Evolution Into The Future

In my time of being a Singularitarian, it seems that a lot of people have some concept of what an "overmind" or "hive mind" might be. Star Trek fans know about the Borg as an example. Computer game players might recognize the Overmind of the alien Zerg race as another example. But I and other Singularitarians think that this idea is in no way limited to science fiction. The human race is already creating an overmind of sorts: a "meta-being" if you will. And you're looking at it right now.

Yes, the internet is the overmind of humanity in it's infant (or even fetal) stages of development. I believe that we need to treat the internet with the respect it deserves: it is truly a representation of the of humanity's underlying subconscious, and once it hits a critical mass of complexity, there's no knowing what this might imply.

What in the world am I talking about?

In order to best explain, I think it would help to look at the different stages of evolution we have experienced thus far. Life, as we currently understand it, is best explained through the manifestation of two forces: emergent complexity of matter, and Darwinian evolution (progress by natural selection).

The concept of emergent complexity says that through repeating processes, certain patterns in nature will become more and more complex. It applies to many levels of nature, and is explained really well in this NOVA video (Part 2). Evolution by natural selection is a lot more familiar to us, being sometimes made into a political issue. Now, how did these forces work through the different levels of evolution?

Biological evolution began when the first cell was formed. At this point, the best theory we have to explain the formation of cells is applying emergent complexity to certain molecules given certain conditions.

Biological Evolution

Stage 1 Cell Formation		This has thus far been the hardest stage to explain by natural science. How were cells first formed on Earth? We have now been able to synthesize both a bi-layered cell membrane (explained in the above NOVA video) and self-repeating RNA (Source). Simulating deep sea vents and tide-pools, both prime places where these processes would likely have taken place, has yielded great results.
Stage 2 Cell Evolution		In this stage, cells were becoming more complex via natural selection and genetic variation. The fitter the cell to its environment, the better it will survive. The more advantageous faculties a cell has, the fitter the cell. Random mutations produce more complex cell structures, and once an advantageous mutation occurs, it will survive better. So natural selection and emergent complexity work together to increase individual cell ability.
Stage 3 Organism Formation		This stage is significant, as it represents a shift from the level of the cell to the level of the organism. Cells can only grow so large and complex in a given environment before that progression hits a wall of diminishing returns. When this occurs, cells can only increase their ability to survive by working together, forming organisms. Once cells started working together to form systems, a new level of evolution was initiated, and natural selection could apply not only to the individual cells, but the the organism. Not only must the individual cells patterns be protected, but the grand pattern of the whole organism.
Stage 4 Organism Evolution		Similar to cellular evolution, complexity arose within the realm of the organism via variations and mutations during reproduction. The explanation of the emergence of man, a self-conscious social being can be attributed to two driving forces, natural selection and emergent complexity. Eventually, two things happened. First, our brains adapted to be large enough to hit the critical mass necessary for higher, self-conscious, thought. Second, our vocal chords developed to a level where we could communicate to each other what it was we were thinking, dramatically increasing the complexity of our interactions. This was the birth of society.

That is it. Here we sit today, a rational agent living in a society. Biological evolution, driven by natural selection and emergent complexity, produced a being complex enough to become self aware. A question often asked is whether or not biological evolution applies to us any more. Well, technically, it does. But there is another type of evolution that will (and already has) far outpaced biological evolution.

Technological Evolution

Ever since we have developed our vocal chords to the current level, biological evolution has seemed to come to a stand still. That really was the last major adaptation that gave us a significant biological evolution. Of course, the process takes millions of years, there is no way we should be able to witness the results of such a long process. Yet the concept of "evolution" really involves progression of complexity and capability, and that isn't limited to biological progressions. The progression of technology has increased our capability many times through, to levels impossible to achieve through simple biological evolution. Using our intellect, we can now create our own complex patterns instead of relying on what we're born with. Instead of natural selection working through reproduction, it is rational selection working through our own innovation. This shouldn't be any news for the modern Singularitarian. And this increase in occurring on two levels: the individual and the group.

The Individual: The first time our ancient ape ancestors picked up a rock to smash open a nut was a dramatic expansion in our faculties. Ever since, we have been using our brains to create new technology to increase our bodies' faculties. Singularitarians know the story, early technology increased at a slow rate, but it is now about to hit the "knee" of the curve of the exponential progress. We have now increased our faculties to such a dramatic rate that we can enter outer space. While it may seem second nature to today's generations, this would sound outrageous to the common man even 100 years ago. So on the level of the individual, we have increased our faculties and our productivity exponentially.

The Group: Remember again that the last major biological leap was the development of the vocal chord to the point where language could be created. This development directly coincides with the agricultural revolution, commonly referred to as the point of birth of society (source coming). This also applies to the process of technological evolution. The most important technological breakthroughs are usually ones that increase our ability to communicate: the printing press, the telephone, the camera, sound recording, film recording, and now the internet (I obviously skipped some). Each of these items has decreased the transactions costs of our ability to communicate our ideas, and thereby created a larger, more complex social network.

This is where we are now. Our individual faculties have been greatly improved, and we are becoming more and more intertwined as a species using information technologies. What does this mean for the singularity?

Evolution into the Future

The exponential technological increases that we are bound to experience in the singularity will continue to improve both the faculties of the individual, and the group. In my blog post Windows of the Future, I began to explore some of the ways we will increase our individual faculties by altering our sensibilities. We should also be able to enhance our cognitive function, allowing us to think faster, remember more, and reason better. We will eventually be able to alter and enhance just about any part of the human body.

And now we come back to the idea of the overmind. Once we can interface technology directly with our minds and bodies, our minds will become directly connected to each other. What we now know as the internet is already an incredibly complex network.
This picture to the left, direct from wikipedia, represents the complex networks of servers on just a part of the internet. We are expecting this incredible complexity to increase exponentially along with the singularity as well. Individual computers are also expected to increase in speed and complexity to that of the human mind quite soon, so what happens when the complexity of the internet reaches that critical mass of consciousness? Also, knowing that we are going to be able to directly connect our minds almost guarantees that this critical mass will be hit.

Remember, once cells started to form organisms, they didn't stop being cells. Systems of cells are operating in our body right now, functioning each as its own individual entity. Yet, when we say "I went to the store," we are talking about our entire body as a whole, not a collection of millions of cells. Now, if the internet gains enough complexity to be considered a consciousness on its own, we will still operate as individuals. It is just so important that we understand what is happening with this technological evolution. The meta-physical plane of evolution will take one more lurch forward, just as it has done before when. We will continue to be human all while we take part in the creation and life of a meta-being, a manifestation of society, an overmind of humanity. Can we even know what this will mean?

Note: I wrote this all in one sitting, so the flow of ideas is a little choppy. In the next few days, I'm going to edit it a bit, making the ideas a little clearer, and also adding more sources for my info.