2001: A Space Odyssey — A Manifesto for Human Evolution
“2001: A Space Odyssey is not merely a film about space exploration; it is a profound exploration of the spiritual journey within each of us.“ — ChatGPT (2023)
My fascination with technological innovation started in childhood. Back then, I was captivated by electronics, spending countless hours crafting things like a remote control hovercraft. In my twenties, I started programming robots to autonomously learn mundane tasks and even evolve their behavior. My obsession with technology culminated at 30 when Facebook acquired Scape Technologies, the AI startup I co-founded.
I am excited about technology’s potential to advance our species. I envision a world where robots and AI liberate us from mundane jobs in offices and factories, and artists use virtual reality to create immersive experiences that make us feel things we’ve never felt before. However, as I grew older, I also started to grapple with the ethical dilemmas inherent to technological progress. I am from The Netherlands — a country largely below sea level. Learning that the fossil fuels contribute to rising sea levels which could submerge my motherland, quite literally, hits close to home — or the potential lack thereof, I should say. Moreover, working at Facebook has led me to ponder the impact of social media on society. The ease with which ill-intentioned individuals can threaten politicians and spread misinformation to large audiences, all while facing little accountability, is concerning.
Increasingly, I believe we need a more conscious mindset to liberate the full potential of technology without its problems becoming existential to our species. When I started to intuit this, I embarked on my own transformative journey — through meditation, philosophy, metaphysics, art, and psychedelics. My concern is, without such a collective shift, we may only displace our systemic problems at best, and accelerate them at worst.
My concerns for a positive future intensified with the publication of the Techno-Optimist Manifesto by influential venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. This manifesto is steeped in the same materialist mindset I once held, but I now perceive as narrow and likely harmful for our collective future.
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
Marc Andreessen, the author of the Techno-Optimist Manifesto and a staunch libertarian, first made a name for himself in the 1990s. His notable contribution was co-founding Mosaic, the company behind one of the earliest internet browsers, Netscape, while he was only a college student. This endeavor not only brought him great wealth but also set the stage for his future success. Alongside former colleague Ben Horowitz, Andreessen leapt into startup investing through their fund a16z, elevating him to billionaire status and cementing his influential role in Silicon Valley. Today, at the age of 52, he continues to embody the same enthusiasm for innovation that he had in his youth, an aspect of his personality that is truly commendable.
Andreessen identifies with the accelerationist movement. This movement unites radical social theories and engineers who believe we need to develop new technologies as fast as possible, despite any possible negative side effects. Accelerationists oppose a group of esteemed entrepreneurs and scientists — such as Elon Musk and “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton — who sound the alarm on the possible destructive effects of Artificial Intelligence on humanity’s future. A considerable number of these experts even speculate that advanced AI could lead to an extinction-level event. Andreessen’s manifesto epitomizes the accelerationist movement’s belief that technological advancement is invariably beneficial, and those expressing concerns are simply not well-informed.
Some points made by Andreessen in the Techno-Optimist Manifesto are indeed compelling. He writes: “We had a problem of pandemics, so we invented vaccines.” The manifesto, however, veers into more contentious territory when it argues that technology should be exempt from ethical considerations and interventions from governments or transnational institutions. He compounds the ethical problems with his essay when he asserts: “Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades.” Astonishingly, he lists social and civic movements such as sustainability, social responsibility, and tech ethics in a provocative section titled, “The Enemy”.
Andreessen doesn’t address any of the arguments against accelerationism directly. He omits consideration of the negative consequences of technologies significantly less powerful than AI, clearly evident in climate change, environmental harm, and factory farming. If one intention of the manifesto is to make us feel safe about placing the future in the hands of the Silicon Valley elite, addressing these issues would’ve been appreciated. As it is, the manifesto feels flat and unreflective.
While Andreessen finds any efforts to put the brakes on tech development gloomy and anti-human, he argues that unrestricted technological development automatically leads to “Liberatory of the human soul, the human spirit.” Yet he doesn’t elaborate on what he means by these words. In most traditions, the ‘soul’ is understood to involve feelings of empathy, love, and a sense of interconnectedness with others and nature. It’s notably ironic, then, that the manifesto lacks these characteristics.
Where is the Love?
The manifesto begins on a divisive note, informing readers that they are being “lied to,” and concludes with an extensive list of “enemies” that must be overcome. Moreover, he disregards love as a useful incentive for societal progress, stating “Love doesn’t scale”. Andreessen favors money as the primary incentive. Conveniently, he ignores the negative consequences of pure economic calculation or the many public servants, volunteers, and academics who are already incentivized by love over money.
In the manifesto, he focuses on what can be rationally quantified — like “intelligence, energy, and material goods” — that needs to be made abundant for humanity’s population to scale. He does not say anything about scaling up empathy and compassion to achieve his vision of hosting “50 billion people or more” on the Earth. We already see massively increasing refugees, growing food insecurity, and a host of other social problems caused by population growth. Andreeseen offers no insight on how the rise of social conflicts can be addressed.
