NATURE VS TECHNOLOGY

"if you consider only utility, the things you build will soon be useless"

Does a return to 'nature' entail running away from technological advances? 

We have left the post-modern world and we are imbedded in the transition towards a transhumanist era, which is a post-humanist era. If we say 'we need to return to nature' are we not implying that we are not in nature anymore? There are plenty of films, tv shows, and books that present this reality, accostuming the mind to a way of life: black mirror, matrix, terminator,  ghost in the shell, brave new world, and many many more. They all depict a dystopian world in which the end-goal of 'society' is to overcome men's multiple natural flaws by mixing him with technology. 

What if we do not want to become a hybrid between man and machine? Are we being left any options? Are we too late to decide? These dystopian futuristic nightmares presented in films usually entail a world in which mystery and privacy are privileges that only, if at all, a privileged minority possess. Why are we not being asked whether this is the future we all want? It is depicted in films and books as the inevitable effect of 'progress' but there is no debate to be found in which one can assess what would be the outcome of that type of society. While in the meantime, the transhumanist agenda keeps moving forward at an incredibly high speed. 

Robotics, nanotechnology, algorithms, programms, etc.. What will be the role of men and women in this world? Transhumanism presents itself as an answer to that question, the body is no longer a natural expression of the divine and becomes a mere 'thing' to be used and improved. It is the kingdom of utility in which 'the divine' and 'beauty' become worthless. The philosopher Roger Scruton in his short documentary film 'Why beauty matters?', explains that "if you consider only utility, the things you build will soon be useless". This is because beauty is equated to meaning. 

"The masters of the past recognised that we have spiritual needs as well as animal apetites. For Plato, beauty was a path to God, while thinkers of the enlightenment saw art and beauty as ways in which we save ourselves from meaningless routines and rise to a higher level. But art turned its back on beauty. It became a slave to the consumer culture, feeding our pleasures and addictions and wallowing in self-disgust. That, it seems to me, is the lesson of the ugliest forms of modern art and architecure. They do not show reality but take revenge on it, spoiling what might have been a home and leaving us to wander unconsoled and alienated in a spiritual desert."  (Roger Scruton)

Scruton's warning is clear: when meaning and beauty are displaced from man's creations, the result is a degradation of values in which the fabric of reality is distorted. Reality is not shown as it is, but it becomes a cry for a return to something which has meaning. When we try to make utility an end and to reach the divine with it, we end up losing both utility and the divine. Technological advances have made our lives easier in a way, and they are full of utility. However, technology is not to be used as a salvation for ourselves. There is nothing and no one that will save you. When we give utilities that power, they work against us and become our enemies. 

For example, if one is scared of people's unpredictability and instead of looking inwards and seeing that perhaps that fear comes from somewhere within, starts transfering that fear into the rest of humanity, technology would look like the greatest tool in order to overcome or control that fear. To fill one's house with cameras, sound monitors, alexas, microphones, and all kind of self-surveillance technology could seem like a great idea to feel save and secure. However, what makes us think that once the utility of tech has been fulfilled, we will feel saver and more secure and not the opposite? It is the idea that something out there will save us from our deepest demons and darkness. Fear requires beauty, meaning or love to be conquered, but how is this 'beauty' found?

Kant explained that 'pleasure in the beauty is disinterested'. I think here we find the idea of love and its acknowledgement. For example, a child inspires in adults a disinterested giving, and all a child does is take and demand more giving. What a child 'gives' is ephemeral, not material; it is a smile, affection, curiosity about things that we no longer look at in awe. A child (perhaps more acutely a baby) rarely gives if it is not in this sense as childhood is the most selfish phase of man's existence, there is no tangible or quantifiable 'quid pro quo' in this relationship. However, they ignite in adults a sense of complete disinterested giving as there is something beautiful in their demands, something that can and is equated to a manifestation of love. A baby brings one back to nature, to the real meaning of life and the essence of it, and for a second in time, one gets a glimpse of what the fabric of reality is composed of. There is no space for utility in this exchange. 

More recently, the ideology of 'existentialism' brought with it a lack of narrative and thus a lack of meaning or 'nihilism'. This loss of meaning in our times can be mostly seen in the 'post-truth' concept. Nietzche was the most important thinker in this regard, with his famous 'God is dead' he expressed the sign of our times in which we have done away with 'the centre' (meaning) and we find ourselves in an era in which truth is meaningless and all we have are interpretations of it. We have liberated ourselves from the burden of proof and now there is nothing that can be proved. But the question is mandatory: does this mean we are progressing? If so, where are we heading to? 

The fact that a trans-woman can be the woman of the year in this era of 'liberation', in practice means that if a man can be the ideal of a woman, then the essence of what a woman is becomes meaningless. The same happens in art when 'a messy bed' or 'a toilet seat' are defined as art. If everything can be art, the essence of art is meaningless.

Morals and values follow the same pattern, if they are all relative to one's perception and there are only certain men in power who decide what law is, and consequently what is equated to morality, then morals per se constitute nothing. There is, therefore, no Natural Law binding us all... or so we think. But instead of trying to go back to a more grounded morality in which respect for ourselves and others is primordial, transhumanism only takes us further away from our essence by asserting that we are not good enough and as Scruton says: 'we take revenge on reality and are left wandering in a spiritual desert'. 

How are we to transform if we have done away with form altoghether? Can anybody affirm to know what we are? Or does it remain one of the biggest mysteries of mankind? 

he main idea in transhumanism is that we are lacking something, that we are not WHOLE. We had the idea of God as a superior intelligence that linked us all together; buut we got mad at God and renegaded of him. We then took its place with humanism, deciding everything there could be decided about the creation and disregarding the real source of authority that we had when we acknowleged Natural Law. And now we look at ourselves with disgust and realise we are not God nor could be, but we took all that was divine in ourselves and in the idea of God, and we fool ourselves thinking that we could only be Godlike if we transform ourselves, presupposing we do not have that 'divine spark' already. 

                        

In this article of 'The Guardian', Robert Mckie (2018) asks whether the future is transhuman and makes interesting points when analysing the book from Mark O'Connell titled 'To Be a Machine'. The article undoubtedly asks important questions regarding the idea of overcoming death by transhumanists, however, what is not asked is whether death exists for a reason such as, for example, make life meaningful. With no end in sight, life could easily become a nightmare. Moreover, the most likely outcome of transhumanism is a further division between those in power and the rest of us... are we building our own slave system? Year 2020 showed us how vulnerable we are in respect to the idea of death and illness and how that fear makes us rush into decisions which turn out to be detrimental for society.  

In my humble opinion, we should not fear death nor we should strive for immortality. It would certainly be a shame that by pursuing the end of death, we end up trapped in a slavery system of which we cannot escape because what 'we' signified, does not exist anymore. We wouldn't need new or better humans if we could only see and appreciate what 'we' already means.