From the Future of the Body to Transcending Biology

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ROM THE

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UTURE OF THE

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ODY

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RANSCENDING

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IOLOGY

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Gaëtan Goswin Reinout van Vloten

Religious Studies Master’s Thesis, Western Esotericism

Student ID number: 10221212 Submission date: 20 August 2019

Supervisor: prof. dr. W.J. (Wouter) Hanegraaff Second

examiner

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‘[Man] must find the strength, the inner force of knowledge, in order not to be overcome by Ahriman in this technological civilization.’

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1. INTRODUCTION ...1

2. BIOGRAPHY ...4

2.1. MICHAEL MURPHY AND ESALEN ...4

2.2. RAY KURZWEIL AND TRANSHUMANISM ...5

3. The EVOLUTIONARY NARRATIVES ...8

3.1. MURPHY AND EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE ...8

3.1.1. FERTILE GROUNDS:CATASTROPHE,PROGRESS AND THE FORMATIVE ROLE OF CULTURE ... 10

3.1.2. EMBRACING EVOLUTION’S DYNAMISM; MYSTICISM HAND-IN-HAND WITH SCIENCE ... 12

3.2. KURZWEIL AND THE LAW OF ACCELERATING RETURNS ... 14

3.2.1. EVOLUTION; A PROCESS OF CREATING PATTERNS OF INCREASING ORDER ... 17

3.2.2. PATTERNS;THE SIX EVOLUTIONARY EPOCHS OF KURZWEIL ... 18

3.3. ACOMPARISON OF THE EVOLUTIONARY NARRATIVES ... 20

4. EXPLORING THE THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE AND THE SINGULARITY ... 22

4.1. BEYOND THE THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE ... 22

4.1.2.INVOLUTION-EVOLUTION AND PANENTHEISM ... 24

4.2. THE IMPACT OF THE SINGULARITY ... 27

4.2.1. THE SINGULARITY: A ‘SPIRITUAL’ PHENOMENON ... 30

4.3. RELATING THE THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE TO THE SINGULARITY ... 32

5. EXPERIENCING THE SINGULARITY AND THIRD EVOLUTIONARY TRANSCENDENCE ... 34

5.1. THE EXTENSION OF OUR BRAIN;AUGMENTATION OF THE SENSES ... 34

5.2. THE EXTENSION OF OUR BRAIN;UNLIMITED KNOWLEDGE ... 36

5.3. THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN OUR BRAINS;TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION ... 37

5.4. THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN OUR BRAINS;TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION ... 38

5.5. REVERSING AGING WITH NANOROBOTS;EXTRAORDINARY SELF-REGULATION ... 39

5.6. VIRTUAL REALITY THROUGH NANOROBOTS;MOVEMENT INTO OTHER WORLDS ... 40

5.7. MANIPULATING PHYSICAL REALITY THROUGH NANOROBOTS;PSYCHOKINESIS ... 43

5.8. OVERCOMING GRAVITY;LEVITATION ... 45

6. CONCLUDING REMARKS ... 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY ... I APPENDIX 1 ... V

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1. I

NTRODUCTION

The renowned historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari remarked in his bestseller Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow that the future will hold ‘new godlings, who might be as different from us Sapiens as we are different from Homo erectus.’ According to him, in search for bliss and immortality, humans will upgrade themselves into gods in the nearby future.1 However, such desire is actually far from new as remarked by O’Connell in his book To be a Machine: ‘As long as we have been telling stories, we have been telling them about the desire to escape our human bodies, to become something other than the animals we are.’2

In fact, such desires can be traced back to one of the earliest created pieces of literature; the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (approx. 1700 B.C.). Gilgamesh was a famous hero-king of the ancient Mesopotamia, four thousand years ago. As Gilgamesh was terrified by death from the moment that his best friend Enkidu died, he decided to go on a quest to beat mortality;3 overcoming the injustice between the Gods and humankind.4 Along the way, Gilgamesh met various people who told him that his journey was pointless. One of them was alewife Shiduri, who attempted to dissuade Gilgamesh in his quest for immortality, urging him to be content with the simple pleasures of life and warning him for the futility of his efforts.5 However, he was determined to follow on and did not even take time to sleep.

Eventually, he met Utnapishtim, the only human who had been made immortal and who told him to find a plant in the sea that would provide him with forever youthfulness.6 Gilgamesh did not hesitate and jumped in the sea to find the plant, but as soon as he found the plant, it was stolen away by a snake and gone forever.7 Beating mortality, although dearly desired by Gilgamesh, turned out to be impossible.8

Hence, this myth exemplifies the preoccupation of ancient people with overcoming the division between humankind and the Gods. The prognosis of Harari is based on the Gilgamesh of our time, Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is an American inventor, futurist, and writer who is determined to succeed in overcoming the division between humankind and the Gods as tried in the Epic of Gilgamesh four thousand years ago, but now with the help of technology.

He is involved in Google’s company called ‘Calico,’ devoted to harness advanced technologies to increase our healthspan in order to solve the daunting problem of death.9 _{With the help of nanorobots}

1_{Harari, Homo Deus, 49–50.} 2 _{O’Connell, To Be a Machine., 1.} 3 _{“Gilgamesh.”}

4 _{Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh.} 5 _{Ackerman, When Heroes Love, 130–31.} 6 _{George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, XI. 280-285.} 7 _{George, XI. 306-307.}

8 _{“Gilgamesh.”}

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and artificial superintelligence, he proclaims that humanity will transcend its biology limitations in 2045. This will be the year in which the accelerating technological developments in the world will give way to the event what Kurzweil calls ‘the Singularity.’ This event will create a world wherein ‘essentially all of the [Harry] Potter “magic” will be realized through technology.’ From playing quidditch to transforming people and objects into other forms, it will all be feasible in virtual, as well as in, real reality, according to Kurzweil.10

Therefore, it is understandable why Egil Asprem once referred to Kurzweil as The Magus of Silicon Valley. In this article written in 2013, Asprem called Kurzweil the ‘prophet of the so-called transhumanist movement.’ Transhumanism believes that humanity has the power to transcend its current form, reaching its true potential.11 Furthermore, Asprem argued that a structural similarity between the ideas of Kurzweil and western esoteric discourse exists, as his ideas share some key elements with so-called ‘esoteric currents.’12

Indeed, one example of an anticipation of the argument made by Asprem can be found in the vision of Michael Murphy. Murphy, being influenced by Indian philosophy, made an effort to integrate Eastern and Western thought. In an effort to release the latent potential hidden in humanity through various techniques, he founded the Esalen Institute, which became the center of the Human Potential Movement.

