Allen Humanity, Uploaded

1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-9309-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

We are at a point where we can deliberately evolve ourselves, as a human species. Humanity, Uploaded examines how we can use technology and science to influence this evolution in the backdrop of changing atmospheric conditions on Earth. It proposes a strategy for reshaping our material form, as it explores human consciousness uploading and cyborg development. But, in order for these changes to be possible, we must restructure our social construct and make a few big bets as a society. Humanity, Uploaded discusses the measures we need to take as it examines our personal relationships in group settings, the impact of transportation on newly formed cities, our methods of transacting for goods and services, as well as the role government should play in our evolution.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Allen, R. E.

Leseproben

Chapter 2: The State of Humanity Human being /hu·man be·ing/ noun 1. “A culture-bearing primate.” — Encyclopedia Britannica Why us? Why have the mental capabilities of humans evolved to engineer biomedical systems that advance our health, while chimpanzees, our close living relatives, are limited to eating fruits, leaves, and other animals for nutrition? Why do we use our minds to build ships to travel into space, while chimpanzees are stuck swinging from trees? Why do humans create computer systems to instantly interact with one another from the other side of the planet, while chimpanzees can do no more than call out to one another within earshot range? Perhaps, like every other animal in the kingdom, Chimps don’t need to evolve their minds much further. After all, evolution is more about how organisms fit into an environment to survive and reproduce, rather than a matter of progression of strength and speed. Chimpanzees may be physically fitting into the changing environment just fine.7 Sure, the survival rate of Chimpanzees is declining today. But the rate of reproduction does not necessarily indicate the quality of reproduction. Chimps could very well be filtering out members of their breed to physically regenerate. They could be procreating new versions of themselves to sustain the changing environmental conditions. Those who are alive are learning to retain less water. The fibers in their muscles have distributed to become 1.5 times stronger than humans. They are evolving to withstand higher heat, and they are scavenging for food at night in preparation for something — something us humans have yet to evolve our physical form to adapt to. It is Darwinism at its finest.8 Meanwhile, ants, which evolved about 140 million years ago from their wasp-like ancestors in the Cretaceous period have diversified differently. They have used reproduction rates to survive, but for a unique advantage. Queens breed 1500 children. This enables colonies to bond together and float above water so that no single ant is left to drown. Their survival tactics have brought them to the point where there are more ants than humans. Like Chimps, perhaps ants have actively prepared to survive something — something us humans have yet to evolve our physical form to adapt to. Physically, we are a weak species. Humans don’t have robust fur, muscle, or breeding capabilities. We have advanced intelligence — the ability to learn from our individual experiences, to act purposefully, to solve complex problems — as the one survival trait that sets us apart. We decided that our intelligence is an all-ruling aspect — one that puts us at an advantage over the primate ancestors that we split from, and the entire population of Earth’s creatures, for that matter. Yet, advanced intelligence is just our form of survival. Why have humans evolved their intelligence differently than other living beings? After all, at the subatomic level, our minds and bodies are made up of the same neutral elements. The concept of neutral monism describes that these elements are neither physical, nor mental. Since everything is made from the same “stuff,” it is the way these elements engage with other elements that forms unique properties, allowing different parts of our “selves” to form and perform different functions for our survival. Humans are predisposed to working with external resources, rather than naturally evolving to complement our environment. This doesn’t mean we aren’t physically evolving at all. It just means that we are prone to evolving in conjunction with external materials, as opposed to other animals that evolve their physical form absent of foreign materials. We convinced ourselves that intelligence has the power to save things other than ourselves. In doing so, we misuse the strongest function of our design. Just like other living organisms are physically altering their bodies to prepare for environmental changes, we must harness our unique strength to evolve our material forms. We should understand how we can use our intelligence to integrate with new material forms. We should seek to design new versions of humanity that can survive asteroid collisions or oceans losing oxygen or volcanoes erupting or any other global warming events. But first, we need to understand the external factors that have allowed us to evolve very differently than all other species, so that we can revisit these factors. Once we do, we will see that the human was designed to evolve its material form with technology, right before we split ourselves up into societies with different goals. We are an organism shaped by technology and socioeconomics The human experience of today is a composite of technological and socioeconomic factors that manifest in our neutral material form. To say that both technology and socioeconomics create a human experience is to say that our entire physical and mental existence has quite literally been shaped by these factors. It is to say that technology and the way we organized to use it has created our current form. We can use technology and socioeconomics to promote any part of our neutral elements (aka: our mind or body), while still remaining human. This is because our bodies and minds are evolving forms subject to these distinct factors. The sooner we see that our intelligence is just one part – the strongest part – of our evolved form, the sooner we can make conscious actions to traverse our entire essence from our bodies and minds into a new material form. We can shed the parts of our bodies that we don’t need and merge with new materials. And we can do this and still remain human. This notion brings into question if we are making conscious efforts, as a society, to transform ourselves using the technology we have available to us. It allows us to take into account the environmental conditions that will present themselves in the future. It allows us to evaluate how we are utilizing the Earth’s materials to survive atmospheric changes. Are we truly shedding off the parts of ourselves that we don’t need? Or, are we building industries to recreate the parts of us that are failing at scale? Are we set up economically to augment ourselves with new parts that can be more useful? Or, are we just using technology to make some of our parts smarter? This notion allows us to ask if we are integrating with materials that will allow us to go even further than our natural forms can take us today — beyond this time, beyond this Earth, beyond this dimension. We can dissect the technology and the socioeconomics that have shaped us in the past in order to inform our choices for material integration for the future. It is worth looking at technology and socioeconomics separately, starting with how technology has shaped our existence. Expansion of the mind Over the past seven million years of our existence (mostly in the last two million years), the human brain has tripled in size. Because the brain takes in such a large number of calories for its size (about one-fifth of the energy consumed by the human body), any growth in size has been paid for with calories taken in or diverted from other bodily functions. Why did our brain grow? This is where technology comes in. About 1.7 million years ago, our prehistoric ancestors developed a dazzling new technology, previously untamed by any living being — fire. Fire led to increased survival in many respects. It allowed us to defend ourselves from predators better and to keep ourselves warm in harsh weather. Thanks to easier digestion, it changed our diet from one of tough, raw meat and plants that are difficult to chew into one that allows the body to get up to 80% more nutrients and calories. Our jaws no longer needed the bulky muscles that made speech difficult and once blocked the capacity of the brain from forming the Broca, the language-connected part of our frontal lobes. Harnessing fire profoundly changed Human anatomy by giving the brain more room to grow. A bigger brain gave us the ability to expand our intelligence. We developed other technologies with similar effects. Tools for chopping, grinding, and mechanically breaking down food before eating it eased digestion further and diverted even more calories to the brain. Our growing brain allowed us to improve our communication. So we increased our depth of planning, problem-solving, and other more advanced cognitive functions. We perpetuated the cycle of developing more tools, becoming smarter, and developing even better tools. Eventually, this cycle came to the modern era. Tools of our evolutionary success in brain development surround us in the form of computers, smartphones, and endless other connected devices. Integration with technology now forms a feedback loop between machines and humans, whereby humans feed data to machines in an aggregate scale, and machines learn from that data to feed individuals with information that, in turn, transforms the human brain even further. We have...