The human problem in technogenic civilization

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National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan

THE HUMAN PROBLEM IN TECHNOGENIC CIVILIZATION

Aliyev Ravan Ayyub

Postgraduate Student

Baku

Annotation

technogenic civilization human nature

The article examines the evolution of human nature in the context of technological progress, from the history of ancient philosophical thought to modern perspectives. This research covers various philosophical views starting from Plato's interpretation of human nature and ending with Nietzsche's ideas. Focusing on the ideas of philosophers such as Y.N. Harari, J. Baudrillard and R. Kurzweil, it explores the human identity and the ongoing changes in a technologically driven world. The discussion includes insights from Yuval Noah Harari, who explores the dynamic evolution of "Homo sapiens" and the future of human-made civilization, including potential transformations through genetic engineering, cyborg engineering, and brain-computer interfaces. The text also presents Jean Baudrillard's concept ofhyperreality, where truth is createdfrom simulations, and Raymond Kurzweil's predictions about the development of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology leading to a new human existence. Key discussions include the impact of technology on human personality and potential future effects such as cyborgs, brain-computer interfaces, and the merging of humanity with AI. The text reflects the collapse of traditional human concepts and the rise of new forms in technogenic civilization.

In conclusion, it is stated that the philosophical understanding of the essence of man has entered a new stage, where the concept of "man" is redefined based on technology and the physical and spiritual unity of man rather than the traditional relationship between people. The article raises ethical and social issues regarding identity, freedom, and the potential emergence of new beings to replace humans. It highlights the ongoing erosion of the concept of "human" in society and the ethical problems created by technological progress. Overall, this article highlights the philosophical, ethical, and existential questions arising from the convergence of humans with technology, and the profound implications for human identity, social structures, and ethical dilemmas that these transformations create.

Key words: civilization, human, technique, technology, technogenic civilization.

Анотація

Алієв Раван Айюб аспірант Національної академії наук Азербайджану Баку, Азербайджанська Республіка

ПРОБЛЕМА ЛЮДИНИ В ТЕХНОГЕННІЙ ЦИВІЛІЗАЦІЇ

У статті розглядається еволюція людської природи в контексті технічного прогресу, від історії античної філософської думки до сучасних перспектив. Це дослідження охоплює різні філософські погляди, починаючи від тлумачення природи людини Платоном і закінчуючи ідеями Ніцше. Зосереджуючись на ідеях таких філософів, як Ювал Ной Харарі, Жан Бодріяр та Рей Курцвейл, досліджуємо людську ідентичність і поточні зміни в технологічно керованому світі. Обговорення включає ідеї Ювала Ноя Харарі, який досліджує динамічну еволюцію «Homo sapiens» і майбутнє створеної людиною цивілізації, включаючи потенційні трансформації за допомогою генної інженерії, кіборг-інженерії та інтерфейсів «мозок-комп'ютер». У тексті також представлено концепцію гіперреальності Жана Бодріяра, де істина створюється із симуляції, і передбачення Реймонда Курцвейла щодо розвитку штучного інтелекту, нанотехнологій і біотехнологій, що ведуть до нового існування людини. Основні обговорення включають вплив технологій на людську особистість і потенційні майбутні наслідки, такі як кіборги, інтерфейси «мозок-комп'ютер» і злиття людства з ШІ. Текст відображає крах традиційних людських концепцій і виникнення нових форм у техногенній цивілізації.

На завершення констатується, що філософське розуміння сутності людини вступило в новий етап, де поняття «людина» переосмислюється на основі технології та фізичної й духовної єдності людини, а не традиційних відносин між людьми. Стаття порушує етичні та соціальні проблеми щодо ідентичності, свободи та потенційної появи нових істот, які замінять людину. Він підкреслює постійну ерозію поняття «людина» в суспільстві та етичні проблеми, породжені технічним прогресом. Загалом ця стаття висвітлює філософські, етичні та екзистенційні питання, що виникають у зв'язку з конвергенцією людей і технологій, а також глибокі наслідки для людської ідентичності, соціальних структур і етичних дилем, які створюють ці перетворення.