While Kurzweil is the main protagonist of Transhumanism, Murphy can be regarded as the vanguard of the Human Potential Movement. Therefore, this research will try to make a contribution to the identification of the structural similarities between Kurzweil’s ideas and ideas that are generally known as ‘esoteric,’ more specifically the ideas brought forward by Murphy. More specifically, a comparison between the works will be made, which can both be regarded as the magnum opus of these writers. For Murphy that is his substantial work called The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution (1993); for Kurzweil that is his book called The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005). This will make for the following research question:

‘How does Ray Kurzweil’s vision as presented in his magnum opus The Singularity Is Near, relate to the vision of Michael Murphy as presented in his magnum opus The Future of the Body?’

This research question will be answered along the following lines. Firstly, a short introduction of the main protagonists of this research will be given, together with their related ideological current. This, in order to be able to put their ideas - which will be encountered later - in the right cultural and temporal perspective. Interestingly, in both of the works underlying this research, the authors present an

10 _{Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 4.}

11 _{Silicon Valley serves as a global center for high technology, innovation, and social media.} 12 _{Asprem, “The Magus of Silicon Valley,” 2.}

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evolutionary narrative which has as its aim to lead to the introduction of a new kind of man and with it, a new kind of world. Therefore, secondly, their evolutionary narratives will be examined and compared. Thirdly, the desired destination of both of those evolutionary narratives will be explored in chapter four. This evolutionary stage is by Murphy called the third evolutionary transcendence and by Kurzweil the singularity. Fourthly, in chapter five, an attempt is made to compare the supposed human experience of their envisioned destination. Fifthly, in the last chapter, this research is ended with a conclusion.

Ending this introduction, it is important to remark why the comparison between the vision of Murphy and Kurzweil is relevant. Whether science or pseudo-science; cult or technology, it is clear that the singularity and Kurzweil’s vision as a whole is appealing to the imagination of many. This can be understood from the widespread knowledge of his theories, his best-selling books, the popularity of singularity University, the huge popularity of the singularity website kurzweilai.com,13 and not in the least place because of the eager anticipation to the singularity by many of the leading thinkers of the world’s technological center Silicon Valley. Influential people varying from the PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel, to Google co-founder Larry Page or technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, all have a significant impact on the world of today being leaders in the technical center of an already technical world. Hence, as Kurzweil’s ideas capture the imagination, his ideas are relevant to and capable of structuring people’s ideas of the world they are living in. Therefore, it is essential to try to understand them. This research attempts exactly that; understanding these ideas from an (often referred to as) esoteric perspective, by means of comparing them to Murphy’s persuasions.

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2. B

IOGRAPHY

In order to understand the visions of Murphy and Kurzweil on their own terms, it is necessary to be able to place those visions in the right cultural and temporal context. By this, one can understand its background and approach the central issue from a broader perspective. Therefore, this chapter will introduce the authors through their biography and the ideological current related to them.

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Michael Murphy was born in 1930 to a Basque mother and Irish father in California. After he enrolled in the pre-med program at Stanford University, he walked into a class of comparative religions by mistake, which inspired him to study the integration of Eastern and Western thought and to start practicing meditation.14 He completed his B.A. in psychology in 1952. After graduation, he was drafted by the US Army and spent two years stationed in Puerto Rico as a psychologist. In 1955, he went back to Stanford and graduated in philosophy one year later. After that, he went to India to study and practice meditation for a year and a half at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry. This was a forming experience for Murphy as his ideas later were greatly influenced by this Indian yogi and philosopher, as will become clear later in the present research.15

He wrote eleven books in total, some of which are novels but most of them concerning psychology and realizing the potential of humanity in relation to evolution. An example thereof is The Life We Are Given: A Long-Term Program for Realizing the Potential of Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul published in 1995,16 _{or The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation (1997),}17 _{and God and the}

Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution published in 2002.18

During his experience with Sri Aurobindo, he developed the spiritual and philosophical foundations that led to the founding of Esalen. He began the Esalen Institue, at Big Sur, in California in 1962 together with Richard Price on 175 acres of his family’s property. The founder’s intention with Esalen was inspirited by what Aldous Huxley called ‘human potentialities’; they wanted to release the potentialities that remain hidden in people through the support of alternative methods for exploring human consciousness.19

The Esalen Institute, commonly referred to as Esalen, started as a center for lectures on a variety of ideas that were appealing to the budding California counterculture.20 Famous writers and thinkers such as Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Gregory Bateson, Kenneth Rexroth, Abraham Maslow, and Aldous

14 _{“In Murphy’s Kingdom.”}

15 _{Trahair, Utopias and Utopians, 274.}

16 _{Leonard and Murphy, The Life We Are Given.}

17 _{Murphy, Donovan, and Taylor, The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation.} 18 _{Redfield and Murphy, God and the Evolving Universe.}

19 _{Kripal, Esalen, 85.}

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Huxley endorsed the project and became actively involved in it. Esalen focused on the mind-body connection and experimentation with personal awareness, mysticism, philosophy, religion, the occult, humanistic psychology, psychedelics, and Oriental cultures.21 _{Later, out of this range of elements, the}

paranormal, Eastern philosophies and altered states of consciousness were soon given a privileged place To sum up the wide variety of subjects addressed at the meetings, the term Human Potentiality was created.

After being a place dedicated to intellectual discussion for a year or two, the direction of Esalen changed: ‘Esalen would now be devoted to experiential sessions designed to actively bringing out the hidden capacities of its visitors.’ Because Esalen was run privately, therapists could experiment with a variety of unorthodox methods such as gestalt therapy and body therapies.22

Esalen is closely linked to the Human Potential Movement as it played a crucial role at the beginning of this movement in 1960. The Human Potential Movement opened the gates of ‘Western psychology to make way for states of consciousness previously ignored or written off as gibberish or madness.’23

Starting from the idea that human beings have tremendous untapped potential within themselves, the Human Potential Movement represents the most ‘serious’ side of the New Age.24 The Human Potential Movement is connected to the rise of humanistic psychology, which ‘presented a view of human beings as constrained and alienated by negative social forces, living far below their natural capacities.’ It carried the seeds of a psychological utopia: if individual people could find the capacity to truly love, create, and fulfill their potentials, society would be transformed almost beyond recognition. The idea was that in order to achieve social change, a consciousness revolution was required.25

The Human Potential Movement emerged as an intellectual movement wherein the fundamental idea was that humans, in their normal mode of existence, remain unaware of vast inner potentials. It developed a variety of practical methods invented to bring out the full capacities of the human being: ‘not in order to elevate pathologically malfunctioning individuals to normality, but to raise normal individuals to realize their full human potential.’26 It was this ambition to which Human Potential Movement - with the Esalen Institute as its center of gravity - owes its name.

