Natural and social structures of human autonomy and their technical mediation

[Michael Allan]

I'm posting this partial draft for the record, and also for comments.
I was only able to outline the first of the arguments, but I think
it's the most interesting in itself.  If it stands (?), it should be a
main pillar of the theory.  For the other arguments, I still have to
finish reading Hegel.  Also, if others are still interested in the
practical side, then I'll resume coding.  So there could be additional
delays on that account.

Comments are welcome.  For notes and references, please see the Web
copy.

NATURAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF HUMAN AUTONOMY
AND THEIR TECHNICAL MEDIATION
===================================================================
http://zelea.com/project/autonomy/a/aut/aut.xht

The possibility of human autonomy is underwritten in the physical
structure of the universe by the limits of light speed and the
distance between stars.  A general method of realizing autonomy is
described in abstract beginning with the phenomenology of G.W.F. Hegel
and more concretely with the contemporary technology of consensus
building, particularly as applied to utopian visions of the future.
These are the main arguments of the present essay.  Futhermore, it is
argued that a sustained application of such a method would mark the
historical end of modernity.

OUTLINE OF ARGUMENTS
--------------------

Autonomy is naturally possible and justified
--------------------------------------------

The argument for autonomy begins in the distant future.  This may seem
an unrealistic setting, one that verges on science fiction, but that
impression cannot easily be avoided in an argument for human autonomy
(freedom, independence and self-determination) which must necessarily
grapple with the extreme limits of human possiblity.  Those limits
have no everday application and are not topics of ordinary discussion,
so they naturally come across as “far fetched”.  Even still, this is
not necessarily a permanent situation.  In the near future, people are
likely to acquire the means of building consensus on issues of their
own choosing.  They will understand that by working together to build
a consensus that is large enough in extent and long enough in duration
they will be able to carry any issue through political channels.  But
the practical requirements of politics together with the hopeful
expectation of “steering” society will send them searching for the
limits of possibility — the most desireable destinations to steer to,
the worst dangers to avoid and the most reliable references to steer
by — like maritime explorers whose eyes come to rest alternately on
distant horizons, near shoals and fixed stars.


  1.1.  Humanity faces a ongoing risk of destruction by natural
        causes.  The risk level is uncertain, but more-or-less
        constant.

  1.2.  We also face a ongoing risk of destruction by man-made causes.
        Again the risk level is uncertain, but known to be
        historically variable and relatively high at present.

  1.3.  We never agreed amongst ourselves or otherwise deliberately
        chose to accept or avoid these risks (1.1, 1.2).

        Therefore:

  1.4.  Our continued survival is not under our control.  Our
        existence in the future is contingent on accidents of nature
        and history.

        However:

  1.5.  It is theoretically possible to travel to any star in the
        galaxy or neighbouring galaxies within the lifespan of the
        travellers.  Owing to the limits of light speed the shortest
        duration for a long journey might be thousands of years or
        more.  However, time dilation at relativistic speeds can
        reduce that to within ordinary human lifespans from the
        perspective of the travellers.  They would journey not only
        far into space, but also far into the future.  Such journeys
        are therefore one way.

        For instance, the hundreds of millions of stars within our
        short, local “arm” of the galaxy are mostly within a distance
        of 5000 light years from the sun.OA That distance cannot be
        covered by any means in less than 5000 years.  However, at a
        sustained acceleration and deceleration of 1 earth gravity,
        the travellers would age only 16 years and 7 months throughout
        the length of the journey.

  1.6.  Extrasolar planets have been discovered in 8 star systems to
        date, at distances ranging from 10 to 45 light years.  Such
        distances could conceivably be reached in one or two
        generations at less than relativistic speeds.

        From 1.5 or 1.6:

  1.7.  It is theoretically possible for humanity to distribute itself
        among the stars.

  1.8.  The risk of natural and man-made destruction (1.1, 1.2) would
        decrease exponentially with the number of star systems in the
        distribution.  The distances are such that no natural or
        man-made catastrophe could destroy all of humanity, only a
        coincidence of near-simultaneous catastrophes in all inhabited
        systems.

        Therefore, with ongoing and extensive interstellar
        distribution:

  1.9.  Human existence would be perpetually guaranteed.

        The projected level of technological development to achieve
        this form of immortality has been classified as Type 2 on the
        Kardashev scale.  “When we reach the Type 2 stage, our
        civilization will no longer need to be concerned about either
        natural or man-made extinction events as it will have the
        capability to prevent or avoid these events.”

