|
A
peer-reviewed electronic journal published by the Institute for Ethics and ISSN
1541-0099 21(1)
– March 2010 |
Life
extension – a conservative enterprise? Some fin-de-siècle
and early twentieth-century precursors of transhumanism
Ilia
Stambler
Department of Science, Technology and
Society,
Journal of Evolution and Technology -
Vol. 21 Issue 1 – March 2010 - pgs
13-26
http://jetpress.org/v21/stambler.htm
Abstract
The
beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and
longevity can be traced to fin-de-siècle/early twentieth-century scientific
and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several
authors of the period – Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot – reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways
toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. Each author represents
a particular existing social order, and his vision of human advancement may be
seen as a continuation and extension of that order. Therefore, the pursuit of
life extension may be considered a fundamentally conservative (or
conservationist) enterprise.
Introduction:
fin-de-siècle
origins of transhumanism
Transhumanism
is presently forming into a sizable intellectual and social movement,
advocating the ethical use of technology to extend human capabilities. Like any
intellectual movement, it seeks to establish its historical tradition (Bostrom
2005). Within what might be termed the transhumanist “tradition of overcoming
tradition,” the pursuit of radical life extension plays a central part. Longevity
is a primary goal of human enhancement, and its pursuit has been the longest
and best sanctified by authorities of old (Gruman 1966). However, the beginning
of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity
can be traced to the scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism,
rising at the end of the nineteenth/beginning of the twentieth century, and it
is in that fin-de-siècle period that the roots of transhumanism
might be sought.
The fin de siècle was a time of
peace, yet with widely felt apprehensions of stagnation, of a crisis, even of
an imminent extinction of humanity (Jay and Neve,
1999). At the same time, contemporary scholars delighted in the period’s astonishing scientific, technological and
industrial achievements: the advances in transportation, energy supply,
manufacturing, agriculture and general medical care (Porter
1997, Albury 2001). It appeared to them evident that science, perhaps
for the first time in history, had the genuine ability to ameliorate social
plights, to cure diseases and extend human life. Contemporary advocates of life
extension extrapolated on the technological advances and were motivated by
them. Several fin-de-siècle authors were convinced of the perfectibility
of the human species and might be considered as possible forerunners of modern transhumanism:
the Russian religious philosopher Nikolay Fedorov
(1829-1903); the American physician and writer Charles Asbury Stephens
(1844-1931); the Russian Marxist politician Alexander
Bogdanov (1873-1928); the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900); and
the French social scientist Jean Finot (1856-1922). Yet
the ideological underpinnings of their teachings diverged dramatically. The
social conditions they saw as necessary for the pursuit of longevity were often
radically opposed, each vision stemming from its author’s particular social milieu. The following historical-ideological
exposition of their works will reveal often diametrically opposed ideological
and social pathways to the destination of human enhancement and longevity.
Nikolay Fedorov – the transhumanist as parochial priest
Nikolay Fedorovich Fedorov, the Russian Pravoslav religious
philosopher and founder of “Russian Cosmism” has often been cited as a
precursor of transhumanism (Artuchov 2008). The philosophy of this modest
According to Fedorov, human beings must endeavor to create a
perfect, coherent society that can be maintained indefinitely by mutual aid.
Such a society will outgrow the “infantile” concept of a “superman,” and there
will be in it no “egoism or altruism,” no “mastery or slavery,” only the
“relatedness” and brotherly love of all humankind (Fedorov 1995, 2, 132-141).
The Russian notions of “sobornost” and “mir,” denoting an inspired uniform
effort of equals, are exalted in Fedorov’s thought. In such a society, individual
death, “the last enemy to be overcome,” will be vanquished by regulating and
purifying the internal body environment (to prevent what might be called intrinsic
death) and by controlling the external environment (to prevent extrinsic
accident). For Fedorov, the latter goal involved the colonization of the entire
earth surface and space exploration, and provided a source of inspiration for
Fedorov’s pupil, the rocket pioneer
Konstantin Ziolkovsky. According to Fedorov, physical immortality will be
attained by all, with no exceptions. Moreover, achieving immortality only for future
generations, while all the past ones remain disintegrated, seemed to Fedorov
incompatible with universal justice, Christian compassion and filial piety.