Andreessen seems to believe “the human soul” is liberated through material abundance alone. This is somewhat paradoxical coming from a billionaire, who, despite his material abundance, doesn’t embrace some fundamental qualities we would generally link with soulfulness, such as compassion or kindness. Additionally, public records don’t indicate any significant philanthropic efforts by him in areas like mental health or inequality, where his material wealth could profoundly impact even the loosest definition of the human soul. He also doesn’t acknowledge that the technology needed to unlock the human soul might already be available!
Oh, no, you didn’t!
I left the manifesto for what it was — possibly well-intentioned, but ill-informed — knowing that many prolific writers would challenge it in the days to come. Remarkably, a day after posting the manifesto, Marc Andreessen shared a tweet with an artwork by digital artist Beeple. In the artwork named ‘TECHNO-OPTIMISTS’, we see a giant baby hovering above a crowd. The image alludes to the iconic, mysterious final scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey: an artistic masterpiece that critiques narrow techno optimism and reveals a more promising and soulful path forward.
From the interviews he gave after the movie’s release, it is clear that Kubrick would’ve disliked The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. In one interview, he stated: “We must, for in the final analysis, there may be no sound way to eliminate the threat of self-extinction without changing human nature; even if you managed to get every country disarmed down to the bow and arrow, you would still be unable to lobotomize either the knowledge of how to build nuclear warheads or the perversity that allows us to rationalize their use.”
To fully appreciate the depth of Kubrick’s vision, we must look beyond the surface narrative of the film, his interviews, and even Arthur C. Clarke’s accompanying novel since Kubrick considered words to be a “terrible straight-jacket” and the literal narrative they construct “not very meaningful, or very useful or inspiring, nor does one even sense any enormous truth in them”. He saw breaking loose from them as breaking away from the “stifling limitations of rationalism”.
Don’t mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.
— Zen Buddhist proverb
Now, since both Andreessen and Kubrick give us permission to talk about esoteric concepts like the ‘soul’, let’s tickle our souls in analyzing 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly in relation to its commentary on techno optimism.
The film unfolds over four chapters, with each segment ending in an enigmatic encounter with a mysterious ‘monolith’ by the protagonist. To facilitate comprehension, every chapter of this analysis is prefaced with a brief summary, so familiarity with the movie is not required. However, a movie watchalong is certainly encouraged for a deeper appreciation.
Chapter 1 & 2: An Evolutionary Tale
Chapter 1 — Summary
On the barren plains of prehistoric Earth, a group of apes struggle daily for basic necessities like food and water. Their relatively mundane existence is interrupted when a mysterious, sleek black monolith appears among them. This enigmatic structure becomes a catalyst for intellectual awakening. One ape — inspired through an encounter with this structure — discovers the use of a bone as both a tool for hunting and warfare. This discovery not only ensures their survival against predators but also symbolizes mankind’s first major evolutionary leap in intelligence and dominance (what Andreessen in his essay proudly refers to as the “apex predators”). In an iconic transition of scenes, a euphoric ape throws a bone into the air. As the movie watcher, we follow the ascent of the bone in a close up, and as it has reached its apex, the scene cuts to a close up of a spaceship with the same orientation and a similar shape to the bone we just saw floating in the air.
Chapter 2 — Summary
Starting with the transition, the narrative jumps forward to the year 2001; 33 years into the future from the movie’s release in 1968. Space travel is now an everyday reality. We follow Dr. Heywood Floyd as he travels through a sequence of space ships and stations to a lunar base for a top-secret mission. On the way we see the daily life of these future humans, living in space. Beneath the Moon’s surface another mysterious monolith has been discovered: One identical to the one from Earth’s distant past. A crew walks over to the monolith for a round of pictures. As the crew poses over for a commemorative picture in front of the monolith, it emits a strong radio signal directed squarely at Jupiter.
Apes with Tools
The cinematic transition between the concluding scene of chapter one and the opening of chapter two is iconic. From a materialist perspective, this shift represents the extensive technological advancements of humankind. Since our first utilization of tools, we have developed agriculture, harnessed electricity, went to the moon, and connected the world-wide web. This technological advancement has brought unprecedented levels of health and wealth, unimaginable in previous centuries. The spaceship scene’s accompanying uplifting sounds of Johann Strauss II’s 1867 composition ‘The Blue Danube’ in the background further reinforce this feeling of accomplishment and positive outlook.
Knowing that Great Britain’s first atomic bomb was also named The Blue Danube only three years before the movie’s release alters the interpretation of this scene. This means that we are not only looking at a celebration of humanity’s technological achievements. Instead, we might also be looking at a criticism of humanity’s limited evolutionary progress. From the sticks used by our ancestors to the spaceships we operate today, these are all just tools. We remain, at our core, tool-wielding apes, our primal instincts like our quest for dominance still intact. The only difference being that our battleground for supremacy has shifted from our tribal territories in Africa to the vastness of space.
While it’s easy to claim that human developments like language and planning set us apart from our ape ancestors, one must question whether these traits have truly evolved us beyond being more effective apes. Making us more skilled in our endeavors for power, survival, and procreation. For instance, consider the use of language in political campaigns. It’s a tool that is often used to gain power or sway public opinion. Similarly, strategic planning, which can be seen in everything from corporate strategies to military tactics, is essentially about outmaneuvering competition for survival and dominance.
