FROM THE FUTURE OF THE BODY TO TRANSCENDING BIOLOGY THE SINGULARITY APPROACHED IN THE LIGHT OF A WESTERN ESOTERIC PERSPECTIVE Gaëtan Goswin Reinout van Vloten Religious Studies Master’s Thesis, Western Esotericism Student ID number: 10221212 Submission date: 20 August 2019 Supervisor: prof. dr. W.J. (Wouter) Hanegraaff Second examiner: dr. R.L.A. (Richard) van Leeuwen ‘[Man] must find the strength, the inner force of knowledge, in order not to be overcome by Ahriman in this technological civilization.’ – Rudolf Steiner, 1925. I TABLE OF CONTENT 1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 2. BIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................4 2.1. MICHAEL MURPHY AND ESALEN .........................................................................................4 2.2. RAY KURZWEIL AND TRANSHUMANISM ...............................................................................5 3. The EVOLUTIONARY NARRATIVES ..............................................................................................8 3.1. MURPHY AND EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE ................................................................8 3.1.1. FERTILE GROUNDS: CATASTROPHE, PROGRESS AND THE FORMATIVE ROLE OF CULTURE .................................................................................................................................. 10 3.1.2. EMBRACING EVOLUTION’S DYNAMISM; MYSTICISM HAND-IN-HAND WITH SCIENCE ... 12 3.2. KURZWEIL AND THE LAW OF ACCELERATING RETURNS .................................................... 14 3.2.1. EVOLUTION; A PROCESS OF CREATING PATTERNS OF INCREASING ORDER ................... 17 3.2.2. PATTERNS; THE SIX EVOLUTIONARY EPOCHS OF KURZWEIL ...................................... 18 3.3. A COMPARISON OF THE EVOLUTIONARY NARRATIVES ....................................................... 20 4. EXPLORING THE THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE AND THE SINGULARITY ................... 22 4.1. BEYOND THE THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE .................................................... 22 4.1.2. INVOLUTION-EVOLUTION AND PANENTHEISM .................................................................. 24 4.2. THE IMPACT OF THE SINGULARITY ..................................................................................... 27 4.2.1. THE SINGULARITY: A ‘SPIRITUAL’ PHENOMENON ....................................................... 30 4.3. RELATING THE THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE TO THE SINGULARITY ................ 32 5. EXPERIENCING THE SINGULARITY AND THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE ..................... 34 5.1. THE EXTENSION OF OUR BRAIN; AUGMENTATION OF THE SENSES ..................................... 34 5.2. THE EXTENSION OF OUR BRAIN; UNLIMITED KNOWLEDGE ................................................ 36 5.3. THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN OUR BRAINS; TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION ................ 37 5.4. THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN OUR BRAINS; TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION ................ 38 5.5. REVERSING AGING WITH NANOROBOTS; EXTRAORDINARY SELF-REGULATION ................. 39 5.6. VIRTUAL REALITY THROUGH NANOROBOTS; MOVEMENT INTO OTHER WORLDS ............... 40 5.7. MANIPULATING PHYSICAL REALITY THROUGH NANOROBOTS; PSYCHOKINESIS ................ 43 5.8. OVERCOMING GRAVITY; LEVITATION ................................................................................ 45 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................................................................................................ 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................... I APPENDIX 1 ....................................................................................................................................... V II 1. INTRODUCTION The renowned historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari remarked in his bestseller Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow that the future will hold ‘new godlings, who might be as different from us Sapiens as we are different from Homo erectus.’ According to him, in search for bliss and immortality, humans will upgrade themselves into gods in the nearby future.1 However, such desire is actually far from new as remarked by O’Connell in his book To be a Machine: ‘As long as we have been telling stories, we have been telling them about the desire to escape our human bodies, to become something other than the animals we are.’2 In fact, such desires can be traced back to one of the earliest created pieces of literature; the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (approx. 