QUANTUM ARCHEOLOGY PART 2...

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"...ignorance of how to use new ideas stockpiles exponentially..." Marshall McLuhan


We continue with part 2 of our series on Quantum Archeology.  Covering its main thesis and going back to its humble origins in Russian Orthodox Christianity.

"Quantum Archaeology (QA) is the controversial science of resurrecting the dead including their memories. It assumes the universe is made of events and the laws that govern them, and seeks to make maps of brain/body states to the instant of death for everyone in history.

Anticipating process technologies due in 20 – 40 years, it involves the construction of the Quantum Archaeology Grid to plot known events filling the gaps by cross-referencing heuristically within the laws of science. Specialist grids already exist waiting to be merged, including cosmic ones with trillions of moving evolution points. The result will be a mega-matrix good enough to describe and simulate the past. Quantum computers and super-recursive algorithms both in their infancy may allow vast calculation into the quantum world, and artificial intelligence has no upper limit to what it might do."

This fascinating excerpt is written by someone named Archuman.  Obviously, the author wishes anonymity.  But these names are not picked randomly.  In this name is revealed the connection between the scientific/philosophical world of transhumanism and the creative fictional work of graphic novels.  It turns out that Archuman is a fictional type of human in a book named Posterchildren, which among other places is sold on Amazon.

The author's name is Kitty Burroughs.  This book, the first of a promised series, is inspired by the author's love of classic comic books as she explains:

The Posterchildren is a YA superhero novel that focuses on LGBTQ themes, female empowerment, POCs, and minority issues.

She goes on to explain:

Malek Underwood is not an ordinary boy, and he is not a part of an ordinary world. He is one of thousands of 'Posterchildren' - those born with extraordinary, superhuman abilities. A top-ranking student at Maillardet's Academy for the Future of Humanity, the leading school in training Posterchildren to control their abilities and shape their future, he finds himself suddenly knocked from his pedestal and thrown to the bottom, forced to claw his way back up if he hopes to make the cut. Paired with almost failing fellow superpowered student Zipporah Chance, the two of them are about to discover a world far more complex and seedier than simple grades, tests, and graduation. Fortunately, it isn't a world they have to brave alone.

Sequel to Postchildren Part 1

What does this have to do with Quantum Archeology?  Well the person explaining the view uses the name Archuman.  Archuman is a character in this graphic novel.

Archuman is an archaic term referring to posthumans with offset attributes - that is, a lack of Poster Defining Attributes, allowing them to pass as baseline human. This set them apart from abhumans - those whose appearance or inability to control their powers set them apart from baseliners - who were seen as monstrous and untrustworthy. So-called archumans typically experienced less discrimination than those labelled abhuman, especially if they were white and/or their powers were seen as useful. In the present day, "abhuman" is seen as an offensive slur and is rarely heard any more, though "archuman" is still used occasionally by members of the older generation - usually "in that 'you're a credit to your kind' way that is not actually a compliment in any way, shape, or form.

Whether Ms. Burroughs is personally involved in transhumanism, she has certainly been influenced by it and has influenced it enough, that the writer of this article chooses to be conceptually viewed as an Archuman.

Now, nowhere does Ms. Burroughs' novel speak of resurrecting all of the dead that have ever lived.  But her work is part of an as-of-now, fantastical world of superheroes with supernatural powers.  Transhumanism, of which Quantum Resurrection is a part, wants to turn those fictional individuals into real figures with real supernatural powers.  And of course, what greater power can there be than resurrecting the dead?  Not just one, or two, or thousands, like Jesus did, but ALL of the dead?

For those who think that this connection between transhumanism, immortality, and science fiction stories like Postchildren is over-exaggerated,  it might be interesting to observe the story of Robert Ettinger.  He was first inspired to create a cryogenics movement in the 1950s due to a science fiction story titled, "The Jameson Satellite" which he read in the comic book Amazing Stories.

...one Professor Jameson had his corpse sent into earth orbit where (as the author mistakenly thought) it would remain preserved indefinitely at near absolute zero. And so it did, in the story, until millions of years later, when, with humanity extinct, a race of mechanical men with organic brains chanced upon it. They revived and repaired Jameson's brain, installed it in a mechanical body, and he became one of their company.

Not only is cryogenics heavily influenced by this story but also transhumanism, with its desire to incorporate consciousness into a computer or robot.

So how would a celibate, spartan-living, Russian Orthodox monk from the 19th century react to all of this if he were alive today?