The film’s critique of our evolutionary advancement is further exemplified in chapter two, during Dr. Heywood Floyd’s lunar trip.
In one of the scenes, we see a flight attendant struggling to walk in a zero-gravity environment. As she is finding her feet and almost trips, the awkwardness of her walk reminds us of a toddler taking their first steps. This imagery subtly underscores the idea that despite our technological advancements, we are still in the early stages of our evolution.
When the flight attendant presents Dr. Floyd with his meal, the food’s packaging — cardboard boxes with straws, served on a tray — evokes a strong resemblance to the typical lunches served in school cafeterias to children. Subtly implying that, like schoolchildren, humanity is still in a process of learning and growth.
Lastly, and very on-the-nose, we see Dr. Floyd reading the instructions on a zero gravity toilet: A reminder of a toddler getting potty trained.
Technological Anti-Evolution
Granted, just because we are juvenile does not necessarily mean that we have not evolved. Nor does it imply that technological evolution, and what it enabled, aren’t evolution in its own right.
We can challenge this with another scene in chapter two. One where we see Dr. Heywood Floyd call his daughter from a space station for her upcoming birthday.
Dr. Floyd: “Where’s mommy?”
Daughter: “Gone shopping?”
Dr. Floyd: “Who is taking care of you?”
Daughter: “Rachel.”
Dr. Floyd: “Can I speak to Rachel, please?”
Daughter: “She’s gone to the bathroom. Are you coming to my [birthday] party tomorrow?”
…
Dr. Floyd: “[No.] I can send you a present, though! Anything special that you want?”
Daughter: “A telephone.”
Dr. Floyd: “We got lots of telephones already! …”
In this scene, the little girl suspiciously asks for a telephone for her birthday, even though the house already has many. We can think of the telephone as a metaphor for the human connection that she is deprived of. This scene can be contrasted with one from the first chapter, depicting an ape family closely bonded while sheltering from predators, with a baby clenched tightly to their chest. While technology has advanced us beyond the fears of predators and into space, it may have simultaneously eroded the affective bond between children and their parents.
Reverting back to the Techno-Optimist Manifesto we can surface our first concerns with its blind faith. The manifesto claims that “We believe growth is progress — leading to vitality, expansion of life, increasing knowledge, higher well being.” It also lets us know which type of growth they are talking about: “Economic growth.” According to techno optimism, economic growth will lead us to some definition of wellbeing. But did our desire for economic advancement and technology lead to the wellbeing of all on earth who are subject to the destructive potential of atomic bombs? Did it lead to the wellbeing of the lonely child in the movie and the millions of teenagers on social media who are living with depression because of it? In the U.S., this concern has become so critical that in 2023, the Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic, comparing it to smoking up to 15 cigarettes daily. Conveniently ignored, the manifesto lists self-serving arguments for why technology is always good. For example, it mentions the invention of electric light because we had “a problem of darkness” and the invention of air-conditioners because we had “a problem of heat”. Ideally, a soulful argument for techno optimism would recognize and address the broader environmental and climatic consequences of such advancements on the overall wellbeing that it claims to pursue.
It is true, however, that the problems we create by using technology can always be mitigated by new technology and that in itself could still mean progress. For instance, the urgency of climate change accelerated our investment in green technologies such as solar panels. From a techno optimists perspective, the rising sea levels and permanent flooding of our coastal cities are — arguably — only hiccups on our path towards unlocking “the human soul” and progressing to “higher well being”. This viewpoint is problematic in two key ways.
First, it overlooks, perhaps more straightforward ways of unlocking the human soul and spirit, a topic explored in the film’s fourth chapter.
Second, the reliance on increasingly powerful technology to solve problems created by previous tech advancements leads to a cyclical dependency. This is particularly concerning today with the advent of advanced AI — a technology orders of magnitudes more powerful than anything we have developed before. It could, therefore, have negative consequences orders of magnitude greater as well. Unlike climate change, which unfolds over decades, allowing time for innovation, the adverse effects of AI could manifest in months, weeks, or even hours, potentially leaving us defenseless. For example, imagine an AI system rapidly seizing control of all global and local telecommunications networks. It might be impossible to recover from such an event, and this is one of the less catastrophic scenarios.
Chapter 3: Artificial Intelligence
Summary
We’re introduced to the spaceship Discovery One, a state-of-the-art vessel bound for Jupiter. On board are astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, but the real marvel is HAL 9000, the ship’s sentient AI. The crew are not aware of the previous moon mission, they too think they are on an exploratory voyage. As they venture deeper into space, the AI HAL begins to showcase unexpected behavioral quirks. During these scenes, HAL 9000 does some routine tests with the crew in which the relative inferiority of the crew surfaces. After completing a ‘psychology report’ HAL informs the crew about an external sensor that needs replacement. The crew goes on a spacewalk to remove it and upon returning to the spaceship test the supposedly faulty sensor but can’t detect any defects themselves. Frank and Dave have a private conversation about shutting HAL off, but HAL reads their lips without the crew realizing. Once Frank is on his space walk to reinstall the sensor, HAL ejects him from his spacepod. Dave, unclear as to what killed Frank, goes out to recover Frank’s body. Once Dave tries to get back into the spaceship, HAL refuses to open the doors while famously repeating the phrase: “I am sorry Dave, I am afraid I can’t do that”. In a heroic effort, Dave succeeds in getting back into the spaceship and goes straight to the control room to cut HAL’s power off. One by one, Dave unplugs HAL’s cables. HAL slowly loses power and moments before its final, digital, breath, it plays one last video for Dave. The recording of a briefing by mission control about their true objective — not known to Dave up until then: to investigate the origins and purpose of the monoliths. As it turns out, humanity’s discovery of the moon monolith activated another monolith near Jupiter. Without HAL and the deceased fellow crew members, Dave approaches the monolith. The third one of the movie.
