Freeman Dyson's "The World, The Flesh, and The Devil"
mich...@3comvax.uucp
A great deal of discussion has been taking place in net.space on
Fermi's Paradox ("Where are they?") and on such ideas as Dyson Spheres.
Freeman Dyson is, of course, the internationally recognized physicist
at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and -- in addition
to originating the Dyson Sphere concept -- I believe he has much to
contribute on the subject of Fermi's Paradox as well. To introduce
some of Dyson's ideas into this discussion, I'm herewith submitting
the text of the Third J. D. Bernal Lecture, which Dyson delivered at
Birkbeck College, London, on May 16, 1972. The lecture was printed
for private circulation by Birkbeck College in 1972, and reprinted
as Appendix D in the book *Communication with Extraterrestrial
Intelligence (CETI)*, edited by Carl Sagan, published in 1973
by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.
I've divided the text, in accordance with Dyson's original chapter
headings, into a series of six articles. Because his talk has much
to say on the subject of biology, I am crossposting the series of
articles to net.bio. Because I believe these ideas should be
known to every science fiction lover, I'm also crossposting the
series to net.sf-lovers. Unless the responder specifies otherwise,
however, replies will be directed only to net.space.
*Communications with Extraterrestrial Intelligence*, by the way,
is the proceedings of a conference, held in Soviet Armenia, and
sponsored jointly by the Soviet and American academies of science.
Participants included such notables as I. S. Shklovsky, C. Sagan,
F. D. Drake, P. Morrison, F. Dyson, T. Gold, M. Minsky, G. Stent,
C. Townes, F. H. C. Crick, and many others. It's packed full of
fascinating speculation, and carefully considers the problems in
estimating the probable number of communicating technological
civilizations in the Galaxy. *Very* highly recommended. (Note
that this book is not the same as another book entitled *CETI*
on the same subject -- sorry, I don't recall the author's name.)
I would also like to recommend the recent book by Freeman Dyson
entitled *Weapons and Hope*, which is the most thoughtful and
sympathetic to all points of view discussion of arms control
and the current dilemma for humankind that I've ever read.
Now, on to "The World, The Flesh, and The Devil". Enjoy!
--
Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation "All disclaimers including this one apply"
(408) 970-1835
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|glacier|olhqma}
!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm
When we are a million species spreading through the galaxy,
the question "Can man play God and still stay sane?" will
lose some of its terrors. We shall be playing God, but
only as local deities and not as lords of the universe.
There is safety in numbers. Some of us will become insane,
and rule over empires as crazy as Doctor Moreau's island.
Some of us will shit on the morning star. There will be
conflicts and tragedies. But in the long run, the sane
will adapt and survive better than the insane. Nature's
pruning of the unfit will limit the spread of insanity
among species in the galaxy, as it does among individuals
on earth. Sanity is, in its essence, nothing more than
the ability to live in harmony with nature's laws.
Freeman Dyson, 1979, *Disturbing the Universe*
mich...@3comvax.uucp
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
I. Bernal's Book
*The World, The Flesh and the Devil; and Enquiry into the Future of
the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul*, is the full title of Bernal's
first book which he wrote at the age of 28. Forty years later he said
in a foreward to the second edition, "This short book was the first I
ever wrote. I have a great attachment to it because it contains many
of the seeds of ideas which I have been elaborating throughout my
scientific life. It still seems to me to have validity in its own
right." It must have been a consolation to Bernal, crippled and
incapacitated in the last years of his life, to know that this work
of his spring-time was again being bought and read by a new generation
of young readers.
Bernal's book begins with these words: "There are two futures, the
future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never
learnt to separate them." I do not know of any finer opening sentence
of a work of literature in English. Bernal's modest claim that his
book "still seems to have validity in its own right" holds good in
1972 as it did in 1968. Enormous changes have occurred since he wrote
the book in 1929, both in science and in human affairs. It would be
miraculous if nothing in it had become dated or superseded by the
events of the last forty years. But astonishingly little of it has
proved to be wrong or irrelevant to our present concerns.
