Human values seem to vary across time and space. What implications does this have for the future of human value? Will our human and (perhaps) post-human offspring have very different values from our own? Can we study the future of human values in an insightful and systematic way? This article makes three contributions to the debate about the future of human values. First, it argues that the systematic study of future values is both necessary in and of itself and an (...) important complement to other future-oriented inquiries. Second, it sets out a methodology and a set of methods for undertaking this study. Third, it gives a practical illustration of what this ‘axiological futurism’ might look like by developing a model of the axiological possibility space that humans are likely to navigate over the coming decades. (shrink)

According to no-futurism, past and present entities are real, but future ones are not. This view faces a skeptical challenge (Bourne 2002, 2006, Braddon-Mitchell, 2004): if no-futurism is true, how do you know you are present? I shall propose a new skeptical argument based on the physical possibility of Gödelian worlds (1949). This argument shows that a no-futurist has to endorse a metaphysical contingentist reading of no-futurism, the view that no-futurism is contingently true. But then, the (...) no-futurist has to face a new skeptical challenge: how do you know that you are in a no-futurist world? (shrink)

Tallant (2007) has challenged my recent defence of no-futurism (Button 2006), but he does not discuss the key to that defence: that no-futurism's primitive relation 'x is real-as-of y' is not symmetric. I therefore answer Tallant's challenge in the same way as I originally defended no-futurism. I also clarify no-futurism by rejecting a common mis-characterisation of the growing-block theorist. By supplying a semantics for no-futurists, I demonstrate that no-futurism faces no sceptical challenges. I conclude by (...) considering the problem of how to interpret the relation 'x is real-as-of y'. -/- (NB: A correction to this article appears in Analysis 68.1.). (shrink)

Solutions to the urban problems of the future must assume the new reality of megacities. The inevitable technological progress must find a balance with the ‘bio-ecological' recovery of the natural environment. In the vertical bionic city, all these occur; bio intelligence and giant structures of the city are merged into a single. These structures try to survive by relying on working together as a single organism alive, as ants work in their nest. What makes them so efficient? What makes them (...) work all together? What will be the future form of our building environment? Our future habitable environment is more likely to be in a vertical built form, against the horizontal city form. There are many reasons to believe that the new vertical cities will be more sustainable than the conventional horizontal cities. If this logic is accepted as the future scenario, then the question facing all planners and architects today is: Should we take this built form and make it more socially accepted, physically habitable, and human? This paper examines some of the key implications of this scenario, and the criteria for the design and planning of our future sustainable built environment as the vertical cities in the sky. (shrink)

This paper explores mutable futurism, the view according to which the future can literally change—that is, it can happen that a future time t changes from containing an event E to lacking it. Mutable futurism has received little attention so far, and the details and implications of the view are underexplored in the literature. For instance, it currently lacks a precise metaphysical model and a formal semantics. Although we do not endorse mutable futurism, our goal here is (...) to strengthen the case for mutable futurism and help establish it as a worthy contender in the debate on the philosophy of time. To attain this goal, we try to make mutable futurism, along with its metaphysical and inferential commitments, as clear as possible, by providing it with a coherent metaphysical model and a plausible semantics, and we show that it can be backed by theoretical reasons. (shrink)

What is "accelerationism," and how does it function on both the political Left and Right?

This paper examines Mykhail Semenko’s Futurist manifestos that developed an opposition between “national” and “international” art, and specifically called “national” art provincial and retrograde. In promoting the international European avant-garde, Semenko’s essays demonstrate how consistently he championed a contemporary and modern Ukrainian culture in the face of home-grown conservatism.

No-futurists ('growing block theorists') hold that that the past and the present are real, but that the future is not. The present moment is therefore privileged: it is the last moment of time. Craig Bourne (2002) and David Braddon-Mitchell (2004) have argued that this position is unmotivated, since the privilege of presentness comes apart from the indexicality of 'this moment'. I respond that no-futurists should treat 'x is real-as-of y' as a nonsymmetric relation. Then different moments are real-as-of different times. (...) This reunites privilege with indexicality, but entails that no-futurists must believe in ineliminably tensed facts. (shrink)

