Apr 28, 2021 03:35 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 28, 2021 04:49 PM by C C.)
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210...rocket-age
EXCERPTS: On 28 December 1903, during a particularly harsh Russian winter, a pauper died of pneumonia on a trunk he had rented in a room full of destitute strangers. Nikolai Fyodorov died in obscurity, and he remains almost unknown in the West, yet in life he was celebrated by Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and by a devoted group of disciples – one of whom is credited with winning the Space Race for the Soviet Union. Now, just as he prophesied, Fyodorov is living a strange afterlife. He has become an icon for transhumanists worldwide and a spiritual guide for interplanetary exploration.
[...] Dostoevsky was in awe of this great thinker ... The novelist spent hours discussing Fyodorov's theories with the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, who regarded Fyodorov as a Christ-like figure, while Tolstoy described Fyodorov's worldview in a letter to a friend: "He has devised a plan for a common task for humanity, the aim of which is the bodily resurrection of all humans. First, it is not as crazy as it sounds (don't worry, I do not and never have shared his views, but I have understood them enough to feel capable of defending them against any other beliefs of a similar material nature). Secondly, and most importantly, because of these beliefs he leads the purest Christian life... He is sixty, a pauper, gives away all he has, is always cheerful and meek."
[...] Fyodorov's philosophy stemmed from the defining moment of his life – the deaths of his father and his father's father – and his family's subsequent departure from their rural idyll. All his intellectual endeavours can be understood as an attempt to repair that rupture, to restore and recapture a lost Eden. His Philosophy of the Common Task envisages a world in which each generation will resurrect its dead ancestors (we should give birth to fathers, he wrote, rather than children). But this will soon overpopulate the world, so it is imperative that we reach into space to settle on new stars, where the resurrected can live harmoniously. Yet the further we venture, the more we will need to revive ("All matter is the dust of ancestors") – so the only solution is radical life extension: the death of death itself.
[...] Fyodorov's acolytes, including Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Solovyov, are associated with an intellectual movement called "Cosmism", which made a significant impact in philosophy, theology, the sciences, and the visual arts, in both pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet period. Although averse to Fyodorov's Orthodox Christianity, senior Soviets admired his critique of consumerism – the "toys" that divert our attention and imagination – and his emphasis on collective salvation ("not for oneself and not for others, but with everyone and for everyone", wrote Fyodorov).
One hundred years ago, at the height of the Russian Civil War, one group took Fyodorov's ambitions to stratospheric levels. The Biocosmist-Immortalists, announcing their split from the Anarchist-Universalists, denounced death as "logically absurd, ethically impermissible, and aesthetically ugly". They advocated the galactic liberation from statehood, called for the urgent establishment of cosmic communication, and made two "basic" demands: freedom of movement in interplanetary space; and the right to live forever.
The author of the 1921 Biocosmist manifesto, Alexander Svyatogor, followed Fyodorov in defining two types of death: bodily decomposition, and spiritual death – what he called "death-in-life". Fyodorov identified this with the loss of one's distinctive personality and identity, while Svyatogor applied it to capitalism, arguing that death lies in "monstrous private ownership", which cannot be eliminated in a mortal world, where dying buys you a private piece of time. Svyatogor also adopted Fyodorov's idea of transforming the planet into a giant "Earth Ship", so that instead of continuing as idle passengers around the sun's orbit, we become "the crew of our celestial craft". For Cosmists, the point is not to understand nature, but to change it.
[...] Following Stalin's death, the Soviets turned again to space, just in time to counter American efforts to launch satellites into orbit. Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of Sputnik 1 and Gagarin's rocket Vostok 1, had been profoundly influenced by Tsiolkovsky. After their meeting, a youthful Korolev wrote: "I left his house with just one thought: to build rockets and fly in them. From now on, I have one goal in life – to get to the stars."
Korolev oversaw the design and construction of Sputnik 1 in just one month: it was launched on 4 October 1957 – the same year in which he published The Practical Significance of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's Proposals in the Field of Rocketry.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, it became possible for Cosmists to re-establish the link between religion and science. Harvard University professor Anya Bernstein, author of The Future of Immortality: Remaking Life and Death in Contemporary Russia, says that 21st Century Cosmists "worship" Gagarin for his role in realising Fyodorov's "prophetic" vision. By leaving this mortal coil, we fulfil God's mission, wrote Fyodorov, and "the divine word becomes our divine action". In time, we become the cosmic mind of the universe itself – a concept called the "noosphere", developed by Tsiolkovsky's contemporary Vladimir Vernadsky.
[...] a portrait of Fyodorov sits alongside one of Arthur C Clarke in the Church of Perpetual Life, in Hollywood, Florida. Now numerous American futurist thinkers acknowledge their debt to Fyodorov.
This brave new world seeks to meld space and cyber-space. For both Immortalists and Transhumanists, the human personality lies in the brain, which can live eternally if "uploaded" onto a computer, a favoured theme of science fiction writers. The company Neuralink aims to provide brain-machine interfaces which merge human consciousness and artificial intelligence – helping humans "stay relevant" in a world dominated by AI.
