# The World, the Flesh and the Devil **Entity class:** Book / speculative scientific essay **Author:** [[wiki/J. D. Bernal|J. D. Bernal]] **Publication:** London: Kegan Paul, 1929 **Relevant chapter:** “The Flesh” ## Definition *The World, the Flesh and the Devil* is Bernal's 1929 exploration of humanity's possible long-range technical transformation. “The Flesh” imagines engineered bodies, neural connections among multiple people, and the possibility of consciousness continuing through replaceable components. These are historical forecasts and thought experiments, not claims that the described systems were built. The same chapter treats technology as a possible means of extending human evolution. Its prospect of multiple connected minds is distinct from a demonstrated identity-preserving transfer between substrates. ## Relationships - **Authorship:** [[wiki/J. D. Bernal|J. D. Bernal]] wrote the book and its chapter “The Flesh.” - **Technical trajectory:** [[wiki/Neural Interfaces and Continuity Architecture|Neural Interfaces and Continuity Architecture]] and [[wiki/Coupled Minds and Collective Cognition|Coupled Minds and Collective Cognition]] provide contemporary routes for analyzing the proposed connections without projecting modern capabilities back into 1929. - **Collection and article routes:** [[collections/Neurotech|Neurotech]], [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]], [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]], and [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta]] distinguish interface technology from continuity of a particular person. - **Text source:** [Complete transcription of “The Flesh”](https://bactra.org/Bernal/flesh/). ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > “Connections between two or more minds would tend to become a more and more permanent condition until they functioned as a dual or multiple organism.” > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Connected Minds Could Form a Multiple Organism by J. D. Bernal|Connected Minds Could Form a Multiple Organism by J. D. Bernal]] > “Men will not be content to manufacture life: they will want to improve on it.” > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Evolution/Humans Will Want to Improve on Life by J. D. Bernal|Humans Will Want to Improve on Life by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal proposes deliberate design as a possible successor to undirected biological adaptation. > "It is quite conceivable that the mechanism of evolution, as we know it up to the present, may well be superseded at this point. Biologists are apt, even if they are not vitalists, to consider it as almost divine; but after all it is only nature's way of achieving a shifting equilibrium with an environment; and if we can find a more direct way by the use of intelligence, that way is bound to supersede the unconscious mechanism of growth and reproduction." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Evolution/Intelligence Could Supersede Blind Evolution by J. D. Bernal|Intelligence Could Supersede Blind Evolution by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal projects a two-way nerve-apparatus interface from the electrical nature of neural signaling. > "Already we know the essential electrical nature of nerve impulses; it is a matter of delicate surgery to attach nerves permanently to apparatus which will either send messages to the nerves or receive them." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Neural Interfaces/Nerves Could Send and Receive Machine Messages by J. D. Bernal|Nerves Could Send and Receive Machine Messages by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal imagines group-level memory and self-continuity as members are replaced; this is a proposed architecture, not an observed transfer. > "But the multiple individual would be, barring cataclysmic accidents, immortal, the older component as they died being replaced by newer ones without losing the continuity of the self, the memories and feelings of the older member transferring themselves almost completely to the common stock before its death." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Consciousness/A Multiple Mind Could Outlive Its Members by J. D. Bernal|A Multiple Mind Could Outlive Its Members by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal distinguishes material succession from the preservation of inherited human organization and meaning. > "Bit by bit the heritage of the direct line of mankind — the heritage of the original life emerging on the face of the world — would dwindle, and in the end disappear effectively, being preserved perhaps as some curious relic, while the new life which conserves none of the substance and all of the spirit of the old would take its place and continue its development." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Evolution/New Life Could Preserve the Spirit Not the Substance by J. D. Bernal|New Life Could Preserve the Spirit Not the Substance by J. D. Bernal]] The closing image is an expressly speculative far horizon, not a physical model of implemented consciousness transfer. > "Finally, consciousness itself may end or vanish in a humanity that has become completely etherealized, losing the close-knit organism, becoming masses of atoms in space communicating by radiation, and ultimately perhaps resolving itself entirely into light." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Consciousness/Consciousness Might Ultimately Become Light by J. D. Bernal|Consciousness Might Ultimately Become Light by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal argues that what first looks inhuman may follow from current human technological development. > "The new man must appear to those who have not contemplated him before as a strange, monstrous and inhuman creature, but he is only the logical outcome of the type of humanity that exists at present." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Evolution/The Engineered Human Follows from Present Humanity by J. D. Bernal|The Engineered Human Follows from Present Humanity by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal's redesigned body would integrate mechanisms for functions unavailable to ordinary anatomy. > "Sooner or later the useless parts of the body must be given more modern functions or dispensed with altogether, and in their place we must incorporate in the effective body the mechanisms of the new functions." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Cybernetics/The Body Could Incorporate New Functions by J. D. Bernal|The Body Could Incorporate New Functions by J. D. Bernal]] Bernal’s harsh metaphor advances his case for redesigned embodiment, not a measured energy budget for all bodies. > "In a civilized worker the limbs are mere parasites, demanding nine-tenths of the energy of the food and even a kind of blackmail in the exercise they need to prevent disease, while the bodily organs wear themselves out in supplying their requirements." > **— J. D. Bernal**, *1929, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, “The Flesh”* [[reminders/Preservation/Bernal Called the Human Body an Energy Tax by J. D. Bernal|Bernal Called the Human Body an Energy Tax by J. D. Bernal]]