Zoltan Istvan, "Should Transhumanists Have Children?"

by DN Irving


The article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/transhumanist-beliefs_b_4870636.html  by transhumanist Zoltan Istvan is nothing more than a grand scheme for population control.  To see this, read it first “as is” -- pure transhumanism (which is bad enough).   Then go back and read it again, against the backdrop of the essential Gnostic principles inherent in it (briefly summarized below).  I apologize for the repetition, but this article is a classic example of Gnostic Transhumanism that is hard to pass up. 

The Gnostic bottom line is that all “matter” is evil.  The piece of the divine in most human beings is imprisoned in an evil material body and material soul, and must be freed so that it can move back up through the spheres of the cosmos and finally fuse back into the Ultimate god/goddess from which it originally emanated to help heal this divine breach (not unlike the transhumanists’ goal of transferring our brains into computers in 2045 in order to ultimately fuse into The Singularity).  Every new birth is simply a further terrible dispersing and breaching of the Ultimate god/goddess.  Thus any and all manner of “birth control” or “population control” is required to stop this terrible continuous breaching of the Ultimate

As recently explained, the cosmology of the Gnostics is far different than most.  Although there are many different kinds of Gnostic myths that vary from century and geographical location, there are many common elements that they all share (see world expert in Gnosticism Hans Jonas’ encyclopedia article in Irving, "GNOSTICISM, the Heretical Gnostic Writings, and 'Judas'" (April 9, 2006), at:  http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_121gnosticism1.html,   Below is an example of some common elements that might help one understand the connections among transhumanism, Gnosticism and population control:

Most Gnostic myths are attempts at explaining how the world came to be, and based on the imagination.  Most are pantheistic (only ONE “thing” or Ultimate god/goddess in reality);  some are dualistic (only TWO “things” in reality).  They are polytheistic (many minor gods/goddesses of the Spheres).  In pantheism, the interior of the spiritual Ultimate is composed of an infinite number of “opposites” or “contraries” that are connected (because this is a pantheism), and are thus the same.  As Heraclitus said, “The path up and the path down are the same”.  Because these are “opposites” there is constant “strife” or “dialectic” among them all, resulting in an “explosion” or a breach of the Ultimate wherein some of the “opposites” flow out (emanate), and congeal beneath the Ultimate.

Thus the First Sphere is formed.  (Eventually, this terrible breach of the Ultimate must be stopped and repaired -- and that is where the population control element comes in).  The same is repeated multiple times because the interior constitution of each Sphere is also composed of “opposites” in strife, resulting in a group of Spheres.  There is a god/goddess of each Sphere.  The first group of Spheres to emanate are the divine spiritual Aeons (good guys, Messengers of Light);  the lowest Aeon goddess Sophia “sins” (often involving sex) and procreates a son named the Demiurge, often equated with the God of the Old Testament (thus Gnosticism is anti-Semitic and anti-Christian).  Both are kicked out of this group of Spheres into the Chaos

The monstrous Demiurge, ignorant of the divine Aeons and Ultimate above him, thinks he is god, and emanates the second physical group of Spheres called the Archons (the bad guys;  each one is a psychic power).  Again, the First group of Spheres and the Second group of Spheres are thus “opposites” within Gnosticism itself, and all connected because this is a pantheism.  The Demiurge and the Archons then emanate evil “matter” and the rest of the physical material cosmos, planets, stars, etc., including human beings.  There are no true “individuals” in the cosmos because they are really just “pieces” of the pantheistic Ultimate from which they have emanated. The Ultimate is the only true “individual”.  Because each item that has emanated from the divine Ultimate (and then from the divine gods/goddesses of the Spheres), most have a “piece” of the Ultimate divinity in them

In a human being that piece of the Ultimate is called, e.g., the “Self”,  “Pneuma”, “Spark”,  “Light” or “Spirit”, etc. -- and it is held captive as a prisoner in the evil material body and evil material soul.  In order to keep their “creations” or emanations intact and continuing to multiply, the Archons emanated physical human sexHuman beings are oblivious to the little piece of the Ultimate deity within them (at least, within the elite human beings), and every new human child born represents an even further and continuous breach of the Ultimate.  The Aeons of the upper divine realm of spheres have a solution.

To trick the Demiurge and his Archons and free the piece of divine entrapped in evil material bodies and souls, the Aeons defy them using two different methods.  Some Aeons defy the Archons by destroying and abusing anything having to do with the material body, especially sex or the product of sex, e.g., (in today’s terms) by promoting abortion, embryo research, "free sex", homosexuality, self-mutilation, etc.  Other Aeons defy them by simply not using sex, by abstaining from it, by being ascetics -- as Hans Jonas puts it, they “go on a metaphysical strike” against it -- and both Aeon-types include population control measures for that purpose.  That is, they want to stop any further breaching of the Ultimate any way they can.  Thus the Aeons, the Messengers of Light, trick the Archons by "revealing" to (elite) human beings their true divine "essence" and other secret knowledge (gnosis) while humans are meditating, dreaming, in any kind of altered mental states (even drugs). 

This gnosis also consists in informing humans that the laws of science and nature they are using are false, and provide them with their True Science in its place.  Gnosis also consists in “informing” humans that the Laws of Moses are false (Gnostics are anti-Semitic);  and gnosis also has an “ethical” dimension (or “knowledge of the way out of this material world”), i.e., instructions on how one should live one’s life in order to get on the PATH back to their origins -- i.e., the Ultimate.  Eventually the idea is that all this breaching of the Ultimate must stop, all the divine “pieces” in the cosmos (including that in man) must move back up through the many Spheres and finally FUSE BACK INTO (or merge or transfer back into -- not unlike The Singularity) -- the Ultimate from whence they emanated.  This is called The Ingathering of the Light or “salvation” -- when the Ultimate is made whole and healthy once again. 

Of course, this goal is “a-cosmic”, necessarily involving and willing the destruction of the cosmos itself.  These types of Gnostic myths have been passed down and around since at least 5000 B.C.  Some things never change.

NOW, try going back to Istvan’s article above and this time read it from the Gnostic perspective.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/

 

[See also:  Psychology Today;  The Transhumanist Philosopher, at:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-transhumanist-philosopher.  Also, Zi Ventures - Istvan Media, at:  http://www.istvanmedia.com/.