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Raymond Kurzweil was born in 1948 and is an American, inventor, engineer, entrepreneur, futurist, and writer. He is known for a range of companies, from the text to speechwriter Kurzweil 300027

21 _{Misiroglu, American Countercultures, 238–39.}

22 _{Hanegraaff, Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, 575.} 23 _{Davis, TechGnosis, 180.}

24 _{Manzocco, Transhumanism, 36.}

25 _{Hanegraaff, Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, 573.} 26 _{Hanegraaff, 574.}

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and the Kurzweil synthesizer to the company named ‘Ray and Terry’s Longevity Products’ which specializes in food supplements that promise to increase lifespan.28 In 1999 Kurzweil was given the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor in technology, in acknowledgment of his numerous innovations.29

Kurzweil wrote eight books, five of which have been national bestsellers. The Age of Intelligent Machines was his first book.30 It was published in 1990 and discussed the philosophical and mathematical roots of artificial intelligence and argues that the creation of humans through evolution suggests that humans should be able to build something more intelligent than themselves. After writing a book on nutrition named The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life, he published the book The Age of Spiritual Machines in 1999. This latter book took off where his book of 1990 had left: further elaborated on his ideas concerning his theories of the future of technology. Themes such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and virtual reality were central in this book, and he predicted that machines ‘will appear to have their own free will’ as well as ‘spiritual experiences.’31

After writing Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever in 2004, he published in 2005 the book The Singularity Is Near, which was also made into a movie. Furthermore, he wrote, Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed in 2010. His latest book was called Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine.32

Kurzweil was brought up in a secular Jewish family in Queens, New York, where his parents ended up after fleeing Austria because of the Holocaust. Already at the age of fourteen, they fostered an early interest in science, letting him work as a computer programmer.33 _{His spiritual upbringing took in}

in a Unitarian church, which according to him meant that he ‘spent six months studying one religion— going to its services, reading its books, having dialogues with its leaders—and then move on to the next. The theme was “many paths to the truth.”’ According to himself, he noticed many parallels among the world's religious traditions. Furthermore, he stated that the inconsistencies were illuminating because, through them, it became clear to him that the basic truths were profound enough to transcend apparent contradictions.34

In 1970 he got a B.S. in computer science and literature at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He founded the Singularity University in Silicon Valley in 2008, offering an annual 10-week summer program focusing on scientific progress and technologies that evolve exponentially. Google co-founder Larry Page hired him in 2012 to become director of engineering at Google, where he works on

28 _{Asprem, “The Magus of Silicon Valley,” 1.} 29 _{“National Medal of Technology and Innovation.”} 30 _{Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines.} 31 _{Kurzweil, 6.}

32 _{Kurzweil and Grossman, Transcend; Kurzweil, How to Create a Mind.} 33 _{“Ray Kurzweil | Biography, Predictions, Books, & Facts.”}

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‘projects involving machine learning’ as well as ‘language processing.’35 _{This proves that Kurzweil}

must be regarded as an ‘influential leader at the heart of one of our days’ most powerful industries.’36

Furthermore, Kurzweil joined the cryonics company Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Joining this company has as its consequence that when Kurzweil dies, his body will be preserved and stored at an Alcor facility, waiting for future medical technology that will be able to repair his tissues and resuscitate him back to life.37

Within the field of Western Esotericism, Kurzweil had been regarded as standing at the center of transhumanism. The term Transhumanism was coined in 1927 by Julian Huxley,38 a distinguished biologist who was the first director‐general of UNESCO and the brother of Aldous Huxley, and who said: ‘transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.’39 Hence, a transhumanist is a person ‘who aims to move beyond the human being via science and technology.’40

Transhumanism is a radically utopian movement concerned with overcoming humanity’s biological limitation and attaining our ‘true potential.’ Interestingly, this is an apparent parallel between the Human Potential Movement (with Esalen as its center of gravity). As understood, both strive for unlocking the human potential to release the potentialities that remain hidden in us. Whereas Aldous Huxley was the main inspiration for the Human Potential Movement, so was his brother, Julian Huxley, for Transhumanism. Although, not much research has yet been done on the connection between the Human Potential Movement and Transhumanism, according to Roberto Manzocci, ‘an important role for the starting point of the historical-cultural phenomenon of Transhumanism’ was played by the Human Potential Movement.41

Furthermore, just like the center of gravity of the Human Potential Movement, Esalen, Transhumanism’s center is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. In Silicon Valley, its ideological and spiritual ideas flourish at the core of the tech industry. They envision the tools for transcending biology in developing technologies such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The unrestrained use of such technologies ‘is considered the road to total freedom, promising to make us a species of immortal, omniscient, space-travelling demigods.’42

35 _{“Google Hires Famed Futurist Ray Kurzweil - Digits - WSJ.”} 36 _{Asprem, “The Magus of Silicon Valley,” 4.}

37 _{Philipkoski, “Ray Kurzweil’s Plan.”}

38 _{Bostrom, “A History of Transhumanist Thought,” 7.} 39 _{Huxley, Transhumanism, 17.}

40 _{Istvan, “A New Generation of Transhumanists Is Emerging.”}

41 _{Manzocco, Transhumanism, 36 Further reading:; Grant, “Will Human Potential Carry Us Beyond Human?”} 42 _{Asprem, “The Magus of Silicon Valley,” 3.}

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3. The E

VOLUTIONARY

N

ARRATIVES

Both the new man created by the third evolutionary transcendence as formulated by Murphy and the world emerging by means of the singularity follow upon and are inevitable consequences of their evolutionary narratives. Before examining these stages of evolution in the next chapter, the evolutionary narratives will be discussed in order to create insight into the origin of the predictions of Murphy and Kurzweil. Firstly, the evolutionary narrative of Murphy is explored. That being his evolutionary scientific framework, the next chapter will examine what kind of role the influence of Sri Aurobindo plays within that framework. Secondly, the evolutionary narrative of Kurzweil will be discussed.

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Evolution, according to Murphy ‘implies adaptation of organisms to their environment through natural selection and refers to the long-term process of change in plant and animal species.’ Murphy further states that evolution is ‘employed as well, in a very general sense, to denote different kinds of human growth.’ Although the term evolution refers to these forms at once, Murphy finds it important to differentiate between three kinds of evolution: inorganic, biological, and psychosocial. This distinction is made because the forms of development are shaped by different processes and have different patterns.43

Inorganic evolution, refers to the evolution of inorganic elements, covering the prevailing scientific hypothesis that the transition from non-living to living entities consisted of an evolutionary process of increasing molecular complexity as opposed to a single event.44 Thus, this first evolution, also known as abiogenesis, explains the chemical origin of life. The second form of evolution called biological evolution concerns the development from lifeforms into the animal and plant species of today. The third evolution, called by Murphy the evolution of the psychosocial, refers to the evolution of humanity.45

Although these three kinds of evolution interact, they operate according to separate principles; having ‘unique patterns that are best understood on their own terms.’ For example, while humans share many features with their primate forbears; zoology is not capable of adequately accounting for human culture. As the inorganic, biological and psychosocial evolution progresses according to their own distinctive patterns, Murphy stresses that we must study them on their own terms.46

The demarcation between these three evolutionary sequences is important for Murphy as it lays the groundwork for the central notion of his evolutionary narrative: ‘evolutionary transcendence.’