[...] Fyodorov would argue that ... We need to outgrow our fears, and grow into our destinies. As his own student Tsiolkovsky wrote: "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: On 28 December 1903, during a particularly harsh Russian winter, a pauper died of pneumonia on a trunk he had rented in a room full of destitute strangers. Nikolai Fyodorov died in obscurity, and he remains almost unknown in the West, yet in life he was celebrated by Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and by a devoted group of disciples – one of whom is credited with winning the Space Race for the Soviet Union. Now, just as he prophesied, Fyodorov is living a strange afterlife. He has become an icon for transhumanists worldwide and a spiritual guide for interplanetary exploration.
[...] Dostoevsky was in awe of this great thinker ... The novelist spent hours discussing Fyodorov's theories with the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, who regarded Fyodorov as a Christ-like figure, while Tolstoy described Fyodorov's worldview in a letter to a friend: "He has devised a plan for a common task for humanity, the aim of which is the bodily resurrection of all humans. First, it is not as crazy as it sounds (don't worry, I do not and never have shared his views, but I have understood them enough to feel capable of defending them against any other beliefs of a similar material nature). Secondly, and most importantly, because of these beliefs he leads the purest Christian life... He is sixty, a pauper, gives away all he has, is always cheerful and meek."
[...] Fyodorov's philosophy stemmed from the defining moment of his life – the deaths of his father and his father's father – and his family's subsequent departure from their rural idyll. All his intellectual endeavours can be understood as an attempt to repair that rupture, to restore and recapture a lost Eden. His Philosophy of the Common Task envisages a world in which each generation will resurrect its dead ancestors (we should give birth to fathers, he wrote, rather than children). But this will soon overpopulate the world, so it is imperative that we reach into space to settle on new stars, where the resurrected can live harmoniously. Yet the further we venture, the more we will need to revive ("All matter is the dust of ancestors") – so the only solution is radical life extension: the death of death itself.
[...] Fyodorov's acolytes, including Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Solovyov, are associated with an intellectual movement called "Cosmism", which made a significant impact in philosophy, theology, the sciences, and the visual arts, in both pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet period. Although averse to Fyodorov's Orthodox Christianity, senior Soviets admired his critique of consumerism – the "toys" that divert our attention and imagination – and his emphasis on collective salvation ("not for oneself and not for others, but with everyone and for everyone", wrote Fyodorov).
One hundred years ago, at the height of the Russian Civil War, one group took Fyodorov's ambitions to stratospheric levels. The Biocosmist-Immortalists, announcing their split from the Anarchist-Universalists, denounced death as "logically absurd, ethically impermissible, and aesthetically ugly". They advocated the galactic liberation from statehood, called for the urgent establishment of cosmic communication, and made two "basic" demands: freedom of movement in interplanetary space; and the right to live forever.
The author of the 1921 Biocosmist manifesto, Alexander Svyatogor, followed Fyodorov in defining two types of death: bodily decomposition, and spiritual death – what he called "death-in-life". Fyodorov identified this with the loss of one's distinctive personality and identity, while Svyatogor applied it to capitalism, arguing that death lies in "monstrous private ownership", which cannot be eliminated in a mortal world, where dying buys you a private piece of time. Svyatogor also adopted Fyodorov's idea of transforming the planet into a giant "Earth Ship", so that instead of continuing as idle passengers around the sun's orbit, we become "the crew of our celestial craft". For Cosmists, the point is not to understand nature, but to change it.
[...] Following Stalin's death, the Soviets turned again to space, just in time to counter American efforts to launch satellites into orbit. Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of Sputnik 1 and Gagarin's rocket Vostok 1, had been profoundly influenced by Tsiolkovsky. After their meeting, a youthful Korolev wrote: "I left his house with just one thought: to build rockets and fly in them. From now on, I have one goal in life – to get to the stars."
Korolev oversaw the design and construction of Sputnik 1 in just one month: it was launched on 4 October 1957 – the same year in which he published The Practical Significance of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's Proposals in the Field of Rocketry.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, it became possible for Cosmists to re-establish the link between religion and science. Harvard University professor Anya Bernstein, author of The Future of Immortality: Remaking Life and Death in Contemporary Russia, says that 21st Century Cosmists "worship" Gagarin for his role in realising Fyodorov's "prophetic" vision. By leaving this mortal coil, we fulfil God's mission, wrote Fyodorov, and "the divine word becomes our divine action". In time, we become the cosmic mind of the universe itself – a concept called the "noosphere", developed by Tsiolkovsky's contemporary Vladimir Vernadsky.
[...] a portrait of Fyodorov sits alongside one of Arthur C Clarke in the Church of Perpetual Life, in Hollywood, Florida. Now numerous American futurist thinkers acknowledge their debt to Fyodorov.
This brave new world seeks to meld space and cyber-space. For both Immortalists and Transhumanists, the human personality lies in the brain, which can live eternally if "uploaded" onto a computer, a favoured theme of science fiction writers. The company Neuralink aims to provide brain-machine interfaces which merge human consciousness and artificial intelligence – helping humans "stay relevant" in a world dominated by AI.
[...] Fyodorov would argue that ... We need to outgrow our fears, and grow into our destinies. As his own student Tsiolkovsky wrote: "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever." (MORE - details)