Submitted:
21 June 2025
Posted:
23 June 2025
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Abstract
This article proposes Homo Hecmateus as a philosophical and ethical archetype in response to the ontological crisis of the algorithmic age. It critically contrasts this figure with Homo Technologicus, the dominant model of optimization, external control, and digital surveillance, arguing instead for a path grounded in inner governance, ethical responsibility, and posthuman wisdom. Drawing on a wide range of thinkers—Spinoza, Aristotle, Foucault, Zuboff, Harari, Le Guin—the article integrates speculative philosophy with critical theory, outlining a four-stage “spiral of meaning”: knowledge, responsibility, experience, and wisdom. In this model, wisdom is not a retreat from the world but a moral re-engagement with it. The article further incorporates a speculative parable—a Martian allegory—that allegorizes civilizational collapse under technocratic logic and the eventual emergence of a new ethics. Through metaphysical reflection and cultural critique, the figure of Homo Hecmateus becomes an ethical imperative rather than a utopian prophecy. The study aims to reposition philosophical anthropology within the context of digital capitalism, algorithmic governance, and planetary crisis. It advocates a normative transformation: not the optimization of intelligence, but the cultivation of orientation and meaning. Ultimately, the article calls for a new form of human becoming—where conscience, cognition, and action converge.
Keywords:
Posthumanism
; Homo Hecmateus
; algorithmic governance
; Digital Ethics
; inner governance
; Homo Technologicus
; Technocriticism
; transhumanism
; ethical orientation
; surveillance capitalism
; speculative philosophy
; phronesis
; Digital Citizenship
; spiral of meaning
I. Introduction: Beyond Intelligence, Towards Ethical Archetypes
In an age marked by ecological collapse, digital alienation, and ethical disorientation, the human species finds itself at a pivotal juncture. This article proposes the emergence of a new archetype—Homo Hecmateus—as a necessary response to the limitations of both Homo Sapiens and Homo Noeticus. While Sapiens prioritized knowledge over wisdom and Noeticus retreated into individualized spiritual interiority, Hecmateus represents a convergence: the union of inner insight and outer responsibility. This paper outlines the philosophical, ethical, and socio-technological imperatives that call for such a figure and explores its relevance in the current stage of human development.
Human history is not merely a biological evolution; it is also a process of mental and spiritual transformation. This evolutionary journey begins with the upright posture of the body, expands through knowledge, deepens through consciousness, and ultimately reaches completion through wisdom. Every era gives birth to its own human archetype; and every archetype builds a world that reflects its own truth.
The first form of human, Homo Erectus, was the first being to walk upright on Earth. No longer clinging to the ground with all four limbs, it rose onto two feet. This shift allowed it to gaze at the horizon, observe its surroundings, and sense a distinction between itself and nature. Yet it remained tied to the soil, to the hunt, to fire, and to shelter. Its consciousness was confined to its body—focused on survival, reproduction, and protection from danger. At this stage, humanity experienced its existence only in a biological sense. Over time, consciousness expanded, and Homo Sapiens emerged. Now, human beings could speak, think, name things, create mythologies, write, and build societies and institutions. They accessed knowledge, gathered data, and constructed systems. But as knowledge grew, wisdom waned. Humanity, in knowing more, began to lose meaning — buried beneath the very structures it had created1.
As Homo Sapiens seeks to understand itself, it grows increasingly estranged from its own essence. For this species, truth begins with recognition—but often, it ends with the illusion of having known. In response to this knowledge-heavy yet spiritually diminished stage, a new human type begins to emerge: Homo Noeticus. This being turns toward intuition, awareness, and higher states of consciousness. They meditate, turn inward, and attempt to resonate with the cosmos. Their mental and spiritual capacities expand—but this ascent often remains an individual pursuit. As Homo Noeticus falls in love with their own inner light, they lose sight of the collective. The more they retreat into themselves, the more distant they become from others' suffering. They shine like solitary stars—radiant, but without warmth.
But this individualist inwardness is no longer sufficient. The Homo Noeticus may achieve inner peace and spiritual clarity, but in doing so often abandons the external world to chaos. In a time when climate breakdown, algorithmic manipulation, and resource exploitation threaten collective survival, the next evolutionary stage must turn not inward, but outward. Inner wisdom must now assume ethical responsibility and civic engagement.
What the world requires today is not merely enlightened individuals, but visible exemplars—those who make their inner development a public ethic. This recalls Hannah Arendt’s distinction between the private and the public realms, where true political life begins only when individuals make their interiority visible through action.2 These individuals, the Homo Hecmateus, must embody both discernment and action. They must emerge from contemplation not to preach, but to participate: in education, in ecological sustainability, in digital discourse. They must meet the noise not with retreat, but with resonant silence—offering substance rather than spectacle.
Yet modern platforms privilege entertainment over insight. Social media algorithms reward triviality, not truth. Thus, Homo Hecmateus must not only embody wisdom, but dare to speak it in a landscape designed to mute it. As Byung-Chul Han argues, digital culture fosters overexposure and accelerates burnout, thereby neutralizing the conditions for contemplative life and deep ethical action.3 This requires courage. For wisdom, unlike knowledge, does not shout. It listens, reframes, and responds. The wise must become visible—not for self-promotion, but for systemic correction.
Each of these human archetypes is the outcome of vast cultural and cognitive transformations, unfolding over thousands of years4. The most enduring systems that shape humanity are not built of stone or fortified with steel. True power resides beyond physical boundaries—nested within invisible yet potent constructs embedded in thought. For centuries, humanity has been molded by abstract forms of domination, discursive, ritual, and ideological mechanisms. Ideas planted through faith, fear, and belonging have trained individuals to internalize their own confinement.
These transformations in human archetypes are not isolated developments but resonate with broader philosophical insights—from Foucault’s epistemic breaks to Wilber’s integral stages and Harari’s reflections on the future of cognition5.
This article seeks to examine the philosophical, ethical, and structural foundations of Homo Hecmateus: a figure who does not retreat from the world but re-engages with it through a renewed sense of inner and outer responsibility. If wisdom is to be more than a private virtue, it must become a public ethic — embodied, visible, and shared.
II. Homo Sapiens to Homo Hecmateus: An Evolution in Responsibility
By wisdom, we do not mean a mystical inner journey as depicted in ancient traditions, wherein the self seeks only its own essence. Thus, the system endures without overt coercion. Kings, priests, warriors, and merchants are merely visible actors. The real force lies with the architects of thought—those who design imagined structures and fabricate illusions so convincingly that they feel more real than material reality itself. In this sense, power does not always need violence; it only needs narrative. As Gramsci observed, the most potent form of domination is cultural hegemony—when the dominated internalize the worldview of the dominators6. Jean Baudrillard extends this further: in postmodern societies, signs replace reality itself, and illusion becomes more real than the real7.
These figures are as elusive as the “invisible hand”8 described in classical economics by Adam Smith9, and as omnipresent as “Big Brother” in Orwell’s 1984. Foucault would describe this as the internalization of the gaze—the subject becomes both the observed and the enforcer of their own discipline, even when no watcher remains.10 They do not occupy a central throne, nor do they bear any clearly identifiable form. And yet, their influence quietly lingers behind every decision, every act of consent. At this current threshold, the structures that merely change their shell while maintaining their core not only persist—but also impose upon the evolving human a newly engineered sense of “self.” This aligns with Agamben’s notion of a community not built on static identities but on shared potentiality—what he calls a coming community in which belonging precedes classification11. This dynamic—wherein external frameworks overwrite internal autonomy—raises a question that is as unsettling as it is intimate. As I write these lines, I begin to wonder: are these thoughts truly mine, or merely reverberations of an unseen mind that compelled me to write?
