Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism

by Eric Steinhart Department of Philosophy William Paterson University Journal of Evolution and Technology

Vol. 20 Issue 1 - pgs 1-22

December 2008

from JournalOfEvolutionAndTechnology Website

Omega Point Theology Being Used As Framework For 'Christian' Transhumanism

Tomorrow's Nephilim As Spiritual Leaders Of New Global Order

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was among the first to give serious consideration to the future of human evolution. His work advocates both biotechnologies (e.g., genetic engineering) and intelligence technologies. He discusses the emergence of a global computation-communication system (and is said by some to have been the first to have envisioned the Internet).

He advocates the development of a global society.

Teilhard is almost surely the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence. He discusses the spread of human intelligence into the universe and its amplification into a cosmic intelligence. More recently, his work has been taken up by Barrow and Tipler; Tipler; Moravec; and Kurzweil.

Of course, Teilhards Omega Point Theory is deeply Christian, which may be difficult for secular transhumanists.

But transhumanism cannot avoid a fateful engagement with Christianity. Christian institutions may support or oppose transhumanism. Since Christianity is an extremely powerful cultural force in the West, it is imperative for transhumanism to engage it carefully.

A serious study of Teilhard can help that engagement and will thus be rewarding to both communities.

1. Introduction Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Jesuit paleontologist.[1] He combined his scientific study of the fossil record with his Christian faith to produce a general theory of evolution. Teilhards body of work has much to offer transhumanists, who advocate the use of technology to enhance human capacities and see current human beings as in transition to posthuman forms.

There are several specific reasons for transhumanists to study Teilhards work.

The first reason is that Teilhard was one of the first to articulate transhumanist themes. Transhumanists advocate the ethical use of technology for human enhancement. Teilhard's writing likewise argues for the ethical application of technology in order to advance humanity beyond the limitations of natural biology. Teilhard explicitly argues for the use of both bio-technologies (e.g., genetic engineering) and intelligence technologies, and develops several other themes often found in transhumanist writings.

He discusses the emergence of a global computation-communication system, and is said by some to have been the first to have envisioned the Internet (Kreisberg, 1995). He advocates the development of an egalitarian global society. He was almost certainly the first to discuss the acceleration of technological progress to a kind of Singularity in which human intelligence will become super-intelligence.

He discusses the spread of human intelligence into the universe and its amplification into a cosmic-intelligence.

The second reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that his thought has influenced transhumanism itself. In particular, Teilhard develops an Omega Point Theory.

An Omega Point Theory (OPT) claims that the universe is evolving towards a godlike final state.

Teilhards OPT was later refined and developed by Barrow and Tipler (1986) and by Tipler alone (1988; 1995).

Ideas from the Barrow-Tipler OPT were, in turn, taken up by many transhumanists (see, for example, Moravec (1988; 2000) and Dewdney (1998)). Kurzweil also articulates a somewhat weaker OPT.

He says:

evolution moves inexorably toward our conception of God, albeit never reaching this ideal

(2005: 476; see also 375, 389-390)

Many transhumanists work within the conceptual architecture of Teilhards OPT without being aware of its origins. Indeed, Teilhard is mostly ignored in the histories of transhumanism; e.g., he is mentioned once and only in passing in Bostroms (2005) detailed history of the transhumanist movement.

The third reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that he develops his transhumanist ideas within a Christian context. Teilhard shows how one might develop a Christian transhumanism. Although some secular transhumanists may be inclined to react negatively to any mention of Christianity, such hostility may prove politically costly.

Transhumanism and Christianity are not essentially enemies.

They share some common themes (Hopkins, 2005). Of course, it is understandable that many transhumanists reject the superstitious aspects of Christian doctrine and the authoritarian aspects of Christian institutions. Likewise, Teilhard wants to abandon those aspects of Christianity. He argues that Christ is at work in evolution, that Christ is at work in technology, and that the work of Christ ultimately aims at the perfection of human biology. Christianity is a complex network of doctrines and institutions.

A study of Teilhard can help transhumanists to locate and carefully cultivate friends in that network and to locate, and carefully defend against, opponents.

The fourth reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that they are likely to need to defend themselves against conservative forms of Christianity. The dominant forms of Christianity today (at least in the USA) are conservative. As the cultural visibility of transhumanism grows, conservative Christians will increasingly pay it their attention.