43 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 24.} 44 _{Witzany, “Crucial Steps to Life,” 52–56.} 45 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 25–27.} 46 _{Murphy, 25.}

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Namely, according to him, these ‘three levels or kinds of existence’ are comprised of an evolutionary triad in which the inorganic and the biological have transcended themselves: while inorganic elements have produced living species, animals gave rise to humanity. These ‘epochal transitions’ marked the beginnings of new evolutionary eras, as the previous era was transcended.47

The term evolutionary transcendence was coined by the evolutionary theorists Theodosius Dobzhansky and Francisco Ayala. Instead of being prone to a gradually moving evolution before these grand transitions, a new order of existence arose out of a preceding dramatic and unforeseen change. For example, the stage for living cells was set by the creation of new elements in exploding stars and the formation of complex molecules on earth some four billion years ago. Along the same lines, the realm of the mammalian evolutions that eventually resulted in homo sapiens, was created by the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates from fishlike ancestors.48 In the words of Ayala, whereas ‘inorganic evolution went beyond the bounds of [its] previous physical and chemical patterning’s when it gave rise to life, (…) biological evolution transcended itself when it gave rise to man’.49

Concerning the work of Dobzhansky and Ayala, the paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson wrote Tempo and Mode in Evolution.50 Simpson called these dramatic and unforeseen changes amidst living species occurrences of ‘quantum evolution,’ because they ‘involved relatively abrupt alterations of adaptive capacity or bodily structure’ while leaving little or no evidence in the fossil records of the transitions between them. 51 These big changes during the development of inorganic matter and life were in turn made possible by many smaller steps that paved the way for the quantum evolution.52 This idea of quantum evolution is also found in the work of Ayala as she observes that species appear abruptly while the preceding species lasted for millions of years without change. Therefore, she concludes that evolution proceeds not by gradual change, along the lines of bursts separated by periods of stasis when little change occurred.53 As such, quantum evolution amounts for the accelerations in evolutionary change.54

Before coming to his own interpretation of these observations, Murphy refers to the American botanist and geneticist G. Ledyard Stebbins, widely viewed as one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century.55 In his book Variation and Evolution in Plants, he provided a broad explanation of how evolutionary mechanisms operated at the genetic level of plants.56 _{His analysis brought plant}

47 _{Murphy, 26.} 48 _{Murphy, 26.}

49 _{Dobzhansky and Ayala, Humankind, a Product of Evolutionary Transcendence, 9.} 50 _{Fitch, Ayala, and National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), Tempo and Mode in Evolution, iii.} 51 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 26.}

52 _{Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, 205–6.} 53 _{Ayala and Valentine, Evolving, 261.}

54 _{Smocovitis, Unifying Biology, 135.} 55 _{Raven, “G. Ledyard Stebbins (1906-2000).”} 56 _{Stebbins, Variation and Evolution in Plants.}

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evolution into line with the framework of animal evolution as set out in the work of Dobzhanksy.57

Stebbins concluded that there is a contrast between large and small steps in organic evolution: minor and major developments in a state change of plants and animals are discernable. According to him, in several hundred million years of eukaryote evolution (the evolution of plants, animals, algae, and fungi), there have been about 640,000 small steps in evolution as opposed to a radical smaller number of 20 to 100 larger steps.58 For Murphy, this reflects the great complexity and many steps of evolutionary progress by which life gave rise to homo sapiens.

Murphy introduces the notion of evolutionary transcendence through the works of Dobzhansky, Ayala, Simpson, and Stebbins, although, strengthened by their ideas he takes this concept one step further. Taking their theories as a starting point, he suggests that humanity shares the same fate as the inorganic and biological evolutionary sequences: humanity has evolved through minor and major steps towards the point that brings humanity on the verge of another epochal transition. While from inorganic elements life appeared and from our primate ancestors humankind arose, now by quantum jumps in the development of humanity such as the discovery of fire, the development of language, and the coming into being of religious awareness, a new evolutionary domain is slowly emerging in the human race; the third evolutionary transcendence. This extraordinary human development can, according to Murphy, be understood from the emerging metanormal capacities of human beings that are presented in his book. This is because they draw attention to the fact that ‘a new level of existence has begun to appear on earth, one whose patterns cannot be adequately specified by physics, biology, or mainstream social science.’59

In the coming sub-paragraphs, it will be examined what conditions must be set according to Murphy in the psychosocial evolutionary sequence in order that the third evolutionary transcendence can take place.

3.1.1. F

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Concerning his evolutionary narrative, Murphy points out that although greater life is latent in humanity, its lasting establishment is far from being certain. The first signs of the development of metanormal capacities, do not necessarily bring about that humanity as a whole will graduate ‘to higher kinds of functioning’ in the foreseeable future.60

The first possible spanner in the works that Murphy mentions is catastrophes. He refers to challenges such as overpopulation, nuclear war, and ecological disaster by which life on earth could be harmed to such an extent that few people would have the will

57 _{Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species; Smocovitis, “George Ledyard Stebbins (1906–2000),” 562.} 58 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 26–27.}

59 _{Murphy, 27.} 60 _{Murphy, 38.}

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or resources to cultivate metanormal capacities. Events like these are capable of destroying ‘the conditions for any kind of widespread human progress, let alone a third evolutionary transcendence.’61

But not only in case of catastrophe a third evolutionary transcendence would be in jeopardy as Murphy observes that even privileged civilizations do not always produce lasting moral or spiritual growth. Just as animal evolution, he concludes that human evolution is not progressive automatically. Both of them often remain static or regress.62 With reference to Simpson, Murphy points out that while we speak of progress when there is a change towards a better condition, human evolution proves at times to be regressive. Indeed, evolution is not the same as progress, as in the words of Simpson, ‘progress has occurred within it but is not of its essence.’63 _{For Murphy, correspondences between stasis or}

regression of species and numerous failures of human individuals and culture are easily discernable. Such is the case, for example, when evolution leads to the extinction of a species or culture.64

Thus, human culture for Murphy can measure whether evolution is progressive or regressive. However, the importance of culture for his vision for the future becomes even more apparent as he emphasizes culture’s formative role in human development. This is because exceptional abilities develop most fully in cultures that prize them; ‘they are valued by the groups in which they flourish, (…) conversely, such abilities are often distorted or inhibited by social conditioning’.65

Therefore it is feasible to say that culture is not only an indicator but also a formator.