When Prometheus, the bringer of light, stole fire from the gods, he did not simply gift humanity with warmth or illumination—he delivered a spark of awareness, a torch of will. As Derrida notes, such symbols are pharmakon—simultaneously cure and poison. In Prometheus’s theft, we find both illumination and incarceration12. At first glance, his act appears to be a symbol of defiance and liberation. But perhaps it was also a calculated move within the gods’ larger design. For this stolen fire brought not only empowerment, but also punishment. And in gaining a scapegoat, the gods found a way to transfer blame for all evils. Modern systems too, it seems, have learned to immunize themselves not by eliminating transgression—but by absorbing and neutralizing it. As Peter Sloterdijk argues, modernity no longer fears the sacred; instead, it vaccinates itself against transcendence, turning every radical impulse into a manageable dose13. In this light, Prometheus is not simply punished — he is institutionalized. A mythic outsider, transformed into a controllable symbol. And humanity, rather than lighting its own fire, chooses instead to follow torches lit by others.
Lacking the courage to draw its own path, humanity thus defeated Prometheus a second time. In this spectacle-driven society, as Guy Debord explains, the image becomes sovereign and reality subordinate14. Humans consume meaning as appearance, not substance. The mind, once a locus of reflection, becomes a conduit of repetition. The individual who relinquishes thought also loses foresight, forfeiting the ability to envision what is yet to come. This tendency echoes what Byung-Chul Han describes as the systemic exclusion of the Other, where algorithmic systems flatten difference and isolate the subject within a feedback loop of self-similarity15. Others began thinking in their place. The mind dulled, then withered. Trapped within zones of comfort, humans came to mistake contentment for truth—falling victim to a well-crafted illusion. As Zygmunt Bauman observes, in liquid modernity, all solid forms of meaning dissolve before they stabilize, leaving the subject in a perpetual state of drift16.
In this way, the Earth ceased to be a realm for thinkers, and instead became a prison built of invisible walls. The Tower of Etamenanki—the ziggurat of Babylon—was once a symbol of collective aspiration. But as it rose skyward, it did so upon the backs of those who built it. The higher the tower climbed, the smaller its builders became. Their names vanished, their faces blurred. In modernity, this structure is no longer made of mudbrick and bitumen, but of language, code, and algorithm. These are the ivory towers of the new epoch—not constructed upon the earth but etched into the folds of human cognition. Here, power does not descend from height but is embedded in the very act of thought. A civilization is being erected—not on the ground, but in the minds of the many, while the few script its logic from above.
In the Age of Pisces, souls navigated through intuition, guided by prophets and sages, advancing under the light of sacred texts17. Today, however, those hazy intuitions have been replaced by the cold rationality of the Age of Aquarius. The god of this era no longer requires prophets, for the reign of dogma has ended and the era of data has begun. Mystics who once heralded epochal transitions have given way to CEOs shaping the future from the temples of Silicon Valley. The holy book of this new age is not yet complete, but its verses are already being written transhumanism, universal basic income, post-cash economy…
Yet these texts are not written for humanity, but despite it. The walls are woven from code; the towers built from algorithms; their mortar mixed with invisible frequencies. These frequencies, like blood flowing through human veins, course through the arteries of the world—except now, they carry not blood, but data. As Manuel Castells suggests in The Rise of the Network Society, informational flows have become the new channels of power, operating across globalized digital infrastructures18. Just like ancient temples, the new ones elevate even as they degrade. They sanctify data but surrender thought to automation. As the possibility of machine consciousness is debated, the authorship of the age’s revelation—like the old revelations before it—remains unquestioned.
For those who question, finding a “doorway” to make a difference has become an inescapable necessity. Yet to find the right key that opens this door, one must first peel away the veils obscuring the architecture of the new age. Since the dawn of civilization, societies have been ruled through the metaphor of a god beyond human comprehension. In the Sumerian city-states, gods lived among the people; in Babylon, kings ruled in their name. Prophets and spiritual leaders called themselves shepherds, and society, without protest, accepted the role of the flock. Michel Foucault’s notion of pastoral power describes this dynamic—where power is exercised not through direct repression, but by guiding the “flock” in their daily lives19. This order, in various forms, endured through the end of the Age of Pisces. And yet, despite its manipulations, this process also brought undeniable achievements to humanity.
The technological comfort we enjoy today is the result of the desires of the modern human who, through transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and consciousness transfer projects, seeks immortality. These desires, when combined with the inertia of the masses, have become a kind of whip—driving civilization forward on their backs to the point it has now reached. Millennia of exploitation have allowed certain minds the time to think more deeply, leading to a cumulative body of knowledge. As Walter Benjamin observes, “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”20 Though ethically questionable and structurally unjust, this process has ultimately left behind a legacy that may open new doors for humanity. Now, humanity stands at the threshold not only of a new era, but potentially of a new species.
Gods will no longer descend from the heavens; instead, they will upload their consciousness to orbiting satellites and descend to earth as "updates." When the body dies, the data will be downloaded again and uploaded into a pre-prepared new body. This possibility suggests not a utopia, but a fragile future always on the verge of becoming a dystopia. The mortal desire for eternal life is no longer confined to mythology—it has become a tangible item in investment portfolios. This mirrors the techno-utopian ambitions explored by Ray Kurzweil, who argues that mind uploading, and digital immortality may soon become achievable realities.21 If these ambitions are realized one by one, immortality will become accessible only to a select elite through mind uploading and body engineering. Those who can convert their minds into data and replicate themselves will, over time, gain an overwhelming advantage in knowledge, experience, and accumulated lifetimes.
Moreover, the masses have already begun residing in digital cities. Projects like Songdo in South Korea and Neom in Saudi Arabia are not just architectural or technological innovations; they are prototypes of a digital surveillance regime where every movement is tracked by sensors, and every decision is shaped by algorithms. Shoshana Zuboff describes this as the logic of surveillance capitalism, where human experience is mined for behavioral data and used to predict and shape future actions.22 To reside in these cities is not just to live in a building—it is to surrender to a lifestyle where invisible algorithms make choices on your behalf.
Even before stepping into these digital cities physically, people have already mentally settled in: the new generation, spending most of their day on virtual platforms and socializing through avatars, has already become their inhabitants. A new human type has emerged—one who exists not in lived reality but on screens, whose existence is validated by online metrics. Systems like China’s social credit score further emphasize the dystopian face of this transformation. This aligns with what Byung-Chul Han has called “digital obedience,” a regime where social behavior is no longer enforced through discipline, but through gamified systems of reward and shame.23 The obedient citizen is no longer simply one who follows rules, but one whose behavior aligns with algorithmic ethics. Thus, the cities of this new era are becoming digital temples built of data, and humanity, in turn, is transforming into digital worshippers—simultaneously surveilled and devotional.
As can be seen, the human of the new age is no longer molded from clay, but from code. Digital dwellers now outnumber the archetypes of earlier humanity in terms of virtual population. Each platform to which they belong operates like a mega-corporation, setting its own laws, agendas, and moral frameworks under the guise of “community guidelines.” The human is no longer the subject of the system, but an object shaped by algorithms and defined through data. Bernard Stiegler warned that when algorithmic processes overtake individual reflection, the human loses their capacity for noesis—the generative force of conscious thought.24 Clicks, likes, comments, and purchasing habits form digital traces that generate cognitive maps. These maps scan everything from planetary movements and biological rhythms to personal interests and psychological profiles, dictating what content you should see and when.