1700 B.C.). Gilgamesh was a famous hero-king of the ancient Mesopotamia, four thousand years ago. As Gilgamesh was terrified by death from the moment that his best friend Enkidu died, he decided to go on a quest to beat mortality;3 overcoming the injustice between the Gods and humankind.4 Along the way, Gilgamesh met various people who told him that his journey was pointless. One of them was alewife Shiduri, who attempted to dissuade Gilgamesh in his quest for immortality, urging him to be content with the simple pleasures of life and warning him for the futility of his efforts.5 However, he was determined to follow on and did not even take time to sleep. Eventually, he met Utnapishtim, the only human who had been made immortal and who told him to find a plant in the sea that would provide him with forever youthfulness.6 Gilgamesh did not hesitate and jumped in the sea to find the plant, but as soon as he found the plant, it was stolen away by a snake and gone forever.7 Beating mortality, although dearly desired by Gilgamesh, turned out to be impossible.8 Hence, this myth exemplifies the preoccupation of ancient people with overcoming the division between humankind and the Gods. The prognosis of Harari is based on the Gilgamesh of our time, Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is an American inventor, futurist, and writer who is determined to succeed in overcoming the division between humankind and the Gods as tried in the Epic of Gilgamesh four thousand years ago, but now with the help of technology. He is involved in Google’s company called ‘Calico,’ devoted to harness advanced technologies to increase our healthspan in order to solve the daunting problem of death.9 With the help of nanorobots 1 Harari, Homo Deus, 49–50. 2 O’Connell, To Be a Machine., 1. 3 “Gilgamesh.” 4 Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh. 5 Ackerman, When Heroes Love, 130–31. 6 George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, XI. 280-285. 7 George, XI. 306-307. 8 “Gilgamesh.” 9 “Google’s $1.5 Billion Research Center to ‘Solve Death.’” 1 and artificial superintelligence, he proclaims that humanity will transcend its biology limitations in 2045. This will be the year in which the accelerating technological developments in the world will give way to the event what Kurzweil calls ‘the Singularity.’ This event will create a world wherein ‘essentially all of the [Harry] Potter “magic” will be realized through technology.’ From playing quidditch to transforming people and objects into other forms, it will all be feasible in virtual, as well as in, real reality, according to Kurzweil.10 Therefore, it is understandable why Egil Asprem once referred to Kurzweil as The Magus of Silicon Valley. In this article written in 2013, Asprem called Kurzweil the ‘prophet of the so-called transhumanist movement.’ Transhumanism believes that humanity has the power to transcend its current form, reaching its true potential.11 Furthermore, Asprem argued that a structural similarity between the ideas of Kurzweil and western esoteric discourse exists, as his ideas share some key elements with so- called ‘esoteric currents.’12 Indeed, one example of an anticipation of the argument made by Asprem can be found in the vision of Michael Murphy. Murphy, being influenced by Indian philosophy, made an effort to integrate Eastern and Western thought. In an effort to release the latent potential hidden in humanity through various techniques, he founded the Esalen Institute, which became the center of the Human Potential Movement. While Kurzweil is the main protagonist of Transhumanism, Murphy can be regarded as the vanguard of the Human Potential Movement. Therefore, this research will try to make a contribution to the identification of the structural similarities between Kurzweil’s ideas and ideas that are generally known as ‘esoteric,’ more specifically the ideas brought forward by Murphy. More specifically, a comparison between the works will be made, which can both be regarded as the magnum opus of these writers. For Murphy that is his substantial work called The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution (1993); for Kurzweil that is his book called The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005). This will make for the following research question: ‘How does Ray Kurzweil’s vision as presented in his magnum opus The Singularity Is Near, relate to the vision of Michael Murphy as presented in his magnum opus The Future of the Body?’ This research question will be answered along the following lines. Firstly, a short introduction of the main protagonists of this research will be given, together with their related ideological current. This, in order to be able to put their ideas - which will be encountered later - in the right cultural and temporal perspective. Interestingly, in both of the works underlying this research, the authors present an 10 Kurzweil, The Singularity