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Man's Involutionary Path Into The Universe
As seen in:

Think Big
The authors in this issue invite you to think about the future of our species and our planet on an unusually large scale.

Michael G. Zey believes that humanity is destined not only to in habit space but to humanize it with our presence. He sees four major forces driving humans toward "vitalization" of the universe: our growing ability to dominate the environment; our increasing efforts to unify our species through telecommunications, transportation, and other systems; our continual improvement of our own bodies and minds; and our growing merger with computers and other machines that enhance our capabilities. (See "Man's Evolutionary Path Into the Universe," page 28.) SEE ARTICLE IN IT'S ENTIRETY BELOW

Thinking on such a large scale may also help humanity avert cosmic collisions and other natural and unnatural catastrophes. What is needed, says disaster-prevention expert Douglas Muihall, is extreme sustainable development. This could include tools for enhancing our catastrophe-warning systems, using "extreme engineering" to create structures that are either indestructible or disposable and easily replaced, exploiting robotics for working in hostile environments, and using biotechnology to improve agriculture. Then we'll also need to think about sustaining our culture after an apocalypse. (See "Preparing for Armageddon: How We Can Survive Mega-Disasters," page 36. www.wfs.org)

Efforts such as what Zey and Muihall describe would require human cooperation on an unprecedented scale. But the prospects of such unity are bleak if humans cannot communicate with each other. A solution may be at hand: Synchronous Automated Translation Systems connected by the Internet may soon allow us to communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime, suggests mass-communications scholar Sam Lehman-Wilzig. (See "Babbling Our Way to a New Babel: Erasing the Language Barriers," page 16. www.wfs.org)
—Cynthia G. Wagner Managing Editor
cwagner@wfs.org

As our species extends our control over this planet, we simultaneously prepare ourselves for extraterrestrial habitation by shaping and trans forming terrestrial landscapes. We design a new generation of rockets that can transport us to distant spheres at one-third the speed of light. At the same time, we probe the innermost recesses of nature through such exotic fields as nanotechnology.

Humanity's activities, including the entire scientific and technological enterprise, represent a unified at tempt by the species to spread "humanness" to everything we encounter. Over the centuries, we have labored to improve planet Earth, and we are now preparing to transform the universe into a dynamic entity filled with life. We will accomplish this by extending our consciousness, skills, intellect, and our very selves to other spheres.

Vitalization is the primary force shaping human behavior. However, in order to pursue vitalization successfully, the human species must master four other forces, what I label the "building blocks of vitalization." These four processes encompass the extraordinary advances in areas such as space, medicine, biogenetics, engineering, cybernetics, and energy.

The four supporting forces are:

• Dominionization: control over physical forces, such as energy
• Species coalescence: unity through built systems, such as trans portation and communications.
• Biogenesis: improvement of the physical shell, such as through bio engineering.
• Cybergenesis: interconnection with machines to advance human evolution.

Each of these forces plays a critical catalytic role in the achievement of vitalization.

Dominionization: Controlling Nature

The term dominionization refers to the process whereby humankind establishes control over several key aspects of its physical universe. With each passing decade, we enhance our ability to manipulate matter, reshape the planet, develop innovative energy sources, and control fundamental aspects of the physical universe, such as the atom and electro magnetism. Someday, we will learn to influence weather patterns and climate.

Examples of dominionization abound. Major macroengineering projects attest to man's ability to transform the very surface of the earth. By constructing man-made lakes, we will be able to live in previ ously uninhabitable areas such as in terior Australia. Shimizu Corporation envisions a subterranean development called Urban Geo Grid—a series of cities linked by tunnels—accommodating half a million people. In the emerging Macro- industrial Era, whose framework was established in the 1970s and 1980s, we will redefine the concept of "bigness" as we dot Earth's landscape with immense architectural structures. Takenaka, a Japanese construction firm, has proposed "Sky City 1000," a 3,000-foot tower, to be built in Tokyo. Another firm, Ohbayashi, plans to erect a 500-story high-rise building featuring apartments, offices, shopping centers, and service facilities.  