Algorithms do not just manage data—they manage emotions. They decide not only what you see but how you feel when you see it. As Sherry Turkle warns, the rise of emotionally reactive interfaces paradoxically creates isolated selves—alone together in a space where intimacy is simulated but not lived25. Life is no longer a divine gift or a universal miracle; it has been reduced to a line item on a digital ledger. Sin is no longer a moral deviation but a glitch in the system; virtue is no longer about intention, but about metrics—likes, star ratings, and comment volume. In the digital world, virtue is limited to how the algorithm perceives you. Those who succeed become visible; those who fall behind are quietly discarded—like emails lost to a spam folder.
Reaching the masses today is nearly impossible, much unlike the days when revolutionaries would ignite crowds in public squares. The crowds of today prefer searching over understanding—yet what is to be searched is also determined by algorithms. As Eli Pariser has argued in his notion of the “filter bubble,” digital platforms increasingly isolate users from opposing views, reinforcing pre-existing beliefs through algorithmic curation.26 Even the seeker no longer decides what they seek; for even desire is now shaped by data analytics and trend predictions. The invisible architects of the digital age shape not only the content, but also the intention behind seeking it.
Add to this comfort zone—where minds are sent off to drift in oblivion—a promise of “Universal Basic Income” (UBI), and humanity's passivity appears almost inevitable. What initially seems like a freedom offering quickly risks turning into a freedom illusion. After all, the last major transformation—the Industrial Revolution—showed us how even the so-called “free individual” could lose their autonomy. The turning of factory wheels did not only produce goods; it mechanized human will. This echoes Karl Marx’s concept of alienation, where labor becomes estranged from the worker, reducing individuals to mere appendages of industrial machinery.27
Therefore, the concept of universal income may become a new loyalty contract in the age of digital welfare. Signing that contract could resemble a kind of digital baptism, a rite of passage into algorithmic citizenship. Scholars such as Brett Scott have warned that programmable currencies could become tools of behavioral control, especially when coupled with digital identity systems.28 Especially if the income is offered only through system-regulated platforms and programmable digital currencies (such as CBDCs), the individual ceases to be a decision-making subject and instead becomes a new model citizen, one who feeds the system with data. In such a world, citizenship would no longer rest on rights, but on obedience and algorithmic loyalty.
The traceability of digital money may yield positive outcomes in areas such as tax evasion prevention or the suppression of illicit income. However, who will control this monitoring mechanism—and within what boundaries—remains unclear. If control is transferred to a unilateral authority, the issue becomes not only economic but also profoundly ethical. Cash is not merely a means of payment; it is the tangible embodiment of individual will, privacy, and intent.29 A face-to-face transaction, a small allowance given to a child, or a quietly offered donation can all take place without leaving a trace. Invisibility carries risks, but it also offers a space for freedom—not only for the wicked, but for the well-intentioned as well. A fully digitized monetary system may not only prevent abuse; it may also create a surveillance potential that reaches deep into the personal choices of ordinary individuals.
Today, technologies such as blockchain are often presented with promises of security and transparency. Yet the unseen architecture of these systems lays the groundwork for a new form of surveillance. Chains are no longer physical; they have become digital agents—recording users' behaviors, decisions, and long-term tendencies, crafting invisible profiles. These new infrastructures exemplify what Shoshana Zuboff calls “instrumentarian power,” where behavior is shaped not through force but prediction and modification.30 These records, originally designed to verify transactions, may gradually evolve into instruments that shape and limit individual preferences. Decisions about which expenditures are deemed appropriate, or when and what can be purchased, may fall under the control of algorithms and system owners. When this occurs, technology no longer fosters freedom, it cultivates dependency.
Unless the system clearly defines when and how it will exercise its control, the sense of trust it offers to society becomes unstable. This erosion of trust affects not only economic realms but also the psychological integrity of individuals. In such a framework, hope is shaped by the system’s promises of stability, while fear hides in the arbitrariness of its power. Just as ancient mythologies offered paradise and threatened hell, the digital age offers a wallet full of security alongside a deletable identity.31 If the promise of transparency turns into the right to intervene, freedom—like in the old myths—retreats quietly; fear prevails, and hope becomes dependent on the system’s mercy.
With all these intricate puzzles on the table, identifying the early tremors of the great quake awaiting us requires a careful analysis of the consequences of past transformations. Before the Industrial Revolution, people were either directly enslaved or lived as “free individuals” constantly at risk of enslavement. But with the establishment of assembly lines, the system began to demand hundreds of thousands of bodies—to operate machines, build new cities, expand consumption, and increase the number of consumers. At that point, the concept of “freedom” was repackaged as a marketing strategy—a motivational tool designed to keep the wheels of the system turning—what Herbert Marcuse described as integration through consumption and pacification rather than liberation.32 Ideals like democracy, individual rights, and political representation were not ends in themselves; they were motivational tools designed to keep the wheels of the system turning. In truth, no one cared about the vote of a peasant or a worker. What mattered was their voluntary integration into the system.
As the demand for labor intensified in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, mechanisms were developed to encourage voluntary participation. In this context, the ideals of freedom and democracy initially sprouted in intellectual circles but soon evolved into instruments of mass manipulation. As Jacques Ellul warned in his analysis of modern propaganda, democratic ideals often serve as subtle tools of social control under the guise of mass participation.33 The right to vote, offered to the public, was not a genuine avenue for influence but rather a mechanism to create the illusion of agency and participation.
The few who attempted to stand outside this system—those in the questioning minority—sought to respond by formulating theories, ideologies, and alternative structures. Yet even their aim was often less about transforming the masses and more about securing a place for themselves in the new order. Meanwhile, most of the society, swept along by these ideas, unknowingly walked into another trap: freedom gradually became the chain itself. The individual was reshaped into a more efficient, more compliant, and more easily monitored cog in the machine. Over time, freedom became an unquestioned loyalty; the chains became one’s new reality.
In the process we are now undergoing—nearly complete—the era of “freedom defined by the ability to escape” has come to an end. It has been replaced by a manufactured illusion of freedom, framed by obligations and responsibilities. The intent of this transformation can be understood through the functional role animals have historically played within systemic logic. As Yuval Noah Harari argues, the future may render most humans economically irrelevant—not because they lack intelligence, but because they no longer serve the system’s evolving functions.34 During World War I, millions of horses were used on the battlefield. By World War II, tanks and motorized vehicles rendered them obsolete. The horse was not banned or exiled; it simply became unnecessary. A similar fate has begun to apply to humans in the post-industrial world. Fordist production required mechanical labor to keep the lines moving.
Thus, a temporary value was assigned to the human being. But as competition intensified, the human ceased to be a resource and instead became a risk to be managed. On one hand, freedom was marketed; on the other, population growth was encouraged—because the system needed bodies to keep its wheels turning. Yet the Industrial Revolution was only a precursor tremor. Once the current transformation reaches its culmination, humans—much like the horses of an earlier era—may be quietly removed from the system. In this shift, as Shoshana Zuboff notes, human beings are no longer producers, but raw materials for behavioral data extraction.35 And this removal may happen so gradually that it remains unnoticed. The architects of the new age are constructing a system designed to keep the individual preoccupied: one in which the human no longer holds a central role but continues to feel as though they do.