Therefore, humanity needed to work toward the resurrection of all who have ever
lived.
Even
though the general goals of extreme longevity – even immortality or resurrection – might be acceptable to many modern transhumanists, I
doubt that many democratically inclined proponents of the movement would agree
with the political regime that Fedorov deemed necessary. In Fedorov’s work, nationalist and totalitarian
undertones are unmistakable:
And
furthermore, the “common task” of fighting death requires universal conscription,
and must be directed by a “psychocracy” grounded in absolute monarchy:
Regulation
is not restricted to the physiological aspect of the conscripted, but expands
onto the internal, psychic aspect, and the latter becomes the foundation of
society (Psychocracy). Psychocracy cannot coexist with judicial forms of
government, with aristocratic or democratic republics, not even with
constitutional monarchies, but only with absolute, patriarchal monarchy, with a
King, standing in place of the Fathers, as a sovereign of the two kinds of
regulation, the internal and the external. (Fedorov 1995, 3, 136.)
Notably,
absolute monarchy was presented by Fedorov as a symbol of power for the unification
of equals, rather than as the rule of high aristocracy. Nonetheless, Fedorov
does build on and advocates the conservation of his native social and
ideological institutions: Pravoslav Christianity, universal conscription and absolute
monarchy. Not only are the present social institutions to remain in the future,
but they are to remain indefinitely.
Charles Stephens – the transhumanist as elite scientist
The
way to human enhancement and longevity envisioned by the American man of
letters and biomedical researcher Charles Asbury Stephens, was more attuned to
American industrialism. In 1888, funded by an enterprizing philanthropist, he
established in Norway, Maine, a laboratory, exclusively dedicated to promoting
“researches into the causes of old age and death” – apparently among the first
in the United States – which he hoped to transform into a large-scale institute
and a center of international cooperation for aging research. (The institute
funding ceased when the philanthropist passed away, Gruman 1956.) In Natural
Salvation: Immortal Life On the Earth from the Growth of Knowledge (1910;
first published in 1903), Stephens posited the “The Promethean Faith,” the
creed in which salvation through faith and supernatural intervention was
substituted by salvation through biomedical science. The term “salvation” was
understood literally as an eternal rescue from death. According to Stephens,
religion based on supernaturalism is a dead and deadening concept, for it
displaces human hopes to the afterworld and curbs the effort to prolong this
worldly life. In contrast, the “Promethean faith” is the religion of life
preservation, as ancient as “the instinct effort of the protozoon to save
itself.” Compared with this natural effort at salvation, “the World’s five great Creeds are as novelties of
yesterday” (Stephens 1910, 66).
To
Stephens, as to Fedorov, individual physical immortality, even resurrection,
appeared to be distinct possibilities. Stephens argued that ultimate
destruction is not an inexorable law of biology, not even of physics: the
“cell-of-life” is potentially deathless, and material “elements” are virtually
unchangeable. As in Fedorov, the possibilities of indefinite maintenance of
human personality and resurrection are derived from the concepts of Lamarckian
inheritance and the “Ether of Space.”
Past personalities are said to be inherited (remembered) in the progeny,
as they lie “dormant in the brain of their descendants,” and can be reawakened.
Furthermore, human thoughts and memories form an imperishable physical trace, an
“echo” or “mirror-picture” that are “present in the ether everywhere” and can
be recaptured in some distant future (99-105). The concepts of life extension,
physical immortality, symbolic immortality and resurrection are thus
synthesized:
[We] may possibly know a
species of resurrection, if our descendants shall desire to call us up… More
than this we cannot yet hope. …Enough, till the grander day comes when our
children, transfigured and perfected in their organisms by the growth of
knowledge, shall cease to die. But even in that grander day we shall be with
them. … And if we have worked for that grand day, they will love us. Morituri.
