Third Movement. The Ultimate Optimism: Finitics

Abstract

The evolutionary success of the human species, made possible by the evolution of artifacts, has been the source of a creed in human endless perfectability, which is, in the present times, promulgated by various brands of neo-Enlighteners and technooptimists. However, the lifespan and eventual extinction of any biological species is limited and determined by specific constraints, which have been metaphorically dubbed as the “piles of  Rialto” (in analogy with the “spandrels of San Marco”). On the constant and unmovable “piles of Rialto” of human nature, with a restricted carrying capacity, the Rialto bridge of human action had been laid down. Artifaction and hedonotaxis have consecutively erected a huge superstructure that weighs heavily upon the piles and may have reached  its maximum indicating that humankind has entered its ultimate, pre-extinction age. Evolution of artifacts has no ceiling, no limits, and humans apparently have no means of how to curb it. “Makeability,” which may be boundless, does not equal “manageability.” There is no longer the self-preservation, maintaining the permanence of the species, but the hunt for pleasure that seems to determine the evolutionary dynamics of the human species. Artificial pleasures, provided by living in virtual world, and ending in virtual bliss appear to be options the mildest of all; far from the apocalypse of a global nuclear war, of a technological disaster caused by breaking down critical hubs in global networks, of destructions of littoral megacities by rising oceans and worldwide hunger owing to dramatic climate changes, of a violent crushing of civilization by invading the developed countries by mass immigrants from underdeveloped countries, of establishing a world dictatorship, of enslaving humans and eliminating them by intelligent robots. Intellectuals, scientists at a par with artists, should participate in creating “music for the fireworks” in order to make the closing phase of human evolution sublime and passable with minimum political and social tensions. Some fundamental tenets of the Western thought should be reconsidered. Species extinction should be taken as the fact of evolution and faith in the unlimited power of human reason and illusions about eternity and immortality abandoned. It is temporariness, which bestows upon human life its value and meaning, that should become the foundation stone of a new supreme and optimistic humanism.