[wordup] The Singularity vs Human Nature

[Adam Shand]

I like reading about people struggling to make sense of the universe.  I 
like the rawness and curiosity that it shows, particularly in it's 
unfinished form.

Adam.

From: 
http://www.decafbad.com/blog/essays/posthumanity/singularity_vs_human_nature.html

The Singularity vs Human Nature

Apologies in advance if this post-cum-essay runs a bit long...

   We could conclude that modern human intelligence is an unfinished
   product, and something that nature hasn't quite got around to
   polishing yet. The problem-solving intelligence part can be tuned and
   revved up to high levels, but it becomes unstable like early
   supersonic jet prototypes that shook themselves to pieces just after
   reaching the sound barrier. Nature has outstripped itself, producing a
   freak organism with a feature that's obscenely over-developed but
   under-refined. We've seen examples of evolution getting ahead of
   itself before, like the rapid conversion to an erect, bipedal skeletal
   frame without properly modifying the spine to withstand the
   back-aching load of pregnancy. To get a better grip of human failings,
   and human stupidity, you have to realize that modern Homo sapiens
   sapiens just isn't done yet.

   Source:Disenchanted: * Early prototype, expect instability

   When our own instincts are inadequate, or become a hazard, and the
   surrogate activities to control them aren't sufficient anymore, then
   there certainly will be a push to change human nature to fit his new,
   self-crafted niche. And the answer to my original questionÑthat man
   will invent something that knocks him out of his niche with fatal
   consequencesÑis yes. Homo sapien will die, and homo modified will
   inherit the earth.

   Source:Disenchanted: Invent this and die

There's only an essay or two per month published over at Disenchanted, 
but they're gems, each and every one. And what I read almost never fails 
to resonate with something I've been thinking or musing about, from my 
perspective as a geek wondering about life, the universe, and everything 
and as a fan of Kurzweil, Vinge, and all of post-humanity. But my 
anticipation of the Singularity is constantly swayed by things such as 
the theses of the above quoted essays.

See, as an irredeemable believer in the ways of better living through 
technology, I look forward to our increasing ability to further 
self-improve and bootstrap to higher levels of living, longevity, 
ability, understanding, and exploration. But, there's a neopagan mystic 
and naturalist in me who keeps looking for the catch. There must be 
natural limits we don't yet understand.

No matter the precocious cleverness of our species, there's got to be 
plenty of good reasons it takes millions of years to achieve progress in 
forms and patterns of life. There are lots of little subtle details to 
be easily missed. We're smart, but not yet endowed with the patience and 
wisdom that eternity grants. I both breathlessly await and fear the 
arrival of our ability to fundamentally change human nature directly 
through genetic manipulation and device implantation.

As the first essay quoted above asserts, I believe the human species is 
unfinished. But as with the second essay, I think we've outpaced 
evolution in terms of changing the conditions under which the process 
itself occurs.

Just look around you. You're likely indoors, in a building composed of 
simple straight lines which register easily on your visual pattern 
recognizers, with corridors and doorways and rooms proportioned to your 
bodily dimensions. The air is conditioned to your respiratory and 
temperature tolerances. Things are padded and accessible. Food and drink 
are likely plentiful. The only predators you're likely to meet up with 
during your day are of your own species. Nothing really challenges your 
basic nature.

Yet, this is just what the universe has been doing to forms of life 
throughout the history of evolution. Only now, we've jumped the tracks, 
reversed the flow of control, and have reshaped our corner of the 
universe to fit our status quo. So, where does that leave the natural 
process of evolution with regard to us? Stopped or slowed to a crawl, 
that's where. Maybe falling backward, since we have prosthetics, 
glasses, and other forms of propping up imperfections that would have 
otherwise been faced with disincentives by natural selection.

So, where are we without a natural evolution? We're left as an 
unfinished species, with a peculiar mix of awesome abilities matched 
with amazing disabilities. Very clever people, but with a lot of blind 
spots. There are certain ways in which it is very difficult and 
sometimes nearly impossible for us to think. We have biases toward 
grouping things by similarity, dividing them by difference - which 
allows for a very elegant economy of memory and thought, but allows for 
peculiarly devastating things like racism and xenophobia. Critical 
thinking is counterintuitive, yet is one of our most powerful tools.

And there are definite flaws in our perceptions of reality, as any book 
of optical illusions will tell you. One thing that struck me like a 
thunderbolt came from a human biology class: Ever try following a common 
housefly with your eyes? Isn't it frustrating how it just seems to 
vanish from your sight? I can't find a reference to back me up, so this 
is just from memory: I was taught that flies have developed a 
particularly zig-zaggy and erratic flight pattern to evade just our kind 
of mammalian vision system. But, studies of fly-eating frogs have shown 
that their vision systems appear particularly tweaked to react to a 
fly's midair dance. Imagine what else slips past us, or comes to our 
attention garbled because our very apparatus contains biases of which 
we're yet to even conceive?

Here we are, then, flawed and incomplete yet with a growing ability to 
self-modify. As an amateur computer scientist, I shudder a bit at any 
code that's self-modifying. It can be done, and it can be powerfully 
enabling, but it's just so damn easy to blow a foot off with the 
technique. So too with ourselves, then. There's a possiblity that we can 
push ourselves into a richer level of thought and perception and ability 
without destroying ourselves completely. But, we're going to miss 
things, important things.

If we're lucky, we'll roll with it and survive. But, as the second 
Disenchanted essay explores, we'll most certainly render the species as 
we know it extinct, and push ourselves our of a natural niche and into a 
wholly artificial niche in need of perpetual maintenance and renewal. 
Maybe this artifical niche will be easily sustained and portable enough 
to take with us if we want to leave the planet. On the other hand, maybe 
this artificial niche will prove our undoing as it outstrips our ability 
to keep it up.

So, given all this, I think the inevitable predicted verticality of the 
Singularity's curve has an incredibly strong counter-force stemming from 
human nature itself. What does this mean? Not sure. What to do? Not 
sure. But it tells me that the Kurzweilan and Vingian predictions of 
which I'm so fond face some severe reality checks.

More thinking to do. Thanks to Disenchanted for making me think this far 
today. :)