9.24.2010

Evolution (What's Next?)

Been a while since I've written - lately a lot of what I've been watching and reading about have danced around the topics of group psychology, and the way the mind works. A few TED talks - featuring a philosopher of consciousness talking about the marvel of how our brains, the amalgamation of thousands of cells capable of processing information together - a little Bernays (Propaganda) describing the psychology of the masses, and even an anthropologist describing the science of Love - and it got me thinking.

If early evolution - like really early evolution - like two cells coming together and deciding to team up to make some shit happen evolution - has been a series of collaborations - then I think I understand where it's all going.

But first, let me set the stage-

We can say that evolution is more than just the combining of stuff. There's lots to be said for the very specific ways things evolve that not just accuracy by volume.

For instance - animals as far back as the dinosaurs all had very specific places for features - location of the mouth/teeth, eyes, "arms", "legs" etc.  Sure, you have variations - 2 legs vs 4... long legs vs. short, etc, etc - but you don't, for instance, hear of a dinosaur with 9 mouths randomly placed around the body, indicating that the genetics didn't know shit all what to do and just decided to install mouths everywhere thinking it would help.

And sure, there's always the one-off type creatures - but if you were to chart 'em all as far back as possible, there seem to be a lot of common design patterns.  For human evolution - the same story.  There aren't ancient monkeys with 14 arms at one point where our genetics were trying to figure out if 7 pairs were better than 1. No monkeys with opposable thumbs on their ears or the back of their knees trying to figure out what the best place to grab shit will be. No forward facing eyes and eyes coming out of your ass for maximum protection.  The indication is clear - the direction is clear - there's some underlying, strategic process that has some precise sense of what it needs to accomplish to take things to the next level.

And if there's clear indication that there's an underlying, genetic strategy as time goes on, there certainly had to be key milestone times in evolution where those hundreds and thousands of genetic plans came to fruition.  I mean think of the turning point when we first developed a skeletal structure. Lungs to breathe air.  Eyes to see, ears to hear. I mean you're literally talking about turning points where years and decades of evolution invested in producing and assigning cells to perform these very specific, at first non-working, non finished tasks with the knowledge that at some future state enough of these cells will come together and arrange in such a fashion that one day, you flip the switch and... bam, let there be light.

It's hard to conceive of "elation" at such a primitive level - but certainly there had to be some very strong, positive feedback when these genetic milestones were achieved and later revised and improved - if even as minor as gaining more ability to find and consume more food, that success feedback had to to exist independent of just a purely survival sense of survival vs. death.

The key is motivation - the realization that as a single cell, you quickly come to grips with the limitations of your physical existence, and the only recourse is to combine with other, equally limited cells to produce something "more" that could not be achieved alone.

Zoom out a bit more - systems of cells agreeing to specialize in interdependent, symbiotic ways - the thousands of cells that agree to pump blood as a heart depend on the thousands of cells that infuse that blood with oxygen, and they both depend on the safety and structure of the thousands of cells that decided to focus on being a rib-cage.

Zoom up a bit more and look at the subdivision of labor within the brain. Here's one overall organ with cells broken out into little cubicle powerhouses, each responsible for processing the stream of information being brought in through the various senses, and trying to interpret it all to form a mental model.

Just in the way we recognize the people we see is a complex division of data between the optic nerve, who hands off information to a very specific area responsible for recognizing faces specifically, who then ultimately hands the information off to a portion of the limbic system responsible for assigning value to the faces we recognize (colleague vs. child vs. mom vs. wide).

Put that all together - somewhere amongst this giant mass collection of cells - through specialization, our bodies are capable of the extraordinary feat of having them all work together as a team to be "human".

One more set-up point before I get to the future. Stem cells - we've learned that so many of these different organizations of cells within our bodies come from a set of basic blank cells that can become cells of all these various types depending on what they are assigned to do.   This is not unlike being a baby - a clean slate of a human who can grow into being a thousand different variations of itself given different experiences, nurturing, stimuli, etc.  It's the same model on a grander scale.

So let's put it all together and make it relevant to today's world, although I'm sure some of you know where this is going.  Cells quickly found their own physical limitations - the result was to work together with other cells. Groups of cells ran into their own limitations - so they began forming systems, organs, etc.  As human beings, these systems did a great job of overcoming survival, conquering the food chain - but we developed always as social animals - we need each-other... two heads are better than one and whatnot. That interdependence has developed and heightened our communication skills - skills that we didn't necessarily need to survive in the primal sense - but skills that we needed to further the development of our consciousness and interdependence.

