not yet come. (Jn 7:30 & 17:1). And when it came he pleaded that it might pass (12:27). It is not a temporal category in that Gospel, but an event appointed by God for when his Son would undergo his passion and death and be glorified. For John, from then on this hour has never ceased to be for those who live in time, whether they know it or not.

Seeing Sacramentally

The principle of sacramentality has been employed by humans as far back in time as humans go, though naming the principle in these terms is of Christian origin. Whether named or unnamed, over the centuries the principle enables people to see reality as potentially conveying a transcendent presence and for some even able to perceive God not only present but also acting in time. This, of course, would be a stretch too far for those whose a-priori secularity excludes such a possibility. Religions were born when knowledge of science was still very primitive. Though scientific knowledge keeps growing even the most scientifically knowledgeable seem to have an awareness of the mysterious dimensions of the universe. That being said, the favorite way of framing reality for most of the religions for dealing with what is beyond what we know has been in creator/created terms. In general, communities of people of faith have satisfied their need for meaning by going from a created to a creator route or from the empirical to the sacramental one. The practice of the sacraments makes sacramental thinking a more likely avenue for thinking or seeing than can a non-sacramental route. Many Christians, for example, experience the bread and the wine at Eucharistic liturgies as the body and blood of Christ or the water of baptism and the oil of confirmation as more than just water and oil. Sacramental thinking habitually sees more than the empirical or is open to hearing an inner word which has the hearer experience something more than the noise of here and now. 144 John C. Haughey

Reality is diaphanous to the child. The price of adulthood, on the other hand, can be an opaque realism with one’s expectations for betterment are narrowed down to what medicine, cum science and technology, promises to deliver. Science keeps gaining on ignorance. But the gains of science do not eradicate the need for meaning and meaning needs more than science. If one needs meaning one needs faith in science yes, but in something more than science so that what is not seen can still be posited and the evidence for its claims communicated. Sacramental knowledge is knowledge. Seeing something with faith eyes which science does not “see” or which empirical knowledge alone cannot locate or establish can produce knowledge. And if faith knowledge is not knowledge then it the overwhelming majority of the human race, past and present, would have to be judged delusional, deluded or unspeakably stupid. Needing knowledge that goes beyond the empirical and weighs things on the scale of creator/created or the material/sacramental does not deny the foundational need for knowing more and more about what the senses and the sciences discover. Whether the latter kind of knowledge suffices or satisfies is a question for the individual to answer more specifically, seeing space and time sacramentally, sees more than eyes see or knows more than rationality produces.

The Ascension

The ascension of Jesus, has to be inquired into since it is the Gospel event that describes Jesus’ exiting of the earth. The ascension of Jesus and the sending of the Spirit have been major engines in generating an imaginary place or space, heaven. Either that imaginary is mistaken or the kingdom Jesus preached and his Spirit effects and reveals as aborning here and now is mistaken. Since Luke is the only one of the three Synoptics that has the ascension as a visible, cosmological event, maybe it was something that had to be constructed because their three tiered cosmology “made them do it.” It would take centuries before the cosmology of the New Testament texts could be differentiated from their revelation. Notwithstanding all of this, the challenge is to connect Jesus’disappearance (into where?) with his message about the Kingdom. The ascension event as ocular has the effect of freeing the corporeal weight of Jesus from earth and gravity, as it were, so as to be one with the Father. It also enables him to operate with a freedom as his Spirit is outpoured on those who are to witness to the wedding of God and creation through him. N.T. Wright has a pregnant suggestion about the need to revisit the ascension in order to be rescued from having to create what he calls “alternative mediators.” “Get the ascension right and A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 145 your view of the church, of the sacraments and of the mother of Jesus can get back into focus.”12 It could also have us ask whatever we need to concoct a scene whereby Jesus exits here and now and enters into a heavenly space. A frequent way Christians have tended to make Jesus present is through ecclesiolatries, i.e. seeing the present Church in future categories. One, holy and catholic are not present marks but eschatological ones that convey what God intends to make the Church. These marks challenge the present community of believers about what they should expect and seek to become. Misconstruing them as marks of the present has a bewildering effect on believers since they know how un-one, un-holy, un-catholic their experience of it is. The challenge of these ecclesial marks – “one/holy/catholic/apostolic” – remain desirable and doable and never done.

The Second Coming

The last theological theme germane to spacetime is the 2nd coming. It is imagined as still to come. This needs to be revisited. Naturally, since we experience past as past, present as present and future as expectation, we also relate Christ’s presences to each of these. The 2nd coming gets more cogency because in our ignorance of spacetime we have imagined him in a space to which he has gone and from which he will return to “seal the deal” of his whole mission back in this space and time. But a cosmological imagining that stokes the image of his second coming as a not yet is a misreading of the scriptural accounts. The risen Christ is much more of an already, a now and here reality and much less of a not yet, future event than most of us Christians have made it. We misread, and even invent a delay that is implied in some scripture passages. And the Creed states: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. But the present is full of evidence of His judgment of our personal and collective behavior now. Some considerations lend credence to this idea of the now of the 2nd coming is that in the New Testament there are not multiple parousiae but only one indivisible parousia and the term in Greek means “active presence.”13 Experiencing communion with this presence in the present and dealing with the obstacles to living in this condition are a better reading of this second coming than seeing it as delayed. Experientially, this “2nd” coming is continuing to come. Yes it is not a full communion but it is enough to know that the coming has already come.

12N.T. Wright Surprised by Hope, 113. 13 Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1985), 791. 146 John C. Haughey

The Christ event is one event. Its emergence into human consciousness is contingent on faith and grace and need and the Spirit. Of course, besides a weak faith, a number of biases operate as a filter to consciousness. Some of these are implicit philosophical ones. Two figures embody two of these. Athanasius’ (d. 373) Trinitarianism developed a profound understanding of Christ. It grew out of what today’s philosophy would call an ontological relationality.A philosophical bias can also have a negative effect, like in the case of Arius (d.336) whose naturalism could not see more in Christ than what nature had made. In general, the classical, substance ontology of scholasticism could not have anticipated our contemporary findings about relativity and quantum thought. These relatively new findings of physics should be able to more easily connect the Christ event to a relational ontology since they invite imagining the interconnectedness of everything to everything. An Athanasius would have been delighted with this development since the eternal interconnectedness of the three divine Persons was his starting point. Hermeneutics or lenses are chosen. If modern physics has taught us anything it is that the universe has to be looked at through the lens of emergence and that seeming cosmic chaos is not the last word it has to emit. The dynamic universe keeps yielding up further new findings about itself. New theories are produced and, when verified, new questions arise. Relativity theory, for instance, flummoxes the classical standardizations by which the pre-Einsteinian universe was understood. In general, the interrelatedness of everything to everything seems to characterize the mélange of scientific data that physics is learning. We can get stuck in any one of the moments of Christ’s manifestation – Incarnation, etc. The most common one to get stuck in is the 2nd coming as delayed. Thomas Torrance, a contemporary Scottish theologian, has spent much of his theological career on this 2nd coming material in light of spacetime. Some of his insights:

God has entered into our human and physical space and time existence in order to operate within its limits and measures…here to establish relations with us in an intimate reciprocity in which he communicates himself to us and takes us into communion with himself…his work is brought to its consummation through the concrete spatio- temporal events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

He continues: “nothing that Jesus Christ was, taught and did is to be understood and interpreted through any kind of abstraction from the A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 147 spatio-temporal structures and conditions of concrete human experience.”14 A contemporary Greek Orthodox bishop, John Zizioulas, also has something good to say about this subject matter. He blames “the Western intellectual tradition” for its reductionism about history, for carving it up into past, present and future. Consequently, the west has generally lost the ability to experience a liturgical event as both eschatological and historical.15 The Kingdom and Christ’s coming in glory need to be experienced as taking place now. Even the future is an already “remembered” in the Liturgy. Zizioulas also complains that Christology that has not sufficiently matured pneumatologically. Therefore we are blind to how the Spirit is bringing all temporal kingdoms under the present rule of Christ. Zizioulas is specific about the praxis that could make the 2nd coming a now thing. “The Eucharist is the end times…it is the penetration of the future into time…it is the event that represents the end of all separate, disconnected times…it is the eschaton which gives a continuity and a coherence to all our histories.”16 A fully pneumatological Christology will not privilege the past over the future or the future over the past. When the Church gathers for its table fellowship, this eschatology should be “seen, felt, and tasted.” Ideally the effect of liturgy relativizes space and time and deconstruct them with the Eternal Now of the Parousia. The hour has already come in which the Son of Man is glorified. (John 12:23) He is spacetime’s Lord now!

CONCLUSION

I have admittedly looked for light on three relatively unknowns: space, time and afterlife. The inquiry has led me to wonder what further insight prayer might bring to the subject matter. The different kinds of prayer – personal, group or Eucharistic – have this in common: they are efforts to enter the space and time of God. Insofar as prayer is more or less “successful”, it takes some of the after out of afterlife. It makes communion with God proximate, beliefs believable and the future present. Prayer in varying degrees of investment produces very real experiences of the presence of Christ now and has done so throughout the centuries. Jessica Powers, the Carmelite poet, comes to mind as an

14 Thomas Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (New York: T & T Clark, 1998), 178. 15 John D. Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Doctrine (New York: T &T Clark, 2008), 153. 16 Ibid., 155. 148 John C. Haughey example of this. She made much room in the present for God. By her prayer her experience of God in prayer was: “Heaven is something happening in the soul.”17 In brief, this 2nd coming thing is more a matter of learning to be attentive to what is already here in this space and time than waiting for something to come. The six categories reflected on above enable one to believe that the spatio-temporal structures of nature itself has been transformed, though this can only be seen “through a glass darkly.” The new physics of spacetime should enable the old faith to “see” something new sprouting up in old nature’s space and time. Several “practical” benefits could come from the intellectual conversion being recommended here. One is that it would be hugely beneficial to nature. Nature has paid a heavy price for our anthropocentrism. If human beings who live in and from nature could see themselves in communion with it and its Creator rather than users of it on their way to some other there, then nature would breathe a huge sigh of relief. A second benefit could be considerable humility as we learn more about how miniscule our planet is vis-a-vis the rest of the universe and how recent an entry humans are who have emerged on it. In light of this, hubris becomes ludicrous. A third benefit would be a reconsideration of what the afterlife might be, having healthy doubts about our former construals of what it is as well as what it will be. The afterlife will be nature – transfigured, yes, but it will still be nature. There will be a similarity to the nature we know and a dissimilarity akin to the way Jesus was in his resurrection appearances. In other words, the heavenly should be able to be experienced as a dimension of the here and now not as a wholly unknown other and future thing. One could profitably ask: what in one’s present life is an augur of the afterlife and an initial experience of what it will be? Two further benefits. Eyes can more easily be opened to what they have not previously beheld if one’s expectations are rearranged about the 2nd coming. It keeps coming. Both mystics and physicists experience the invitation to entrust themselves to encounters with an “object” which “speaks for itself”, if and when it chooses to. The final benefit would be for there to be an openness in theology or religion to scientific knowledge and in the sciences to theology/religion. To conclude, I do not know much more about the afterlife at the end of this study than I did before undertaking it other than to realize it belongs much more in the already column than in the not yet one. My beliefs have not changed but they are better situated spatially and temporally. Our beliefs were handed down by our forebears whose

17 Regina Siegfried & Robert Morneau,eds. Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers (Lanham, Md.: Sheed & Ward, 1989), 55. A Necessary Entanglement: Spacetime and Afterlife 149 scientific knowledge was skimpy. Greater knowledge presents us with a choice to either let our beliefs be shaped by the cosmological parameters in which they had been articulated or to try to make faith and reason more unitary without falling into the reductionism of naturalism or scientism. It seems that a greater glory is given to God when we take seriously what both reason and science can learn in order to see how our beliefs and our knowledge might be better aligned. I have tried to do that here.

APPENDIX: ON READING INTO SCRIPTURE

Several questions linger: When a contemporary reading of the ancient Scriptures, like I have tried to do here, conveys something that the evangelist or inspired writer could not have known but that their texts might be able to shed light on, is that eisegesis (a reading into the text)? Hardly; if anything it should prove how fecund a scriptural text can be. Its inspiration has inspired new understandings age after age. So a text can convey one thing and the contemporary reader’s knowledge can see more in it than the text and its inspired scribe could ever have imagined. Paradoxically, then, the contemporary reader can know more than the scriptural word says and, of course, less than it still has to say. The revealed word can complete the scientific word and vice versa. Scriptural exegesis, on the other hand, is a necessary and invaluable discipline as long as it is not taken to be the last word or considered the only thing that the text can say. The word of God would suffer from a poverty of contemporary relevance were that so. An informed subjectivity can enrich a text if it produces insight and a cogent argument for what the text does not say but which it inspires. It is interesting to see how each evangelist’s subjectivity read different things into common texts and produced unique understandings. The result is the lumpy mélange that is the Gospel.

AFTERWORD

ILIA DELIO

Our technological choices play a much greater role in our lives today than at any previous time in human history. Once known as the practical science to assist human life, technology has now become the organizing center of daily life. In this book we have considered the consequences of our technological choices; the importance of seeing ourselves within the wider context of cosmic evolution, the potential risks of a posthuman and postbiological world, and the significance of human personhood as relational, organic and integrally spiritual. While we have created technologies to resurrect ourselves from what seems like endless destruction – war, poverty, disease and death – we have become more controlling of ourselves and our future. The lure of transhumanism toward betterment can be seen as a new cyber-Platonism that ultimately focuses our attention away from biological life toward artificial life. Just as Platonists spoke of true reality in a world beyond, so too, proponents of artificial intelligence, for example, advocate a better life beyond this biological one. The primacy of the artifice over the biological, however, stands at odds with the whole ecological movement of interrelatedness and a “preferential option for the earth.” Ecology tells us we are part of the web of life while transhumanism promises to liberate humans from the burden of finite, earthly limits. Thus, it is not only the human person stands on the threshold of a postbiological world but the whole biosphere itself seems threatened by abandonment. Whether by computer chips or gene enhancement, we are cutting ourselves off from the rich spontaneity of life. The key to the future of transhumanism is the underlying thread of this book, namely, religion. Our use of technologies is not outside the realm of religion but integral to its purpose and development. We cannot know how to develop our technologies if we do not know where we are going or why we are going at all. Evolution is a dynamic unfolding of consciousness and complexity. Life develops as a creative process of vitality and subjectivity. In ways outlined in these essays, transhumanism corresponds to evolutionary transcendence. Within the fabric of nature there is a yearning – a restlessness – for more being and life. At its depth, reality is a process constituted by this drive for transcending; that is, our drive for self-transcendence is an expression of this restlessness. Science and technology also express this restlessness. We encounter God, share in God, through this restless desire, to explore, create and transcend. Theologian Philip Hefner wrote, “if self- 152 Ilia Delio generation, autopoiesis – the making of ourselves – is written into the very substance of nature...we must consider that it is a clue to the nature of reality and, therefore, to the nature of God.”1 This means when we participate in this drive for new possibilities, we participate also in God. This is the dimension of holiness in technology.”2 Yet there is a question of emphasis. Technologies that drive transhumanism are at the forefront of our economy and culture. Are our choices for technologies of enhancement for the purpose of well-being alone or do they reflect something deeper within us that is not being found in institutional religions? Do science and technology seek to fulfill our deepest religious desires? That is, are we importing institutional religious values such as wholeness, wellness and happiness and transposing them onto our technologies? While modern science and technology enhance life, the purpose of developing our technologies at a frenzied pace remains ethically ambiguous. Transhumanism may be the most decisive movement of our time that anticipates a radically new future. Teilhard de Chardin saw a deepening of humanity on the horizon through the integral link between evolution, technology and the emergence of consciousness. He did not see evolution as a disruption in the organic whole but a greater unification of the whole in and through the human person: “We should consider inter-thinking humanity as a new type of organism whose destiny it is to realize new possibilities for evolving life on this planet.”3 Technology plays a role in evolutionary convergence, especially through collective consciousness, but the endpoint is not technology or techno sapiens, according to Teilhard, it is Omega, being-in-love, or in religious language, the Christ. While transhumanists envision technology spawning the next stage of evolution, Teilhard anticipated that technology will not usher in the next stage of evolution but will aid this transition by enabling a new convergence of consciousness. Technologies of the self are individualizing rather than convergent; hence their tendency is to devolve or thin out being. Evolution as the process toward greater consciousness and complexity cannot depend on technologies which individualize and separate but on the spiritual power of religions. Without organic matter, spirit cannot deepen and complexify. Hence, technology is not outside the realm of religion but integral to its purpose and development. Evolution proceeds towards the Omega Point, unity in love, not by information or enhancement of the individual but by the convergence of humanity and

1 Philip Hefner, Technology and Human Becoming (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 81. 2 Hefner, Technology and Human Becoming, 84. 3 Teilhard de Chardin, The Future of Man, 20. Afterword 153 the deepening of relationships. These essays have raised the bar of religion to meet the challenges of transhumanism, to affirm the transcendent dimension of nature, and to ask, whither humankind?