To endorse his argument of the formative power of culture Murphy refers to Aristotle, Hegel, Durkheim, and Marx who all ‘have observed that we are social animals and that different milieus produce different kinds of human functioning.’ Similar to all our other capacities, metanormal capacities are subject to culture's formative workings because culture constantly shapes us, reinforcing or extinguishing our (greater) possibilities.The fact that no aspect of human nature is immune to social influence is illustrated by Murphy with the example of mystical illuminations, which are generally understood as to ‘appear to transcend all conditionings.’66

While Aldous Huxley and Frithjof Schuon emphasized that mystical experiences are universal,67 Steven Katz argues that neither mystical experience nor more ordinary forms of experience give any indication or any grounds for believing that they are universal. He finds the notion of unmediated mystical experience self-contractionary and empty as according to him ‘the Hindu mystic does not have an experience of x which he then describes in the, to him, familiar language and symbols of Hinduism, but rather he has a Hindu experience, i.e., his experience is not an unmediated experience of x but is

61 _{Murphy, 31.} 62 _{Murphy, 31.}

63 _{Simpson, 1960, p. 261}

64 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 31.} 65 _{Murphy, 160.}

66 _{Murphy, 161.}

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itself the, at least partially, pre-formed anticipated Hindu experience of Brahman’.68 _{After discussing}

these authors, Murphy determines his own position being that mystical experiences take different forms in different religious traditions, while at the same time exhibiting certain features that appear to be universal; ‘they are subject to social influence, even if they are rooted in a primordial Ground that transcends all conditionings.’69

Concerning metanormal capacities in general, Murphy comes to a similar conclusion. Out of his presented research, it is on the one hand clear that extraordinary capacities such as communication, environmental influence, volition, sense of self, and kinesthesis are strikingly similar in different traditions. On the other hand, however, Murphy acknowledges the fact that there are also many differences between the cultural determinations, realizations, and reports of metanormal capacities in different traditions, and thus demonstrate cultural shaping. For him, the similarities actively demonstrate that all humans share the same potentials for extraordinary life. Simultaneously, we must not forget to appreciate the formative influence on individual development.70

Therefore, in order to give maximum opportunity for the third evolutionary transcendence to occur, we must create fertile grounds in the psychosocial evolutionary sequence by avoiding catastrophe, acknowledge the fact the evolution is not inherently progressive – but it surely can be – and grasp these windows of opportunity to make sure that the formative role of culture can act as a catalyst for the development of metanormal capacities.

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-

-

Another condition that would help the psychosocial evolutionary sequence to reach the third evolutionary transcendence is the embracement of both mysticism together with science. Most scientists conclude that extraordinary human attributes cannot exist because they are not verifiable by regular scientific procedures. Some have stated, for example, that ‘that spiritual healing seems to occur independently of observable agencies proves ipso facto that such things are figments of the imagination.’71 _{According to Murphy, such systematical exclusion of mystical truth claims and evidence}

for paranormal phenomena by reductionists counteracts the integration of insights regarding metanormal human development, which should lead to the third evolutionary transcendence.72

However, this argument in favor of exclusion of extraordinary human attributes can be turned around. Murphy argues that ‘the same apparent violation of natural laws that scientists invoke against various kinds of extraordinary functioning, and the same resistance to laboratory experiments or

68 _{Katz, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, 26.} 69 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 165.} 70 _{Murphy, 167.}

71 _{Murphy, 29.} 72 _{Murphy, 196.}

13

verification through the physical senses, can be taken as signs that such functioning is part of a new domain, one that transcends ordinary human activity and methods developed to study it.’73

Given that the discovered metanormal capacities apparently violate assumptions of contemporary science does not require us to deny the evidence for them. Indeed, the fact that those patterns are novel and non-ordinary which cannot be adequately specified by this mainstream, indicates that these capacities mentioned are instances of a new evolutionary domain. This new type of evolution is distinguishable from ordinary psychosocial development, having its own distinctive features and patterns.74

However, while scientific methods exclude the spiritual, asceticism excludes the body. Murphy exemplifies this be referring to Thomas a Kempis, a canon regular and mystic from German-Dutch origin of the late medieval period, said the ‘The body is a dung heap.’75

Indeed, this attitude does not come out of the blue, keeping in mind that for many Christian contemplatives the world apprehended through the ordinary senses was separated twice from God; by Creation and by the Fall. Furthermore, for Buddhists the world is a grinding wheel of death and rebirth, and Neo-Platonists regarded it as the lowest on the great scale of being. Therefore, for many ascetics, it seems logical to seek liberation from embodiment, now the body personifies suffering and transience. Therefore, for them, life’s extraordinary potential of metanormal capacities do not have any more value than any other embodied capacity that is manifested through our material state.76

Thus, seeing the manifest world as a place to escape from, ‘some of the greatest mystics have helped orient religious practice away from the integral development of human nature.’77 However, by withdrawing into ascetic solitude humanity amputates a large part of its connection with the earth, and according to Murphy, such attitudes should not rule our thinking anymore.78 Therefore, as is the case with his above-mentioned attitude regarding reductionism, Murphy rejects these ascetic worldviews that denigrate the body’s place in human self-actualization: such attitudes counteracts the integration of insights regarding metanormal human development.

That these attitudes are dated follows according to Murphy from modern science as it has shown that our world is not static or cyclical, but a planet in which species have graduated bit by bit, suggesting that humans might develop further. With reference to first and second evolutionary transcendence Murphy points out that the world exceeds its established laws and patterns by evolution, and therefore evolution is ‘a supreme inescapable gesture, pointing toward a mysterious future for living forms.’ This

73 _{Murphy, 29.} 74 _{Murphy, 29–30.}

75 _{Thomas, On the Passion of Christ According to the Four Evangelists, 8–12.} 76 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 172.}

77 _{Murphy, 172.} 78 _{Murphy, 220.}

14

vision of human advance embedded in the facts of cosmic development, according to Murphy, gives a new perspective to certain phenomena associated with religious life.79

Hence, Murphy rejects the reductionist as well as the ascetic approach the human fulfillment. Correlating our sense of greater human possibilities with evolution’s dynamism shown by the two previous evolutionary transcendences, we should broaden our imagination to best appreciate our possibilities for extraordinary life. The secret to doing this lies according to Murphy in embracing ‘both the facts of evolution revealed by modern science and the witness of sacred traditions East and West.’80

This integration of these two fundamental aspects of existence is fundamental to his inquiries. Looking away from either of these aspects of existence constitutes for Murphy of a ‘supreme philosophic avoidance,’ and therefore he preaches an integral practice; embracing the world we now perceive and any domains that subsume it.81

3.2.

K

T

L

A

R

Central to the evolutionary narrative of Kurzweil is the law of accelerating returns. Based on this law, he assesses how humanity will develop. On that basis he considers that the future will be completely different than expected by most people, and therefore calls the future a ‘wildly misunderstood phenomena.’ According to Kurzweil, due to the fact that the rate of change itself is accelerating, the future will be far more surprising than most people realize. The conceptualization of this idea resulted in the law of accelerating returns, ‘which describes the acceleration of the pace of and the exponential growth of the products of an evolutionary process.’82

Technology is such a product of an evolutionary process, and therefore, the ongoing acceleration of technology is the implication and inevitable result of this law. This is according to Kurzweil exemplified in Moore’s Law on Integrated Circuits. This law was formulated by and named after Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of the American technology company Intel that has its headquarter in Silicon Valley and invents the processors that are found in most personal computers. In 1965 he described in his paper a doubling in the number of components per integrated circuit every year and estimated that this rate of growth would continue for at least another decade.83 _{However, according to Kurzweil, this}

law of accelerating returns is not only applicable to the development of the number of transistors on integrated circuits (i.e., computer chips), but to the whole of evolution.