And all along we've done this hand in hand with technology - moving from chisels to pencils to keyboards to cameras - further refining the way we record and store information from our limited physical experiences... and now, the explosion of the internet... the convergence of information - the almost obsessive attachment to things like Twitter, Facebook and other mediums.

Todays times are more exciting than ever, and I believe the information-elation we feel with todays world is the same genetic feedback we go when we developed those basic features.  The web and the ability to connect with so many people is exciting because it's almost like developing a new organ - a new extension of ourselves that furthers our desire to grow.

I think that we have truly turned the corner on a core genetic plan. We're on the precipice of the next "opposable thumb" by using these technologies to conquer the final physical limitation of the human form - the idea that I can only physically be in one place at one time, thus limiting the number of other human beings I can interface with in person.  Now I can be... well.. anywhere without having to physically move. I believe that this development is, and will be, the cornerstone of the next phase of human evolution.

The idea that my bag of brain cells with a mouthpiece can interface with all 6 billion other bags of cells and that we, as a whole, are creating the next level of abstraction in the same hard-to-visualize way that our individual brains are the culmination of 10 trillion individual cells negotiating their environment.

Think about that for a moment.

If we could collectively group everyone in this world in the same sort of arrangement and structure than the brain has, what would be possible? If we could take ALL the musicians and artists and writers and philosophers and call them the "creative" part of our world brain. If we can collect all the chemists and physicists and engineers and call them the rational side, etc, etc.. how amazing would that be?

If you're fond of the general model - then it explains the world in a whole new way I didn't see before.  In the same sense that it takes 10 trillion cells to form up enough mass and direction to comprise the human brain - perhaps its taken 6 billion of us to mass up to to a breaking point to become something more?

Yet another perspective - sometimes our species things in terms of diversification. All things in moderation. Jack of all trades, master of none.  While this certainly has its advantages - I think perhaps the real goal is to be exposed to all of these things so that we can hopefully find the thing we're good at and passionately driven to specialize in - and then maybe our eventual goal is to BE that thing whole-heartedly and make it OK to be highly specialized because we can depend on the rest of the system of people around us to cover the gaps where we are lacking.

My argument here is that many of us have become obsessed with information, even information that doesn't affect us at all, because our world-mind is still a chaotic mass trying to map itself out.  It's like some of our consciousness' are trying to form and understand what thats structure is already and will be so we're constantly scanning for meaning and knowledge to see how it all fits together.  Certainly not everyone is like this - there are of course plenty of people who would read my crappy little blog and simply thing "damn dude you think about a lot of stupid meaningless shit" - and if I'm way off on all this, I guess I can't blame them :)

The idea of interdependence and specialization is, at least, true in something like love relationships. Healthy couples tend to involve two people who have strengths and weakness that compliment and offset each-other - and together they can accomplish so much more because of it than they could before because they don't have to constantly balance the things they are good at with having to manage areas where they lack completely on their own.

So in an optimistic light - maybe as much as we complain about the... unsavory... aspects of our people- the ignorant, the angry, the liars, the unfaithful - maybe instead of those aspects being diseases that have to somehow be eradicated, they are merely individual cells within the system that mirror some of the basic inner demons that we each possess within us - certainly no one is above jealousy... ambition, etc - undesirable urges that we pride ourselves on overcoming because those conflicts and choices breed better behavior via a deeper understanding and confrontation.  

So maybe, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe these idiots, assholes, and douche-bags are necessary conflict and reminders of what we are trying to rise above?  And maybe sometimes the psychology behind the seemingly irrational behavior is a necessary refection on what we have yet to address and overcome within our continued growth?

As exciting as it is to think of our world as a whole mind of specialized minds all churning together to make a whole system - the inherent problem is the very strength that got us here - independent thought - consciousness, and the ego.  In thinking about this, at first I wanted to treat it as the difference between humans and the organization of cells I described earlier.  I wanted to go down the path of complimenting our individual cells for lacking that individual ego and being willing to give up free will to perform specific tasks for the overall good of cell-kind - but then I realized something.

Our internal systems have the same damn problems we have in human society.

Take the act of smoking a cigarette.

Now give your body systems involved with smoking identities and call those groups of cells people.

The brain weighs in at a 7.44% on the brain-to-body mass scale for humans. The brain people then represent an almost equal match to the "top power structure" in the world today.  The conspiracy theories work just like the brain - they pull the strings, the world (body) moves, but the results are not always appreciated.