There is a remarkable trend in contemporary environmentalism that emphasizes ‘accepting responsibility’ for the natural world in contrast to outdated preservationist thinking that shirks such responsibility. This approach is often explained and justified by reference to the anthropocene: this fundamentally new epoch—defined by human domination—requires active human intervention to avert planetary catastrophe. However, in this paper, I suggest this rhetoric encourages a flight from history. This often jubilant, sometimes anxious, yearning for unprecedented human innovation and—ultimately—control in our new millennia mirrors (...) the Futurist movement that took off near the beginning of the last century. Despite the significant differences in the details of how academics have defended this twenty-first-century environmental outlook, they all represent the true flight from history; they too quickly jettison the ideas of historical environmentalists and so misunderstand the environmental values at the heart of preservation that are more salient than ever. (shrink)

The co-shaping of technology and values is a topic of increasing interest among philosophers of technology. Part of this interest pertains to anticipating future value change, or what Danaher (2021) calls the investigation of “axiological futurism”. However, this investigation faces a challenge: “axiological possibility space” is vast, and we currently lack a clear account of how this space should be demarcated. It stands to reason that speculations about how values might change over time should exclude farfetched possibilities and be (...) restricted to possibilities that can be dubbed to be realistic instead. But what does this realism criterion entail? This paper introduces the notion of realistic possibilities as a key conceptual advancement to the study of axiological futurism and offers suggestions as to how realistic possibilities of future value change might be identified. Additionally, I propose two slight modifications to the approach of axiological futurism. First, I argue that axiological futurism can benefit from a thoroughly historicised understanding of moral change. Secondly, I argue that when employed in normative contexts, the axiological futurist should seek to identify realistic possibilities that come along with substantial normative risks. (shrink)

This article analyzes the global causes of the contemporary crisis and the possibilities to eliminate the most acute problems that have generated this crisis. It analyzes both the negative role of the world financial flows and their important positive functions including the ‘insurance’ of social guaranties at the global scale. In connection with the outcome of the crisis it analyzes the conditions of possible transformations of the world system and the possibility of various global scripts of its near future. It (...) gives a characteristic of the coming ‘epoch of new coalitions’; it gives some futuristic prognosis. (shrink)

Propositional temporalism is the view that there are temporary propositions: propositions that are true, but not always true. Factual futurism is the view that there are futurist facts: facts that obtain, but that will at some point not obtain. Most A-theoretic views in the philosophy of time are committed both to propositional temporalism and to factual futurism. Mark Richard, Jeffrey King and others have argued that temporary propositions are not fit to be the contents of propositional attitudes, or (...) to be the semantic values of natural language utterances. But these discussions have overlooked another role that the A-theorist’s posits struggle to play: the role of facts in explaining other facts. Focusing on the case of action explanation by reasons, this paper presents the challenge that explanation poses for factual futurism. It then brings that challenge to bear against propositional temporalism and the A-theory more generally. My argument saddles the factual futurist with surprising commitments concerning reasons, facts and explanation. The futurist might accept those commitments and pay the price. The alternative – which I prefer – is to reject factual futurism, and with it the A-theory. (shrink)

Certain kinds of prediction, foreknowledge, and future‐oriented action appear to require settled future truths. But open futurists think that the future is metaphysically unsettled: if it is open whether p is true, then it cannot currently be settled that p is true. So, open futurists—and libertarians who adopt the position—face the objection that their view makes rational action and deliberation impossible. I defuse the epistemic concern: open futurism does not entail obviously counterintuitive epistemic consequences or prevent rational action.

This paper examines the possibility of parenting as a queer practice. Examining definitions of “queer” as resistant to presumptions and practices of reprosexuality and repro-narrativity (Michael Warner), bourgeouis norms of domestic space and family time (Judith Halberstam), and policies of reproductive futurism (Lee Edelman), I argue that queer parenting is possible. Indeed, parenting that resists practices of normalization are, in part, realized by certain types of postmodern families. However, fully actualizing the possibility of parenting queerly—and thus teaching our children (...) the values of non-normativity--requires engaging political struggles for distributive justice. These are, thus, the struggles that should be at the center of queer politics, rather than the current struggles for gay marriage and homoparental rights. (shrink)

fiction and urban technological narrative.

How could ectogestative technology disrupt gender roles, parenting practices, and concepts such as ‘birth’, ‘body’, or ‘parent’? In this chapter, we situate this emerging technology in the context of the history of reproductive technologies and analyse the potential social and conceptual disruptions to which it could contribute. An ectogestative device, better known as ‘artificial womb’, enables the extra-uterine gestation of a human being, or mammal more generally. It is currently developed with the main goal of improving the survival chances of (...) extremely premature neonates. We argue that the intended use of the technology in neonatal intensive care units, as an alternative to current incubators (’partial-ectogestation’), challenges concepts such as ‘birth’, ‘fetus’, and ‘neonate’, and has several ethico-legal implications. We moreover address a more futuristic scenario where the entire embryological and fetal development could happen within an artificial womb (’full-ectogestation’). Such a scenario reveals the disruption of gender roles, parenting practices, and concepts such as ‘mother’, ‘father’, and ‘parent’. Both full- and partial-ectogestation would have implications for engineering and design, law-making, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

This concluding chapter of _Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith_ examines the widespread overconfidence in present-day and proposed 'technological fixes', and provides guidelines - social, ethical and technical - for soberly assessing candidate technological solutions for societal problems.

