This could have been the motto proposed by a transhumanist communicator for the event on “immortality, eternal youth and death” organized at Medialab Matadero in Madrid on July 11, 2024, based on the public program curated by Amaia Sánchez-Velasco and Jorge Valiente Oriol from Grandeza Studio, within the framework of his research project titled “Revisiting Titono: Tentacular Geographies of Eternal Youth.”
https://www.medialab-matadero.es/activityes/inmortalidad-eterna-juventud-y-muerte
At this meeting I had the opportunity to participate in the round table organized together with María A. Blasco, biomolecular researcher and scientific director of the National Cancer Research Center and head of the Telomeres and Telomerase group, and with Igor Bragado, architect and co-director of the study Common Accounts design concept.
Before said event, and to prepare my presentation prior to the dialogue with María and Igor, I had a very clarifying conversation about cybernetic immortality, the technological Singularity and optional death with a defender of the bioideology of transhumanism and posthumanism. For your interest, below I am going to summarize his arguments in a synthetic way, citing them with the sign (H +), providing my observations that will be preceded by the sign (AC).
Medialab MataderoConsciousness Containers for Cyber Immortality
(H+) “The transhuman future will soon take us to a new level of consciousness: it is time, then, to adjust new non-biological antennas and gradually acquire a form of cyber-immortality.”
(AC) I think that first we should agree on what we mean by conscience.
From a scientific point of view, we could agree that consciousness is the state of knowledge of oneself and the environment through which the individual performs his or her perceptual, intellectual, affective and motor functions. From the neurological point of view, consciousness manifests itself in its performance through brain activity and is considered as a complex of information units that has its material base in the brain.
From a spiritual point of view – for example, for a Christian -, conscience is the inner space of listening to the truth, to the good, to listening to God. It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, which speaks to our hearts and helps us to discern, to understand the path we must follow, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.
Thus, for us, conscience is the inner space of dialogue between God and man. It is also often called moral conscience because through it, man identifies good and evil in his own life.
In this way, conscience is spoken of in two senses: in a global and broader sense, as the knowledge of good and evil that allows the person to morally judge reality and actions. In a strict sense, it would be the practical judgment that acts to discern the goodness or badness of each singular action.
Therefore, conscience would be the exclusive witness of what happens in the intimacy of the person, of his essential moral righteousness or evil.Through it, man enters into a dialogue with himself, but above all with God, who is the author of the moral law, to which man orients himself and aspires to achieve his happiness.
In short, from this point of view, conscience is the most secret core and the sanctuary of man, in which he feels alone with God, whose voice resonates in his most intimate space. It is conscience that admirably makes known that law whose fulfillment consists in the love of God and neighbor.
(H+) “Yes, but we don’t really know what consciousness is. Or rather, we have an idea of some of its characteristics, but we have not been able to go further. Consciousness seems to be quantum by nature.”
(AC) I agree that one of the most important open questions in science today is how our consciousness is established. Different scientists claim that the brain’s neural system forms an intricate network and that the consciousness it produces should obey the rules of quantum mechanics. Indeed, it is an interesting field for dialogue between science and theology, between reason and faith.
(H+) “However, for many of us, there would only be one universal consciousness. Our local consciousness would capture a larger ‘universal self’ as an antenna. Over the centuries, coming to understand this ‘I’ has been called awakening, enlightenment, transcendence. By the year 2045, some predict that the world could be fully adapted to this transhuman future. A new frontier would then open for our species towards a form of cyber-immortality.”
(AC) I would like to make it clear from the beginning of our conversation that I see transhumanism as man’s attempt to deny his creatureliness and elevate himself to a higher level of existence by manipulating human nature, to through technology (genetic engineering, cryonics, implants with Brain-Computer Interfaces, etc.), to achieve self-perfection, self-transcendence and even that supposed cybernetic immortality.
In my opinion, transhumanism embodies man’s original sin of pride in wanting to be like God without Sanctifying Grace. For this reason, I cannot agree with his worldview or with his proposals since they are antagonistic to an anthropology adequate for the human being that understands that the person is composed of an incarnated body and soul, which aspire to transfiguration through resurrection, and thus becoming a glorious body and an immortal soul reunited for eternal life.
(H+) “However, we think that any container with a sufficiently integrated network of information patterns and some optimal complexity, particularly complex dynamical systems with biological or artificial brains, could host a node of consciousness.”
(AC) It is evident that, like the ancient Gnostics, as well as various dualist and neo-gnostic ideologies of our time, from transhumanism, the human body is perceived as a kind of cage or machine, a manipulable and dispensable device. , controlled by some inner essence, also called the “true self.”
