Some Futurological Issues of Contemporary Humanity

Abstract

Modern humanity is nothing more than the current state in practically indefinite, continuous sequence of past, modern and future generations of continuously evolving human species. The interest in its own past was possibly sparked at the first moment of human awareness, at the moment of understanding the self and existence. It seems that the future enters the focus only when human activity, behavior and social conduct threaten its existence. Definitive abandonment of finalistic and anthropocentric ideas about human as the fundamental and final end of the entire organic evolution opened numerous significant, provocative and inspiring questions related to the biological future of Homo sapiens. In pursue of the answers to the most intriguing questions about the future, earlier (manmade) dilemmas on the relations between the factors of biological and cultural evolution have gradually faded. Possible domination of one over the other type of factors in micro-evolutionary processes of the modern and future humanity has been a subject of long-lasting debate, however the biological and cultural rise of the human as a species are now appreciated as
inseparable components of its unique evolutionary system in the general economy of nature. Among the abundance of questions on the future biology of the human, the projections of possible physical appearance and constitution as well as bare existence are of particular interest. The issues of demographic explosion, ecological crisis and possibilities of either global or restricted nuclear war are especially relevant in this sphere.