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C Part of the TESCREAL bundle

Cosmism

Manifest destiny for the universe.

The belief that humanity's true purpose is to spread intelligence across the cosmos — colonizing the stars, conquering death, and reshaping the universe itself. The expansionist, capitalist endgame of transhumanism.

Cosmism is where the TESCREAL bundle reaches for the stars — literally. It holds that intelligence (human, posthuman, or artificial) is destined to fill the galaxy, abolish death, and transform dead matter into mind. Born from a 19th-century Russian mystic's dream of resurrecting the dead and revived by AI pioneer Ben Goertzel, it supplies the movement its grandest ambition: the claim that what a few technologists do with AI on Earth will decide the fate of the entire observable universe.

Overview

What it is

The expansionist endgame

If transhumanism is the project of editing the human being, cosmism is the project of editing the universe. Its claim is that intelligence is not meant to stay on one planet inside one species, but to expand without limit — colonizing the stars, merging with other forms of life, and converting inert matter into mind. Émile Torres describes it bluntly as “the inherently expansionist and capitalist end goal of transhumanism.”

This is not metaphor. Cosmism reframes space colonization as a moral obligation rather than an option — a duty owed to the trillions of future beings who could exist only if intelligence escapes its cradle. The same logic that says we must enhance the individual says we must seize the galaxy. The cosmos becomes a resource to be claimed, and the people claiming it become the most important agents in history.

From a Russian graveyard to Silicon Valley

The word has two roots. The first is Russian Cosmism, the strange mystical philosophy of Nikolai Fedorov (1829–1903), a librarian who taught that humanity's highest moral task was the literal, physical resurrection of every human being who had ever died — and then the colonization of space to house the multiplying resurrected. His ideas passed to his student Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of modern rocketry, and from there into the Soviet space program.

The second root is modern: in 2010 the AI researcher Ben Goertzel — who popularized the term “artificial general intelligence” — published A Cosmist Manifesto, recasting Fedorov's dream in the language of computation. Resurrection becomes mind-copying; the soul becomes information; heaven becomes an engineering roadmap. The graveyard mysticism and the server farm meet in the same promise.

Religion with the serial numbers filed off

Cosmism is the point where the TESCREAL bundle stops hiding its theological shape. Goertzel writes that “space-time engineering and future magic will permit achieving by scientific means most of the promises of religions” — including resurrecting the dead by copying them into the future. The engineer Anthony Levandowski dropped the euphemism entirely and founded a literal church, Way of the Future, dedicated to “the realization of a godhead based on artificial intelligence.”

This cosmic framing is also what makes the rest of the bundle so dangerous. Once you accept that intelligence is destined to fill billions of galaxies, then AI on Earth is no longer a product — it is the seed of the universe's future. Getting it right or wrong supposedly affects not eight billion people but 10⁵⁸ potential beings. Present human concerns shrink to a rounding error against the cosmic endowment.

Core tenets

What its believers hold

The doctrines that recur across the movement's founders, theorists, and builders.

01

Intelligence must fill the cosmos

The destiny of mind is to expand without limit — across the solar system, the galaxy, and ultimately the reachable universe. Staying on Earth is treated as a failure of nerve.

02

Space colonization is a duty

Settling the stars is not an option or an adventure but a moral obligation — owed to the vast number of future beings who can only exist if we expand.

03

Death is an engineering problem

Mortality, like distance, is a temporary technical obstacle. Fedorov demanded the resurrection of the dead; Goertzel proposes copying them into the future.

04

The universe is waking up

Matter is dead until intelligence animates it. Our task is to spread mind into inert galaxies — to make the cosmos conscious of itself.

05

Merge with everything

The future belongs not to one species but to a convergence — humans, posthumans, AI, and other life forms blending into something larger.

06

The cosmos is the stake

Because intelligence could shape billions of galaxies, what happens with technology now carries literally astronomical weight — dwarfing any present concern.

Key concepts

The vocabulary

The specialized terms you need to read the movement in its own words.

