Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T04:48:31.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enhancing a Person, Enhancing a Civilization: A Research Program at the Intersection of Bioethics, Future Studies, and Astrobiology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2017

MILAN M. ĆIRKOVIĆ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

There are manifold intriguing issues located within largely unexplored borderlands of bioethics, future studies (including global risk analysis), and astrobiology. Human enhancement has for quite some time been among the foci of bioethical debates, but the same cannot be said about its global, transgenerational, and even cosmological consequences. In recent years, discussions of posthuman and, in general terms, postbiological civilization(s) have slowly gained a measure of academic respect, in parallel with the renewed interest in the entire field of future studies and the great strides made in understanding of the origin and evolution of life and intelligence in their widest, cosmic context. These developments promise much deeper synergic answers to questions regarding the long-term future of enhancement: how far can it go? Is human enhancement a further step toward building a true postbiological civilization? Should we actively participate and help shape this process? Is the future of humanity “typical” in the same Copernican sense as our location in space and time is typical in the galaxy, and if so, can we derive important insights about the evolutionary pathways of postbiological evolution from astrobiological and Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) studies? These and similar questions could be understood as parts of a possible unifying research program attempting to connect cultural and moral evolution with what we know and understand about their cosmological and biological counterparts.

Keywords

cognitive enhancementfuture studiesrisk analysisposthumanitySETImoral enhancement
Type
Special Section: Enhancement and Goodness
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 459 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author thanks Vojin Rakić for his support and encouragement, as well as his overarching vision of modern, future-oriented bioethics, which has been a constant and enormous inspiration. The kind help of Jelena Dimitrijević, Dušan Pavlović, Anders Sandberg, and Slobodan Popović Bagi has been invaluable in the course of the work on this article. Support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia through grant ON176021 is hereby acknowledged.

References

Notes

1. Boyajian TS, LaCourse DM, Rappaport SA, Fabrycky D, Fischer DA, Gandolfi D, et al. Planet hunters X. KIC 8462852—Where’s the Flux? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2016;457:3988–4004.

2. Korpela EJ, Sallmen SM, Leystra Greene D. Modeling indications of technology in planetary transit light curves – dark-side illumination. The Astrophysical Journal 2015;809:139; Wright JT, Cartier KMS, Zhao M, Jontof–Hutter D, Ford EB. The search for extraterrestrial civilizations with large energy supplies. IV. The signatures and information content of transiting megastructures. The Astrophysical Journal 2016;816:17.

3. For some of the exceptions, see Bostrom, N. Astronomical waste: The opportunity cost of delayed technological development. Utilitas 2003;5:308–14; Voros J. Integral futures: An approach to futures inquiry. Futures 2008;40:190–201; Voros J. Galactic-scale macro-engineering: Looking for signs of other intelligent species, as an exercise in hope for our own. In: Grinin L, Baker D, Quaedackers E, Korotayev A, eds. Teaching and Researching Big History: Exploring a New Scholarly Field. Volgograd: Uchitel Publishing House; 2014:283–304; Baum SD. Is humanity doomed? Insights from astrobiology. Sustainability 2010;2:591–603.

4. For example, Huxley J. Transhumanism. In: New Bottles for New Vine. London: Chatto & Windus; 1957:13–17; Moravec H. Mind Children: the Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1988; Dick SJ. Cultural evolution, the postbiological universe and SETI. International Journal of Astrobiology 2003;2:65–74; Hughes J. Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. New York: Basic Books; 2004.

5. For example, Wiseman, H. The Myth of the Moral Brain: The Limits of Moral Enhancement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Tennison, M. Moral transhumanism: The next step. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2012;37:405–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

7. Lem S. The Invincible. London: Sidgwick and Jackson; 1973; Lem S. Summa Technologiae. Belgrade: Nolit; 1977; Lem S. Fiasco. San Diego: Harcourt Brace; 1987.

8. Michael, Kandel, In: Swirski, P, ed. The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem. Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press; 2006Google Scholar, chapter 4, at 74.

9. For example, Clarke AC. Childhood’s End. New York: Ballantine Books; 1953; Wright JC. The Golden Age. New York: Tor Books; 2002; Stross C. Accelerando. London: Orbit Books; 2005.

10. Bostrom, N, Ćirković, MM, eds. Global Catastrophic Risks. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2008Google Scholar, and references therein.