Nikolai Fyodorov
Quantum resurrection has its origins in Christianity - specifically, the Russian Orthodox Church through a Russian philosopher and librarian named Nikolai Fyodorov.  According to Tolstoy, he lived a very modest life with few material possessions, giving most of what he had to the poor.  Born, the illegitimate son of a noble in 1829, he received a good education but not a lot of money.  After his death in 1903, his papers were gathered together and they were published as The Philosophy Of The Common Task.  Fyodorov would have been considered a heretic by the standards of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Nikolai Fyodorov

...Fedorov defined the “common task” as the abolition of death, and resurrection of the dead – all the dead, from all generations...Fedorov does not believe that the dead will simply start rising from their graves at some point. Rather, humanity needs to direct its work toward the sacred task of physically resurrecting the dead; this is active resuscitation, not passive resurrection... and his meaning is not figurative, it is literal.

To Federov, resurrecting all of the dead is something God wants man to do.  How this is so, is hard to understand.  Nowhere does the Bible command us to do this.  Neither in the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church does this teaching exist.  As Dr. George M. Young, the author of the most definitive work on Russian Cosmism, titled The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers states:

Both Fedorov and Berdyaev were accused of usurping God’s powers and assigning them to mankind, of interpreting “Thy kingdom come” not as a promise to be awaited but as something to be created.

George Florovsky

It seems likely that both Federov and Berdyaev were universalists, believing that at the end of time, God would restore all individuals who had ever lived to eternal life with Him.  This would account for their belief that they could help God along in his process of "restoration".  One of his most vocal attackers was Georges Florovsky, who rightly pointed out problems between the position of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Bible and Federov's teachings.

There are basic tenets of Christianity that all who take the Bible seriously would agree on.  Death is a punishment for sin.  This sin was transmitted to all men through Adam.  Christ came to save His people from their sins.  The only way for death to be vanquished for individuals is for someone else to die on their behalf.  This individual to be sacrificed would have to be sinless, or else he would die for his own sins and could not save others.  This is what will end death, not technology.

Aubrey De Gray

Technology may extend life, it might even extend it indefinitely.  But this is NOT immortality.  Even if the biological systems in a body can be renewed and refreshed, a bullet, disease, or other things can kill the individual.  Thus, as the Wikipedia article on immortality rightly points out, only partial immortality is achieved.

Certain scientists, futurists, and philosophers have theorized about the immortality of the human body, with some suggesting that human immortality may be achievable in the first few decades of the 21st century. Other advocates believe that life extension is a more achievable goal in the short term, with immortality awaiting further research breakthroughs. The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by disease or physical trauma; although mind uploading could solve that if it proved possible.

Fyodorov never bothered to explain this difference.  Sin is not even mentioned by him!  It is true that he viewed all these achievements done by man in cooperation with God.  But how is this a Christian view?  Where is there any passage of scripture that supports some mutual effort between man and God using technology to supersede his death sentence on mankind?  Why would God even ask for man's help?  The opposite was clearly mentioned by the Apostle Paul in the books of Acts 17:24-25:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

Did Fyodorov even know of this passage?  How can his ideas agree with the principles set forth in this passage?  This is not the only place in the Bible that asserts God's complete independence and sovereignty.  Look at Psalms 50:8-15:

I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices
or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird in the mountains,
and the insects in the fields are mine.
If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?

Does that sound like a God who needs a man for anything?  Does that sound like a God who is looking for some sort of partnership with mankind? 

Fyodorov, also logically concluded, that if the world of dead mankind were to be resurrected, there would be a need for planetary exploration to house all of this humanity and, that there would be no need for further human reproduction.  As Dr. Young states,

...to Fedorov, who believed that the sex drive represents a malignant natural force in need of human regulation. In the project of resurrection, there would be no sexual relations, no childbirth or need for reproduction.  (Young, George M.. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers (p. 142). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.) 

These statements coming from a person who was a secularist would not be surprising, but coming from a devout Russian Orthodox Church is truly shocking.  God commanded man to multiply on the earth in Genesis 1:26:

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Dr. Young sees clearly the essence of immortalism today:

The immortalist movement today attempts to offer a deliberate synthesis of biological and sociological research. In previous times, evolution was viewed primarily as a biological phenomenon, dominated by the “striving” for survival by means of reproduction, and the preconscious psyche primarily served the aims of reproduction. With the emergence of the noosphere, immortalists contend, other factors begin to dominate, paving the way for Homo immortalis : “Evolution of the psyche led to the emergence of consciousness, which allows the psyche to model itself, allows it to become conscious of itself, so that in addition to the purposes of reproduction there arises an awareness of the existence of the self-worth of the individual consciousness and its carrier, and as a consequence—a striving for immortality.”  Young, George M.. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers (p. 175). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

There is NO common task to be done between man and God.  The reason why modern Transhumanists admire Fyodorov was because, despite his flavoring of Christianity in his writings, it was a worldview where God was mostly ornamental.  Logically enough, the modern transhumanists removed the ornament and concentrated on the essence of Fyodorov's worldview.