Ключові слова: цивілізація, людина, техніка, технологія, техногенна цивілізація.

Statement of the problem

Although technogenic civilization is a human-made civilization, it changes the essence of man. The central issue is the ongoing transformation of human nature within a technology-driven civilization. The relevance of the problem lies in the impact of technology on the essence of humanity, examining both philosophical and social perspectives. The question of the existence and essence of man in a technogenic civilization extends from historical and philosophical studies to predictions about a future in which the boundaries between humanity and technology are increasingly blurred.

The scientific level of elaboration of the topic. The human problem in technogenic civilization refers to the challenges and problems arising from the increasing role of technology and artificial systems in society. The essence of man has been widely discussed in Renaissance philosophy as well as in ancient Greek philosophy. In later times, F. Nietzsche's and other scientists' ideas about the essence of man began to change. Philosophical ideas about the nature of man in modern man-made civilization were investigated by Y N. Harari, R. Kurzweil, M. Kaku, D. Dennett and other philosophers.

The purpose of the article

The common purpose of the article is to clarify the comprehensive aspects of the evolution of human nature and its intersection with technology throughout history. This article describes the development of ideas about the nature of humanity, from social and theological perspectives to the modern era. Some technological advances challenge traditional understandings of human personality, and this paper seeks to answer new questions about our future. The primary objective of the article is to clarify the ongoing transformation of human nature in a technologically driven world.

While technology is considered one of the greatest achievements in human history, it exerts a significant influence on societies. Technology enhances human capability to shape nature and transform the environment, playing a crucial role in the development of civilizations. However, this rapid progress and utilization of technology have raised important questions concerning its impact on human nature. This research aims to explore the effects of technology and civilization on human nature from a social and philosophical perspective. We will delve into key topics, such as human nature, the skill of technology use, and its impact on societies, to assess the challenges and opportunities presented in the modern world. Technogenic civilization characterizes itself by the widespread application of technologies across all spheres of human life, bringing about profound changes in social, cultural, political, and economic environments. In this civilization, humantechnology relationships shed light on the philosophical nature of humanity.

Historical development of philosophical ideas about the essence of human. In the history of philosophical thought about the essence of man, various philosophers have put forward ideas in all periods. Plato noted that the essence of a person should be understood in the context of social relations, not at the individual level. In materialistic approaches, it was argued that man is a material system. Trying to clarify the essence of man, Aristotle noted in his work "Metaphysics" that man has the skills of "knowing", "creating" and "acting". The essence of man is ontological in nature, and man was analyzed as a being with these mentioned abilities. The expansion of the christian worldview was also reflected in philosophical ideas, and new ideas emerged in clarifying the philosophical essence of man. Man was created by God, he fulfills God's commands. In this period, man was valued from the context of relations with God [10]. Augustine, one of the prominent representatives ofthe philosophical thought, considered the ontological, epistemological and moral elements as the basis for understanding the human being. According to Augustine, man is both a physical and a spiritual being. Man is space and time together with his physical body. The body represents worldliness, and the soul represents divinity. Man was created in the image of God, and epistemologically, God is man and is truth itself [7, p. 8-9]. These ideas of Augustine come up again in technogenic civilization. As a creator of technologies, a person continues to change himself and the world, acting as a creator.

Ideas about the philosophical nature of man changed radically during the Renaissance. In this period, science and knowledge take the place of the investigation of the philosophical essence of man from the ontological context. The renaissance covers the period from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. This period is characterized by strong changes in all spheres of social life. We want to note that technological discoveries increased during this period, progress was ensured in all areas of life. The changes in social life have also revealed differences in the philosophical meaning of man and increased attention to man.

