^14.10.2011

Neo-Humanity 2045: A Global Strategy for the Evolution of Humanity in the Third Millennium

Declaration by the "2045" Strategic Social Initiative

Where is human evolution headed?
The challenges of modernity, the growing complexity of the world, successive crises, climate change, the torrential rate at which new technologies appear—these realities dictate the vital necessity for humanity to contemplate the near future and its evolution immediately.
We must ask ourselves a series of questions.
What does the future hold for humanity?
Where is our world headed? In what direction is all of humanity as a civilization, as a single collective intelligence and as an intelligent species—in what direction are we headed?
What paradigm, ideology, or social structure will shape the near future of humanity? What will replace post-industrial consumer society?
What will human society look like in 10, 30, 50, 100, 200 years, given the breakneck pace at which modern technologies are evolving?
It’s clear that humanity is in need of a new evolutionary strategy. It will be a strategy of constant development, as in ancient times—not one of consumption, as in our era.
It is of fundamental importance that we formulate a strategy of evolutionary development. Such a strategy will make it possible to maintain balance against the backdrop of accelerating informational processes and the growing complexity of technology.
Otherwise, we will be facing a bleak picture: a limited, primitive human surrounded by an extremely complex, independently thinking, highly self-organized technological environment endowed with higher intelligence going about its own independent and incomprehensible existence. If, against the backdrop of an increasingly complex technological environment that is also increasingly independent and self-sufficient, humans do not evolve, then sooner or later that environment will displace us.

Development of society as a means of raising levels of self-organization, internal complexity and diversity
The development of human society as a single rational system has followed a clear path over the entire course of human history:
-         Growth in internal complexity and in the diversity of society and all its attributes (science, culture)
-         Acceleration of self-organizational processes, increased levels of order and control
-         Growth in the influence of human civilization on natural processes and on the control of nature
These developments provide grounds for believing that the torrential rate at which new technologies are appearing will lead to a no less significant increase in the level of self-organization of society and to the integration of societies into a unified, collective super intelligence, into a superbeing.
This super intelligence will quickly solve a large array of problems that are currently intractable for humanity, such as:

-         Providing an abundance of all consumer goods;
-         Eliminating aging, illness, and death;
-         Elimination of crime and all conflicts, including inter-ethnic and inter-governmental conflicts;
-         Elimination of all natural disasters and catastrophes.

The formation of such an intelligence will not limit the individuality or freedom of any single person—on the contrary, it will maximize creative development and facilitate the unlocking of boundless potential. All this will inevitably lead to the emergence of a new society—a society of immortal superpeople.

Neo-humanity as the future of human civilization in the third millennium
The calculations, predictions, and reports made by leading scientists, futurologists, and analysts give all the reason to believe that in the middle of the 21st century, humanity will undergo a powerful polyfurcation comparable in its significance to the appearance of life on Earth.
As a result, in the best-case scenario, trans-national, post-industrial capitalism and the consumer society it has created will give way, at some point between the 2020s and 2040s, to a new form of society (we will call it neo-humanity).
This neo-humanity may become an adequate response of conscious society to the challenges, crises, risks, and threats of a new era.
Neo-humanity as an ideology, a socio-economic structure, and a new form of civilization will usher in a new era in people’s lives—the transition to a cosmic supercivilization of neo-humans.
The world’s leading scientists believe that over the next three decades, we will see intensive development of NBIC (nano-bio-info-cognitive) and GNR (genetics-nano-robotics) technologies: advanced brain-computer interfaces, anthropomorphic robot avatars controlled by one’s thoughts, symbiotic intelligence, digitization of memories, and transfer of personality to a non-protein-based carrier.
Neo-humanity will provide new meaning to people’s lives; new values and goals; things that have never existed before—that could never have existed before—and that even now seem fantastical and incredible to us.
Neo-humanity will change the physical nature of man, making him immortal, free, liberated from the boundaries of space and time.
All the previous development undergone by humankind may end up having been only preparation for this unprecedented evolutionary leap.

