Dilemmas

This is a content page featuring the now-offline translation of of a chapter of Summa Technologiae by Frank Prengel.

Once migration of stanislaw-lem.wikia.com to thie Lemopedia is done, this needs to be (at least) moved to the Source Section, as it solely consists of his original translation work. It is merely inserted here for complete migration purpose and that also only temporary.

alk about the future. But isn't talking about future roses at least an inappropriate occupation for someone lost in the highly inflammable forests of the present? And the investigation of the thorns of these roses, the search for the problems of our great-grandchildren, while we cannot even deal with today's abundance of problems, does such scholasticism not border absurdity? If only we had the justification of searching for means to strengthen our optimism or of doing it for the love of truth, clearly visible in a future without storms, even literally taken, after the possibility of climate control. The justification for these words, however, does not lie in any academic passion, nor in unshakable optimism which imposes the faith that, whatever may happen, the outcome will be favorable. The justification is at the same time simpler, more practical, and maybe more modest, since while I am preparing to write about the future, I am simply doing what I am able to do, no matter how good I am at this, since it is my only ability. But if this is true, then my work will be no less, no more dispensable than any other, because every work is based on the assumption that the world exists and that it will continue to exist.

Thus having made sure that the intention is free of unprincipledness, let us ask about the extent of the subject and the method. We will talk about various aspects of civilization that can be thought up, and which can be derived from today's prerequisites, however small the probability of their realization may be. The foundations for our hypothetical constructions, in turn, shall be given by technologies, i.e., the ways, dependent on knowledge and social abilities, in which goals are realized, goals chosen by the community as well as those which nobody had in mind initially.

The mechanism of the various technologies, existing as well as possible ones, is not of interest to me, and I would not have to deal with it, if the creative activities of man were, godlike, free of any spoiling caused by the unwanted - if we could, now or at some time, realize our intentions in a pure state, coming close to the methodological precision of Genesis, if, by saying "let there be light", we could obtain, as a final product, the very light, without any unwanted ingredients. However, the above mentioned bifurcation of goals, or even the replacement of the chosen goals by different, often unwanted ones, is a typical phenomenon. Moaners find similar faults even in the work of God, especially since the introduction of a prototype for beings endowed with reason and the start of mass production of this model, Homo Sapiens - but this part of reflection is better left to theo-technologists. It suffices to say that, in doing anything, man almost never knows what he is actually doing - in any case he does not know it all the way. To reach for the extreme: the destruction of Life on Earth, so possible today, was not intended by any of the discoverers of atomic energy.

Thus technologies are of interest to me somehow out of necessity, since a certain civilization includes all that the general public hoped for, as well as things which were nobody's intention. Sometimes, even more often, a technology is created by chance, e.g., in searching for the philosopher's stone, porcelain was invented, but the fraction of intentional, conscious goals, in the set of all events that are able to initiate technologies, is growing as knowledge progresses. What is indisputable is that, as they become rare, surprises can in turn grow to apocalyptic dimensions. As was actually mentioned above.

There are only few technologies which are not double-edged, as is shown for example by the scythes attached to the wheels of the Hittite chariots, or the proverbial plowshares forged into swords. Every technology is, in principle, an artificial extension of the natural, inherent to everything that is alive, tendency to rule the environment, or at least not to be defeated by it in the struggle for existence. Homeostasis - the scholarly name for the striving for equilibrium, i.e., for survival in defiance of change - developed chalky and chitin skeletons which could resist the force of gravitation, legs enabling mobility, wings and fins, canine teeth making eating easier, horns, jaws, digestive systems, protecting armors and camouflage shapes, until this led to the independence of organisms from their environment by regulation of a constant body temperature. In this way small islands of decreasing entropy in a world of general entropy increase were created. Evolution does not restrict itself to this; from organisms, from types, classes and varieties of plants and animals in turn it creates superior entities, no islets anymore, but islands of homeostasis, forming the whole surface and atmosphere of the planet. The living nature, the biosphere, is at the same time cooperation and mutual eating, an alliance which is inseparably connected with fight, as is demonstrated by every hierarchy that has been investigated by ecologists: these are, especially among animal forms, pyramids, at the top of which rule the large predators, eating smaller animals, and these in turn others still, and only on the very ground, at the bottom of life's kingdom, acts the green transformer of solar into biochemical energy, omnipresent on the land and in the oceans, which by billions of inconspicuous blades carries the changing, for taking on new forms continuously, but constant, for not coming to and end as a whole, massifs of life.

