Ben Goertzel and Giulio Prisco, both Fellows at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technology, articulate a “philosophy” known as Cosmism. The IEET has been posting Goertzel’s musings on Cosmism on the blog and, save the incoherent ramblings of a few of Goertzel’s obsequious genuflectors, that’s about all the attention the project has received. For a long time now, I’ve been reading both Goertzel’s blog proper as well as the posts and comments on the IEET and have been deeply conflicted as to how to respond. I have a solid foundation in philosophy, science, and religion. To say that I am part of a select group of people uniquely situated to comprehend and judge where Goertzel is trying to go with Cosmism is not overstatement of the facts.
But I struggled. I read post after post and simply could not find a coherent strain of philosophy. Citations to earlier philosophers were non-existent and the rhetorical and logical quality of any given post was dubious at best, atrocious at worst. Yet Goertzel wrote with such confidence and, so far as I could tell, no one had really challenged his assertions or beliefs that I doubted myself. Maybe I was the idiot, too simple to grasp the complex nature of the argument. And then it happened:
Cosmism is a philosophy that has more in common with The Secret and The Purpose Driven Life than it does with Critique of Pure Reason. The arguments and examples used are so artfully facile, so empty and baseless that they actually unhinge the reader, causing an intellectual crisis where a reasonably smart person comes to doubt anyone could articulate something so preposterous. Ben Goertzel is the Sarah Palin of the futurist and philosophy community. There is nothing to engage, nothing to grasp onto, no warranted arguments or justified statements, just New Age gibberish, mysticism derived from cherry-picked pragmatism and idealism, and a moving target core that prevents any real criticism from occurring.
Cosmism is unbelievable garbage. As it stands, that is.
Now, Goertzel and Prisco are my colleagues at the IEET and both are intelligent men. I challenge either of them to write a boilerplate for Cosmism that does the following.
1. Cites philosophical lineage and explains why antecedent philosophies were insufficient.
2. Doesn’t use cutesy rhetorical questions as the entire basis of argument.
3. Define “justice” “rights” or any such essential philosophical term to show how Cosmism functions as a philosophy.
4. Give us a reason to care. What advantages does Cosmism provide that other philosophies cannot?
I look forward to the responses.