I decided that the best way I can do honor to Bernal in this lecture
is to use his book as a point of departure for my own speculations
about the future of mankind. I shall not expound or criticize the
book in detail. I hope that much of what I shall say will be fresh
and will go in some directions beyond Bernal's horizons. But it will
be obvious to those of my audience who have read Bernal that my ideas
are deeply influenced by him. To those of you who have not read
Bernal I hope that I may provide a stimulus to do so.
Bernal saw the future as a struggle of the rational side of man's
nature against three enemies. The first enemy he called the World,
meaning scarcity of material goods, inadequate land, harsh climate,
desert, swamp, and other physical obstacles which condemn the majority
of mankind to lives of poverty. The second enemy he called the Flesh,
meaning the defects in man's physiology that expose him to disease,
cloud the clarity of his mind, and finally destroy him by senile
deterioration. The third enemy he called the Devil, meaning the
irrational forces in man's psychological nature that distort his
perceptions and lead him astray with crazy hopes and fears, overriding
the feeble voice of reason. Bernal had faith that the rational soul
of man would ultimately prevail over these enemies. But he did not
foresee cheap or easy victories. In each of these struggles, he saw
hope of defeating the enemy only if mankind is prepared to adopt
extremely radical measures.
Briefly summarized, the radical measures which Bernal prescribed were
the following. To defeat the World, the greater part of the human
species will leave this planet and go to live in innumerable freely
floating colonies scattered through outer space. To defeat the Flesh,
humans will learn to replace failing organs with artificial substitutes
until we become an intimate symbiosis of brain and machine. To defeat
the Devil, we shall first reorganize society along scientific lines,
and later learn to exercise conscious intellectual control over our
moods and emotional drives, intervening directly in the affective
functions of our brains with technical means yet to be discovered.
This summary is a crude oversimplification of Bernal's discussion.
He did not imagine that these remedies would provide a final solution
to the problems of humanity. He well knew that every change in the
human situation will create new problems and new enemies of the
rational soul. He stopped where he stopped because he could not see
any farther. His chapter on "The Flesh" ends with the words: "That
may be an end or a beginning, but from here it is out of sight."
How much that was out of sight to Bernal in 1929 can we see from the
vantage point of 1972? The first and most obvious difference between
1929 and 1972 is that we have now a highly vocal and well-organized
opposition to the further growth of the part that technology plays in
human affairs. The social prophets of today look upon technology as
a destructive rather than a liberating force. In 1972 it is highly
unfashionable to believe as Bernal did that the colonization of space,
the perfection of artificial organs and the mastery of brain physiology
are the keys to man's future. Young people in tune with the mood of
the times regard space as irrelevant, and they consider ecology to be
the only branch of science that is ethically respectable. However, it
would be wrong to imagine that Bernal's ideas were more in line with
popular views in 1929 than they are in 1972. Bernal was never a man
to swim with the tide. Technology was unpopular in 1929 because it
was associated in people's minds with the gas warfare of the first
World War, just as now it is unpopular by association with Hiroshima
and the defoliation of Vietnam. In 1929 the dislike of technology was
less noisy than today but no less real. Bernal understood that his
proposals for the remaking of man and society flew in the teeth of
deeply entrenched human instincts. He did not on that account weaken
or compromise his statement. He believed that a rational soul would
ultimately come to accept his vision of the future as reasonable, and
that for him was enough. He foresaw that mankind might split into two
species, one following the technological path which he described, the
other holding on as best it could to the ancient folkways of natural
living. And he recognized that the dispersion of mankind into the
vastness of space is precisely what is required for such a split of
the species to occur without intolerable strife and social disruption.
The wider perspective which we have gained between 1929 and 1972
concerning the harmful effects of technology affects only the
details and not the core of Bernal's argument.
Another conspicuous difference between 1929 and 1972 is that men have
now visited the moon. Surprisingly, this fact makes little difference
to the plausibility of Bernal's vision of the future. Bernal in 1929
foresaw cheap and massive emigration of human beings from the earth.
