Humanity is facing multiple species-level extinction threats right now, and I gotta tell ya, there ain’t a lot of people steppin’ forward.
While I am hesitant to be part of the problem by sounding like an apologist or offering rationalizations, I have personal reasons for hope. Fittingly, one of the reasons for hope is that the process of evolution/emergence seems to introduce and sustain latent heterogeneity—in the gene pool, in the idea pool, etc. This heterogeneity acts as a hedge, making the evolving population of agents more robust as a system. Burton Vorhees defines this as “virtual stability” and his recent work models it generally. So, even while there is reason for hope, this should not stop us from taking the threats you allude to seriously and actively seeking to eliminate those threats. Such vigilance is the diversity/hedge in the memeosphere against extinction due to complacency.
What is missing from this discussion is the complementary dynamic to natural selection, often called emergence, which is responsible for creating new, higher levels of system organization. As Stuart Kauffman argues, one of the ways emergence happens is through a generalized process of autocatalysis. But it also comes about through other means, namely cooperation of agents at lower levels.
When a new level emerges, given that it has yielded a population of higher-level agents (as opposed to just one or a few), and given that the population has the feature of agent replication with differential fitness, then natural selection (NS) occurs at the higher level. But NS does not stop at the lower level(s), it continues, as you point out for example in the case of populations of cells in the body of multicellular organisms (which can lead to cancer), populations of alleles (which include transposons), and so on.
NS occurs at all levels simultaneously as long as the preconditions of the dynamic are met. However, it is the case that stability of the higher level partially depends on the constraining NS at constituent lower levels. As you point out, multicellular organisms can only exist because they’ve evolved powerful internal mechanisms to outlaw evolution. If the cells start evolving, they rapidly evolve to extinction: the organism dies. Similarly, in the population of ideas/memes, the higher level of culture and ideology constrains which memes survive and thrive.
While nothing says that higher levels always emerge and that lower levels can’t become unstable and devolve, but the tendency is for new levels to emerge and over time and constrain activity that would be destructive to the higher level agents. The process is inherently non-linear and volatile, and yes we may destroy ourselves before higher levels constrain us from doing so, but to me the trajectory looks promising. As Steven Pinker points out, violence has been in decline since recorded history, contrary to popular belief.
If we do survive the existential threats, what worries me more (as a lower-level agent) is the effect of higher level constraints on the human spirit and individual fulfillment. What’s good for the organization isn’t necessarily good for the individuals within the organization. We see examples of this everywhere, from small, loose communities to multinational corporations, governments, religions and ideologies. And as higher-level structures become more complex and “real”, it will be harder for us as individuals to assert our rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Eliezer,
Humanity is facing multiple species-level extinction threats right now, and I gotta tell ya, there ain’t a lot of people steppin’ forward.
While I am hesitant to be part of the problem by sounding like an apologist or offering rationalizations, I have personal reasons for hope. Fittingly, one of the reasons for hope is that the process of evolution/emergence seems to introduce and sustain latent heterogeneity—in the gene pool, in the idea pool, etc. This heterogeneity acts as a hedge, making the evolving population of agents more robust as a system. Burton Vorhees defines this as “virtual stability” and his recent work models it generally. So, even while there is reason for hope, this should not stop us from taking the threats you allude to seriously and actively seeking to eliminate those threats. Such vigilance is the diversity/hedge in the memeosphere against extinction due to complacency.
What is missing from this discussion is the complementary dynamic to natural selection, often called emergence, which is responsible for creating new, higher levels of system organization. As Stuart Kauffman argues, one of the ways emergence happens is through a generalized process of autocatalysis. But it also comes about through other means, namely cooperation of agents at lower levels.
When a new level emerges, given that it has yielded a population of higher-level agents (as opposed to just one or a few), and given that the population has the feature of agent replication with differential fitness, then natural selection (NS) occurs at the higher level. But NS does not stop at the lower level(s), it continues, as you point out for example in the case of populations of cells in the body of multicellular organisms (which can lead to cancer), populations of alleles (which include transposons), and so on.
NS occurs at all levels simultaneously as long as the preconditions of the dynamic are met. However, it is the case that stability of the higher level partially depends on the constraining NS at constituent lower levels. As you point out, multicellular organisms can only exist because they’ve evolved powerful internal mechanisms to outlaw evolution. If the cells start evolving, they rapidly evolve to extinction: the organism dies. Similarly, in the population of ideas/memes, the higher level of culture and ideology constrains which memes survive and thrive.
While nothing says that higher levels always emerge and that lower levels can’t become unstable and devolve, but the tendency is for new levels to emerge and over time and constrain activity that would be destructive to the higher level agents. The process is inherently non-linear and volatile, and yes we may destroy ourselves before higher levels constrain us from doing so, but to me the trajectory looks promising. As Steven Pinker points out, violence has been in decline since recorded history, contrary to popular belief.
If we do survive the existential threats, what worries me more (as a lower-level agent) is the effect of higher level constraints on the human spirit and individual fulfillment. What’s good for the organization isn’t necessarily good for the individuals within the organization. We see examples of this everywhere, from small, loose communities to multinational corporations, governments, religions and ideologies. And as higher-level structures become more complex and “real”, it will be harder for us as individuals to assert our rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.