Abstract
Continuing the thought introduced in the last chapter, we suggest that society is a nonlinear system, which is subject to the feedback contributed by an exponential rise in technology, information, and gene/AI instantiated in humans to increase intelligence, will accelerate something along the lines of a Singularity. However, human adaptability to technology appears to progress linearly, but for its development and response to social memes. Many highly structured collective behaviors are the consequence of simple principles or rules, the purposes which help satisfy some important survival imperative. Humans share survival imperatives similar to other species, especially as concerns adaptation to a changing climate, but also different imperatives as wrought by changing technology.
Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world, Like a Colossus, and we petty men, Walk under his huge legs and peep about.—Julius Caesar—Shakespeare
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Notes
- 1.
The feedback mechanisms may be such as friction, or stigmergy, which is an indirect coordination mechanism acting through an environment between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent.
- 2.
A wide range of opinions on singularity is found at: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/vc.html#bostrom.
- 3.
The information theorist, Claude Shannon, who quantified the notion of information, in Prediction and Entropy of Printed English, (1951) discussed upper and lower bounds of entropy of the English language. He showed that treating a whitespace, as between words, as the 27th letter of the alphabet actually lowers uncertainty, providing a quantifiable link between cultural practice and probabilistic cognition. This type of quantification is one example of what is needed for a theory of technological singularity to emerge, one that had the power of predictability.
- 4.
“An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential … we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years of progress.” See, http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns.
- 5.
Karl Popper demarcation refers falsifiability of a scientific theory, and generally the means by which we distinguish science from pseudo-science.
- 6.
Richard Dawkins defines as “…anything in the universe of which copies are made. Examples are a DNA molecule, and a sheet of paper that is xeroxed.” See, Dawkins, R. (1983). The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Carvalko Jr., J.R. (2020). Information Colossus. In: Conserving Humanity at the Dawn of Posthuman Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_49
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_49
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