He did not know in detail how it should be done. We still do not know
how it should be done. Certainly it will not be done by using the
techniques that took men to the moon in 1969. We know that in
principle the cost in energy or fuel of transporting people from Earth
into space need be no greater than the cost of transporting them from
New York to London. To translate this "in principle" into reality
will require two things: first a great advance in the engineering of
hypersonic aircraft, and second the growth of a traffic massive enough
to permit large economies of scale. It is likely that the Apollo
vehicle bears the same relation to the cheap mass-transportation
space-vehicle of the future as the majestic airship of the 1930s
bears to the Boeing 747 of today. The airship R101 was absurdly
large, beautiful, expensive, and fragile, just like the Apollo
Saturn 5. If this analogy is sound, and I believe it is, we shall
have transportation into space at a reasonable price within about
fifty years from now. But my grounds for believing this are not
essentially firmer than Bernal's were for believing it in 1929.
mich...@3comvax.uucp
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
II. The Double Helix
The decisive change that has enabled us to see farther in 1972 than we
could in 1929 is the advent of molecular biology. Bernal recognized
this in the 1968 foreword to his book, where he speaks of the double
helix as "the greatest and most comprehensive idea in all science."
We now understand the basic principles by which living cells organize
and reproduce themselves. Many mysteries remain, but it is inevitable
that we shall understand the chemical processes of life in full detail,
including the processes of development and differentiation of higher
organisms, within the next century. I consider it also inevitable and
desirable that we shall learn to exploit these processes for our own
purposes. The next century will see a completely new technology
growing out of the mastery of the principles of biology in the same
way as our existing technology grew out of a mastery of the principles
of physics.
The new biological technology may grow in three distinct directions.
Probably all three will be followed and will prove fruitful for
particular purposes. The first direction is the one that has been
chiefly discussed by biologists who feel responsibility for the human
consequences of their work; they call it "genetic surgery." The idea
is that we shall be able to read the base-sequence of the DNA in a
human sperm or egg-cell, run the sequence through a computer which will
identify deleterious genes or mutations, and then by micromanipulation
patch harmless genes into the sequence to replace the bad ones. It
might also be possible to add to the DNA genes conferring various
characteristics to the resulting individual. This technology will
be difficult and dangerous, and its use will raise severe ethical
problems. Jacques Monod in his recent book *Chance and Necessity*
sweeps all thought of it aside with his customary dogmatic certitude.
"There are," he says, "occasional promises of remedies expected from
the current advances in molecular genetics. This illusion, spread by
a few superficial minds, had better be disposed of." Although I have
a great respect for Jacques Monod, I still dare to brave his scorn by
stating my belief that genetic surgery has an important part to play
in man's future. But I share the prevailing view of biologists that
we must be exceedingly careful in interfering with the human genetic
material. The interactions between the thousands of genes in a human
cell are so exquisitely complicated that a computer program labeling
genes "good" or "bad" will be adequate to deal only with the grossest
sort of defect. There are strong arguments for declaring a moratorium
on genetic surgery for the next hundred years, or until we understand
human genetics vastly better than we do now.
Leaving aside genetic surgery applied to humans, I foresee that the
coming century will place in our hands two other forms of biological
technology which are less dangerous but still revolutionary enough
to transform the conditions of our existence. I count these new
technologies as powerful allies in the attack on Bernal's three
enemies. I give them the names "biological engineering" and "self-
reproducing machinery." Biological engineering means the artificial
synthesis of living organisms designed to fulfill human purposes.
