La dystopie est-elle l'avenir de l'utopie? / Is dystopia the future of utopia?

Since antiquity, thinkers, architects and philosophers  have tried to imagine the city of the future. Plato  was one of the first great thinkers to imagine the ideal city of the future. Thomas More coined the word of Utopia in 1516. A century later, Campanella described the "City of the Sun", hoping to achieve his project through the progress of science. During the XIX^th century, socialist utopias such as those described by Charles Fourier or Saint-Simon flourished. When the fascist and communist utopias were  implemented, a wide gap appeared between the "radiant future" which was promised and the bleak reality. Already in 1920, in his novel "We", the russian writer Zamiatine presents a society entirely controlled by the state, through a system similar to the Panopticon concept of Jeremy Bentham. In his novel, "Brave New World", Aldous Huxley had in mind the fascist system. In George Orwell's "1984", society is under the control of the "Big brother".This shift from utopias to dystopias is characteristic of the moral crisis of present times. It is now difficult to think about the future in positive terms. Dostoievsky had announced already a long time ago, the failure of the "Crystal palace". Human psychology does not fit with a purely rational way of life, not taking into account human aspirations for liberty. Dystopia can be more fascinating than utopia. The punk culture with its taste for trash illustrates this fascination. For those who accept such a situation, it also offers opportunities for striving and surviving.

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Dès l’antiquité, penseurs, architectes et philosophes ont essayé d’imaginer le « cité de demain ». Tout projet de construction d'une société nouvelle est qualifié d'« utopie », lorsqu’il ne se réalise pas. Pourtant, toute conception de l’avenir, est porteuse d’avenir. Elle est susceptible de se réaliser, ce qui la fait passer de l’utopie à la réalité. Ainsi quand Hippodamos réalise à Milet un plan en damier, il rêve sans doute d’une ville idéale, qui aurait pu rester une utopie[1]. Mais ce plan a été réalisé et il a servi à de nombreuses autres villes de la Rome antique, jusqu’à aujourd’hui.

Prédire le futur dans le passé / Predicting the future in the past

In ancient times, divination appeared as the best mean for predicting the future and acting in the most efficient way. Oracles were used for taking decisions. The priests able to deliver such oracles were the successors of the chamans, who were able to make trips within other worlds, through altered states of consciousness. Auguries and haruspices were used by the Romans. Roman armies were carrying cages which contained the sacred birds used for the haruspices. In ancient China, forecasting was based upon the form of the cracks appearing on tortoise carapaces. It is an essential feature of the Chinese civilization and the Yi King Book or Book of Mutations seems to have derived from these divination practices.These future prediction methods seem far from us, but they are connected to a certain representation of the world which at that time seemed coherent and rationnal.

Astrology, used in ancient times, is still used by many people in the world, which illustrates the gap between the evolution of science and cultural practices throughout the world.

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Au cours des périodes les plus anciennes, le recours à la divination apparaissait comme le meilleur moyen d’agir en mettant toutes les chances de son côté. Cette divination pouvait prendre plusieurs formes. La plus courante consistait à s’adresser à un oracle. Cette pratique prenait la suite de la longue tradition du chamanisme encore poursuivie de nos jours. Le chamane est capable d’entrer dans un état altéré de conscience, après avoir ingéré des plantes hallucinogènes ou pratiqué des rituels prolongés qui le plonge dans in état d’extase. Dans cet état altéré de conscience, il voyage dans des univers mentaux, qui sont considérés par les adeptes comme d’autres formes de réalité. Ces voyages lui permettent d’acquérir des formes supérieures de connaissance, à travers des visions dont certaines concernent l’avenir.

L'avenir en question / Our Future at Stake

« Our Future at Stake » presents new views about the way to address some of the major challenges humanity has to deal with: rarefaction of resources, global warming, and economic crisis. Solutions are described for preserving natural resources and environment, while still following the evolution towards an increased complexity and a more interconnected world. A global transition towards a worldshift is required, involving major changes in economy and the social life. Innovation and creativity represent major assets for ensuring a successful transition, which is needed for avoiding a global collapse.The following topics are covered in the book:

    

Vivons-nous dans un monde virtuel?/ Do we live within a virtual world?

We live in a digital age and our representation of the world is more and more digital. It seems possible to represent any process by an algorithm and everything seems derived from information (it from bit). It becomes more and more difficult to distinguish our own world from a vitual world.

For the swedish philosopherNick Bostrom,  it is very likely that our world is virtual.  He derives this conclusion from the observation that, most likely, other advanced civilizations have already existed in the universe and that they were able to generate many virtual worlds such as ours. It is therefore most likely that we are one of them. The only problem is that Nick Bostrom does not seem to make any difference between a vrtual world and a world within which we feel and suffer. For the time being no software is able to create awareness.  Unless of course, we are the hallucinated spectators of a simulation game. What will happen when the game is over?

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Les progrès de l’informatique introduisent une nouvelle représentation du monde qui devient de plus « digitale ». On a vu émerger aux Etats-Unis le concept de convergence des NBIC (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, techniques de l’information et sciences cognitives), suite au rapport rédigé dès 2002 par William Sims Bainbridge et Mihail Roco[1]. Les auteurs de ce rapport revendiquent une vision unifiée de la science et de la technologie. Selon cette vision unifiée, tout processus est analysé comme un algorithme.  Dès lors, que ce soit dans le domaine des nano-assemblages d’atomes ou dans celui de l’ingénierie génétique, il suffit d’identifier l’algorithme à mettre en œuvre pour maîtriser le processus.