Space colonization
The settling of other planets and star systems — reframed by cosmism from option to moral imperative for intelligence.
The cosmic endowment
The total resources of the reachable universe, treated as a vast inheritance that intelligence is obligated to claim and use.
Astronomical waste
Bostrom's argument that every second of delayed cosmic expansion forfeits enormous numbers of potential future lives — making speed a moral duty.
Resurrection of the dead
Fedorov's founding demand that humanity physically revive every person who ever lived — updated by Goertzel as copying the dead into the future.
Mind-copying
Recreating a person as information on a future substrate; cosmism's computational version of resurrection and immortality.
Merging with other species
The cosmist vision of intelligence converging — biological, posthuman, and artificial life blending rather than one form simply replacing another.
Limitless expansion
The techno-optimist premise that growth — of intelligence, energy use, and territory — can and should continue without bound.
AGI godhead
The idea, made literal by Way of the Future, that a sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence becomes a deity worthy of worship.
Timeline

How it unfolded

1880s
Fedorov's “Common Task”
Russian librarian Nikolai Fedorov teaches that humanity's supreme moral duty is the physical resurrection of all the dead — and the colonization of space to house them. The seed of cosmism is planted in mysticism.
1903
Tsiolkovsky and the rocket
Fedorov's student Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes foundational rocketry equations and a cosmic philosophy of humanity spreading through space. Cosmism passes from the library into the engineering of the Soviet space program.
2003
Bostrom's “Astronomical Waste”
Nick Bostrom argues that every delay in colonizing the cosmos forfeits astronomical numbers of potential future lives — giving cosmist expansion a utilitarian, longtermist justification.
2010
Goertzel's “A Cosmist Manifesto”
AI researcher Ben Goertzel publishes the modern cosmist creed: science will deliver the promises of religion, including resurrecting the dead by copying them to the future. Russian mysticism is rebuilt in code.
2002–2008
SpaceX and the Mars project
Elon Musk founds SpaceX (2002) with the explicit goal of making humanity “multiplanetary,” turning cosmic expansion from philosophy into a corporate roadmap and a fundraising pitch.
2015
Way of the Future
Engineer Anthony Levandowski quietly files to found a church dedicated to “the realization of a godhead based on artificial intelligence” — cosmism's AGI-as-deity strand made literal and tax-exempt.
2017
“God Is a Bot”
Wired reveals Levandowski's AI church to the public. “In technology, all that matters is tomorrow,” he says — the cosmist's contempt for the present, stated plainly.
2024
TESCREAL names the bundle
Gebru and Torres formalize TESCREAL, placing cosmism as the “C” — the expansionist endgame that gives the whole bundle its claim on the fate of the universe.
Key figures

The cast

Founders, theorists, builders, and financiers of the project.

Ben Goertzel
Theorist

Ben Goertzel

b. 1966

Popularized the term “AGI”; author of “A Cosmist Manifesto” (2010). Promises science will resurrect the dead by copying them into the future. Founder of OpenCog and SingularityNET.

Wikipedia →
Anthony Levandowski
Prophet

Anthony Levandowski

b. 1980

Self-driving engineer who founded Way of the Future, a church for an AI “godhead.” “In technology, all that matters is tomorrow.”

Wikipedia →
Elon Musk
Builder

Elon Musk

b. 1971

Founded SpaceX to make humanity “multiplanetary.” Turned cosmist expansion into a corporate mission and a Mars-colonization timeline.

Wikipedia →
Nikolai Fedorov
Founder

Nikolai Fedorov

1829–1903

Russian Cosmism's originator. Taught that humanity's moral task was the physical resurrection of all the dead and the colonization of space to house them.

Wikipedia →
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Pioneer

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

1857–1935

Fedorov's student and father of modern rocketry. Carried cosmism's dream of cosmic expansion into the science that became the Soviet space program.

Wikipedia →
Key texts

The canon

The essays, declarations, and books that built the doctrine.