APPENDICES

NOTES ON A SEMINAR ON TRANSHUMANISM WITH JÜRGEN HABERMAS

GEORGE F. McLEAN

Transhumanism has been self-described as follows:

Humanity will be radically changed by technology in the future. We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition, including such parameters as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering and our confinement to the planet earth. (World Transhumanist Association 2002)

Philosophical Background

This is a vision of an evolutionary transition to a posthuman stage. Three stages are of note here. First the meta-humanism of genetic mutation, second the emergence of socio-cultural transformation through selective adaptation, and third a more interior self-reflexive capability of the human mind. What may not be adequately accounted for here is the way consciousness has evolved as embedded in the intersubjectively shared symbols which constitute a culture. In view of this transhumanism’s focus on bio-technological invention seems much too narrow to provide an adequate phenomenological base for its project. In a parallel manner the focus on controlling our molecular processes is too narrowly selective due to ignoring the role of common sense and humanistic knowledge. Moreover its evolutionary expectations encounter a radical dilemma for, on the one hand, new levels or modes of life are presently experienced while, on the other hand, if they truly transcend the human framework they enter into not only the unknown but the inconceivable. This raises the following issues:

The Feasibility of the Transhumanist Vision

The possibility of breaking beyond this dilemma depends upon opening new levels of human experience. This indeed has taken place with the opening of sub-cellular interventions which redesign genes to 156 George F. McLean produce artificial life systems, enabling their mechanical uploading and their further neuropharmacological and reprogenetic enhancement. What is of interest and concern here is not the ability temporarily to enhance or deflate psychic states, but the genetic manipulation. This seems less problematic as an effort to enhance genetics, but to extend this to artificial neuro-enhancing implants appears to cross a strongly defended border between organic life and anorganic matter.

Reservations and Objection to Human Enhancement

It was generally observed that the transhumanist focus upon science and technology tends to ignore the socio-cultural context. This is not a matter merely of enhancing material capabilities of the human body or psyche, but of intersecting forcibly upon value networks central to the self-understanding and value aspirations of a culture. As a result ethical committees have been incorporated into hospitals staffs and biological research centers. A review of objection to transhumanism might distinguish: (1) those related to specific problem, (2) those concerning the overall transhumanist project.

(1) Some interventions are unexceptional as aiming simply to restore a natural function, whereas other therapies go further to enhance such functions. Proceeding here incrementally are: (a) socio-political objections to a possible unequal or unjust distribution of such enhancements; (b) personality disruption where, e.g., an enhanced memory might render it impossible to select out elements one did not want to be part of their own self-understanding; (c) imposition of the will of, e.g., the parent who designs the enhancement on the prenatal offspring who are affected for life but without any voice in the process. (2) Other issues relate not only to the particular opportuneness of specific transhuman enhancements of human nature, but more deeply to one’s overall metaphysical and anthropological self-understanding: (a) metaphysical and religious understanding constitute an eternal and sacred order essential to one’s self-understanding. As this takes on a greater historical sense it shapes the cultural learning process and thus human nature. As joined with technological inventions human control is extended not only over one’s environment but over oneself as well. Thus the shift from the onto-theological to the anthropocentric enhances the realm and reach of human responsibility. (b) But here in this increasingly anthropocentric context we reach some limit conditions. For even with an attenuation of a metaphysical Notes on a Seminar on Transhumanism with Jürgen Habermas 157 givenness, nevertheless the inherent conditions of human communication and sociality transcend our field of choice and our discretion. The issue becomes not Rawls’ development of a particular set of norms and principles which promote the equality of all, but whether there should be a normative order at all. In other words transhumanism confronts us with a deeper issue of human life, namely whether we would want to live without a sense of moral obligation: without guilt and forgiveness, without obligation and trust. This issue is not one of negotiating an intercultural pluralism of this or that morality, but the basic ethical issue of culture i.e., of life with or without any such thing as responsibility or moral authorship.

In effect, can a transhumanism leave us with not a more perfect humanity but, bereft of humanity as such. If so would that be a desirable or even tolerable outcome?

TRANSCRIPTS OF SOME TEAM DIALOGUES ON TRANSHUMANISM

Time: January 5, 2011 and April 12, 2011 Participants: John C. Haughey (T1), Nancy Tuchman (S1), Ilia Delio (S/T), Howard Gray (SP), Kevin Fitzgerald (S2), José Casanova (E)

T1: The human situation is now being more and more profoundly affected by three conditions which this project is trying to address, namely, what natural sciences are coming up with, what technology is coming up with, and thirdly, the victim of misguided teleology about our humanity, which is ecology: ecology, technology and science as interdependent, interconnected. We are trying to address them in their interconnectedness, though each paper takes usually one piece of that rather than the whole or all three.

The occasion for doing the project is the way in which transhumanism insofar as it is a gathered, formal voice, is affecting the same three things. This is full of both promise and hazard and the way we are negatively affecting ecology is quite significant.

SPIRIT

T1: One of the questions Ilia’s work with Teilhard raises is that of “the spiritual”. What is the spiritual and what is the relationship between matter and spirit? This is a three way issue. When we use the category spiritual are we doing justice to what our project is trying to do, namely, the wholeness of the insight that we are trying to achieve. One has to use spiritual because otherwise transhumanism does not understand what it is transiting into.

Another connection is the Franciscan question with their different charisms and approaches to Creation. Does Ignatian spiritualty have a sufficient ecological embrace?

S/T: It is complimentary. What the Franciscan can offer is almost a metaphysics of ecology, a new metaphysics – very close, in its own medieval context, to what Panikkar is getting at in his contemporary way about the cosmotheandric unit. But, of course, the Franciscan is mostly Scotus’ metaphysics. 160 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

I looked at ecology and technology as competing myths and the whole idea that transhumanism might be leading us away from an ecological consciousness. I came across a paper by Nicholas Bostrom which references in his paper the work of Julian Huxley, Religion without Revelation (1957). That is where actually the term “transhumanism” first appeared I use Huxley’s initial use of the word “transhumanism” to say that the transhumanists have coopted this term and twisted it for their own use. By doing so, they really took it out of its initial context. Teilhard de Chardin and Huxley were friends looking at what was happening to the human person within the context of evolution. The way Huxley used that term was that we need a name for this new belief that the human species can transcend itself not just sporadically – one individual in one way and another individual in another – but in its entirety, as humanity. So the initial use of the term was precisely not of individual enhancement but was of a corporate nature, the whole of humanity moving forward. So he says that perhaps transhumanism will serve man in remaining man but transcending itself by realizing new possibilities of and for human nature. Again Huxley was using the term about the transformation of the whole person.

But Bostrom and others applied this in terms of technology and its new discoveries, its development, so that transhumanism becomes an expansionary road. A transhumanist is not one moving within a corporate nature, but a transitional human who by virtue of technology is a link to a new era of post-humanity. That is, technology being used to transform, enhance, or change the human person – not necessarily corporately, but as an individual – towards a new species, so to speak.

That led me back to the history of the word technology, which in its development was the domestic science that enabled the openness of matter to spirit. The whole idea of technology was to free the spirit, which in its Christian roots is to be more open to God. As technology developed in Christianity, for example in Benedictine monasticism, the idea was that more efficient work through technology could enable the monk not to be tied down to matter: a spiritual freedom to be more open to God in his work. Again, technology was a means to enhance the whole of life. You could even draw a link between technology in the Patristic and medieval periods it conversion.

However, after the Middle Ages and the age of the Black Death which generated a fear of death which lingered over Western Europe, technology became more a means of spiritual preparedness for the second coming of Christ. All of this is to say that technology has had its own history of thought, but was never meant to change the human Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 161 person. The term “transhumanism” arises rather in the 20th century, after two world wars, in an age of war and violence as the British were trying to crack the German code through the development of the computer. This rise of technology in the 20th century is different from its historical development. In an era marked by war and death, technology becomes more than just the opening of matter to spirit, it becomes more apocalyptic in its aims – relating to immortality, overcoming suffering and death. The whole direction of technology as it develops in the 20th century is largely apocalyptic. The idea is: do not worry about death and suffering, technology will fulfill what religion promises. Then you have Kurt Weilian and the Hans Morebeck suggesting downloading the brain, where the brain is seen as a processor. That radical thinking distorts transhumanism certainly as Huxley used the term.

So I went to Teilhard de Chardin as one of the prototypes of transhumanism, a Christian transhuumanist and asked whether he can really be discussed in the same way that we are talking about these other transhumanists? And the answer is No, because Teilhard really used Huxley original sense of the term, namely, for the whole cosmos and the human person as the leading edge of an evolutionary cosmos. Teilhard did not see a spiritual perfection at the expense of matter. Rather it is the whole material cosmos which is on its way to something new in and with the human person as the leading edge of the evolutionary movement. His idea was that we are in evolution and transhumanism identifies that movement within evolution. The next stage of evolution is a spiritual deepening in and through technology which is a material or cosmic deepening. So what he saw is that noogenesis, or the age of global mind – the world soul idea – would be the next stage of transhumanism. For Teilhard noogenesis was not a disembodied mind, but a greater unity, a deepening of humanity in and through technology. He saw technology in a positive way. Yet Teilhard was limited in what he could foresee with technology because it was just developing. What he envisioned is that technology would unify humanity which would move evolution itself onto the next level. He did not see its disconnectedness, a sort of cyber-Platonism or Gnosticism as some call it. For him transhumanism is ultrahumanism. It is not that we are becoming something different, but that we are becoming something more and this in and through technology. The “more” of our technology goes hand in hand with the next stage in evolution which he envisaged as a convergence of religions. World religions are in process as is the whole of humanity and the cosmos itself. Everything is in process and in his view the noosphere, ultrahumanism and convergence of world religions all go together on the next stage of evolution. This is a healthy corrective, limited in some ways because there is a naivete to Teilhard’s 162 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism vision: because of the time period in which he was writing: technology could not anticipate where technology would go. But he brings transhumanism into a healthy or cosmic wholeness of evolution.

S2: Is there an opportunity to address that limitation of Teilhard so that people will see this as an invitation or opportunity to go further rather than simply how it connects to where we are now?

T1: I would not reduce an AI transhumanism over against other forms. That would be an unnecessary narrowing of both the value of transhumanism and the insight that Teilhard and you bring to it. That would make a straw man out of AI transhumanism, whereas technology and transhumanism are a lot more complex.

S/T: Except that today information technology, artificial intelligence, is the driving force of a lot of the changes in culture. But perhaps it is too narrow…

How Christ centered does Teilhard have to be; his gift is this wholeness. Had he lived more into and after the Council, he would be less Christic about the omega point. Teilhard’s Christedness is the whole, and hence can integrate both Jewish and Atheist traditions.

S1: In sum, I like the historical emphasis on the whole for the definition of transhumanism and on how technology was originally thought of as something to enhance the human connection with God. In this technological world it is hard to see how anybody would have thought that was the case.

SP: My paradigm is that of four spiritual realities: hospitality, friendship, coping with suffering and then reorientation. I do not have a better word for it, but it is the gathering of your resources from having gone through a dissolution, and entering a new era. What we would call resurrection. Why not do it explicitly as a system of spiritual reflection as an effective way of bringing people into these realities and allowing them to cope with them and then to integrate them in their own life. That is basically what the paper is: four spiritual realities and the codification of that in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyla. Regardless of where we move in transhumanism, I think these four realities are going to continue to be things that people have to deal with because they so involve life and death: the entrance into life and the acceptance in hospitality, the reaching out in friendship that binds individuals together in intimacies; suffering as something that though controlled more and more with our medical technology, we still have to face. And how one Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 163 moves in personal and social life to another whole plateau of reorganizing or reorienting one’s life from what you have learned. If you go through suffering, there is one reorientation or if you realize that it is terminal there is another reorientation. This is a significant reflection on a spiritual tradition and how it faces transhumanism.

S2: But is this soft pedaling a little too much? What we are trying to say as a group is that transhumanism is a broader idea than is being presented, whether as an AI transhumanism or a technological transhumanism. It is not just an interface, but an integral component. We see ourselves not just as a dialogue partner, but as really integral to transhumanism as a movement towards love. The issue then is what can and cannot be enhanced and perfected by technology.

T1: To put it more sharply: technology and inhospitality, technology and the incapacity for friendship, technology and suffering. The interesting challenge even within each of the three is their obverse, i.e., the lack of hospitality, friendship, suffering and orientation.

S/T: But how does one distinguish between hospitality and virtual hospitality? In which I never see you face to face.

T1: That is a major point in my work with university faculties: hospitality to the otherness of data. Most of the hospitality that we encounter in academe is to data. I do not know you, I have never seen you, but I am open to your data. Is this virtual hospitality? By letting data’s otherness tell me who I am I become the guest of what I started out to host. That is what I would come to with the word “virtual”. No matter how that data comes in, the catholic disposition is to be open to wherever that is.

S/T: I am thinking also of Facebook and friendship or all of a sudden of ‘defriending’. Here we could have the values of hospitality and friendship, but the difference in a technologically driven world is that they are at our disposal and control. Where do the values of personal commitment come in?

SP: I talk about how hospitality has become a commercial reality. We think of hospitality as welcome into a hotel, a restaurant, or a hospital. It is the veneer of acceptance but people are not really that committed, the person does not really count as personal.

T1: This is an important question: hospitality and the virtual or online world vs the personal world. What of the “dynamics of the Exercises.” 164 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

There is something invaluable about the systematic way Ignatius has of going about hospitality, friendship, suffering and reconciliation. It is impossible to read the Exercise; you have to make them. There is a dynamic; you get involved in doing them: you experience them.

Ignatius did not intend to be enthusiastic. He just wanted to get into the bottom layer of one’s subjectivity by saying you might want to ask this grace, you might want to look at this scene. The Creator connects to the creature, not to the rhetoric of the Exercises.

You do not know for sure how God is working in the person. You will know a little bit how God is working. There is always the intuition of the subjectivity of the director and the druthers of the retreatant. I just want to let the subject hear God. And Ignatius has in mind the next thematic level, e.g., the Passion and Death, the risen life. The more universal the good, the more divine is Ignatius’ advice for ministry or mission; the more universal the good, the more divine.

S1: What I was resonating with are the chapter on technology’s impact on things like hospitality, friendship, suffering, resurrection. It has great relevance with the younger readers. A welcome to a hotel is a very different type of hospitality than Ignatius was talking about. It is called service: a practice employees are trained in and required to perform. It is not a hospitality that comes from the heart and does not really connect to the other person, but is rather a serving of a customer in a way that the customer expects. We have turned this word “hospitality” into something very different from what Ignatius had in mind. Like friendship on Faceboook where you can friend and defriend somebody with touch of a button. The Jesuit General Adolpho Nicholas in Mexico City in May talked about how technology and technological relationships, texting and emailing have developed a whole culture of shallow, non-committed relationships that allow you to share information and data without putting any thought into it whatsoever because everything can be transferred within seconds. So there is no depth of commitment to the relationship. It is more like a ping-pong game bouncing information back and forth but you can put down your paddle at any time and walk away and the other person will just pick the game up with someone else. Technology has impacted hospitality and made it to some degree inhospitality. It has impacted friendship and made it into these virtual friendships that lack depth, lack commitment, and lack movement towards love.

S/T: This recalls Levinas’ encounter of the face with the other that cannot be denied or erased. Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 165

T1: Much of what we do is not presence to human otherness, but presence to the otherness we access from virtual reality, which is a kind of knowledge.

S/T: That is the problem. In other words we lose sight of the concrete particularity of person or thing. It is type of knowledge that is abstracted from the concrete particular.

T1: But you have to abstract from the concreteness if you want to deal with a body of knowledge. How else am I going to be hospitable to a body of knowledge?

S/T: One of the downfalls of technology is that it is a type of knowledge that is disembodied. In other words, it is virtual knowledge so it does not have a rooting in the organic, in the concrete, in the ecological, in the human person. And that is why I think that kind of knowledge can lead us into disembodiedness that loses sight of the organic.

T1: But I am not sure you are not talking about interiority. What does knowledge bring me into? Could it bring me into a deeper connection with my own interiority?

S/T: A lot of what we have today is not necessarily knowledge but information. I would distinguish between information and knowledge. Knowledge can lead into a deeper interiority which can be more wholeness, but not information.

T1: But information is knowledge too. What would be an example of information that is not knowledge?

S/T: A google of the sales that are happening or an experiment in the lab, which gives information but without any idea of what that is. To take these three terms: data, information, knowledge, knowledge is a deepening of the information through the experience of the knowing process itself. There is an involvement in the subject and in what is known.

Going back to the human person, we went from presencing to knowledge: being present or the face of the other as calling me into ethical responsibility because I know the other by experience. In other words, I know them personally or as a person, rather than simply hearing information that tells me something about someone. Knowing face to face is on a different level. 166 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

T1: There is really a difference between being informed by the face of the other or the personal other and being informed by the information that I am seeking in the quest that I have to get an answer to a question I have. I have to be responsible about the information that I get. But I am not responsible to a person, I am responsible to the information.

I have given my life to learn this thing. Like Jonas Salk, I have given my life to solve this thing. But it cannot stay with you. Where does it go? It goes to the science which then creates the therapy for polio; it goes back to the community.

