Notes to # Social Formations in a Transhumanist World, Presentation to the Australian Singularity Summit, 2010. Slide 2 ------- Genetic Engineering; also known as “liberal eugenics regulated by supply and demand” see Jurgen Habermas, “The Future of Human Nature”. The science – at this stage – is based around recombinant DNA and transgenic species. Animal Uplifting, see David Brin's science fiction series Sundiver, Startide Rising and The Uplift War as an elaboration. Also consider animal rights arguments; especially the prospect of a merging of the utilitarian (Benthem to Singer) versus the contractual (Roger Scruton, contemporary) Artificial Intelligence as machine intelligence, enhanced logic etc. Herbert Simon, Marvin Minsky (1950s/1960s), Ray Kurzweil;critics include Hubert Dreyfus (implicit knowledge), Roger Penrose (using Godel's theorem to limit possibility of machine intelligence), John Searle (linguistic issues). Prosthetics especially developed in periods of mass warfare, with government funding and anesthetics. Emergent technology, neural prosthetics, direct bone integration (osseointegration). Transhumanism is argued by Kurzweirl, but also advocated by Donna Harraway in her classic essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” Disembodiment of the “virtual body” within a VR enviroment. Slide 3 ------- “Social formations” is a term that has origins with Marxist political theory (including Marx and Engels) then structuralists (e.g., Louis Althusser, Barry Hindess, Paul Hirst, Talcott Parsons) as well as the Frankfurt School (e.g., Jurgen Habermas). It is mean to be understood independently of cultural expressions, particular historical events,, and disputes the influence of human agency (examples of large variation in violence in societies as an example). Jürgen Habermas, who proposes Primitive, Traditional and Modern social formations, based initially on the forces of production, that is; gatherer-hunters, agricultural and industrial respectively. The structures that apply to each of these formations are (a) "principles of social organisation", a term which is more expansive than the old and narrow concept of "relations of production", (b) "system and social integration", an expansion of what some would recognise as the "political and legal superstructure", and (c) "types of crisis". The inclusion of the structural development of ideas therefore also include (d) "means of communication", and (e) "modes of consciousness". Slide 4 ------- Theories that concentrate on the development of the forces of production and social institutions need to be supplemented and applied to the three social formations; primitive, traditional, and modern. It is no longer sufficient, for example, to just describe the primitive societies as having an organisation principle being based on kinship relations, and a division of labour based on sex and age, an absence of distinction between community and society, and crises occurring from external, natural challenges. It is also necessary to note that such societies have a mode of consciousness based on a mythic understanding of the world, and the use of natural speech as the most important means of communication. The characteristics of a mythic mode of consciousness are well known, especially due to the research by anthropologists such as Lewis Morgan, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Bronislaw Malinowski and Claude Lévi-Strauss; an undifferentiated degree of rationality, and the use of metaphor and diachronic structures which reinforce knowledge among the community. The same elaboration can also be conducted for traditional and modern societies. If we look at traditional societies, that long run of period from the neolithic revolution and the founding of civilisation 10,000 years ago to the industrial revolution the additional principle of social organisation of political rule by rank or caste, the establishment of the state distinguishing between society and community, and with new crisis arising from issues of state integrity. Adding to these, with contributions from archaeologists and historians such Gordon Childe (earliest civilisations), Joseph Needham (Chinese civilisation), Will Durant (Western civilisation), provide the evidence for an assessment of the means of communication; writing and printing and of the mode of consciousness based on a religious-metaphysical orientation which provides a degree of differentiated rationality based on the particular religious outlook (compare, for example, differences in soteriology between Hindu and Buddhist mysticism via contemplation and world-rejection and the mastery approach of Judeo-Christian traditions or and active adjustment in Confucian and Taoist approaches. Slide 5 ------- The process can be of course conducted for the contemporary age as well; the additional principle of social organisation in the modern, industrial age, derives from political economy, and the division of the economic classes of landlord, capitalist and worker. With regards to the institutional expression we witness the rise of nation-state and the development of legalised sub-systems, such as corporations. Crises are systematically induced; whether through an industrial and economic growth telic running into natural limitations, the irresolvable contradictions of political economy, or through the systematic colonisation of the lifeworld of meaning production. With regards to the means of communication, the outstanding contribution of