There is a familiar debate between Russell and Strawson concerning bivalence and ‘the present King of France’. According to the Strawsonian view, ‘The present King of France is bald’ is neither true nor false, whereas, on the Russellian view, that proposition is simply false. In this paper, I develop what I take to be a crucial connection between this debate and a different domain where bivalence has been at stake: future contingents. On the familiar ‘Aristotelian’ view, future contingent propositions are (...) neither true nor false. However, I argue that, just as there is a Russellian alternative to the Strawsonian view concerning ‘the present King of France’, according to which the relevant class of propositions all turn out false, so there is a Russellian alternative to the Aristotelian view, according to which future contingents all turn out false, not neither true nor false. The result: contrary to millennia of philosophical tradition, we can be open futurists without denying bivalence. (shrink)

Science fiction and futuristic reality beyond the Self.

In his work on the open future, Patrick Todd outlines three models of how to deal with future contingents. These models must answer two questions: one metaphysical, about what facts there are in the world; one semantic, about how to deal with sentences involving ‘will.’ Model 1 has a privileged timeline. Model 2 has an actual future timeline but leaves it indeterminate which timeline that is. Model 3 has no future timeline. All three give will-sentences a modal treatement, as a (...) box over available futures. I will argue that Todd’s second model has problems and should be improved. The first is that it denies what Todd labels as the basic metaphysical intuition behind open-futurism. The second is that indeterminacy about the facts that characterize the actual timeline breaks through into indeterminate identity. I propose a fix to model 2 eliminating its actual future and resolving an issue that arises in applying the neutral semantics Todd endorses to indeterminate sentences. This improved model, I suggest, may even compare favorably to Todd’s preferred model 3. (shrink)

Various philosophers have long since been attracted to the doctrine that future contingent propositions systematically fail to be true—what is sometimes called the doctrine of the open future. However, open futurists have always struggled to articulate how their view interacts with standard principles of classical logic—most notably, with the Law of Excluded Middle. For consider the following two claims: Trump will be impeached tomorrow; Trump will not be impeached tomorrow. According to the kind of open futurist at issue, both of (...) these claims may well fail to be true. According to many, however, the disjunction of these claims can be represented as p ∨ ~p—that is, as an instance of LEM. In this essay, however, I wish to defend the view that the disjunction these claims cannot be represented as an instance of p ∨ ~p. And this is for the following reason: the latter claim is not, in fact, the strict negation of the former. More particularly, there is an important semantic distinction between the strict negation of the first claim [~] and the latter claim. However, the viability of this approach has been denied by Thomason, and more recently by MacFarlane and Cariani and Santorio, the latter of whom call the denial of the given semantic distinction “scopelessness”. According to these authors, that is, will is “scopeless” with respect to negation; whereas there is perhaps a syntactic distinction between ‘~Will p’ and ‘Will ~p’, there is no corresponding semantic distinction. And if this is so, the approach in question fails. In this paper, then, I criticize the claim that will is “scopeless” with respect to negation. I argue that will is a so-called “neg-raising” predicate—and that, in this light, we can see that the requisite scope distinctions aren’t missing, but are simply being masked. The result: a under-appreciated solution to the problem of future contingents that sees and as contraries, not contradictories. (shrink)

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further (...) controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. (shrink)

According to presentism, only the present exists. The view is in a bad dialectical situation since it has to face several objections based on physics and a priori arguments. The view remains nonetheless popular because it is, allegedly, more intuitive than alternative views, namely eternalism (past, present and future entities exist) and no-futurism (only past and present entities exist). In the essay, I shall not discuss whether intuitivity is an accurate criterion for ontological enquiry. I will rather argue that (...) any philosophically acceptable version of presentism entails highly counterintuitive consequences. Indeed, the presentist has to commit herself to substantial claims in order to provide an answer to two problems : the grounding problem and the cross-temporal relations problem. Therefore, if the main motivation for presentism is the willingness to stick with common sense intuitions, presentists should consider endorsing another view about existence in time. (shrink)

