Hélas, nous sommes restés modernes / Unfortunately, we have remained modern

Already 20 years ago, Bruno Latour was writing that "We Have Never Been Modern". In his definition, modernity was based upon a radical distinction between the human and the non human realms, between nature and culture, subject and object. He was pointing out that this position is not compatible with the proliferation of hybrid objects, when technical objects become the central issue of a human situation, such as congelated embryos, GMO's, clones, GHG's. Considering that such a distinction is no more credible, he was drawing the conclusion that we have never been modern. Still, this observation does not mean that our representation system is ready to comply with reality. With his definition, we can observe that our society remains deliberately "modern". This modernity is linked not to an analysis of the reality, but to the specialization of the actors. Each area of science, sociology, anthropoly or philosophy is surrounded by fences. A scientist is not accepted in the area of philosophy and vice-versa. We certainly need a transverse, multidisciplinary and systemic approach, but, clearly, we have not reached this stage and, unfortunately, our society is still "modern".

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Bruno Latour écrivait il y a déjà 20 ans que "nous n'avons jamais été modernes". Il définissait l'attitude moderne comme établissant une distinction radicale entre humain et non-humain, nature et culture, sujet et objet. Pour lui, cette position était incompatible avec ce qu'il appelait "la prolifération des hybrides". Les "hybrides" correspondent au nombre rapidement croissant des situations où les objets de la technique se retrouvent au centre de situations humaines: embryons congelés, OGM, clones, gaz à effet de serre.

La résilience de Gaïa / Gaia resilience

James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis have formulated the Gaia hypothesis already in 1979, refering to the Greek Godess of the Earth. According to this hypothesis (or theory), the Earth is controling the conditions required for life throuh regulating mechanisms. The Earth is thus compared to a living organism, able to maintain homeostatic conditions. What can we think about such an hypothesis, about thirty years later? Even, if a number of conditions required for maintaining life, such as the salinity of the ocean, the atmosphere composition, the global surface temperature, appear as controlled by negative retroaction mechanisms (which tend to drive back the system towards equilibrium, when it is perturbated), it would be certainly wrong to apply such a comparison in a too litteral way. This hypothesis presents nevertheless the advantage of helping us to transform our mental representation system. During the industrial era all systems were viewed as machines, and we might be tempted to consider Earth as such a machine. The metaphor of the living organism is much more appropriate in the case of a complex ecosystem, as it helps us to understand better what happens when the system is perturbated. It leads us to think in terms of resilience. The system can withstand a perturbation within a certain domain. Outside this domain negative retroaction mechanisms do not operate anymore and can even be replaced  by positive retroaction mechanisms which make the system unstable. The system cannot maintain its operating conditions (canot survive). This a situation we encounter with global warming. Therefore it is our duty to preserve and even to reinforce the resilience of Gaia.

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Le chimiste britannique James Lovelock et  la microbiologiste américaine Lynn Margulis ont formulé l'hypothèse Gaïa dès 1979. Cette hypothèse fait référence à la déesse mère de la mythologie grecque. Elle consiste à affirmer qu'à travers un certain nombre de mécanismes autorégulateurs, la Terre contrôle les conditions nécessaires à la survie de la biosphère. La Terre est ainsi comparée (ou assimilée) à un organisme vivant capable de maintenir des conditions homéostatiques.

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.