Nikolai Fedorov

Discussion

Abou Farman:

"There has also been recent engagement from a number of artists and writers with another Russian utopian thinker, Nikolai Fedorov. Admired by Tolstoy as well as a host of revolutionaries and writers, Fedorov put his faith in reason and science, but was also a religious man, taken by the question of purpose—the title of his book, after all, was What was Man Created For? The Philosophy of the Common Task (1990). Fedorov’s radical view of progress also required the unity of humanity and the universe through the human transformation of matter—to control not only “celestial bodies” but the very “composition of matter.” For one, this would transform “the blind force which brings hunger, disease and death” into a “life-giving force.” More importantly, it would transform “chaos” into “cosmos”—that is, an indifferent and meaningless arrangement of matter into a meaningful one. Ultimately, this also means that humanity must defeat death, which is tantamount to meaninglessness. Indeed, science must be directed at “resurrection,” for not until all the dead are brought back to life will the purpose of human activity and the cosmos coincide in a fully meaningful way." (http://blog.castac.org/2015/09/socialist-scientists/)