With DLT’s success in driving the development of cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin), the technology bridged to a myriad of knowledge-based applications, most notably in the areas of commerce, industry and government . In the language of technology sector insiders, these areas were ‘disrupted’ by Blockchain. Some higher education analysts, technology industry insiders and futurists have claimed that Blockchain technology will inevitably disrupt higher education in a similarly dramatic fashion. The aim of this commentary is to introduce a healthy dose of (...) realism into the hype-filled atmosphere of the Blockchain-for-higher-education narrative. A postdigital approach is taken because it treats digital and non-digital technologies as having equal material and cultural standing as candidates to transform higher education. (shrink)

Using Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness as an inspirational backdrop, a novel whose story unfolds on a genderless planet that nevertheless relies on reproductive sex for the sake of generativity, this paper tackles the sex/gender debate, its entanglements with procreation, and its consequences for transgender pregnancies. More specifically, I analyze three issues that pose barriers to thinking about a more inclusive reproductive ethics: state-sanctioned sterilization, non-reproductive futurism, and access to assisted reproductive technology.

Traditionally defined as the science of the living, or as the field that beyond anatomical structure and bodily form studies functional organization and behaviour, physiology has long been excluded from evolutionary research. The main reason for this exclusion is that physiology has a presential and futuristic outlook on life, while evolutionary theory is traditionally defined as the study of natural history. In this paper, I re-evaluate these classic science divisions and situate physiology within the history of the evolutionary sciences, as (...) well as within debates on the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and the need for a Third Way of Evolution. I then briefly point out how evolutionary physiology in particular contributes to research on function, causation, teleonomy, agency and cognition. (shrink)

Human enhancement is one of the leading research topics in contemporary applied ethics. Interestingly, the widespread attention to the ethical aspects of future enhancement applications has generated misgivings. Are researchers who spend their time investigating the ethics of futuristic human enhancement scenarios acting in an ethically suboptimal manner? Are the methods they use to analyze future technological developments appropriate? Are institutions wasting resources by funding such research? In this article, I address the ethics of doing human enhancement ethics focusing on (...) two main concerns. The Methodological Problem refers to the question of how we should methodologically address the moral aspects of future enhancement applications. The Normative Problem refers to what is the normative justification for investigating and funding the research on the ethical aspects of future human enhancement. This article aims to give a satisfactory response to both meta-questions in order to ethically justify the inquiry into the ethical aspects of emerging enhancement technologies. (shrink)

What is techno-optimism and how can it be defended? Although techno-optimist views are widely espoused and critiqued, there have been few attempts to systematically analyse what it means to be a techno-optimist and how one might defend this view. This paper attempts to address this oversight by providing a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of techno-optimism. It is argued that techno-optimism is a pluralistic stance that comes in weak and strong forms. These vary along a number of key dimensions but each (...) shares the view that technology plays a key role in ensuring that the good prevails over the bad. Whatever its strength, to defend this stance, one must flesh out an argument with four key premises. Each of these premises is highly controversial and can be subjected to a number of critiques. The paper discusses five such critiques in detail. The paper also considers possible responses from the techno-optimist. Finally, it is concluded that although strong forms of techno-optimism are not intellectually defensible, a modest, agency-based version of techno-optimism may be defensible. (shrink)

It is my goal in this paper to offer a strategy for translating universal statements about utopia into particular statements. This is accomplished by drawing out their implicit, temporally embedded, points of reference. Universal statements of the kind I find troublesome are those of the form ‘Utopia is x’, where ‘x’ can be anything from ‘the receding horizon’ to ‘the nation of the virtuous’. To such statements, I want to put the questions: ‘Which utopias?’; ‘In what sense?’; and ‘When was (...) that, is that, or will that be, the case for utopias?’ Through an exploration of these lines of questioning, I arrive at three archetypes of utopian theorizing which serve to provide the answers: namely, utopian historicism, utopian presentism, and utopian futurism. The employment of these archetypes temporally grounds statements about utopia in the past, present, or future, and thus forces discussion of discrete particulars instead of abstract universals with no meaningful referents. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the research field of machine ethics and how it relates to a technological singularity—a hypothesized, futuristic event where artificial machines will have greater-than-human-level intelligence. One problem related to the singularity centers on the issue of whether human values and norms would survive such an event. To somehow ensure this, a number of artificial intelligence researchers have opted to focus on the development of artificial moral agents, which refers to machines capable of moral reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. (...) To date, different frameworks on how to arrive at these agents have been put forward. However, there seems to be no hard consensus as to which framework would likely yield a positive result. With the body of work that they have contributed in the study of moral agency, philosophers may contribute to the growing literature on artificial moral agency. While doing so, they could also think about how the said concept could affect other important philosophical concepts. (shrink)