But that thought is our compensation, our solace in death. (106.)
Thus, Stephens arrived at precisely the same
conclusions as Fedorov regarding the possibility and necessity of physical
immortality, on precisely opposite ideological grounds: the rejection of
established religions. Stephens’ social vision, too, was radically different
from Fedorov’s. In contrast to Fedorov’s conceptions of universal relatedness
and equality, more than a slight tint of elitism and racism is present in
Stephens’ work, as he affirmed that “the burden of progress and achievement
will long rest with the dominant race.” And furthermore, “certain of the lower
races, like the lower animals, will of necessity be coerced for the general
good and for their own good” (117).
Unlike Fedorov’s universal conscription to the
“Common Task” (of the kind that existed in Czarist Russia), Stephens valorized
global “commerce,” flourishing under the American leadership, as the foundation
for progress and cooperation, whereby “the fruits and goods from every quarter
of the planet are brought to our doors; … the land [is] overspread with wires,
which put us in thought-touch with our fellows, thousands of miles away”
(Stephens 1910, 47). Notably, not only does Stephens emphasize that
life-extensionism is as traditional as human existence, but also expresses the
conservative sentiment that the present pattern of American capitalist economy will
be strengthened and perpetuated.
Alexander Bogdanov – the transhumanist as communist functionary
The valorization of capitalist commerce was loathsome to the
Russian revolutionary Alexander Bogdanov. Bogdanov was a veteran Marxist. He
was initially a member of Narodnaya Volia (The People’s Will movement). In
1896, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Party, and became a staunch
supporter of its Bolshevik faction. From 1905 to 1907, he was a member of the party
Central Committee and actively participated in the Russian revolution of
Bogdanov’s crowning scholarly achievement was Tectologia –
Vseobshaya Organizazionnaya Nauka (“Tectology – the universal science of organization,”
1913-1922). In Tectologia, Bogdanov posited general principles of system
organization, whether mechanical, social or biological, expounding on the
concepts of structural similarity, negative and positive feedback, progressive
selection, weakest/minimal components, production/consumption balance, self
organization and dynamic equilibrium. According to Bogdanov, the purpose of the
science of tectology was to suggest practical methods of optimal planning
needed to maintain a dynamic equilibrium and system viability on every level –
biological, personal or industrial. According to Bogdanov, socialist economy
needed to be based on optimal planning and on the “Scientific Organization of
Labor -
In The
Struggle for Viability (1927), Bogdanov proposes the general view that
vitality deteriorates due to an impairment of cells’ “organizational relations”
and “internal milieu.” According to him, social imperfections and inequalities
largely contribute to bodily dissonance and life-shortening. The
“organizational relations,” both social and biological, are adjustable, their
equilibrium can be enforced, whereby “our life should last 120-140 years” at
the least. In the paper “Physiological Collectivism” (1922), Bogdanov provides further
“collectivist” grounds for the blood transfusion technique (applicable to the
organization of the society as well):
The conjugation of blood, as
well as the conjugation of cells has this property that, even without the exact
determination of the weakest components, it typically supports them…. And if
there is only a little deficit, as usually happens in prolonged processes of
deterioration, then even the smallest support can have a radical significance,
allowing the organism to fully utilize its own resources for its own
restoration, which was previously hindered by chain functional disarray.
By supporting the
“weakest” elements, by sharing resources with them, a prolonged existence of
the entire system can be accomplished. Such a support of the “weakest
components” can be “only systematically achieved by transcending the limits of
physiological individuality, as foreign as this thought may seem to the
individualist worldview of our epoch.” In summary, the enhancement of human
vitality and life-prolongation can be reached only in a society ripe for it,
that is, in a society collectivist enough to share its resources, its blood,
with the weakest elements. According to Bogdanov, such collectivism “is now
only seldom present. But it is present, nonetheless, and it is augmenting with
the progress of culture” (Bogdanov 1922). Thus, the purported ideological
foundations of the emerging Socialist state – central planning, collectivism
and support of the weakest members of the social organism – were heralded by
Bogdanov as the first buds of a new life-affirming social order that he hoped
would continue far into the future.
