moritz@well.UUCP (Elan Moritz) (11/01/90)
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.
[ Please pass to other relevant news groups/ e-lists]
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]
moritz@well.bitnet [bitnet]
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (11/02/90)
In article <9011010338.AA06190@well.sf.ca.us> moritz@well.UUCP (Elan Moritz) writes: > 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. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com