S/T: I think there is a real ecological question here in the sense of the organicity of life. I mean the human person as person or the tree as tree. I can abstract data; I can do an experiment, collect data and formulate data into a theory or an hypothesis. But that information as it becomes a deepening of understanding must go back somewhere. I see knowledge leading to understanding and that understanding to wisdom and a new direction or a new way of relating. A lot of technology today leaves us with a ton of information. But what is lacking is knowledge, a deepening of the information in a way that changes one’s being in the world, how one thinks about being in the world, how one relates to others and to the world itself.

T1: According to Bernard Lonergan, you experience then you understand, and then you come to judgement. All this is a function of the good. His imperatives were: be attentive, be intelligent, be reasonable, and be responsible.

S/T: That is knowledge; it is what knowledge is all about. We have information overload today. You have a new level of responsibility for the information which is now accessible. The human person cannot process the amount of information today to make a responsible choice.

T1: But if the person cannot process it, then you are asking the person to leave their humanity to what?

S/T: They are overloaded. That is why I think the overload drives people to seek more information because of the negative feedback.

T1: Or it may well be that the person could have enough of a responsible interiority to say: I am going to take this much in and then I am going to make a judgement about it. Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 167

S/T: But there is an anxiety in the culture because there is not space in the culture to do precisely that – to take the information and to process it in an interior way.

S2: The question would then be: how much integration is required or is suggested as a good in the assembly of all this information or data at whatever level we want to talk about? Is there too much emphasis on regurgitation over integration? You have to be able to not master, but at least acquire X amount of information. That does not even mean you know how to use it properly, but you have acquired it, and can regurgitate it. But what does that mean? That is probably the level on which we operate far too much in education.

S1: My paper is the premise of how technological advances, and increases with the human impact on natural resources and ecology. Then it considers the role that higher education plays in educating generations of students about the problems, effecting changes in behavior and motivating new technological advances for things like clean energy. The last third of the paper forming the whole person, the intellectual and spiritual issues around ecology. This effects everybody across cultural- economic status, for everyone is effected by the demise of our global and limited natural resources.

Basically the outcome of the project was a statement of the problem, a sense of its urgency, and how the demise of nature disproportionately effects the poor. And then we looked at solutions and what could be done with this in the different Ignatian apostolates: higher education, social justice, K through 12 education, and parishes. Being behind on this issue we need to move quickly, be direct and take brave steps in saying what we need to do.

T1: This is bringing up a whole other dimension of transhumanism, namely education. Would there be a lacuna in our volume because we are not dealing with education. Beyond ecological education we are talking about something closer to epistemology. How does a judgement get made and when am I responsible for making a judgement and what degree of understanding do I have to come to before I make a judgement? A judgement is my responsibility and then acting on the judgement I make.

S2: With Nick Bostrom the argument is more for what he is calling individual freedom. In other words, you do not have responsibility because you can make whatever choices you want, and they are, in a sense, consequence free, in terms of heart. It is presented as giving all 168 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism these marvelous options and you can choose whatever you want; the only consequence is that you will get what you choose.

S/T: But it is true. Transhumanism does not talk about education or knowledge. It is information and an information-driven enhancement or perfection.

SP: It is more about commitment.

S/T: This would be interesting; with the paper in terms of spirituality and transhumanism we are broadening transhumanism; we are trying to put it into its cosmic context. The other papers also begin to look at this in a broadening way. There is need for an education piece – something on knowledge and transhumanism, on epistemology. Our papers are ways of broadening what transhumanism means. Certainly for transhumanism knowledge or epistemology is not even on the radar screen. It is really information driven, personal enhancement’

ETHICS

S2: So one contrast to the transhumanism of today is that it is focused on increasing options, not responsibility or relationality; it is focused on information and control, rather than understanding and commitment.

Is this project oriented toward setting up a constructive dialogue with the transhumanism per se or to present an alternative to the transhumanism? There is transhumanism as it is being presented by the World Transhumanist Association, but there is another transhumanism which also embraces the value of science and technology but sees that value very differently. Why is that? Is there a way there I can flesh that out very concretely. That is why I use the examples that I do in the very narrow area that I focus on. That is only to break open this difference and say where is it that we diverge in spite of the fact that the language is very similar: less disease, less poverty, more peace. I think from our discussion I can build that bridge even better. But after reading your papers what is common about all our approaches to transhumanism that can be pointed out as foundational is relationality or relationshps. This rather than the fracturing inherent in the current transhumanist agenda which is all about individual freedom, individual options, individual choice, the aggregates of which is considered to be human progress. We are not talking about human progress as an aggregate.

S/T: Is there sort of an elitism here as well. The elitism is for those who can afford the technology to become more individual. Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 169

S2: They say this will revolutionize everything. But what they cannot revolutionize is human fulfillment. Unless of course you are no longer human but a computer.

Another question that came up is the people who will say: I am not a transhumanist. I do not want to go beyond because what is now is the way I am supposed to be. Are we addressing them? Is our collective significantly different from theirs? Is this true of the emphasis on relationality and responsibility vs individuality?

T1: We want to get to the otherness that are bodies of knowledge. Our mission is to these bodies of knowledge that purport autonomy.

S2: If so will connectedness be sufficient? I like relationality and relationship because that has more of a connotation to it.

S1: It seems that with technological advancement and areas like biotechnology where we are cloning organisms, we are making genetically modified organisms and throwing them into the environment with no real ethical oversight on the consequences.

S2: They argue that there is ethical oversight, but then choose their own values; they choose their own value system and then say: because we put it in place therefore it is ethical oversight.

S1: It would legitimize the work if this team had a paper that points out the differences between the approach of our research group and the conventional transhumanist group.

T1: One of the things we all have to ask ourselves is the politics of transhumanism. You have here an example from the Havasupi Indians and researchers, an example of how different communities can have different ideas about the benefits and harms of the use of technology. That tribe is a good example of how plural the good is. We do not want to be totalistic about the good and seem to be dictating to every subjectivity what the good is.

I call this a totalist mind. What I like about the Exercises. Is that it lets the mind become as a result of openness to those graces. And you did not know whether the person was going to end up Muslim, Christian, or what they were.

S2: There has got to be a sense of certain boundaries. 170 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

T1: That is the ethical. It is not the meta-ethical nor the meta-narratival. We do not want to take up the narrative of world transhumanism and then say: we have the right narrative. That would be too totalist. This tribe is a good example here. They have to go the way the Council decides. They have to go through their discernments about where there is an excess of this and a deficiency of that. Each culture has to do that according to the Council. Each culture is distinctive.

S/T: It is important that we also highlight the good of technology. We do not want to demonize the whole enterprise; for there is a lot of good that technology does. So there is a fine line between the good of technology and a related narrowness of vision.

S2: We researchers consider ourselves a group that also embraces science and technology, but in a different framework. We see it as “a” good among other goods, not “the” good which drives everything. We are in a loose community of those who also desire the betterment of humankind and also see a positive role for technology in achieving this desire. Then one can investigate the differences between these two communities. We have not identified ourselves as anti or an alternate to transhumanists. But we have identified ourselves as a group that values science and technology, values what it can bring, but values it within this larger context of relationality, relationships – a group that values it above science and technology.

S/T: The narrowness could lead to a new type of totalitarianism, an elitism of the wealthy which leaves people in the poor parts of the world completely out of the picture.

MATTER: THE NEW PHYSICS OF DARK MATTER, CURVATURE, ETC.

T1: In terms of space-time transhumanism addresses the question of after life, after space, after time. Everybody is interested into what is after space and time? What is my future? The more I looked at physics, the more it seemed that space-time was a category that could give a further understanding of the whither of transhumanism. In the common sense understanding of space and time a heaven and something that transcended nature had to be developed. But once space-time is seen in the new physics, you do not have to go beyond space and beyond time because there is something that curves back into nature. This is the curvature issue. It can help us to realize the naivete with which we have been approaching the afterlife which would make it necessary for us to leave nature, leave earth and not have a home here, and all those things. Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 171

Much of the cosmological literature is about “dark” – “dark flow”, “dark matter”, “dark matter”, “dark fluid”.

S2: In speculative physics the dark factor was posited because the empirical observations did not match the theoretical calculations. So it is typical in astrophysics when things do not line up one starts theorizing and positing and after a while, positing dark matter. When they went back and tried to measure and some things did not match up now they have dark energy.

S/T: Dark energy provides for the expansion of the universe and dark matter prevents its collapse.

S2: Dark matter explains the current configuration of the galaxies – ribbon-like things and also some of the spins of some of the galaxies. Whereas dark energy is for talking about the expansion of the universe.

The universe is not randomly distributed galaxies, there are ribbons and that is what they have been trying to explain. Dark flow describes the peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters. So it is not to be confused with dark fluid, dark matter, dark energy or the great attractor. Dark flow is a more specific flow, about particular galactic movements. Dark matter is the matter that is inferred to exist from gravitational effects on visible matter. Dark energy is the thing that is keeping the universe flying apart.

They are all “dark” because they are not observable at least up to this point. So now the big thing in astrophysics is observing them, figuring out how to measure them.

S/T: But they are detectable through measurement of consequences.

S2: Dark fluid is an alternative theory to both the theories of dark matter and dark energy. It is a framework for explaining both phenomena with a single explanation. It proposes that dark matter and dark energy are not separate physical phenomena nor do they have separate origins but are linked together in a really specific sub effect of a new extended laws of gravity at very large scales. That would mean that gravity behaves differently over very large distances than it behaves in local distance.

T1: What would more space mean?

S2: You do not necessarily have to reference dark matter and dark energy and dark fluid specifically, but what could be said is: We had this theory of the universe – Einsteinian spacetime which replaced 172 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

Newtonian mechanics. But now it turns out that Einsteinian space and time does not explain the universe, so they came up with dark matter. But that was not enough so they came up with dark energy. All to do what? All to explain what we observe. This gets back to the issue of meaning. The transhumanist says: all this is interesting if we can employ it to create more options for ourselves. Is there more wonder?

T1: My question is whether or not we need something beyond to explain what is within. Or whether the known and knowledge within knows better and will understand where this beyond came from.

S2: This is not God of the gaps. It is more the God within the gaps.

S/T: It is close to Panikkar’s cosmotheandric invariant – that cosmos and theos cannot be separated, and that they cannot be separated from anthropos.

T1: Cosmos and anthropos and theos cannot be separated because the observer and the observed are both within one space time.

S2: This must be said right up front. You must say this is what you are asking. The fundamental question is: do we have to look for the answers beyond or are the answers within the cosmos? That is where Panikkar’s big C comes in, rather than Panikkar’s little c. It changes everything. It changes how you see everything.

S/T: This is the problem with classical theology. We have a medieval metaphysics and now we have a wholly different insights onto space time and universe. We keep talking about the old God and we want to make sense of that God in this universe.

Theology is not engaging the science as science for it tells us about this universe.

S2: Scientists say: when our observations are discrepant with our explanatory framework or theory normally we change the theory. Instead theologians change the observations saying the observations must be wrong because they cannot change our theory. Because God is eternal. We assume the theory of God is eternal, whereas our understanding has to grow and improve.

S/T: The first part of the paper, the part on science, I found more reflective and almost a wondering about this incredible science. While the theology part is more structured in its discussion. You might Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 173 structure the first half like you have the second half. In the first part, you come across as awed by the insights of science and so it is less structured. Perhaps you might highlight the key points of science that are relevant to your discussion in the theology section.

T1: I allowed myself to be awed by the space/time thing but when I got to the theology thing I was more controlling.

S/T: That came across as an incredible discovery.

S2: What sneaks in here is a desire to correct the Church, the Catholic Church and allow more wonder into theology.

There is the interesting example of the Congolese and their sense that the ancestors are with us; we experience them as present.

S/T: There is also the whole doctrine of the Communion of Saints.

S2: Native Americans are the same. When you are with the Oglala Lakota in a sweat ceremony, the prayer that you do ends with “and all my relatives” because that is the group that is praying.

S/T: In my book The Emergent Christ, I have a whole section on death, resurrection and the afterlife, very much about what you are writing here. I was thinking in terms of matter and energy and what happens to matter in death? So I have a discussion very similar to what you are doing here.

If heaven is earthly life transformed there is no place called heaven. So the problem is that operative Christianity or theology still has this three tiered universe with this God who is other than a divine uncreated being, who is ontologically different from finite created being, and the universe is still the Ptolemaic universe because we are surrounded by the heavens as where you go when you die and then God is at the top. Of course people are going to leave. The 13 year old growing up with this new physics comes into the Church and says: Ok, how do I make sense of these two things?

T1: This is the pastoral issue because it rearranges all the furniture. It is a whole makeover; you just cannot forget the Ptolemaic universe.

When you start thinking in terms of physics, you start to feel different than in biology. And when you start thinking about chemistry you start to feel different than in physics. How do you sublate bodies of 174 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism knowledge while allowing the bodies of knowledge their own integrity and at the same time do not allow them autonomy.

S/T: But they are not entirely distinct. E.g. every biological system works according to chemical systems. So you can have structures in a biological system, but the structures themselves have some chemical mediators. I am thinking of physiological systems. So then the biological organism exists within a larger framework of ecology which is in the yet larger cosmic framework of the universe.

T1: But before you are in ecology, you are into space. There is a space even within the most micro thing. There is a space between all la realidad within that one molecule because atoms are mostly space.

So space comes back to haunt you.

But I go back to the ether which is the way Newton looked at it, passive and active. Which then brings in the physical and the pneumatological.

S2: And that is what they are talking about in dark fluid, that space is active.

S/T: But is the ether a substantive or is it a field of connectivity?

S2: Everything can be described in terms of fields. You can reduce everything to fields, electro magnetic fields. And that is the power of field theory. But that is just a way of describing with its own strengths and weaknesses. To get back to sublating, the way I found most useful is the idea of an epistemology that has nested pieces. But generics cannot be done with field theory. Field theory may be the most rudimentary way to describe everything, but for us it is not practical. So as you go up the chain of complexity and start talking about atomic realities, you have to change your description. And as you go up to chemistry, you have to change your description and new properties emerge. An emergentist requires new frameworks for understanding and articulation. A sense of awe and wonder enters when you get to the largest entity and find that we are back to the same language we were using with the smallest.

T1: But notice how metaphor comes into all of this. Field as metaphor, boundary as metaphor, small as metaphor, large as metaphor. We are talking ourselves into a curvature that ends up with God as omnipresent and God as other. Where? Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 175

S2: The issue of where arises because we live in space/time and partly also because we want an answer to the question of whither. The whither of transhumanism is the issue.

It is important because that is how we think and there is an important heuristic structure to the way we think. But it does not necessarily fit questions like afterlife.

S/T: But is the whither of transhumanism within the creative process of transhumanism itself? There is no outside goal but the goal itself is within; in other words, we create.

T1: But do not you think that leans too heavily on within?

S/T: Yes and no. If we consider the transcendent nature of nature itself, there is an excess in nature that is nature and yet beyond it by nature of its excess.

You transpose space and time into excess rather than the opposite of excess.

I am thinking more of a concrete particularity, like a cell which exists. But the question is: What is the transcendence of nature; what is the whither of being itself? Heidegger spoke of being as activity. But what is that activity? Is it possible that the whither or the activity of being is being itself, the excess of being? In other words, there is no one moment there is no one period that could contain all that is, and the allness of it itself keeps moving and is its own lure.

T1: Maybe our language is tripping us up. When we say transhumanism, the question of transnature-ism is here, and the intrinsic character of trans-being is here. In other words, all of these trans-isms belong to the human, to nature, to being, to God; there is a trans that belongs intrinsically to all of them.

S/T: Yes, and I think the term “transhumanism” could be misleading because we can lose sight of the trans of all. In other words, all levels of reality have this excess of being and therefore are in a movement towards a creator of fullness, of more.

S2: That is key. So you have a directionality. The beyond is toward a greater.

S/T: Evolution shows that. 176 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

THEOLOGY

S2: So here is the question, and it is the one Rahner raised in the 60s with genetic engineering. You can go trans (across) from where you are now. But is it more or is it less?

T1: Or was it there all along and you had not gotten to it?

S2: If it is there all along and you had not gotten to it, that would be a Socratic discovering of all. But the question is: When is more less, and when is less more? And that is the big thing with religion, when does self-sacrifice and self-denial lead you actually to greater freedom?

T1: So Jesus’ sacrifice of himself was in function of his coming to the more that he was all along. So he lost his life to find his life.

S2: Well, not just his life; it was in order to give us all life.

T1: But he lost his “Jesusism” to get to his “Christism”.

S/T: I do not know if I agree with that. How would you explain emergent evolution? In other words, something really new happened in evolution.

T1: I would explain it as a metaphor. From your limited side, it is emergent, but from God’s side, it was there all along, it just had to get pulled out. So what God makes makes itself, the potentiality to be more was there all along.

S/T: I want to go back to the cosmotheandric variant: we cannot take God makes things to make themselves because the God and self share being itself and you have to be careful not to become pantheist.

T1: Jack Haught’s paper cited three values: vitality, subjectivity, creativity.