Humanism, a philosophical doctrine summarizing ideas about the nature of man, is a product of this period. Humanists argued that freedom was the strength of the human spirit, and this freedom encouraged people to innovate. In our opinion, the central idea of knowledge in the renaissance period, the application of this knowledge to various areas of life accelerated technological innovations. The fact that the beginning of the first industrial revolution coincided with the renaissance changed people's living conditions as well as philosophical ideas. The occurrence of successive industrial revolutions has expanded ideas in the direction of the philosophical understanding of the essence of man. The expanding relationship between technology and man has already become a central theme of philosophical research. This topic has been in the attention of philosophical thinkers for a long time.

F. Nietzsche is one of the philosophers who interprets the essence of man in technological civilization. F. Nietzsche defines man as a creative being, but no matter how creative and free a man is, the effort he spends on this path binds him to his past. As a person wants more freedom, he gets closer to the values of the past [2, p. 130]. Despite F. Nietzsche's opinion, the type of person he wants is completely different. F. Nietzsche's dream of a "superior" is a person who creates innovative ideas and personal values by breaking the value system of society. The essence of a person is found in his innovative ideas, in the innovations he implements for living. Against the backdrop of technological development, F. Nietzsche interpreted man's constant desire for power as its main essence. Man always wants to keep everything under his power. In our opinion, based on this position of F. Nietzsche, we can point out that in technogenic civilization, man's constant desire for power creates opportunities for dynamic technological discoveries and determines the rapid change of civilization. Technology increases human power and changes the essence of man. Another philosopher, M. Heidegger, who tried to clarify the essence of man and noted that the relationship between man and technology caused strong changes in social life, valued technology as one of the methods that reveal human characteristics. The essence of man is in technology, and technology is the tool that reveals the truth. Technology turns a person into a means of production and consumption and changes a person's identity [6, p. 137]. In our opinion, technology has brought out the true power and essence of man and shaped civilization based on human desires.

As technogenic civilization develops, so does the human-robot relationship. Against the background of these relations, along with the issue of clarifying the philosophical essence of the concept of "man", the issue of human transformation has become relevant. Transformation characterizes not only spiritual but also physical changes. In the works of many philosophers about the nature of man and his change in technogenic civilization, a number of ideas about the issues of this type of change of man can be found.

The future of technogenic civilization and the essence of man. The famous philosopher Yuval Noah Harari has many ideas about the nature of man in technogenic civilization. Y N. Harari's work "Sapiens" interprets the dynamic development of man. Y N. Harari points out that the basis of homo sapiens spreading throughout the universe by destroying the Neanderthals that existed during the long historical period is his experience of inventing more ideas about the world. Knowledge of non-existent things brought homo sapiens to modern times. The desire to constantly make new discoveries for the future life of this human type has determined the transformation of the human species along with the development of civilization [4, p. 49]. People have always tried to continue their lives with new discoveries, and the application of technology to various areas of life has changed the philosophical essence of man in terms of space and time along with the long historical period. Technology has already begun to be applied to the human body. Genetic engineering has also increased the transformation of humans.

Y N. Harari notes that if the "intelligent world" created as a result of human labor does not destroy man himself, the technological civilization will outlive the age of knowledge. The philosopher notes that another innovation that changes the nature of man in technogenic civilization is cyborg engineering. A cyborg is a half-human half-robot equipped with technology. The scientist explains that man's constant desire for power and the desire to improve his abilities make him a cyborg. It has changed the identity of this person [4, p. 390]. The strong development of technogenic civilization also brings with it the changes of the human brain. The creation of the "brain computer interface", a powerful achievement of technology, has changed the direction of ideas about the essence of man.

A brain computer interface is a direct communication path between the brain and an external device. Connecting many brains to each other through an interface and creating a "cognitive network" reveals new ideas about human existence. This person is neither a natural nor a cyborg person. Y N. Harari addresses questions to the society about the change of the philosophical essence of man as a result of the development of technology. The philosopher notes that the human-computer age aims to create beings that can reproduce by themselves without human intervention. The scientist determined that the copying and reproduction of human cognition and the control of cognition in a computer would exceed the limits of man. We would like to note that one of the main goals of the "Human Brain Project" started in 2005 is to completely recreate the human brain in a computer.