Theoretical response to technical development tends to come in two overall forms: that technology is either transparent or opaque to society. The transparency thesis lays its cards directly on the table: technology is essentially neutral and has merely instrumental relation to the social. The opacity thesis suggests that technology is not essentially neutral, but has effects of its own on social life. This thesis itself subdivides clearly into two: those who denigrate and those who celebrate the effects of technology. The (...) former category is the one that has been most filled by philosophers and theoretically-minded social commentators, and includes, among others, Heidegger's analysis of technology, the Frankfurt School and Max Weber. The latter category is associated primarily with two movements, of dubious socio-political sensitivity: futurism and North-American techno-libertarianism. Far from contesting the premise of the transparency arguments, these views still think of technology as instrumental. It's just that instrumentality is regarded as a problem by denigrators, whereas sheer increase in prosthetic capacity is regarded as a blessing by the celebrators. (shrink)

Social robots are marketed as human tools promising us a better life. This marketing strategy commodifies not only the labor of care but the caregiver as well, conjuring a fantasy of technoliberal futurism that echoes a colonial past. Against techno-utopian fantasies of a good life as one involving engineered domestic help, I draw here on the techno-dystopian television show Humans (stylized HUMⱯNS) to suggest that we should find our desires for such help unsettling. At the core of my argument (...) is a return of the “uncanny valley” problem, from its reformulation as an engineering/design problem to its origins as a psychosocial symptom of an unresolved, traumatic past. I conclude that our sense of the uncanny may be best understood as a moral capacity that should be honed rather than evaded. (shrink)

Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one—viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory—is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. (...) The purpose of this essay is to argue that attempts to characterize the mental encounter a similar dilemma: currentism with respect to the mental is likely to be inadequate or contain falsehoods and futurism leaves too many significant questions about the nature of mentality unanswered. This new dilemma, we show, threatens both sides of the current debate surrounding the metaphysical status of the mind. (shrink)

Marjorie Perloff is a distinguished commentator on the literature of this century, best known for her work on Futurism, one of the pre-First War international and inter-art avant garde movements. Radical Artifice takes on the avant garde since 1960, observed from the angle of the institutions of popular culture -- in particular television talk shows, and graphic advertisements. The project of the book is to respond to Charles Bernstein's decree: "There is no natural look or sound to a poem. (...) Every element is intended, chosen. That is what makes a thing a poem" (qtd. 35). "Why, Perloff asks, "is the natural now regarded with such suspicion?" (35). (shrink)

Well elucidated and defined education policy is the most essential criteria for comprehensive progress of all human beings. From the time immemorial it is known that progress can be ushered only through education. A futuristic education policy both at the school and university level is extremely imperative. Countries at the global level have been adopting effective education policies to meet the changing needs of education and society at large. There is a need to shift educational approach from rote learning to (...) understanding, from exhaustive learning techniques to excitement of discovery and towards the joyful exploration. True education must encompass a synchronized working of body, mind and spirit. The ultimate aim of education must be to help the growing soul draw out the best and make it perfect for a noble use. The aim of education is not only to prepare an individual to succeed in life and society, but to reach the optimum. With this background, the paper is attempting at the theoretical level, to study the Integral philosophy, in the light of NEP 2020. It also tries to inquire into the modalities of Integral thinking, propose the application of the same in education and pedagogies to characterize its practice and goals in Integral Education. (shrink)

