What is the ultimate goal for scientific advancement?
For life as we know it?
For the human race?
Technology has allowed us to alter our world at fundamental levels in the modern era, as
we’ve grown to understand more and more about the universe.
Meanwhile, measures like the Kardashev scale, help to plot where we might be heading.
So, today, let’s take it to the very top.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; What if humans
became gods?
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Probably the most well known depictions of gods are of magnificent beings possessing
various values that we humans see as ideal or perfect.
Religious texts like the Bible tell us that while we were created in God’s image and
likeness, we’ve become essentially flawed… while God himself remains flawless.
Modern theism tends to paint a god as a being with infinite power, plus endless knowledge,
morality, and omnipotence.
Gods are always, in whichever way, above mere mortals.
We pitch them as though they’re basically running things from behind the scenes… but
this actually wasn’t always the case.
If we look back to earlier religions and belief systems, especially polytheistic ones, we
encounter deities that are rife with error and immoral behavior.
The gods of Greek mythology, for instance, engaged in many acts considered cruel or barbaric
- including murder, cheating, betrayal, and torture.
Hades, the god of the Greek underworld, kidnapped the goddess Persephone and forced her to live
with him; Kronos ate his own children; while Thor (of Norse fame) would frequently slaughter
and eat his own pair of goats, before resurrecting them and putting them through the ordeal over
and over again.
Freya, the Norse goddess of love, started a bloody human war, according to legend, killing
countless soldiers, just to obtain a necklace.
All to say, gods are a complex concept.
Still, many civilizations have certainly idealized the prospect of becoming a god.
Ancient stories often tell of demigods who are human but possess some divine powers from
birth.
They bridge between here, the flawed and often terrible mortal world… and there, the faultless
and spectacular immortal plains.
And, as such, they’re vitally important in the mythologies of the Chinese, Japanese,
the Celts, the Greeks, in Hindu scripture, and more.
“Demigod” has even been a title given to some historical figures who seemed to be
more than human.
Alexander the Great referred to himself as the son of Zeus.
The Buddha was a regular human who was later deified.
As was the ancient king Gilgamesh, the central character in the “Epic of Gilgamesh”,
which is held to be the oldest story ever written.
But ultimately, a demigod’s powers are limited.
A full god, on the other hand, is without limits of any kind; they can control the fabric
of spacetime, manipulate the laws of the universe, and create entire worlds.
The thing about the Kardashev Scale (and other, similar civilization ranking systems) is that
theoretically it imagines that one day this level of power should be achievable through
science and technology.
It posits that many of the individual characteristics and capabilities of gods are theoretically
possible.
The instant creation of life, for example, perhaps doubles up as the building and switching
on of fully conscious AI; machines that it’s predicted will soon be capable of thought,
feeling, and reasoning just like humans are.
To those robots, might we (their creators) stand as gods in their minds?
Changing life in an instant looks increasingly as though it’ll soon be possible, too, thanks
to gene editing tools like CRISPR-cas9.
The idea of customizing life, then, of creating it in our own image, actually isn’t that
far off.
Next, there are plans to use similar technology to breathe life back into extinct species,
such as the woolly mammoth.
Should that come to pass, then we’d have a divine-like dominion over the dead, as well.
And then there are the various proposals being made today toward immortality.
And if that can ever be achieved, then we’d have truly mastered arguably the single greatest
difference between us and our gods - the ability to never die.
Much of what we’re talking about here falls under the umbrella term for a potential future
world; transhumanism.
Through things like reverse aging technologies, part-artificial bodies, mind uploads, and
consciousness drives… the idea is that we will one day move “beyond human”, we’ll
redefine our species, and thereby accelerate our own possibilities.
We’ll accelerate along the road to becoming gods.
And from there, in this future time with so much more of reality open and available to
us, is it so hard to imagine that we could be manipulating space and time, too?
Right now we have a reasonable knowledge about the universe and quantum physics, the macro
and micro worlds, but we also know that there’s so much more left to learn.
And, as transhuman entities, that’s just what we’ll do.
But what does life actually look like for this future version of ourselves?
What implications would human-gods have for society and civilization?
There’d undoubtedly be much that would change, but perhaps a surprising amount would also
stay the same.
Money would be pointless - gods can basically create whatever they want, so currency would
be phased out entirely.
But if everyone became a god, it stands to reason not everyone would be equally as powerful.
Or not everyone would have identical powers, at least.
So, while material wealth might be a thing of the past, perhaps hierarchies would still
exist.
Generally speaking, the most powerful and important ancient gods were those with abilities
that were most needed or desired.
Among the most ardently worshiped Egyptian Gods, for example, were the ones that governed
the afterlife, the ones that brought the sun, and those that provided their people with
knowledge and wisdom.
Which skills and values would be most prized in a transhuman, god versus god world?
Of course, there’s also the possibility that we’d stick with democracy despite all
our godliness, and vote on a “head god” to run things... but again, which gods and
personalities would be most likely to get elected?
One seeming positive to humans becoming gods should be no more war… mainly because no
one can die anymore, so fights and wars would solve nothing.
There is still a darker side, however.
Polytheistic gods of history typically solved disagreements by placing wagers, often involving
some kind of human scenario or even sacrifice.
While the gods didn’t always retaliate against one another, they did vent frustrations via
human beings.
The Greek Gods would often punish the mortals for things that other deities did… while
the Christian God brings immense suffering upon the human Job simply to settle a disagreement
with Satan.
Were we to become gods, then, we might similarly look to lower life forms in a bid to settle
a disagreement or prove a point.
That “instant creation of life” from earlier could double up as an endless supply of playthings
to manipulate.
Sentient robots forced into dire situations as a direct result of our godliness.
In the famous story of “The Iliad”, the Greek gods choose sides and intervene in the
central war to sway things.
Athena designs the famous trojan horse for the Greeks, and Poseidon and Apollo actively
kill Greeks on the battlefield to support Troy.
So, again, while direct conflicts might be a thing of the past… our involvement in
war and bloodshed, unfortunately, may not totally disappear.
In fact, a pessimistic telling of this hypothetical scenario sees more than just the odd battle
played out under our human-god hands.
As is evident from how humans can act on Earth as just regular beings, kindness is often
lacking or completely absent… while meanness and evil can come to the fore.
As such, creaking beneath the might of so many new gods, all born out of humankind,
the whole universe could suffer.
Again, there’s precedent in just our own beliefs about gods.
The biblical God ordered Abraham to kill his own son; Eshu of Yoruba mythology took pleasure
in violence; and Greece’s Ares manifested war itself.
The general concept that gods aren’t completely good and can act malevolently is called Dystheism,
with the Norse trickster god Loki being perhaps the best example of all.
But, if any human flaws were to carry over, as well, then there’d likely be immense
acts of evil played out, and quickly.
Drunk with power, human gods could be the end of civilization rather than the pinnacle
of it.
What’s your verdict?
Could we be so unkind?
Or might the very fact that we’d have made it to “god level” mean that we’ll have
also shed all our worst traits by that time?
Is that the true nature of civilization advancement, simply to find a way to live in total harmony?
But then again, there’s an irony at play… because were we to reach that state of bliss,
would we then become bored and listless?
The renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari, for one, argues that humanity achieving a
god-like status through technology would lead to a demotivated species with no reason to
live.
In his book “Homo Deus” he writes, “Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied
and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?”.
For that is, essentially, what we could become.
Unlimited knowledge, yes.
Untold power, sure.
But absolute happiness and satisfaction?
It’s perhaps impossible to know until we get there.
But that’s what would happen if humans became gods.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
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