So the brain people are really keen on getting some nicotine introduced into the system and they put the word out that they need to make some shit happen to remedy the desire. The message goes down to the arm people, who in the sense of cigarette smoking don't really give a shit other than having to operate the matchbook because the assholes in accounting were too cheap to spring for a lighter.  Cigarette goes to the lips, inhale and... the fuckin people in Lung-land go ape shit.

Sure, those fuckers up in Brainywood are having a grand old time getting high, but they're stuck sorting out all the fuckin Tar and other shit byproducts they don't have to deal with.  The lungs might protest with a little cough - but fuck it, the brain is going to care about it for a few minutes until another few beers go down and they want to bum another one.

You see, if our consciousness is the culmination of all of these signals and stimuli arcing over trillions of cells - our daily lives are filled with internal civil wars of disagreement and the Brain makes all the calls. And if the brain keeps pissing off the body, writing checks it can't cash? The people down in Lungland or Prostateria will eventually say fuck it and shut the fuck down.

It's crazy when you think about it- but this world we live in really isn't all that different. People decide to do stupid (and helpful) things all the time that will have significant, lasting effects on other people in other areas and other systems. It's damaging to think that, in our defense, we're only affecting ourselves with poor behavior, but that's really not the case.

Generational scarring works just like our body - occasionally people come along and do some seriously damaging shit (hitler, stalin, justin bieber) that leaves lasting effects felt by generations that follow - this is like permanently damaging an eye, or needing stitches,  that scar tissue develops and is a reminder of those experiences.

So whose to say that even our egos, our conflicting personalities aren't just a magnification.. the sum of trillions of mini egos within each and every cell within us expressed?  What will that look like when you move to this next layer of abstraction, where every individual's 10 trillion brain cells is represented by a chaotic democracy of consciousness, and then all that rolls up finally to a global consciousness of each of those delegates? At the very least - it certainly puts significantly more weight on the idea of the kinds of people we allow populate the world....

...but again, only to a certain extent.  As much as I welcome the concept of a unified world-mind, I woefully caution about the dangers of trying to force common thinking. In the same sense that not all the cells in or brains think and behave in the same ways and patterns, so to must we AVOID attempts to assimilate individuals to ANY one way of behaving, no matter how noble or morally adjusted.  Trying to bring all of our cultures together, trying to bring all of our political views together, trying to bring all of our beliefs together under just one banner is a guaranteed way to end up as something terrible - like the cold and unfeeling Borg or the moronic society portrayed in Idiocracy.  We NEED to preserve our differences as much as possible and cultivate and promote the beneficial aspects of all societies in order to maintain a well-rounded world mind.

And finally - onto technology. I believe that even if we could wave a magic wand, overcome our political and socio-eco differences, and mash together into this beautiful world mind - we would quickly begin to realize the  physical limitations of  that global mind.  You see, as great as it sounds to have 6 billion people in a world mind grow into 20 billion people to push out our computational power, we're already taxing the planet just to sustain the 6 billion we have now.  I believe this is where our parallel obsession with technology will play in. I believe we will be able to, in some way, completely overcome the bio-neural-technology barrier and be able to progress to a level where we exist bioelectronically, and thus will have less need for full physical bodes as we have today.

It sounds Matrixy-creepy, I know, but if you think about it, the very design of our bodies was only really a means to an end. It was intended to conquer survival, the food chain and continue to advance our own inventions.  If nutrient rich food on this planet always existed in goo form, we wouldn't have teeth, shit we may not even have jaws.  If a new baby out of the womb had this same goo to drink for what it depended on, women wouldn't have tits and thus men wouldn't be attracted to them.  Everything we have was a means to an end, and for survival, we were trained to be attracted to those things to keep the race going.

But once these bodies become unnecessary? Who knows what we will evolve into.  Maybe future generations will be evaluating hotness based on the mathematical structure of another e-humans. Or maybe our super models will be those e-people who have harmonic signatures, or are perfect primes?

I hope that, within my lifetime, I can at least see glimpses of things actually transitioning into a "next level" direction, although what we've been fortunate enough to witness already is astonishing to think about. I really hope we don't fuck it up along the way, and explode millions of years of work in a flash of glowing white light over some stupid shit like who owns the dirt between the borders of X, Y and Z.  And I certainly hope that the conscious mind - that 7.44% brain ratio that calls the shots- doesn't continue to develop at the the hands of who we see today. I hope we can leverage this information surplus era to finish seeing past the bullshit and correct future generations to form for us a stronger world mind.

Either way, I'll at least catch y'all on the flip side, one way or the other.