T2: I would have added a fourth criteria: the idea of relationality. What is going on in the universe is the opportunity for emergent intensity of relationships. You could also discuss this in terms of the category of beauty as well. Beauty and relationality, beauty as the integration of otherness and contrast.

S/T: Whitehead? Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 177

T2: Yes, it is implied in creativity. It is a very Whiteheadian concept along with subjectivity, both of which are required in order to understand this notion of relationality.

T1: Ilia referred it to connectedness. I called it something about the connector and pneumatology. We are not sure that relationality grasps it, but it may. There may not be a better one.

S2: You do actually mention relationality and creativity under creativity. Discussing the audience that we are writing for you have the big “T” Transhumanism and the little “t” transhumanism which includes us. A term or phrase which captures the fundamental difference between ourselves and the big “T” Transhumanists and we are trying to bring out incrementally and gently in the chapter is that we emphasize relationality and diversity being really human and even transhuman, and that is totally different from the Transhumanists. Are you comfortable with that?

T2: I have a metaphysical framework that would be suitable to what we intuit to be going on, or to what could be going on at its best. Such a notion also allows us to understand the nature of sin in terms of human non-relationality. That could be the product of this whole adventure and actually could be the motivating factor behind it. I am very happy with the metaphysics of relationality as a kind of overall framework for discussing the ethical decisions that we have to make.

S/T: We want to acknowledge the good of technology and highlight its usefulness in the broadening and deepening of life, the creativity of subjectivity and vitality that technology can help move us towards rather than a narrow view of technology which can thwart the deepening of life.

T2: I am thinking especially of technological dreams that what we experience as consciousness, freedom, relationality could be transported or transplanted into some artifact or set of artifacts that we create that does not take into account our autonomy. Science fiction tends to imagine this in its more monstrous forms. So when I think of technology as something that can intensify relationality, I am not thinking of it as something that will substitute for human relations but as something that will extend them and amplify them. That is something we have to meditate on. Much of what was said about hospitality and community, with some Christological points of view, would be absolutely indispensable as a framework for talking about technology and what it is eventually capable of. 178 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

S/T: Is this a sort of Christian theology of transhumanism?

T2: That is what I understand we are doing in this project. We all have a very limited perspective on it and we are approaching it from the point of view of what Christian faith has to contribute. Since the world is made up of so many Christians, we rightly have a voice in this adventure and we are implicitly thinking along those lines. The key is to frame a criteriology that will make sense to a wider audience, not just to ourselves. That is why I used the generic categories of creativity, vitality, and subjectivity. That is more pre-theological than actually developing a Christian theology of transhumanism.

S/T: How then would you see God in what you are saying here? What would be the God of transhumanism for you in the light of your paper?

T2: The paper goes up to the margin of doing that. If I were going to develop that, I would ask the question: what is the ground and goal of creativity, vitality, and subjectivity? That would be a Whiteheadian kind of approach, Christianized of course. The paper leads up to that, but it does not really develop it. That would be another chapter.

T1: That is why I bring up this ontology of relationality. It seems to me if you are going to ground your ingredients: vitality, subjectivity, creativity, then trinity is the model of this relationality. Otherwise, it does not have a fundament, a foundation.

S/T: In other words, a Cappadocian type of Trinity – the ontology of personhood.

T1: Exactly, in other words, being gets sublated into relationality. So the foundation of being in our Christian language is Father, Son and Spirit.

TRUTH/TEILHARD

T2: I completely agree that if I were going to take it further, a Trinitarian framework would be absolutely indispensable from a systematic theological point of view. Most of the work that I have done in science and religion has been more foundational rather than systematic theological discussion, although there has been that too. In writing the chapter I was thinking of the kind of audience, primarily the Transhumanist adventurists themselves who are not ready for Trinitarian theology. So I would want them first to think about these qualities which have been the criteria of evolution so far; we can be instructed by previous emergent chapters in the cosmos and its evolution. We need to Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 179 keep an eye on what worked before – what made for more creativity, more being you might say. I was using Teilhard as a model here. He does not really develop Trinitarian theology while he is doing those kinds of essays and thinking of agnostic as well as Christian readers. So I did not feel compelled to develop these things systematically. But I agree that the systematic theological development would certainly be necessary for a full picture.

T1: This goes back to what we are all trying to do. The ontology of relationality that we are most familiar with is the relationality that is trinity. As to the audience and pastoral attractiveness, if we agree that being is relational, could we then say that Trinity is our particular symbol for that relationality as its foundation and that there are other symbols of being as relational that are not Christian.

T2: That would be a very Tillichian way of doing it: first to carve out the experience to which even non-believers could connect the notion of Trinity. If you were doing a more Barthian or post-modernist theological approach, you would start out with Trinity and bombard everyone with your symbols and shatter their pre-suppositions and so forth. That is not my way of doing theology. I am very sympathetic with the way just expressed above.

S/T: Colin Gonton’s work on the Trinity says that if we take Trinity as paradigmatic of being itself it entails a new set of transcendentals. Instead of one, true and good, he speaks of perichoresis, particularity, and relationality.

T2: My work is more foundational and correlational, I would say. I always like to start out in the campground of the unbeliever. That is part of the way in which we express and is called hospitality. Do not bombard them with a ton of theology in the Barthian sort of way but feel with them what it is like to live in a strange and alienated world. Otherwise, we are not being pastorally responsible. I am more Tillichian than Barth.

S/T: We mentioned before that a project on the pastoral implication of Transhumanism might be quite interesting. Like the issue of whither – where are we going and what that means pastorally, like questions on heaven and afterlife and suffering and death and these types of things. We are not there yet. 180 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

T2: Yes, people will ask those kinds of things and the average Catholic when they hear the word “transhumanism” would start to think of an eschatology of some sort.

S/T: I began with what I call “Bostrom’s thesis.” Bostrom states, “We have always sought to expand the boundaries of our existence, be it socially, geographically, or mentally.” As I read Bostrom, I thought that he short changes, in a sense, the rise of technology. If I go back to the Middle Ages, technology has deep religious roots that I think Bostrom overlooks. And yet, they are very important as we look at transhumanism and its development. So what I did is to begin with Bostrom, along with the definition of transhumanism that was proposed in the fifties by Julian Huxley, where he writes in Religion Without Revelation, “the human species can if it wishes transcend itself, not just sporadically, an individual here and there, but in its entirety, as humanity.” I thought that was of interest. So the term transhumanism is a 20th century term that Bostrom traces back to the rise of modern science. The way I read things is that technology really began as an aid to spiritual perfection. The idea in its Christian roots was that we were aiming for salvation, and that technology was a way to further it, or perfect the life of the spirit. There has always been this openness of matter to the spirit, in which technology has developed. But after the black death, I think the conditions in Europe changed in that the prevalence of death also shifts the role of technology in culture and religion – instead of just being an aid to the spirit, it becomes, more or less, the hope that life will overcome, that we will transcend death. I think Bostrom short changes this role of technology in relation to religion.

Then, I look at transhumanism today. This is the work of Gerassi and others who say that technology today, especially Artificial Intelligence, has deep apocalyptic roots. The idea that technology will fulfill what religion promises seems to drive a lot of the Kurzweilian dream (we will download our minds, and become post-biological creatures, etc.). So coming from the late Middle Ages into the 20th century, I see two directions: One, transhumanism going toward the secular, the Kurzweilian religious dimensions, namely, that we can obtain through technology what religion promised. Second, I look at Teilhard, who I think was true to Huxley’s original definition, that transhumanism is not about individual perfection, but humanity as a whole. So Teilhard looks at the role of technology as the next step of evolution, not towards postbiological humanity, but towards ultra-humanity. The difference between these two directions is that the transhumanists today see a disconnecting or transcending of the biological into the post-biological, Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 181 whereas Teilhard sees it as the deepening of the biological; that is a fundamental difference between the two. Teilhard speaks of the next group of ultra-humanity as the sphere of New Genesis. The organic whole is maintained in the whole evolutionary process. I discuss that, and the value of Teilhard’s vision as a corrective of the transhumanism movement today. We need to refocus on the role of technology, religion, and culture, because I think ultimately without Teilhard and the Kurzweilian dream we end up in a downward slope of evolution, because it is not evolving into a greater complexity of the whole, but actually a disconnect of the whole. I use Teilhard to talk about the continuity, in the sense that New Genesis and the ultra-humanity is a deepening of organic evolution.

After you mentioned last time that it was too “Christofied,” I modified it by putting it into a broader discussion.

Teilhard was very insightful and prophetic. In 1949 Karl Jaspers writes the Origin and Goal of History, and the Axial period is articulated. In 1950, Teilhard is talking about the convergence of world religions – he is already in the second Axial period of thinking. He saw the value of what Artificial Intelligence could do for humanity on the whole. I do not know if it is his own deep religious roots that enabled him to look at technology and its value for the whole.

It is Christianity! What Teilhard sees is that the Christ for him comes through technology; technology is not something outside religion, or outside Christianity. Technology is precisely where Christianity will find its next level of life. He is incredibly insightful.

E: Let me say what I think are my concerns. For example, when you start with medieval technology, prior to the FIFTEEN HUNDREDS there is no single technological invention that moved from Europe to the East. We know that. And yet, something happens at that time. Until now, technological invention is all coming from Asia to Europe. In the FOURTEEN and FIFTEEN Hundreds this begins to change. A vision of human evolution that basically is totally western-centric is problematic and I would be careful not to try to anticipate convergence. There is the same danger with the secular humanist cosmopolitans who speak in the name of humanity without letting the different visions of humanity have a voice. A Christocentric vision should at least be careful not to anticipate convergence too early. What I want to say is that aspects of their work are simply technomagic, or using magical potions to solve things the way magic has always been used; or technoreligion, to give technical responses to aid the Axial religions to a transcendence beyond 182 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism human suffering, like technical immortality. Finally, the real question is technomind, human evolution as a reduction of mind to the rational, logical states that does not take seriously our other, mammal basis that we have as human. A child that is trained by a machine can be a machine, but not a human. We must deepen biology, not overcome it. So the project I have is to present the question of the theory of evolution that gets reduced to the logical, technological advances, which overcomes previous phases that cannot be overcome but only sublated. Nothing can be replaced; nothing can be forgotten from our mammal our primate and evolution.

S/T: Yes, that is great. First of all, Teilhard was skeptical of the Asian religions. He was in this way biased towards western Christianity, but when I hear people talk about convergence for Teilhard I do not think that he anticipated this blending together. Convergence for him is differentiation. It is the coming together that distinguishes the whole. So I see the convergence as a greater diversity – the unity is a greater diversity, if I could put it that way. That is one corrective. The second is that Teilhard realized that while science is very helpful toward evolving to a greater unity, he said this was not tête-à-tête but heart-to-heart. What he saw was the role of love, and the deepening of the Good in the whole evolutionary movement, through this convergence, realized through technology.

T1: I am thinking of the trinity, the three in one, and the one in three. Radically you have the each becoming more themselves, as the one become more one.

S/T: Yes, the Trinity is behind Teilhard’s vision.

T1: So convergence can seem like unanimity or uniformity, but really it is differentiation.

S/T: That is just opposite what Teilhard saw – the term he used was personality. It is personality that is emerging. The common center is personalities in a cosmic person, so you do not lose your personality, you find it! Which would mean personally, religiously, collectively.

What Teilhard saw was that the next stage of the New Genesis, or transhumanism, was a deepening of community. The idea is sort of like the World Wide Web today – Teilhard saw it as a deepening of community. It is not just human community, but an earth community – he saw it as more a cosmic community developing through technology, which would bind us together. Teilhard could only see so much in his Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 183 lifetime, and so he anticipated what he thought technology could do for us, a deepening of community, a deepening of love, a moving forward to a greater whole. Are we there, through technology, or are we moving there?

SP: The reason I asked the question about community, is because I found myself backing into an understanding of what we mean by community. Is transhumanism a communitarian movement?

S/T: Teilhard would have said yes.

E: From what I read though it is highly individualistic. Many of them are radical libertarians, but in general very individualistic.

SP: That is an interesting counter-poise with the Christian or, should I say, the religious experience.

S/T: Yes, I do think Teilhard was anticipating that there would be a deepening of community through technology.

S1: I am working pretty much with the same material. I have not changed the sense but I am trying to completely revise the way I approach the writing so that it is less a reporting on scientific fact, data, and information, and more of my experience.

S/T: Yes, you have to change sides of your brain. Your brain has to rewire.

E: The whole point is that science has to be embedded in our human emotions and aspirations. It cannot be self-reproducing; it needs this human bodily emotional substratum to survive.

SP: The critique coming from the viewpoint of spiritual theology was whether there are perennial concerns that challenge the idea that progress is unlimited, that we have to look at certain recurring areas of human exploration and human value. I center those on hospitality, in its widest meaning, friendship, suffering, and that fourth point that I call reorientation, namely, that after failure, or disappointment or collapse, there is a regathering of energies to move on. That trait of moving on is exemplified in resurrection. We do not really have a human experience of what it is to be alive fully: we are straining for it, but we do not have it. The reorientation of the risen Christ is not distracted by any recrimination of those who betrayed him or led him to trial, or crucified him; his reorientation is towards the way his message and his work will 184 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism continue to be carried on through the community of believers. What it really is is a summons to the continuation of this dedication through the followers. So the conciliation of the followers is to strengthen them in the ongoing mission, which continues; the whole orientation is towards a continuation. It is a methodology, and what it tends to do is to move the whole religious enterprise into the idea of the future, and not the past. What we are really talking about is a methodology of moving towards the future.

S1: Howard’s paper is familiar in that he is trying to draw the whole transhumanism experience into the spiritual exercises. This has helped me draw the whole idea of spirituality into my own advocacy.

S2: The World Transhumanism Society, and their forthcoming association magazine say, “We offer a new sensible, pragmatic voice for those who believe in individual freedom, and human progress.” They say that, “their purpose is to support discussion and public awareness of emerging technologies to defend the right of individuals in free and democratic societies to adopt technologies that expand human capacities, to anticipate and propose solutions for the potential consequences for emerging technologies, and to actively encourage the development of emerging technologies, judged to have sufficiently probably positive benefit.” Embedded in that is the transhumanist utopian perspective, but they have scaled it back a little and focused it a bit more.

This is about human betterment, and how we are going to go about human betterment. There are broadly accepted desirable goals such as decreasing disease, burden, poverty, hunger, injury, and increasing lifespan, freedom, education, and access to goods. No one necessarily disagrees with all of that. But looked at from my area of expertise, the area of genetic genomics, we have discovered intrinsic challenges in this endeavor that are not necessarily solved by the technology itself; in fact, they are exacerbated by the technology. I used the example, from last time, of large medical databases, cancer research, and the issues that come out of that. Namely, there is a tension between what we discover about how people’s lifestyles are problematic, and can engage their genetic susceptibility to developing tumors. This leads to some interesting tensions, namely, between getting this good of health care through this genetic technology that we all say we want, and yet the very solution is to have Draconian behavioral limitations on what people can eat, drink, smoke, where they can live and how they can live. Interestingly, the pursuit of this technology might in fact go directly against what the transhumanists say they are about – individual freedom. Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 185

If we follow where this technology takes us, it is really about conformity, about homogeneity.

SP: Does all engineering do that?

S2: That is what I am going to argue here: By offering technological solutions to human problems, what one does is really to limit the options that you have. You only have options that are amenable to technological solutions. So what I am arguing is that instead of expanding human freedom, they are limiting it, by proposing only the options that our technologies can solve.

So history provides ample evidence that technological advancement does not always conclude in human betterment. Taking this historical record into account, the most amazing aspect of a transhumanist agenda, such as Kurzweil’s singularity, where technology takes human kind so far beyond where it is now that we cannot even conceive of how things will be, is the singularity of his perspective. All human complexity and struggle is brought together in his one vision of what is best for human kind. Such narrowness not only ignores the lessons of history regarding the problems that technology has created, but also ignores the rich range of non-technological approaches to human betterment that have been developed as humankind has struggled to face the challenges of each era.

Taking that logic, let’s see what happens when we try to apply it to actual realities, again, in genomic research. I use the example of the Havasupai, to show that the technologists do not necessarily have the last word on what is good and what harms.

How to address this conflict between the technology and how to use it for human betterment? It could be paternalistic to bring indigenous communities in for a discussion, when all they need is antibiotics and clean water. But they want to be involved in discussions of cutting edge technologies, in addition to antibiotics, etc., so that 20 years from now they are not 20 years behind the curve. We need to have a dialogue with all of these peoples to learn what indeed betterment is, and not just assume this from technological perspective.

How is this to be done? First is the transhumanists are searching for broad human betterment, they need to have a similar requirement of broad human perspectives being included in any substantive dialogue on how to pursue shared transhumanist goals. 186 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism

Secondly, if the deliberations are intended to be comprehensive in scope not only technologists should have a say in what the concerns are. Reflections regarding transhumanist agendas might also be required to delve deeply into the potential and the limitations of any proposal for human betterment, especially as seen by groups who have experienced the failures of such purported human betterment programs in the past.

