Transhumanist Wager, The (8 page)

Jethro leaned forward, rallied out
of his passivity, and said, “Are you being serious? That paper was the most
painful thing to write in four years of college. More so because so many others
liked and agreed with your ideas. The entire book was awful, full of moronic
drivel.”

Students moved carefully, edgily in
their seats. This was not how one spoke to the chair of Victoria’s philosophy
department, who the
USA Daily Tribune
named as one of the 100 most
influential people in the world. Especially in light of how even the slightest
positive recommendation from this professor would mean a guaranteed acceptance
to any graduate school in America—or the clinching of a high-profile,
high-paying job.

“An explanation is now due, Mr.
Knights,” the instructor said, trying to remain calm, underscoring the ferocity
growing in him.

“If you insist,” Jethro said, and
sighed. “Your book takes off where St. Augustine finishes. Back in the Dark
Ages, back when toilet paper was still centuries away—let alone a microchip
capable of processing a trillion bytes, or a plutonium-powered robot exploring
Jupiter's moons. It outlines and defends an imagined divinity—worse, a
commercialized Judeo-Christian manifestation—by some fairytale inversion of
tautological proofs that are overly complex, but end up nothing more than
elaborate non sequiturs. I might be able to accept a glorified tale of an
omnipresent force at least as technically plausible. But in the second half of
your book you actually digress to your childhood inklings, literally, and
anthropomorphize an altruistic deity using epistemological jabs of first-order
logic—all intermixed with antediluvian Islamic, Hindu, and animistic maxims
aimed at trying to prop up your various theories. The hodgepodge of verbiage
does nothing but create contradictory pluralism designed to encourage readers
to forgo reason—or perhaps to despise reason altogether. I suspect you did this
all purposefully, knowing book sales would soar if pseudo-intellectuals could
read philosophy without actually thinking. The whole endeavor probably funded
your new convertible Mercedes purchase, which then makes it not such an awful
book anymore, if we take an existential consequentialist perspective.
Still—quite awful.”

Jethro didn't intend to smile, but
he did. “Is that explanation good enough for you, Professor?”

Jethro didn't give a damn about the
university anymore. He was leaving on his sailing trip in two weeks, and
yesterday Francisco Dante had told him a reporter's job at
International
Geographic
could be arranged for him whenever he wanted. The boat would
make a perfect platform for writing articles. Jethro doubted that graduating
from Victoria was even important anymore. And these people sitting in the
classroom with him—well, they were nearly useless to a transhumanist, and would
likely always be. It was a lesson that the town hall forum had irrevocably
taught him.

The professor stared at Jethro,
speechless. He appeared stunned, unsure if Jethro was joking, or maybe drunk or
on drugs. The students in the classroom were also shocked and unsure of what to
think.

“Are you being serious?” the professor
finally uttered.

“Of course, I’m being serious.”

“Are you in your right mind?”

Jethro frowned impatiently. “Of
course, I am—never clearer. Look, Professor, I’m interested in immortality for
me, and how to reach it. I don’t have a need for a god or faith or books like
yours, which philosophize about things that might possibly exist outside
myself—regardless of how eloquent they are, how real they may seem, or what
bestseller list they top. The most succinct way I can say this is: It's a
complete waste of my very valuable time.”

The room remained still long after
Jethro Knights stopped talking. Sunlight peered in through the building’s
antiquated windows, illuminating tiny drifting particles of dust floating in
the air. Someone cleared their throat, and the sound seemed unnaturally loud
and disruptive, piercing the taut silence.

Finally, Professor Rindall’s
twisted expression changed to a chagrined smirk. He started chuckling, a little
too gaily. Some students cautiously joined him. The tension in the room began
melting away.

“Come on, everyone. It’s okay,” he
said. “It’s perfectly okay. This is a philosophy class, after all. We do invite
new ideas here.” He waved his arm gregariously to his students. Twice.