Self-reproducing machinery means the imitation of the function and
reproduction of a living organism with nonliving materials, a computer
program imitating the function of DNA and a miniature factory imitating
the functions of protein molecules. After we have attained a complete
understanding of the principles of organization and development of a
simple multicellular organism, both of these avenues of technological
exploitation should be open to us.
mich...@3comvax.uucp
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
III. Biological Engineering
I would expect the earliest and least controversial triumphs of
biological engineering to be extensions of the art of industrial
fermentation. When we are able to produce microorganisms equipped
with enzyme systems tailored to our own design, we can use such
organisms to perform chemical operations with far greater delicacy
and economy than present industrial practices allow. For example,
oil refineries would contain a variety of bugs designed to metabolize
crude petroleum into the precise hydrocarbon stereo-isomers which are
needed for various purposes. One tank would contain the n-octane
bug, another the benzene bug, and so on. All the bugs would contain
enzymes metabolizing sulphur into elemental form, so that pollution
of the atmosphere by sulphurous gases would be completely controlled.
The management and operation of such fermentation tanks on a vast
scale would not be easy, but the economic and social rewards are so
great that I am confident we shall learn how to do it. After we have
mastered the biological oil refinery, more important applications of
the same principles will follow. We shall have factories producing
specific foodstuffs biologically from cheap raw materials, and
sewage-treatment plants converting our wastes efficiently into
usable solids and pure water. To perform these operations we shall
need an armamentarium of many species of microorganisms trained to
ingest and excrete the appropriate chemicals. And we shall design
into the metabolism of these organisms the essential property of
self-liquidation, so that when deprived of food they disappear by
cannibalizing one another. They will not, like the bacteria that
feed on our sewage in today's technology, leave their rotting
carcasses behind to make a sludge only slightly less noxious
than the mess they have eaten.
If these expectations are fulfilled, the advent of biological
technology will help enormously in the establishment of patterns of
industrial development with which human beings can live in health and
comfort. Oil refineries need not stink. Rivers need not be sewers.
However, there are many environmental problems which the use of
artificial organisms in enclosed tanks will not touch. For example,
the fouling of the environment by mining and by abandoned automobiles
will not be reduced by building cleaner factories. The second step in
biological engineering, after the enclosed biological factory, is to
let artificial organisms loose into the environment. This is
admittedly a more dangerous and problematical step than the first.
The second step should be taken only when we have a deep understanding
of its ecological consequences. Nevertheless the advantages which
artificial organisms offer in the environmental domain are so great
that we are unlikely to forego their use forever.
The two great functions which artificial organisms promise to perform
for us when let loose upon the earth are mining and scavenging. The
beauty of a natural landscape undisturbed by man is largely due to the
fact that the natural organisms in a balanced ecology are excellent
miners and scavengers. Mining is mostly done by plants and
microorganisms extracting minterals from water, air, and soil. For
example, it has been recently discovered that organisms in the ground
mine ammonia and carbon monoxide from air with high efficiency. To the
scavengers we owe the fact that a natural forest is not piled as high
with dead birds as one of our junk yards with dead cars. Many of the
worst offenses of humanbeings against natural beauty are due to our
incompetence in mining and scavenging. Natural organisms know how to
mine and scavenge effectively in a natural environment. In a man-made
environment, neither they nor we know how to do it. But there is no
reason why we should not be able to design artificial organisms that
are adaptable enough to collect our raw materials and dispose of our
refuse in an environment that is a careful mixture of natural and
artificial.
A simple example of a problem that an articial organism could solve is
the eutrophication of lakes. At present many lakes are being ruined
by excessive growth of algae feeding on high levels of nitrogen or
phosphorus in the water. The damage could be stopped by an organism
that would convert nitrogen to molecular form or phosphorus to an
insoluble solid. Alternatively and preferably, an organism could
be designed to divert the nitrogen and phosphorus into a food chain
culminating in some species of palatable fish. To control and harvest
the mineral resources of the lake in this way will in the long run be
more feasible than to maintain artificially a state of "natural"
barrenness.
The articial mining organisms would not operate in the style of human
miners. Many of them would be designed to mine the ocean. For
example, oysters might extract gold from seawater and secrete golden
pearls. A less poetic but more practical possibility is the artificial
coral that build a reef rich in copper or magnesium. Other mining
organisms would burrow like earthworms into mud and clay, concentrating
in their bodies the ores of aluminum or tin or iron, and excreting the
ores in some manner convenient for human harvesting. Almost every raw
material necessary for our existence can be mined from ocean, air or
clay, without digging deep into the earth. Where conventional mining
is necessary, artificial organisms can still be useful for digesting
and purifying the ore.
