This was unlike any other speech of receiving the UEFA President’s Award (UEFA Football Association) held before the Monaco champions’ league lottery, in which a former football player and player Eric Cantona claimed:
“Soon science will not only be able to slow down the aging of cells, but science will be able to repair the cells of the body and thus we will become eternal. “

But what was he actually talking about and does it have a realistic basis? In that class, his statement seemed out of context, maybe even a little crazy. There is pathos (an emotional trigger) in seeing older athletes – who once were sublime athletes who are now descending to the rhythm of a snail and turning gray. And this touches the heart of the human condition – defined mainly by limitations, aging and death. Cantona wears his age unconventionally gracefully, as he did when he played on the field.

But in Cantona’s words there was much more than madness. The point he raises here is important. As a human species, we are faced with technological creations that may fundamentally change our abilities, which promise us extreme potentials and perhaps even immortality (eternal life).

Emerging technologies include nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC). Transhumanism, restoring to us the belief in human transcendence.

There is indeed still work to be done to reverse the aging process, which some believe we can stop completely, while the artificial intelligence that is becoming stronger every day (AI) may help us in this process. In his book Superintelligence, philosopher Nick Bostrom implies that soon AI may rise above human intelligence that will lead to an “explosion of intelligence”. Such a scenario will make anything possible, and he believes that it could happen in a few decades.

Morality vs. Reason

Over the past century, we have seen great strides in science and technology, some of which have led to an increase in global average life expectancy . At the same time, growing numbers of existential threats, such as nuclear weapons and climate change, are emerging. This points to a limitation of human reason that does not escape Cantona: “Only accidents, crimes, and wars, will still kill us. But unfortunately crimes, and wars will multiply.”

The problem is the duality of human reason. We can explore the world using the scientific method that allows us to create technologies that empower us – “instrumental reason”. But the way we will use this progress still remains a problem, a question of “moral reason.”

Indeed, Cantona’s suggestion that wars and crimes multiply emphasizes that instrumental reason can move forward while moral reason recedes. Technical progress does not guarantee moral progress, as powerfully demonstrated by the two world wars of the 20th century and the many conflicts that have happened since then. The climate crisis and our current political ills illustrate this as well.

Cantona’s speech opens with a quote from Shakespeare’s King Lear: “As white flies are wanted we are gods, / They kill us because of their sport.” (The quote is futuristic too). Much transhumanist literature is devoted to the idea that human beings will become gods in the future. But to what kind of gods?

The current gods of transhumanist progress are security agencies and tech giants.AsAI officialBen Gertzel points out: “AI is now used for selling, spying, killing and gambling.” Therefore, we may be defined as non-human and non-postmodern gods.

What do we appreciate?

The narrating part of Cantona’s speech is the response to it.The most common word for this descriptionis “bizarre”. What makes the speech strange is not the content, but the context. After all, in such a situation, former actors are expected to offer trite sayings, certainly not philosophies of human existence.

So as long as we develop such powerful technologies, what’s the context? It is progressive capitalism, and involves selling, espionage, killing and gambling. Such is the overall nature of this system that we hardly recognize as context at all – it is a given system.

Capitalism also embraces instrumental rationality – it fulfills its demand for progress and tangible growth. He does not have much time for questions of morality. Markets bypass moral questions by asking whether there is a buyer, whether there is a seller, and what the price is.

Mathematics and science are the well-publicized methodologies of instrumental rationality.It is not surprising, then, that human beings themselves are increasingly subjected to this process of quantification.Tracking provides data, the “new oil” that increases information capitalism.Humans are now the mines.This is the curious world of transhumanist development in the context of progressive capitalism.

In its most hobaristic and unshakable form, reinforced by progressive capitalist logic and lacking a burst, transhumanism poses manythreats: from automatic unemployment tothe end of democracy , to the risk that human beings will split into different species, making questions of inequality immeasurably urgent. Even if immortality comes, it will be accompanied by crimes, wars and accidents – as Cantona states.

But there are alternative ways to think about the future. Posthumanismalso deals with our uncertain future, butfocuses mainly on moral questions. The goal is to think ethically beyond the human, and to emphasize responsibility towards the broader nature of which we are part. Posthumanists “are associated with the recognition of the compassion of their mutual dependence with multiple people, both human and inhumane.”

The time has come for us to ask ourselves, what aspects of being human we value the most. For me, compassion, kindness, appreciation of nature, art and humor are of paramount importance – those aspects that are most strongly related to the moral aspect of human reason. Instrumental intelligence may continue to cling rhythmically to the price of these human idiosyncrasies – imperfect, inaccurate, unexploreable.

As a Liverpool fan (sorry Marik), I was pleased with the draw of the Champions League and the Van Prize, but in the glorious style of things Cantona’s speech was the most important moment of the event. It reminds us that a radically different future is on the horizon, and the state of our current social systems and cultural beliefs show that we have no right to take advantage of this.