Then, abruptly, Rindall slammed his
fist on the table, sending fear throughout the room. “Just not stupid ones! Or
malevolent ones!” shouted the professor, his expression now furious and aimed
at Jethro.

A heavy, discomforting silence
ensued again, washing over the class. Surprisingly, it was quickly broken from
the other side of the room by Gregory Michaelson. He astonished everyone by
firmly saying, “Jethro, you’re entitled to your own opinions, even when they’re
obviously antisocial. But how can you sit there casting such unfavorable
judgment on one of the greatest living minds on the planet—and his
philosophical magnum opus? That seems absurd, even for you.”

The professor eased, smiling at
Gregory—that smile of bonding with a favorite pupil.

Jethro turned aggressively to
Gregory. “Stay out of it. You’re not the real thing. You and just about
everyone else in this room don’t have a future in philosophy. Your future is in
law, and maybe worse: politics. These classes are just stepping stones to your
BMWs, your fancy parties, your pretense at power in society. For me, this
class, my thesis, and my degree are really about philosophy and how I apply it
to my life. I am a philosopher in the true sense. Not a future law student
thinking about grad admissions and summer internships at Barney &
Fleturstein Law Offices or whatever ambulance-chasing, corporate-suing cheat
shops you're going to end up at. Or worse: brownnosing as a political aide to
Senator So-and-So of whatever loser party they claim to belong to as they
systematically destroy America.”

For an instant, Jethro appeared as
if he might leap out of his chair and attack Gregory. People in the class were
stunned by the fierce response and the escalating tension.

Jethro twisted around in his chair
and said to all of them, “I don’t even know why you people exist or even come
here. Isn’t there a better way to get into law school? Or to go into politics?”

Protectively, the professor walked
in between Jethro and Gregory, bitterly shaking his head. He responded to the
curveball, saying loudly, “They come here, Mr. Knights, for leaving a lasting
mark on the world and its interpretation of the rules society has freely agreed
to follow. They are great minds who drift through the halls of this school and
department, prompted by a higher force. Remember our university motto:
In
luine tuo videbimus lumen
. In Thy light, we shall see light.”

“In Thy light!” said Jethro. “The
lawyers defending that imbecilic group that bombed and murdered those
transhuman scientists in Illinois six weeks ago are former philosophy students
from
this
department. What kind of light is that? It’s screwed up—and we
all know it.”

There was a pause, a moment of
introspection. Then denial. It was easier to change the subject and stay with
the God talk.

“You know,” the professor
swaggered, regaining control of the classroom and speaking pensively, almost to
himself, “I had dinner with the President of the United States and some of our
top senators last week, as I usually do with all our most important alumni once
a year. It was right after the town hall forum. A little informal meal.
Reverend Belinas led us through an eloquent grace before we ate. He spoke of
our belief and feelings for something higher than us, something grander than
us. It was quite moving—and, of course, all very true. You should try it
sometime, Jethro. Open your mind and heart to people, to love, to goodness, to
positive energy, to something more grand and wise than your diminutive self.”

Jethro sat rigid in his seat,
plagued with disbelief—just like Dr. Nathan Cohen at the town hall forum every
time the scientist heard the words “God” or “faith” or “prayer” mentioned.
Jethro was unable to comprehend the irrationally in front of him, surrounding
him, squawking at him. Its form seemed too monstrously idiotic to be authentic.
He uttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” without even knowing he said it.

“No, Jethro, I’m not kidding,” the
professor answered softly and gravely. “I’m not kidding whatsoever.”

Professor Rindall walked back to
his desk and slowly sat down in his chair. He now appeared to be lecturing to a
lost, crippled beast who bewildered and disgusted him. “Regrettably, Jethro, I
think we’re all done considering your paper, your thoughts—and, frankly, even
you altogether. There’s really nothing more to say.”