Homeostatic activity, which used technologies as specific organs, made man the ruler of the Earth, a powerful one actually only in the eyes of the apologist, which he is himself. In view of climatic perturbations, earthquakes, the rare, but possible danger of impact of a large meteor, man is in principle as helpless as he was in the last Ice Age. Sure - he developed methods of assistance for the victims of such and of other cataclysms. Some of them he is able to predict - if only approximately. He is still far from homeostasis on a planetary scale, not to speak of homeostasis of stellar dimensions. Unlike most animals, man does not so much adjust himself to the environment, as he rebuilds the environment according to his needs. Will this ever be possible with regard to the stars? Will there arise, maybe in a very distant future, a technology of remote controlling of intrasolar processes, such that creatures which are inconceivably small compared to the mass of the sun are able to arbitrarily control its billion-year fire? It seems to me that this is possible, and don't I say this to praise the human genius, which is famous enough in itself, but, on the contrary, in order to make room for contrast. Up to now, man did not turn into giant. Immense became only his possibilities to do good or bad to others. He who will be able to light and extinguish stars will have the power to destroy whole inhibited globes, turning from astrotechnician to stellar murderer, a criminal of a special, the cosmic, class. If the former was possible, then also the latter, however improbable, however small the chance that it might come true, will be possible.

An improbability - I necessarily have to explain at once - which is not based on my faith in the necessary triumph of Ormuz over Ahriman. I don't trust any promise, I don' believe in assurances based on the so called humanism. The only way to deal with a certain technology is another technology. Today, man knows more about his dangerous inclinations than he knew a hundred years ago, and in another hundred years his knowledge will be even more complete. Then he will be able to benefit from it.

2

The acceleration of scientific and technological development already became so clear that you don't have to be a specialist to recognize it. I think that the changeability of the living conditions due to this development are one of the reasons that influence negatively the formation of homeostatic systems of customs and manners in the modern world. If the whole life of the next generation ceases to be a repetition of the life of their parents, what advice and knowledge have the experienced older ones to offer to the youth? Of course, this disturbance of exemplary actions and their ideals by the very elements of everlasting change is masked by another process, which is far more visible and certainly more serious in its immediate consequences, namely by the accelerated oscillations of the system East-West as a resonant system with positive feedback and only a very small negative component, which, during the last couple of years, oscillated between a series of global crises and détentes.

To the above mentioned acceleration of knowledge growth and the development of new technologies we owe, of course, the chance of serious occupation with our main topic. Nobody can question the fact that the changes are fast and immense. Everyone who described the year 2000 as being totally similar to our present would immediately look ridiculous. A similar projection of the (idealized) present into the future was not considered nonsense in the past by the contemporaries, which is shown for example by the utopia of Bellamy [E. Bellamy: Looking Backward -- 2000-1887. The New American Library, N.Y. 1960], who described the year 2000 from the perspective of the second half of the 19th century, maybe intentionally neglecting all possible inventions, unknown in his days. As a true humanist he held that changes induced by the technoevolution are important neither to the functioning of societies, nor for the individual psyche. Today we don't have to look for the grandchildren in order to find someone laughing about such naive predictions; everybody can enjoy himself by putting away for a couple of years what he describes today as a true picture of the future.

Therefore, the avalanche-like speed of changes, initiating discussions similar to this, at the same time reduces the chance to make extensive predictions. I cannot blame the popularizers since even their masters are not free from sin. Thus the scientist P. M. S. Blackett [P.M.S. Blackett: Military And Political Consequences Of Atomic Energy. Turnstile Press, London 1948], a well-known English physicist, one of the co-founders of operational calculus - work preceding mathematical strategy, hence dealing somehow professionally with prediction - in a book from 1948 failed to predict the future development of nuclear weapons and their military consequences by 1960 as much as is humanly conceivable. Even I found a book by the Austrian physicist Thirring, edited in 1946, which first described the theory of the hydrogen bomb to the general public. It seemed to Blackett, however, that nuclear weapons would never get beyond the kiloton range, because there wouldn't be any targets worth destruction for megatons (note that the term didn't exist yet when this was written). Today we already start talking about "begatons" (billion tons TNT). The prophets of space travel did not do any better. Of course there were also mistakes in the opposite direction - by the year 1955 it was held that the synthesis of hydrogen into helium, copied from the stars, would yield industrial energy in the immediate future. Today the fission pile is predicted for the 90s of our century, or even later. But we don't want to talk about the initiation of this or other technologies - but about the unknown consequences of such an initiation.

3

Up to now, we have discredited the predictions of development, in a way sawing off the branch on which we wish to perform a couple of daring exercises, especially - to throw a glance at the future. Having demonstrated that this is usually a hopeless undertaking, we should in principle occupy ourselves with something else. We, however, will not give up too easily, anyhow, the presented risk can be taken as an ingredient for further considerations, furthermore we are in excellent company making a series of huge mistakes. Of the countless number of reasons that make predicting a thankless occupation, I will mention only a few, which are especially unpleasant to the artist.