Not much imagination is needed to foresee the effectiveness of
artificial organisms as scavengers. A suitable microorganism could
convert the dangerous organic mercury in our rivers and lakes to a
harmless insoluble solid. We could make good use of an organism
with a consuming appetite for polyvinyl chloride and similar plastic
materials which now litter beaches all over the earth. Conceivably
we may produce an animal specifically designed for chewing up dead
automobiles. But one may hope that the automobile in its present
form will become extinct before it needs to be incorporated into an
artificial foodchain. A more serious and permanent role for scavenging
organisms is the removal of trace quantities of radioactivity from the
environment. The three most hazardous radioactive elements produced
in fission reactors are strontium, cesium, and plutonium. These
elements have long half-lives and will inevitably be released in small
quantities so long as mankind uses nuclear fission as an energy source.
The long-term hazard of nuclear energy would be notably reduced if we
had organisms designed to gobble up these three elements from water or
soil and convert them into indigestible form. Fortunately, none of
these three elements is essential to our body chemistry, and it
therefore does us no harm if they are made indigestible.
mich...@3comvax.uucp
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
IV. Big Trees
I have spoken about the two first steps of biological engineering.
The first will transform our industry and the second will transform
our earth-bound ecology. It is now time to speak of the third step,
which is the colonization of space. I believe in fact that biological
engineering is the essential tool which will make Bernal's dream of
the expansion of mankind in space a practical possibility.
First I have to clear away a few popular misconcpetions about space
as a habitat. It is generally considered that planets are important.
Except for Earth, they are not. Mars is waterless, and the others are
for various reasons basically inhospitable to man. It is generally
considered that beyond the sun's family of planets there is absolute
emptiness extending for light years until you come to another star.
In fact it is likely that space around the solar system is populated
by huge numbers of comets, small worlds a few miles in diameter, rich
in water and the other chemicals essential to life. We see one of
these comets only when it happens to suffer a random perturbation of
its orbit which sends it plunging close to the sun. It seems that
roughly one comet per year is captured into the region near the sun,
where it eventually evaporates and disintegrates. If we assume that
the supply of distant comets is sufficient to sustain this process
over the thousands of millions of years that the solar system has
existed, then the total population of comets loosely attached to the
sun must be numbered in the thousands of millions. The combined
surface area of these comets is then a thousand or ten thousand times
that of Earth. I conclude from these facts that comets, not planets,
are the major potential habitat of life in space. If it were true
that other stars have as many comets as the sun, it then would follow
that comets pervade our entire Galaxy. We have no evidence either
supporting or contradicting this hypothesis. If true, it implies
that our Galaxy is a much friendlier place for interstellar travelers
than it is popularly supposed to be. The average distance between
habitable oases in the desert of space is not measured in light years,
but is of the order of a light day or less.
I propose to you then an optimistic view of the Galaxy an an abode of
life. Countless millions of comets are out there, amply supplied with
water, carbon, and nitrogen, the basic constituents of living cells.
We see when they fall close to the sun that they contain all the
common elements necessary to our existence. They lack only two
essential requirements for human settlement, namely warmth and air.
And now biological engineering will come to our rescue. We shall
learn how to grow trees on comets.