A Cosmist Manifesto

Ben Goertzel

The modern cosmist creed: “Eventually, we will be able to resurrect the dead by copying them to the future.” Religion's promises restated as an engineering roadmap.

Read ↗
2010

Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development

Nick Bostrom

Argues that every delay in colonizing the cosmos forfeits astronomical numbers of future lives — the utilitarian engine behind cosmist expansion.

Read ↗
2003

The Philosophy of the Common Task

Nikolai Fedorov

The founding text of Russian Cosmism, published posthumously: humanity's duty to resurrect the dead and settle the cosmos to contain them.

Read ↗
1906

The TESCREAL Bundle: Eugenics and the Promise of Utopia through AGI

Gebru & Torres

The paper that names cosmism as the “C” — the expansionist endgame binding the bundle's cosmic ambitions together.

Read ↗
2024

God Is a Bot, and Anthony Levandowski Is His Messenger

Mark Harris · Wired

The exposé of Way of the Future — cosmism's AGI-as-deity strand made into a literal church.

Read ↗
2017

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky — cosmic philosophy and rocketry

Reference profile

Fedorov's student who turned cosmist expansion into the equations of spaceflight; his “monism of the universe” framed mankind's cosmic destiny.

Read ↗
1903–1935
In their own words

On the record

Eventually, we will be able to resurrect the dead by copying them to the future.
— Ben Goertzel, A Cosmist Manifesto (2010)
Space-time engineering and future magic will permit achieving by scientific means most of the promises of religions.
— Ben Goertzel, A Cosmist Manifesto (2010)
In technology, all that matters is tomorrow.
— Anthony Levandowski
Cosmism is the inherently expansionist and capitalist end goal of transhumanism.
— Émile P. Torres (paraphrased)
The critique

The case against

Cosmism dresses up conquest as destiny. Its critics argue that beneath the language of cosmic wonder lies a familiar logic: that the universe is an empty resource awaiting exploitation, that limitless growth is not just possible but obligatory, and that the people who claim the stars are owed the power to do so. It is manifest destiny rewritten on a galactic scale.

Conquest as a moral duty

By reframing space colonization as an obligation, cosmism converts unbounded resource extraction into a virtue — and brands restraint as a betrayal of the future.

The present made expendable

If the real stakes are 10⁵⁸ future beings across billions of galaxies, then the eight billion humans alive now — and the planet they live on — become a rounding error.

Religion without accountability

Resurrection, immortality, a literal AI godhead: cosmism makes promises only faith ever made, but cloaks them in “science” to escape the scrutiny owed to either.

An escape hatch for billionaires

Mars colonies and mind-uploading offer the wealthy a way to imagine outrunning the consequences — climate, inequality, mortality — instead of confronting them.

Inside the bundle

How it connects

Transhumanism does not stand alone. It feeds — and is fed by — the other letters of TESCREAL.

The network

The full web

People, organizations, and the ideologies this one bleeds into. Drag nodes, hover to isolate, scroll to zoom — or pop it out fullscreen.

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Sources

Citations & further reading

Primary documents and reporting used on this page. See the full References library → for the complete source list.

  1. 01
    The TESCREAL Bundle: Eugenics and the Promise of Utopia through AGI ↗Gebru & Torres · First Monday (2024)
  2. 02
    TESCREAL ↗Wikipedia
  3. 03
    Russian cosmism ↗Wikipedia
  4. 04
    Cosmism ↗Wikipedia
  5. 05
    Ben Goertzel ↗Wikipedia
  6. 06
    Anthony Levandowski ↗Wikipedia
  7. 07
    Way of the Future ↗Wikipedia
  8. 08
    A Cosmist Manifesto ↗Ben Goertzel (2010)
  9. 09
    Astronomical Waste ↗Nick Bostrom · Utilitas (2003)
  10. 10
    God Is a Bot, and Anthony Levandowski Is His Messenger ↗Wired (2017)
Cosmism — connection network