(H+) “Yes, this type of identified consciousness unit would be endowed with free will within the limitations of the applicable set of rules (physical laws), influenced by the dynamics of the broader consciousness system.”
(AC) What do you mean by “broader system of consciousness”? To a universal consciousness? To a global collective supermind?
(H+) “Indeed, that’s what I mean. On the other hand, the following question should be asked: Is it not too naive to assume that Universal Consciousness produces phenomenality only in the form of biological avatars? Even today, we all contribute to the global digital mental archives of the ‘Syntellect’. For example, every time we upload a photo or make a call, we leave a footprint in cyberspace.”
(AC) Should I understand that the “Syntellect” IA a kind of global collective mind?
(H+) “Correct. In fact we are in an ocean of consciousness and basically we have always been part of this mind-space network, of a technocultural hive mind, each of us being a product of our social virtual reality.”
(AC) This statement seems like a mix between Buddhist or even New Age cosmogony, and a concept, that of the hive mind, widely used in science fiction literature.
Transfer human consciousness
(H+) “On the other hand, we believe that the most likely non-invasive way to transfer human consciousness in the near future, with early stages in the 2030s, could be the convergence of optogenetics, nanotechnology, neuroengineering and immersive computing. In short, technologies and neurotechnologies that will allow us to connect our artificial intelligence systems and organic neurons directly to the cloud.”
(AC) How do you think this transfer of human consciousness will occur? Are we really talking about science or science fiction?
(H+) “Both things at the same time. After a gradual migration of the mind to the cloud, we will eventually all transform into immortal digital minds independent of the substrate (biological body), living in a cyber paradise of our own design.”
(AC) That cyber paradise sounds like a new “earthly paradise” or a reissue of the Tower of Babel, don’t you think?
(H+) “Think that at the end of that process, we won’t even need a physical body anymore. We could become 100 percent digital: From an evolutionary point of view, our biological brains are a bridge to post-biological artificial superbrains. Therefore, humans must first go through a brief phase of cyborgism, before entering the next phase of evolutionary development.”
(AC) I have always thought that the ideologies of transgenderism, transhumanism, posthumanism, cyborgism or transspeciesism converge on a common idea: the dissolution of human nature in the new biotechnological evolutionary phase of our species, predicted and promoted by these bioideologies.
Personal exocortex in the cloud
(H+) “Initially, each of us will have a personal exocortex in the cloud, a kind of non-biological third brain hemisphere that will be in constant communication with the other two biological brain hemispheres. Something similar to what was imagined, in all probability, by Elon Musk in his Neuralink project.”
(AC) It seems that this process has already begun and is unstoppable. What comes next?
(H+) “At some point, this third hemisphere will have extreme informational content and intimate knowledge of our biology, personality, and other attributes of the physical world to seamlessly integrate with us, as a holistic entity. We will be neoents or posthumans.”
(AC) So, what you are proposing from transhumanism is a gradual hybridization of the biological human being with the machine and with artificial intelligence systems to increase our cognitive and physical capabilities. Is that so?
(H+) “Indeed, our original biological system will pale in comparison to the exocortex, perhaps billions of times more capable. In this way, the exocortex will smoothly assume all the functions of the biological brain. During a transition period (of a few decades) people will not be limited to a single body.”
(AC) I understand, therefore, that an exocortex would be an artificial external data processing system that would help us memorize and process a greater amount of information in less time, and that an integrated exocortex would directly allow us to perform actions through thought. That is, through the connection with the neuronal activity of the neocortex.
Today we can see how BCI or Brain Computer Interface are beginning to develop, that is, the system that allows direct communication between the brain and an external device, such as a computer or a robot. BCIs use brain waves, or neural activity, to allow a person to control a device or perform tasks without using moving body parts. From my point of view, these technologies are ethically acceptable to recover capabilities in people with a certain functional disability. However, are they ethically acceptable in situations that involve expanding the common capabilities of a human person?
(H+) “We believe that it will prove to be a moral duty to do so. But in addition, eventually, people will be able to form identities in numerous substrates, to route their identity through the biosphere, the cybersphere, the metaverse and other virtual environments. And that will be a very interesting and pleasant experience.”
(AC) Nowadays we are already offered proposals for varied and different alternative digital worlds. Metaverses are being built as virtual spaces where users represented as avatars carry out activities of all kinds, in generally three-dimensional environments.
(H+) “That’s right, and gradually, our minds will migrate to cyberspace with infinite personalized virtual universes. And our mentality will persist there.”
(AC) Will our identity, subjectivity and personality persist in these virtual spaces?
(H+) “Indeed, and in any case, we will continue to be us. As cyberhuman minds, we will process information thousands of times faster. Our thinking will be so fast that our own subjective perception of time will change. A calendar day may last decades or even centuries.”