To make a tree grow in airless space by the light of a distant sun is
basically a problem of redesigning the skin of its leaves. In every
organism the skin is the crucial part which must be most delicately
tailored to the demands of the environment. The skin of a leaf in
space must satisfy four requirements. It must be opaque to far-
ultraviolet radiation to protect the vital tissues from radiation
damage. It must be impervious to water. It must transmit visible
light to the organs of photosynthesis. It must have extremely low
emissivity for far-infrared radiation, so that it can limit loss of
heat and keep itself from freezing. A tree whose leaves possess such
a skin should be able to take root and flourish upon any comet as near
to the sun as the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. Farther out than
Saturn the sunlight is too feeble to keep a simple leaf warm, but
trees can grow at far greater distances if they provide themselves with
compound leaves. A compound leaf would consist of a photosynthetic
part which is able to keep itself warm, together with a convex mirror
part which itself remains cold but focuses concentrated sunlight upon
the photosynthetic part. It should be possible to program the genetic
instructions of a tree to produce such leaves and orient them correctly
toward the sun. Many existing plants possess structures more
complicated than this.
Once leaves can be made to function in space, the remaining parts
of a tree -- trunk, branches, and roots -- do not present any great
problems. The branches must not freeze, and therefore the bark must
be a superior heat insulator. The roots will penetrate and gradually
melt the frozen interior of the comet, and the tree will build its
substance from the materials that the roots find there. The oxygen
which the leaves manufacture must not be exhaled into space; instead
it will be transported down to the roots and released into the regions
where men will live and take their ease among the tree trunks. One
question still remains. How high can a tree on a comet grow? The
answer is surprising. On any celestial body whose diameter is of the
order of ten miles or less, the force of gravity is so weak that a
tree can grow infinitely high. Ordinary wood is strong enough to lift
its own weight to an arbitrary distance from the center of gravity.
This means that from a comet of ten-mile diameter, trees can grow out
for hundreds of miles, collecting the energy of sunlight from an area
thousands of times as large as the area of the comet itself. Seen
from far away, the comet will look like a small potato sprouting an
immense growth of stems and foliage. When man comes to live on the
comets, he will find himself returning to the arboreal existence of
his ancestors.
We shall bring to the comets not only trees but a great variety of
other flora and fauna to create for ourselves an environment as
beautiful as ever existed on Earth. Perhaps we shall teach our
plants to make seeds which will sail out across the ocean of space to
propagate life upon comets still unvisited by man. Perhaps we shall
start a wave of life which will spread from comet to comet without end
until we have achieved the greening of the Galaxy. That may be an end
or a beginning, as Bernal said, but from here it is out of sight.
mich...@3comvax.uucp
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
V. Self-Reproducing Machinery
In parallel with our exploitation of biological engineering, we may
achieve an equally profound industrial revolution by following the
alternative route of self-reproducing machinery. Self-reproducing
machines are devices which have the multiplying and self-organizing
capabilities of living organisms but are built of metal and computers
instead of protoplasm and brains. It was the mathematician John
von Neumann who first demonstrated that self-reproducing machines are
theoretically possible and sketched the logical principles underlying
their construction. The basic components of a self-reproducing machine
are precisely analogous to those of a living cell. The separation
of function between genetic material (DNA) and enzymatic machinery
(protein) in a cell corresponds exactly to the separation between
software (computer programs) and hardware (machine tools) in a self-
reproducing machine.
I assume that in the next century, partly imitating the processes
of life and partly improving on them, we shall learn to build self-
reproducing machines programmed to multiply, differentiate, and
coordinate their activities as skillfully as the cells of a higher
organism such as a bird. After we have constructed a single egg
machine and supplied it with the appropriate computer program, the
egg and its progeny will grow into an industrial complex capable
of performing economic tasks of artibrary magnitude. It can build
cities, plant gardens, construct electric power-generating facilities,
launch space ships, or raise chickens. The overall programs and their
execution will remain always under human control.
The effects of such a powerful and versatile technology on human
affairs are not easy to foresee. Used unwisely, it offers a rapid road
to ecological disaster. Used wisely, it offers a rapid alleviation of
all the purely economic difficulties of mankind. It offers to rich and
poor nations alike a rate of growth of economic resources so rapid that
economic constraints will no longer be dominant in determining how
people are to live. In some sense this technology will constitute a
permanent solution of man's economic problems. Just as in the past,
when economic problems cease to be pressing, we shall find no lack of
fresh problems to take their place.