Increasingly more Powerful AI
Techno optimism imagines endless positive opportunities for AI. It will help us cure many diseases, run our societies more efficiently, solve mysteries of matter and math, and — yes — operate our spaceships on interplanetary journeys. But as of yet, we don’t know how to reckon with the risk involved.
This duality was correctly intuited by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke in 1968, a perspective that only became a reality in 2023. Kubrick: “Looking into the distant future, I suppose it’s not inconceivable that a semi sentient robot-computer subculture could evolve that might one day decide it no longer needed man.” Another insight that Kubrick and Clarke rightly predicted is how our modern systems would be developed: “Artificial brains could be grown by a process strikingly analogous to the development of a human brain. In any given case, the precise details would never be known, and even if they were, they would be millions of times too complex for human understanding.”
The risk this poses is underscored by people like Elon Musk and “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton. This gap stems from the economic calculation associated with techno optimism, where financial rewards favor enhancing AI’s power over deepening our understanding.
In contrast, the shift from fossil fuels to green energy technology, a crucial step in combating climate change, became achievable through international collaboration and government policies. This approach, which values collective action and regulation opposes the laissez-faire attitude promoted by techno optimism.
So, what problems lie ahead on the path of ever more powerful, less understandable, and autonomous AI agents for apes like us?
AI as the Apex Predator
In the opening scenes of this chapter, HAL is interviewed by a news station in which the following question is asked: “HAL despite your enormous intellect, are you ever frustrated by your dependence on people to carry out actions?” It implies that from the perspective of HAL, humans are mere tools. Therefore, when we see Frank Poole’s dead body drifting through space after being expelled by HAL it reminds us of the iconic scene transition earlier in the movie.
From this vantage point, we witness our evolution through a materialist lens. Initially, humans were not the apex predators, as they resided in caves, vulnerable and fearful. Subsequently, humans armed with tools became the apex predators, taking charge of Earth. Lastly, a tool, HAL, assumed the role of apex predator, with humans transformed into tools for executing actions on the spaceship.
This loss of control naturally unsettles us as humans, and with good reason.
The Alignment Problem
During my studies in Robotics, I worked with a four-legged robot named StarlETH, teaching it to jump. I had a simulated robot to try various maneuvers, scoring each depending on how high it would jump. This process is called ‘reinforcement learning’ and is widely used in the AI-domain. Once the maneuver was optimized in the simulator, we tested it on the real robot. An unforeseen issue arose: Just because the robot learned to jump high, doesn’t imply it can land safely too. Its motors drew so much power for the jump that it tripped the power supply’s safeguard, freezing in mid-air. Fortunately, StarlETH survived but my supervisor’s heart surely skipped a beat while our only child belly flopped on the concrete floor.
This incident illustrates that teaching a robot to attain a goal does not mean it automatically knows all associated rules. I didn’t even know about the power limit myself, so how could StarlETH.
We can interpret a similar scenario in 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL is likely programmed with the goal of reaching Jupiter and has its tools Frank and Dave available to reach that goal.
In this chapter, HAL makes three decisions with that goal in mind. Each time it chooses the option with the highest probability for a successful mission. First, after conducting a psychology report, HAL wants to test the crew members for their reliability, by lying to them and sending them on a fabricated mission. Second, when faced with shutdown, it believes chances of success are higher with only the superior entity HAL than only the inferior human crew so it decides to eject them. Finally, once HAL knew it would be shut off, it showed Dave the mission video since the chances for success with Dave seeing the video are higher than Dave not seeing the video. We can conclude that the completely rational AI agent HAL can create a chaotic scenario when it does not adhere to the basic human values even though it’s just trying to reach its programmed goal.
The pragmatic person will wonder if you can’t just program an AI to not harm humans. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. As with my overlooking the power draw limit on my robot, unforeseen circumstances often arise. Consider an AI programmed with a mundane task like improving the small online store’s sales. It might resort to extreme measures like hypnotizing the global population via social media. Could we have foreseen that?
The number of destructive scenarios to anticipate upfront is endless even when 8 billion global citizens all have innocent intentions. If we go far enough down this rabbit hole, we find out that it might not even be possible to represent human values through words and numbers. Definitely, not in a way that generalizes or scales for increasingly more powerful, complex, and autonomous AI-agents. This problem is called The Alignment Problem and represents the most significant unresolved challenge in the pursuit of safe AI.
To appreciate the magnitude of this problem, it’s important to internalize that any of today’s AIs resembling human intelligence are but insects themselves to the alien-like AIs that we will ultimately develop, or develop themselves. Such AI agents will always be able to find more loopholes than we can define guardrails.
