The Void of Materialism
Jackson Capper
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A critique of transhumanism and the mistaken idolatry of conquering outer space.
Socrates is a man, but so what? Socrates did not become a man as he always was a man as long as he was mortal. We were simply unaware of it until our deduction. What does such knowledge achieve? Science begins with an induction and proceeds to prove it by deduction from experiment. Knowledge about the mechanisms of nature enable us to manipulate it. Alas, engineering and a subsequent easy life. For what purpose does an easy life serve?
An easy life makes for free time. Free time can be spent creating art not for the sake of adorning a church to secure its membership. No, but art for the sake of the art. Pleasure and vanity is all that these pursuits achieve.
Over time our economies will eb and flow in their Keynesian cycles. Nevertheless, they will achieve something close to a singularity. The economic singularity will be the production of a widget that will provide all the needs and wants a human could possibly conceive of. Our material destiny will be accomplished and we will seek to explore the universe further, simply for the sake of it.
An easy life and so much free time. We will inhabit planets just for the sake of inhabiting planets, much like the millennial and her cliched hobby of collecting passport stamps, or the man whom watches sports to see his preferred team put a ball between steel bars more than the other. Given that we are consumed with wasting our time, it could be asked, was there really an enlightenment?
There is nothing out there. There is no planet, no nebula, and no particle that will give purpose to the sports fanatic. What then are we aiming for when we pursue these things? All that we accomplish, all the dopamine, and all the serotonin will become nothing but slightly offset proteins in the cells of our brain. The worm will get its amino acids anyway.
If there is a way out it isn’t by space exploration or by feeding worms. It can only be by understanding the mystery. We must cross that inexplicable divide. On one side we know that Socrates is a man by mere deduction. On the other, we know it by a direct, timeless experience.