We will establish dominion over the very heart of physical matter itself. Through nanotechnology, our species will attain control over the atom and its tiniest components. Such control will enable us to effort lessly "macromanufacture" from the bottom up, one atom at a time, any material object. This will enable us to permanently eradicate age-old problems such as scarcity and poverty.  

We will also establish dominion over our physical realm by mastering the energy production process.  

We are on the verge of developing a cheap, accessible form of nuclear fu sion for general use, and various companies and government agencies are seriously experimenting with exotic phenomena such as electromag netism to explore its possible application to energy production.  

We will travel to the Moon, planets, and asteroids to mine exotic new forms of energy (The recent successful landing of the NEAR spacecraft on the asteroid Eros presaged the emergence of this new field of exploration.) Organizations such as the Space Studies Institute (www.ssi. org) in Princeton, New Jersey, are drawing up the blueprints for a Solar Power Satellite that will sit in geostationary orbit above the equator, collect cheap and abundant solar energy, and beam it down to Earth in microwave form for land-based en ergy production and consumption.

Species Coalescence: United We Progress

In the Macroindustrial Era, humanity will also pursue another process critical to the achievement of vitalization. Species coalescence refers to the sequence through which humanity achieves total unity—physically, culturally, and functionally.

Species coalescence empowers us to achieve vitalization in a number of ways. On the purely functional level, such coalescence makes it more likely that all members and groups across the globe will work together, pooling their diverse skills and tal ents, to facilitate the vitalization process. In addition, coalescence en ables us to develop a sense of membership in a common human family, not unlike the sense of common identity shared by members of a clan, village, or a neighborhood community.

Mankind is accelerating species coalescence through the develop ment of a global transportation grid, the universal communications network, and other mechanisms. The global transportation grid includes the hyperplane, which promises to reduce the New York-to-Tokyo trip to two hours; smart roads to speed automobiles; and supertunnels such as the Chunnel. Construction of a global high-speed rail system will prove crucial to the achievement of species coalescence. In 1998, the United States finally passed legislation that would release millions of dollars for the development of a magnetic levitation train line. Construction of such a 310-mile-per- hour train could begin as early as this year.

Governments and corporations are partnering in the construction of a global power grid that would link Europe, North America, and Asia. With this grid in operation, Siberia could send power to North America over a link across the Bering Strait. In addition, a number of tunnel, bridge, and causeway projects will accelerate the species coalescence process. A Gibraltar crossing may soon connect Europe and Africa. Moreover, various countries are still planning to build within the decade the proposed Bering Strait crossing, which would link Asia and North America.

To achieve vitalization we must assume control over our physical selves. Vitalization will require an "enhanced" version of the human being— smarter, more adroit, more creative. Through such techniques as genetic manipulation, cloning, and other forms of physical reconfiguring of the body, we will create that new and improved" human. Moreover, since we will be traveling to other planets and distant galaxies, we must learn how to modify the body, adapt it to these different environments. Also, protracted processes such as vitalization require human physical beings that are durable; they must live decades or centuries longer than they do now.

We will achieve biogenesis by developing a host of new technologies. Scientists at the Geron Corporation and the University of Colorado at Boulder claim they have found the immortality gene, the gene that con trols the aging process in humans. They boast that, by tinkering with this gene, they soon might be able to equip the human body with a set of instructions to simply stop aging.

The magical new science of nano technology will allow us to shape and redesign the human body as we see fit. It opens the possibility of creating wholly new organs to help us adapt to new environments. We might even develop nanomachines that cruise through a patient's body and fight viruses, including HIV/AIDS. Companies such as Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc. and Organogenesis have developed tis sue regeneration and tissue-engineering techniques that will make the body resistant to diseases such as Alzheimer 's and cystic fibrosis, and could help the body regenerate miss ing parts. Another development, cloning, will allow us to replicate body types resistant to diseases and adaptable to a variety of environments (including outer space).