Finally, the committee work must be placed into the context of integrating the new technologies into the larger context of the societal goods of public health care. This larger framework can provide a heuristic within which various elements of the technologies can be interpreted and evaluated rather than merely being accepted as being desirable because they are new and interesting. Evaluation goes against the technological imperative. In other words we have to look at the past. So instead of technology it is human engagement that is the solution.

In contrast, the transhumanists want to dictate what the new utopia is going to be, and to have the opportunity to pursue what they think might be the possibilities or the options for this new way of being. “All we want is the freedom to be ourselves.”

S/T: What is interesting here is loss of the human person. These grand conversations submerge the human person and the contingencies of the human personhood here. Something is radically lost in these discussions and their sweeping anticipation of the freedom for human perfection.

T1: But grand schemes are what the Gospel is all about. The New Creation and the resurrection are grand even grandiose schemes. The problem is not the grandiosity of the aspiration of transhumanism, but the role of human ingenuity in getting from the morose present to the grand future. This bings in the politics of transhumanism which is a new factor in the interaction between the grandiosity of the Gospel and the capacities of the human to deliver the goods. What is the social imaginary about the relationship between the grandiose telos, and the scientific processes or technologies? That is a question we have not dealt with. What is the social imaginary that we bring to the issue of betterment? Obviously it will be both plural, and grandiose, and particular. We do not have the same self-sense as do Indians. What do you do with one group’s particularity and grandiosity, and another group’s particularity and grandiosity?

S2: There is going to be a plurality between the social imaginaries. But when one sits down to look at what this better human future will look like, it is in that diversity of details that the unity comes out. The point is Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 187 to understand from all of these perspectives whether we can gain a better sense of what we all consider to be the “good human future.” It will not be only the technological future, thereby deconstructing their construction.

E: The claim I would make is not about the limits of technology but about the social, and the biological human embeddedness of any technology. If you do not give a child love and human milk, it will not be a human being. If you build a supremely intelligent machine, and do not give it human milk and love, it will not be a human being. There is no community. You can teach a language that is a computer language but if there is no community with other human beings this language will be purely algorithms. Yes, we can have a technological revolution, but it abandons both the biological and the social.

S2: Technological transhumanists are stuck with whatever solutions technology can provide, whereas what currently is now desired by human beings is much much more. That is the limitation that I am talking about, not that technology cannot advance or that we could not create some super intelligent machine.

S/T: But what they are saying is that humanity is now information, so the whole idea of the basis of existence is no longer as before.

E: This is why it is so challenging, because they have taken as utopian what religions have basically given humanity as beyond the needs of human flourishing.

S2: My approach is to look not at the past but at what they say they want, namely, human betterment for all, so let’s look at how that actually cashes out practically and politically. Several examples in genetic genomic research were botched. In practice it does not work.

S/T: We are presuming we are talking about the same thing. We may be talking about biological life and they are not talking biological life, they are looking at life in terms of information.

T1: What I want to honor is the utopia of transhumanism. I want to honor that because utopia is always socially mediated. The issue is technology and the social mediation of it as utopia.

S2: Right, and I have already written on enhancement. My position on “enhancement” is that we have no idea what we mean by enhancement. People say that we are going to be smarter. And they say that means to 188 Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism have a higher IQ. And that higher IQs are going to be better. But the actual data is that people who have the highest IQs have a much higher tendency to have sociopathic tendencies, than “normal” intelligence. The same about photographic memories, and perfect pitch. For any enhancement that one can bring up neurologically there is no basis in reality for its necessarily being better.

S/T: This points to the deep rootedness in the human desire for perfection.

S2: As soon as one is able to step out of the human realm, one can claim anything. It creates a totally different reality, none of which has any basis in our current reality. This is called fantasy. It is important to return to the messy realm of the real.

T1: So what is the new good?

E: I consider to the human aspirations of transhumanists in three areas: Technomagic – the chemical or banal aspect of transhumanism: to be happy, healthy, to enhance; Technoreligion – taking what have been the axial age aspirations to transcend, and the fact that they take immortality and nirvana and give it a technological solution thinking that technology will give a solution to this transcendental human aspiration; and Technoevolution – the post human notion with an extremely narrow image of the human.

The fundamental problem of these technological utopias is that we say that we do not need any of these primitive foundations such as milk and babies. This is the fantasy, that you can produce perfect beings, without socialization! We cannot ever go beyond the mimetic – we had mimetic communication before we had language. And then we had narrative communities, and then rational communities. The dream of the enlightenment was that all we need is pure reason.

Here logos is reduced to technos – with the aim of completely freeing itself from philosophy and theology. The paradox I want to bring out is the paradox of globalization – whatever advancements we make are immediately appropriated. We are coming together for the first time because of technological innovation; this alone has made global conversation available. For the first time we are a global community and exchange conversation all the time. Just as the universalization of the enlightenment was problematic, this globalization too is problematic. There is no scientific definition of humanity – it has to be defined by us humans. Transcripts of Some Team Dialogues on Transhumanism 189

S/T: Had Christianity embraced modern science early on, would we be where we are now with transhumanism? If the church had accepted say evolution early on, would we find ourselves at this juncture in human evolution? A lot of this has a background in a medieval understanding of God, which by contrast gives transhumanism the impetus to go ahead in a secular way.

E: If natural evolution is about communities, we have not changed fundamentally. Ultimately, are we aiming to have a single global civilization? Because we are talking about the future of humanity and having a global community.

(Edited by G.F. McLean)

CONTRIBUTORS

Gennaro Auletta is Associate Professor at the Gregorian University, and Scientific Director of the “STOQ Project” (Science, Technology and the Ontological Quest). He is currently at Cambridge University as an associate of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. His bachelor’s degree, PhD and Postdoctoral work in Philosophy are all from La Sapienza University in Rome. His philosophical interests are logic, philosophy of nature (with special connections with quantum mechanics and biology), philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. His main scientific interests are in quantum mechanics (quantum information, foundations, interpretation). For the last ten years his research interests have addressed issues in the treatment of information in biological systems (from bacteria to human brain), in cognitive neurosciences. His writing and research have appeared in numerous scientific journals in Europe, the United States and Asia. Ana Bazac, Professor of philosophy at Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania. PhD in philosophy at the University of Bucharest. Research and teaching interests: epistemology and ontology, social philosophy, ethics, philosophy of science and technology (and, obviously, history of ideas). She is deputy editor (philosophy) of Noema (http://noema.crifst.ro/) and vice-president of the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Romanian Academy. Her last book was an edited book The Duty: multidisciplinary view (2012). Ilia Delio, a member of the Franciscan order, holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Fordham University. Prior to becoming a Woodstock Senior Research Fellow in 2010, she was Chair of the Department of Spirituality Studies at the Washington Theological Union (with a special interest in Franciscan Studies). Her current research interests in the field of science and religion include divine action, emergence, evolutionary theory, and artificial intelligence. She has served on the Board of Directors of Metanexus, the Advisory Board of AAAS-DoSER (Dialogue on Sciences Ethics and Religion), and the editorial board of New Theology Review. Her recent books include Living in the Spirit of St. Francis (2011), The Emergent Christ (2011), Christ in Evolution (2008), and Clare of Assisi (2007). Kevin Fitzgerald, a Jesuit, who holds dual doctorates in Molecular Genetics and Bioethics from Georgetown University. He holds the David Lauler Chair for Catholic Health Care Ethics at the Georgetown University Medical Center's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center where he is a Research Associate Professor in the 192 Contributors

Division of Biochemistry and Pharmacology of the Department of Oncology. Prior to coming to Georgetown he spent 3 1/2 years working with the Oglala Lakota at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. His research interests have included the investigation of abnormal gene regulation in cancer and ethical issues in human genetics, including the ethical and social ramifications of molecular genetics research. He serves as a member of the Center for Clinical Bioethics, the Advisory Board for the Center for Infectious Disease (CID), and the Angiogenesis, Invasion, Metastasis Program at GUMC's Lombardi Cancer Center. He is an expert on human cloning, cloning research, ethics of cloning, and genetic testing, and has many published articles on those subjects. Howard J. Gray, a Jesuit Assistant to the President for Special Projects at Georgetown University. Before assuming the position at Georgetown, he served the Jesuit order in a number of its leadership positions. Through his writing and lecturing on Ignatian spirituality, he has been instrumental in fostering a personalized approach to the Spiritual Exercises, and has been directing retreats around the world. He has made retreats accessible with his audio recording A Jesuit Retreat with Howard Gray, SJ – a set of 5 CDs. With his knowledge of Jesuit spirituality, he also assists a number of the boards of Jesuit universities. He holds a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin, and licentiates in philosophy and theology from Loyola University of Chicago. He has received several honorary degrees. John C. Haughey, a Jesuit senior research fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. He created and coordinates Woodstock’s Transhumanism Project and the Catholic Higher Education Project. By an appointment of the Vatican's Council on Christian Unity he served as member of its international dialogues with Pentecostalism and World Evangelical Alliance for 13 years. Fr. Haughey also served as Associate and Corresponding Editor for America magazine. He has taught theology and religion at Georgetown University and Fordham University, has had chairs at Seton Hall University, John Carroll University, and Marquette University, and was a professor of Christian ethics at Loyola University Chicago. His Doctorate in Sacred Theology is from Catholic University. He received the Monika K. Hellwig Award for outstanding contributions to Catholic intellectual life in 2007. His most recent books include Where Is Knowing Going? Horizons of the Knowing Subject (2009), and In Search of the Whole: 12 Essays on Faith and Academic Life (2011). In 20009 he received The Catholic Press Association’s award for his book Where is Knowing Going? John F. Haught is a Senior Fellow in Science & Religion, at the Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University. He was Contributors 193 formerly Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University (1970-2005) and Chair (1990-95). He earned his Ph.D at Catholic University. His area of specialization is systematic theology, with a particular interest in a number of issues pertaining to science, cosmology, evolution, ecology, and religion. His lectures to many audiences are on such topics as: Issues in Science and Religion, Science, Faith, the New Atheism, Evolution, Cosmic Purpose, Einstein, the Origin of Life, Scientific Naturalism, Galileo. Some of his recent books include: Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God and the Drama of Life, God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (which has been translated into Italian, Dutch and Vietnamese), Christianity and Science: Toward a Theology of Nature (translated into Spanish and Portuguese), and Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science. Nancy C. Tuchman is Vice Provost and a Professor of Biology at Loyola University, Chicago. She has a Ph.D. in Aquatic Ecology from the University of Louisville in Kentucky. She is the founder and director of the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy (CUERP) at Loyola. It seeks to raise public awareness of the unsustainable consumption of our Earth’s natural resources with the goal of transforming behavior, developing policy, and inspiring and preparing next generation environmental leaders. Tuchman’s research focuses on human impacts on aquatic ecosystem structure and function. Some of her work: investigating the effects of greenhouse gases on stream ecosystem food webs; the impacts of invasive plant and animal species on Great Lakes coastal ecosystems; the effects of emerging contaminants such as plasticizers on streams and lakes. Her numerous publications are in biological journals. (Assisting Tuchman in this chapter was Michael J. Schuck, who is an Associate Professor in Theology at Loyola University of Chicago Department of Theology, and the Director of the Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola. He earned his Ph.D. at University of Chicago Divinity School).

INDEX

A Chardin, 4, 9, 14, 15, 79, 80, 83, 87-96, 154, 163 abandonment, 14, 60, 103, 106, chemistry, 17, 175, 176 153 Christianity, 11, 81-82, 92, 140, Abraham, 20, 100, 138, 144 162, 175, 183, 184, 191 anthropocentrism, 4, 150 civilization, 30, 31, 33, 39, 41, 42 anthropology, 15, 52, 54, 158 cognitive, 17, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49 anthropos, 142, 174 commitment, 56, 75, 105, 116, anticipatory, 3, 18, 21 121-125, 128, 165-166, 170 Aquinas, 61, 130 communication, 43, 59, 91, 105, Aristotle, 25, 28, 45, 82 159, 190 Arrupe, 122 communitarian, 57, 70, 185 artificial intelligence, 9, 66, 83-84, community, 30, 41 134, 153 conscience, 23-30, 33, 36, 41-42 astronomy, 11, 21, 136 consciousness, 18, 20, 43, 47, 88, Auletta, 4, 3, 46-51, 54-55, 58, 59, 91-97, 103, 122, 131, 136, 148, 62 153-154, 157, 162, 179 autonomy, viii, 2, 34, 70, 86, 105, convergence, 57, 88-90, 93-97, 171, 176, 179 154, 163, 183-184 cosmology, 11, 16, 21, 82, 136- B 138, 146 cosmos, 12, 14, 18, 20-22, 81, 88, Bacon, 35, 81, 82 130, 137, 142, 163, 174, 181 Barr, 134 creation, 9-16, 20, 50, 61-62, 69, beauty, 100-101, 124, 134-135, 87, 93, 109, 110, 112, 125, 130, 178 137, 139, 141-146, 166 Beck, 31 culture, 3, 43, 53-60, 68, 87, 154, Berry, 13, 82, 121, 123 157-159, 164, 166, 169, 172, Bible, 10, 20, 137 182, 183 biology, 9, 11, 16-17, 21, 54-55, 87, 91, 127, 175, 184, 191 D birth, 5, 47, 90 Black Plague, 82-83 Damasio, 48 Danchin, A., 47 Bloom, 104 Darwin, 9, 12, 21, 47, 90 Bostrom, 1, 44-45, 48-53, 79, 80- death, 42, 48, 53, 79, 80, 82-87, 92, 83, 99, 162, 169, 182 97, 100, 104, 107, 109-111, Burrell, 105 115, 121, 138, 140-141, 144- 145, 153, 162, 164, 175, 181- C 182 Derrida, 25 capability, 44-50, 55, 57, 60, 62, Descartes, 24, 36 157 destiny, 1, 11-12, 79, 87, 92-93, Catholic Church, 61, 175 112, 132, 138, 142, 154 196 Index determinism, 16, 134 G dignity, 14-15, 20, 24, 69, 118 divine, 10-13, 19-20, 31, 62, 102, generosity, 4, 110 108, 110-111, 142, 148, 166, genomic, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 175 76, 77, 187, 189 DNA, 68, 71 geocentrism, 131, 134 dualism, 17, 60, 85, 86 geology, 11 gift, 13, 15, 106, 110, 136, 164 E globalization, 60, 61, 96, 190 Grosseteste, 81, 82 earth, 4, 12, 14, 21, 60-61, 82, 86- Grumett, 80, 88 87, 90-96, 100-101, 115-130, 135-140, 146, 153, 157, 173, H 184 ecology, 59, 127, 161-162, 169, Habermas, 3, 26, 34 176 Hague, 15, 90, 95 Edelman, 47 harmony, 35, 105, 110 education, 22, 38, 57, 68, 76, 102, Havasupai, 4, 71-72, 75, 187 104, 120, 124-128, 169, 170, healthcare, 68-77 186 heaven, 60-61, 82, 96, 137-142, Einstein, 12, 21, 129, 130, 143 146, 172, 175, 181 elitism, 170, 172 Hefner, 95, 153, 154 emotional, 48, 106-107, 185 Heidegger, 26, 35-36, 84, 177 environment, 27-28, 35 Henry, 29 envy, 105, 110 Herzfeld, 84 eschatology, 20, 149, 182 history, 12-15, 20, 44, 57, 60, 66, Esfandiari, 80 68-69, 71, 77, 79-80, 84, 89, 93, ethics, 121-122 102, 129, 133-135, 140-141, evolution, 9, 11-15, 18-19, 44, 66, 149, 153, 162, 187 79, 80, 85, 87-97, 115, 153-154, hope, 9-10, 12, 18, 20-22, 51, 75, 162-163, 178, 181-183, 191 91, 106, 108, 112, 115, 129, 133, 136, 137, 182 F Hopkins, 136 hospitality, 4, 99, 102, 103, 104, Faceboook, 166 106, 108, 110, 111, 142, 164, faith, 4, 10-11, 20, 89, 108, 112, 165, 166, 179, 181, 185 122, 129, 131, 136, 137, 143- human body, 43, 44, 61, 158 151, 180 human nature, 9, 14, 29, 44, 79-80, family, 36, 40, 69, 74-75, 100, 104, 158, 162 111-112 human rights, 41 Fitzgerald, 4, 3 humanism, 25, 42 forgiveness, 101-102, 110-111, 159 humanity, 2, 10-14, 19, 21, 25, 30, freedom, 18, 20, 36, 68, 70, 74-75, 39, 52-53, 62, 65-66, 79-80, 87- 99, 105-106, 146, 162, 169-170, 90, 93-97, 103, 111-112, 121, 178-179, 186-188 125, 136, 154, 159, 161-163, friendship, 4, 99, 102-111, 164- 168, 182-183, 189-191 166, 185 Huxley, 79, 80, 83, 88, 97, 162- 163, 182 Index 197