De l'intelligence collective au cerveau planétaire / From collective intelligence to the global brain

By connecting subsystems within a network, it is possible  to create a "collective intelligence".   Collective intelligence is quite common within the animal realm. Insects such as ants and termits are able to perform quite complex tasks by using "swarm intelligence". Birds can achieve complex flight configurations.  In the case of human beings by connecting people, it is possible to achieve a level of complexity higher than the simple level of the individual human intelligence.  Of course, this all social organization is about, but by connecting people directly through the Web and assisting them by computers, it seems possible to enhance the synergy effect and achieve the equivalence of a superintelligence. The possibility of creating a global brain has been described by many authors. This possibilty can be considered with hope of fear, but what might happen really? Global intelligent networks exist already and tremendous new developments are to be expected in the future. Therefore, rather than a single large global brain, multiple intelligent networks with multiple connections between them are to be expected rather.

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L’assemblage en réseau de sous-systèmes dotés d’une forme d’intelligence ou de logique, même élémentaire permet de réaliser un système doté dune « intelligence collective ». L’intelligence humaine, elle-même, résulte de la mise en réseau de milliards de neurones. L'assemblage des neurones permet d’obtenir par un effet de synergie des formes de pensée qui ne sont clairement pas à la portée des neurones individuels. Le passage à un niveau supérieur de l’individu à la collectivité, permet ainsi l’émergence de nouvelles fonctions.

Faut-il un gouvernement mondial?/ Do we need a World government?

Jacques Attali has published recently a book entitled "To-morrow, who will govern the world?", in which he advocates for a world government. International agencies, such as the United Nations, WTO, IMF, the World Bank, already existand despite their present limitations already play a big role. In the future, in order to meet world challenges, it will be necessary to reinforce cooperation and coordination at the world level. Still, do we need to expect or to hope a world government, according to the wishes expressed by Jacques Attali?
It does not seem quite clear, due to the risks that would involve any initiative for instauring such a world government, Furthermore, is a traditional government, with a President and a capital city, the appropriate solution for coordinating a World-system more and more complex? The creation and reinforcement of international bodies connecting a network of members in all the countries of the world, would seem able to provide such a coordination, in a more flexible and efficient way. Such bodies could be supported by research teams working throughout the world.  But in order to implement the right bodies a shift of the representation system is needed.

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Jacques Attali a publié récemment un ouvrage intitulé "Demain, qui gouvernera le monde?", dans lequel il appelle de ses vœux la mise en place d'un gouvernement mondial. Des instances internationales existent déjà. Le rôle est important, en dépit de toutes leurs limitations et faiblesses. La simple existence de l’ONU, comme instance internationale de concertation, est en soi un fait essentiel. L’OMC, le FMI, la Banque Mondiale jouent un rôle effectif dans la coordination des activités économiques au niveau mondial, même si on peut reprocher à ces organisations de demeurer strictement dans le cadre du système de représentation actuel. On peut s’attendre à ce que ce niveau de gouvernance va se renforcer dans l’avenir, pour aller vers un fonctionnement de l’ensemble des économies mieux coordonné au niveau mondial. Faut-il pour autant escompter ou espérer la mise en place d’un gouvernement mondial, comme le souhaite Jacques Attali ?

  

Vers un nouveau capitalisme?/ Towards a new capitalism

According to Margaret Thatcher, "There Is No Alternative". It seems indeed that capitalism is the only economic system which suits our modern democratic societies. It is only by adopting its methods that China was able to perform its huge economic leap forward. But there are different forms of capitalism, which can contribute either to reduce or to increase social inequalities.

  During the eighties a new form of capitalism has been introduced. The hyperliberal financial capitalism has replaced the "entrepreneurial capitalism". In the fordism conception of the economy, there was a joint interest of the entrepreneur and the workers. This is no more the case with the financial capitalism, which looks for locating production in places where workers accept the lowest salaries for producing goods that they will not be able to buy themselves. Speculation, on the other hand, which is the dominant mechanism of this financial capitalism, can bring no added value and has only a destructive effect, by no means creative.

Therefore, the question of an alternative form of capitalism is raised. Two possible scenarios can be considered. A first scenario is a change of politics, with the risk of radical movements, advocating for simple and populist decisions. The other scenario would be the transformation of the system itself. Financial speculation can lead only to failure. More and more people will realize that they cannot trust such a system. Therefore new forms of "distributed captalism" might result, which would enable individuels to finance firms through non speculative, transparent mechanisms. It is one of the areas where innovation is most required.

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"There is no alternative" disait Margaret Thatcher. Effectivement, on ne voit guère d'alternative au capitalisme, qui apparait comme le seul mode de fonctionnement de l'économie dans les pays démocratiques. C'est en se ralliant aux méthodes capitalistes de gestion des entreprises que la Chine a pu , depûis Deng Xiaoping effectuer un formidable bond économique en avant. Toutefois, il n'existe pas une forme unique de capitalisme. En fait, le terme de capitalisme qui s’applique à toute économie moderne dans laquelle les moyens de production sont assurés par des intérêts privés, recouvre des réalités très diverses. Certaines formes de capitalismes peuvent contribuer à réduire les inégalités et d’autres les accroître.