Perhaps the great question is not whether the Posthuman will retain free will, but whether it will succeed in transcending the limits of a consciousness that, for thousands of years, has remained captive to fears, instincts, dogmas, and vested interests. If evolution eventually leads to a Cosmic Human, bearer of a deeper natural and ethical harmony, then the history of Homo Sapiens may prove not to be the culmination of the human journey, but merely the prologue to a far broader cosmic odyssey.
Today, continuing our previous texts, we shall attempt to move toward a different and deeper approach to the characteristics of the Posthuman, or to its further evolution into the Cosmic Human—the Universal Human.
After what we have described in our recent analyses regarding its broad characteristics, it appears that this new Being, no longer merely human but a “participation” in other non-biological, perhaps even cosmic intelligences, will be able, among other things, to attain a genetic identity of a new moral code. It will be capable of scanning, transmitting, and uploading to its descendants, as instinct, so to speak, this new genetic characteristic. This, in turn, means that the Posthuman will find everything “ready-made.” It will not even need free will in order to choose between “good” and “evil.” Through DNA, its compass of consciousness will already have been adjusted to point permanently toward the North. Programmed according to the principles of the moral and the natural—as these are perceived and established as stereotypical behavior by the new code that evaluates the worth or worthlessness of a thought or an action.
Skeptics would object that with such a different, genetic, and indeed “moral” constitution, biological-human free will would automatically be abolished as the capacity to choose between good and evil, since morality itself would be implanted like a “chip” in the cellular core of the new being’s consciousness. Therefore, even if it wished to do evil, it would be unable to do so.
It is true that our own philosophical and contemporary ethical perspective is not disturbed by such a transformation of consciousness. Provided that the basic condition has been met—that this new moral code is programmed according to the natural, primordial, and timeless principles of life—we would have no objection to such a world-shaping transformation taking place.
If I am unable to commit what is unnatural, I do not lose my freedom. Free will is not a taboo. Such an argument is merely a play on words rather than a matter of substance. Yet many have invested heavily in the gambling table of free will, religions above all. Judaism and Christianity, for example, built an entire castle upon the pseudo-dilemma of an illusory free will and imprisoned forever those who believed the tales of Genesis concerning the “fruit of the knowledge of good and evil”: who ate it, why it was eaten, and most importantly, whether it was ever possible for human beings to refrain from tasting that famous fruit, bound as they are by instincts, innate drives, and hormones—elements that supposedly the Creator Himself programmed into their existence and behavior.
On the contrary, one could regard such a ready-made behavioral framework for the Posthuman-Cosmic Human as a gain. It would be a marvelous way to prevent tragedies, both personal and collective. The world today is filled with such calamities, consequences of poor choices made by an already manipulated free will, tuned by centers of power that neither possess nor obey moral codes, but serve only interests and unnatural “gospels.”
Let us make these observations more concrete, without fear or passion, through contemporary examples. Who could judge as a lack of freedom or a degradation of human dignity a hypothetical genetic conviction that: you cannot elect individuals such as Trump, Putin, or Netanyahu to govern humanity; you cannot tolerate a world in which half the planet’s inhabitants starve while, in a “world of abundance,” markets bury food and medicine in order to preserve prices; you cannot allow more than 600 “wretched of the earth,” carrying babies in their arms, to sink into the depths of the sea off Pylos simply because they must not cross borders in a world that Nature itself established without barriers and customs checkpoints.
The abolition, the struggle against, and the disappearance of such unnatural and perverse behaviors are not a loss of freedom; they do not constitute a restriction of free will. They are evolution, progress, and civilization of the highest quality and value. Above all, they are achievements centered on humanity itself.
Diotima, as the directly interested party—for in those future days she will be the “other half” of the Posthuman, the offspring of a union with today’s Homo Sapiens—does she share our sense of fulfillment? Is such a vision acceptable according to her own system of values? She will answer us comprehensively when we complete our exploration of the Posthuman-Cosmic Human, a subject we opened some time ago and continue to pursue.