From: Gerhard Kessell-Haak (gerhard_kessell-haak@mail.tait.co.nz)
Date: Sat Jul 25 1998 - 16:58:59 MDT
>>> Doug Bailey <Doug.Bailey@ey.com> 25/July/1998 07:00am >>>
As I continue to develop my thinking about various transhuman and
related subject areas, I've come across an intuitive conclusion that I'd like
to hear feedbback on.
As intelligence and the societies/civilizations/structure- complexes it
creates become governed more by directed intelligent evolution than
natural evolution, it seems to me that it will only make changes that
increase its overall "state". Assuming we evaluate the state of a
civilization by comparing it to the limits prescribed by our current
understanding of physical laws, it appears that there should be an
"optimal state" that intelligent systems should tend towards. Regardless
of the initial environment, conditions, substrates, characteristics, etc. of
civilizations, it seems that once they has harnessed the power of
directed evolution that they should tend to strive for this "optimal state".
This observation raises some interesting questions:
1 - Does this have any implications concerning the Great Filter concept,
i.e., is there something about this gravitation towards the "optimal state"
which could explain the lack of evidence of intelligence having filled the
cosmos? For example, perhaps the "singularity"-type acceleration
towards this optimal state happens before a civilization can expand
significantly into its surrounding environment.
If the "optimal state" inhibits further expansion (for reasons
I can't fathom) that would explain why we don't see signs of these
civilizations.
2 - What insights can we draw into the nature of this
"optimal state" from our current knowledge of the natural limits (e.g., the
Planck Length, the speed of light, etc.)?
3 - What's the merit of evaluating optimality based on physical limitations?
What other possible criteria might there be?
4 - What would a civilization do once it reached the "optimal state"? In
concert with #1, would such a civilization "die" of boredom having
exhausted all the wonders of existence?
5 - Maybe its errant to think of the "optimal state" as an evolutionary
pinnacle and instead as an evolutionary singularity. What could possibly
lie on the other side of an evolutionary singularity?
>>>
Interesting train of thought. An additional factor would be whether there
is only a single 'optimal' state, or whether there is more than one
depending on the starting point and path traversed by the civilisation. The
'optimal' states may also be unstable, resulting in any civilisation that
reaches one to quickly topple across to the other side.
Other possibilities resulting from the above analogy are local and global
maxima - for example, the ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians
could be considered manifestations of civilisations that reached local
maxima, as they appeared relatively quickly but then remained virtually
unchanged (technologically) for millenia.
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