To decipher the mental codes of these architects, one need only look at the film industry. In the cinematic portrayals of the American dream, there was once a glorification of large families, multi-child nuclear households, and dinner tables graced with prayers to Jesus. These scenes were not merely nostalgic imagery; they were visual propaganda aligned with the demographic structure the system needed at the time. As Susan Faludi notes, such portrayals often functioned as cultural correctives, shaping public sentiment to align with shifting socio-economic needs.36
Today, however, the screen is populated by solitary individuals, minimalist living spaces, relationships without fixed identities, and unions driven by consumption rather than production. Modern media no longer promotes belonging but mobility, not continuity but momentary encounters. This aesthetic shift is, in fact, a reflection of a deeper transformation in the system’s demographic priorities. A large population is no longer a benefit for production but a burden for administration. As automation, artificial intelligence, and digital logistics reduce the need for human labor to a minimum, reproduction is no longer an investment in the future—it has become a parameter to be managed. The next station on this trajectory is transhumanism, which seeks not only to enhance biology, but to merge it with technology. As Nick Bostrom articulates, transhumanism envisions the human not as a fixed biological form, but as an evolving informational system.37
Transhumanism is not a modern utopia that appeared overnight, but rather the continuation of a long and deliberate transformation. Beginning with eyeglasses, progressing through contact lenses, and refined by laser surgery, the chain of interventions has gradually redefined the human body. What started as applications aimed at improving quality of life have now evolved into a vision that seeks not just to extend life, but to convert the human being from a biological entity into a digitally engineered project. In this vision, the body is viewed as hardware, the mind as upgradable software, and the human as a potential to be processed through data. Katherine Hayles critiques this reductionism, arguing that when the body is treated as mere hardware, we risk severing the embodied nature of human consciousness.38 However, this transformation—despite its capabilities—carries the risk of eroding ethical orientation, privacy, inner meaning, and the freedom of personal will.
Moreover, this transformation is not confined to the evolution of technical instruments; it also compels a comprehensive shift in social structures, political authority, and ethical norms. Concepts such as transhumanism, universal basic income, artificial intelligence, and automation are neither definitive prescriptions for salvation nor simplistic tools of damnation. The real question lies in identifying the needs these concepts were created to address—and the fears through which they have been legitimized. On the surface, these transformations appear to be driven by the human desire for comfort and efficiency. Yet beneath that surface lies a deeper existential impulse: the fear of annihilation embedded in death itself. Equally important is the scrutiny of what hopes are embedded in these technologies, and which promises are unconsciously internalized as motivating myths. The desire for a longer, healthier, and more controllable life may appear irresistibly attractive—but if the process of transformation slips from humanity’s own hands, it risks reducing the human into a passive figure. The fundamental question is this: Are we shaping the transformation by our own will—or have we become an algorithm within the transformation itself? As Jaron Lanier warns, the real danger of technological systems is not that they think for us—but that we stop thinking altogether.39
It seems this age, like all that preceded it, will also give rise to its own flood. Yet this time, the flood may not descend from the heavens but rather emerge from networks of data. In fact, evidence suggests we are already submerged in such a deluge: the most celebrated rituals of this era are not thinking, not questioning, and glorifying dispossession. The current of this age flows not with water, but with numbers. If humanity fails to recognize its position and act accordingly, it will continue to be consumed by the tide of data. To survive this flood, we must abandon submission and idolatry in favor of thought, production, and the pursuit of wisdom.
Thus, Homo Hecmateus is not the product of genetic mutation or technological upgrade, but the result of an ethical reconstitution of human consciousness—an existential refusal to be reduced to mere systems logic. When this understanding is embraced as an ethical responsibility, the path will open from Homo Noeticus whose search remained personal, toward Homo Hecmateus who may become a founder of a new era.40 Together, these critiques illuminate the shift from isolated introspection to communal responsibility, emphasizing that true human evolution requires not escape into the self, but ethical return to the Other41.
Homo Hecmateus will not merely carry knowledge as a passive vessel; they will become an active and responsible guardian of meaning. They will not only master technology but will also question it, reshape it, and strive to align it with human dignity. Knowledge will not reside only in their mind but will manifest in how they live. For them, thought will not be a commodity to consume, but a field of action through which transformation unfolds. Their actions will not be guided by reason alone but will be measured on the scale of conscience.
The new human form will leave behind both the Homo Sapiens who lost himself in abstract concepts, and the Homo Noeticus who, in pursuit of individual ascension, neglected social bonds. Homo Hecmateus will strive to integrate wisdom with ethics, individuality with solidarity, and technology with humanity. His presence will not only interrogate the idea of a “digital future,” but also challenge the very possibility of remaining human within that future. For what approaches is not a utopia of freedom, but a data regime in which those who no longer serve a function are quietly cast aside.42
This new regime will tolerate the human only as long as he remains “useful”; stripped of passion, he will once again become the cheapest biological machine. And yet, existence runs far deeper than utility. Thus, at the threshold of a new era, what we encounter is not merely rupture—but a call for reconstruction. Homo Hecmateus is the one who hears that call: a consciousness form that seeks wisdom, transforms knowledge, and builds bridges between individual awareness and collective spirit. Even his silence carries meaning, for he understands the difference between the voice of knowledge and the resonance of wisdom.
Throughout the arc of historical existence, man has learned to walk, succeeded in speech, accessed knowledge, and deepened through emotion. Yet this evolutionary path cannot transcend cyclical repetition unless it culminates in the construction of meaning. Meaning is not attained through knowledge alone—it is realized by transforming knowledge into responsibility, responsibility into lived experience, and experience into a wisdom that can be shared with others.43 Being gains value through transformation. For it is not the one who merely thinks, but the one who transforms thought, who transcends time.
Homo Hecmateus embodies the possibility of that transformation: he is the herald of a wisdom age beyond the age of information. Man can only complete his own existence, and evolve into a new form of being, once he understands that truth is not only to be intuited, but to be felt and shared as a responsibility. The figure of Homo Hecmateus has been elaborated in greater philosophical detail in Eterna: The Myth of All Ages, where it is presented as both a metaphysical archetype and an ethical imperative.44
III. Wisdom vs. Efficiency: Critique of Transhumanist Idealism
In contemporary discourse, transhumanism is often celebrated as the natural next step in human evolution. It promises not only enhanced cognition, extended lifespans, and augmented physical capacity—but also a radical break from the limitations of the biological human. Yet beneath its futuristic appeal lies a troubling conflation: the reduction of wisdom to efficiency, and of consciousness to computation.45
The transhumanist ideal envisions the human body as hardware, the brain as upgradeable software, and the self as a series of programmable functions. This metaphor, while rhetorically powerful, carries deep ontological consequences. If intelligence becomes merely a matter of processing speed and memory storage, then meaning is subordinated to metrics, and life is redefined by productivity.
But wisdom has never been about speed. Wisdom emerges through slowness—through reflection, restraint, and resonance.46 It is not about maximizing output but about measuring value beyond output. In contrast, the transhumanist narrative imagines progress as a linear path: more data, more control, less pain, longer life. The Homo Hecmateus model rejects this teleology. It asserts that not every prolongation is an advancement, and not every enhancement is an evolution.
The danger of transhumanism lies not in its technologies, but in its anthropology. It presumes that the human being is a problem to be solved, rather than a mystery to be respected. Nick Bostrom frames the human as an unfinished project, implicitly suggesting that moral and existential questions can be deferred until after cognitive enhancement is achieved.47 It approaches human finitude not as the ground of meaning, but as an error to be corrected. In doing so, it echoes the ancient myth of hubris—the desire to transcend the gods not through transformation, but through domination.
In the logic of transhumanism, death is the final enemy, and immortality is the final goal. But if death is stripped of meaning, life becomes inert. Kurzweil’s techno-optimism, while visionary, sidelines ethical agency in favor of cognitive maximization and life extension through digital transcendence.48 It is not mortality that devalues life, it is a life lived without orientation.
Homo Hecmateus is not an opponent of technological development, but a guardian of ethical depth. Rather than asking what can be done, this archetype asks: Should it be done? Not every technological possibility deserves implementation, and not every problem needs an engineered solution.
The key distinction is this: Transhumanism seeks optimization. Homo Hecmateus seeks orientation. In the absence of wisdom, hyper-efficiency becomes tyranny. The world becomes calculable, but not comprehensible. The human becomes functional but not fulfilled. And in this hollow clarity, something essential is lost—not intelligence, but intimacy with meaning itself.