Diagrams by Connor Camburn -/- The relationship between axiomatization, mechanization, creative individuation, and virtual/physical individuation presents a fascinating interplay of concepts that have significantly influenced various fields, including mathematics, physics, philosophy, and art. This essay explores these relationships by drawing insights from André Weil's "From Metaphysics to Mathematics," Gilles Châtelet's works, and Schmid's discussion on Gnostic Futurism. -/- Axiomatization: Weil and Grothendieck -/- Axiomatization, as discussed in André Weil's "From Metaphysics to Mathematics," represents the transformation of metaphysical concepts into (...) formal mathematical structures. Weil's document highlights the progression from vague metaphysical ideas to concrete mathematical theories. This process is evident in the works of mathematicians like Lagrange and Galois, where initial metaphysical notions eventually crystallized into the formal structures of modern algebra. Similarly, Alexander Grothendieck's work in algebraic geometry involved the creation of an abstract framework that could unify various mathematical concepts, demonstrating the power of axiomatization in providing a foundational structure for complex ideas. -/- Mechanization: Oppenheimer, Watson-Crick, and Von Neumann -/- Mechanization, in the context of scientific development, refers to the application of mechanical principles to solve problems and the automation of processes. Figures like Oppenheimer in physics, Watson and Crick in biology, and Von Neumann in computing and mathematics, represent the pinnacle of mechanization in their respective fields. Their work exemplifies how mechanization has enabled the simplification and automation of complex processes, leading to alienating discoveries such as the atomic bomb, the structure of DNA, and the development of modern computers. -/- Creative Individuation: Gnostic Futurism -/- Eric Schmid's discussion on Gnostic Futurism, as found in his document, offers a perspective on creative individuation. Gnostic Futurism, rooted in Kantian-Hegelian transcendental universalism, represents a departure from conventional realism, emphasizing a transcendental nature and integration of mythopoeia. This movement in art and philosophy underscores the role of creativity and individual expression in transcending traditional forms and norms. It embodies the idea of creative individuation, where individual creativity leads to the formation of new, often revolutionary, artistic and philosophical expressions. -/- Virtual/Physical Individuation: Châtelet's Perspective -/- Gilles Châtelet's works, particularly "Figuring Space: Philosophy, Mathematics, and Physics," delve into the concept of virtual/physical individuation. Châtelet discusses the configuration of space in mathematics and physics, emphasizing the role of diagrams in scientific discovery. This exploration of space, both virtual (as in mathematical abstractions) and physical (as in tangible representations), reflects the process of individuation in both realms. Châtelet's perspective highlights how mathematical and physical representations are not just tools for understanding the world but are also expressions of individual and collective intellectual endeavors. -/- Interconnections and Synthesis -/- The synthesis of these concepts reveals a complex tapestry of intellectual development across disciplines. Axiomatization provides a foundational structure that enables the mechanization of processes, as seen in the works of Oppenheimer, Watson-Crick, and Von Neumann. This mechanization, in turn, paves the way for creative individuation, where individuals can transcend established norms and frameworks, as exemplified in Gnostic Futurism. Finally, the concept of virtual/physical individuation, as explored by Châtelet, represents the culmination of these ideas, where the abstract and the tangible intersect, leading to new forms of understanding and expression. -/- In conclusion, the relationship between axiomatization, mechanization, creative individuation, and virtual/physical individuation is a testament to the dynamic and interconnected nature of intellectual progress. From the formal structures of mathematics to the revolutionary changes in art and philosophy, these concepts demonstrate how human thought and creativity continue to evolve, challenging existing paradigms and forging new paths of understanding and expression. (shrink)

According to an editor of The Economist, the world produced, in the years since World War II, seven times more goods than throughout all history. This is well appreciated by lay people, but has hardly affected social scientists. They do not have the conceptual apparatus for understanding accelerated material-technical change and its meaning for people's personal lives, for their ways of relating to them-selves and to the outside world. Of course, a great deal of speculation about emerging life forms in (...) industrialised societies exists and social scientists with a futuristic bend have projected their diverse visions upon public debates, ranging from thc Efficient Hedonism of "post-industrialist' society a la Daniel Bell to the “Responsible Convivialism” of 'post-materialist" critics such as Fritz Schumacher. Competing images of the coming "services society" or "self-service society" share a central concern: the ongoing relation between tile spheres of large organisations and personal lifestyles, between salaried work arid private consumption. They also share a eel-tau' implausibility: few people recognize themselves in either projection. And they sham ubiquitous reference to "technology", without accounting for it in real terms. A good diagnostic of what is actually happening seems to me to be Jonathan Gershuny, who sees a drift toward a particular type of self-service economy: a quite radical shift in the mode of provision of social services, as he calls it, based on new kinds of consumer technologies. Industrialization used to be partial, but is becoming total fast. This process obviously has many facets, the one I am interested in here is the intrusion of modern technology into spheres of life which in the past have been relatively little dependent on it. (shrink)

In an earlier paper published in a neutrosophic math journal (IJNS), we discussed a new approach to technology, which may be called as ‘opti-realism’ or ‘pess-optimism’ as alternative to utopianism based on technocracy, which may lead the world into global technototalitarianism. In this article, we submit a new approach to Nature and technology, which is more modest and humble, rather than a techno-utopianism version of reality that most futurists argue for. Our proposed approach resembles more to Myer-Briggs 16 types of (...) personality, including IJNS, IFNS etc. In our scheme, there are 8 characters of approach toward technology which can lead to many variations or we call it ‘Permutation.” Of course, if the readers ask one variation that we prefer, we would answer: Small Tech, High Touch. (shrink)