Friedrich
Nietzsche – the transhumanist as aristocrat
An
opposed, individualistic, even “aristocratic” way to life enhancement is
suggested in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The possible relation of
Nietzsche to transhumanism has been recently discussed (Bostrom 2005, Sorgner 2009). Yet, after WWII, an association with the Übermensch
became suspicious, and the anti-democratic tendencies of Nietzschean philosophy
are well recognized. In Nietzsche’s writings,
denigration of the “low,” the “weak” and the “mediocre” is ubiquitous. Fedorov
was among the first to point out the inherently elitist nature of Superhumanity
as advocated by Nietzsche, and he considered Nietzsche a true representative of
European “petty aristocracy,” a mouthpiece of militarized
Superhumanity
can either be the greatest of vices, or the greatest of virtues. It is
undoubtedly a vice of satanic origin when it consists in the elevation of one
or several persons above their equals, that is, above their fathers and
brothers. It becomes the greatest vice when it appropriates immortality as a
privilege, when it exalts itself above all, above the deceased and those yet
living. Superhumanity in this sense (as a privilege to immortality) is a vice
not only moral, but intellectual. … But Superhumanity is also the highest
virtue, when it consists in the fulfillment of the natural duty of sentient
beings to unite, to transform the blind, irrational force of nature that
spontaneously creates and destroys, into a force governed by reason. (1995, 2,
135.)
I would further argue that
Nietzschean philosophy is hardly compatible with the general task of life
extension that is so pervasive in transhumanism. According to Nietzsche,
prolonged self-preservation is the lot of mediocrity, vainly attempting to
perpetuate the current perceptions of personhood and current social patterns.
“Nothing will endure until the day after to-morrow [sic],” he wrote in Beyond
Good and Evil, “except one species of man, the incurably mediocre”
(Nietzsche 1964, 12, 237). The Superman, in contrast, will indomitably march
onto his tragic end. Nietzsche does often speak of life affirmation and life
enhancement and, in The Will to Power, refers to death as a “foolish
physiological fact,” opposing the dominant Christian assumption that “one
should live in such a way that one may have the will to die at the right
time!” (Nietzsche’s emphasis, 1964, 15, 338). For a brief period (around 1876)
he was a follower of Cornaro’s hygienic regimen (Hall 1922, 22). But nowhere in
his writings does Nietzsche seem to overtly set longevity as a goal for the
Superhuman. On the contrary, in Thus Spake Zarathustra, he treats the
pursuit of longevity with utter contempt: “What matter about long life! What
warrior wisheth to be spared!” He makes his contempt even more explicit when he
claims: “I love those who do not wish to preserve themselves, the down-going
ones do I love with mine entire love: for they go beyond” (Nietzsche 1964, 11,
53, 244). For Nietzsche, strength is by
no means equivalent to longevity:
The strong are, after all,
weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the average weak ones. They are squandering
races. “Permanence” in itself, can have no value: that which ought to be
preferred thereto would be a shorter life for the species, but a life richer
in creations. (Nietzsche 1964, 15, 304.)
The ecstatic momentous
enhancement of life is to be preferred over a long (and presumably conservative
and boring) self-preservation. Recently Sorgner argued that the Nietzschean
concept of “the overcoming of the human species” is “supposed to give meaning
to human beings” and that “the transhumanist concept of the posthuman cannot be
fully appreciated, if one does not take the meaning-giving aspect into
consideration” (Sorgner 2009, 40). It appears, however, that Nietzsche’s
aristocratism and contempt for life-prolongation, in addition to his denial of
positive scientific knowledge and disregard of technology, are elements that
make it difficult to accept him as an ideological forerunner of transhumanism,
at least for those transhumanists who desire a rapid development of life
extension methods and care for their universal distribution. Yet, as regards
“life enhancement” in a broader sense, Nietzsche’s work may be viewed as a
product and advertisement of German aristocratism.
