moritz@well.sf.ca.us (Elan Moritz) (11/06/90)
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TRANS_SAPIENS and TRANS_CULTURE
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REQUEST FOR COMMENTS
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In an earlier paper [Memetic Science: I - General Introduction; Journal
of Ideas, Vol. 1, #1, 3-22, 1990] I postulated the emergence of a descendent
of homo sapiens. This descendent will be primarily differentiated from h.
sapiens by having * substantially greater cognitive abilities *.
[the relevant section of the paper is included below].
>>>>> I plan to write a more substantive paper on the topic and would
appreciate comments, speculation, arguments for & against this
hypothesis. Relevant comments / arguments will be addressed in the
paper and be properly acknowledged/referenced.
Elan Moritz
<<<<
-- text of h. trans sapiens section follows --
... we also introduce here the concepts of trans-culture and Homo
trans-sapiens (or simply trans-sapiens). While being topics of a future
paper, trans-culture can be described as the next step of culture
dominated by deep connections, interactions, and relationships between
objects created by large human/machine teams. A manifest property of
trans-culture is the extreme and transcendent complexity of interactions
and relations between humans and the cultural objects involved, with the
additional property of being non-accessible to Homo sapiens. Examples
of trans-cultural objects already exist; for example, there is no
individual who (at any given temporal instance) is an expert in all
aspects of medicine, or who is familiar with all biological species and
their relationships, or is an expert in all aspects of physics, or who
is totally familiar with all aspects of even a single cultural artifact
(e.g. Hubble space telescope, Space Shuttle design, or the total design
of a nuclear power plant). In fact, we are approaching the point that
certain proofs of mathematical theorems are becoming too long and
difficult for any one individual to keep in conscious awareness. In a
way, these transcendent and extended complexity relationships are
examples of more complicated 'meta-memes', which is one of the reasons
it is interesting to study the evolution of ideas.
Homo trans-sapiens is the [postulated] next step in evolution of homo
sapiens. There is no reason to expect or require that Homo sapiens will
not undergo further evolution. The bio-historical trend indicates that
the major evolutionary development in Homo is in the cortico-neural
arena (i.e. increasingly more complex organization of the nervous
system and the brain). Specifically it is the higher level cognitive -
Knowledge Information Processing functions that set H. Sapiens apart.
It is asserted here (and to be discussed in a future paper) that H.
trans-sapiens is a logical consequence of evolution, and that the milieu
and adaptive epigenetic landscape for H. trans-sapiens is already
present in the form of trans-culture. It is indeed possible that the
basic mutations are in place and trans-sapiens already exists or will
appear in the biologically-near time frame.
Elan Moritz,
snail mail:
Elan Moritz
The Institute for Memetic Research
PO Box 16327, Panama City, Florida 32406
e mail:
moritz@well.sf.ca.us [internet]peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (11/07/90)
Ack. The exact same new-age nonsense posted in comp.society now. > Homo trans-sapiens is the [postulated] next step in evolution of homo > sapiens. There is no reason to expect or require that Homo sapiens will > not undergo further evolution. There is no reason to expect or require that this evolution will be along the same lines as that observed up to now. Evolution is not a directed process, but is the result of the selective pressure on individuals prior to reproduction. The nature of this pressure has changed drastically in the past million years, and there is reason to believe that selective pressure in favor of increased brain size and complexity no longer exists. In fact trends over the past fifty thousand years reflect this. Don't expect benign mutations to pull us out of the mess. It's gonna take real work by a huge number of real people, and behaviours left over from the period *you're* taking into account make it very hard to get things started. The first tools were swords, not plowshares. Peter da Silva