God Is Technology

[WEB EXCLUSIVE]

By Mike Perry

Review of God Is Technology: How the Singularity of Monotheism Transcended Biology and Primed the Techno­logical Genesis of God by Mitchell Heisman, from Suicide Note, http://www.suicidenote.info/ebook/suicide_note.pdf, pp. 32-358 (2010), accessed Dec. 6, 2010.

Mitchell Heisman, a self-styled sociobiological scholar with a degree in psychology, labored five years on a treatise running to some 1,900 pages, finally finishing it last September. Two days later the 35-year-old secretive researcher took his own life by gunshot to the head, standing on the steps of a chapel at the Harvard University campus. His magnum opus, appropriately if unsettlingly titled Suicide Note, is freely available on the Internet: he wanted people to read it (and not alter it). Included in its ample pages are ruminations on technology, transhumanism, religion, biology, psychology, Western history, and pervasively, existential nihilism—the position that overall life has no meaning. Near the end he announces his intention “to kill myself,” then, after going through some details of his life including his father’s early death which deeply affected him, almost jauntily adds, “I’ll try anything once!” followed by, “There is nothing to take seriously!”

Arguments about the meaning of life, or whether it has any, are unavoidably self-centered and particular; what you find meaningful I may not, and vice versa. A “rational” attempt such as Heisman’s, to argue against life’s having meaning so that existence is not to be valued over nonexistence, invariably runs aground on this fundamental incongruity. Most of us, in fact, are not prepared to embrace Heisman’s comprehensive nihilism or repeat his tragic feat of self-sacrifice. But here I will not dwell at length on his personal problems, nor address the whole of his lengthy treatise. Instead I want to focus on a portion that is a standalone volume in its own right, and also a remarkable manifesto of a kind of religious transhumanism.

God is Technology, the first major part of Heismann’s opus, is surprisingly positive and upbeat, given its context and overlooking a few deathist excursions (mainly in a single paragraph near the beginning). It also differs from many transhumanist works in that it finds strong and convincing links between ancient religious traditions and the modern quest for immortality through technology.

Drawing on his own Jewish roots, the author sees powerful precedents of modern, technological developments in the struggle of the ancient Israelites to escape the slavery of Egypt. The struggle itself is exemplary of the overall struggle of humanity, ultimately a pitched battle between life and death. On one hand there is natural selection which favors the strong (ancient Egyptians) over the weak (Israelites, their slaves). More generally natural selection sacrifices all individuals in the end, even those who are “favored,” the differential rates of death determining what genetic traits are handed down and become dominant in the ever-changing population of successive descendants. In challenging the authority of their owners and overlords, the Israelites in effect challenge the more “biological” order of society that favors brute strength and coercion, and seek to substitute a rule of perfection, in this case through belief in a supreme Deity who treats all with justice and fairness.

Heisman himself is not a theist but sees the ancient beliefs as foreshadowing a new concept of God as an advanced AI, which will be put in place through modern technology, in an event its enthusiasts call the Singularity. The Singularity, when it happens, will be the ultimate victory of technology over biology—no longer will individuals be sacrificed or treated badly because of bad luck that gave them inferior genes or other weaknesses. Heisman’s own, Jewish people, in their struggles through history, demonstrate the tenacity of human efforts to overcome the limitations of biology and eventually bring about the Singularity. The Nazis, by contrast, offer a striking example of misguided humanity that sought a “biological” furtherance of progress, through the domination of a “master race” with “survival of the fittest” through extermination of rivals. As Heisman poignantly phrases it, “Auschwitz and the Singularity are two diametrically opposite final solutions to the paradox at the core of Judaism.”

As to the “paradox,” which is not confined to Judaism alone: in favoring the victory of technology over biology, there is danger in going too far. Every advance is actually made against a backdrop of “equality”—the strong become stronger, and some may not at all benefit. If one really favors “all” impartially and fairly, it seems to mean that, for example, animals should have civil rights. Going from there, individual cells (fertilized human egg cells and embryonic stem cells in particular) must also be accorded privileged, maybe even human status, as they are by antiabortionists. Once we start down that path, we get to the absurdity that, with no easy dividing line between what should and should not be considered to have rights, even inanimate matter, some at any rate, might have rights. This would especially follow if the dream of uploading is realized, so that in fact persons with full feeling and consciousness are expressed in nonbiological substrates.

An answer to this conundrum is that the presence and quality of sentience must be considered, however a “person” or other entity may be expressed. It should not matter what stuff a being is made of, so long as feeling and consciousness occur, together with personality traits that call for respect or privilege. I think this point is somewhat lost on the author, and once it is recognized it serves as a powerful counterweight to nihilism. An additional counterweight is the thought that progress affecting individuals should always be possible: there is nothing to stop any being becoming a more advanced being, in all the ways that count, and progressing ultimately to any level. So, instead of being dominated by a single, overarching authority, God-AI, we should all become gods in our own right, a privilege that could be extended even to nonhuman life forms.

Another thought is that biology is not simply antagonistic to technology. Traits of personality that were naturally selected, even if through brutal means involving death, can nevertheless serve lofty aims. We see this, for example, in the basic moral sense we have that other people, not necessarily our mates or kinfolk, are important and should be loved and treated fairly and helped in time of need. This sort of altruism actually has advantages—increasing mutual benefit through cooperation and reduction of violence—that translate to enhancements of reproductive fitness, but it also ties in well with the idea of a postmortal world in which material needs are supplied by advanced technology. Heisman, at any rate, concludes this first portion of his larger work on a positive note. “Everything possible that one ever wanted to accomplish, or do, or experience in life, could be accomplished in God-AI. The human world may thus come to an end voluntar[il]y through the very best possible life in supra-self-realization in God.”

Two additional thoughts are that, despite the emphasis on transhumanism and technology, nowhere is cryonics mentioned, and also, that the author recognizes that to truly bring about justice for all it would be necessary to resurrect the dead. It is clear that many challenges remain before a Singularity can be realized, and there may be further difficult steps before the tougher problems preventing a true “heaven” can be resolved. But the challenge is an exhilirating one, one which is open to people of today, even if so much remains to be done, with all the associated uncertainties. It is unfortunate that Heisman could not take this positive prospect more seriously, notwithstanding the insights shown forcefully in his writings.