Jean
Finot – the transhumanist as social activist
Opposition
to elitism and explicit advocacy of life-prolongation were the foundations for
the philosophy of Jean Finot, a prominent fin-de-siècle French journalist, social scholar, futurist,
and activist of the anti-racial movement.
In addition to the long tradition of meliorism and progressivism,
the cause of life extension was further advanced by prosperous social
conditions. Between the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and the
beginning of WWI in 1914,
The progress of hygiene; the increased comforts of the working
classes; the results obtained by serum therapy, which has revolutionized
medical science by giving it the means of fighting infectious diseases, that most
important factor in human longevity, all these are so many elements which may
perhaps allow us to draw near to the beautiful dream fondly imagined by the
authors of Genesis. Methusaleh, ancestor of Noah, was, according to the
latest Bible criticism, only a myth, but who knows whether, thanks to the
progress shown above, this myth may not some day become a reality? When liquid
air shall have destroyed the evil effects of the unhealthiness of big towns,
and synthetic chemistry have delivered us [sic] from the poisons contained in
adulterated food; when electricity facilitates life by reducing its labor; when
universal peace rids us of mortality on the battle-field; when humanity at
last, thus freed from misery and its warlike instincts, as well as the debilitating
principle of hate, shall have found its end in the life-giving domain of love
and universal fraternity, then we may see longevity again drawing near to its
natural limits. (Finot 1909, 77-78.)
The
observed improvements in the quality of life, the decline in mortality, the
steady increase in the average lifespan, as well as the existence and the
reported growing number of centenarians, reassured Finot in the future success
of prolonging the human life to 150 years and beyond. Mere “hoping” was not
sufficient – an active search of life-prolonging means was, according to him, an
imperative.
According to
Finot, human biological development will not be limited to extending longevity.
The concept of incessant transformation of life was central to his philosophy,
to the grotesque point where he suggested that life “succeeds to the grave,
noisy life, with animation ceaselessly renewed” (127), that is to say, the human
life will continue in the life of worms in the grave (on which grounds he
categorically opposed cremation). Though Finot referred to “Will as a means of
prolonging life,” yet for him reductionism and materialism held the key for
understanding, manipulating and extending life. In Finot’s philosophy, biology
is reducible to chemistry and physics, and the complexity of a living organism
is reducible to an interrelation of its components. Such a reduction, according
to Finot, opens the possibility for engineering life, and eventually for life’s
indefinite maintenance. Through “fabrication of living
matter,” Finot believed, sentient, immortal beings can be created. Finot was
apparently among the first to earnestly discuss this possibility in terms of
modern biology and organic chemistry.
Finot
points to the inherent disharmonies and fragility of human nature: “the
illogical construction of our brains,” the fact that “at the time when we at
last succeed in understanding life we generally quit the world of mortals”
(275). The Homunculi, in contrast, will be free from the limitations of
mortality:
The
Homunculi of to-morrow [sic] may thus embellish and brighten the aspect of some
thousandth century. Some fine day, strong and powerful, they will perhaps form
another kind of humanity, and will claim their rights from men. The produce of
quick brains, they will create, by means of synthesis, beings like themselves.
Humanity will thus at last be divided into man-monkeys and Homunculi. (275.)
The
idea of creating an “homunculus” was, of course, not new. Finot does review the
earlier lore of synthesizing “homunculi” or building human-like “automata”:
from the myth of Prometheus, through Paracelsus’ alchemist theories, stories of
“conjuring” homunculi by Count J.F. Kueffstein (recorded in the Freemasons’
Almanac, The Sphinx, by Joseph Kammerer) and others, legends of the
Golem, the “androids” allegedly constructed by Albertus Magnus and Descartes,
Wolfgang von Kemplelen’s mechanical chess-player (proved to conceal a man), and
more. The novel element in Finot’s teachings seems to be the assertion that the
quest to create an “homunculus” may transcend the realm of legends, scary
literary fantasies, occult sciences, and curiosity chambers, and may gain in
feasibility from the progress of modern biology.
