Spoilers!

- River Song

A man, let's call him Charlie, once read in a newspaper about his own death and funeral. It surprised him to read about those two things, of course, because he was still very much alive. But he didn't dwell and decided to simply ignore it. He wouldn't send a complain to the newspaper, he didn't think it was important enough.

A few days later, as he was walking down the street, he chanced upon an old friend, whom he hadn't seen for a very long time. The friend, when he saw Charlie, was surprised and a bit shocked.

„Ah“, said Charlie and padded his friend on the back. „I take it you haven't been to my funeral either.“

It was strange meeting Mr Tuniak today in his office, sitting there and talking, even though I had been to his funeral last week. I guess it would have been even more surreal, if it had been an open coffin funeral, but thankfully that had not been the case. Even so: I did not quite know how to react, when I saw him or how to greet him (or if I should tell him anything about the funeral; how much did he know about it?) and all these thoughts were pretty apparently displayed on my face. Mr Tuniak tried to ease me by telling a joke, which I have repeated here above.

„Have you... Did you watch your funeral yourself?“, I asked. „Secretly? Hidden somewhere or so?“

Mr Tuniak smiled about the question. „I have to admit, the thought crossed my mind, yes. But in the end I decided against it... maybe I will still take at least a look at my grave...“ He looked out of the window, deep in thought. But then he turned around and said to me: „But let's not focus on the past any more. During the last year you have asked several times about the future – the future from your point of view. I think now, at our last meeting, is the right time to talk about it.“

For a few moments there I forgot to take notes. I remembered all the times when Mr Tuniak had dropped hints about what was to come, but never elaborating upon them. I only knew that something big was going to happen, but nothing more, no details.

When he saw how I looked at him full of curiosity, he added: „Don't get your hopes up too much. I won't tell you any names, dates... or similar... precise data. I just want you to have an idea about what is to come... among other things so that you will understand, why – besides Juliette and my mothers – no one else built a time machine and used it.“

But he didn't start immediately. Instead of describing the world and how it would look three hundred years into the future, he began by talking about evolution.

„For the better part of the history of this planet, evolution had had an effect only on life forms“, he started. „Their DNA. Mutations change the DNA and whoever is best adapted to survive in their environment, gets to pass on their genes to the next generation. That's how it's worked so far. But here – now, your now – there are people who claim that evolution has stopped with humans. That humans no longer evolving like other species.“

„But doesn't our DNA still change?“, I asked. „I thought I learned that mutations are still occuring in human DNA.“

„Oh, there's no doubt that they do“, Mr Tuniak confirmed. „But they are no longer that important. A simple example: During the time of an Ice Age, a mutation that caused an animal to loose its fur, would lead to the death of this animal. It would have no offspring and therefore the mutation wouldn't have been passed on. But if the same thing happens to a human, the human would just go and buy a thick jacket. The human will still have children, will pass on the mutation. It may have been a disadvantage before, but now it's... unimportant. Or another example: The genes that cause people to have blond hair are recessive. If one parent has blond hair and the other parent has dark hair, there is a very high probability that the child will have dark hair too. You only have to look at statistics to confirm that. There are fewer and fewer people with blond hair. But you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell that, if you were walking down a street. During your time – well, to be fair, for a very long time now – people have been able to colour their hair, to change their hair colour. Their true hair colour is no longer of any importance.“

„If I understand you correctly, you are saying that once humans started to use tools, natural selection stopped being that important“, I said.

Mr Tuniak was slowly shaking his head. „No, not directly, it's not as simple as that. If you only look at a human and nothing else, yes it did, but that is the mistake some people make. You can no longer look just at the animal – in this case a human – alone, because it is using tools now. In a way, you could say that the tools have become a part of the human. He doesn't have claws, but he uses knives. He doesn't have a fur, but he wears clothes. And if you look at the history of humankind and don't ignore their use of tools, you are suddenly discovering that natural selection hasn't stopped at all.“

„It's changing the tools“, I realised. „Whatever works, humans will continue to use and pass that knowledge on to their children. How to built those tools and so... And whatever doesn't work, gets lost and forgotten.“

„That's the basic idea, yes“, Mr Tuniak said. „But of course, like evolution and natural selection in nature, it's not a straight forward process, working with an aim in mind. But it's ok as a very simplified version of the process. Now, what we have done here is stopped focusing on the life form alone. Instead we are now considering the life form and its surroundings. In a way you could say that those two things have become one.