The main characteristics of neo-humanity:
-         Neo-humanity of the future, in contrast to all previous societies in history, will strive not to subjugate nature or to create, accumulate and consume material goods for the sake of deriving sensory pleasure, but toward self-actualization, toward the development of man himself;
-         It will be an enormous collective intelligence (noosphere), which will number millions and billions of leading members of the human race who will voluntarily join its ranks. It will be a complex, self-organized, open society of universal progress, evolution, and synergism. In terms of values, ideology, mentality, and economics, neo-humanity will be oriented toward development, toward moving forward, toward growth in the scale of its goals and the comprehensiveness of its projects;
-         Evolution for each individual in this society will become a transition from a rational human to a hyperrational, immortal, multibody neo-human—a cosmic creator who lives eternally in different bodies, unrestricted by the boundaries of nature. Technological and spiritual development will move in parallel. Technologies will most likely be designed to further the advancement of the vehicle carrying the personality of the immortal superhuman of the future;
-         On the societal level, evolution in this society will lead to the creation of a unified, global, collective, network-based meta-intelligence that can live anywhere in outer space.

Tactical goals of neo-humanity (21st-23rd centuries):
-         First and foremost, to vanquish aging and death in the nearest future for all people and all of humanity; with that goal in mind, to master the technology of transferring human personality to an alternative vehicle (artificial body); to achieve boundless immortality, i.e. perfect the capabilities of an artificial body to the point that it can exist indefinitely (achieving independence from time);
-         To acquire the capability of free, boundless movement in space;
-         To provide everyone the opportunity to acquire multiple bodies, i.e. to distribute consciousness among multiple vehicles; to make it possible for one consciousness to live freely in and control several immortal bodies;
-         To expand our habitat to one of multiple realities, i.e. to acquire the ability to live simultaneously in several different realities with the ability to move freely among them.

Strategic goals of neo-humanity (23rd-30th centuries):
-         To control reality using one’s thoughts. To achieve complete control of external reality using one’s thoughts and will power. To acquire the capability of self-organization and the ability to organize and complicate space, creating complex unbalanced systems, entire new worlds, through will power and creative thought;
-         Cosmic expansion: the colonization by humanity of the near and deep space; boundless freedom of movement in the universe; freedom from the necessity to live only in one specific place, on planet Earth (“Earth is the cradle of humanity, but you can’t spend your whole life in the cradle.” Konstantin Tsiolkovsky);
-         Personal universe: to create a personal universe controllable by the mind for every neo-human;
-         To be able to control the course of history using one’s thoughts, to the point of completing all historical processes at the point of singularity (end of history, collapse of time).

A New Set of Ethics for Neo-humanity
It is utterly clear that the process of society becoming more complex and the transition to neo-humanity must be accompanied by the formulation of a new ethical paradigm for all of humanity.
The growth in humanity’s power inevitably makes it necessary for every individual to take on a new level of responsibility, given that a single neo-human will be able to wield power and capabilities currently possessed by a modern army of a large government.
Such responsibility cannot be called into being in a single instant.
And it cannot be created administratively, by order. It can only be nurtured, encouraging a person’s spiritual growth, which would awaken the higher aspects of consciousness in him: inner purity, beauty, compassion, love for all living things, harmony, living not for oneself but for others, the ability to serve for the good of society, sacrifice, devotion.
It’s also clear that such qualities cannot be imparted from without, imposed on someone, or programmed in, since every person has his own will power and the freedom to choose one or another system of values or ethics, ideology, religion, paradigm or model of thinking.
One can nurture such qualities in oneself by way of serious spiritual and ethical labor on oneself, and that means that the new society of the future, apart from the technologies, will be built on high principles of spiritual growth, on high morals and ethics.

Dmitry Itskov, "2045" Initiative

September 26, 2011

Moscow

(The ideological documents of the movement are approved by the "2045" Initiative expert council on ideology and do not necessarily express the views of the scientists and experts doing technical work on the project.)


Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.

Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning  bodily life. Such technologies will  greatly enlarge  the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make  all  kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness  with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness  onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of  cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence,  expand human capabilities  and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times.  The final result  at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive!  Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots  will become affordable  and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however:  humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover,  prerequisites for a large-scale  expansion into outer space will be created as well.

Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of  the project of "Immortality”.