Concerning his idea of the law of accelerating returns, Kurzweil emphasizes the importance of the difference between the ‘intuitive linear’ view versus the ‘historical exponential’ view. Most prognosticators, make the same important failure when considering the future: they take the intuitive

79 _{Murphy, 173.} 80 _{Murphy, 179.} 81 _{Murphy, 180.}

82 _{Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 35.}

15

linear view as a starting point for making predictions about the future, ignoring the historical exponential view of technological progress. In contrast, the law of accelerating returns derived from the ‘exponential historical’ view. Therefore it is important to point out its difference, as Kurzweil’s evolutionary narrative stands or falls with the law of accelerating returns.84

In relation to the intuitive linear view Kurzweil points out that people intuitively assume that the current rate of progress will continue for future progress. This is because ‘unexamined intuition leaves one with the impression that change occurs at the same rate that we have experienced it most recently.’ This makes for the ‘intuitive’ aspect of this intuitive linear view.85 The ‘linear’ aspect is derived from the mathematician’s perspective because an exponential curve looks like a straight line when examined only over a (too) short of time. Hence, even experts in predicting the future use the current pace of change as an indicator for their forecast.86

In the wake of the intuitive linear view, ‘scientific pessimism’ arises according to Kurzweil. Kurzweil uses this term to denote the scientist who so absorbed in the complicated details of a contemporary scientific challenge, that they fail to appreciate the ultimate long-term implications of technology and science. Therefore, they do not account for the far more powerful tools that are accessible with each new generation of technology. Although scientists are trained to be skeptical and seldom speculate beyond the current generation of scientific progress, in the eyes of Kurzweil, this is no longer suitable. As a generation of scientific and technological progress does not last longer than a human generation anymore, nowadays a generation of scientific and technological progress encompasses only of a few years.87 _{Therefore, by refraining from speculation beyond the current}

generation of scientific progress, the current human generation will not be able to anticipate upon the coming generation of scientific progress.

Kurzweil illustrates this by the example of the Internet. In the 1980s, skepticism was expressed about whether the Internet would ever be a significant phenomenon. This skepticism came from the fact that the Internet then comprised of only tens of thousands of nodes (also understood as servers that can communicate with each other). However, the fact that the number of nodes was doubling every year – resulting in tens of millions of nodes ten years later – was not (yet) acknowledged by the people who worked on this technology in 1985.88

Next to the fact that people tend to underestimate what can be achieved in the long term because exponential growth is ignored, Kurzweil points out another mistake made by people who speak about the future. Namely, prognosticators ‘consider the transformations that will result from a single trend in

84 _{Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns.”} 85 _{Teuscher, Alan Turing, 382–83.}

86 _{Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 12.} 87 _{Kurzweil, 12–13.}

16

today’s world as if nothing else will change’. He thereby means that if for example technology would make radical life extension possible, the concern that this will result in overpopulation and the exhaustion of limited material resources to sustain human life is unsubstantiated, because technology will find solutions for these kinds of problems along the way.89

Due to these misconceptions of the future related to the intuitive linear view, the technical possibilities of future time should, instead, be forecasted based on the historical exponential view according to Kurzweil. This conclusion is extracted from a genuine valuation of the history of technology, which reveals that technological change is exponential. It does not matter whether one examines ‘the data in different ways, on different timescales, and for a wide variety of technologies, ranging from electronic to biological, as well as for their implications, ranging from the amount of human knowledge to the size of the economy:’ acceleration of progress and growth applies to each of them according to Kurzweil.90 Because the growth of these processes is exponential rather than just being added to incrementally, Kurzweil comes to the conclusion that exponential growth is a feature of any evolutionary process. Technological processes, such as Moore’s law, are just a primary example thereof.91

For the history of technology this means in concrete terms that humanity will not experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century, but will rather experience 20,000 years of progress measured at the rate 2005 (time of Kurzweil’s writing); about ‘a thousand times greater than the technical progress that was achieved in the twentieth century.’92 This is because, ‘we often find not just simple exponential growth, but “double” exponential growth, meaning that the rate of exponential growth (the exponent) is itself growing exponentially.’93

In his book, Kurzweil illustrates the historical exponential view on the basis of a graph wherein biological and technological key events from the evolution since the Big Bang to the Internet are plotted. Therein, an unmistakable exponential trend is visible: ‘key events have been occurring at an ever-hastening pace.’94 In order to improve the insightfulness of Kurzweil’s train of thought, I have added these graphs in Appendix 1.

As the practical effect of Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns upon the developing processes has been discussed, now the impact of the law of accelerating returns for his evolutionary narrative will be examined. The nature of evolution is according to Kurzweil ‘a process of creating patterns of increasing order.’95

Furthermore, he believes that the evolution of patterns constitutes the ultimate story

89 _{Kurzweil, 13.} 90 _{Kurzweil, 12.}

91 _{Kurzweil, “The Law of Accelerating Returns.”} 92 _{Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 11.} 93 _{Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines, 12.}

94 _{Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 35; this graph is added in appendix 1.} 95 _{Kurzweil, 14.}

17

of our world. Such an evolved pattern is created by a sufficient degree of order. In order to explain what emerges out of the evolutionary process when governed by the law of accelerating returns, first, the workings of increasing order in the evolutionary process will be examined. After that, the patterns (epochs) of information which arise out of this inevitable increasement of order will be discussed.

3.2.1. E

;

To begin with, it is necessary to define what is actually meant by ‘order.’ According to Kurzweil, order ‘is information that fits a purpose (…), and the measure of order is the measure of how well the information fits the purpose.’ Hence, within Kurzweil’s evolutionary trajectory order requires information. He defines information as ‘a sequence of data that is meaningful in a process,’ such as the DNA code of an organism or the bits in a computer program.

