“Could trans-humans be human after all?”

Paper prepared for the Templeton Research Workshop “Facing the Challenges of Trans–humanism:

Religion, Science, Technology”

April 16, 2007

Sander van der LeeuwSchool of Human Evolution and Social Change

Arizona State University

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The human adventure

• Humans are both biological and social beings– But that duality is not always taken into account

• Questions to ask– How did the species survive?– Why did it take so long to ‘invent’ and accelerate

innovation?– Why did it go so fast, once we reached that point

The long term evolution of artifact production

• Humans share with many primates that they can invert observed causal sequences.

• A causes B, therefore if I want B to happen, I have to do A.

• They were therefore theoretically able to manipulate (aspects of) the material world

Acquiring dimensionality (1)

• Removing a flake from a pebble– Can be accidental as well as deliberate– Point-transformation, hence 0-dimensional

• Removing a series of flakes– Like all following stages, deliberate– Linear transformation: one-dimensional

• Removing flakes all around the edge, and then removing big flake in the middle

• Inverting the process – Reversibility indicates conceptual distinction

Acquiring dimensionality (2) • Levallois: Batch preparation

– Preparing the core, so that flaking one tool off prepares the core for flaking the next one

– Separating preparation from action stretches the sequence of cause and effect

• Blade industries – Preparing the core so that series of blades can be

taken off at right angles to the prepared platform– Blades (small) are now the product, the core (ever

smaller) the by-product– Beginnings of conceptualizing scale

The next steps

• Size reduction (Mesolithic)– Wide range of shapes made out of small pieces of flint– First composite tools

• Ground stone tools (Neolithic)– First rough outline object made by removing large flakes– Then refining by removing smaller flakes– Pecking and grinding: smooth surfaces and total shape control

• Implications:– Conceptualization of nested sets of scales completes total

mastery of manufacture of stone solids– Absence of total control over results of flaking: accidents and

waste

The Neolithic

• Implies constructing solids around voids• Work from small to big (contrary to stone)• Corrections are possible (idem)• Lengthen preparatory stages relative to final step

• First cultivation and settlement, implying:• Tools for food production and storage• Risk spectrum transformation• Extrapolation of ‘domesticated’ spaces (houses,

fields)• Village life intensifies information processing and

communication• Occasional energy surplus

What is the underlying process?

• A trial-and-error process identifies transmissible cognitive dimensions that summarize information

• The more dimensions are available, the more problems and solutions are identified and instantiated

• An increasing range of materials and functional domains is linked - connectivity between cognitive dimensions increases

• To get to this point took 105 years!

Control of motion and energy

• Controlling time-space– Settlements are fixed points in time-space– From one- to two-dimensional spatial

representations of landscape: the creation of mental maps and routes

• Controlling motion and energy– People move less, matter more– Animals acquire different function: not only mobile

stored food, but also beasts of burden– Wind, water, wood, fossil energy …

• Control of energy took 103 years

Surplus energy and social organization

• Whilst provision and distribution of energy took most available energy, no complex social behavior

• Once the per capita surplus exceeded a threshold, it was possible to extend social behavior

• But this required an extensive system for harnessing major quantities of energy

• The difference between 100 and 10.000 watts pp. has to come from somewhere, and be delivered!

Information structures societies

• Energy and matter are subject to the laws of conservation - they can be displaced, but cannot be shared

• Information systems are not subject to conservation - information can be shared

• Societies are held together by a shared culture, shared ways of doing things

• They in turn provide the channels to harness the excess energy that enables the society to exist as such

Transmission of energy and information

• Biological systems transmit information genetically - organisms and systems cannot learn structural reconfiguration.

• In each species, the structure of energy networks stays the same

• Social systems transmit information through learning, and energy and information networks reciprocally interact

Networks and towns

• Energy is distributed from a source, through hierarchical networks

• Information combines rather than distributes. Its networks structure differently

• The interactions between these networks explain many features of societal systems

• Towns are nodes in, and links between, different networks

• People move together to solve more complex problems, requiring advanced social organization

• Only when energy becomes external, it is no longer the limit to the size of the network

The expansion of Rome• Made possible by prior organization :• Invention of cities, money, markets, roads, etc.• Romans made these inventions subservient to

uninterrupted flow of matter and energy• Expansion is enabled by the conquest of societies that had

accumulated surplus• Once limits of pre-organized sphere reached, expansion

stopped • Investment in conquered territories served to harness

more resources• Cost of maintaining organized flows grows and advantage

of alignment on core diminish - system breaks down

Exchanging organization for wealth (energy)

• Density and diversity of people enables innovation • Ensures control over the flows of people and goods• Enables long-term maintenance of information-

processing gradient with hinterland• Positive feedback between incoming information,

innovation, and export of structure enables definition/creation of value

• Exchange of information-processing superiority against resource access (wealth)

Role of cities

• Cities are the the nodes in the system where most information-processing occurs

• They are networked, and their properties depend on their position in the networks.

• The structure of the urban system is stable; the place of individual cities changes.

• By bringing information from different sources together, they stimulate transformation of inventions into innovations

• That enables innovation cascades, and is responsible for the recent exponential increase in innovation

The “conquest” of energy

• This could not happen without “appropriation of nature”• “Known problems beget solutions beget unknown

problems” is what drives the engine• The result was the “conquest” of energy in the industrial

revolution, in a cognitive sense - thermodynamics - and in a substantive one - transforming energy into matter and vv.

• It took only about 8 x 103 years!

Consequences for innovation

• Energy is no longer a constraint - innovation can accelerate• We have just identified information and innovation• Shift in the risk spectrum: as possibility space expands,

problem space expands faster • That pushes towards ever more innovation• The limiting factors are now communication and human

information-processing capacity• Differentials in a society’s information pool (power, wealth)

are the main risk to society’s sustainability• We are on the threshold of reflexive intervention in our own

systems, including information processing

Are we any less human?

• It is our human nature that generated the challenges we face

• They are no worse than the earlier transitions• The difference is one of a priori and a posteriori

perspective• What are some of the changes that may occur?• People could always ‘die’ of lack of information to

process - dying of boredom• We are still human, and will continue to be

How will we change?

• In many ways difficult tom answer, but interesting to think about:– The acceleration of change– Because information is now independent of its substrate, all

fantasy worlds are potentially possible (cf. “Second Life”)– Increasingly, we will be driven by feed–forward, rather than

feed–back (scenario’s, constructivism)– Will our conception of time change?– We need to get control over innovation to avoid a runaway

situation and societal collapse– More need for self-restraint?– Others?