movable type printing onwards emphasises effectiveness through decentralisation. The modern mode of consciousness comes with a high degree of differentiation - but also fragmentation between statements of truth, norms and aesthetics and is primarily concerned with a secular approach. The process can be of course conducted for the contemporary age as well; the additional principle of social organisation in the modern, industrial age, derives from political economy, and the division of the economic classes of landlord, capitalist and worker. With regards to the institutional expression we witness the rise of nation-state and the development of legalised sub-systems, such as corporations. Crises are systematically induced; whether through an industrial and economic growth telic running into natural limitations, the irresolvable contradictions of political economy, or through the systematic colonisation of the lifeworld of meaning production. With regards to the means of communication, the outstanding contribution of movable type printing onwards emphasises effectiveness through decentralisation. The modern mode of consciousness comes with a high degree of differentiation - but also fragmentation between statements of truth, norms and aesthetics and is primarily concerned with a secular approach. This presentation does not discuss the natural (such as the environment) and systemtic crises (such as the economy), which there are already numerous sources. Of interest here to the state of the human spirit are the problems of the modern psyche, best described by the three founders of the discipline of sociology, Marx, Durkheim and Weber. From the former we can derive the notion of alienation, the rupture of the productive process from the "species-being" of work. From Durkheim, there is the loss of the internal moral and normative compass, anomie, due to homogeneous associations, 'mass society'. Finally, from Weber the notion of disenchantment, where the dominance of instrumental rationality, of scientism, can break the 'sense of wonder and unity' with nature and the universe and relegate the artistic endeavour to a parasitic counter-culture. Least this just suggests that modern society only consists of people who don't like their job, have limited moral reasoning and don't care about the fate of nature or the universe, there are progressive tendencies as well; increased democracy counters alienation, organic solidarity through free association reduces anomie, and, most recently, the ontological grounding of environmentalism acts against disenchantment. Slide 6 ------- Postmodernism is largely a cultural movement that rejects objective truth and totalising narratives; it emphasises the role of language, distribution of power, and motivations, and associated with difference, plurality, textuality, and skepticism (Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, Jean Baudrillard, Simulation and Similcra, Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, Jameson's Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, ). Postmodernism in social theory is different; these cultural expressions are grounded in political economy, institutions & etc. From Marx " relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production...forms the real basis on which rises a legal and political superstructure. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the immense superstructure is rapidly transformed." Following Arendt (Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem) Imagine for a moment that this technological is introduced with a pathological modern mental state; the alienation, the anomie, the disenchantment. Imagine if a reactionary, pre-modern, mode is dominant; theocratic political rule with medieval thinking in a period of technological species-tranformation. Such a society would be a nightmare, the worst sort of totalitarianism. Slide 7 ------- Dr. K. Eric Drexler, who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation Environmentalism vs the Landlord Class - a tension between effects of climate change and a desire for personal and consensual liberties leads to a political economy that is increasingly orientated against variations of the "landlord class" (Adam Smith first recognised this, David Ricardo enunciated it formally, others followed). Essential principle is "tax resources not production" so that capital and labour becomes free returns whereas . Carbon tax and mining tax are two nascent examples of this orientation. Externalities vs funding vs corporatisation of education and knowledge; compare against free and open source software movement (e.g., GNU utilities from FSF and Richard Stallman, Linux by Linux Tolvards). Species differentiation can lead to inter-species conflict; communication posits the possibility of understanding which is substantially more difficult between species rather than among species. See Shaper/ Mechanist series in Schismatrix, early cyberpunk by Bruce Sterling. Thought transference – an old name for the parapsychical power of telepathy – is a radical concept born of radical notions in transhumanism. But combined with the familiarity of the contemporary Internet. Prospect of the hive mind. Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, England is one of the leading proponents of this view and has based all of his recent cybernetics research around developing practical, safe technology for directly connecting human nervous systems together with computers and with each other.