Furthermore, information is only information if it is unpredictable (otherwise it cannot be qualified as new information). Thus, a predictable alternating pattern (such as 020202…) is orderly, but cannot be regarded as information as it is predictable beyond the first two numbers. However, not every unpredictable sequence is information; a meaningful sequence of information needs to be discerned from a random sequence of noise. While information and noise share the feature of unpredictability, a random sequence of noise ceases to carry workable data. Therefore, orderliness does not necessarily constitute order, because order requires a meaningful sequence of information.96

Nonetheless, simply having more information does not necessarily result in a better fit. Sometimes greater order – i.e., a better fit to a purpose – is attained ‘through simplification rather than a further increase in complexity.’ To exemplify this, Kurzweil notes that a new theory that ties together apparently disparate ideas into one broader – wherein the purpose is to precisely model observed phenomena – a more coherent theory reduces complexity but nonetheless may increase the order for a purpose. This can also be understood from an evolutionary perspective in one of the key steps in the evolution of hominids. Namely, the shift in the thumb's pivot point did not significantly increase complexity but nevertheless did constitute an increase in order. It provided the means for better manipulation of objects, for more adequate fine-motor coordination to write or to shape objects and enabled the development of technology.97

This being said, evolution has shown that the general trend towards greater order does typically result in greater complexity. So did the evolution of DNA allow for more complex organisms. Because of the coming into force of DNA, the biological information processes of organism could be controlled by the DNA molecule's flexible data storage. As DNA laid the basis of a stable set of the body plan of animals in the Cambrain explosion, DNA created sufficient order so that the evolutionary process could concentrate on more complex cerebral development. Likewise, in technology, the creation of the

96 _{Kurzweil, 38.}

18

computer provided a means for human civilization to store (i.e., create order) and manipulate ever more complex sets of information.98 Hence, increasing order and the increasement of complexity in an evolutionary process, although being not necessarily interwoven, generally go hand in hand.

The above means that order is very difficult to measure: as opposed to measuring complexity, the measurement of order constitutes measuring the success of fitting in the purpose of the information that is present in each situation or evolutionary process.99 Not only the ‘amount’ of information needs to be measured, but also how well this information ‘fits’ the purpose. It goes without saying that in an evolutionary algorithm applied to a technology, the purpose is different than in the biological evolution. In the first, the purpose is to optimize computation performance, efficiency, and so on, whereas the purpose in the evolution of life forms is to survive. Nonetheless, whatever the purpose may be, providing a solution to a problem – which usually increases but sometimes decreases complexity – increases order.

3.2.2. P

;

T

S

E

E

K

As noted above, according to Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns, through an evolutionary process, the increasement of order will lead to the creation of patterns. In essence, Kurzweil distinguishes six such evolutionary patterns in the history of biological followed by technological evolution, which he calls epochs.100 In this paragraph, these epochs will be examined.

The first epoch discerned by Kurzweil is called Physics and Chemistry. It takes off a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang when atoms began to form, as electrons became trapped in orbits around nuclei consisting of protons and neutrons. Due to the electrical structure of atoms, the atoms became sticky. On that account chemistry was allowed to come to life a few millions of years later: atoms came together and created relatively stable structures called molecules.

One of the elements was exceptionally versatile; carbon proved to be very useful as it was (and is) able to form bonds in four directions – instead of one to three, which is the case for most other elements. Therefore carbon enabled the rise of complicated three-dimensional structures which are – being a thread through the narrative of Kurzweil – information-rich. Namely, according to Kurzweil, we can ‘trace our origins to a state that represents information in its basic structures: patterns of matter and energy.’ In order to emphasize this point, he furthermore points out that ‘recent theories of quantum gravity hold that time and space are broken down into discrete quanta, essentially fragments of information.’101

The second epoch, is named Biology and DNA. This epoch started several billion years ago ‘when carbon-based compounds became more and more intricate until complex aggregations of

98 _{Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near, 38.} 99 _{Kurzweil, 39.}

100 _{Kurzweil, 14.} 101 _{Kurzweil, 14.}

19

molecules formed self-replicating mechanisms, and life originated.’ Eventually, this resulted in the unfolding of a ‘precise digital mechanism (DNA)’ in the biological system. As a result of this information describing, a larger ‘society of molecules’ could be stored. In this epoch, DNA, together with its supporting apparatus of ribosomes and codons, made it possible to store a record of the evolutionary observations.102

The third epoch Kurzweil calls Brains. In this epoch, DNA-guided evolution produced organisms that could not only sense information with their sensory organs but also process and store that information in their brains and nervous systems. Early animals developed the capability to recognize patterns, which currently still accounts for the vast majority of the activity in our brains. This became possible because of the developments in the second-epoch. Namely, the mechanisms of ‘DNA and epigenetic information of proteins and RNA fragments that control gene expression’ of the second epoch, indirectly enabled and defined third-epoch information-processing mechanisms such as the brain and nervous systems of organisms. This illustrates what Kurzweil names evolution through ‘indirection’ that is apparent in all the epochs: each epoch uses the information-processing methods of the preceding epoch to create the next.103

In the fourth epoch, Kurzweil's hobbyhorse enters into the picture: the epoch of Technology. This epoch thrived on the eventually in the third epoch developed ability of humans to create abstract mental models of the world they experience and contemplate the rational implications of these. Together with this ability to redesign the world in the minds of humans and the gift of opposable thumbs 104 to put these ideas into action, the human species directed to the next level of indirection: ‘the evolution of human-created technology.’ While this started with simple mechanisms, it developed into more complex automata such as automated mechanical machines. Eventually, technology itself became capable of storing, evaluating, and sensing complicated patterns of information with the help of sophisticated communication and computational devices.105

Concerning epoch five, Kurzweil looks ahead several decades in time. In this epoch called The Merge of Human Technology with Human Intelligence, the singularity will begin. This will happen through indirection and is catalyzed by the unforeseen capacity of technological intelligence to evolve, as developed in the previous epoch. The singularity, ultimately, will result from the ‘merger of vast knowledge embedded in our brains with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing

102 _{Kurzweil, 16.}

103 _{Murphy, The Future of the Body, 1993, 16.}

104 _{Which means that they are able to simultaneously flex, abduct and medially rotate the thumb so as to bring its tip into}

opposition with the tips of any of the other digits, “Thumb Opposability | Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA).”

20

ability of our technology.’ According to Kurzweil, this will enable us to transcend the human brain’s limitations of a ‘mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections.’

In the then created human-machine civilization, we will be able to ‘greatly magnify human creativity’ and ‘overcome age-old human problems.’ According to Kurzweil, we will preserve and enhance the intelligence evolution has bestowed on us. However, at the same time, we shall overcome the limitations of biological evolution. However, Kurzweil concludes this epoch with a disillusioning note. According to him, and indeed if what he predicts will become a reality, the singularity will not only magnify the ability to act wise but also act on our destructive impulses: ‘so its full story has not yet been written’.106

The sixth and last epoch is called The Universe Wakes Up. According to Kurzweil after epoch five, ‘in the aftermath of the singularity, intelligence, derived from its biological origins in human brains and its technological origins in human ingenuity, will begin to saturate the matter and energy in its midst.’ According to Kurzweil, this will be accomplished by reorganizing matter and energy to provide an optimal level of computation, not only here on earth but in fact, spreading out from here into the universe. So to say our civilization in this epoch will infuse the rest of the universe with its creativity and intelligence. Kurzweil forecasts that the ‘dumb’ matter and mechanisms of the universe will be transformed into exquisitely sublime forms of intelligence. This, he calls, the ‘ultimate destiny of the universe.’107

3.3.