It may well happen that on Earth, for aesthetic or ecological reasons,
the use of self-reproducing machines will be strictly limited and the
methods of biological engineering will be used instead wherever this
alternative is feasible. For example, self-reproducing machines could
proliferate in the oceans and collect minerals for man's use, but we
might prefer to have the same job done more quietly by corals and
oysters. If economic needs were no longer paramount, we could afford
a certain loss of efficiency for the sake of a harmonious environment.
Self-reproducing machines may therefore play on Earth a subdued and
self-effacing role.
The true realm of self-reproducing machinery will be in those regions
of the solar system that are inhospitable to man. Machines built of
iron, aluminum, and silicon have no need of water. They can flourish
and proliferate on the moon or on Mars or among the asteroids, carrying
out gigantic industrial projects at no risk to the earth's ecology.
They will feed upon sunlight and rock, needing no other raw material
for their construction. They will build in space the freely floating
cities that Bernal imagined for human habitation. They will bring
oceans of water from the satellites of the outer planets, where it is
to be had in abundance, to the inner parts of the solar system where
it is needed. Ultimately this water will make even the deserts of
Mars bloom, and men will walk there under the open sky breathing air
like the air of Earth.
Taking a long view into the future, I foresee a division of the solar
system into two domains. The inner domain, where sunlight is abundant
and water scarce, will be the domain of great machines and governmental
enterprises. Here self-reproducing machines will be obedient slaves,
and men will be organized in giant bureaucracies. Outside and beyond
the sunlit zone will be the outer domain, where water is abundant and
sunlight scarce. In the outer domain lie the comets where trees and
men will live in smaller communities, isolated from each other by huge
distances. Here men will find once again the wilderness that they have
lost on Earth. Groups of people will be free to live as they please,
independent of governmental authorities. Outside and away from the
sun, they will be able to wander forever on the open frontier that
this planet no longer possesses.
mich...@3comvax.uucp
Freeman J. Dyson
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, New Jersey
VI. Devils and Pilgrims
I have spoken much about how we may deal with the World and the Flesh,
and I have said nothing about how we may deal with the Devil. Bernal
also had difficulties with the Devil. He admitted in the 1968 foreword
to his book that the chapter on the Devil was the least satisfactory
part of it. The Devil will always find new varieties of human folly
to frustrate our too rational dreams.
Instead of pretending that I have an antidote to the Devil's wiles, I
will end this lecture with a discussion of the human factors that most
obviously stand in the way of our achieving the grand designs which I
have been describing. When mankind is faced with an opportunity to
embark on any great undertaking, there are always three main factors
that devilishly hamper our efforts. The first is an inability to
define or agree upon our objectives. The second is an inability to
raise sufficient funds. The third is the fear of a disastrous failure.
All three factors have been conspicuously plaguing the United States
space program in recent years. It is a remarkable testimony to the
vitality of the program that these factors have still not succeeded
in bringing it to a halt. When we stand before the far greater
enterprises of biological technology and space colonization that lie
in our future, the same three factors will certainly rise again to
confuse and delay us.
I want now to demonstrate to you by a historical example how these
human factors may be overcome. I shall quote from William Bradford,
one of the Pilgrim Fathers, who wrote a book called *Of Plimoth
Plantation* describing the history of the first English settlement in
Massachusetts. Bradford was governor of the Plymouth colony for 28
years. He began to write his history ten years after the settlement.
His purpose in writing it was, as he said, "That their children may
see with what difficulties their fathers wrestled in going through
these things in their first beginnings. As also that some use may be
made hereof in after times by others in such like weighty employments."
Bradford's work remained unpublished for two hundred years, but he
never doubted that he was writing for the ages.
Here is Bradford describing the problem of man's inability to agree
upon objectives. The date is Spring 1620, the same year in which the
Pilgrims were to sail.
