Edgar Morin has left us. He was 104 years old and, until the end, he refused to simplify. Complex thought, he repeated, is that which connects. When I learned of his death, I thought of the emergency that he had never ceased to name with stubborn patience: our technologies are growing much faster than our wisdom. This is not new.
From the splitting of the atom to the algorithms that today shape our desires and fears, humanity is forging tools whose power almost always exceeds our capacity for discernment. What’s new is speed. And the scale.
The encyclical Magnifica humanitas, published last month by Leo XIV, names this dizziness: AI “is not neutral, because it takes on the face of those who design it, finance it, regulate it and use it”. Behind the apparent objectivity of machines, there are visions of the future, dreams of domination which mechanically become the nightmare of those who refuse to be dominated.
This is where a crucial question begins to arise for me: how do we learn to dream ethically? In Terre-Patrie, Edgar Morin and Anne-Brigitte Kern coined a word that still affects us more and more: polycrisis. Not a sum of isolated problems, but their intricacy, economic, ecological, democratic, social and geopolitical crises which feed on each other, amplify each other, exceed any capacity for sectoral response.
Learn to co-construct ethical dreams
These dynamics can be explained as the product of unethical dreams in a complex world with limited resources. The dream of growth without limits, of efficiency without relationships, of science without conscience, of powers without counterbalance. These dreams did not remain in the hubris of a few ideologues: they were coded in algorithms, cast in economic models, engraved in our institutions.
Faced with this reality, Morin proposed a conversion of outlook: learning to inhabit the Earth as a common homeland, to recognize ourselves as co-passengers of the same fragile vessel. The encyclical invites us to make a choice: build our future together or erect a new Tower of Babel, symbol of any system that imposes itself on everyone, optimizes without seeing what it destroys, dreams alone and in power.
We must learn to co-build ethical dreams, rather than letting private interests become everyone’s nightmares. The research here surprises us: When people with opposing views are asked what they want for their community in fifty years, their answers are remarkably similar. Polarization is not inevitable, it is partly an artifact of the short term. Projecting the gaze far away is sometimes enough to reveal the shared dreams that the present conceals.
A fair project for everyone
Four principles help achieve this. First, zero nightmares. No dream is ethical if it creates nightmares for others, today or tomorrow. What if we learned to question ourselves and dialogue to avoid such risks? Ethics begins where we stop looking away: on children exploited in mines, workers made invisible by instant logistics, biodiversity consumed by our digital infrastructures.
Then, the veil of ignorance. If you were to be born tomorrow in the world you are building – without knowing whether you would be a wealthy heir, a farmer in the Sahel or a child with a disability – would you consider your project still fair? If not, then the dream is not yet ethical. The encyclical completes this reflection: human dignity does not depend on the abilities it possesses, its wealth or the role it occupies.
Then, listening to the silent voices. The polycrisis is deepening because our systems exclude the voiceless, those who do not vote and do not consume: the biosphere, future generations. Morin warned us: we are awake sleepwalkers. The encyclical states: “Justice includes responsibility towards those who come after us. »
Finally, co-evolution. The polycrisis deepens each time technology grows faster than wisdom. What we need is a simultaneous progression: human intelligence, human ethics, artificial intelligence, artificial ethics. The encyclical formulates this imperative: “Make technique grow without causing the heart to regress. »
Edgar Morin weaved links between knowledge and beings
Resisting is not refusing the technique. It is learning together the art of ethical weaving: submitting our visions to the filter of equity, integrating the voices that we should no longer ignore, accepting that the truly shared dream is always richer – and fairer – than the one conceived in the solitude of power.
Edgar Morin has left us after a century of forging links between knowledge and people. He had seen the polycrisis coming. He had named its root causes. What he leaves us is not another theory, it is an invitation to change our dreams.
The encyclical reminds us that each generation inherits the task of shaping its era. These two voices – one secular and century-old, the other pontifical and new – come together here: the future is not a destiny but a fabric. And the hands that guide the threads remain ours.
What if the responsibility of our generation was to help those that follow develop their capacity to respond to their challenges?
“Thinking about the world that is coming”, conference organized on June 11, 2026 in Paris, in Jussieu, by Cergy Paris Université and Learning Planet Institute, registrations here.
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