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Reality: The Anthropic Principle, Extinction and the Fragile Nature of 'Intention'
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Interesting piece over at Better Humans about the anthropic principle, transhumanism, nuclear war and the likliehood of conscious universe evolution:
A growing suspicion is coalescing among some transhumanists, futurists and cosmologists about how the finely tuned aspects of the universe seem to implying that something great awaits humanity in the future. The sense of there being a cosmologically prescribed mission for intelligences is derived from the eerie results coming out of virtually all the sciences which show how absurdly specific the laws of the universe actually are. Further, technosociological observations like Moore's Law make it appear as if even humanity's inventions are part of some cosmologically divined plan.
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Of course, the only evidence for this is purely conjectural and based exclusively on the circumstantial cosmological parameters that we observe.
I say circumstantial because the anthropic principle is in effect only insofar as it tautologically "explains" how observers have come to exist only at this particular place and time. The anthropic principle and the fine tuning argument do not imply or guarantee future gain. It explains the here and now and makes no predictions about our ongoing presence into the future.
Because of the growing feeling that humanity has a built-in modus operandi for the future, a certain aloofness has arisen among some futurists and intellectuals about our existential chances in the coming decades. Should the idea that we are a 'chosen species' disseminate into public opinion, we may run the risk of becoming even more complacent and unconcerned in the face of catastrophic risks than we already are.
And worse, the trouble with this theory, it would seem, is that it is likely wrong.
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To my mind, a finely tuned universe in which advanced intelligences play an integral cosmological role would preclude the intelligences from becoming self-destructive before their mission was safely under way. If some sort of cosmological eschatology were in effect in which we are responsible for spawning baby universes, we would be in a place right now where our ongoing existence would not be hanging by a thread and getting worse by the minute (mature nanotechnology, SAI and advanced bioweapons come to mind).
Consequently, those who argue that we are headed for cosmological greatness are welcome to keep making their case, but not at the expense of perpetuating the sense that humanity is invincible.
- link to full article -
Here's the comment I posted there in reply:
Two things strike me here:
What do you think?
Firstly, the idea that nuclear war, even on the grandest of scales, would wipe out ALL humanity seems a little extreme to me. Sure the devastation could be phenomenal, leaving those few populations of humans left merged into a harsh existence bordering on extinction. Thing is, on a planet of over 6 billion entities, many are likely to survive even in the worst case scenario. Possibly the populations most likely to make it through the harshest parts of the nuclear winter would be in minority camps today. Small, self sufficient populations in the mountainous regions of the planet might be able to carve out an existence long enough to pass on their hardy genes to a new generation.
Secondly, extinction, or simply species devastation itself, is not always a bad thing. The history of this planet is replete with large scale extinction events in which vast majorities of animals populations were completely wiped off the evolutionary map. The outcome of these events was that hardy species survived, allowing the 'food chain' to shift under the tectonic heave of population collapse. This too would happen if nuclear war were to spread over the planet. It would allow humans to enter another stage in their evolution perhaps as civilised society slowly reemerges in those mountains mentioned earlier. Further still, what small populations of humanity did survive might be separated by thousands of miles distance and not meet for tens of centuries, perhaps even long enough for their genetics to become incompatiable (the mutation casued by trace amounts of fall out radiation could speed up this process). Discrete species of humans would once again push the boundaries of evolution and diversify the chances of a new, stronger human to emerge back to civilisation tens of thousands of years from now.
The ebb and flow of life on this planet is one which mirrors an exponential increase in complexity followed by a fall (after which gene pools are purged and realigned) and a subsequent increase in complexity again. Why not factor this in to your anthropic universe?
I think using the phrase 'anthropic' implies many aspects of a conscious intention for our existence which I cannot adhere to. The idea that conscious life somehow takes the place of a universe's genetic information, passing it on to further baby universes via technologically advanced evolution, is appealing. To believe that is will be humanity in anything resembling their present form which acts as the carrier of this information (maybe billions of years from now) is a little arrogant and slightly naive.
Complexity needs extinction. -
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. There is no reason to imagine that we are not expendable. Neither should we think we are the most complex sentients around. Is the cosmos a reflection of the human or vica versa? Evolution needs the extinction of species to free up niches just as a society needs the extinction of individuals to make room for the new and improved young......Instead of postulating an anthropic universe, why not a universal anthropos....variable perspectives..relativities..Hermes!...Aldous!..praise the perennial wisdom...now there's a good Huxley book i'd forgotten.
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CommentAuthorDr. Orphusi
- CommentTimeApr 10th 2006 edited
This whole idea, that "humanity has a built-in modus operandi for the future", is one I find extremely interesting. But it's certainly not as new an idea as one might guess... "Childhood's End", by Arthur Clarke, which I mentioned before in my ‘Best Science Fiction topic’, is all about this idea, and was written in 1953! I very highly recommend giving it a read, 0bvious.
I think the idea that the mere possibility of nuclear war somehow denies us of a preconceived intelligence is somewhat flawed, and I think you’ve already covered why quite well. -
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This is the main reason why 'transhumanism' as a movement is difficult for me to accept. I see mankind as a mere blip in evolutionary terms, not a pinnacle of some chain of progress - that is religion, not science.
I've posted this quote before on this forum, but its relevance resonates still:I do not venture to predict what new scientific revolutions will emerge from a mastery of biotechnology. One of the worst things that I can imagine is that medical researchers will find a cure for death. After that, aged immortals will accumulate on this planet and there will be no more room for the young. The normal replacement of each generation by the next will come to an end, and progress in science will stop. - Freeman Dyson
I am confident enough in nature's ability to control populations to believe that this will never happen, still, if this newest 'new age, pseudo scientific, utopian, religious movement' has anything to do with it, things can only get worse on Earth before they get better.
Imagine a world with twice the population of today - twice the troubles, twice the conflict, twice as much chance for nuclear war, disease, holocaust and extinction to occur. We should really be trying to sort out the balance of the planet we already have before we begin imagining a future replete with ever more (seemingly indestructible) members of the Earth's most prosperous parasitic offspring (i.e. us). -
Liebnitz said -- to understand the mathematical nature of infinity, contemplate the extent of human stupidity --... or words to that effect. Are we parasitic, or are we as natural as the trees? If we are not natural, what is it that separates us from nature?
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Just because we are parasitic doesn't imply that we are outside nature. Some of nature's greatest accomplishments are of the parasitic variety:
As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it's time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg's host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings. The first she delivers to the roach's mid-section, causing its front legs buckle. The brief paralysis caused by the first sting gives the wasp the luxury of time to deliver a more precise sting to the head.
The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.
From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.
The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.
The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon--which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative....
(see Carl Zimmer's blog - The Loom or his book, Parasitic Rex, for more).
Humans are as natural as the Ampulex Compressa - and the Earth is our remote controlled zombie host (yet sometimes hosts bite back)... -
Yes, point taken. I've seen this happen, thanks to cable tv, and yup, 'alien' was the first thought.
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I had the most wonderful moment of 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah' recently, whilst watching the BBC's Life In the Undergrowth series (fucking excellent by the way), when I discovered that ants (and bees) evolved from wasps!
I never knew, yet it makes so much sense!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
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