books

Blank and Pitiless

ROBERT FRODEMAN

Steve Fuller grasps the apocalyptic spirit of our times. Millenarian religions seem to have been always present in human culture; now add to this human-caused environmental changes so great that they potentially define a new geologic era, the Anthropocene. Every anomalous weather event feels ominous. Our social and political life has also been disrupted. The center cannot hold: one person’s truth is another’s fake news, as social media offer new ways to manipulate people. The COVID-19 pandemic now encapsulates all our fears: is nature striking back? Is the novel coronavirus an engineered bioweapon? Can government pronouncements be trusted? Amid these dark portents, transhumanism stands out by offering a positive view of humanity’s future. Transhumanists argue that a new, self- directed stage of human evolution is at hand, one where, thanks to a host of soon-to-be-developed technologies, we will live longer, healthier lives, perhaps to the point of immortality. What’s not to celebrate in that? For Fuller, transhumanism isn’t just some fringe ideology. At least in the developed world, we’re already partially transhuman. We’ve adapted ourselves to a cyborg existence of artificial hips and cochlear implants, stents and blood pressure pills and ear buds, to say nothing of the ubiquitous presence of handheld supercomputers (aka smartphones). We don’t acknowledge transhumanism as our tacit societal goal. But how else to describe the pursuit of scientific progress with no stated end goal? The US National Science Foundation places no limit on its programs of scientific and technological advance, just as the

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National Institutes of Health seeks and computation rather than by, to overcome every human illness. for example, the compassion and In some quarters, aging is itself solidarity that we show for one being redefined as a disease. This is another. Rather than trying to increase deification on the installment plan: our honesty, empathy, or kindness, transhumanists simply make our transhumanists focus on questions of trajectory explicit. human cognitive and technological The virtue of Fuller’s Nietzschean enhancement. The theosis that Fuller Meditations is that it draws out is interested in references a god who the philosophical implications of is all-knowing and all-manipulating where we’re headed. Across a series rather than all-caring. of works Fuller has made himself Defining humans in terms of into the leading philosopher of Homo faber raises two problems. transhumanism. Nietzschean First, it oversells the upside and Meditations is his most thorough underestimates the dangers account to date, a wide-ranging of continued technoscientific philosophical exploration of what he development. Second, it sums up hopes will be our transhuman future. a philosophical anthropology that Fuller is agnostic about which fails to account for essential aspects of two versions of transhumanism of human experience. Altogether, should be pursued—the improvement Nietzschean Meditations: transhumanism ignores the real of our simian form, where we would Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn issue that lies before us: whether the live markedly longer and healthier of the Transhuman Era idea of progress that Western culture lives, or the entire transcendence of by Steve Fuller. Basel, Switzerland: has been operating with since the our carbon-based physicality into a Schwabe Verlag, 2019, 240 pp. Enlightenment still makes sense. form of artificial intelligence. These Fuller has a practiced reply to differing views are represented, the first of these points, via his respectively, by the gerontologist and argument for what he and others author Aubrey de Grey’s indefinite means for realizing goals—everlasting call the “proactionary principle.” If life extension project and the futurist life, for one—that traditionally have the precautionary principle argues Ray Kurzweil’s belief in a coming been the domain of religion. “Science that you should look before you leap, “singularity” where an individual’s does not eliminate religion but replaces proactionaries advocate leaping into consciousness will be uploaded into a it,” Fuller writes, “and maybe even the technological unknown and super-powerful computer. For Fuller redeems its promises.” hoping for the best, in the confidence either one will do, as long as the The Nietzsche references, however, that we can clean up any mess that goal of theosis (the divinization of are only scene setting. (“This is results. In Fuller’s view, this is how humankind) remains the goal. not a book about Nietzsche; it is a humanity has always progressed. Fuller’s deepest commitments are book for Nietzsche.”) Fuller defines Sure, this thinking goes, the industrial theological in nature. But the book has transhumanism as consisting of “the revolution harmed large numbers of many parts: it’s at once a heterodox indefinite projection of those qualities people, but in hindsight we can all Christian theology, a philosophy that most clearly distinguish humans agree that it was worth it. of nature, a paean to technological from other natural beings.” He does not Count me dubious on this point. progress, and a rethinking of the define what those qualities are, which There’s a hint of Whiggish history economics of death. He begins with an speaks volumes, for there is only one here, where past events both good account of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus area where animals can’t match humans: and bad are necessary preludes to our Spoke Zarathustra (1883), which Fuller our skill at manipulating the world via glorious present. There’s also a willful sees as announcing the inevitability of science and technology. naiveté: it’s unlikely that the workers the transhumanist project. Nietzsche’s This definition of what makes whose lives were sacrificed to what proclamation that “God is dead” (in us human—that we are Homo the poet and artist William Blake his Gay Science) requires the creation faber, the toolmaker—typifies the characterized as “dark Satanic Mills” of a new set of values where humans entire transhumanist movement. would have agreed to their martyrdom become godlike via their own efforts. Transhumanists define human beings in for the pleasure of future generations. Science and technology become the terms of our abilities for manipulation But more to the point, Fuller

