Polymath School of Morioka Statement of Purpose

These days, only the technologies that serve entertainment are advancing at a remarkable pace. The technology of education is still in its infancy, theories for cultivating wisdom have long stagnated, and few people are working on the fundamental research into developmental theory. If the technologies that make humanity foolish continue to outstrip the technologies that make humanity wise, it is as clear as day that our population will sooner or later decline, and that we will eventually be replaced by some other intelligent life form.

Technologies as powerful as nuclear weapons are now being put into practical use. Human intelligence is declining year by year, while only machine intelligence is evolving brilliantly. In inverse proportion to the progress of artificial intelligence, natural intelligence is degenerating.

Looking back through history, the emergence of powerful technologies has decided the fate of living things time and again. From the oxygen revolution that began with the photosynthetic technology of cyanobacteria, through the Cambrian explosion and the move onto land in the Paleozoic, the breakup of the continents and the impact of a giant meteorite in the Mesozoic, and continental drift and the ice ages in the Cenozoic, we have survived them all and carried life forward. We, who are ourselves links in the great chain of life, now stand at a crossroads once again. If we, the only surviving species of the genus Homo, take powerful technologies into our hands while growing ever more foolish, we will walk the road to our own destruction.

The countdown to human extinction is in its final seconds. The only way to avert it is to establish a new technology that dramatically raises humanity’s innate intelligence. And fortunately, thanks to the cooperation of all humanity up to now, the materials needed for that technology are already available “off the shelf.” Only the way to use them remains unsolved.

The Stone Age, which began when we first broke stones to make hand axes, has now reached the level of having completed the classification of the 92 cosmic elements and having mastered alloy technology. Our unceasing efforts to improve technology have developed into automobiles, ships, airplanes, spacecraft, and semiconductor chips, and they support today’s civilized society. Humanity, which has devoted its entire existence to refining and improving its tools, will go on to achieve many more remarkable technological innovations; the Stone Age will continue as a Super Stone Age, and we will set out into the as yet unseen universe. To prepare for that, we must expand our understanding of the universe as far as is possible on planet Earth. That is precisely what it means to dramatically raise humanity’s innate intelligence.

We have wonderful hands. And we have great minds. Everything has been given to us, complete, from the very beginning. By bringing our innate polymathic potential into full play, we can transcend the many technologies that are winding Homo sapiens (“wise human”) back into “apes.” As an applied form of the technology that makes possible our evolution into a wiser next species, Homo supranatura (“supernatural human”), we need an entirely new model of “school.”

Aiming to create the most intelligent school on Earth, we hereby declare the founding of Polymath School of Morioka.