Another prominent representative of ideas about the philosophical nature of man in technogenic civilization is Jean Baudrillard. In his work entitled "Simulation and simulacrum", published in 1981, the philosopher proposed that truth is created from mistakes and that truth and reality are destroyed in modern times [1].

Technology has made people a part of the new world order, hyperreality has slowly led people into chaos. Reality has changed its form and has been replaced by an artificial, so-called object. Now there is a new reality that consists of elements of code and is happening in every area of life, which is called hyperreality. As a result, people are losing their identity. The philosopher pointed out that by simulation there is no longer a real world and instead everything is created by simulations. Simulars are symbols that imitate reality, but this imitation does not represent any feature of reality over time. In a technogenic civilization, simulations and simulacra require man to engage in more simulations and imitations in search of truth. The philosopher wrote that there are 3 simular stages. The first phase started from the renaissance period and continued until the industrial stage. The next stage is called the industrial stage and currently the last simulation stage [9, p. 31].

In the second stage, machines and robots began to dominate people. At this point, the machine eliminates dead labor; man represented living labor, and dead labor surpassed living labor. The philosopher analyzed the essence of man at the last stage. The automation that occurred in the industrial stage has changed the nature of man. Automation carries some of the characteristics of a human being and imitates a kind of human. In real life, the differences between humans and automated machines make it possible to differentiate between reality and simulation. However, in the simulation period, reality and fakeness in the relationship between man and robot are mixed together and the simulation has completely destroyed the reality [3, p. 131].

Simulation has the characteristics of humanism. This is due to his western origin. It has all this thanks to technology; Technological tools have changed hands, feet, and even entire organs. In the genesis of simulation, there are technological developments and advances, its existence has appeared in the measure of the development of technology.

Raymond Kurzweil is one of the scientists who make predictions about the future of technogenic civilization. American writer, inventor and futurist known for his futuristic ideas about the evolution of technogenic civilization. R. Kurzweil explored the topics of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and biotechnology and presented various ideas about the characteristics that arise in the development of civilization. The scientist's book "Singularity is near" published in 2005 is one of the most original philosophical works on the future of technogenic civilization. The book is full of futuristic ideas about the future of technogenic civilization as a result of the combination of artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and biotechnology.

The book was published in 2005 and consists of 9 chapters. The first chapter of the book, summarizes the initial ideas about the development of chemistry, physics and biology, the human brain and technology. The second chapter explains the characteristic features of technology development. Summarizing his thoughts on the human brain's computational ability in the third chapter, the scientist comments on the idea of creating "software of human intelligence" in the fourth chapter. In the fifth chapter, he writes about the overlapping revolutions in the field of genetics, biotechnology and robotics, and in the sixth chapter, he notes the current effects of these revolutions in social life. The seventh chapter of the work predicts the emergence of the idea of "singularity" in technogenic civilization, and the eighth chapter predicts future dangers. In the ninth chapter, the scientist presents his scientific answers to a number of critics of the evolution of civilization throughout the ages.

In the first part of the work, R. Kurzweil notes that technological development continues at a slow pace, but this speed has increased over the last 100 years. According to R. Kurzweil, the speed of technological development takes advantage of the results of past development and lays the groundwork for the discovery of more complex technologies, and technological development increases the speed of development during each subsequent period. The scientist called this process "the law of accelerated return" [8, p. 57-94].

