Civilization is less than 50 years old - the forecast of the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

From an interview with Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov (1929-2017), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Arnis Ritups and Uldis Tironsu. The conversations took place in 2013 and 2015. The full text of the conversations can be read on the Rigas Laiks website.

How would you describe your relationship to God?

- I regard God as a conventional designation of a certain higher principle, which contributed to the organization of biological evolution. That is, God did not directly create man, but what is called the word "God" is the one who organized the development of this entire universe, organized evolution in such a way that in the end we appeared. Is there any feedback? If I want to turn to God, can I expect that he will answer me? The question has no specific answer, but there are hypotheses. My hypothesis is that some directional effects of the higher mind on individual people are not excluded, this is quite possible.

Is this of interest to the highest beginning? I think that something was reported to Einstein about the structure of the universe - otherwise it is impossible to understand the creation of the theory of relativity. It's not very clear to me if the source of the post was interested in what Einstein did with it. For example, when Einstein wrote a letter to the President of the United States, because of which the atomic bomb was detonated, it is unlikely that this act was controlled by some god. And the creation of the theory of relativity, I think, was controlled. The degree of human freedom is quite high due to the lack of feedback. It seems to me that a prayer addressed to God does not fit into my hypothesis. I do not exclude at all that we are talking about a very developed civilization, completely differently arranged than ours.

In terms of a science fiction novel, one could say that this is a civilization that is, say, in another universe. And there are many universes, according to modern physics. This civilization could organize biological evolution in our universe. But to assume that this civilization is interested in each of us, in my opinion, is a strong exaggeration. I've been interested in ants since childhood, they are very similar to us! They have some achievements of material culture more than ours. In terms of the number of species, they have more domestic animals and plants than we do. Anthills are created in a much more ingenious way than our cities. They have a very long evolution. If we do so little with ants, bees or termites, which generally live like another civilization on earth, why should we think that some large living creatures will be interested in us? I'm not even talking about the most important beings, this superintelligence. But the superintelligence must be respected.

Did this higher principle tell you something?

- Several times in my life, but not often.

Could you share?

- I think it's done statistically. Probably, quite a few people in each generation in different countries receive some information, but very little of it reaches the addressee. Most people believe that it was a dream, a vision. Someone rejects it, someone thinks that he himself understood. For the past 30 years, I have been worried about the likelihood of human death. We did not have time to discuss this properly with Pyatigorsky, but he was much more optimistic than me. I quite often and absolutely realistically see a threat, but I do not see the very end, I do not see the apocalypse. Maybe I shouldn't see him. But I see development and see that at some distance there is a monstrous threat.

Where does it come from?

- Immediately from several sources. According to biological and geological data, the cosmic impact on the Earth occurred about five times. Science told me this. For the last, fifth time, dinosaurs were destroyed. Each time during biological evolution, about 90 percent of all living things were destroyed, and the rest began to move in the other direction. When the dinosaurs were destroyed, further development towards large lizards did not occur, but as a distant result, primates appeared, and then people. The origin of man is mysterious. In this sense, those who say that science and religion are opposite are wrong.

In fact, science does not have any objective data on how a person arose. Modern genetics gives nothing. I have been doing this quite a lot, but nothing is clear. As for the threat, elementary impacts from space are possible - well, at least meteorites. Various troubles on Earth are possible, of which atomic war is the simplest. In fact, multiple Chernobyls will give the same result. Well, there are a whole host of other things related to hunger that starts in Africa. Each of these points allows for a possible formulation and the possibility of combating it.

I participate in the work of one group, we were UN experts in 1994. There are many groups that are trying to develop some alternative ways to reduce the possibility of nuclear contamination, world hunger, population growth, and depletion of energy resources. The Club of Rome in the 60s formulated roughly the same thing. Kapitsa was very worried about this and wrote letters to the government - he was only allowed to print an article. And now the Italians are surprised and say that no one seriously paid attention to the Club of Rome. By the way, they did not receive information from the outside, they simply calculated the end of history on computers.

This is what worries me very much: that in the end we will not be able to convey the information we have accumulated. In this sense, our computer civilization is terrible. If you run out of sources of electricity, most of the computer information will die. Our civilization is perhaps the most fragile in history - absolutely no pyramids, no burnt clay, no stones with signs at all. Well, only stones will remain on the graves?

I remembered our conversation with the mathematician Misha Gromov. He said: "Well, you understand that humanity has about 50 years left?"

- Well, that's optimism. I think less.

But I also asked: "Do you see any way out?" He said there was only one small chance left: if humanity reoriented itself from useful to interesting

“That's what scares me. There is a chance that some small part of humanity will be saved. If it is not completely disfigured and irradiated, then its further restoration and relative prolongation is possible. I think this has already happened to humanity one or more times. Now a lot of data is accumulating, and everything suggests that there were indeed several attempts to shift the direction. Roughly speaking, a change is needed from a society that is focused on energy (its extreme form is modern Russian society, which lives only on oil and gas), to a society that is focused on information. Since the real information is about threats, this means that we will begin to understand the threats and respond to them. All this takes time. Moreover, the rates of technical development are very high, and the organizational rates of development are weak.

Do you see any sense in the continuation of humanity?

- I see! I think that humanity has a chance to achieve something and to reach something if it switches to serious things from the trifles that it is still doing.

But is there any goal for this development? Besides, to continue to multiply and die? What is this all for?

- The Universe, according to physics (not religion, but physics asserts!), Was created in such a way that man would be possible in it. This is an anthropic principle. And if this is so, then my question is: why does the universe need a man? I tend to think that a person is needed in order to observe the universe. If we or other intelligent beings did not exist, the universe would be left without an important component. The universe needs to be perceived in some way. It is not interesting that in a huge amount of elementary particles interact with each other, what a longing! But man is designed in such a way that these combinations of particles in atoms, as Eric Adamsons writes, he can smell, he can perceive. These are our opportunities, we use them little! But it is, rather, the basis for poetry, for philosophy.

Could you give some examples of things that would be worth doing?

- You know, at one time I was amazed that some peoples considered the most important profession of a poet. In fact, the perception of beauty can be one of the main goals of cultural development. Dostoevsky had a famous phrase: "Beauty will save the world." This is one of the unique properties of a person - the perception of beauty, the comprehension of harmony and structure. Whatever my late friend Sasha may think, there is still a structure in the world, but it exists in a hidden world. Not only consciousness, but also an essential part of the human psyche is arranged in such a way that it is able to comprehend structure, symmetry, harmony. Why do we have one half of the brain focused on language, and the other on music and painting? I think that this is not only a trace of the past, but also a hope for the future. Here is a genius music, probably, the future brain can still create. But now we do not consider it serious.

That is, it would be worth composing brilliant music?

- And brilliant poetry, and brilliant painting. Our ancestors were engaged in painting in the cave period. I think it was a very happy period in history. One of the very big challenges ahead is the comprehension of the universe as a whole. We don't know if we have any rivals. This is one of the big questions. I formulate it as follows: if there is no second civilization in the Universe, similar to humanity, then the higher principle will give us salvation. And if there are others, then it is quite possible that a competition is actually taking place and we may die due to failure in this competition.

What is the most important thing that you have understood in life?

- I understood the meaning of other people. I realized that other people mean more than you. And life must be built on this. On other people. Not on yourself.