Sociocultural aspects of discussions about a cybernetic substratum as stage of the global project of immortality

• Itskov D.I.

  Strategic social initiative В«Russia 2045В»
  Moscow. Russia

The subject of this study is the socio-cultural discourse of transhumanism ideas; the focus is on the project of cybernetic substrate as an analysis of the global project that creates conditions for individual “immortality”. The aim of this work is to justify the fact that, despite the vivid and innovative manifestation of the project “Russia 2045”, it’s content is consonant with a number of ideas and concepts reflecting the diversity and intentions of culture, such as the notion of Christian naturalism, the eastern ideas of life’s infinity, the concepts of Russian cosmism (N. Fedorov, K. Tsiolkovsky, V. Vernadsky, etc.) and the opinion of contemporary supporters of immortality. The principle of systematic and comparative approach is the basis of the methodology, which allows us to identify the connections between ideas belonging to different cultural paradigms, worldview systems, various scientific theories and philosophical concepts. It also helps to consider cultural universals that determine interest in the topic of improving a man and his life, and to reveal the general and special factors in the analysis of the projective components of philosophical concepts. The result of the study is the justification that one of the main factors of fierce discussion around the project “Russia 2045” is a world outlook inertia and reliance on a number of cultural and ideological stereotypes, ignorance of the fact that transhumanism not only correlates with some ideas from different cultures, but can also consider them as fundamental. These findings may be important for the theoretical substantiation of modern futurological projects, in determining their correlation with cultural universals, and in applied fields related to the definition of robotics, neuroscience, and medicine tasks. The work concludes that the multifaceted nature of culture sets incompatible vectors of human development in general and of a man in particular: evil and good, hatred and love, stiffness and compassion, life and death, death and immortality. However, the humanity has accumulated enough experience for a conscious choice of that vector of the future, which, on the one hand, is feasible from the modern science’s point of view, but, on the other hand, requires the unity of people and the realization of new opportunities for them. This path does not contradict the basic cultural universals, but develops them in the frame of its’ future formation.

Keywords: ideas of transhumanism, cultural universals, cybernetic substratum, sociocultural discourse, Russian cosmism, immortality, diversity of culture.