These visions of techno-augmentation, while captivating, risk ignoring the fundamental question: not whether we can digitize the human—but whether we should. As thinkers like Kurzweil and Bostrom celebrate exponential growth, critics like Turkle remind us that without emotional and ethical coherence, progress collapses into simulation49.
IV. The Spiral of Meaning: Knowledge → Responsibility → Experience → Wisdom
Contemporary societies have increasingly equated knowledge with informational abundance. Education systems and digital infrastructures emphasize data acquisition, analytical proficiency, and speed of recall. Yet, during this epistemic acceleration, a fundamental dimension has been overlooked: the transformation of knowledge into wisdom. Homo Hecmateus introduces a philosophical correction by proposing that knowledge must not be treated as an end, but as the beginning of a deeper ethical and ontological process. This process must distinguish between the passive absorption of information and the active engagement of meaning—a distinction often neglected in today’s accelerationist epistemology.50 In contemporary education, however, this process often collapses at the very first stage. The fragmentation of knowledge into hyper-specialized disciplines impairs not only synthesis, but even perception. In such a system, the possibility of wisdom is foreclosed before comprehension can even begin to breathe.
This process can be described as a four-stage spiral: knowledge leads to responsibility; responsibility, when embodied, becomes lived experience; and experience, when reflected upon with ethical and existential depth, becomes wisdom. These stages are not linear checkpoints, but recursive layers in a spiral formation—each pass through the cycle allows for greater integration, complexity, and maturity. This echoes Spinoza’s third kind of knowledge—scientia intuitiva—in which true understanding arises not from accumulation, but from the ethical alignment of mind and reality.51 In scientia intuitiva, the knower becomes the known—a unity in which perception is no longer external but embedded in being—no longer grasped but lived. In contrast to conventional models of development, the spiral framework allows for fallibility and non-linearity. Regression or repetition within the cycle is not interpreted as failure, but as part of a necessary refinement process. When information fails to mature into orientation, knowledge can devolve into raw power—capable of shaping atoms, yet incapable of guiding conscience. The fire exists—but no Prometheus remains to carry it.
Responsibility constitutes the hinge of this transformation. While knowledge can be passive, abstract, or even misused, responsibility requires an active ethical response. But in an age where knowledge is detached from lived context, responsibility is outsourced to systems, leaving individuals cognitively informed but morally vacant. This concept resonates with Aristotle’s notion of phronesis, or practical wisdom, which binds moral reasoning to situational discernment and right action.52 It binds the knower to the known, not as a neutral observer, but as a moral participant in the unfolding of reality. When this responsibility enters practice, it becomes experienced—subjective, embodied, and often imperfect. Through reflection and discernment, experience gives rise to wisdom: not merely knowing what is true, but understanding when, how, and why to act upon it in alignment with both human dignity and ecological coherence.
In the Homo Hecmateus model, wisdom is not externalized to institutions, traditions, or algorithmic systems. Instead, it is cultivated through inner governance: the individual’s ongoing effort to align cognition, conscience, and conduct. This effort presupposes attentiveness, slowness, and depth—all qualities that are at odds with the hyper-efficiency demanded by digital culture. The spiral of meaning thus challenges not only how we learn, but how we exist: It frames evolution not as optimization, but as moral integration. It calls for a return to integrated perception—where insight arises not from accumulation, but from alignment across intellect, emotion, and ethical will. It proposes that human evolution must move from accumulation to assimilation, from reaction to reflection, from knowledge to wisdom. Both Spinoza’s ethical intuition and Aristotle’s practical wisdom converge in the spiral model—not as fixed doctrines, but as lived processes through which being gains coherence and depth.
V. Homo Hecmateus vs. Homo Technologicus: Governance, Meaning, and Survival
The emergence of Homo Hecmateus as a philosophical archetype must be understood in contrast to a prevailing figure of the current technological age: Homo Technologicus. Whereas Homo Hecmateus embodies the ethical integration of knowledge, responsibility, and wisdom, Homo Technologicus is defined primarily by optimization, external control, and technocratic alignment. The contrast between these two archetypes is not a matter of semantics but of ontological divergence in how human agency, governance, and meaning are conceived.
In the figure of Homo Technologicus, subjectivity is increasingly shaped by automated systems, data-driven feedback loops, and predictive modeling. Agency becomes a derivative function of algorithmic affordances; choices are made within pre-designed parameters, often under the illusion of freedom.53 Governance, in this context, shifts from rule-based political deliberation to behavioral nudging through engineered systems. Surveillance capitalism and biometric tracking systems exemplify this transformation, wherein citizens are rendered legible and governable through digital traces, rather than through ethical deliberation or political representation. This dynamic is at the heart of what Shoshana Zuboff terms surveillance capitalism—a new economic logic that commodifies human behavior as data, transforming autonomy into algorithmically predicted compliance (Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2019)54.
Homo Hecmateus, by contrast, is not governed from without but from within. The principle of inner governance—the alignment of cognition, conscience, and conduct—serves as a counter-model to external algorithmic control. This internal alignment presupposes not only self-awareness but also a relational ethical framework55 that holds the individual accountable to both society and the ecological whole. Governance, in this model, is not merely about rule enforcement or behavioral predictability; it is about ethical coherence across personal, collective, and planetary domains.
The divergence between these two models has profound implications for human survival. In the Homo Technologicus paradigm, survival is linked to system efficiency and functionality. The worth of the individual is contingent upon continued utility within the system. As artificial intelligence and automation increasingly displace human roles, those deemed inefficient risk becoming superfluous56— analogous to how domesticated animals were rendered obsolete by industrial mechanization—useful once, dispensable later. In such a framework, the human being is not eliminated overtly, but gradually phased out through systemic irrelevance. As Ivan Illich warned, technological systems that surpass their convivial limits cease to serve the individual and begin to shape them, reducing the person from subject to systemic function.57
Homo Hecmateus, by contrast, does not derive value from function alone. Survival, in this model, is not just about continuity of the biological organism, but about the continuity of meaning, dignity, and moral depth. One may survive in a data pod or uploaded mind—but if meaning does not survive with them, can we still call it life? The existential question is no longer whether humanity can persist technologically, but whether it can remain recognizably human in ethical and philosophical terms. The ability to generate, preserve, and transmit meaning across generations—rather than mere data—becomes the defining criterion of survival.
In summary, the contrast between Homo Hecmateus and Homo Technologicus encapsulates two divergent trajectories of the human future. The former envisions a mode of being grounded in ethical discernment and inner responsibility; the latter, a system-compatible node optimized for survival but severed from ontological depth. The stakes of this divergence are not only political or technological—they are civilizational. They are civilizational—and perhaps existential, in the truest philosophical sense. The path that humanity chooses will determine whether it evolves into a more integrated form of being, or is reduced to a set of efficient functions within an increasingly impersonal and automated system. Together, Zuboff’s critique of behavioral commodification and Illich’s warning against technological overreach emphasize the urgent need for a new archetype—one that embodies inner governance rather than external optimization.
VI. Fictional Epilogue: Mars as a Symbol of Collapse and Renewal
The following allegorical narrative draws on speculative fiction to extrapolate the moral implications of humanity’s failure to synthesize wisdom with knowledge, framing Mars not as a distant possibility, but as a reflective canvas for our ethical trajectory.