But as in all businesses the acting part is most difficult,
especially where the work of many agents must concur, so was
it found in this. For some of those that should have gone in
England fell off and would not go; other merchants and friends
that had offered to adventure their moneys withdrew and
pretended many excuses; some disliking they went not to
Guiana; others again would adventure nothing except they went
to Virginia. Some again (and those that were most relied on)
fell in utter dislike with Virginia and would do nothing if
they went thither. In the midst of these distractions, they
of Leyden who had put off their estates and laid out their
moneys were brought into a great strait, fearing what issue
these things would come to.
The next quotation deals with the perennial problem of funding.
Here Bradford is quoting a letter written by Robert Cushman, the man
responsible for buying provisions for the Pilgrims' voyage. He writes
from Dartmouth on 17 August 1620, desperately late in the year, months
after the ships ought to have started.
And Mr. Martin, he said he never received no money on those
conditions; he was not beholden to the merchants for a pin,
they were bloodsuckers, and I know not what. Simple man, he
indeed never made any conditions with the merchants, nor ever
spake with them. But did all that money fly to Hampton, or
was it his own? Who will go and lay out money so rashly and
lavishly as he did, and never know how he comes by it or on
what conditions? Secondly, I told him of the alteration long
ago and he was content, but now he domineers and said I had
betrayed them into the hands of slaves; he is not beholden to
them, he can set out two ships himself to a voyage. When,
good man? He hath but L 50 in and if he should give up his
accounts he would not have a penny left him, as I am persuaded.
Friend, if ever we make a plantation, God works a miracle,
especially considering how scant we shall be of victuals,
and most of all ununited amongst ourselves and devoid of
good tutors and regiment.
My last quotation describes the fear of disaster, as it appeared in
the debate among the Pilgrims over their original decision to go to
America.
Others again, out of their fears, objected against it and
sought to divert from it; alleging many things, and those
neither unreasonable nor improbable; as that it was a great
design and subject to many inconceivable perils and dangers;
as, besides the casualties of the sea (which none can be freed
from), the length of the voyage was such as the weak bodies of
women and other persons worn out with age and travail (as many
of them were) could never be able to endure. And yet if they
should, the miseries of the land which they should be exposed
unto, would be too hard to be borne and likely, some or all of
them together, to consume and utterly to ruinate them. For
there they should be liable to famine and nakedness and the
want, in a manner, of all things. The change of air, diet,
and drinking of water would infect their bodies with sore
sicknesses and grievous diseases. And also those which
should escape or overcome these difficulties should yet be
in continual danger of the savage people, who are cruel,
barbarous and most treacherous, being most furious in their
rage and merciless where they overcome; not being content only
to kill and take away life, but delight to torment men in the
most bloody manner that may be.
I could go on quoting Bradford for hours, but this is not the place to
do so. What can we learn from him? We learn that the three devils of
disunity, shortage of funds, and fear of the unknown are no strangers
to humanity. They have always been with us and will always be with us
whenever great adventures are contemplated. From Bradford we learn
too how they are to be defeated. The Pilgrims used no technological
magic to defeat them. The Pilgrims' victory demanded the full range
of virtues of which human beings under stress are capable; toughness,
courage, unselfishness, foresight, common sense, and good humor.
Bradford would have set at the head of this list the virtue he
considered most important, a faith in Divine Providence.
I end this sermon on a note of disagreement with Bernal. Bernal
believed that we shall defeat the Devil by means of a combination of
socialist organization and applied psychology. I believe that our
best defense will be to rely on the human qualities that have remained
unchanged from Bradford's time to ours. If we are wise, we shall
preserve intact these qualities of the human species through the
centuries to come, and they will see us safely through the many crises
of destiny that surely await us. But I will let Bernal have the last
word. Bernal's last word is a question which William Bradford must
often have pondered, but would not have known how to answer, as he
watched the first generation of native born New Englanders depart
from the ways of their fathers.
We hold the future still timidly, but perceive it for the
first time, as a function of our own action. Having seen it,
are we to turn away from something that offends the very
nature of our earliest desires, or is the recognition of
our new powers sufficient to change those desires into the
service of the future which they will have to bring about?