Convergence(s) et singularité(s): À propos des deux concepts clés de l’eschatologie transhumaniste

Abstract

NBIC convergence (Nano, Bio, Info, Cognitive science) is not merely a reality in the evolution of the technosciences but the object of an eschatological narrative. In transhumanist mythology – which is not a simple fiction but a plausible framework for interpreting reality as given, this convergence becomes the major sign of the imminence of a unique event both in the history of man, as well as the history of life and the universe as a whole. This event, whose most explicit significance designates the moment when machines become more ‘complex’ and, consequently, more ‘intelligent’ and thus more ‘powerful’ than humans, may at once be perceived as negative, an unprecedented catastrophe, or as positive, the moment of a revelation, the occasion for a surpassing that we should anticipate and prepare for now. Thus the concepts of convergence(s) and singularity(/ies) (which the inter-nesting significations take on, from the most exoteric to the most esoteric) emerge as the two central themes of a technoscientific eschatology characterizing transhumanist mythology. Transhumanist eschatology, provided with these two themes of convergence and singularity, is the most radical religious expression of informational ontology.