First, the changes determining which turn existing technologies will take often emerge much to the astonishment of everyone, mainly the specialists, likeAthena from Zeus' head. The 20th century has been surprised many times by newly emerging powers, like, maybe, cybernetics. The artist cannot stand such a deus ex machina, because he loves to apply his means economically and holds, quite correctly, that similar tricks belong to the main sins against the art of composition. But what can we do if History turns out to be so little discriminating?

Furthermore, we are always inclined to linearly extend the perspectives of new technologies into the future. From this comes the (very funny in our view today) "world full of balloons" or the "steam-powered world" of the utopians and artist of the 19th century, from this also the contemporary trend to fill the outer space with space"ships", with a brave "crew" on board, "guards", "helmsmen", etc. Important is not that one should not write like this, but that such writings actually belong to fantasy, a kind of "upside down" 19th century history novel, because then motives and dispositions of contemporary monarchs were ascribed to the Pharaohs, whereas now "corsairs" and "pirates" of the 30th century are presented. One can enjoy oneself with this, keeping in mind that this is actually only a game. History, on the other hand, does not have anything in common with such simplifications. It does not show us straight paths of development, only winding zigzags of nonlinear evolution, thus, unfortunately, we have to part with the canons of elegant constructs.

Third, finally, literary work has a beginning, a middle and an end. Up to now, the mixing of threads, the reversal of times and other attempts to modernize prose could not remove this rule. Generally we are inclined to classify every phenomenon in the framework of a closed scheme. Just imagine a thinker from the 30s to which we present the following, made-up situation: the world in 1960 is divided into two antagonistic parts, each of which possesses a terrible weapon which can destroy the other half of this world. What will be the result? Certainly he would answer: complete destruction or complete disarmament (but he surely would remark that this our concept is ridiculous because it is melodramatic and implausible). Meanwhile, up to now, this prophecy did not come true. Let me remind that since the formation of the "equilibrium of deterrence", more than fifteen years have passed [written in 1961] - three times as much as the production of the first atomic bombs has required. In a certain sense, the world is like a sick man who believes that he will either recover soon or die shortly, and it does not even come to his mind that, ailing, with periodic worsenings and betterments, he can reach a very old age. This comparison is inappropriate, however ... unless we come up with a medicine which radically cures this man from his disease, but brings totally new problems caused by the fact that he will actually get a new heart, which is, however, mounted on a cart and connected to him through a flexible pipe. Obviously this is nonsense, but it shows the price of convalescence: for the relief from the pressure (for the atomic independence of mankind from the limited oil and coal resources, for example) one always has to pay, and the amount and deadline of the payment as well as the way of its execution are a surprise, as a rule. Massive exploitation of atomic energy for peaceful purposes involves the huge problem of radioactive waste, and up to now we do not know what to do with it. The development of nuclear weapons, on the other hand, could soon confront us with a situation in which today's disarmament offers, together with "destruction offers", turn out to be anachronisms. If this will be a change for the better or worse is difficult to say. The total threat may increase (i.e., let's say, the range of depth destruction increases and shelters armored with miles of concrete are necessary), but the chance of its realization - decrease, or vice versa. There are different possible combinations. In any case, the global system is not in equilibrium, not only in the sense that it can tend to war, since this is no "novum" at all, but above all in that it is evolving as a whole. For the time being it is somehow "more frightful" than in the kiloton epoch, since we already have megatons, but this too is a transitional phase, and contrary to all appearances one should not believe that the increase of the charges, the velocity of their carriers and "anti-missile missiles" represent the only possible gradient of this evolution. We enter higher and higher levels of military technology, and in view of this not only conventional battleships and bombers, not only strategies and headquarters, but the very essence of the global antagonism become obsolete. In which direction the evolution will go, I do not know. Instead I will present a fragment from a novel by Stapledon whose plot covers two billion years of human civilization.

The Martians, a species of viruses, capable of aggregating into jelly-like "clouds endowed with reason" - had attacked the Earth. People fought the invasion for a long time, not knowing that they dealt with an intelligent life form, not a cosmic cataclysm. The alternative of "victory or defeat" does not come true. After centuries of fighting the viruses change so profoundly that they become a part of the human genotype, and in this way a new variety of Homo Sapiensis created.

I think that this is a nice model of a historical event on a hitherto unknown scale. The probability of the phenomenon in itself is not of importance, only its structure. History does not know about trinomial closed schemes of the "beginning, middle and end" type. Only in a novel before the words "The End" the fate of the heroes solidifies in a figure which gives the author a feeling of deep aesthetic satisfaction. Only a novel must have an end, good or bad, but in any case closing the compositional case. Now, such definitive ends, such "final conclusions" the history of mankind did not and, hopefully, will not know.