According
to Finot, the inspiration and hope come, first of all, from the works on
“plastidules” or “fine granulations linked together by very slender filaments”
(what we might today call “micro-organelles”), that were considered to be the
“first basis of life” or life’s “elementary” components, and that were studied
by Cohen, Huxley, Bütschli, Strassberger, Weitzel, Heitzmann, Haeckel,
Bernard, Baer, Weismann, Darwin and others (255). Some plastidules were
believed to be immortal, and their composition appeared to be subject to
manipulation. The works on “parthenogenesis” or creating “living cells by the
help of unfecundated eggs” by Loeb, Morgan, Fischer, Mathews, Witcher,
Bataillon, Delage, Giard, Henneguy and others, further strengthened the
assurance that life can be purposively manipulated through chemistry and
physics (271). Organic synthesis, as performed by Berthelot, Liebig,
Würtz, Lilienfieldt, Perkins, Schützenberger, and Sabatier, reinforced
Finot’s optimism even more. Indeed, Finot wonders “How does animal chemistry
produce fatty or albumenoid bodies? How indeed! We know nothing, and we shall
know nothing for many years” (266). Yet, despite the current limitations of
knowledge, the possibilities of organic synthesis can be limitless: “It would
thus be as unjust to attempt to fix bounds for the evolution of chemical
synthesis, as it would be bold to assign in advance any limit to physical
discoveries” (267).
Finally, the
construction of human-like automata or “simulacra of living beings,” represents
another line of research into the “artificial creation of life.” Finot
valorizes “the artificial creation of living matter” over “making miraculous
automata,” biology over mechanics (258). The fascination with “mechanical”
models is, according to him, the lot of “simpler” people, and the creation of
life directly from inert matter appears to him less promising than manipulating
biological “plastidules” that already exist. Yet, according to Finot, the
creation of such automata is a powerful direction of advancement. In Finot, the
discussion of the “artificial creation of life” is a corollary of the major
subject of the book: the prolongation of this-worldly life. Even if the appearance of the “homunculi” may be too
remote, the progress of biology will surely enable life enhancement and life extension:
The
possibilities of nature are infinite, as [Thomas] Huxley has so justly said.
Nothing then authorizes us to doubt that the intensity of life will be some day
rendered more powerful by science. It may not perhaps succeed in creating new
life. No matter, so long as it can preserve and greatly strengthen existing
life. And that will be enough. (277-78.)
Discussion
In juxtaposing Finot’s teachings (of 1900) with those
of present-day transhumanists, I would like to suggest the following points.
First, Jean Finot may be considered a true pioneer of transhumanism, expressing
concerns and aspirations generic to transhumanist philosophy, more than half a
century before the term “transhumanism” emerged, and almost a century before “transhumanism”
formed into a recognizable intellectual movement. The relation of transhumanism
to Finot’s philosophy appears to be more direct than to the beliefs of Fedorov,
Stephens, Bogdanov or Nietzsche. Fedorov, it seems, was much better grounded in literary
criticism and theology than in science. Fedorov’s “philosophy of the common task”
called the humanity to unite against death, and to work for the resurrection of
ancestors, but did not seem to go far in terms of scientific exposition. Nietzsche
too placed a much greater stock in literary theory than in science and
technology. Finot, on the other hand, seems to have been well acquainted with
contemporary scientific trends and based his optimistic forecasts on these tendencies.
And this is the argumentative strategy many contemporary transhumanists employ
(e.g. Kurzweil 2005). Consider, for example, the evolutionary proximity of
Finot’s areas of interest with those of modern transhumanists: “organic
synthesis” vs. “nanotechnology,” “automata” vs. “artificial intelligence,”
manipulation of “plastidules” vs. “biotechnology.”