By utilizing words, photographs, and motion pictures, this multimodal and multisited project traces a rhizomatic genealogy of Russian Cosmism—a nineteenth century political theology promoting a universal human program for overcoming death, resurrecting ancestors, and traveling through the cosmos—throughout post-Soviet techno-utopian projects and imaginaries. I illustrate how Cosmist techno-utopian, futurist, and other-than-human discourse exist as Weberian “elective affinities” within diverse ecologies of the imagination, transmitting a variety of philosophies and political programs throughout trans-temporal, yet philosophically bounded, communities. With a particular focus (...) on the United States and Ukraine, and taking an apophatic analytical position, I dissect how different groups of philosophers, technologists, and publics interact(ed) with Cosmism, as well as how seemingly disparate communities (re)shape and deterritorialize Cosmist political theology in an attempt to legitimize their constructed political imaginaries. (shrink)

With the advent of the 21st century, the way characters and identities interact under the influence of dominant powers has brought a new world into existence, a world dubbed by Manuel Castells as the ‘Fourth World’. Within the Castellsian theoretical matrix of the Fourth World and politics of identity, the present study seeks to investigate the true nature of the futuristic world Margaret Atwood has created in the MaddAddam trilogy. The trilogy literarily reflects a global crisis that ultimately leads to (...) dystopia and the destruction of the human race: what remains of humanity is a small group of survivors who must struggle to conserve what remains of humanity. Identity as the main determining factor in the Fourth World represents personal and public privileges, characteristics, and means of differentiating oneself from others. The Fourth World and its political peculiarities reflect contemporary powers, i.e. the power of the network society, network communication and media. Humankind, in this wheel, is just a toy in the hands of an intelligence broker. What exactly happens to human and semi-human characters in Atwood’s trilogy is the result of Fourth World structures and values, and how they shape and reconstruct identities to lead the world toward fabricated truths and values, and terminate in dystopia. (shrink)

In 2000 Bill Joy proposed that the best way to prevent technological apocalypse was to "relinquish" emerging bio-, info- and nanotechnologies. His essay introduced many watchdog groups to the dangers that futurists had been warning of for decades. One such group, ETC, has called for a moratorium on all nanotechnological research until all safety issues can be investigated and social impacts ameliorated. In this essay I discuss the differences and similarities of regulating bio- and nanotechnological innovation to the efforts to (...) regulate nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction. I then suggest the creation of a global technology regulatory regime to ensure the safe and equitable diffusion of genetic, molecular and information technologies, and point out the principal political obstacles to implementing such a regime. (shrink)

Is sex work (specifically, prostitution) vulnerable to technological unemployment? Several authors have argued that it is. They claim that the advent of sophisticated sexual robots will lead to the displacement of human prostitutes, just as, say, the advent of sophisticated manufacturing robots have displaced many traditional forms of factory labour. But are they right? In this article, I critically assess the argument that has been made in favour of this displacement hypothesis. Although I grant the argument a degree of credibility, (...) I argue that the opposing hypothesis -- that prostitution will be resilient to technological unemployment -- is also worth considering. Indeed, I argue that increasing levels of technological unemployment in other fields may well drive more people into the sex work industry. Furthermore, I argue that no matter which hypothesis you prefer -- displacement or resilience -- you can make a good argument for the necessity of a basic income guarantee, either as an obvious way to correct for the precarity of sex work, or as a way to disincentivise those who may be drawn to prostitution. (shrink)

The technological innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have facilitated the formulation of strategies to transcend human limitations; strategies that are widely supported by the transhumanist philosophy. The purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between ‘transhumanism’ and ‘technological singularity’, to which end the Fourth Industrial Revolution and transhumanism are also briefly covered. Subsequently, the three main models of technological singularity are evaluated and a definition of this futuristic concept is offered. Finally, the author provides a reflection on (...) the relationship between technological singularity and the transhumanist philosophy, and concludes that they are not synonymous, but rather that the former is an eventuality that will allow the latter. (shrink)

happyness porsued by a robot, realization of futuristic and transcendent dreams of man.

