World Futures Review

Since the Big Bang, the universe has been in constant evolution and continuous transformation. First there were physical interactions, followed by chemical reactions, then biological processes, and finally now technological evolution. Biological evolution continues but it is just too slow to achieve the possibilities available today thanks to technological evolution. Natural selection with trial and error can now be supplemented by technical selection with engineering design. Humanity’s monopoly as the only advanced sentient life-form on the planet is coming to an end, supplemented by a number of posthuman incarnations, including enhanced humans, transhumans, robots, and cyborgs, as we approach a technological singularity. Thanks to the accelerating rate of technological change, humans are transcending biological limitations and crossing the traditional boundaries of what being human meant. Such radical changes have profound philosophical implications in what it is to be human and the interactions between humans with an increasingly modified environment. What is natural and what is not natural has a new meaning in transhumanism, because everything is still changing and evolving, not only biologically but also technologically. Reality is not static because humans and the rest of nature are dynamic, and both are changing continuously. Transhumanism transcends some static ideas of humanism as humans themselves evolve at an accelerating rate.

Humanity’s evolutionary path should be placed in the context of cosmic evolution, an arrow of time from the Big Bang toward making the entire universe alive. The evolution of humanity can be seen in roughly three stages in terms of human capacity: its formation, utilization, and expansion. The future is unpredictable, but today, we are reaching the point of fully utilizing our existing capacity as a “super mammal” and are about to launch the third stage of augmenting and transforming our capabilities. We are developing technologies to enable this fundamental shift. We are facing increasing economic pressure to do it. But most importantly, we are developing a deeper reflection of our place in the universe to provide ideological clarity for our evolutionary future.

The first industrial robot was set along the production line in Japan in 1969. Through the miracle recovery of the great economic growth in post-war Japan, more robots were developed. Today, we see robots operating in many environments other than indoor assembly lines. Meanwhile, robots truly have come of age as a result of amazing advances in programming (artificial intelligence) and sensor-information technology. In the future, we will find more super-intelligent humanoids coexisting with us, and cities will be structured as robot-friendly environments where not only humanoids but ubiquitous machines of all kinds with built-in computer, sensors, and actuators will enhance and supplement human existence in countless ways.

This article outlines how the technology revolution, globalization, and other historic forces are likely to create a “mature” global order. Because such changes are transformative, they require nothing less than an equivalent transformation of world views. Global warming, climate change, sustainable energy, financial crises, water shortages, cyber warfare, terrorism, political gridlock, and other threats are so profound that they cannot conceivably be averted with anything less than a shift in consciousness. Humanity faces the unprecedented challenge of accepting responsibility for safeguarding life on the planet, or this transition will fail. In common language, the world must grow up or die.

The increasing integration of our biology with technology and the increasing integration of artificial intelligence with the built environment could make a continuum of human consciousness and technology giving birth to a “Conscious-Technology” civilization. Although humanity has made great progress, the avoidance of new long-term threats is not guaranteed and will likely require global collective intelligence systems to help us make the decisions on the scale necessary for future survival and the continued human evolution.

Transformational foresight as a new tool is developed and explored from the perspective of future human evolution. We briefly explore the technology-based alternatives and then focus on the human transpersonal direction for how we might evolve. A tool is proposed (currently under development by the Millennium Project Experimental Cybernode), the “Butterfly Delphi,” as a means of teaching/learning/implementing Transformational Foresight.

The very distant futures of the human species are of two kinds: those that can only be imagined, beyond any similarity to what we know today, and those we can get a glimpse of through a deep understanding of the meta-structures that guide our transformations. This article deals with the latter. We are keenly aware nowadays that we are crossing the chasm, and we do not want to just jump without an educated guess as to where we will land. What visions of the future can be offered that are soundly reasoned and well grounded enough to be credible? When futures studies combine foresight and macro-history with a bit of evolutionary anthropology, it becomes possible to catch some detailed glimpses of the far future and of the related developments in human evolution that such futures will demand. This article will guide the reader on such a journey. What are the most probable paths ahead and the crucial challenges humanity might face in a future not all that far away? Several alternative lines of evolution based on our knowledge of history are detailed. The first set (part 1) leads to a post-human evolution of three different varieties. The second set (part 2) explores the possible confrontation between artificial intelligences and human beings and challenges our ability to live in harmony with artificial beings such as robots.

Humanity faces a perfect storm of crises yet persists in distortion of evidence and outright denial. To account for this, the author argues that the foundations of science, theories based on them, and the adoption of Darwinian competition by economists have blinded us to an evolutionary mandate to shift from our youthful, competitive global economy into mature cooperation toward a truly wise society that integrates our economy into Earth’s ecology as an ecosophy. Nature shows the way, and once we see the mature side of evolution, we can recognize the promising signs of our own human evolution.

The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to the energy crisis or climate crisis or population crisis; rather, it is bringing stories or narratives of the human journey into our collective awareness that empower us to look beyond a future of great adversity and to see a future of great opportunity. What visions of humanity’s journey are sufficiently compelling to transcend age-old differences and bring us together in a common venture of inhabiting the Earth in ways that are sustainable?

Human consciousness is an evolutionary phenomenon embedded within an evolutionary universe. Future consciousness is an evolution of evolution, bringing the evolutionary process under purposeful control. Through future consciousness, we are guiding our own self-evolution. “Flourishing in the flow of evolution” is a realistic and dynamic model for identifying psychological well-being and our preferable future evolution. Wisdom facilitates flourishing and is the highest expression of future consciousness. Wisdom serves as the guiding light for both our individual future development and our collective evolution. Education should serve the ongoing development of wisdom. Science fiction provides an arena for imagining and thinking about the possibilities of the future. Science fiction reflects flexible, diverse, and holistic future consciousness expressed in a narrative and mythic form. A key challenge to science fiction is to envision what future conscious minds will be like.

Like the great visionaries of the past, many human beings around the globe today are experiencing a spiritual awakening. In response to the unprecedented threats and changes in our environment, an evolutionary spirituality is emerging that offers a new perspective on the nature of the universe and of human life. Instead of accepting a mechanistic and materially limiting definition of existence, growing numbers of individuals are coming to perceive consciousness as the prime moving force throughout the cosmos and to view themselves as active agents in an ongoing process of universal co-creation.

Rationalist philosophy and modern science define as “real” only what can be physically experienced (things we can see, touch, taste, hear, or feel). But for countless centuries human beings existed first with an unconscious sense of belonging to a cosmos that changed in detail but not in its essential nature, and later, through universally accepted religious tenets, held an intuitive belief in the survival of each individual’s vital spirit after death. While not entirely definitive, sufficiently robust evidence now exists to suggest that human consciousness does not end with the death of the physical body. Recognition and widespread acceptance of such evidence could usher in an age of conscious immortality that would fundamentally alter human beings’ relations to one another and to nature, restoring to individuals the assurance needed to experience joy in living and in contributing to the well-being of others and the environment.