11. Persson I, Savulescu J. The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity. Journal of Applied Philosophy 2008;25:162–77; Persson, I, Savulescu, J. Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford Univerity Press; 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Rakić V, Ćirković MM. Confronting existential risks with voluntary moral bioenhancement. Journal of Evolution and Technology 2016;26:48–59.

13. Nunn AVW, Guy GW, Bell JD. The intelligence paradox; will ET get the metabolic syndrome? Lessons from and for earth. Nutrition & Metabolism 2014;11:34.

14. Bostrom N. Existential risk prevention as global priority. Global Policy 2013;4:15–31.

15. For some further discussion of this issue in the astrobiological context, see Ćirković MM. Against the Empire. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 2008;61:246–54; Ćirković MM. The Astrobiological Landscape: Philosophical Foundations of the Study of Cosmic Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2012.

16. Toynbee, A. Change and Habit. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1966.Google Scholar

17. Fukuyama F. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 2002.

18. Bostrom, N. Astronomical waste: The opportunity cost of delayed technological development. Utilitas 2003;5:308–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Arendt H. The conquest of space and the stature of man. New Atlantis 2007 (original publication 1963); Fall:43–55; available at http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-conquest-of-space-and-the-stature-of-man (last accessed 15 Aug 2015); Frayn M. The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe. London: Faber and Faber; 2006.

20. For example, Midgley M. Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears. London: Routledge; 1985; Fukuyama F. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 2002; Kass LR. Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Perfection. The New Atlantis 2003;1: 9–28. It is arguable that humanity would be much better off if all that energy were spent in solving real problems instead of fighting a neo-Luddite rear guard fight against the progress of technology, creativity, and freedom.

21. Lineweaver CH. An estimate of the age distribution of terrestrial planets in the universe: Quantifying metallicity as a selection effect. Icarus 2001;151:307–13.

22. Dick, SJ. Cultural evolution, the postbiological universe and SETI. International Journal of Astrobiology 2003;2:65–74, at 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. See note 22, Dick 2003, at 71.

24. Parenthetically, Dick forcefully argues that “The possibility of a postbiological universe... has not been considered in detail because humans are unaccustomed to thinking on cosmic time scales and following the logical consequences of cosmic time scales for biology and culture.” (See note 22, Dick 2003, at 65.) Is not this same short-sightedness the cause for many moral quandaries one encounters in trying to reason about, for example, ecological ethics or the ethics of long-term nuclear waste disposal or even terraforming ethics?

25. Correy L. David Hilbert and the axiomatization of physics (1894–1905). The Archive for History of Exact Sciences 1997;51:83–198.

26. For example, Kahane G. Our cosmic insignificance. Nous 2013;48:742–72.

27. Davies PCW. Footprints of alien technology. Acta Astronautica 2012;73:250–7; Carrigan RA. Is interstellar archeology possible? Acta Astronautica 2012;78:121–6; Jones M. Reconsidering macro-artefacts in SETI searches. Acta Astronautica 2015;116:161–5.

28. Although the early notions of the “Galactic Club” of multiple extraterrestrial civilizations might have been rather naïve (Bracewell RN. The Galactic Club: Intelligent Life in Outer Space. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman; 1975), more sophisticated ideas about the “first contact” may now be considered (Michaud MAG. Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials. New York: Copernicus Books; 2011; Almár I, Tarter J. The discovery of ETI as a high-consequence, low-probability event. Acta Astronautica 2011;68:358–61; Bradbury RJ, Ćirković MM, Dvorsky G. Considerations for a Dysonian approach to SETI: A fruitful middle ground? Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 2011;64:156–65.)

29. Rakić V. Voluntary moral enhancement and the survival-at-any-cost bias. Journal of Medical Ethics 2014;40:246–50; Rakić, V. We must create beings with moral standing superior to our own. Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics 2015;24(1):58–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Compare, Voros J. Integral futures: An approach to futures inquiry. Futures 2008;40:190–201; Nazaretyan AP. Life’s meaning as a global problem of modernity: A view from big history and complexity studies perspective. Journal of Globalization Studies 2010;1:147–65.

31. For example, Doyle TE. Reviving nuclear ethics: A renewed research agenda for the twenty-first century. Ethics and International Affairs 2010;24:287–308.

32. See note 3, Bostrom 2003.