They may feel increasingly threatened by transhumanism and come to see it as a heresy (Bainbridge, 2005). Various conservative Christians have already opposed transhumanism (Wiker, 2003; Hook, 2004; Daly, 2004; Hart, 2005). Since Christianity is an extremely powerful cultural force in the West, it is imperative for transhumanism to engage it carefully.

Conservative Christian forces have already opposed various biotechnologies (such as embryonic stem cell research and cloning) and may oppose all the enhancement techniques that transhumanists advocate. Conservative Christianity currently has the political power to effectively shut transhumanism down in the West.

Teilhard was attacked by conservative Catholics, and transhumanists may have to fight similar battles over similar issues. And yet Teilhard gained a surprisingly large following both within and beyond the church.[2]

A study of his work can help transhumanists develop nuanced strategies for defending against attacks from conservative Christians.

The fifth reason for transhumanists to study Teilhard is that they may want to build bridges to liberal and progressive forms of Christianity. Teilhard believed that science and technology have positive roles to play in building the City of God in this world.

A study of Teilhards work may help transhumanists to explore the ways that transhumanism can obtain support:

from Christian millenarianism (see Bozeman, 1997; Noble, 1999)

from Irenaea
n and neo-Irenaean theodicies (see Hick, 1977; Walker, Undated)[3]

from liberal Protestantism (see Arnow, 1950)

from process theology (see Cobb and Griffin, 1976)

Teilhard believed that everyone has a right to enter the kingdom of heaven it isnt reserved for any special sexual, racial, or economic elite.

A study of Teilhards writings can help transhumanism embrace a deep conception of social justice and expand its conception of social concern (see Garner, 2005). A study of Teilhard can help transhumanists make beneficial conceptual, and even political, connections to progressive Christian institutions.

My goal in this paper is to present the thought of Teilhard de Chardin in a way that is defensible and accessible to transhumanists.

Teilhard was working in the early twentieth century, at a time when biology was primitive and computer science non-existent. Many of his ideas are presented in a nineteenth-century vocabulary that is now conceptually obsolete.

My method is to present these ideas in a charitable way using a contemporary conceptual vocabulary, and to show how they have been refined by transhumanists such as Tipler, Moravec, and Kurzweil. One might say this paper offers a transhumanist reading of Teilhard or even a Teilhardian transhumanism. Since I make extensive use of computational ideas, I am offering a computational model of Teilhards thought.

I thereby hope to make his ideas accessible and to encourage further study of Teilhard among transhumanists.

Teilhard produced an extensive body of work that may be of interest to them;[4] there is also an enormous secondary literature on Teilhard, much of which may be of great interest to transhumanists.[5]

2. Teilhard and computation

2.1 Complexity and logical depth Physical things can be compared in terms of their size, mass, and so on. But they can also be compared in terms of their complexity. Complexity is an objective physical property and the scale of complexities is an objective physical scale.

Teilhard says:

the complexity of a thing... [is] the quality the thing possesses of being composed (a) of a larger number of elements, which are (b) more tightly organized among themselves.... [Complexity depends] not only on the number and diversity of the elements included in each case, but at least as much on the number and correlative variety of the links formed between these elements.

(Teilhard, 1959, The Future of Man, page 98; henceforth abbreviated FUT.)

A first refinement of Teilhards thought requires that we update his definition of complexity.

We can define the complexity of an object as the amount of computational work it takes to simulate the object. It takes a more powerful computer to simulate a more complex object. Bennett (1990) makes this idea more precise by defining complexity as logical depth.

He says:

Logical depth = Execution time required to generate the object in question by a near-incompressible universal computer program, i.e., one not itself computable as output of a significantly more concise program.... Logically deep objects... contain internal evidence of having been the result of a long computation or slow-to-simulate dynamical process.

(Bennett, 1990: 142.)

Teilhard observes that increasingly complex systems are emerging in our universe over time.

We can plot this emergence on a graph with two axes: a time axis and a complexity axis (Teilhard, 1973, My fundamental vision in Towards the Future, page 166; henceforth abbreviated MFV). Teilhard refers to the emergence of increasingly complex systems as complexification. Today we are more likely to talk about self-organization. But the idea is the same.

According to Bennett, we should expect more complex objects to appear later in any evolutionary process.

Teilhard would agree.

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Teilhard de Chardin and Transhumanism