I Kurzweil, 1, 71, 84-85, 88, 95, 187 ideology, 32 L ignorance, 130, 132, 146, 147 imagination, 12, 56, 100, 103, 133, language, 22, 25, 65, 94, 101, 110, 138 154, 170, 176-177, 180, 189- immanent, 2 190 immortality, 1, 3, 36, 51, 82, 97, Lazarus, 107, 138 131, 163, 184, 190 liberation, 3, 10-11, 14-15, 20-21, Incarnation, 81, 148 81, 122 individuality, 108, 171 Library, 3 infinity, 55, 131 lifespan, 48, 58, 68, 186 information, 9, 21, 29, 41, 46, 50, lifestyle, 80, 124 54-55, 66, 69, 76, 83, 85, 92, literature, 31, 39, 40 97, 124, 134, 143-144, 154, Logos, 141, 145 164-170, 185, 189 loneliness, 106, 108, 111 injustice, 110, 122 Lonergan, 19, 135, 168 integration, 3, 46-48, 52, 58-59, 76, love, 12, 18, 75, 94-97, 100-101, 101, 132, 142, 169, 178 104-106, 110, 112, 136-137, intelligence, 1, 17-18, 43, 47, 71, 154, 165-166, 184-185, 189 83, 93, 134-135, 143, 190 Loyola, 4, 99, 102, 109-111, 116, intelligent, 19, 52, 66, 83, 85, 93, 122, 124, 126-127, 166, 171 168, 189 intelligibility, 56, 132 M intentionality, 34 intentions, 50, 67, 74, 133 Marion, 34 internet, 30 Marx, 30, 40 isolation, 107-108 mechanism, 40, 47, 54, 92 mentality, 83, 97 J mercy, 104, 109-110 metaphor, 25, 36, 82, 176, 178 Jackson, 33 metaphysics, 133, 161, 174, 179 jealousy, 105, 110 migration, 72, 96, 117 Jesus, 60, 100, 102, 104-108, 110- Mill, 36 112, 121-122, 126, 128, 138- Mitcham, 84 150, 169, 178 modernity, 31, 34 justice, 10, 15, 81, 143, 161, 169 mortality, 2, 85, 133

K N

Kenny, 91, 94, 96 naturalism, 148, 151 knowledge, 2, 13, 17, 18, 25, 32, Theory of Neuronal Group 39, 43, 56, 59, 68, 80, 82, 94, Selection, 47 100, 115, 121-122, 125-126, neutrality, 32 129, 130-137, 143-146, 150- Newman, 56 151, 157, 167-168, 170-171, Newton, 130, 132, 176 176 Nicholas, 166 Kuhn, 27 noogenesis, 91, 96, 163 198 Index noosphere, 90-95, 163 responsibility, 30-31, 41, 61, 104, 124-125, 143, 158-159, 167-171 O resurrection, 3, 60, 109, 139-142, 148, 150, 164, 166, 175, 185, ontology, 18, 25-26, 31, 60, 148, 188 180-181 openness, 14, 62, 79, 81, 88, 97, S 103, 105, 122-123, 150, 162, 171, 182 Salk, 168 organism, 17, 22, 45-46, 49-59, 66, Samaritan, 102-104, 143 91-94, 125, 154, 171, 176 Sandberg, A., 49 orientation, 165, 186 Schrödinger, 58, 62 otherness, 136, 165, 171, 178 science, 1, 9, 11-12, 17-24, 27, 31, 33, 38, 40-41, 54, 60, 65-71, 74- P 75, 79-84, 91, 94, 99, 124, 135- 137, 143-146, 151, 153-154, Panikkar, 142, 161, 174 158, 161-162, 168, 170, 172, personhood, 3, 144, 153, 180, 188 174, 180, 182-185, 190-191 pessimism, 23, 39 Searle, 50 pharmacology, 1 secular, 182-183, 191 phenomenology, 25 signs, 39 physics, 4, 17, 82, 129, 131-139, singularity, 23-42 142-143, 148, 150, 172-175 solidarity, 9, 104, 107-108, 111- Plato, 35 112, 122 Polanyi, 16, 17 soul, 85, 95, 99-104, 109, 139, 150, population, 10, 58, 89, 116-121, 163 124, 128 space/time, 129-133, 136-137, 139- posthuman, 51-53, 86, 92, 95, 153, 144, 147-150 157 species, 9, 14-15, 47, 52, 54, 58- prayer, 81, 110, 112, 149, 150, 175 60, 79, 85, 90, 93, 106, 115, psychology, 26 127, 129, 141, 162, 182 spirituality, 94, 101, 109, 170, 186 Q subjectivity, 18-22, 30, 36, 99, 131, 151, 153, 166, 171, 178-180 quantum, 134, 148 subsidiary, 16 suffering, 4, 38-39, 42, 44, 71, 79- R 80, 83, 86-87, 97, 99, 102, 106- 108, 110-112, 121, 163-166, Rahner, 62, 178 181, 184-185 reconciliation, 108, 110-111, 125, survival, 13, 17, 46, 86, 90, 119 166 symbol, 4, 50, 103, 157, 181 relationality, 20, 68, 74-75, 148, synapse, 47 170-172, 178-181 relationships, 74-75, 87, 92, 97, T 106, 155, 166, 172, 178 religion, 1, 80-84, 95-97, 112, 135, Taylor, 4, 29 139, 150, 153-154, 163, 178, technology, 1-2, 10, 13, 15, 23, 26- 180-183 28, 31, 33-34, 38, 40-43, 51, 57, Index 199

60, 65-75, 79-88, 91-100, 115, U 120, 146, 153-154, 157-158, 161-168, 170-172, 179, 182-190 unification, 27 Teilhard, 4, 9, 14, 15, 79, 80, 83, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, V 95, 96, 97, 154, 161, 162, 163, 164, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185 victim, 103-104, 161 theology, 10-16, 20-21, 54, 82, violence, 110, 135, 163 102, 129, 133-136, 150, 174- virtual reality, 84, 167 175, 180-181, 185, 190 vitality, viii, 16-22, 88, 153, 178- theos, 142, 174 180 torrance, 148-149 tradition, 10, 11, 59, 99, 102, 104- W 105, 109, 118, 128, 149, 165 transcendence, 2, 4, 13, 57, 62, 71, Wertheim, 85 99-102, 108, 135, 143, 145, World Transhumanist Association, 153, 155, 177, 183 1, 44, 65, 129, 157, 170 transhumanism, passim Wright, 11, 60-61, 138, 146-147 truth, 53, 86, 111, 141, 143

THE COUNCIL FOR RESEARCH IN VALUES AND PHILOSOPHY

PURPOSE

Today there is urgent need to attend to the nature and dignity of the person, to the quality of human life, to the purpose and goal of the physical transformation of our environment, and to the relation of all this to the development of social and political life. This, in turn, requires philosophic clarification of the base upon which freedom is exercised, that is, of the values which provide stability and guidance to one’s decisions. Such studies must be able to reach deeply into one’s culture and that of other parts of the world as mutually reinforcing and enriching in order to uncover the roots of the dignity of persons and of their societies. They must be able to identify the conceptual forms in terms of which modern industrial and technological developments are structured and how these impact upon human self-understanding. Above all, they must be able to bring these elements together in the creative understanding essential for setting our goals and determining our modes of interaction. In the present complex global circumstances this is a condition for growing together with trust and justice, honest dedication and mutual concern. The Council for Studies in Values and Philosophy (RVP) unites scholars who share these concerns and are interested in the application thereto of existing capabilities in the field of philosophy and other disciplines. Its work is to identify areas in which study is needed, the intellectual resources which can be brought to bear thereupon, and the means for publication and interchange of the work from the various regions of the world. In bringing these together its goal is scientific discovery and publication which contributes to the present promotion of humankind. In sum, our times present both the need and the opportunity for deeper and ever more progressive understanding of the person and of the foundations of social life. The development of such understanding is the goal of the RVP.

PROJECTS

A set of related research efforts is currently in process: 1. Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change: Philosophical Foundations for Social Life. Focused, mutually coordinated research teams in university centers prepare volumes as part of an integrated philosophic search for self-understanding differentiated by culture and civilization. These evolve more adequate understandings of the person in society and look to the cultural heritage of each for the resources to respond to the challenges of its own specific contemporary transformation. 202 Publications

2. Seminars on Culture and Contemporary Issues. This series of 10 week crosscultural and interdisciplinary seminars is coordinated by the RVP in Washington. 3. Joint-Colloquia with Institutes of Philosophy of the National Academies of Science, university philosophy departments, and societies. Underway since 1976 in Eastern Europe and, since 1987, in China, these concern the person in contemporary society. 4. Foundations of Moral Education and Character Development. A study in values and education which unites philosophers, psychologists, social scientists and scholars in education in the elaboration of ways of enriching the moral content of education and character development. This work has been underway since 1980. The personnel for these projects consists of established scholars willing to contribute their time and research as part of their professional commitment to life in contemporary society. For resources to implement this work the Council, as 501 C3 a non-profit organization incorporated in the District of Colombia, looks to various private foundations, public programs and enterprises.

PUBLICATIONS ON CULTURAL HERITAGE AND CONTEMPO- RARY CHANGE

Series I. Culture and Values Series II. African Philosophical Studies Series IIA. Islamic Philosophical Studies Series III. Asian Philosophical Studies Series IV. Western European Philosophical Studies Series IVA. Central and Eastern European Philosophical Studies Series V. Latin American Philosophical Studies Series VI. Foundations of Moral Education Series VII. Seminars: Culture and Values Series VIII. Christian Philosophical Studies

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CULTURAL HERITAGE AND CONTEMPORARY CHANGE

Series I. Culture and Values

I.1 Research on Culture and Values: Intersection of Universities, Churches and Nations. George F. McLean, ed. ISBN 0819173533 (paper); 081917352-5 (cloth). I.2 The Knowledge of Values: A Methodological Introduction to the Study of Values; A. Lopez Quintas, ed. ISBN 081917419x (paper); 0819174181 (cloth). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 203

I.3 Reading Philosophy for the XXIst Century. George F. McLean, ed. ISBN 0819174157 (paper); 0819174149 (cloth). I.4 Relations between Cultures. John A. Kromkowski, ed. ISBN 1565180089 (paper); 1565180097 (cloth). I.5 Urbanization and Values. John A. Kromkowski, ed. ISBN 1565180100 (paper); 1565180119 (cloth). I.6 The Place of the Person in Social Life. Paul Peachey and John A. Krom- kowski, eds. ISBN 1565180127 (paper); 156518013-5 (cloth). I.7 Abrahamic Faiths, Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflicts. Paul Peachey, George F. McLean and John A. Kromkowski, eds. ISBN 1565181042 (paper). I.8 Ancient Western Philosophy: The Hellenic Emergence. George F. McLean and Patrick J. Aspell, eds. ISBN 156518100X (paper). I.9 Medieval Western Philosophy: The European Emergence. Patrick J. Aspell, ed. ISBN 1565180941 (paper). I.10 The Ethical Implications of Unity and the Divine in Nicholas of Cusa. David L. De Leonardis. ISBN 1565181123 (paper). I.11 Ethics at the Crossroads: 1.Normative Ethics and Objective Reason. George F. McLean, ed. ISBN 1565180224 (paper). I.12 Ethics at the Crossroads: 2. Personalist Ethics and Human Subjectivity. George F. McLean, ed. ISBN 1565180240 (paper). I.13 The Emancipative Theory of Jürgen Habermas and Metaphysics. Robert Badillo. ISBN 1565180429 (paper); 1565180437 (cloth). I.14 The Deficient Cause of Moral Evil According to Thomas Aquinas. Edward Cook. ISBN 1565180704 (paper). I.15 Human Love: Its Meaning and Scope, a Phenomenology of Gift and Encounter. Alfonso Lopez Quintas. ISBN 1565180747 (paper). I.16 Civil Society and Social Reconstruction. George F. McLean, ed. ISBN 1565180860 (paper). I.17 Ways to God, Personal and Social at the Turn of Millennia: The Iqbal Lecture, Lahore.George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181239 (paper). I.18 The Role of the Sublime in Kant’s Moral Metaphysics. John R. Goodreau. ISBN 1565181247 (paper). I.19 Philosophical Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization. Oliva Blanchette, Tomonobu Imamichi and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565181298 (paper). I.20 Faith, Reason and Philosophy: Lectures at The al-Azhar, Qom, Tehran, Lahore and Beijing; Appendix: The Encyclical Letter: Fides et Ratio. George F. McLean. ISBN 156518130 (paper). I.21 Religion and the Relation between Civilizations: Lectures on Cooperation between Islamic and Christian Cultures in a Global Horizon. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181522 (paper). I.22 Freedom, Cultural Traditions and Progress: Philosophy in Civil Society and Nation Building, Tashkent Lectures, 1999. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181514 (paper). 204 Publications

I.23 Ecology of Knowledge. Jerzy A. Wojciechowski. ISBN 1565181581 (paper). I.24 God and the Challenge of Evil: A Critical Examination of Some Serious Objections to the Good and Omnipotent God. John L. Yardan. ISBN 1565181603 (paper). I.25 Reason, Rationality and Reasonableness, Vietnamese Philosophical Studies, I. Tran Van Doan. ISBN 1565181662 (paper). I.26 The Culture of Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture. Thomas Bridges. ISBN 1565181689 (paper). I.27 The Historicity of Understanding and the Problem of Relativism in Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics. Osman Bilen. ISBN 1565181670 (paper). I.28 Speaking of God. Carlo Huber. ISBN 1565181697 (paper). I.29 Persons, Peoples and Cultures in a Global Age: Metaphysical Bases for Peace between Civilizations. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181875 (paper). I.30 Hermeneutics, Tradition and Contemporary Change: Lectures in Chennai/Madras, India. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181883 (paper). I.31 Husserl and Stein. Richard Feist and William Sweet, eds. ISBN 1565181948 (paper). I.32 Paul Hanly Furfey’s Quest for a Good Society. Bronislaw Misztal, Francesco Villa, and Eric Sean Williams, eds. ISBN 1565182278 (paper). I.33 Three Theories of Society. Paul Hanly Furfey. ISBN 9781565182288 (paper). I.34 Building Peace in Civil Society: An Autobiographical Report from a Believers’ Church. Paul Peachey. ISBN 9781565182325 (paper). I.35 Karol Wojtyla's Philosophical Legacy. Agnes B. Curry, Nancy Mardas and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 9781565182479 (paper). I.36 Kantian Form and Phenomenological Force: Kant’s Imperatives and the Directives of Contemporary Phenomenology. Randolph C. Wheeler. ISBN 9781565182547 (paper). I.37 Beyond Modernity: The Recovery of Person and Community in Global Times: Lectures in China and Vietnam. George F. McLean. ISBN 9781565182578 (paper) I. 38 Religion and Culture. George F. McLean. ISBN 9781565182561 (paper). I.39 The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: Global Perspective. William Sweet, George F. McLean, Tomonobu Imamichi, Safak Ural, O. Faruk Akyol, eds. ISBN 9781565182585 (paper). I.40 Unity and Harmony, Love and Compassion in Global Times. George F. McLean. ISBN 9781565182592 (paper). I.41 Intercultural Dialogue and Human Rights. Luigi Bonanate, Roberto Papini and William Sweet, eds. ISBN 9781565182714 (paper). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 205

I.42 Philosophy Emerging from Culture. William Sweet, George F. McLean, Oliva Blanchette, Wonbin Park, eds. ISBN 9781565182851 (paper). I.43 Whence Intelligibility? Louis Perron, ed. ISBN 9781565182905 (paper).

Series II. African Philosophical Studies

II.1 Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies: I. Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye, eds. ISBN 1565180046 (paper); 1565180054 (cloth). II.2 The Foundations of Social Life: Ugandan Philosophical Studies: I. A.T. Dalfovo, ed. ISBN 1565180062 (paper); 156518007-0 (cloth). II.3 Identity and Change in Nigeria: Nigerian Philosophical Studies, I. Theophilus Okere, ed. ISBN 1565180682 (paper). II.4 Social Reconstruction in Africa: Ugandan Philosophical studies, II. E. Wamala, A.R. Byaruhanga, A.T. Dalfovo, J.K. Kigongo, S.A. Mwanahewa and G. Tusabe, eds. ISBN 1565181182 (paper). II.5 Ghana: Changing Values/Changing Technologies: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, II. Helen Lauer, ed. ISBN 1565181441 (paper). II.6 Sameness and Difference: Problems and Potentials in South African Civil Society: South African Philosophical Studies, I. James R.Cochrane and Bastienne Klein, eds. ISBN 1565181557 (paper). II.7 Protest and Engagement: Philosophy after Apartheid at an Historically Black South African University: South African Philosophical Studies, II. Patrick Giddy, ed. ISBN 1565181638 (paper). II.8 Ethics, Human Rights and Development in Africa: Ugandan Philosophical Studies, III. A.T. Dalfovo, J.K. Kigongo, J. Kisekka, G. Tusabe, E. Wamala, R. Munyonyo, A.B. Rukooko, A.B.T. Byaruhanga-akiiki, and M. Mawa, eds. ISBN 1565181727 (paper). II.9 Beyond Cultures: Perceiving a Common Humanity: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, III. Kwame Gyekye. ISBN 156518193X (paper). II.10 Social and Religious Concerns of East African: A Wajibu Anthology: Kenyan Philosophical Studies, I. Gerald J. Wanjohi and G. Wakuraya Wanjohi, eds. ISBN 1565182219 (paper). II.11 The Idea of an African University: The Nigerian Experience: Nigerian Philosophical Studies, II. Joseph Kenny, ed. ISBN 9781565182301 (paper). II.12 The Struggles after the Struggle: Zimbabwean Philosophical Study, I. David Kaulemu, ed. ISBN 9781565182318 (paper). II.13 Indigenous and Modern Environmental Ethics: A Study of the Indigenous Oromo Environmental Ethic and Modern Issues of Environment and Development: Ethiopian Philosophical Studies, I. Workineh Kelbessa. ISBN 9781565182530 (paper). 206 Publications

II.14 African Philosophy and the Future of Africa: South African Philosophical Studies, III. Gerard Walmsley, ed. ISMB 9781565182707 (paper). II.15 Philosophy in Ethiopia: African Philosophy Today, I: Ethiopian Philosophical Studies, II. Bekele Gutema and Charles C. Verharen, eds. ISBN 9781565182790 (paper). II.16 The Idea of a Nigerian University: A Revisited: Nigerian Philosophical Studies, III. Olatunji Oyeshile and Joseph Kenny, eds. ISBN 9781565182776 (paper).

