# Daedalus, or Science and the Future **Entity class:** Lecture and book **Author:** [[wiki/J. B. S. Haldane|J. B. S. Haldane]] **Lecture:** Heretics Society, Cambridge, 4 February 1923 **Publication:** London: Kegan Paul, 1924 ## Definition *Daedalus, or Science and the Future* is Haldane's argument about the social and moral consequences of invention, especially biological invention. It treats engineered reproduction and future human capacities as real subjects for scientific imagination while asking how a changed scale of power alters moral judgment. Its Prometheus and Daedalus imagery is an interpretive frame, not a report of an implemented biomedical program. ## Relationships - **Authorship and venue:** [[wiki/J. B. S. Haldane|Haldane]] read the paper to the Heretics Society in Cambridge in 1923; it appeared as a book in 1924. - **Evolutionary bridge:** [[wiki/The World, the Flesh and the Devil|Bernal's 1929 book]] is a later comparison on deliberate human transformation and embodiment. - **Corpus routes:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]], [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]], [[articles/The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley|The Evolutionary Roots of Silicon Valley]], and [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] distinguish historical speculation from later technical components. - **Text provenance:** [Complete transcription](https://bactra.org/Daedalus.html). ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts Haldane poses competing future scenarios, including Butler’s, as questions rather than established outcomes. > "Has mankind released from the womb of matter a Demogorgon which is already beginning to turn against him, and may at any moment hurl him into the bottomless void? Or is Samuel Butler's even more horrible vision correct, in which man becomes a mere parasite of machinery, an appendage of the reproductive system of huge and complicated engines which will successively usurp his activities, and end by ousting him from the mastery of this planet?" > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Haldane Asked Whether Machines Would Supplant Humanity by J. B. S. Haldane|Haldane Asked Whether Machines Would Supplant Humanity by J. B. S. Haldane]] Haldane contrasts public reactions to physical inventions with reactions to biological change. > "The chemical or physical inventor is always a Prometheus. There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god. But if every physical and chemical invention is a blasphemy, every biological invention is a perversion." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Evolution/Every Biological Invention Begins as a Perversion by J. B. S. Haldane|Every Biological Invention Begins as a Perversion by J. B. S. Haldane]] The sentence describes a possible social path from taboo to convention, not a timeless law. > "The biological invention then tends to begin as a perversion and end as a ritual supported by unquestioned beliefs and prejudices." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Evolution/Biological Inventions Can Become Rituals by J. B. S. Haldane|Biological Inventions Can Become Rituals by J. B. S. Haldane]] The 1923 forecast projects a future application of selection and biological intervention to humans. > "We can already alter animal species to an enormous extent, and it seems only a question of time before we shall be able to apply the same principles to our own." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Selection/Humanity Could Deliberately Alter Its Own Species by J. B. S. Haldane|Humanity Could Deliberately Alter Its Own Species by J. B. S. Haldane]] Haldane frames reproductive separation as a possible enlargement of human freedom. > "If reproduction is once completely separated from sexual love mankind will be free in an altogether new sense." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Selection/Separating Reproduction from Sex Could Free Humanity by J. B. S. Haldane|Separating Reproduction from Sex Could Free Humanity by J. B. S. Haldane]] This is Haldane’s selective-breeding conjecture, not an established capability or a recommendation here. > "In the future perhaps it may be possible by selective breeding to change character as quickly as institutions." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Selection/Character Could Change as Fast as Institutions by J. B. S. Haldane|Character Could Change as Fast as Institutions by J. B. S. Haldane]] The passage imagines a transformed relationship among disease, lifespan, and death. > "The abolition of disease will make death a physiological event like sleep. A generation that has lived together will die together." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Preservation/Disease Could Give Way to a Different Kind of Death by J. B. S. Haldane|Disease Could Give Way to a Different Kind of Death by J. B. S. Haldane]] Haldane describes scientific intensity as a force capable of remaking inherited institutions. > "The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Civilization/Reason Can Become the Most Dangerous Passion by J. B. S. Haldane|Reason Can Become the Most Dangerous Passion by J. B. S. Haldane]] The line expresses Haldane’s sense of the scientific frontier in 1923. > "I have tried to show why I believe that the biologist is the most romantic figure on earth at the present day." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Evolution/The Biologist Is the Most Romantic Figure on Earth by J. B. S. Haldane|The Biologist Is the Most Romantic Figure on Earth by J. B. S. Haldane]] This is a deliberately sweeping forecast about novelty, not a claim that every institution must fail. > "Science is as yet in its infancy, and we can foretell little of the future save that the thing that has not been is the thing that shall be; that no beliefs, no values, no institutions are safe." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Civilization/What Has Never Been May Be What Comes Next by J. B. S. Haldane|What Has Never Been May Be What Comes Next by J. B. S. Haldane]] Haldane’s example concerns how the consequences of an act change when technological power scales. > "An alteration in the scale of human power will render actions bad which were formerly good." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Civilization/New Power Can Make Old Morals Obsolete by J. B. S. Haldane|New Power Can Make Old Morals Obsolete by J. B. S. Haldane]] Haldane links a changed technical scale to a changed civilizational cost. > "We have improved our armaments, and patriotism, which was once a flame upon the altar, has become a world-devouring conflagration." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Civilization/Better Armaments Can Turn Patriotism into Conflagration by J. B. S. Haldane|Better Armaments Can Turn Patriotism into Conflagration by J. B. S. Haldane]] This short line is situated within Haldane’s argument about unprecedented scientific capability and moral change. > "We must learn not to take traditional morals too seriously." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Civilization/Traditional Morals Cannot Be Taken Too Seriously by J. B. S. Haldane|Traditional Morals Cannot Be Taken Too Seriously by J. B. S. Haldane]] Daedalus is Haldane’s mythic image for inventors conscious of disruptive consequences. > "The scientific worker of the future will more and more resemble the lonely figure of Daedalus as he becomes conscious of his ghastly mission, and proud of it." > **— J. B. S. Haldane**, *1923 lecture; 1924, Daedalus, or Science and the Future* [[reminders/Civilization/The Future Scientist May Be Proud of a Ghastly Mission by J. B. S. Haldane|The Future Scientist May Be Proud of a Ghastly Mission by J. B. S. Haldane]]