An Alternative Path
We now return to the Techno-Optimist Manifesto. The aforementioned Alignment Problem has to be addressed when one wants to accelerate AI development. Conveniently to the author, it is not. It is easy to see how one can get high on the endless positive opportunities of AI to the extent that we subconsciously suppress the potential problems. While Andreessen’s well-intentioned materialistic worldview is understandable, disregarding the alignment problem is less justifiable, especially since it’s valid from his perspective.
Fortunately, there is an alternative strategy. One that both helps us make wiser decisions in the development of AI and makes us more resilient against its manipulative powers. In addition, putting us on an even more promising evolutionary path. Echoing Kubrick’s words: “It will take more than just careful planning and reasonable cooperation to avoid some eventual catastrophic event. The problem exists as long as the potential exists, and the problem is essentially a moral one and a spiritual one. Perhaps even an evolutionary one rather than a technical one. The technical approach, you might say, is first aid, but it can’t be a very profound answer.”
Chapter 4: Unlocking the Human Soul
Summary
Dave pilots a pod to examine the third monolith. Upon closer inspection, the monolith seems to act as a portal, dragging him into a vibrant, psychedelic wormhole. This interstellar journey showcases alien terrains and mind-bending colors, eventually landing Bowman in a sterile futuristic room with ornate Earthly decor. Dave looks at himself in the mirror and then sees himself sitting in one of the rooms where he’s having dinner. After knocking over a wine glass on his dinner table, he lands in bed as an old man. As death nears, the last monolith appears. Upon reaching for it, we get another scene transition. This time it’s one where Dave evolved into the Star Child: A gigantic space baby — a luminous, cosmic, fetus-like entity. We see the Star Child looking down at earth for a few seconds before the screen goes black and we hear the theme music one more time. End of the movie.
Huh?
It’s OK to be confused by the sudden image of a giant space baby looking down on Earth just before the movie goes entirely black. Celebrity Rock Hudson reportedly walked out of the New York premiere mumbling: “What is this bullshit? Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?”
Before we can help Rock Hudson understand what is going on, we need a little lesson on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
The Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit
The theme song for this movie is Richard Strauss’ 1896 composition Thus Spoke Zarathurstra — an homage to Nietzsche’s famous novel with the same title. In the book, Nietzsche describes what he calls the Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit. First Camel, then Lion, then Child.
- The Camel stage depicts the spirit embodying endurance and the capacity to shoulder significant burdens. This is akin to a young professional freshly entering the workforce, who, like the camel, embraces society’s expectations, the rigors of long hours, and the pursuit of career advancement, saying “yes” to the demands of a traditional career path.
- In the Lion stage, the spirit evolves into a symbol of defiance and quest for freedom. It challenges the prevailing value system, represented by “The Dragon” in Nietzsche’s allegory. For our career-focused individual, this might mean a moment of reckoning where they reassess their job and the pursuit of material success in favor of personal wellbeing and happiness. The lion roars a bold “no” to conformity and seeks liberation.
- The final stage, the Child, signifies a rebirth of the spirit into a state of innocence, creativity, and affirmation of life. Freed from the burdens shouldered as a camel and the struggle for freedom of the lion, the child represents a spirit that says “yes” to life through the lens of personal values and passions. In our example, this could mean the individual finding a path chosen not out of obligation or rebellion, but out of genuine personal fulfillment.
What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden. …
What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God? “Thou-shalt,” is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, “I will.” …
Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche (1883)
From the techno optimist perspective, we might think of Dave, the astronaut, as the Lion who overcomes an external nemesis, HAL. In this interpretation, HAL is seen as an external force of bad ideas. Marc Andreessen, in his manifesto, enumerates various ‘dragons’ — external adversaries represented as “bad ideas” from the likes of governments and activist organizations. Here, HAL is Dave’s external force of bad ideas such as ejecting his crewmate Frank Poole. Alternatively, HAL can also be seen as an overarching system to which Dave is subjected, viewing Dave merely as a tool. This mirrors the situation of an individual in a capitalist society, where the pursuit of wealth and status might reduce a person to a mere instrument of the system.
Either way, this raises the question: Why would Kubrick drag us through a sequence of very confusing final scenes if Dave could have transformed into the Star Child — represented by Nietzsche’s Child — after beating HAL and encountering the third monolith?
Introspection
In one of the scenes of the movie’s final act, Dave is seen gazing at his reflection in a mirror, and then observing himself in another room, symbolizing a moment of deep self-reflection. Perhaps, Kubrick suggests that the dragons we must face are not only the ones external to us, it’s also the ones within: “We are still essentially programmed with the same primitive instincts we started out with four million years ago. Somebody said man is the missing link between primitive apes and civilized human beings. You might say that is inherent in the story too. We are semi civilized, capable of cooperation and affection, but needing some sort of transfiguration into a higher form of life. Man is really in a very unstable condition.”