 1.10.  There is no other way to guarantee our existence than by
        interstellar distribution.


 1.11.  There is no other rationale for interstellar distribution than
        a guarantee of existence.

 1.12.  Interstellar distribution would require a tremendous effort of
        mankind.

 1.13.  Interstellar distribution is unlikely to occur by accident.

        From 1.10 to 1.13:

 1.14.  A guarantee of human existence requires a deliberate,
        conscious effort of self-determination.

        If we were to survive long enough to succeed in that effort,
        then:

 1.15.  Our continuing existence in the future would not be mere
        contingency nor could any accident bring it to an end.  We
        could thenceforth say, “We shall exist forever only because we
        chose to exist.”

        In other words, we would be autonomous in our immortality.

        Therefore:

 1.16.  Autonomy is possible.

        Also, from 1.14 and 1.16:

 1.17.  Autonomy is justified.


The significance of the argument might not lie in its conclusions
(1.16 and 1.17).  If the argument as a whole is correct, then its
simple logic and its anchoring in physical facts may give it something
of empirical leverage, making it useful for purposes of theory
testing.  Modern theory of autonomy begins most convincingly with Kant
and Hegel, as related here by Robert Pippin:

    Reason itself, in all its manifestations, does not, in Kant,
    discover the human place within Nature or serve some natural end
    or passion; it “legislates to Nature”; it does not discover the
    good life, it prescribes the rules for human activity, be Nature
    as it may.  Such a “spontaneous subjectivity,” completely
    determining for itself what to accept as evidence about the nature
    of things, and legislating to itself its proper course of action,
    is, if nothing else, the appropriate image of modernity's
    understanding of itself as revolutionary and “self-grounding,” and
    so an invaluable focus for raising a number of questions.  The
    general “German” idea of self-determination or a self-grounding
    is, Hegel says, the principle of modernity, as fundamental in that
    tradition to the modern authority of natural science as it is to
    modern claims for liberal-democratic institutions. ...

    Thus on the reading I propose, the possibility if a
    “self-reassurance” of modernity does not finally depend on any
    technological success or failure, on “Cartesian foundationalism,”
    or on the achievement of any unified, scientific or naturalistic
    world view.  Kant was, to a large and decisive degree, right about
    the limitations of all such proposals, and right that being modern
    demands instead being radically critical, that the modern subject
    can rely only “on itself,” it's own spontaneous self-legislation,
    in determining the agenda of an age freed from dogmatic
    dependence.  Whatever ends up being the historically decisive
    result of the modern revolution — that, for example, we end up
    regarding ourselves and our capacities in essentially
    “neurophysiological” language, or on some sort of analogy with
    “texts” — it will, from this Kantian perspective, still be a
    self-determined result, one we shall end up imposing on ourselves,
    rather than simply discovering.  And this means that such a
    proposal or historical event will simply re-open the central
    modern philosophical question: by what criterion should a
    collective self-determination occur, a criterion we cannot be said
    to “share” by being human, or to “find” inscribed in Platonic
    heaven?

Aspects of this radical autonomy are incompatible with the previous
argument, which has two possible readings in this context:

  * Human autonomy is thwarted by Nature, which forces us to engage in
    a star-faring mode of civilization against our will.

  * Nature enables the most radical autonomy of all, where our very
    existence is self-determined as a matter of will.

The first reading assumes that a star-faring mode of civilization is
not something we would freely choose if, somehow, the accompanying
existential threat could be removed.  But neither reading supports the
modern outlook, at least as related above.  The total
self-determination of “what to accept as evidence about the nature of
things”, and the general indifference to imperatives of Nature and
“technological success or failure” are at odds with a form of autonomy
that is so dramatically enabled (even forced) by Nature and so
demanding of technological success in response.

Pippin continues:

    This [re-opening of the “central modern philosophical question”]
    means the appropriate question at issue (asked many, many times
    after Kant) becomes whether such a subject can be so radically
    independent or self-determining, and especially whether such
    self-legislation can be said to be rational, whether its results
    can be said to apply universally to any agent attempting such
    critical freedom, all because the results are what such an agent
    “would himself determine.”  On the account I present, Hegel best
    realizes such a project, or most successfully rejects Kant's
    inconsistent qualifications on such an enterprise, and attempts to
    think it through to its conclusion, and Nietzsche represents, in
    effect, Hegel's most problematic opponent, the thinker who best
    raises the question of the whole possibility and even desirability
    of such a “self-reassurance,” a self-conscious justification...

                            . . .

The remainder of the essay has yet to be drafted.  Next argument to
outline: Hegel sees autonomy as essentially collective and historical.
This fits remarkably well with the contempory technology of consensus
building based on evolving populations of text, discussion of
differences and continuous vote shifting.  Interpreting Hegel's
phenomenology in that technical context ought to render it, and the
branches of Western philosophy that derive from it, as serviceable for
technological theory.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/