ON THE POSTHUMAN: THE CONCEPT OF RADICAL POSTHUMANISM

Abstract

This philosophical concept of radical posthumanism, which we call essentiocognitivism, concerns the existence of complemented (post) humanity and machines. The central subject of essentiocognitivism is integrated consciousness, which has no distinct center, resembling a distributed neural network similar in structure to the Internet, or rather, the complex connectome of the human brain. It is a collective consciousness that will overcome animal nature, suffering, disease, senility, and death. Such a superorganism or supermechanism will be pure reason, or the absolute. The purpose of the research. Researching, developing, and justifying the author's concept of “essentiocognitivism” is a radical continuation of the ideas of posthumanism, which leads to the emergence of the “absolute,” the transformation of humans into posthumans, the complete reorganization of the social structure, the transition to a complemented state of humanity, posthumanity, and general artificial intelligence (first AGI, then ASI). The research objectives are to study the ethical issues of immortality, uploaded consciousness, qualia, “philosophical zombie”, the physical and technological feasibility of this process – the transfer of consciousness into digital reality — and the difficulties and questions arising in connection with this potential event; consideration of the organization of such a complex social structure as the “absolute”, determination of its subjectivity and essence. Methods. The article uses the philosophical-anthropological approach, which allows us to abstract from “the human, all too human” and the question of “human nature”. The genealogical approach allows us to consider complementation into conglomerates of cognitive units as “historical” and evolutionary processes. The dialectical method aims to define the ambivalence of “human/transhuman nature”. Also, it is used to set up the descriptive and theoretical parts of the article, paving the way for further research in the field of ethics of natural and artificial intelligence, the nature of consciousness, the evolution of humans into posthumans, and the possibility of “resurrect immortality”. General theoretical methods of scientific research and elements of thought experiments are also used to substantiate a radical post-humanistic concept. Scientific novelty of the research. Previously, the issue of essentiocognitivism was raised exclusively in other publications, including the monograph “Posthuman, all Too Posthuman” and a number of articles. The study is interesting in that it provides a consistent disclosure of the theme of human evolution into posthuman and further, the attainment of immortality and the possibility of transition to eternal life. A philosophical-anthropological approach is used to establish such a socio-personal structure as the “absolute” and to justify its ontognoseological nature. Results. We consider the “absolute” to be a thinking entity that is aware of itself and the entire world, representing the final result of the complementation of (post)humanity — strong artificial intelligence and former transhumans — into conglomerates of cognitive units (CCUs). CCUs, similar to the elements of B. Latour's actor-network theory, are cells, clusters of the absolute that forms its “body” — thinking units, “neurons” in a giant distributed neural network, vaguely reminiscent of the Internet. We have defined the stages of humanity's transformation into the “absolute” as follows: human — transhuman; transhuman — posthuman; posthuman — conglomerate of cognitive units — absolute. The model of being-cognition of the “absolute” represents “cognition of knowledge”, “cognition-action,” and “cognition-mastery.” This path allows us to transform and convert the “absolute,” complementing all that exists and the thinking “absolute” into a single whole. Conclusions. The evolution of such intellectual systems leads to the emergence of general artificial intelligence (AGI, then ASI), and, following this, to the deployment of technological singularity. Singularity, in turn, is the starting point for essentiocognitivism. A futuristic society consisting of posthumans, cyborgs, robots, as well as various variations of artificial intelligence and digitized consciousnesses, is not the end point in the conception of essentiocognitivism. The further evolution of this society and its individuals must take place in the context of the merging of all subjects into a complementary meta-consciousness.