A Bridge across the Abyss? Digitalization and Transhumanism as a New Anthropological and Social Reality in the Context of Ideological Searches of Personality (Historical, Philosophical and General Theoretical Aspects)

Abstract

One of the main existentials of a person is the fact of his mortality and, most importantly, his knowledge about it, which inevitably leads everyone, one way or another, to the idea of overcoming death, to the idea of immortality, or – a saving bridge across the abyss of non–existence, which connects the present being of a person with his future being. In search of this bridge, a person talks about various "variants" of immortality: physical (naturalistic); biological; social; scientific-technical, technological and technocratic; religious – Christian providential immortality. The totality of socio-philosophical and anthropological concepts grouped around the idea of scientific and technological improvement of human nature, significant prolongation of life and, to the limit, overcoming mortality, is one of the modern trends of philosophical thought, known as transhumanism. The article attempts to consider transhumanism in the broad ideological context of the materialistic-atheistic, scientististic, positivist and evolutionist project, which, in general, is based on the "multifaceted" anthropovolutarianism that is constantly present in the philosophical search for humanity; and also – to analyze transhumanistic ideas from the positions of the opposite – idealistic-theistic, creationist, anti–positivist worldview camp, - based on providentialism, which for centuries and – currently – opposes anthropocentric voluntarism and transhumanism. The research being undertaken aims – in the context of the centuries–old polemic between anthropovolutarianism and providentialism - to clarify the reality or illusory nature of the proposed strategies of immortality, the search for a real bridge leading man and humanity through the abyss of threatened non-existence.