In a recent post, Welcome to the true TransOrganic Age we looked at the development of a technology that will enable a computer to create new life forms on demand. In this earlier essay we looked at the computer as the parent of the new life form where the machine code determines the process of assembling the DNA code.
In this essay we look at the other end of the spectrum, replacing the organic parts with synthetic parts to create life.
When computers become sentient, a new order of life will emerge. This will be an order of life which favors organic/machine integration such as we have seen portrayed in AVATAR and The Terminator series. Control of production in such a world will shift from DNA based life to trans-organic technology. Human, and other DNA based life forms, purpose in the world will be dependent on their economic value to the super-organic creatures which dominate the planet. These creatures will weigh the value of DNA life relative to non-DNA life for their survival their technological complexes and chose accordingly. This is another way of saying that societies and civilizations will struggle for survival based on the competition between, human capital or DNA capital and non-DNA capital represented by technology.
James Cameron's Avatar presents a fictional depiction of what this future might be like. The battle between "humanity" and "technology" is played out here on many levels. The Corporation, a super-organic entity representing Earth, is driven by its need for "food", the mineral Unobtanium which is found on Pandora. It is this premise which drives the story line.
One plot line which stands out, Jake Sully's story, is based on the fact that today's robotic and prosthetic technologies are breaking new ground in treating the human body traumatized by war, accidents and natural disasters. New ways to restore function to damaged bodies offer new opportunities for individuals to return as productive members of society. It creates economic value as well as a new economy for the super-organic civilization.
The wedding of technology with the human body began some 250,000 years ago with the first use of animal skins for protection from the elements. Today, this union has evolved to where we might expect the next generation will have a blue tooth implanted at birth to insure they have instant communication across the planet.
At the University of Reading, Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley have taken an different and interesting approach. Build the machine and implant an organic brain. They have inserted a rats brain tissue into an mechanical robot and demonstrate how this organic brain can learn to control its mechanical body.
If the mind is the home of the soul, and brain the loci of mind, then here we have an alternative evolution track. Detach the organic soul from the organic constraints of the organic body. Then enable the soul to survive in a hostile physical environment by installing it into the appropriate robotic container. This may be a necessary step for humanity as a species to seed the universe with earth born intelligent life.
What does this mean for our mortality, our morality and our humanity?
Showing posts with label emergence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emergence. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Introduction to Chaos Theory and the Superorganic
The complexity of life on this planet and in our universe is a wonder of infinite possibilities which the human mind has yet to comprehend. Businesses startup and then fail, stock markets go up and then down, all the while governments muddle along trying to maintain some sense of order and security for their members. Yet even these best of intentions are overwhelmed by chance. The human tendency for linear thinking is very useful for solving the routine problems of daily life, but a total disaster in uncertain times and circumstances.
Linear thinking is the process of thinking that If A happens, then experience teaches us that B follows. Linear thinking is based on the assumption that there are universal truths which explain the world we live in. It is a form of thinking which is the hallmark of the ideolog and partisan. That is, "there is my way or no way."
Yet beyond the circle of our immediate experience, the truth of such thinking quickly disappears and complexities fog our judgement and ability to coop with the new or unusual. The Superorganic is a level of social organization beyond the individual and beyond the immediate family where we first encounter the limitations of linear thinking applied to human behavior. As the recent movie, It's Complicated, shows even the simplest of human relationships can become unpredicably humorous and sad when the linear thinking of one party fails to account for the linear thinking and circumstances of others.
How do we understand the world when it is becoming more and more complex by the minute? How do we understand and deal with the chaos in our lives?
The following video may help you to understand how Nonlinear thinking gives us an alternative way of thinking about the Chaos in our lives.
Chaos theory is the way to begin to understand how the superorganic behaves.
Linear thinking is the process of thinking that If A happens, then experience teaches us that B follows. Linear thinking is based on the assumption that there are universal truths which explain the world we live in. It is a form of thinking which is the hallmark of the ideolog and partisan. That is, "there is my way or no way."