Another tenet that Finot emphasized was “transformation” –
from the assertion that life does not end in the grave, to foreseeing the
emergence of a divide between “homunculi” and “man-monkeys.” And “transition”
and “transformation” are in the very root of “transhumanism.” Bogdanov and
Stephens do focus on science, yet the notions of radical transformation of the
human form and evolutionary leaps are underplayed in their visions, that
concern human beings and human beings only. Thus, Jean Finot, who seems to have
been almost entirely forgotten by scholars (even in transhumanist circles),
deserves recognition, both as an author of an original, consistent
life-extensionist philosophy, and as a major fin-de-siècle precursor of present-day transhumanism, at
least on a par with Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, or Nietzsche.
The second point that I would like to suggest is that
the pursuit of human enhancement and life extension may originate in
conservatism, both biological and social. There is a close conjunction between
the ideas of life extension, transcending human nature and creating artificial
life, in Finot’s writings and those of present-day transhumanists. The
connection (and progression) between these enterprises may appear logical: the
means initially designed to conserve life may exceed their purpose, and
beginning as a search to preserve a natural bodily status quo, the aspirations may
rapidly expand into attempts to modify nature. It appears to me that these
enterprises evolve in this, and not in the reverse order. The primary
aspiration is not to modify nature, but to preserve a natural state.
With regard to the social and ideological domains, the
authors under consideration act as champions of their parishes. As Fedorov
appears as a representative of Russian absolutism, Stephens of American industrialism,
Bogdanov of Soviet Marxism, and Nietzsche of German aristocratism, Finot may be
well viewed as a representative of French liberalism. Thus, each author
represents a particular existing social order, and his vision of human
advancement may be seen as a continuation and extension of that order.
Conclusions
In
different national contexts, different ideological schemes – secular humanism
or religion, discrimination or egalitarianism, idealism or materialism,
socialism or capitalism, liberalism or totalitarianism – appear to yield
different justifications for the necessity of life prolongation and longevity
research and to impact profoundly on the way such goals are conceived and
pursued. As the works of the above-said proponents of human enhancement and
longevity exemplify, the authors adapt to a particular national ideological
milieu and serve as agents for its continuation. Several conclusions can be drawn from these examples
of adaptation of life-extensionism to the specific ideological milieux.
First, these
adaptations may question the claims of a particular ideology for supremacy in
the promotion of life-extension and life-enhancement. The claims that atheism,
capitalism or hedonism are more conducive to the pursuit of longevity, can be
countered by historical examples where religion, socialism or asceticism were
the foundations. No ideological system seems to have a monopoly, however
strongly it asserts that it constitutes the rock-solid ground for this pursuit.
It may be that, rather than providing such a foundation, political ideologies
enlist the hope for life extension to increase their appeal. Life extension may
thus represent a cross-cultural value, yet often involving antagonistic social theories
and political movements.
Secondly, in
the authors under consideration, the goal of life extension has been associated
with a striving for stability and equilibrium, desiring to stabilize and thus
perpetuate the current state of the body or personality, and the present social
system. In this sense, life-extensionism may be a fundamentally conservative
(or conservationist) enterprise. Therefore, the impression that life-extensionism
represents a form of utopianism, a fringe or revolutionary movement, or an
advocacy of a radical change of the human nature – should be rejected or accepted
only with profound reservations. Historically, the proponents of radical life extension
may have envisioned no greater change to human nature than the extent to which
maintenance of an ancient edifice changes the nature of that edifice. The
life-extensionists may indeed have strived for a perfected society, which one might
call a “utopia,” but that “utopian” society, they hoped, would uncannily
resemble the one they lived in, with all or most of its institutions intact and
all the near and dear ones alive and around. The life-extensionist movement may
have been profoundly anti-revolutionary, if only for the simple reason that
opposing the existing social system would nullify public support of longevity
research. After a revolution has won, the life-extensionists may side with the
winner. As the Russian history exemplifies, after the socialist revolution the
life-extensionists swiftly changed their rhetoric from praising rural patriarchy,
absolutism and Pravolslav Christianity (Fedorov) to exalting socialism, atheism
and state regulation and planning (Bogdanov).