FALL 2020 93 ignores the differences in scale that dominating the “normals.” Nor does amount of knowledge and skill; if all characterize today’s developments he include any account of how society of humanity’s knowledge is instantly in technology. The creation of the would deal with the threat of massive accessible to each of us, our existence atom bomb marked a turning point: population growth, or restrictions becomes unrecognizable—closer to our technologies could now destroy on having children, or the lack of Star Trek’s hive-minded Borg than humanity. Since then our technologies workplace turnover as people stay in individual Homo sapiens. have continued to grow ever more jobs into their second century. Our ultimate limitation is death. powerful. Fuller doesn’t take seriously To my mind, however, it’s Although Fuller doesn’t confront the possibility of a “gray goo” scenario the second problem facing the Heidegger’s arguments directly, some where the losses involved—say, transhumanists that is the decisive of his most interesting reflections the extermination of humanity by one. Fuller and transhumanists view concern how the character of death a colorless ooze of self-replicating human limitations as solely a matter changes under a transhumanist nanomachines that consume all of the of weaknesses to be eliminated. They regime. Fuller’s term for these changes earth’s biomass—trump any possible do not appreciate that our limitations is necronomics—the economics of benefit further down the road. and frailties are a central part of what death. Transhumanist advances In part this reflects Fuller’s it means to be human. The German may make it possible to speak of the Olympian attitude toward suffering. philosopher Martin Heidegger made reincarnation of the self, as a person It’s a curious position for someone the point nearly a century ago in is fitted with a new or improved who holds the Auguste Comte Chair in Being and Time (1927): to be human body. (It’s questionable whether being Social Epistemology in the Department is to care for things, and to be cared uploaded into a computer would of Sociology at the University of for in turn. But it is impossible to count as reincarnation, since in that Warwick. As a nineteenth century care for things that are immortal. In case there’s nothing fleshly.) Fuller philosopher of science, Comte paid such cases the idea of care becomes a argues that transhumanism would close attention to the social dimensions category mistake: immortals take care make our death a matter of choice, of scientific advance; you might expect of themselves. Similarly, solidarity and in that sense make it an economic that Fuller would pay greater heed to and political action come not only decision, as we weigh how to make the untoward aspects of technological from shared interests but also from a our death into a statement affirming advance. shared sense of vulnerability, where our life. Take an obvious example: we must prop each other up through Fuller’s book raises provocative the despair and anger that many rough or dangerous times. questions, but not all of them are Americans feel at having been left in This point fatally undermines ones that he means to highlight. the wake of technological progress can the transhumanist project. If we are on a trajectory toward a be connected to both the 65,000 annual Transhumanism may fail, perhaps transhumanist future, perhaps it’s fatalities from opioid overdoses and the catastrophically so (i.e., the gray goo time to question that path. Kurzweil, election of Donald Trump as president. scenario), but its success would be the paradigmatic transhumanist, is an Fuller’s account is at points brilliant, equally dire. Even the lesser goals accelerationist who foresees science but it operates on a theoretical level of transhumanism—doubling our and technology continuing to grow soaring far above our tumultuous life span, connecting our brains to at exponential rates. But shouldn’t social scene. Fuller is comfortable the internet—would take us into we be thinking about decelerating with the German philosopher G. W. unknowable territory. A successful technological advance to give us a F. Hegel’s description of history as transhumanism would mean the chance to better integrate its changes a slaughter bench, but it’s not his ox end of humanity, since whatever into our lives? that’s getting gored. creature that resulted would no longer Although we’re habituated to the Fuller’s argument passes over the be recognizably human; no matter idea of endless scientific progress, possible real-world consequences of what we might gain, we would lose it’s possible that humanity is transhumanist advances. He says ourselves. approaching the point where science nothing about the potential financial To be human is to be caught in— and technology have completed the costs of human enhancement or related and limited by—a web of relationships bulk of their work. Perhaps it’s time concerns that these augmentations across the generations. The rhythms to move on to other challenges, to could be restricted to the rich. Nor of life would be disrupted if our tasks that have been earlier set aside does he discuss what type of political elders lived a life of perpetual youth as hopeless. Our energies have gone mechanisms might be needed if and refused to exit the stage. To be into technical rather than humanistic augmented humans are to be kept from human is to possess only a finite achievements. What if we were to put

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the same effort into increasing a sense but does not know where to head next. individuals and society need to be on a of generosity and fellowship that we Douthat sees this decadence path of endless progress; otherwise they put into scientific advance? and stagnation as tied to the loss stagnate. Greater respect for the natural Fuller’s allegiance to a particular of a frontier. He cites the historian arc of life might be in order. What’s notion of progress—with its faith in Frederick Jackson Turner on the closing more, the coronavirus offers a reminder science and technology to shape the of the American frontier by 1890, and for all of us: nature bats last, holding human and natural world—is shared notes that “unexplored frontiers and possibilities that always exceed our across the political spectrum. A recent fresh discoveries and new worlds to grasp. Nature contains a chaotic energy book by the conservative New York conquer are not just desirable but the that will wreck rational plans for the Times columnist Ross Douthat, The very point of life.” He laments the future. Fuller and the transhumanists Decadent Society: How We Became the loss of space exploration as a new, demonstrate a dangerous, youthful Victims of Our Own Success (2020), meaningful frontier. Douthat raises the naiveté concerning our ability to is surprisingly similar in outlook. possibility of spiritual renewal, but his control the world. Douthat is concerned with the lethargy focus is on the identification of a new of Western culture, its institutional technological goal, such as a mission to Robert Frodeman is an independent and cultural sclerosis. In Douthat’s Mars, and he begins and ends his book writer in Hoback, Wyoming. His latest account, a decadent society is one that with talk of exploring outer space. book is Transhumanism, Nature, and has reached a certain level of success Fuller and Douthat assume that the Ends of Science (2019).

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