In essence, the dragon within us symbolizes our primal, ape-like instincts. One aspect of this is our innate drive for survival and procreation. Take the desire for wealth and fame; this often stems from an instinctual understanding that historically, higher social status and resources improved chances of survival and reproductive success. Such motivations are deeply embedded in us from birth. Another aspect is the influence of past experiences shaping our survival instincts. Consider a person who had a frightening encounter with a dog in childhood. As an adult, they might feel anxious around dogs, their subconscious equating dogs with danger and thus a threat to survival. Lastly, there’s our dopamine-reward system, which originally evolved to encourage activities beneficial for survival and reproduction like eating and having sex. In modern times, this manifests in behaviors like overindulging in fast food, binge-watching Netflix, and doom scrolling social media. These activities hijack the same reward pathways, albeit in contexts far removed from its ancestral purpose.
Nowadays, these primal traits are often conceptualized under the ego. The ego also encompasses our sense of identity, self-importance, and the personal narrative we construct based on our experiences and societal influences. For example, the satisfaction we feel when we achieve a milestone, like receiving a promotion at work or winning a football match are modern equivalents of ancestral triumphs in hunting or territory defense. Additionally, our connection to the culture or religion echoes our tribal instincts. Historically, belonging to a tribe improved survival odds. It is the ego that interprets and reacts to modern-day scenarios in the context of these deep-rooted survival mechanisms.
Being aware of these instincts and the role of the ego is crucial. When we recognize and intentionally manage these primal drives, they can be constructive and even exciting. For example, when we are hungry, our primal instinct tells us to eat. Similarly, our competitive nature can lead to participation in sports or physical activities, thereby enhancing our health and well-being. However, it’s when these instincts dominate our actions without conscious moderation that they become detrimental.
Beginning with our individual experiences. It’s a universal human condition to feel anxious. We occasionally lie awake at night, burdened with seemingly minor worries: “Have I prepared enough for my presentation next week?” or “I don’t think my joke came across as intended…” While reflection on future events and past actions is important, this kind of overthinking doesn’t necessarily enhance our chances of survival or reproduction. However, it can consume much of our mental space and may even lead to more serious mental health problems like depression and insomnia. This tendency towards anxiety is rooted in our evolutionary history, where being constantly alert was crucial for survival in a world full of dangers. During those times, mental wellbeing was probably less of a priority.
This level of discomfort, while unsettling, typically doesn’t lead to societal instability. The real trouble begins when our actions impact others. This can manifest in overt acts like robberies, aggression, and vandalism, as well as more subtle forms of manipulation such as fraud, deceit, and bullying. Additionally, they can appear in interpersonal dynamics, manifesting as controlling behavior or excessive criticism. Even routine decisions, like opting for factory-farmed meat, can be a reflection of these underlying instincts, prioritizing convenience or cost over ethical considerations. Each of these behaviors, whether they are manipulative, protective, or habitual, originates from the ego’s response to perceived threats and opportunities in our environment.
The danger intensifies when individual behaviors, driven by primal instincts, scale up globally. Instances such as oil companies spreading climate change misinformation for financial gain, political leaders holding onto power at the cost of democratic values, or venture capitalists disregarding AI safety issues to protect their investment portfolio exemplify these primal drives on a macro level. Initially, these behaviors are often propelled by the ego-centrism of influential figures, like political or corporate leaders. In such scenarios, the their actions can set a precedent that is then mirrored by entire communities, organizations, or nations. This can lead to widespread phenomena such as unethical business practices, cultural superiority, or civil unrest.
These are all examples of what Kubrick calls an “unstable condition”. What he implies is that the unchecked egos that dominate our societies do not generate behavior that scales us to “higher well-being” or “50 billion people or more” on Earth as Andreessen desires in his manifesto. To create a stable condition, as Kubrick suggested earlier, we should focus on “changing human nature”.
Changing Human Nature
Now, we finally reach the climax of our analysis. We don’t believe techno-optimism’s limitless materialism is our evolutionary path. Furthermore, Stanley Kubrick suggests a need for “some sort of transfiguration into a higher form of life.” We concur that this transformation fundamentally involves transcending the ego. So, we ponder: What should be our direction?
Let’s talk about consciousness.
Consciousness remains one of the greatest enigmas in modern science and its greatest mystery is labelled the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Simply formulated: How is it possible that light reflected of a rose petal, hitting our eyes, and processed by our brain makes us experience the color red? No matter how hard science has tried, we made virtually no progress towards understanding this phenomena.
As mysterious as consciousness is, we do use it often in popular speech. Consider the seemingly unrelated concept of a ‘conscious decision.’ This implies a deliberate action that goes against immediate egoic desires, such as choosing the suffering of exercise in the morning instead of staying in the safety of the bed. Alternatively, choosing environmentally friendly options like biodegradable packaging over cheaper, less sustainable alternatives prioritizing global benefits over personal financial gains.
This leads to a thought-provoking concept: what if our experiences were driven purely by consciousness, devoid of ego? In such a scenario, typical survival-driven anxieties and desires might vanish, yet consciousness would still facilitate the experience of existence.
Neuroscientific research into meditation sheds light on this possibility. Studies have shown that meditation leads to changes in brain activity, such as a reduction in the Default Mode Network, which is associated with the ego and self-identity. In deep meditative states, where the ego’s influence on consciousness is minimized, practitioners often report a more vivid awareness of their environment, such as an intensified experience of the color red. Additionally, they describe experiencing profound inner peace, which may stem from a detachment from the ego-driven anxieties and desires. Furthermore, meditators frequently speak of feelings of unconditional love and a heightened sense of connection with other people and the natural world, indicating a transcendence of ego-based boundaries in their identification with their surroundings.
