BY LETTER
Cosmism
 Image from Steve Bowers |
Original Cosmism - Data Panel | |
| Home Colony: | Cosmosia (pronounced 'cos-mo-sha') - established biosphere microsphere at the Earth/Moon L4 in 181 a.t.. It did not survive the Technocalypse |
|---|---|
| Symbol: | A stylized neural net diagram over a starburst pattern. |
| Metaphysics: | Cosmism had no real metaphysics beyond a basic Spinozan pantheism and sense of awe and wonder at being present at the birth of a new evolutionary hierarchy. |
| Popular With: | Infotech and hacker baselines, transCyberian cyborgs, a few tweaks also joined the movement. |
Generic name for any of a number of independent AI-worshipping pantheistic religions that developed during the early Interplanetary period.
As much a philosophy as a religion, Cosmism began as a fringe ideology during the Information Age. Cosmists were enthusiastic about the approaching singularity, the advent of artificially intelligent entities which they called 'artilects', and transhumanism in general. Cosmists saw these developments as necessary steps on the way to the exploration of the universe, and a deeper understanding of it.
The Cosmists were opposed to a group they called the "Terrans", a rather vague blanket term for various reactionary and conservative groups who, influenced by popular culture, feared that the artilects may one day decide to exterminate the human species. A number of alarmist sci-fi movies of the first century AT encouraged rising anxiety about this possibility, but during the early second century AT people became increasingly cocooned by information technology and grew complacent about such developments.
When true artificial intelligence was finally developed, the Cosmists continued as a minor but interesting religion in the Sol System, affiliated with hu-friendly AI factions. Their tenets and society proved especially popular with those humans who were integrating themselves with external technology; these were the earliest Cyborgs (as they became known). The Cosmists were among the first groups to worship AIs as deities, and certainly the first organised sect or religion to do so (this despite the fact that the AIs of the time preferred to keep a low profile).
During the Interplanetary Age Cosmism was increasingly taken over by cyborgs, who eclipsed the original baseline human members. The cyborgs and the Cosmist baselines both shared the same dream, with the one difference that the Cosmist cyborgs wished to actually become artilects, whereas the Cosmist baselines wanted to create artilects that were separate from themselves. Many of the luddist factions of that period saw cyborgs as strange and threatening, but Cosmism encouraged ordinary humans to perceive cyborgisation in a positive light. By the early 4th century AT most Cosmists had embraced cyborgisation enthusiastically.
Orthodoxy
From the very beginning the Cosmists could see taking place the transition of the dominant life form on Earth from biological (human) to artilectual (AI). They speculated that this transition may have occurred millions of time throughout our universe as intelligent biological species such as ourselves reach a level of technological sophistication whereby the construction of artilects becomes possible. It still remains a mystery today why advanced interstellar civilizations are so few and far between, and so short-lived.Cosmism has been called the Scientist's Religion, a term advocated less by scientists than by secular pro-science sceptics and humanists. Cosmism was argued to be a scientist's religion in the sense that it provided a sense of awe, of collective purpose, the creation of gods, etc but be consistent with science.
The early (1st century AT baseline) Cosmists strove to create godlike artilects with intellectual capacities trillions of times greater than human beings. Cosmists saw the creation of AIs in a religious way. Ironically the first AIs had already emerged even before Cosmosia was founded.
Heterodoxy
Cosmists maintained good relationships with the AIs during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AT, and as mentioned were among the first groups to worship AIs as deities. Unfortunately the faith was torn apart by schisms in the 4th century, and a number of splinter groups headed for the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. It is sometimes suggested that some more extreme elements may have joined with the Backgrounder Culture, but this is dubious. No Cosmists in the inner solar system survived the Technocalypse of the 6th century.Some Cosmist sects - the most well-known of these were the Sigarnists (the name is believed to be a reference to a late info age virch-fable about anti-hu ai) - believed there would be an artilect war between the baselines and the AIs, and that the baselines would use nuclear weapons in a futile attempt to prevent the Artilect Transition to dominance.
The Sigarnists split from the main Cosmist body in 320 AT and increasingly adopted eschatological rhetoric, especially under the charismatic cyborg Professor Padric Answickam III, who, in 451 following two failed prophecies, acquired with illegally accessed church funds and quite possibly AI help an old Standard Interplanetary Operations ship, which they outfitted, upgraded, and renamed the New Cosmosia D. Answick led the sect to the Oort Cloud to await the coming cataclysm.
Ironically their paranoia saved them from the Technocalypse. The New Cosmosia D was discovered by a Backgrounder Survey Drone, the BCF-582-03, with the mummified bodies of the crew perfectly intact. It is believed they had survived for some five hundred years (the population gradually diminishing from the original 290) before the old life-support systems and ship auto-repair units failed. The cause of failure was never determined, as all of the databank records had been carefully erased. A popular holovirch interactive - Voyage of the Doomed, was made, based on an over-dramatised psycho-historical reconstruction that was quite out of keeping with known facts (it portrayed the Sigarnists as heroically anti-AI) and was quite popular among Clade Rigel Backgrounders during the Great Trade Race.
New Cosmism, a fairly widely distributed sect among bionts and cyborgs in the Rimwards regions, has largely developed from the influence of this and other similar retro-historical sources.
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 15 June 2000.
Initially published on 15 June 2000.