Yet if this archetype remains unrealized, if humanity continues to sever knowledge from wisdom then Homo Hecmateus will remain only a potential, never incarnated. In such a future, civilization will not ascend toward enlightenment but descend into entropy. While fictional, this hypothesis echoes structural patterns recognizable in historical cycles of civilizational failure. It has been tested once, on a distant world that humanity dared to call home again. What follows is not a myth, but a memory: the forgotten chronicle of a civilization that reached for utopia, only to fall once more into the spiral of division, desire, and domination.58 In this speculative allegory, that world is named Mars. But no exile is ever absolute—for the exile always brings himself along. Thus, the seeds of collapse were not left behind; they were carried, dormant, in the very soul of the voyagers.
In a world already bearing the signs of dystopia, before the storm had even begun, a group of weary souls gathered. Their goal was not to save the corrupted world, nor to reform it by electing the “lesser evil” or the “good among the bad.” Instead, they sought to leave it behind entirely. These individuals—burned out by a decaying order—chose exile over illusion. A council was convened, composed of ninety-nine59 sages from all professions, including fifty men. With unanimous agreement, they decided: Earth would be abandoned, and a new colony would be established on Mars. They had all they needed to realize this goal—not just artisans, engineers, and farmers, but people of wisdom and virtue as well.
One day, taking only the essential knowledge, the minimal technology required for survival, and their hopes, they departed from the Earth—a planet ruled by spiritual collapse and social decay. After years of preparation, they boarded the ship they had built and set off into the unknown. They made sure to take with them pairs of animals, seeds of fruits and vegetables, and all that was needed to begin again—this time not merely on another planet, but on a renewed philosophical foundation.
The thousand individuals selected with care by the ninety-nine sages left behind no farewells and no longing. All they abandoned was their greed, their desires, the dark shadows they had nurtured within themselves, and the endless conflicts they could no longer resolve. In an unprecedented act of collaboration, after a journey that lasted nearly eight months, they finally reached Mars. Their first mission was to build a livable zone. To do that, they had to construct a protective dome—since Mars’ atmosphere was not only too thin to breathe but also saturated with lethal levels of radiation. Yet no spacecraft, however advanced, could leave behind the flaws of its passengers. For wherever the human goes, the human brings himself along.
The surface pressure on Mars was less than one percent of Earth's, so creating a habitable interior meant not only generating breathable air, but also balancing atmospheric pressure and filtering radiation. Like ants in perfect coordination, they each fulfilled their roles without hesitation. In this harmony, however, the seeds of conformity were already sown—a coordination that left little space for dissent, and even less for the unpredictable breath of individuality. The dome was completed in a short time. Inside, the necessary conditions of temperature, pressure, and air quality were established.
Next, they built an ecosystem within the dome—for the animals they had brought along, for the plants to take root, and for flowers to bloom. Since approximately 96% of the Martian atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide, they initially deployed a device called MOXIE60, which converted CO₂ into breathable oxygen. But this was only a temporary solution. For long-term sustainability, photosynthetic microorganisms were placed in specially developed bioreactors and dispersed throughout the dome. These would gradually establish a self-sustaining oxygen cycle. But no dome—however airtight—can contain the chaos that festers in the unexamined heart. And no ice mined from Martian soil can cool the heat of unredeemed ambition.
Water was sourced using a similar multi-phase strategy. At first, they generated water by reacting hydrogen with oxygen. However, the hydrogen they had brought with them was limited—and depletion was only a matter of time. Thus, in the second phase, humidity condensation systems were deployed to extract moisture from the Martian air, and ice mining operations were launched to tap into underground frozen reservoirs. This provided a sustainable source of both water and hydrogen. But limits, even when managed, never disappear. They wait in silence, like embers beneath ash—quiet, but ready to ignite when vigilance fades.
Everything was progressing with near perfection. But perfection is never static—it is either transcended, or it decays. There were no wars—nor even a need to declare peace. Greed had been forgotten; the shadows of the old world were long behind them. Time on Mars moved sluggishly, as if even its flow resisted being measured. Though ages were still counted by Earth standards, the lived experience felt almost twice as long. After all, a Martian year consisted of 669 Sols61, and a single Sol was 39 minutes longer than an Earth Day—equivalent to 687 Earth days in total.
Days turned into months, months into years, and finally the calendar marked Year 3, Sol 214—the 74th day of spring. It was the day of the Water Purification Festival. On that day, the colony's leader, Zinteh, addressed the people gathered in the central square beneath the dome:
Though they had fled from Earth, they carried its rituals—repackaged, renamed, but unmistakably familiar.
"O noble, loyal, and courageous children of Mars... Three years ago, when we first set foot on this crimson soil, we did not merely break the chains of the past—we had the wisdom to remember, and the courage to reimagine the utopia of the future. Today, as I look around, I see that all dualities have dissolved; soul and flesh have been reconciled, and two eyes now behold a single truth. We have constructed a system woven from collective reason, shared labor, and lived experience.
We are no longer merely a people; we have become a coherence, a state of harmony. For peace cannot be defined simply by the absence of war. Peace is the untroubled rhythm of the heart, the silence of a mind at rest. This peace did not descend from above—it was something we raised together into the skies. Each morning, as we looked at one another with smiling eyes, we affirmed: ‘If you exist, so do I.’ Your suffering became mine; my burden rested on your shoulder. We understood each other without speaking, and we smiled without the need for formal greetings.
And so today, in this festival, we are purifying not only the water, but also the invisible minerals of memory—those residues that history quietly embeds in us. And let us not forget: if a day ever comes when we feel tempted to fight again, let us first look up—to the ceiling of this dome. For that ceiling reminds us that the sky is no longer something to be possessed, but a space we now inhabit—together."
Time did not flow, but passed silently, like water. The years slipped by one after another, and what had once been a solitary dome had gradually transformed into a network of interconnected settlements, large and small. The Martian calendar now marked Year 673, Sol 221. Despite carefully maintained population policies and rigorous resource management, the population had grown into the hundreds of thousands. For centuries, peace and balance were preserved under the leadership of the descendants of the original hundred sages. In time, that stability turned into an unspoken mythology—accepted without question, remembered without words. But one day, during a session convened to elect a new council leader, that ancient silence was broken for the first time. Though centuries had passed, what was buried had not been erased. They had fled the Earth, but not themselves—for the shadow they thought they left behind had only changed its address.
A young man named T’Kharn, descended from Zinteh, rose in the assembly. His voice echoed under the dome like a resonance from ancestral tombs: "I carry the blood of Zinteh. This dome, this order, this peace… they are the legacy of my forefather’s vision. I must lead this people." he declared. Then, more to himself than to the assembly: Why should I not rule what is rightfully mine? Is it not blood, not wisdom, that gave birth to this city?
Though the crowd heard him, he never truly listened to them. As his words reverberated through the air, his eyes were not fixed on the light of the dome but wandered within the shadows of his own ambition.
The council was not unjustified in its caution; there were valid reasons why T’Kharn had been kept away from leadership for so long. Many had sensed that a darker force within him was slowly awakening. Yet T’Kharn was not alone. He had forged close ties with leaders from powerful mining cliques—men who gathered around him not for his vision, but for their own self-interest, feeding his ego with flattery and ambition. Though he was descended from a mind as brilliant as Zinteh’s, T’Kharn himself lacked depth and foresight.
Meanwhile, the laborers working in the ice mines had grown increasingly resentful. They no longer wanted to live underground. They whispered among themselves, “Life on the surface is reserved for the privileged,” and their anger toward the existing order began to intensify. But T’Kharn failed to comprehend the intent behind their unrest; he did not orchestrate the uprising—he merely surfed the wave it created. He became a tool in their plan: to seal the dome, take the council hostage, and seize control of the colony.
The plan was put into action. The dome was sealed, the system locked down... but it could not be reopened. The backup power units expired. Internal pressure dropped abruptly. Oxygen flow ceased. The bioreactors went silent. And the dome cracked. For the first time in Martian history, human collectivity collapsed not due to external threats, but internal mistrust—marking a symbolic inversion that echoed archetypes of civilizational entropy.
