Ted Chu - Human Purpose and Transhuman Potential: A Cosmic Vision of Our Future Evolution

The worlds great wisdom traditions have always taught that the universe is the expression of a deep but impenetrable meaning. Their beliefs that the universe is here for a reason have given significance to peoples lives as well as incentive to moral action. The good life, accordingly, consists of adapting our lives to a transcendental wisdom stirring at the heart of all being.

Such a benign understanding of the cosmos, however, appeared in human history long before evolutionary biology, cosmology, and information technology came along. Adherents to the ancient visions knew nothing of natural selection and astrophysics. Nor could they have foreseen contemporary scientific expectations in the fields of genetics, robotics, nanotechnology, information science, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. These new developments now invite us to consider how far emerging technologies may go in transforming human and other animal species, or in stretching our planets ecozoic fabric.

In the future, shall we reach a point where no clearly defined human natureat least as conceived by earlier generationsany longer exists? New discoveries related to the human genome will make it possible for applied science to alter radically our inherited bodily and behavioral inclinations, perhaps eventually transforming the entire human form into outcomes now unpredictable. The consequences of new scientific discoveries and their technological application are uncertain at present; but sensitive artists, dramatists, philosophers, ethicists, and social scientists are now envisaging a wide spectrum of possible results, many of them intriguing, others potentially monstrous.

Ted Chu is a pioneering visionary whose futurist concern deserves close attention. He is keenly aware that technological expertise is on the brink of reshaping our world and humanity dramatically. A continually more nuanced scientific understanding of the subatomic world, the manipulability of genes, the plasticity of brains, and the rules of evolutionary changeplus a host of other scientific insightsnow provides Homo faber with an almost irresistible opportunity to transform everything in our world radically. Those of us concerned about justice, liberation, human fulfillment, ecological integrity, spiritual existence, and the cosmic future need to read brave new books such as this one.

What implications do the emerging new technologies have for the future of the universe itself? Unlike our prescientific ancestors, we now realize that the world is still coming into being. The fourteen-billion-year-old cosmic drama recently exposed by astronomy, astrophysics, geology, biology, and other sciences is clearly far from finished. What role do humans have in determining the cosmic future?

The fourteen billion years that have transpired so far may turn out in the long run to have been only the dawn of the Big Bang universes eventual unfolding. 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 dramatic unfolding? It is now conceivable to many thoughtful people that the human period of evolution may eventually turn out to be a transitional chapter in cosmic history. How are we to address such a prospect? In the remote cosmic future, will human history appear to be anything more than an ephemeral crossing-over to more fascinating episodes in an enormously inventive cosmic narrative whose eventual playing-out is currently unimaginable? If you care about such questions, read this book.

Four billion years ago, with the arrival of life and biogenetic processes on Earth, the universe underwent an information explosion. More recently, with the emergence of complex brains and minds, at least on our planet, it erupted into thought. Then, with the arrival of social and political life, it began to undergo a cultural transformation, one that has included the invention of language, education, artistic expression, ethical aspiration, religious hope, and scientific inquiry. Currently, with the advent of transhumanist dreams, a distinctively new chapter in cosmic process is just beginning.