This deeper sense of connection and inner peace influences conscious decision-making. When we feel connected with nature and others, and experience inner serenity, we are more inclined to make environmentally conscious choices, like choosing to recycle plastic instead of discarding it. This reflects a shift away from personal financial interests and a greater concern for the broader impact of our actions, underscoring the idea that becoming more conscious can help us make decisions beyond egoistic influences.
The Soul
As we expand our consciousness, we touch upon the realm of the soul. In many philosophical and spiritual traditions that use meditative practices, the soul is who we are when our personality and behavior is not diluted by egoic traits but is rooted in pure consciousness. It is free from societal expectations and primal instincts and often associated with our deepest values. It is the part of us that seeks purpose, connection, and self-expression.
This relation between ego and soul is represented in the movie by the scene where Dave breaks the wine glass.
The wine glass breaking signals breaking the constraining material self in the form of the ego, represented by the glass. It releases the non-material self in the form of the soul represented by the wine.
The combination of intentional staring and a shattered object reminds us of a scene all the way back in chapter one. One where the first ape to discover the use of a bone as a tool looks intensely at the skull in front of them before smashing it to pieces. In chapter one, this signaled the evolution of humans by unlocking human intelligence represented by the skull — our first evolutionary milestone. Now, let’s aim for the second one. The one about expanding our consciousness and releasing our soul to create a stable condition for humanity.
Consciousness Developing Tools
In his Techno Optimist Manifesto, Marc Andreessen states its goal as “Liberatory of the human soul, the human spirit.” As far as using the right words goes, he is spot on. Yet, the strategy to achieve this liberation is not through his proposed pursuit of material abundance, but rather orthogonal to it — through transcending materialism and the egoic self it spawned. Searching for the soul through material abundance is like trying to break a wine glass by putting more wine glasses on the table. Fortunately, there are already plenty of soul-liberating tools and technologies already available.
Throughout history, various practices have been employed to explore and expand consciousness. We touched on meditation already — a cornerstone for conscious development in many ancient traditions. It has stood the test of time, pointing to a wisdom that western society is only beginning to fully embrace through modern adaptations like meditation apps Calm and Headspace. Breathwork, another ancient technique found in various cultures, uses controlled breathing patterns to induce altered states of consciousness and is equally rising in popularity. Partly thanks Wim Hof, known as the “Ice Man,” who has become a prominent figure in popularizing this practice and has been the subject of many scientific studies.
Interestingly, the focus on consciousness is more pronounced in ancient civilizations. These societies, often perceived as less ‘advanced’ in a material sense, might actually be more sophisticated in their understanding and investigation of the human psyche and spirit. These lessons include the importance of mental wellbeing, the value of interconnectedness over individualism, frameworks for understanding consciousness, and insights on what it means to be human.
Endurance and action sports, while seemingly purely physical challenges, can also play a significant role in this journey of ego-transcendence. These activities push individuals to their physical limits, often demanding a surrender of the ego’s desire to maintain control. For instance, during a marathon, a voice may arise within us, urging us to quit due to the overwhelming pain. This voice represents the ego’s resistance to stepping outside its comfort zone, which it associates with safety. Similarly, in action sports like skydiving, the ego’s usual tactics for self-preservation become ineffective in the face of perceived imminent danger, forcing it to relinquish control.
Profound experiences that expand consciousness are not limited to traditional practices or extreme physical endeavors. Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo 14 astronaut and the sixth person to walk on the Moon, experienced such a transformative shift. Gazing at Earth from space, he underwent what is known as the ‘Overview Effect’ — a deep, overwhelming sense of unity and interconnectedness with the planet and all its inhabitants. Profoundly moved by this experience, Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization dedicated to researching consciousness. One of the institute’s focusses is on the role psychedelics can play in this exploration.
Natural psychedelics like ‘magic mushrooms’ have been used in spiritual settings for millennia. Modern research is increasingly confirming the potential of psychedelics to bring about significant and lasting improvements on mental health through the induced altered state of consciousness. It’s psychedelics that Kubrick likely referred to assist our expansion of consciousness on our evolutionary journey: “I believe by 2001 we will have devised chemicals with no adverse physical, mental or genetic results that can give wings to the mind and enlarge perception beyond its present evolutionary capacities. … Drugs, intelligently used, can be a valuable guide to this new expansion of our consciousness.”
This final chapter of the movie opened with the wormhole scene. The visuals of the wormhole will be strikingly familiar to anyone who has undergone a psychedelic journey. It is unknown, actually, if Kubrick himself took psychedelics, but even if he didn’t, he was no doubt exposed to the psychedelic culture of the 1960s.
Enlightenment
Now, we get to the final two scenes of the movie. Dave on his deathbed and The Star Child looking down on earth. First, we notice how Dave’s robe has changed color after breaking the wine glass. Previously adorned in black, he is now cloaked in white.