Series IIA. Islamic Philosophical Studies

IIA.1 Islam and the Political Order. Muhammad Saïd al-Ashmawy. ISBN ISBN 156518047X (paper); 156518046-1 (cloth). IIA.2 Al-Ghazali Deliverance from Error and Mystical Union with the Almighty: Al-munqidh Min al-Dadāl. Critical Arabic edition and English translation by Muhammad Abulaylah and Nurshif Abdul- Rahim Rifat; Introduction and notes by George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181530 (Arabic-English edition, paper), ISBN 1565180828 (Arabic edition, paper), ISBN 156518081X (English edition, paper) IIA.3 Philosophy in Pakistan. Naeem Ahmad, ed. ISBN 1565181085 (paper). IIA.4 The Authenticity of the Text in Hermeneutics. Seyed Musa Dibadj. ISBN 1565181174 (paper). IIA.5 Interpretation and the Problem of the Intention of the Author: H.-G. Gadamer vs E.D. Hirsch. Burhanettin Tatar. ISBN 156518121 (paper). IIA.6 Ways to God, Personal and Social at the Turn of Millennia: The Iqbal Lectures, Lahore. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181239 (paper). IIA.7 Faith, Reason and Philosophy: Lectures at Al-Azhar University, Qom, Tehran, Lahore and Beijing; Appendix: The Encyclical Letter: Fides et Ratio. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181301 (paper). IIA.8 Islamic and Christian Cultures: Conflict or Dialogue: Bulgarian Philosophical Studies, III. Plament Makariev, ed. ISBN 156518162X (paper). IIA.9 Values of Islamic Culture and the Experience of History, Russian Philosophical Studies, I. Nur Kirabaev, Yuriy Pochta, eds. ISBN 1565181336 (paper). IIA.10 Christian-Islamic Preambles of Faith. Joseph Kenny. ISBN 1565181387 (paper). IIA.11 The Historicity of Understanding and the Problem of Relativism in Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics. Osman Bilen. ISBN 1565181670 (paper). IIA.12 Religion and the Relation between Civilizations: Lectures on Cooperation between Islamic and Christian Cultures in a Global Horizon. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181522 (paper). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 207

IIA.13 Modern Western Christian Theological Understandings of Muslims since the Second Vatican Council. Mahmut Aydin. ISBN 1565181719 (paper). IIA.14 Philosophy of the Muslim World; Authors and Principal Themes. Joseph Kenny. ISBN 1565181794 (paper). IIA.15 Islam and Its Quest for Peace: Jihad, Justice and Education. Mustafa Köylü. ISBN 1565181808 (paper). IIA.16 Islamic Thought on the Existence of God: Contributions and Contrasts with Contemporary Western Philosophy of Religion. Cafer S. Yaran. ISBN 1565181921 (paper). IIA.17 Hermeneutics, Faith, and Relations between Cultures: Lectures in Qom, Iran. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181913 (paper). IIA.18 Change and Essence: Dialectical Relations between Change and Continuity in the Turkish Intellectual Tradition. Sinasi Gunduz and Cafer S. Yaran, eds. ISBN 1565182227 (paper). IIA. 19 Understanding Other Religions: Al-Biruni and Gadamer’s “Fusion of Horizons”. Kemal Ataman. ISBN 9781565182523 (paper).

Series III. Asian Philosophical Studies

III.1 Man and Nature: Chinese Philosophical Studies, I. Tang Yi-jie and Li Zhen, eds. ISBN 0819174130 (paper); 0819174122 (cloth). III.2 Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Develop- ment: Chinese Philosophical Studies, II. Tran van Doan, ed. ISBN 1565180321 (paper); 156518033X (cloth). III.3 Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Chinese Culture: Chinese Philosophical Studies, III. Tang Yijie. ISBN 1565180348 (paper); 156518035-6 (cloth). III.4 Morality, Metaphysics and Chinese Culture (Metaphysics, Culture and Morality, I). Vincent Shen and Tran van Doan, eds. ISBN 1565180275 (paper); 156518026-7 (cloth). III.5 Tradition, Harmony and Transcendence. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565180313 (paper); 156518030-5 (cloth). III.6 Psychology, Phenomenology and Chinese Philosophy: Chinese Philosophical Studies, VI. Vincent Shen, Richard Knowles and Tran Van Doan, eds. ISBN 1565180453 (paper); 1565180445 (cloth). III.7 Values in Philippine Culture and Education: Philippine Philosophical Studies, I. Manuel B. Dy, Jr., ed. ISBN 1565180412 (paper); 156518040-2 (cloth). III.7A The Human Person and Society: Chinese Philosophical Studies, VIIA. Zhu Dasheng, Jin Xiping and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565180887. III.8 The Filipino Mind: Philippine Philosophical Studies II. Leonardo N. Mercado. ISBN 156518064X (paper); 156518063-1 (cloth). 208 Publications

III.9 Philosophy of Science and Education: Chinese Philosophical Studies IX. Vincent Shen and Tran Van Doan, eds. ISBN 1565180763 (paper); 156518075-5 (cloth). III.10 Chinese Cultural Traditions and Modernization: Chinese Philosophical Studies, X. Wang Miaoyang, Yu Xuanmeng and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565180682 (paper). III.11 The Humanization of Technology and Chinese Culture: Chinese Philosophical Studies XI. Tomonobu Imamichi, Wang Miaoyang and Liu Fangtong, eds. ISBN 1565181166 (paper). III.12 Beyond Modernization: Chinese Roots of Global Awareness: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XII. Wang Miaoyang, Yu Xuanmeng and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565180909 (paper). III.13 Philosophy and Modernization in China: Chinese Philosophical Studies XIII. Liu Fangtong, Huang Songjie and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565180666 (paper). III.14 Economic Ethics and Chinese Culture: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XIV. Yu Xuanmeng, Lu Xiaohe, Liu Fangtong, Zhang Rulun and Georges Enderle, eds. ISBN 1565180925 (paper). III.15 Civil Society in a Chinese Context: Chinese Philosophical Studies XV. Wang Miaoyang, Yu Xuanmeng and Manuel B. Dy, eds. ISBN 1565180844 (paper). III.16 The Bases of Values in a Time of Change: Chinese and Western: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XVI. Kirti Bunchua, Liu Fangtong, Yu Xuanmeng, Yu Wujin, eds. ISBN l56518114X (paper). III.17 Dialogue between Christian Philosophy and Chinese Culture: Philosophical Perspectives for the Third Millennium: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XVII. Paschal Ting, Marian Kao and Bernard Li, eds. ISBN 1565181735 (paper). III.18 The Poverty of Ideological Education: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XVIII. Tran Van Doan. ISBN 1565181646 (paper). III.19 God and the Discovery of Man: Classical and Contemporary Approaches: Lectures in Wuhan, China. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181891 (paper). III.20 Cultural Impact on International Relations: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XX. Yu Xintian, ed. ISBN 156518176X (paper). III.21 Cultural Factors in International Relations: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXI. Yu Xintian, ed. ISBN 1565182049 (paper). III.22 Wisdom in China and the West: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXII. Vincent Shen and Willard Oxtoby †. ISBN 1565182057 (paper) III.23 China’s Contemporary Philosophical Journey: Western Philosophy and Marxism: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXIII. Liu Fangtong. ISBN 1565182065 (paper). III.24 Shanghai: Its Urbanization and Culture: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXIV. Yu Xuanmeng and He Xirong, eds. ISBN 1565182073 (paper). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 209

III.25 Dialogue of Philosophies, Religions and Civilizations in the Era of Globalization: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXV. Zhao Dunhua, ed. ISBN 9781565182431 (paper). III.26 Rethinking Marx: Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXVI. Zou Shipeng and Yang Xuegong, eds. ISBN 9781565182448 (paper). III.27 Confucian Ethics in Retrospect and Prospect: Chinese Philosophical Studies XXVII. Vincent Shen and Kwong-loi Shun, eds. ISBN 9781565182455 (paper). III.28 Cultural Tradition and Social Progress, Chinese Philosophical Studies, XXVIII. He Xirong, Yu Xuanmeng, Yu Xintian, Yu Wujing, Yang Junyi, eds. ISBN 9781565182660 (Paper). IIIB.1 Authentic Human Destiny: The Paths of Shankara and Heidegger: Indian Philosophical Studies, I. Vensus A. George. ISBN 1565181190 (paper). IIIB.2 The Experience of Being as Goal of Human Existence: The Heideggerian Approach: Indian Philosophical Studies, II. Vensus A. George. ISBN 156518145X (paper). IIIB.3 Religious Dialogue as Hermeneutics: Bede Griffiths’s Advaitic Approach: Indian Philosophical Studies, III. Kuruvilla Pandikattu. ISBN 1565181395 (paper). IIIB.4 Self-Realization [Brahmaanubhava]: The Advaitic Perspective of Shankara: Indian Philosophical Studies, IV. Vensus A. George. ISBN 1565181549 (paper). IIIB.5 Gandhi: The Meaning of Mahatma for the Millennium: Indian Philosophical Studies, V. Kuruvilla Pandikattu, ed. ISBN 1565181565 (paper). IIIB.6 Civil Society in Indian Cultures: Indian Philosophical Studies, VI. Asha Mukherjee, Sabujkali Sen (Mitra) and K. Bagchi, eds. ISBN 1565181573 (paper). IIIB.7 Hermeneutics, Tradition and Contemporary Change: Lectures in Chennai/Madras, India. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181883 (paper). IIIB.8 Plenitude and Participation: The Life of God in Man: Lectures in Chennai/Madras, India. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181999 (paper). IIIB.9 Sufism and Bhakti, a Comparative Study: Indian Philosophical Studies, VII. Md. Sirajul Islam. ISBN 1565181980 (paper). IIIB.10 Reasons for Hope: Its Nature, Role and Future: Indian Philosophical Studies, VIII. Kuruvilla Pandikattu, ed. ISBN 156518 2162 (paper). IIIB.11 Lifeworlds and Ethics: Studies in Several Keys: Indian Philosophical Studies, IX. Margaret Chatterjee. ISBN 9781565182332 (paper). IIIB.12 Paths to the Divine: Ancient and Indian: Indian Philosophical Studies, X. Vensus A. George. ISBN 9781565182486. (paper). 210 Publications

IIB.13 Faith, Reason, Science: Philosophical Reflections with Special Reference to Fides et Ratio: Indian Philosophical Studies, XIII. Varghese Manimala, ed. IBSN 9781565182554 (paper). IIIB.14 Identity, Creativity and Modernization: Perspectives on Indian Cultural Tradition: Indian Philosophical Studies, XIV. Sebastian Velassery and Vensus A. George, eds. ISBN 9781565182783 (paper). IIIB.15 Elusive Transcendence: An Exploration of the Human Condition Based on Paul Ricoeur: Indian Philosophical Studies, XV. Kuruvilla Pandikattu. ISBN 9781565182950 (paper). IIIC.1 Spiritual Values and Social Progress: Uzbekistan Philosophical Studies, I. Said Shermukhamedov and Victoriya Levinskaya, eds. ISBN 1565181433 (paper). IIIC.2 Kazakhstan: Cultural Inheritance and Social Transformation: Kazakh Philosophical Studies, I. Abdumalik Nysanbayev. ISBN 1565182022 (paper). IIIC.3 Social Memory and Contemporaneity: Kyrgyz Philosophical Studies, I. Gulnara A. Bakieva. ISBN 9781565182349 (paper). IIID.1 Reason, Rationality and Reasonableness: Vietnamese Philosophical Studies, I. Tran Van Doan. ISBN 1565181662 (paper). IIID.2 Hermeneutics for a Global Age: Lectures in Shanghai and Hanoi. George F. McLean. ISBN 1565181905 (paper). IIID.3 Cultural Traditions and Contemporary Challenges in Southeast Asia. Warayuth Sriwarakuel, Manuel B. Dy, J. Haryatmoko, Nguyen Trong Chuan, and Chhay Yiheang, eds. ISBN 1565182138 (paper). IIID.4 Filipino Cultural Traits: Claro R. Ceniza Lectures. Rolando M. Gripaldo, ed. ISBN 1565182251 (paper). IIID.5 The History of Buddhism in Vietnam.Chief editor: Nguyen Tai Thu; Authors: Dinh Minh Chi, Ly Kim Hoa, Ha thuc Minh, Ha Van Tan, Nguyen Tai Thu. ISBN 1565180984 (paper). IIID.6 Relations between Religions and Cultures in Southeast Asia. Gadis Arivia and Donny Gahral Adian, eds. ISBN 9781565182509 (paper).

Series IV. Western European Philosophical Studies

IV.1 Italy in Transition: The Long Road from the First to the Second Republic: The Edmund D. Pellegrino Lectures. Paolo Janni, ed. ISBN 1565181204 (paper). IV.2 Italy and the European Monetary Union: The Edmund D. Pellegrino Lectures. Paolo Janni, ed. ISBN 156518128X (paper). IV.3 Italy at the Millennium: Economy, Politics, Literature and Journalism: The Edmund D. Pellegrino Lectures. Paolo Janni, ed. ISBN 1565181581 (paper). IV.4 Speaking of God. Carlo Huber. ISBN 1565181697 (paper). IV.5 The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of a Global Age. Paulo Janni and George F. McLean, eds. ISBB 1565181778 (paper). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 211

IV.6 Italic Identity in Pluralistic Contexts: Toward the Development of Intercultural Competencies. Piero Bassetti and Paolo Janni, eds. ISBN 1565181441 (paper). I.7 Phenomenon of Affectivity: Phenomenological-Anthropological Perspectives. Ghislaine Florival. ISBN 9781565182899 (paper).