Rindall looked around the room,
affirming this. “And so, with that, I’m going to ask you to leave now, Mr.
Knights. Leave the class. I didn’t realize your ideas were so—antisocial.
Seeing that you graduate next week, it’s too late to try to stop a man of your
passion and intellect into razing himself. I’ve no choice but to pass you, as
you have completed your assignments. But you’ve no place in this room, on our
last day, with your attitude. And, shall we say, negative energy. Especially,
as I prepare to send goodhearted, righteous-minded pupils into the world to
take on troublemakers just like you. And they will. Oh, they will. They always
have—and they’ve always won.”

Jethro rose, gathered his books,
and walked out, undeterred by the piercing glances around him. The students and
professor stared hard after him, as if watching a man walk off a ship's plank
into the ocean a thousand miles from land. Jethro rode back to the boatyard on
his bike. He thought little of the classroom incident, knowing it wasn't worth
his time to consider. Knowing only that someday he would have to consider
it—and somehow defeat what caused the professor and students to think that way.
There was some mysterious devilish force, not just in that classroom, but
saturating the entire planet and stifling the best potential in the human race,
choking off life’s most core promise. He had clashed with it many times in the
past. But the thing had no obvious form or substance. No clear name with which
to describe it. He only knew it was the same thing that made the town hall
forum an utter failure. Or caused Professor Rindall’s book to be a bestseller.
Or made a wheelchair-bound man prefer faith in God instead of a cure to his
paralysis. Jethro could not define that force yet, but he knew with certainty that
one day he was going to war with it.

Back at his boat, Jethro focused on
how to better strengthen the keel. Over the next two days, he found a solution
and welded in the alterations. Soon he finished the final work on
Contender
and readied it for launch into the sea.

His last duty before he left on his
circumnavigation was to post his thesis,
Rise of the Transhuman Citizen
,
on a popular life extension blog. Whether the world agreed or not, it was time
to cast his ideas directly into the universe. 

Chapter 6

Journeys that illuminate and change
lives are not defined by schedules, money, or agendas—but by experience. Often,
also by outcomes. If ever a journey were to help solidify a man into that which
he wanted to become, was going to become, and had mostly already become, then
Jethro Knights’ circumnavigation qualified.

He left on a drab, cloudy day, the
day of his college graduation, which he didn’t attend and forgot was happening.
He motored past the skyline where two great towers had once stood—built by
science and engineering, destroyed by religion and ignorance—until he reached
the Atlantic, then turned hard starboard. He shot the mainsail out, catching
the wind aft, and aimed the boat towards the Bahamas—his first stop, nearly a
seven-day sail away. He wouldn’t drop anchor until reaching the pink beach of
the famous island of Eleuthera, which he read about with envy years before in
travel magazines.

Afterward, he was off to Haiti,
Jamaica, Honduras, Venezuela, and through the Panama Canal into the Pacific
Ocean. In time he’d go around the African horn, or through other canals and
straights. The way was unknown, which is why it was the correct direction.

Like all great inward journeys,
there was no curriculum. Just the notion he was sojourning around the world,
his eyes open. He knew what he wanted to do with his next fifty years of
life—ensure immortality for himself. This meant fully dedicating it to the
field of transhumanism. But he wasn’t sure exactly
how
he should go
about that. To want to live forever—to become an omnipotender, one after
ultimate power, as he had written in his senior thesis—there must be some
superhuman commitment to it. There must also be some trustworthy and
comprehensive philosophical framework for that intense a pledge. His
philosophy, TEF, still needed much development. It needed extensive, careful
thought so as to be flawless and indisputable. He wanted to make sure he truly
understood it, could thoroughly describe it in his writings, could fully defend
it logically—and could find the best path to achieve it.

He was young, after all. And
surely, whether it be deadly landmines, ferocious storms, or murderous pirates,
he wanted to look life and death in the face, and determine how best to be the
worthy contender of his dreams. He believed he was that man already. The
journey would let him know for sure. It would teach him about his strengths and
reveal his weaknesses. In some ways the trip was a gamble, a different way of
walking around a jungle filled with hidden landmines. Sometimes, rolling the
dice of destiny was part of the overall plan, especially if he was rolling so
one day he would never have to roll again.