That day entered the records not merely as a technical failure, but as the Collapse of Unity and the Dissolution of Dualities. For across all minds echoed the same haunting whisper: “Perhaps unity was only the silence that comes just before the fracture.” In that moment, they realized a painful truth: they had fled Earth’s chaos, but Earth had already made its home in their instincts.
Within a short time, tens of thousands lost their lives. Many died in silence, as the life-support units in their homes expired. Yet a small group of ninety-nine people managed to survive—almost miraculously—by taking refuge in the abandoned ice mines. Over the years, a primitive ecological structure had evolved in those underground shelters, shaped by the breath, condensation, and biological traces left behind by generations of workers. Though incapable of photosynthesis, certain fungal forms had developed a symbiotic relationship with chemosynthetic organisms—gradually producing oxygen in low concentrations. No one had been aware of this transformation—until those fleeing death witnessed life sustained in the depths of the earth with their own eyes.
The children of the Broken Dome were, like the dome itself, fractured and scarred. The utopia that had once been envisioned in the first colony had quickly devolved into dystopia, forcing the Second Humanity to retreat from the surface into the subterranean world. This narrative arc mirrors the tensions explored in Ursula K. Le Guin’s speculative fiction, where utopian projects often unravel under the weight of their internal contradictions—giving rise to new myths born from collapse. 62 There was no longer any functioning technology above ground, nor the knowledge to comprehend it. Over tens of thousands of years, time passed; memories were erased, languages fractured, and bloodlines intermingled. The human body slowly adapted to the conditions of the underground. Narrow tunnels thinned their frames; absence of light paled their skin; their eyes grew larger to see in the darkness, and their hands, shaped by generations of labor, grew into gnarled, grasping forms—no longer quite human, no longer entirely tool.
They were no longer Homo sapiens. Over time, they had evolved into a new species known as Homo Subterraneus. How many cycles had passed was unknown. But one day, a curious child born in the depths of the underground slipped past his mother's watchful eyes and made his way to the surface. His appearance was far from anything resembling a human, yet when he lifted his head and looked up at the sky—not as a scientist, nor as a mythmaker, but as something both more and less: a witness to something forgotten yet strangely familiar. For the surface was no longer dry, red, and hostile as it had once been. Mars had changed, shaped over the ages by both natural processes and ancient artificial interventions. The ecological chain set in motion by the microorganisms once left behind had slowly redefined the planet. The atmosphere remained thin but was no longer poisonous; the light remained pale but no longer burned. Mars was no longer an abandoned world—it had become an ancient homeland once again ready to embrace its own children.
Thus began the Second Humanity’s journey back toward becoming human. They stood upright, measured time, searched for their own Atlantis, contemplated existence… and once again built a utopia. Mars had become, for them, a homeland, a mother, a father, and a god. The new order was founded upon only two sacred rules: “It was forbidden to cross the white peaks and forbidden to laugh when the brightest star in the sky reached its brightest point.” And these laws, spoken in solemn silence, etched themselves not onto stone tablets—but into breath, gesture, and dream.
These laws were carefully upheld, and the spirits of the ancestors were honored each year through ceremonial rites. Natural resources were never consumed beyond what was needed, and nothing was privately owned. In this way, a simple, quiet, and warless a society not without fear, but without conquest; not without error, but without vengeance.
But one day, the first blood was spilled—and the one who spilled it was cursed. He was not killed, but a mark was placed63 upon his forehead, and he was condemned to live the rest of his life among ruins. By then, the population had begun to grow uncontrollably, and the equitable distribution of resources had become increasingly difficult. Society fragmented—first into clans, then into lineages, and finally into isolated families. Within this fragmentation, the need for a new form of governance became inevitable. That was the day when black smoke began to rise beyond the white peaks—and in the mind of a prominent family leader, an ancient beast was stirred from its slumber: “Mars is angry with us64… It warns us through its smoke. Mars demands something in return for what it has given: a human sacrifice.”
And so the rituals began. Offerings made with fire and blood were once again dedicated to Mars. Over time, as some realized that stories could shape power, narrative machines were built, and myths became the foundation of the new social order. The second generation of humans on Mars fell—just as their distant ancestors once had on Earth—under the rule of those who controlled resources, stories, and sacred authority.
Thus, history repeated itself. Yet had humanity succeeded in taming the beast within—had it learned to temper knowledge with wisdom—it might have evolved not into Homo Subterraneus, but into Homo Hecmateus. This vision resonates with Walter Benjamin’s image of the angel of history, who sees progress not as a linear ascent but as a storm of wreckage—piling ruins upon ruins as he is blown into the future.65 For degeneration is not only a physical process; it is also a moral and existential one. In this sense, if humanity fails to fuse knowledge with wisdom, it will continue to invent myths, believe in them, and be ruled through them. Like Le Guin’s fractured66 utopias and Benjamin’s storm-tossed angel, the Martian allegory reminds us that every collapse harbors the seed of a new myth—and that renewal begins not in escape, but in ethical reckoning.
VII. Conclusion: The Archetype as Proposition, Not Prophecy
The emergence of Homo Hecmateus, as elaborated throughout this essay, should not be interpreted as a deterministic prophecy or a linear evolutionary path. It is not an inevitability etched in genes or encoded in machines. Rather, it is a philosophical horizon—a potential form of human becoming amidst the algorithmic acceleration, cognitive dispersion, and moral erosion of our age. This archetype does not assert historical certainty; it invokes ethical urgency. It asks, as Hans Jonas once did, whether our capacity to shape the future can be reconciled with a responsibility to preserve its very possibility.67
Where Homo Sapiens represents the knowing being, and Homo Noeticus the seeker of inward illumination, Homo Hecmateus symbolizes the integration of knowledge and interiority with responsibility, conscience, and shared existence. It is not the child of technological supremacy, nor the product of engineered evolution—it is the fruit of moral imagination, cultivated through attentiveness, slowness, and existential fidelity. In a time when external systems govern inner rhythms, when identities are shaped by feedback loops and not reflection, Homo Hecmateus enacts an inward sovereignty—an alignment between cognition, conscience, and conduct.
This proposal is not a sentimental return to mythical origins, nor a romantic rejection of technological advance. Rather, it is a radical discernment: to ask whether we are moving forward or merely moving faster—whether we are designing tools, or being designed by them. It echoes Donna Haraway’s imperative to “stay with the trouble,” to resist the lure of abstract salvation and remain ethically entangled in the knots of the present .68 Progress without direction is propulsion; innovation without conscience is collapse.
As dramatized in the Martian allegory, civilizations rarely fall from external blows alone. They dissolve when meaning disintegrates, when collective memory is replaced by algorithmic routines, and when stories no longer carry wisdom but only control. The Martian colony did not perish for lack of oxygen—but for the loss of its inner atmosphere: a collapse of coherence, a fracture of being. In that mirror, we glimpse our own trajectory. For no matter how far we travel, we carry ourselves with us. And if the inner fire is not guarded by wisdom, it becomes indistinguishable from destruction.
Thus, Homo Hecmateus is not a hero of myth nor a blueprint for salvation—it is a symbolic threshold. A summons to conscious evolution. A call to fuse knowing with caring, seeing with acting, and living with meaning. The future, in this vision, is not something to be forecast by data trends—but forged by ethical resolve. Not a destination prewritten in code, but a dialogue between knowledge and wisdom, experience and transformation. In that dialogic space, the possibility of becoming fully human remains.
