A Stunningly Accurate Prophecy about 2016 from the 1970s

I found this prophetic depiction of the capacities of human intelligence in this year on another Tumblr site, 70s Sci-fi Art.

You can see it at http://70sscifiart.tumblr.com/post/136373197166

It’s still a goal of Futurists and Transhumanists like Kurzweil, and you can find similar idea in the Illuminatus! books of Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Apart from mad conspiracies by subversive groups and mystical organisations, all plotting against each other, these books also looked forward to a future, where humanity had conquered death and aging, and had learned to expand their intelligence and consciousness through drugs. By this time, humans were also actively colonising space. I’ve got a feeling the former countercultural guru of drug mysticism, Timothy Leary, was also into this.

Well, who knows – it might all happen one day. But it definitely hasn’t happened yet. It’s another illustration of how difficult it actually is to predict the future in practice, and why Science Fiction is mostly wrong in its predictions. As for expanding consciousness and intelligence through drugs, the impression I have from some of the people I’ve met, who’ve been a little bit too enthusiastic about chemical enhancement of natural mental faculties, is that it very largely does the opposite. So instead of trying to expand your mind with psychochemicals, I recommend great speculative literature instead. C.S. Lewis once said that ‘Science Fiction is the only mind expanding drug.’ So, go borrow a couple of great paperbacks from the library and feed your head.

Tags: 70 Sci-Fi Art, C.S. Lewis, Conspiracy Theories, Counterculture, Drugs, Futurism, Illuminatus!, Kurzweil, Robert Anton Wilson, Science Fiction, Shea, Timothy Leary, Transhumanism