Yet beyond the circle of our immediate experience, the truth of such thinking quickly disappears and complexities fog our judgement and ability to coop with the new or unusual. The Superorganic is a level of social organization beyond the individual and beyond the immediate family where we first encounter the limitations of linear thinking applied to human behavior. As the recent movie, It's Complicated, shows even the simplest of human relationships can become unpredicably humorous and sad when the linear thinking of one party fails to account for the linear thinking and circumstances of others.
How do we understand the world when it is becoming more and more complex by the minute? How do we understand and deal with the chaos in our lives?
The following video may help you to understand how Nonlinear thinking gives us an alternative way of thinking about the Chaos in our lives.
Chaos theory is the way to begin to understand how the superorganic behaves.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
How does one define the Superorganic?
Herbert Spencer, the nineteenth century evolutionist, coined the term "super-organic." to focus on social organization In the first chapter of his Principles of Sociology , entitled "Super-organic Evolution", he argues for a distinction between the organic and the social domains. He does this by exploring the holistic nature of society as a social organism. He distinguishes how society do not behave like a biological organism. For Spencer, the super-organic was an emergent property of interacting organisms, such as human beings, as distinguished from being a transcend property of the individual.
The American anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960) defined "super-organic" as certain cultural aspects that do not directly originate from individuals within the society.
The question is: What is the relationship between the organic and super-organic, as they relate to the concept of life? Is the super-organic alive? Is it an emergent phenomenon at the organic level which provides the foundation for the emergent super-organic life forms?
The requirements for life are, according to Paul Davis (1998, The Fifth Mircle) and Peter Ward (2005, Life as we don’t know it)
Life metabolizes
Life has complexity and organization
Life reproduces
Life develops
Life evolves
Life is autonomous
By these criteria culture, as a super-organic form, is an emergent life form. Existing in a non-physical form but impacting the physical world, cultures have a display all of the requirements.
Super-organic entities, or cultures, or socio-cultural systems (however one calls them)
metabolize — economic and technological systems
complexity and organization — individual roles and status bound in institutional structures
Reproduce — recruit children born to members or acculturate individuals brought into the group via biological or social means
Develop — enculturating new born or acculturating new recruits to prevailing rules and behavioral through an educational process
Evolve — societies and cultures have demonstrate their ability and inability to adapt to their changing environment(s) [Ecological and archaeological studies prove this]
Autonomy — super-organic institutions claim and defend their sovereign right to exist and do so by requiring its human members, and social members to subordinate themselves to the institution by separating themselves from other competing institutions. Super-organic institutions demand loyalty.
Rather than a transcendental or metaphysical phenomena, culture defined in a super-organic sense is a legitimate subject for scientific investigation. This is especially true with modern computer modeling and practical experiments such as in the social networking taking place on the Internet.
The American anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960) defined "super-organic" as certain cultural aspects that do not directly originate from individuals within the society.
The question is: What is the relationship between the organic and super-organic, as they relate to the concept of life? Is the super-organic alive? Is it an emergent phenomenon at the organic level which provides the foundation for the emergent super-organic life forms?
The requirements for life are, according to Paul Davis (1998, The Fifth Mircle) and Peter Ward (2005, Life as we don’t know it)
Life metabolizes
Life has complexity and organization
Life reproduces
Life develops
Life evolves
Life is autonomous
By these criteria culture, as a super-organic form, is an emergent life form. Existing in a non-physical form but impacting the physical world, cultures have a display all of the requirements.
Super-organic entities, or cultures, or socio-cultural systems (however one calls them)
metabolize — economic and technological systems
complexity and organization — individual roles and status bound in institutional structures
Reproduce — recruit children born to members or acculturate individuals brought into the group via biological or social means
Develop — enculturating new born or acculturating new recruits to prevailing rules and behavioral through an educational process
Evolve — societies and cultures have demonstrate their ability and inability to adapt to their changing environment(s) [Ecological and archaeological studies prove this]
Autonomy — super-organic institutions claim and defend their sovereign right to exist and do so by requiring its human members, and social members to subordinate themselves to the institution by separating themselves from other competing institutions. Super-organic institutions demand loyalty.
Rather than a transcendental or metaphysical phenomena, culture defined in a super-organic sense is a legitimate subject for scientific investigation. This is especially true with modern computer modeling and practical experiments such as in the social networking taking place on the Internet.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Emergence and Superorganic
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)