Series IVA. Central and Eastern European Philosophical Studies

IVA.1 The Philosophy of Person: Solidarity and Cultural Creativity: Polish Philosophical Studies, I. A. Tischner, J.M. Zycinski, eds. ISBN 1565180496 (paper); 156518048-8 (cloth). IVA.2 Public and Private Social Inventions in Modern Societies: Polish Philosophical Studies, II. L. Dyczewski, P. Peachey, J.A. Kromkowski, eds. ISBN. 1565180518 (paper); 156518050X (cloth). IVA.3 Traditions and Present Problems of Czech Political Culture: Czechoslovak Philosophical Studies, I. M. Bednár and M. Vejraka, eds. ISBN 1565180577 (paper); 156518056-9 (cloth). IVA.4 Czech Philosophy in the XXth Century: Czech Philosophical Studies, II. Lubomír Nový and Jirí Gabriel, eds. ISBN 1565180291 (paper); 156518028-3 (cloth). IVA.5 Language, Values and the Slovak Nation: Slovak Philosophical Studies, I. Tibor Pichler and Jana Gašparí•ková, eds. ISBN 1565180372 (paper); 156518036-4 (cloth). IVA.6 Morality and Public Life in a Time of Change: Bulgarian Philosoph- ical Studies, I. V. Prodanov and A. Davidov, eds. ISBN 1565180550 (paper); 1565180542 (cloth). IVA.7 Knowledge and Morality: Georgian Philosophical Studies, 1. N.V. Chavchavadze, G. Nodia and P. Peachey, eds. ISBN 1565180534 (paper); 1565180526 (cloth). IVA.8 Cultural Heritage and Social Change: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, I. Bronius Kuzmickas and Aleksandr Dobrynin, eds. ISBN 1565180399 (paper); 1565180380 (cloth). IVA.9 National, Cultural and Ethnic Identities: Harmony beyond Conflict: Czech Philosophical Studies, IV. Jaroslav Hroch, David Hollan, George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565181131 (paper). IVA.10 Models of Identities in Postcommunist Societies: Yugoslav Philosophical Studies, I. Zagorka Golubovic and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565181211 (paper). IVA.11 Interests and Values: The Spirit of Venture in a Time of Change: Slovak Philosophical Studies, II. Tibor Pichler and Jana Gasparikova, eds. ISBN 1565181255 (paper). IVA.12 Creating Democratic Societies: Values and Norms: Bulgarian Philosophical Studies, II. Plamen Makariev, Andrew M. Blasko and Asen Davidov, eds. ISBN 156518131X (paper). 212 Publications

IVA.13 Values of Islamic Culture and the Experience of History: Russian Philosophical Studies, I. Nur Kirabaev and Yuriy Pochta, eds. ISBN 1565181336 (paper). IVA.14 Values and Education in Romania Today: Romanian Philosophical Studies, I. Marin Calin and Magdalena Dumitrana, eds. ISBN 1565181344 (paper). IVA.15 Between Words and Reality, Studies on the Politics of Recognition and the Changes of Regime in Contemporary Romania: Romanian Philosophical Studies, II. Victor Neumann. ISBN 1565181611 (paper). IVA.16 Culture and Freedom: Romanian Philosophical Studies, III. Marin Aiftinca, ed. ISBN 1565181360 (paper). IVA.17 Lithuanian Philosophy: Persons and Ideas: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, II. Jurate Baranova, ed. ISBN 1565181379 (paper). IVA.18 Human Dignity: Values and Justice: Czech Philosophical Studies, III. Miloslav Bednar, ed. ISBN 1565181409 (paper). IVA.19 Values in the Polish Cultural Tradition: Polish Philosophical Studies, III. Leon Dyczewski, ed. ISBN 1565181425 (paper). IVA.20 Liberalization and Transformation of Morality in Post-communist Countries: Polish Philosophical Studies, IV. Tadeusz Buksinski. ISBN 1565181786 (paper). IVA.21 Islamic and Christian Cultures: Conflict or Dialogue: Bulgarian Philosophical Studies, III. Plament Makariev, ed. ISBN 156518162X (paper). IVA.22 Moral, Legal and Political Values in Romanian Culture: Romanian Philosophical Studies, IV. Mihaela Czobor-Lupp and J. Stefan Lupp, eds. ISBN 1565181700 (paper). IVA.23 Social Philosophy: Paradigm of Contemporary Thinking: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, III. Jurate Morkuniene. ISBN 1565182030 (paper). IVA.24 Romania: Cultural Identity and Education for Civil Society: Romanian Philosophical Studies, V. Magdalena Dumitrana, ed. ISBN 156518209X (paper). IVA.25 Polish Axiology: the 20th Century and Beyond: Polish Philosophical Studies, V. Stanislaw Jedynak, ed. ISBN 1565181417 (paper). IVA.26 Contemporary Philosophical Discourse in Lithuania: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, IV. Jurate Baranova, ed. ISBN 156518-2154 (paper). IVA.27 Eastern Europe and the Challenges of Globalization: Polish Philosophical Studies, VI. Tadeusz Buksinski and Dariusz Dobrzanski, ed. ISBN 1565182189 (paper). IVA.28 Church, State, and Society in Eastern Europe: Hungarian Philosophical Studies, I. Miklós Tomka. ISBN 156518226X (paper). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 213

IVA.29 Politics, Ethics, and the Challenges to Democracy in ‘New Independent States’: Georgian Philosophical Studies, II. Tinatin Bochorishvili, William Sweet, Daniel Ahern, eds. ISBN 9781565182240 (paper). IVA.30 Comparative Ethics in a Global Age: Russian Philosophical Studies II. Marietta T. Stepanyants, eds. ISBN 9781565182356 (paper). IVA.31 Identity and Values of Lithuanians: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, V. Aida Savicka, eds. ISBN 9781565182367 (paper). IVA.32 The Challenge of Our Hope: Christian Faith in Dialogue: Polish Philosophical Studies, VII. Waclaw Hryniewicz. ISBN 9781565182370 (paper). IVA.33 Diversity and Dialogue: Culture and Values in the Age of Globalization. Andrew Blasko and Plamen Makariev, eds. ISBN 9781565182387 (paper). IVA. 34 Civil Society, Pluralism and Universalism: Polish Philosophical Studies, VIII. Eugeniusz Gorski. ISBN 9781565182417 (paper). IVA.35 Romanian Philosophical Culture, Globalization, and Education: Romanian Philosophical Studies VI. Stefan Popenici and Alin Tat and, eds. ISBN 9781565182424 (paper). IVA.36 Political Transformation and Changing Identities in Central and Eastern Europe: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, VI. Andrew Blasko and Diana Janušauskienė, eds. ISBN 9781565182462 (paper). IVA.37 Truth and Morality: The Role of Truth in Public Life: Romanian Philosophical Studies, VII. Wilhelm Dancă, ed. ISBN 9781565182493 (paper). IVA.38 Globalization and Culture: Outlines of Contemporary Social Cognition: Lithuanian Philosophical Studies, VII. Jurate Morkuniene, ed. ISBN 9781565182516 (paper). IVA.39 Knowledge and Belief in the Dialogue of Cultures, Russian Philosophical Studies, III. Marietta Stepanyants, ed. ISBN 9781565182622 (paper). IVA.40 God and the Post-Modern Thought: Philosophical Issues in the Contemporary Critique of Modernity, Polish Philosophical Studies, IX. Józef Życiński. ISBN 9781565182677 (paper). IVA.41 Dialogue among Civilizations, Russian Philosophical Studies, IV. Nur Kirabaev and Yuriy Pochta, eds. ISBN 9781565182653 (paper). IVA.42 The Idea of Solidarity: Philosophical and Social Contexts, Polish Philosophical Studies, X. Dariusz Dobrzanski, ed. ISBN 9781565182961 (paper). IVA.43 God’s Spirit in the World: Ecumenical and Cultural Essays, Polish Philosophical Studies, XI. Waclaw Hryniewicz. ISBN 9781565182738 (paper). 214 Publications

IVA.44 Philosophical Theology and the Christian Traditions: Russian and Western Perspectives, Russian Philosophical Studies, V. David Bradshaw, ed. ISBN 9781565182752 (paper). IVA.45 Ethics and the Challenge of Secularism: Russian Philosophical Studies, VI. David Bradshaw, ed. ISBN 9781565182806 (paper). IVA.46 Philosophy and Spirituality across Cultures and Civilizations: Russian Philosophical Studies, VII. Nur Kirabaev, Yuriy Pochta and Ruzana Pskhu, eds. ISBN 9781565182820 (paper). IVA.47 Values of the Human Person Contemporary Challenges: Romanian Philosophical Studies, VIII. Mihaela Pop, ed. ISBN 9781565182844 (paper). IVA.48 Faith and Secularization: A Romanian Narrative: Romanian Philosophical Studies, IX. Wilhelm Dancă, ed. ISBN 9781565182929 (paper). IVA.49 The Spirit: The Cry of the World: Polish Philosophical Studies, XII. Waclaw Hryniewicz. ISBN 9781565182943 (paper).

Series V. Latin American Philosophical Studies

V.1 The Social Context and Values: Perspectives of the Americas.O. Pegoraro, ed. ISBN 081917355X (paper); 0819173541 (cloth). V.2 Culture, Human Rights and Peace in Central America. Raul Molina and Timothy Ready, eds. ISBN 0819173576 (paper); 0819173568 (cloth). V.3 El Cristianismo Aymara: Inculturacion o Culturizacion? Luis Jolicoeur. ISBN 1565181042 (paper). V.4 Love as the Foundation of Moral Education and Character Development. Luis Ugalde, Nicolas Barros and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565180801 (paper). V.5 Human Rights, Solidarity and Subsidiarity: Essays towards a Social Ontology. Carlos E.A. Maldonado. ISBN 1565181107 (paper). V.6 A New World: A Perspective from Ibero America. H. Daniel Dei, ed. ISBN 9781565182639 (paper).

Series VI. Foundations of Moral Education

VI.1 Philosophical Foundations for Moral Education and Character Devel- opment: Act and Agent. G. McLean and F. Ellrod, eds. ISBN 156518001-1 (paper); ISBN 1565180003 (cloth). VI.2 Psychological Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development: An Integrated Theory of Moral Development. R. Knowles, ed. ISBN 156518002X (paper); 156518003-8 (cloth). VI.3 Character Development in Schools and Beyond. Kevin Ryan and Thomas Lickona, eds. ISBN 1565180593 (paper); 156518058-5 (cloth). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 215

VI.4 The Social Context and Values: Perspectives of the Americas. O. Pegoraro, ed. ISBN 081917355X (paper); 0819173541 (cloth). VI.5 Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Develop- ment. Tran van Doan, ed. ISBN 1565180321 (paper); 156518033 (cloth). VI.6 Love as the Foundation of Moral Education and Character Development. Luis Ugalde, Nicolas Barros and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565180801 (paper).

Series VII. Seminars on Culture and Values

VII.1 The Social Context and Values: Perspectives of the Americas. O. Pegoraro, ed. ISBN 081917355X (paper); 0819173541 (cloth). VII.2 Culture, Human Rights and Peace in Central America. Raul Molina and Timothy Ready, eds. ISBN 0819173576 (paper); 0819173568 (cloth). VII.3 Relations between Cultures. John A. Kromkowski, ed. ISBN 1565180089 (paper); 1565180097 (cloth). VII.4 Moral Imagination and Character Development: Volume I, The Imagination. George F. McLean and John A. Kromkowski, eds. ISBN 1565181743 (paper). VII.5 Moral Imagination and Character Development: Volume II, Moral Imagination in Personal Formation and Character Development. George F. McLean and Richard Knowles, eds. ISBN 1565181816 (paper). VII.6 Moral Imagination and Character Development: Volume III, Imagination in Religion and Social Life. George F. McLean and John K. White, eds. ISBN 1565181824 (paper). VII.7 Hermeneutics and Inculturation. George F. McLean, Antonio Gallo, Robert Magliola, eds. ISBN 1565181840 (paper). VII.8 Culture, Evangelization, and Dialogue. Antonio Gallo and Robert Magliola, eds. ISBN 1565181832 (paper). VII.9 The Place of the Person in Social Life. Paul Peachey and John A. Kromkowski, eds. ISBN 1565180127 (paper); 156518013-5 (cloth). VII.10 Urbanization and Values. John A. Kromkowski, ed. ISBN 1565180100 (paper); 1565180119 (cloth). VII.11 Freedom and Choice in a Democracy, Volume I: Meanings of Freedom. Robert Magliola and John Farrelly, eds. ISBN 1565181867 (paper). VII.12 Freedom and Choice in a Democracy, Volume II: The Difficult Passage to Freedom. Robert Magliola and Richard Khuri, eds. ISBN 1565181859 (paper). VII 13 Cultural Identity, Pluralism and Globalization (2 volumes). John P. Hogan, ed. ISBN 1565182170 (paper). 216 Publications

VII.14 Democracy: In the Throes of Liberalism and Totalitarianism. George F. McLean, Robert Magliola, William Fox, eds. ISBN 1565181956 (paper). VII.15 Democracy and Values in Global Times: With Nigeria as a Case Study. George F. McLean, Robert Magliola, Joseph Abah, eds. ISBN 1565181956 (paper). VII.16 Civil Society and Social Reconstruction. George F. McLean, ed. ISBN 1565180860 (paper). VII.17 Civil Society: Who Belongs? William A.Barbieri, Robert Magliola, Rosemary Winslow, eds. ISBN 1565181972 (paper). VII.18 The Humanization of Social Life: Theory and Challenges. Christopher Wheatley, Robert P. Badillo, Rose B. Calabretta, Robert Magliola, eds. ISBN 1565182006 (paper). VII.19 The Humanization of Social Life: Cultural Resources and Historical Responses. Ronald S. Calinger, Robert P. Badillo, Rose B. Calabretta, Robert Magliola, eds. ISBN 1565182006 (paper). VII.20 Religious Inspiration for Public Life: Religion in Public Life, Volume I. George F. McLean, John A. Kromkowski and Robert Magliola, eds. ISBN 1565182103 (paper). VII.21 Religion and Political Structures from Fundamentalism to Public Service: Religion in Public Life, Volume II. John T. Ford, Robert A. Destro and Charles R. Dechert, eds. ISBN 1565182111 (paper). VII.22 Civil Society as Democratic Practice. Antonio F. Perez, Semou Pathé Gueye, Yang Fenggang, eds. ISBN 1565182146 (paper). VII.23 Ecumenism and Nostra Aetate in the 21st Century. George F. McLean and John P. Hogan, eds. ISBN 1565182197 (paper). VII.24 Multiple Paths to God: Nostra Aetate: 40 years Later. John P. Hogan, George F. McLean & John A. Kromkowski, eds. ISBN 1565182200 (paper). VII.25 Globalization and Identity. Andrew Blasko, Taras Dobko, Pham Van Duc and George Pattery, eds. ISBN 1565182200 (paper). VII.26 Communication across Cultures: The Hermeneutics of Cultures and Religions in a Global Age. Chibueze C. Udeani, Veerachart Nimanong, Zou Shipeng, Mustafa Malik, eds. ISBN: 9781565182400 (paper). VII.27 Symbols, Cultures and Identities in a Time of Global Interaction. Paata Chkheidze, Hoang Thi Tho and Yaroslav Pasko, eds. ISBN 9781565182608 (paper). VII. 28 Restorying the 'Polis':Civil Society as Narrative Reconstruction. Yuriy Pochta, Rosemary Winslow, eds. ISNB 978156518 (paper). VII.29 History and Cultural Identity: Retrieving the Past, Shaping the Future. John P. Hogan, ed. ISBN 9781565182684 (paper). VII.30 Human Nature: Stable and/or Changing? John P. Hogan, ed. ISBN 9781565182431 (paper). Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 217

VII.31 Reasoning in Faith: Cultural Foundations for Civil Society and Globalization. Octave Kamwiziku Wozol, Sebastian Velassery and Jurate Baranova, eds. ISBN 9781565182868 (paper). VII.32 Building Community in a Mobile/Global Age:Migration and Hospitality. John P. Hogan, Vensus A. George and Corazon T. Toralba, eds. ISBN 9781565182875 (paper).

Series VIII. Christian Philosophical Studies

VIII.1 Church and People: Disjunctions in a Secular Age, Christian Philosophical Studies, I. Charles Taylor, José Casanova and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN9781565182745 (paper). VIII.2 God’s Spirit in the World: Ecumenical and Cultural Essays, Christian Philosophical Studies, II. Waclaw Hryniewicz. ISBN 9781565182738 (paper). VIII.3 Philosophical Theology and the Christian Traditions: Russian and Western Perspectives, Christian Philosophical Studies, III. David Bradshaw, ed. ISBN 9781565182752 (paper). VIII.4 Ethics and the Challenge of Secularism: Christian Philosophical Studies, IV. David Bradshaw, ed. ISBN 9781565182806 (paper). VIII.5 Freedom for Faith: Theological Hermeneutics of Discovery based on George F. McLean’s Philosophy of Culture: Christian Philosophical Studies, V. John M. Staak. ISBN 9781565182837 (paper). VIII.6 Humanity on the Threshold: Religious Perspective on Transhumanism: Christian Philosophical Studies, VI. John C. Haughey and Ilia Delio, eds. ISBN 9781565182882 (paper). VIII.7 Faith and Secularization: A Romanian Narrative: Christian Philosophical Studies, VII. Wilhelm Dancă, ed. ISBN 9781565182929 (paper). VIII.8 Towards a Kenotic Vision of Authority in the Catholic Church: Christian Philosophical Studies, VIII. Anthony J. Carroll, Marthe Kerkwijk, Michael Kirwan and James Sweeney, eds. ISBN 9781565182936 (paper). VIII.9 The Spirit: The Cry of the World: Christian Philosophical Studies, IX. Waclaw Hryniewicz. ISBN 9781565182943 (paper).

The International Society for Metaphysics

ISM.1 Person and Nature. George F. McLean and Hugo Meynell, eds. ISBN 0819170267 (paper); 0819170259 (cloth). ISM.2 Person and Society. George F. McLean and Hugo Meynell, eds. ISBN 0819169250 (paper); 0819169242 (cloth). ISM.3 Person and God. George F. McLean and Hugo Meynell, eds. ISBN 0819169382 (paper); 0819169374 (cloth). ISM.4 The Nature of Metaphysical Knowledge. George F. McLean and Hugo Meynell, eds. ISBN 0819169277 (paper); 0819169269 (cloth). 218 Publications

ISM.5 Philosophhical Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization. Oliva Blanchette, Tomonobu Imamichi and George F. McLean, eds. ISBN 1565181298 (paper). ISM.6 The Dialogue of Cultural Traditions: Global Perspective. William Sweet, George F. McLean, Tomonobu Imamichi, Safak Ural, O. Faruk Akyol, eds. ISBN 9781565182585 (paper). ISM. 7 Philosophy Emerging from Culture. William Sweet, George F. McLean, Oliva Blanchette, Wonbin Park, eds. ISBN 9781565182851 (paper).

The series is published by: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Gibbons Hall B-20, 620 Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, D.C. 20064; Telephone and Fax: 202/319-6089; e-mail: [email protected]; website: http://www.crvp.org. All titles are available in paper except as noted. The series is distributed by: The Council for Research on Values and Philosophy – OST, 285 Oblate Drive, San Antonio, T.X., 78216; Telephone: (210)341-1366 x205; Email: [email protected].