Homo Hecmateus may never become a statistically dominant form of humanity. But then again, neither did the prophets, sages, or visionaries who once redirected the course of civilizations. In an age of mass replication, even a handful of those who embody this archetype could reshape the ethical, ecological, and existential horizons of the future. Their task would not be to impose a new doctrine, but to rekindle the ancient art of asking the right questions. In a world drowning in data but starving for depth, this alone would be revolutionary.
If there is one enduring lesson to be drawn from both philosophy and myth, it is this: the fate of humanity has never been determined by its tools—but by its truths. And today, as humanity stands before converging crises—environmental, spiritual, technological—the central question is no longer what we can do, but what kind of beings we are willing to become.
Thus, Homo Hecmateus is not an answer to the machine age—it is a question addressed to the soul. It asks not how to master the world, but how to reinhabit it. Not how to escape from history, but how to become responsible within it. In the spirit of Jonas’s ethical foresight and Haraway’s entangled hope, it reminds us: imagining a better future is no longer enough. What is required now is the courage to become ethically responsive before the myth collapses, while the questions still burn, and while the silence has not yet swallowed the last voice of conscience.
For in the end, to be human has never meant merely to survive—but to carry meaning through the fire.
| 1 | As Harari notes in Homo Deus, the human pursuit of intelligence enhancement often precedes any ethical reflection on its consequences, risking a collapse of meaning beneath the weight of data accumulation. |
| 2 | Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958). |
| 3 | Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, trans. Erik Butler (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015); The Transparency Society, trans. Erik Butler (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). |
| 4 | This corresponds to what Michel Foucault described as an epistemological rupture, where dominant forms of knowledge reorganize how reality is perceived and structured (Foucault, The Order of Things, 1966). |
| 5 | This trajectory echoes Ken Wilber’s integral model, in which personal spiritual realization must be integrated with social, ecological, and cognitive dimensions to constitute a higher stage of consciousness (Wilber, Integral Psychology, 2000). |
| 6 | Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971). |
| 7 | Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). |
| 8 | Corrigendum Note: In an earlier version of this paper, the reference to the “invisible hand” was incorrectly attributed to Keynesian economics. This has been corrected to reflect its original association with Adam Smith and classical economic theory. The author acknowledges and regrets this oversight. |
| 9 | Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776). |
| 10 | Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995). |
| 11 | Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community, trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). |
| 12 | Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). |
| 13 | Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, trans. Michael Eldred (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). |
| 14 | Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Ken Knabb (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006). |
| 15 | Byung-Chul Han, The Expulsion of the Other: Society, Perception and Communication Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016). |
| 16 | Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). |
| 17 | In astrological tradition, the Age of Pisces is associated with religious symbolism, sacrifice, and spiritual devotion. This era is often linked with the birth and spread of major prophetic traditions. The Tower of Babel (Etamenanki), often interpreted as a hub of linguistic confusion, also functioned as an astronomical observatory in Mesopotamian civilization, tracking celestial events that structured ancient calendars. |
| 18 | Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). |
| 19 | Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78, ed. Michel Senellart (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). |
| 20 | Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History. |
| 21 | Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (New York: Viking, 2005). |
| 22 | Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2019). |
| 23 | Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (London: Verso, 2017). |
| 24 | Bernard Stiegler, Automatic Society: The Future of Work, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016). |
| 25 | Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2011). |
| 26 | Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (New York: Basic Books, 2011). |
| 27 | Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Martin Milligan (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2007). |
| 28 | Brett Scott, Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for Our Wallets (New York: Harper Business, 2022). |
| 29 | Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, trans. Tom Bottomore and David Frisby (London: Routledge, 2004), esp. chap. 2. |
| 30 |
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. |
| 31 | Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, trans. Tom Bottomore and David Frisby (London: Routledge, 2004), esp. chap. 2. |
| 32 | Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964). |
| 33 | Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Vintage Books, 1973). |
| 34 | Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (New York: Harper, 2017). |
| 35 | Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (New York: Harper, 2017). |
| 36 | Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Crown, 1991). |
| 37 | Nick Bostrom, “A History of Transhumanist Thought,” Journal of Evolution and Technology 14, no. 1 (2005). |
| 38 | N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). |
| 39 | Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). |
| 40 | This vision resonates with Giorgio Agamben’s notion of a community grounded not in fixed identities but in shared potentiality—a “coming community” defined by openness and ethical coherence (Agamben, The Coming Community, 1993). |
| 41 | This formulation echoes, though does not directly reference, Emmanuel Levinas’s ethical philosophy, particularly his emphasis on responsibility toward “the Other.” While Levinas grounds this responsibility in the face-to-face encounter, the present usage frames the Other more broadly—as an ethical horizon necessitating a turn from isolated consciousness to shared responsibility. See Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969). |
| 42 | This reflection resonates thematically with Giorgio Agamben’s notion of “bare life” and Byung-Chul Han’s critique of neoliberal digital systems, though it constitutes an original metaphor developed independently of these specific frameworks. For comparable discussions, see Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); and Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (London: Verso, 2017). |
| 43 | This philosophical arc loosely resonates with the classical notion of paideia as a process of cultivating ethical and civic transformation through knowledge. See Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. |
| 44 | Orhan Oğuz Yılmaz, Eterna: The Myth of All Ages (Toronto: Kindle Direct Publishing, 2025). |
| 45 | For a computationalist view of consciousness, see David J. Chalmers, “A Computational Foundation for the Study of Cognition,” in The Nature of Consciousness, ed. Block, Flanagan, and Güzeldere (MIT Press, 1997). |
| 46 | See Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering (Polity, 2017), where slowness is presented as a medium of existential depth. |
| 47 | Nick Bostrom, "Transhumanist Values," Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, ed. Frederick Adams (Oxford: Philosophical Documentation Center Press, 2005). |
| 48 | Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. |
| 49 | Sherry Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (New York: Penguin Press, 2015). |
| 50 | See Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb (2000), where he argues that informational velocity erodes depth and distorts temporality of knowledge. |
| 51 | Spinoza, Benedict de. The Collected Works of Spinoza. Vol. 1. Edited and translated by Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. |
| 52 | The Complete Works of Aristotle. |
| 53 | On the illusion of agency under system regulation, see Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics in The Birth of Biopolitics (1979), and Gilles Deleuze’s Postscript on the Societies of Control (1990), where power no longer represses but modulates. |
| 54 | Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2019). |
| 55 | Compare Félix Guattari’s “ecosophy,” which calls for ethical practices that integrate personal, social, and environmental domains (The Three Ecologies, 1989). |
| 56 | See Homo Deus, especially the chapter “The Useless Class,” where he explores how future economies may render large segments of the population functionally obsolete. |
| 57 | Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). |
| 58 | Echoes of this pattern can be traced in Arnold Toynbee’s theory of civilizational decline, where internal disintegration and moral exhaustion precede collapse (A Study of History, 1934–61). |
| 59 | The number ninety-nine may symbolically echo traditions in which divine completeness is expressed in near-totality, leaving space for the unknowable hundredth. |
| 60 | MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) is a real NASA technology tested on the Perseverance rover in 2021 to produce oxygen from Mars' CO₂-rich atmosphere. |
| 61 | One Martian Sol (solar day) is approximately 24 hours and 39 minutes. A Martian year equals roughly 687 Earth days. |
| 62 | Le Guin, Ursula K. The Dispossessed. New York: Harper and Row, 1974. |
| 63 | This echoes the Biblical motif of Cain, who was marked—not destroyed—after shedding his brother’s blood (Genesis 4:15). |
| 64 | While Mars is invoked here as an external force, the fear projected onto the planet mirrors the psychological fragmentation of the society itself. |
| 65 | Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1969). |
| 66 | Le Guin’s speculative worlds often expose how utopian ideals, when institutionalized, fracture under the weight of internal contradictions—see: The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home. |
| 67 | Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, trans. Hans Jonas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). |
| 68 | Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). |
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