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Stanley Kubrick

Hal 9000 Quote “I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”

2001: A Space Odyssey Notes

Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film about the evolution of humanity by means of technology toward the

superhuman condition. Aliens guide this evolution beginning with a collective of prehuman beings who find a black monolith

standing outside their cave. The monolith changes their minds. Their minds become instrumentally intelligent. Where before they

saw only the bones of the animals they killed for food, now they see the bones as tools. They can use the bones as if they were

hammers or swords to kill individuals of rival clans or troops. This is the first part of the film. This part of the film actually begins at

one age of history, the last stages of the prehuman civilization.

The next part of the film also begins at the end of a stage of history, the end of the human stage. So the transition from the first

part of the film to the second part of the film actually leaps over the entire course of human history. We do not see, for example, the

worlds of Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, England, Germany, and America. Instead we simply leap into the space age. Just as we see

the prehumans before their transition to humanity, we now see humanity before its transition to superhumanity. Technology has

enabled this historical progression from prehuman to human and the space age. Humanity is now self-consciously going to the

moon where another monolith has been buried by the aliens, and another monolith suspended in space. Two astronauts, Dave

Bowman and Frank Poole man a ship equipped with a superhuman artificial intelligence named HAL who is in control of virtually all

of the ship’s functions. HAL kills Poole and all the other members of the ship (in hibernation) except for Dave Bowman who

disconnects HAL’s higher brain functions, discovers the mission of the ship as contact with the new monolith, and completes the

mission. Dave enters a space pod, leaves his ship, makes contact with the monolith, and the monolith transhumanizes him and he

becomes a gigantic superhuman “star child.”

Once the film is complete, Kubrick’s philosophical picture of humanity comes into view. Humanity is potentially superhuman, from

the very beginning. As soon as the aliens transform the prehuman creatures into humans by means of the monolith, effectively

giving humanity the power of intellect and technology (the two of which are intrinsically related), the aliens also render humanity

on the way toward the superhuman condition. In a way, Kubrick’s vision of humanity is very similar to the one Dante advances in

the Monarchia, for Dante there develops the view that humanity actualizes its potentiality (or natural powers) over the course of

universal history, and Kubrick develops that view as well in 2001. Humanity, for Dante, and for Kubrick, requires all the generations

of history to advance its powers precisely because its powers are superhuman. But Kubrick (in some contrast to Dante) portrays

that development in technological terms, so that humanity requires all the generations of human history in order to advance its

powers of technology from the most basic use of tools (like a bone as a hammer) to the space age and artificial intelligence. But as

soon as the prehumans in the film begin to pick up the bones of dead animals and use them as tools, they are already on their way

into humanity, and eventually beyond humanity.

The early image of the primate throwing the bone into the air, and then the cut to the ship floating in space is one of the most

famous cuts (or montages) in the history of cinema. The montage is so important because it spans the whole of universal human

history in just one cut, but that cut also implies causality. Kubrick with this montage effectively says something like this: As soon as

we begin using bones as tools, that use transforms our minds, and that transformation continues over the course of generations,

each one teaching the next, and the mind develops in relation to technology, until eventually technology enables humanity to build

spaceships. That one use of the bone actually sets in motion a sequence that spans all of history and actually results in the creation

of space travel and artificial intelligence. It may appear to some that there is no goal in history because humanity seems always to

be at war with itself, and there are so many contingent (accidental) features of human existence, and perhaps sometimes humanity

seems even to be regressing. But such views mistake the deeper movement of humanity which is always toward more advanced

technology, and the advancement of the human mind itself. It may seem that there is no logic of history, no progressive

movement, no final end, but, from this very wide and yet compressed view of history, there does appear to be a progressive

movement toward the final end which is analogous to humanity’s beginning. The end is analogous to the beginning because

humanity evolved from prehuman creatures, and in the end humanity will evolve into superhuman creatures, and this end will be

achieved by technology, just as the beginning was achieved by technology, all of which is guided by the aliens.

The process of development through history is also educational, in Kubrick, much as it is in Dante, Emerson, and Nietzsche. Dante

portrays the education of the Pilgrim in the Commedia by Virgil and then Beatrice, who guides him through transhumanization.

Emerson portrays the education of humanity by the great geniuses of history, which ultimately leads to superhumanity. And

Nietzsche portrays the education of humanity by the philosopher Zarathustra toward the superhuman condition. Now Kubrick

portrays the education of humanity by aliens toward the superhuman. But, in contrast to Dante, Emerson, and Nietzsche, Kubrick

portrays this education as from afar (humanity does not meet the aliens), and the education is biotechnological: the aliens equip

humanity with the technological means of self-transformation, and then guide humanity (indirectly) toward biotechnological

transhumanization. So all of history actually appears to be an education of humanity toward this stage of transhumanization.

Kubrick does not say what the next stage of humanity would be like, but he does seem to suggest that a new and higher

development and education will take shape. Kubrick ends the film with the image of the star child, who will presumably continue to

develop, and transform, and who will presumably receive a higher form of education from the aliens, who still far transcend the

powers of mind of the star child.

Even if we set aside for the moment the existence of aliens, or their guidance of humanity, is it reasonable that all of history is

aiming at the development of higher technology, as Kubrick portrays it? Does it make sense to think of transhumanization as

resulting in the creation of a new superhuman child? With the creation of the star child, Kubrick implies that humanity developed

from its infancy to its maturity, and now enters a new infancy, apparently with new powers, which may be developed over the

course of history, just as humanity developed its powers over the course of history? Is this the right way to think about the

development of humanity over history?

Images:

Stanley Kubrick - http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2011/06/02/stanley-kubrick-box-set-LR5ANEH-x-large.jpg

Astronaut from 2001: A Space Odyssey – http://www.blastr.com/sites/blastr/files/2001-a-space-odyssey-original_0.jpg

Hal 9000 Control Panel – http://www.chabot.li/hal9000.jpg

2001: A Space Odyssey - https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ryyLd2PvODw/maxresdefault.jpg