Thirdly,
paradoxically, out of the desire for fixity, novelty arises. As the stability
of the internal milieu could not be achieved by contemporary medical
technology, innovative interventions were sought. Consider, for example, such
late 19th-early 20th century developments as Nikolay
Pirogov’s plaster casts to fixate the bone (c. 1870), Porfiry Bachmetiev’s
preservation of animals by freezing (c. 1900), or Auguste Lumière’s
introduction into biomedicine of film and auto-chrome plates to safeguard
images of the body (c. 1900). All these can be viewed as technological novelties
employed in the service of maintaining constancy. As yet another early
twentieth century life-extensionist, the French-American pioneer of organ
transplantation and tissue engineering, the Nobel laureate in medicine of 1912,
Alexis Carrel contended: “Science has supplied us with means for keeping our
intraorganic equilibrium, which are more agreeable and less laborious than the
natural processes. …the physical conditions of our daily life are prevented
from varying” (Carrel 1935, 180). And as Finot asserted, the primary purpose of
biomedical advance is not to change, but to “preserve
and greatly strengthen existing life” (278).
Today, the
proponents of “Transhumanist/Humanity Plus,” “Upwinger,” “Extropian” or
“Singularitarian” intellectual movements seem to advocate a radical change
(enhancement) of human nature and society, almost beyond recognition: attaining
unlimited energy, matter availability, space expansion, robotic labor,
cognitive enhancement through symbiosis with artificial intelligence, in short,
going to the next stage of human and social evolution, with unlimited
capabilities and wealth. Similar aspirations were expressed in the fin de siècle. Unlimited health enhancement and
radical life extension are the first items on the agenda of these movements. In
fact, these movements are now perhaps the only ones that openly espouse the
cause of radical longevity. Still, even when
speaking about changing human nature and society beyond recognition, the
underlying primary desire is to preserve ourselves and make our
society more durable. Markets and democracies, of course, figure
prominently in contemporary Western discussions of our post-human future. There
is perhaps no stronger advocate of competitive “decentralization,” of “the
movement toward democracy and capitalism” during our evolutionary transcendence,
than Ray Kurzweil, president of Kurzweil Technologies Inc. (2005, 406). Such an
ideological preference might be expected as, in a capitalist milieu, to doubt
the necessity of free markets for progress would be sheer blasphemy. Even when
speaking of brain-computer synergy (obviously quite a radical change in human
nature), the transhumanists make sure to mention the uploading of our
personality and backing up our memories in a different substrate. Why
should a post-human, silicon-based entity care to remember what we have
done in kindergarten, or rather why should we make it remember? The answer may
be that the aspirations for a “back up” derive not from a desire for change for
the change’s sake, but from the conservative drive for self-preservation and
indefinite continuity.
Still, there
might be a point of collision between “traditional” life-extensionism and “transhumanism”
or “singularitarianism.” The singularitarians (such as Kurzweil) will have us
believe that human-level artificial intelligence and man-machine synergy are
inevitable, given the current trend of accelerating development of information
technology. It is this technology that Kurzweil anticipates will help us find
effective life-extending means through data mining, will provide a backup for
our personal traits for future “uploading” or “fine-tuning,” and will direct
the repair of our body. But at some stage, Kurzweil believes, the machines will
succeed us entirely: in the best scenario our memories will be a component of
machine intelligence, and in the worst the machines will entirely supersede the
human race. Such a level of change may be too great to accept for a
“traditional life-extensionist” wanting to be around in the same (or very similar)
body and environment (i.e., it could induce an incapacitating “future shock”).
As the super-long-lived Lazarus in Robert Heinlein’s Methuselah’s Children
(1958, 141) comments when confronted by radical body modification: “It may be
an improvement, but damn it, I say it ain’t human.”
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