„Ok“, I said slowly. „I'm still with you so far.“

„But what happens if we take the whole process one step further?“, Mr Tuniak asked.

„And now you have lost me“, I admitted. „What is the next step?“

„What if we don't look at just one single human being and its tools, but at all humans and all their tools?“, Mr Tuniak said. „What if we consider all of humankind as one big organism.“

„But that's...“

„Before you protest against that idea: There are some case, like ant colonies, where scientist already sometimes consider the whole colony as one huge organism“, he interrupted me. „Some habits only make sense that way.“

Several thoughts, some of them even conflicting with each other, were going through my head. How had we come so quickly from humankind being one huge life form to humankind being not much more than ants?

Oblivious to my confusion, Mr Tuniak continued: „The best, although not quite correct, description of what humankind will develop into is a gestalt.“

„What's a gestalt?“

Mr Tuniak hesitated a moment, before answering. When he started to talk, it was obvious that he chosen his words carefully. „A gestalt is a being consisting of several other being. Theoretically, two beings could make up a gestalt as much as two billion. And if you are dealing with numbers that high, it is not necessary for all the single beings to exist all the time. The gestalt will still continue, even if a few small parts of it change.“

„So, it's basically like the human body?“, I asked. „We are made up of several billion cells that together form our body, right?“

„That's not a good comparison“, Mr Tuniak said. „The cells in the human body do not have their own free will. But that is an important feature of a gestalt... Its single parts exist as complete and theoretically independent beings. But because they are together, they are also something different. Something bigger. The gestalt humankind will turn into will be like no other life form that existed before.“

„All humans will become one single being?“, I asked. „But doesn't that mean that all people will have think and behave the same? That they will have the same likes and dislikes?“

„No, because the single individual does not get lost or overwritten in a gestalt“, Mr Tuniak explained. „It would be like if you had conflicting thoughts. And this gestalt is also the reason why in the future no one will attempt to travel through time. If you travel through time, there is always the possibility that you change history. But that is something the gestalt of humankind must not risk. Any change in the past would affect it, because it consists of all humans. Any change in history will have consequences.“

„The gestalt of humankind cannot change the past without changing itself.“

„That's the gist of it, yes.“

„But how can such a... super-being come into existence?“, I wondered. „How can all people be connected with... Oh! The internet!“

„Not the internet itself, no, but it will be a part of it, yes“, Mr Tuniak said. „In the future it will be more and more difficult to distinguish between man and machine. Even at the time of the births of my mothers, a clear distinction is no longer possible.

Hearing that a thought came to mind, one I was not sure if I should find it funny or frightening. „So, everything that is part of the internet now, will also be a part of this gestalt of humankind?“

„Yes“, Mr Tuniak said.

„Is that the reason why you wanted me to publish your biography on the internet?“, I asked, following a new thought. „So that you... your history will become a part of this gestalt as well?“

Mr Tuniak nodded.

„I still can't really imagine that every one... every single human being will become part of this“, I said. „Or how the world will look like.“

„That's why the transition to this... new world is called a singularity“, Mr Tuniak said. „Whatever happens afterwards, we, who have been born before it, can not hope to completely understand or foresee it. And as always, there will be exceptions. There will be small groups of people who will refuse to join such a gestalt and who will continue to life their lives apart from everyone else. But not many.“

„Will that be the only gestalt?“, I asked.

„I don't know“, Mr Tuniak admitted. „But I don't think so. Especially, considering that light speed would be a limiting factor, when...“ He never finished the sentence. He obviously alluded to something he had not wanted to mention. But that small bit of information was enough to sent my thoughts racing. Lightspeed! If people were travelling to other planets, maybe even to other stars, they would be too far away to participate in the gestalt on Earth. But maybe they would start to form their own gestalt. One in every solar system...

„We will travel among the stars“, I whispered and Mr Tuniak nodded.

And so ended my acquaintance with Alexander Tuniak.