Overview
Threatened by a global pandemic and by climate change, very many people fear we are facing an existential crisis. The Future of Humankind shows why these fears are unfounded and why we should be optimistic about our long-term future. It evaluates current major predictions for our future in three categories: (1) Extinction by natural disasters (including pandemics), by nuclear war or accident, by artificial intelligence, or by population explosion and climate change. (2) Survival by colonizing space or by extending individual healthspans and achieving immortality. (3) Transformation by uploading individual minds to computers or holograms. Although these categories are very different, they have three things in common: (a) They are speculations starting from the then current level of scientific and technological development. (b) They have a very low, if not negligible, probability of being realized; in those cases where specific predictions can be tested against outcomes, all have been disproven. (c) They make the implicit assumption that the future of the human species is determined by the future of individual humans. By contrast, the unique forecast in this book projects into the future the distinct pattern in the scientific evidence of an accelerating cosmic evolutionary process over some 15 billion years revealed in John Hands's previous book, the award-winning COSMOSAPIENS Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe.
Full Product Details
Author: John Hands
Publisher: Castleton Publishing
Imprint: Castleton
ISBN: 9780993371943
ISBN 10: 0993371949
Publication Date: 21 February 2023
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.
Reviews
A treasure trove of research and careful arguments, and a clarion call to action. Prof Denis Noble CBE, FRS, FMedSci, MAE Relevant to every human being; it's majestic. Impossible not to finish. Perry Marshall, author of Evolution 2.0 Projects into the future the pattern of our evolution from the origin of the universe to produce a unique and astonishing forecast. Michael Fossel, author of The Telomerase Revolution Could not be more timely Dr James Le Fanu, author of Why Us?
Author Information
John Hands was trained in science, specializing in chemistry, at the University of London where he had been the first undergraduate President of the Union. He co-authored two research studies and published one book in the social sciences. He also tutored in physics and in management studies for Britain's Open University, was visiting lecturer at the University of North London and then RLF Fellow at University College London where he began more than 10 years writing COSMOSAPIENS. This book was endorsed by leading scientists and philosophers, and won awards and glowing reviews in the national press (see https: //johnhands.com/book/cosmosapiens/ for some examples). It was published in the UK, the USA, Germany, China, Korea, Spain, and Romania. He has also written three novels published in the UK and the USA, one of which was also published in six other countries.
