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Nikolai Fyodorovich FyodorovNikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov (surname also Anglicized as "Fedorov") was not an academic philosopher, but an unsystematic religious thinker (by definition of Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy). By many scholars he is regarded as a Russian Orthodox Christian philosopher, who was part of the Russian cosmism movement and a precursor of transhumanism. Fyodorov advocated radical life extension, physical immortality and even resurrection of the dead, using scientific methods.
Fedorov's ideas became more widely known after the posthumous publication of two volumes of his works entitled (by their editors, V. A. Kozhevnikov 9 and N.P. Peterson) "The Philosophy of the Common Task" ("Filosofiya obshchago dela"), sometimes translated as "The Philosophy of the Common Cause". About of Fedorov's PhilosophyDue to his Christian perspective, Fedorov found the widespread lack of love among people appalling. He divided these non-loving relations into two kinds. One is alienation among people: "non-kindred relations of people among themselves." The other is isolation of the living from the dead: "nature's non-kindred relation to men." "[O]ne should live not for oneself nor for others but with all and for all" (Filosofiya Obshchago Dela vol. I, 118, n. 5, as quoted in Zakydalsky, 55). Fedorov is referring to all people of all time (past, present, future). He is speaking of a project to unite humankind, the colonization ("spiritualization") of the universe, the quest for the Kingdom of God, the creation of cosmos from chaos, the death of death, even resurrection of the dead. Fedorov believed, and passionately felt, that resignation in the face of death and separation of knowledge from action was false Christianity. He cautioned against being fooled into worshipping the blind forces of Satan. Rather, one should actively participate in changing what is into what ought to be. <...>
Fedorov wrote:
"By refusing to grant ourselves the right to set ourselves apart ... we are kept from setting any goal for ourselves that is not the common task of all."
Fedorov's vision of supremacy of human mind
The resurrection of the dead was the supreme act of love of the living for the deceased fathers and ancestors : a love approaching the divine love which binds together God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit into a Trinity which is One in Three. Just as the three Persons within the Holy Trinity are unmerged, so would humanity be united without individuals being depersonalised. In its growing wisdom and power of love mankind would at last reach adulthood. People would cease to be governed by childish desires of domination over kith and kin, sexual impulses and other 'natural' instincts. From being zoo-anthropic, morality would become theo-anthropic. Men would become God's conscious and willing tools, His co-workers in the creation of a universe that God, from the beginning of time, could only have destined to attain incorruptible beauty and ineffable perfection.
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