The main ideas about the future of technogenic civilization are especially clear in the section of the work that talks about revolutions. The scientist predicts the results of the combination of the scientific directions of biotechnology and nanotechnology. R. Kurzweil notes that a new type of man will emerge in technogenic civilization as a result of further improvement of the human body. The futurist philosopher shows that bionanotechnology will make a person more intelligent and longlived, and super nanocomputer technologies connected to the human brain will make a person more dependent on technology. In our opinion, if we analyze this evolutionary process within the framework of R. Kurzweil's "accelerating return" law, we can note that the concept of technogenic civilization will completely disappear and a new type of "technoexistence" will emerge in the universe. This type of being would be a being that would contain all the spiritual and psychological characteristics of the current human being and would be able to control the entire universe. R. Kurzweil spoke of a new type of human existence and noted that it would bring a period of "technological singularity" in the entire universe.

Speaking about the future of technogenic civilization, the futurologist makes a number of predictions, especially about the development of artificial intelligence. It predicts that high-level automation in all fields will accelerate the development of robotic systems and that artificial intelligence will move to the forefront in matters such as super-fast decision-making. In the course of this, it is not excluded that the hegemony of technology in social, political and economic systems will increase. These processes will make human life pointless. In the technogenic civilization, the human and consciousness will be integrated into the technology, and the new type of being created by artificial intelligence will be the "technogenic super-mind".

In our opinion, the aimlessness of human life has created the basis for the complete disappearance of the concept of "human". But man continues to merge with technology for power and future life. As a result of this, the emergence of immortality may be one of the future characteristics of technogenic civilization. All philosophical ideas belonging to the human philosophical essence must be reinterpreted. R. Kurzweil notes that it will be possible to model the human mind and that artificial intelligence systems will be created that will increase the mental powers of people. These artificial intelligence systems will mimic the entire mental activity of humans.

On the basis of the ideas of R. Kurzweil, it is possible to voice such an opinion that technogenic civilization will first of all completely change man and his role in the universe. The future of technogenic civilization will develop at an unstoppable speed, and the "concept of man" will completely disappear. New types of beings will carry a number of characteristics of modern humans and will create a basis for frequent replacement of civilizations by constantly striving for rapid technological development. Rapid technological development will lead to the emergence of a new type of civilization. The foundation for the formation of a new type of civilization after the technogenic civilization will soon be laid. Taking R. Kurzweil's prediction that the entire universe will enter the period of technological singularity in 2045, it can be noted that development in a new type of civilization is increasing at an unstoppable speed along a geometric series.

Conclusions

In our opinion, the philosophical interpretation of the essence of man in technogenic civilization has already entered a new stage. Philosophical essence of man was conditioned in the background of attachment to the environment and then to God. During the Renaissance, the essence of man was understood on the basis of knowledge. In technogenic civilization, man is understood in the context of technology-human combination. As you can see, clarifying the philosophical essence of man has become one of the more and more urgent topics. In our opinion, if the philosophical essence of man was determined based on the use of technology in earlier times, in technogenic civilization, it is interpreted based on the characteristics resulting from their physical and spiritual combination, not the relationship between man and technology. The destruction of the concept of "man" in society continues at full speed, and today, through cloning and other methods, the sameness that humanity has been trying to save for thousands of years continues to be reproduced and differences are eliminated. Through these processes, we are purged of death, sexuality, and any elements of identity that are radical to the system. The essence of man has already changed completely. New "creatures" have already begun to replace humans. In addition to changing the way people live, technology has also created new ethical and social problems.

Perspectives. The article explores the effects of technology and civilization on human nature from philosophical perspective. It offers several notable perspectives and insights. The article delves into the historical development of philosophical ideas about the essence of human beings. It discusses how various philosophers, from Plato to Nietzsche, have contemplated the nature of humanity in different philosophical contexts. This article brings in contemporary philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard and Raymond Kurzweil to examine how the concept of human nature is being redefined in the context of technogenic civilization. The article raises ethical and existential questions related to the potential transformations of human nature. It highlights concerns about identity, freedom, and the implications of merging with technology, as well as the possibility of immortality, and the ethical challenges arising from these transformations. At the same time suggests that the relationship between humans and technology is central to understanding the changing essence of humanity. This article discusses the social and cultural implications of technological advancements and how these changes affect human identity.

Bibliography

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