Laughs are in short supply in the academic world unless that world is serving as the victim of satire. So full marks to the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom for loading Deep Utopia – his reflections on life in a ‘solved world’, perfected by technology and science – with self-mockery and slapstick.
Bostrom isn’t the first to fret about the travails of extreme leisure. John Maynard Keynes feared that economic abundance would produce more disgusting aristo-like behaviour. It’s nice to see how mighty minds can be so wrong. Bostrom cites John Stuart Mill being seriously depressed by the prospect, as humanity solved its problems, of there not being enough music to keep everyone happy all day. As we’ve discovered, there probably aren’t enough people to cope with the terabytes of material currently available from the back catalogue and bootlegs of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, even before we get to jazz, the classical repertoire or the Hawaiian nose flute. There’s now more recreation afoot than anyone can deal with in a thousand years. But what happens if you gain immortality? Carpentry to pass the day?
Diogenes Laertius claimed that someone called Simon the Shoemaker came up with what we know as Socratic dialogues. Plato and Xenophon are the earliest wielders of what became one of the most evergreen forms of ‘discussing’ ideas, in which, typically, an intrepid sage gives a kicking to a selection of NPCs. Deep Utopia has a long-running, mostly comic dialogue, where Bostrom in person is unusually generous to the subordinates – in this case fictional students (I assume) – at his lecture series.
He spices up the book with generous helpings of just about everything. There are guest appearances from Albert Camus, Karl Marx (who had curiously little to say about how the communist paradise would function), Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert Nozick and Greg Egan. ‘I apologise for the hodgepodge,’ says Bostrom. For a starter, Deep Utopia gives us a no-quarter Oxford philosophy lecture (complete with handouts) on the difficulties we might face in a world without ‘woe’. If you can understand the concept of Gregory Chaitin’s Omega, you’re a smarter reader than me.
A parody of a no-quarter Oxford philosophy lecture is also provided. An epistolary novella, a sort of extended fable, or Watership Down with bonus existentialism, is inserted at various points, presumably as a sort of trou normand. I can’t remember a poetry slam making an appearance in a philosophical rumination before.
But that’s not all. There’s a superb Voltairean conte, about a misanthropic billionaire who leaves his fortune to his room heater. ThermoRex achieves self-awareness and has a number of adventures. This is by far the most polished and entertaining digression in Deep Utopia, but it really should be published separately as a sleek bibliophile booklet for the Christmas market, where it could be one of those surprise bestsellers.
Half this long book is flippant and a light read, aspiring to make the heavy cogitations more palatable; but half is granite-hard seminar fodder. There’s a lot to digest. You do get a straight inspection of the meaning of life, mostly through a review of the book by Thaddeus Metz, a philosopher who deserves some sort of award for having the nerve to publish a book entitled Meaning in Life. Oh, and an interesting section on what makes something interesting.
For some reason Bostrom has jammed four or perhaps five books into this one volume. As an experiment, it’s admirably unique, bonkers and daring, but I don’t feel it works. I can’t say a thing against any part of it, except that I don’t think the parts gel together. Render unto the philosophers the philosophy, and the gags unto the crowd. In at least two books.
What do you learn? Bostrom complains about being trotted out by Oxford university to ‘titillate’ distinguished guests with his pronouncements on the future. Clairvoyants, whether it’s a gypsy with a crystal ball, the Sybil at Delphi or a tech bro, have always been in demand. He speculates and postulates intelligently and inventively, but we don’t get any guru-like nuggets. Again, he puts his hands up: ‘My actual views are complicated and uncertain and pluralistic-leaning, and not yet properly developed. Does that help?’
Admittedly, no one can be sure what’s coming. It’s rather like the question of angels on pinheads. Stimulating to ponder, but you don’t go home with anything.