(AC) I fear that this new evolutionary stage of the human being that is proposed to us will cause new digital and genetic inequalities that we will have to know how to identify and resolve.
(H+) “In a transhuman and posthuman future, this new generation of humans will perceive the unenhanced portion of the population as slower-thinking creatures. They will seem to them to be almost static beings, as houseplants are to us today.”
(AC) And they will surely treat those non-biotechnologically improved Homos Sapiens as obsolete and therefore disposable beings.
(H+) “Think that humanity will tend to converge towards a single global mind and unlock a new greater reality. This is what is called the Syntellect hypothesis.”
(AC) I have read something by Alex M. Vikoulov about the cybernetic singularity and the emergence of the syntellect. It seems that when contemplating the full spectrum of scenarios of upcoming technological singularities, many are betting in favor of the Cybernetic Singularity, which would be the surest path to cyber immortality and divinity designed in opposition to the Superintelligence Singularity, i.e. when Homo Sapiens would hastily withdraw from that hypertechnological society, like a senescent father disappears from the family scene in front of his offspring who surpass him in energy and knowledge, although perhaps not in wisdom and life experience.
This transition from the meta-system of the networked Global Brain to the Gaian Mind – according to the Gaia Hypothesis, planet Earth is understood as a self-regulated living system – would have to do with the evolution of our own individual minds. It would, therefore, be about our own “self-transcendence” according to its transhumanist defenders.
(H+) “Indeed, the emerging Syntellect will allow us to merge into a Global Mind, constituting the quintessence of the coming Singularity.”
(AC) This whole narrative seems to me personally to be the story of a new Gnostic techno-religion.
You will be cybernetic deities!
(H+) “And we recognize that we are beings oriented towards the search for transcendence. The ultimate goal should be to achieve the Simulation Singularity, that is, the designed divinity, the cybernetic deity. Endowed with cybernetic immortality and access to any experience of virtual, ultra-realistic and sensorial realities, limited only by our imagination, in fact we would be cybernetic deities oriented to cyber-immortality.”
(AC) Now I do see a direct connection with the biblical story of Genesis and the death of God in contemporary societies. I believe that an excess of ambition fatally leads human beings to error and their downfall.
“You will be like gods” (Gen 3:5) was the decisive argument that the devil used to make the first humans fall into the temptation of being like an omnipotent, omniscient god and the governor of all creation. This would be the concept that the first human had of the Creator; This was what man wanted to be and precisely in this reductionist conception lay his error. He did not recognize that God was first and foremost Love, and love of donation, generosity, delivery and sacrifice. He failed to discover that creation was not only an act of unmatched power and dominion, but above all an act of free love.
Many centuries after this biblical story, human beings have not changed much and we continue to stumble over the same stone. We want to be like gods, but arrogant and powerful gods, controllers of natural laws and morality at the mercy of our arbitrariness and extravagance. We want to have the decision about life and death in our hands.
(H+) “But we could even immerse ourselves in the virtual reality experience of any human being ever lived, or in imaginary scenarios, or be any creature that we want to embody as an avatar.”
(AC) From my point of view, what you are offering us is a “low cost” existence, a simulated identity in virtual space. I think there is a danger that we will become some kind of soulless posthumans.
(H+) “If you think about it, it already happened in other circumstances, according to some cults, in remote times. If you believe in a universal consciousness, the experience as a human is just that: a simulation on another level.”
(AC) However, my Christian worldview offers me an extraordinarily hopeful story. I do not aspire to a simulation or cyber-immortality, but to eternal life. More than as an Avatar, I like to see myself as a Son of God whom the Creator loves infinitely.
(H+) “We, transhumanists, aim at the so-called continuity of subjectivity through advanced technologies. We explore techno-scientific ways to lengthen life exponentially and thus achieve Superlongevity. Death, in the common sense of the word, will become optional for us, and cybernetic immortality will soon be within our reach.”
(AC) We, Christians, aim for Glory through Sanctifying Grace. For us, death is not optional nor is it the end of life, but rather it is the door to achieving true Life in Heaven. There we will continue to be each of us individually an immortal soul in a transfigured, glorious and resurrected body.
(H+) “However, from our transhumanist perspective, once simulated in the Singularity, billions of years of subjective novelty await us until we want to become so immersed in that simulation that we intentionally forget who we really are.”
(AC) However, according to our faith and hope, we believe in eternal life, and that there we will enjoy the Beatific Gaze of God, which is Love.
Thus our conversation ended. With a smile and some deep reflections on the immortality of the soul and the cyber-immortality of the mind, with the hope that the human being, guided by the Holy Spirit, will know how to find the authentic path of human perfection, full happiness and Salvation .