Bionics will also further species development. Researchers in the United States, at Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as those in Japan are working on an artificial retina that will allow blind persons to be able to detect motion and light and eventually experience simulated sight.

To the extent that it makes us smarter, and hence more adaptable, cybernetics becomes an integral part of our achievement of vitalization. Cybergenesis will imbue the species with the brainpower and mental dexterity to perform the computational and conceptual feats required to vitalize planets, including our own.

Soon, nanocomputers will be placed inside the brains of humans to enhance memory, thinking ability, visualization, and general sensing. Researchers at British Telecommunications PLC seek to develop a computer that can be implanted in the brain to complement human memory and computational skill. In addition, technologies are at hand that will enable the human brain to "connect" to a computer and download and upload data.

Brain science researchers are revealing how technology can help us expand humans' physical and mental abilities and powers. At such sites as the Yale / Veterans Affairs PET Center in West Haven, Connecticut, scientists are diligently developing ways for an amputee's brain to redesign itself and grow new communication paths to reattached limbs. The U.S. government senses the importance of such research into cognitive functioning. In the 1990s, Congress authorized the "Human Brain," a joint effort of NASA, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research. This project's purpose is to develop technology to alter and improve the operation of the human brain and enlarge people's brain capacity, thereby furthering the process of cybergenesis.

By its very definition, vitalization involves the transference of organic life and human consciousness to other spheres throughout the universe. Therefore, we must examine the role that space exploration and colonization play in both the evolution of humanity and the ultimate development and perfection of the universe. Through space exploration and travel we will fundamentally redefine ourselves, from Earth-bound to "extraterrestrial." At that point, we will become active participants in the development of the universe as we spread human consciousness and organic life itself throughout a currently dead universe.

The emergence of human consciousness and human intelligence is a unique historical event—the human race's capacity to vitalize, bring life, order, creativity, and novelty to everything it touches, sets the world on a completely new evolutionary trajectory. Moreover, the world now possesses an entity, the human species, that could develop tools to save the universe from the Big Chill or the Big Crunch, the demise augured by the Big Bang theory.

Such ruminations are hardly esoteric or "philosophical." Government and business leaders, if they are to make correct long- and short-term decisions regarding technological development and the economy, must understand the powerful role that the human species will play in the future. Indeed, speculation about such "cosmic" issues is becoming commonplace. Scientific discoveries by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Pathfinder mission only fuel the debate over the place of man in the cosmos. Moreover, NASA has created an Astrobiology Program to study the origin, evolution, distribution, and purpose of life in the universe.

This new vision provides startling answers to the questions: Why us? Why here? Why now?

We are entering a human future, in which the very shape and direction of all aspects of the universe will be deeply influenced by the actions of the human race and its descendants. For example, the proposed terraformation of Mars—the creation of an earthlike environment on the Red Planet—encompasses more than a planetary facelift. It will represent a thorough "humanization" of that currently lifeless sphere.

The vitalized future will be a humane future, reflective of our core values—growth, progress, optimism, hope, and altruism. The very act of vitalization, the bringing of life to other worlds, implies that we are acting through exclusively human values—the desire to improve our surroundings, to enrich, embellish, and make the world a better place. While human imagination and energy will build this new world, our values will shape it.

We are now about to begin a journey into the future, to be challenged in ways we have never imagined.

Let the adventure begin!

This article draws from his most recent book, The Future Factor: The Five Forces Transforming Our Lives and Shaping Human Destiny(McG raw-Hill, 2000), which is available from the Futurist Bookstore for$24.95 ($22.95 for Society members), cat. no. B-2367.

The author will be spoke on this subject at FutureScope 2001, the World FutureSociety's annual meeting, to be held in Minneapolis July 29-31, 2001.

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