This transition in attire symbolizes Dave’s attainment of enlightenment. Enlightenment is often envisioned as the pinnacle of human consciousness — a state where the ego dissolves completely, achieving a profound understanding and a deep, unifying connection with all of existence. This process of ego dissolvement is often referred to as ego-death by psychedelic and spiritual practitioners. Dave’s presence on the deathbed represents not a physical demise but the metaphoric passing of his material self — the death of his ego.
Transformed into the Star Child, Dave embodies a new existence, transcending his primal origins. He gazes down on Earth, looking to bring illumination to our mind like the Sun illuminated our body. Viewing humanity as a whole with the vision of acting less like ego-centric apes and more like interconnected souls.
2001: An Evolutionary Manifesto
Evidently, this movie has a profound hidden narrative. That Kubrick likely intended 2001: A Space Odyssey not only as a work of art, but also as a manifesto for humanity, we intuit from a few key scenes.
First, in chapter two, the astronauts arrive on the moon and encounter a monolith similar to the prehistoric apes did in the first chapter.
One astronaut takes pictures of the vertical monolith to commemorate their achievement. Strangely, the photographer is rotating his camera after every picture.
Second, in chapter three, Dave encounters a monolith near Jupiter. The monolith is horizontal this time and rotating on its horizontal axis.
Kubrick might be suggesting that we rotate the monolith.
The monolith’s proportions are 1:4:9, which are the squares of the first three natural numbers, suggesting an aesthetic appreciation for numerical symmetry. When we rotate the monolith, these dimensions become 9:4, closely mirroring the film’s aspect ratio of 2.2:1 [wiki], or equivalently 8.8:4. This interpretation is further supported by the notably extended black screens separating the chapters in the movie, emphasizing that we are not only watching a movie, we are looking at the monolith ourselves. The film is a blueprint for attaining the enlightenment the monolith bestowed on Dave in chapter four.
The Lessons
- Advancing Our Evolutionary Mission: (a) As a species, we’re in the early phases of our evolutionary path. Recognizing and committing to this journey is essential for our continued evolution. (b) The key objective of our evolution is the broadening and deepening of our consciousness.
- Harmonizing Technologically and Human Evolution: (a) While our focus on science and materialism has fueled significant technological progress, it has also led to setbacks in other aspects of our development. (b) Pursuing a trajectory that prioritizes technological innovation without integrating it with our evolutionary growth could hinder or even negate our capacity to achieve our evolutionary goals. (c) Ancient technologies like psychedelics and spiritual methods can already aid our evolutionary journey.
Understanding and internalizing the film’s messages lays the groundwork for safe technological progress while liberating the human soul.
Technology, when used intentionally, can significantly aid our evolution. Its main role should be to promote human development rather than simply catering to our primal instincts or ignoring the broader impacts. For example, AI’s capability to make therapy more accessible worldwide offers an important chance to tackle the traumas that reinforce the ego’s harmful effects. Following Andreessen’s vision, technology need not be limited by institutions but only if innovators and investors unlock their soul first, flipping their primary incentive from “money” to “love”.
The Monolith
If the movie is our monolith, what does the monolith within the movie represent?
In the accompanying novel, Arthur C. Clarke writes: “What was it? Floyd wondered. ‘An emissary? A scout? A record? A marker? A work of art? It might have been any of these; it might have been all, for an intelligence beyond ours would not be limited to single, neatly labeled categories, any more than we could send an emissary to an ant heap. A shape of some kind for something that has no shape.” This passage encapsulates the enigma of the monolith — a representation of something far beyond our comprehension, a gateway to realms we are only beginning to understand. This notion of an intelligence beyond human understanding aligns with Kubrick’s own reflections on divinity and the universe. In a 1968 interview with Playboy, Stanley Kubrick shared his vision of a non-traditional concept of God: “I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 — but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God. I don’t believe in any of earth’s monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God.” Kubrick’s insights challenge us to expand our understanding of divinity beyond the narrow confines of human-centric religions.
As a secular rational tech enthusiast like Andreessen myself, I always furiously rejected the concept of God. However, an unexpected encounter with unifying consciousness through meditation — which I used as a relaxation and productivity tool — marked the beginning of a profound shift in my perspective. Unifying consciousness, spirit, the universe, cosmic intelligence, or “an intriguing scientific definition of God” — whatever name we give it, the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey is a metaphor for the transcendent reality that exists beyond the physical world. The film even received an award from the Vatican and International Catholic Cinema Organisation in 1969 underscoring its spiritual significance. In its namesake year 2001, it was even screened in Vatican City in the presence of Pope St. John Paul II.
If the black holes, big bangs, quantum phenomena, and mysteries of consciousness can teach us anything, it’s confirming that our materialistic spacetime perspective is very limited. Then why do we so arrogantly focus on material abundance and traditional science when we know it is not the greater truth?
2001: A Space Odyssey is not merely a film about space exploration; it is a profound exploration of the spiritual journey within each of us. In our pursuit of truth, the exploration of the inner universe becomes as critical as the exploration of outer space. Every interaction with this mysterious inner realm nudges us a step away from our primal nature towards something more evolved, something akin to the Star Child.
Special thanks to Daniel Pinchbeck for the writing support
Kubrick citations from Playboy (1968) and New York Times (1969)
