The Orion's Arm Universe

One of the main reasons I made this blog is to critique Transhumanism, a philosophy that says that, through our own efforts, we will create a technological civilization that will conquer the stars.  There is even a collaborative game, Orion's Arm, that takes such a philosophy to its limit.

I'm not so optimistic that we'll ever get off the third rock from the sun in time, not because I am a religious fundamentalist or anything of the sort, but because space is unimaginably vast and inhospitable.  Whether one says that we were created directly by God six thousand years ago or evolved merely by natural selection over billions of years, Earth is our home.  We can't pack up and leave so easily, certainly not without having found a suitable extrasolar environment wherein we can live.  Outer space can be compared to ocean navigation, and many science fiction shows make this comparison; however, I compare space travel to an earthworm's walking on the bottom of the ocean without having any sense of direction, and expecting to find an ideal habitat in the Marianas Trench.  Like it or not, we won't be able to sail the stars and be back to Earth by tea-time.

Anyway, the Orion's Arm scenario, itself unimaginably broad in scope, has its merits.  Unlike most science fiction, it claims to be bound by actual science, rather than speculation.  It talks about how long it would take for a civilization to conquer even as small a portion of the Galaxy as the Orion Arm using the best plausible technology imaginable (relativistic ships with antimatter drives.)  It also talks about genetic engineering, which I must admit is a very real possibility, if a threat, to humanity.  After all, if technology is banned in one place it will, unfortunately, be flourishing in others, even if in secret.  I have pretty much resigned myself to the thought that some brilliant biologist will engineer a chimera somewhere in the world within this decade, if it hasn't been done already.

But the most frightening aspect of the Transhumanism found in Orion's Arm is that humanity is something from which we need to escape and can overcome, not something to be celebrated and embraced.  For instance, the need to create smarter people (what about those "left behind?" that is, most of us) the need to escape this polluted Earth and start anew on Tau Ceti or whereever.  Granted, I for one would like to be smarter; I would like to own a piece of real estate on one of the moons of the gas giant planet found within the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri B.  But not if it means giving up my essential humanity, my soul.  And this is another issue I have with Transhumanists, that the soul can be treated like software and the body hardware.  Even if genetic engineers "hack" the genome, the soul will still be there, ineffable, waiting, whole...

Nevertheless, traditional ethicists, theologians and others concerned for more, how shall I say it, intangible things have their work cut out for them with regard to Orion's Arm.  I recommend it, but only as a game, and perhaps a warning to those who cannot imagine the Human to be grander still than even Galactic empires.

Hence, I am happy to remain merely a Sapient.