For those interested in a detailed discussion concerning Nikolai Fyodorov, we recommend this interview with Dr. George Young.  Enjoy.


Modern Transhumanist Ideas

"We think an essential real right of man to be the right to exist immortal, resurrected, rejuvenated, and the freedom to move in cosmic space." Immortalist Party, 1922, Russia


In a recent Newsweek article, Zoltan Istvan, who is running for President on the Transhumanist Party ticket, states in a purely reductionist manner:

But earth and stardust can also be forged, arranged and ultimately 3D-printed to create life. After all, humans and their brains are mostly just meat. What makes a human—and the three pounds of gray matter we all carry on our shoulders called a brain—be able to fly to the moon, play Mozart’s 5th Symphony and admire sunsets is how subatomic particles in that meat interact and play off each other. The jury is still out, but many futurists and technologists like me believe the subatomic world is just discernible math—a puzzle of numbers (and possibly some unpredictable variables) waiting to be calculated by super sophisticated microprocessors we will inevitably have in the next 30 or so years. 

The quagmire here is that if computers can one day calculate complete realities, including a specific moment in time of an entire physical human being, then all we have to do to resurrect the dead is 3D-print them out. Given that scientists are already having success 3D-printing biological tissue, some people believe we’ll be able to do this with the dead in less than 50 years. This mind-blowing field is called quantum archaeology.

How simple Mr. Istvan makes it all sound.  Of course, there are some huge assumptions and presuppositions being made.  Nothing that is not material exists.  Our brains, masterpieces of neural engineering way beyond any networks we can devise are "meat".  This is the kind of disdain these brands of transhumanists have for the wonder that is the human body.  

Not only do these hopes rely on a dubious and as of yet unproven scientific idea that we live among parallel universes, but it also amusingly build its entire foundation on circuitry and flowing electrons.  Anyone who knows computer networks knows that it takes an army of skilled technicians to maintain the internet.  There are continual crashes of software and hardware and all of this technology relies on the relative gentleness of our Sun.  Should a strong enough Electro Magnetic Pulse hit the Earth, all our present technology and our dreams of immortality will be fried together.

R. Michael Perry Ph.D.

There is an excellent discussion of athanophies (if you have never heard it before, it is because it was coined by Michael Perry in 1991 in a book titled, A Brief History of Transhumanism; for more terms, you can refer to this transhumanist glossary).  There are seven types of athanophies which in turn have subheadings in the form of immortechnics:

1. Singularitarianism (Infotechnology) - a movement that believes that we are approaching the technological singularity and that such events will be marked by the emergence of technologies such as strong AI.
2. Technogaianism (Ecotechnology) - a bright green environmentalist stance of active support for the research, development, and use of emerging and future technologies to help restore Earth's environment. Technicians argue that developing safe, clean, alternative technology should be an important goal of environmentalists.
3. Cosmism (Space Exploration) - a broad theory of natural philosophy, combining elements of religion and ethics with a history and philosophy of the origin, evolution, and future existence of the cosmos and humankind.
4. Immortalism (Biotechnology) - an ideology based on avoiding death. Max More defines an immortalist as one who "believes in the possibility of, and who seeks to attain, physical immortality", in contrast to a longevist, whom he describes as not necessarily desiring immortality.
5. Transhumanism (Nanotechnology) - a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values" - Max More, 1990
6. Posthumanism (Neurotechnology) - (also called Posthuman transhumanism) is a subset of transhumanism that explicitly goes beyond the limits advocated by biological immortalists, transcending traditional definitions of humanity into posthumanism.
7. Accelerationism (Economics and Politics) - the idea that either the prevailing system of capitalism, or certain technosocial processes that have historically characterized it, should be expanded, repurposed, or accelerated in order to generate radical social change or bring about a technological singularity.

The above categories demonstrate how complex this topic is.  The average person will read this and say that these ideas are crazy.  What they do not realize is how many brilliant people are focusing on bringing them to pass.

In our next and final installment of this series on Quantum Archeology the religions in which these techno-creeds have evolved will be discussed.