This article draws on several crucial and unpublished manuscripts from the Scholem Archive in exploration of Gershom Scholem's youthful statements on mathematics and its relation to extra-mathematical facts and, more broadly, to a concept of history that would prove to be consequential for Walter Benjamin's own thinking on "messianism" and a "futuristic politics." In context of critiquing the German Youth Movement's subsumption of active life to the nationalistic conditions of the "earth" during the First World War, Scholem turns to mathematics (...) for a genuine and self-consistent theory of action. In the concept of actual infinity (in Cantor and Bolzano) he finds an explanation of how mathematics relates to "the physical" without reducing the former to an "image" of the latter, and without relying on the concept of geometric intuition. This explanation, insofar as it relies on the notion of actual infinity, provides Scholem with a conception of mathematics (and the history of mathematics) that reconciles freedom and necessity—remarks on which he outlines in his diaries and communicates to Benjamin in early March 1916. (shrink)

The Lumad struggle in the Philippines, embodied in its various indigenous peoples (IPs), is still situated and differentiated from modern understandings of their plight. Agamben notes that the notion of ‘people’ is always political and is inherent in its underlying poverty, disinheritance, and exclusion. As such, the struggle is a struggle that concerns a progression of freedom from these conditions. Going over such conditions means that one shifts the focus from the socio-political and eventually reveals the ontological facet of such (...) knowledge to reveal the epistemic formation of the truth of their experience. It is then the concern of this paper to expose the concept of freedom as a vital indigenous knowledge from the Mamanwa of Basey, Samar. Using philosophical sagacity as a valid indigenous method, we interview ConchingCabadungga, one of the elders of the tribe, to help us understand how the Mamanwa conceive freedom in the various ways it may be specifically and geographically positioned apart from other indigenous studies. The paper contextualizes the diasporic element and the futuristic component of such freedom within the trajectory of liberation. The Mamanwa subverts the conception of freedom as a form of return to old ways and radically informs of a new way of seeing them as a ‘people.’ It supports recent studies on their literature that recommend the development of their livelihood rather than a formulaic solution of sending them back to where they were. The settlement in Basey changes their identification as a ‘forest people’ into a more radical identity. (shrink)

Interaction with the environment occurs in the perception of movement. Movement is the basic concept of mobility. Development and diversification (i.e., faster transportations, new technological access, etc.) of movement concepts may contribute modern people to become independent of any place. Nomadic cultures constitute the basic principles of mobile architecture with light, portable materials and flexible constructions. In the industrial age, futurist manifesto announced machine-housing concepts. The mechanized perception of the spaces prepared ground for mobilization. Mobility, as a source of independence (...) from places, is sometimes a preference but sometimes the result of urgency. “Individual preference”, “cultural movement” and “forced movement” are key reasons for movements which may differentiate modes of mobile space. The objective of this study to examine distinctive features of mobile spaces of forced movements (i.e., for refugees) by comparing with other types of mobility (individual preference and cultural movement). Various design competitions were held for mobile spaces. The cases were selected for this study, considering the role of the user’s profile (unspecific users; nomads/immigrants; refugees) who live in mobile spaces. We analyzed awarded/selected projects for each type of mobility. As a result of examining the awarded outcomes of the competition the following parameters were detected: quantity of users; designer's choice for location; reaction to the environment; contextual attention; scope of modularity; mode of portability; type of portability; cost of materials and construction; proposal for belonging; sensitivity for sustainability. It seems that current events in the world have transformed the concept of mobility and led to the development of new definitions of mobility. This paper presents one of the new definitions of mobility, specifically for refugees. Many aspects of mobile architecture for refugees, as a new definition of mobility, has shown in this study. (shrink)

In "Sora: The Dawn of Digital Dreams", humanity stands on the brink of a new epoch, where the OpenAI Sora technology interweaves the fabric of reality and imagination into a tapestry of digital dreams. Set against the backdrop of a futuristic metropolis, this narrative explores the duality of technological advancement—its power to create and to corrupt. As society navigates the blurred lines between the authentic and the artificial, "Sora: The Dawn of Digital Dreams" invites readers to ponder the essence of (...) human experience in an increasingly digital world. (shrink)

Death has always been considered as an inevitable yet ‘’unpleasant’’ conclusion to one’s lifelong journey. While mainstream religions’ followers could at least remain optimistic about the afterlife possibilities for the atheists, death would always represent a total disappearance from the face of the universe beyond the point of no return. However, recent scientific advancements cloning and sell replacement have led many to believe that biological immortality is a reality rather than a dream. According to some of the leading futurists (e.g. (...) De Grey) turning back the human clock and achieving an indefinite lifespan is just a matter of time, so those of us who are going to last long enough to witness these amazing scientific breakthroughs may be rewarded with another 1000 years or so to enjoy. (shrink)