A

C

E

N

The evolutionary narrative of both Murphy and Kurzweil incorporates mainstream science and facts and finishes with more personal challenging ideas of both the authors. Both of them started their narrative at the inorganic stage of evolution and after that, worked their way up to their prolonged stages: the third evolutionary transcendence and the singularity. Hence, evolution serves to bring humanity to a higher stage.

Furthermore, another similarity between their theories is that they both involve grand stages, which have their own distinctive patterns and together build their narratives as a whole. Whereas Murphy discerns three of them, Kurzweil distinguishes six epochs. In both ideas, these grand patterns evolve along the way of particular moments of dramatic change to the next; wherein abrupt change occurs after a long period of almost standstill. Whereas in the theory of Murphy, these instances are called quantum evolution, in Kurzweil’s theory, they are called a paradigm shift. These instances for both of the authors involve an acceleration in evolutionary change. These accelerations eventually will

106 _{Kurzweil, 21.} 107 _{Kurzweil, 21.}

21

have as their consequence the development of an epochal transition leading to the new evolutionary era for Murphy, and for Kurzweil, in similar fashion, of a new epoch.

Interestingly, both of them reject partly mainstream science in that it does not take into account their future prognosis. For Murphy, it is of great importance to put aside the reductionist systematical exclusion of evidence for paranormal phenomena as these phenomena violate contemporary science. This tendency to put mainstream science aside in order to see the right picture can also be found in the theory of Kurzweil. Regarding his historical exponential view, Kurzweil rejects ‘scientific pessimism.’ According to him, mainstream science fails to appreciate the ultimate long-term implications of technology and science and does not account for the far more powerful tools that are accessible with each new generation of technology.

However, there are also some differences. Whereas Kurzweil’s evolutionary narrative is occupied mostly with technology, Murphy’s narrative considers only the psychosocial sequence of evolution. Inherently, Murphy presents his narrative in relation to the uncertain development related to humanity. Therefore, belonging to his evolutionary narrative for the future, he formulates some conditions which have to be met in the psychosocial evolutionary sequence in order to be able to progress. For Kurzweil, on the other hand, his evolutionary narrative is depended on patterns of increasing order, which inevitably will proceed to a higher stage.

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4. E

XPLORING THE

T

HIRD

E

VOLUTIONARY

T

RANSCENDENCE AND THE

S

INGULARITY

After examining the evolutionary trajectories of Kurzweil and Murphy, this chapter concerns their desired destination worlds after the singularity and third evolutionary transcendence. Examining these envisioned worlds, an attempt is made to grasp what these worlds will consist of and what harnesses them.

Important to mention here is that these visions of the new world are inherently constructed differently. Kurzweil takes the technical development as a starting point which eventually results in the singularity. Therefore the underlying mechanism of the singularity is clear: technology. As this mechanism is clear, the extraordinary human capacities of the singularity are easily understood from – and come as a consequence of – the emergent technologies within Kurzweil’s theory. On the other hand, the book and theory of Murphy is built up the other way around. The Future of the Body, takes empirical evidence of extraordinary human capacities as a starting point. These extraordinary human capacities are taken as indicator of an evolutionary development. This suspicion is then linked to a scientific evolutionary framework as seen in chapter 3. Lastly, Murphy concludes that a third evolutionary transcendence is approaching and speculates about which mechanism is capable of facilitating the extraordinary capacities available in the third evolutionary transcendence. Thus, whereas Kurzweil takes as a starting point the mechanism (technology) which results in the singularity, Murphy only speculates about probable mechanisms on the end of his theory.

Therefore, as these ideas are built up in their opposite, they cannot be synchronically compared. This will become apparent in this chapter. For example, while the framework of the singularity is the emerging technologies as understood from the last chapter, its possible counterpart within the third evolutionary transcendence can firstly be discussed in this chapter. Although being constructed the other way around, it will be shown in this chapter that it is rewarding to put them into each other’s perspective.

4.1.

B

T

T

E

T

The coming epochal transition for Murphy is the third evolutionary transcendence. With new types of extraordinary human development he identifies in his book, ‘a new level of existence has begun to appear on earth, one whose patterns cannot be adequately specified by physics, biology, or mainstream social science.’108

Although an in-depth discussion of these types of extraordinary human development will follow in chapter five, due to the fact that the central argument of Murphy is based on the empirical proof of the presented extraordinary capacities, they will be shortly addressed now, so it will be made possible to relate them to his other ideas.

23

The central characterization (and announcement at the same time) of the emergent third evolutionary transcendence are twelve sets of human extraordinary attributes. They involve extraordinary perceptions such as clairvoyance or contact with entities that are inaccessible to the ordinary senses; extraordinary awareness of the body; extraordinary communication abilities such as the transmission of thoughts; superabundant vitality which is not accountable by ordinary bodily processes; extraordinary movement abilities such as out-of-body experience and levitation; extraordinary capacities to alter the environment such as abilities to influence things at a distance without reliance upon direct physical action; self-existent delight, not depending on the satisfaction of needs or desires in the manner of ordinary pleasure; mystical knowledge; volition that exceeds ordinary will in order to be able to unify separate impulses, to produce extraordinary actions; personhood that simultaneously fulfills one’s ordinary sense and transcends it, experiencing a fundamental unity with others; extraordinary love; and, alterations in bodily states, processes and structures that support the experiences and capacities of the before mentioned metanormal capacities.109

Because of the appearance of these extraordinary capacities, Murphy believes that a new kind of life will emerge on this planet when these extraordinary capacities are realized by enough people. It will constitute a break with ordinary consciousness and behavior, self-mastery of the mind and flesh and ‘the transcendent of certain needs.’ This new life would be characterized by new types of social interaction, greater care for the physical environment, more exceptional ability to prevent human aggressiveness, new styles of energy consumption and new rituals of work and play. On the other hand, Murphy also remarks briefly that these extraordinary capacities can be used destructively.110 The third evolutionary transcendence would eventually constitute of features and regularities that cannot be predicted from the patterns of our contemporary existence.

Indeed, this novelty and incomprehensibility only strengthen Murphy’s idea that these extraordinary capacities are representing a new type of evolution, in which patterns are distinguishable from normal psychosocial development. As understood in chapter three, the fact that they violate the mainstream assumptions of science, strengthens, in the eyes of Murphy, the fact that these extraordinary capacities are part of a new domain.111 Indeed, the fact that ordinary science is not able to account for the possibilities in the third evolutionary transcendence only endorses and supports Murphy’s claims. That contemporary science cannot grasp the evolutionary transcendence is central to its understanding, as by means of the evolutionary transcendence, we evolve into a new evolutionary domain that has its distinctive features and patterns. What is there to evolve to, if the new world fits into the old paradigm? A continued realization of these metanormal capacities constitutes according to Murphy ‘a break with ordinary human activity,’ while their permanent integration by many people ‘would constitute a

109 _{Murphy, 27–28.} 110_{Murphy, 100.} 111 _{Murphy, 29.}