The Speculist

You may want to browse my recent blog posts on the subject as well.

Given that context, I think you may be misunderstanding something I'm trying to say. This has happened often, and I suspect it is because I am not nearly good enough at speaking clearly. I must apologize.

I think I can summarize it as: Yes, we live in a fog of bounded rationality and sorely limited predictive ability. But I do not believe that its scope or scale has changed in some time. I do not perceive a trend.

A common and helpfully analogous fallacy is the myth of evolutionary progress. You seem to be implying that we're going somewhere in particular (e.g., evolving towards something better), while I think we're just moving about as we have always done (i.e., evolving away from where we've just been recently).

Perhaps I can explain my concern based on another of your statements:

"In the past it was possible for a well-educated and informed individual to keep track of a larger percentage of contemporary scientific work than it is today (even with the advent of the Internet). Today too much work is being performed in parallel for any one person to keep up with it all."

I am not sure I see that the quantity of material known by a well-educated and informed individual in 1504, 1804 or today has changed. In 1504, that material would concern matters more geographically and culturally isolated than that of the others; an educated person of Mogul India would know or care very little for contemporary Vatican pronouncements or the course of sociopolitical events in Australia, for example. A well-educated person of 1804 would have a better first-hand knowledge of innumerable vital aspects of daily life than I have, among them the dangers of smallpox, why I might want a spring in my yard, and how to milk a cow.

This particular educated person of the 21st century knows a great deal more than either of those others about complex systems, global sociopolitical dynamics, emergent phenomena, evolutionary design, molecular engineering, how to install and maintain MacOS X, and lots of other neat cool stuff. But not a clue when it comes to Borneo, breeding chickens, fixing cars, or spelunking. But I don't need to know about that stuff, any more than my analogs in 1504 or 1804 needed to know how to build a Kauffman Nk model of epigenetic interactions, or how many sunspots are currently up there.

I am hopeful that I have made my point clear this time: I agree with every one of the observations of technological change made by transhumanists (especially since I am personally involved in a number of them, like molecular engineering, emergent design and complex systems research), and I am also just as enthusiastic about the social consequences of all that neat stuff.

What I disagree with is the illusion that now is significantly and qualitatively different from any other time in history.

Is that better?

Bill:

I think I can summarize it as: Yes, we live in a fog of bounded rationality and sorely limited predictive ability. But I do not believe that its scope or scale has changed in some time. I do not perceive a trend.

I disagree:

"The amount of new information stored on paper, film, optical and magnetic media reached about five exabytes — or 5 million terabytes — in 2002, compared to about half that in 1999."

http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031029.gtdocskapoct29/BNStory/Technology/

A common and helpfully analogous fallacy is the myth of evolutionary progress.

The "myth" of evolutionary progress? There is a substantial and very real difference between a single-cell organism and a human being – the most objective difference being information-processing ability.

You seem to be implying that we're going somewhere in particular (e.g., evolving towards something better),

Yes I am. Throughout its history life has evolved toward better and better information processing ability. This is not because Nature "wants" to do this. It simply turns out that intellect is a valuable adaptation that trumps even tooth and claw.

I am not sure I see that the quantity of material known by a well-educated and informed individual in 1504, 1804 or today has changed.

I don't disagree. There is a limit to the amount of information a person has time to absorb. But someone like Thomas Jefferson knew a far greater percentage of the world's recorded knowledge in his time than any person could for our time. A person in Jefferson's time could be a literal know-it-all (at least of recorded works of Western Civilization). Now there is just too much to know.

What I disagree with is the illusion that now is significantly and qualitatively different from any other time in history.

The fact that the amount of information in Jefferson's head was quantitatively the same as a very intelligent person living in our time doesn't mean that the lives of the two are qualitatively the same.

Just look around. I woke up this morning and watched live television broadcast from New York and other remote locations throughout the world – including Jerusalem. I got in my car and traveled ten miles to a gym where I spent thirty minutes on an electronically controlled elliptical trainer while listening to digital music I downloaded last night. I kicked back in a digitally controlled hot tub before taking a hot shower and traveling another five miles to work. Now I'm having this debate with a person who has similar interests but with whom I've never met, and geographic proximity is completely immaterial.

My life is qualitatively different from any life that was possible 100, 50, or even 20 years ago. In fact, without emergency medical care I received 14 years ago (and would have been unavailable 100 years ago), I would probably be dead.

[Correction: Sorry about the name problem. I've changed Phil to Stephen throughout.]

The "myth" of evolutionary progress? There is a substantial and very real difference between a single-cell organism and a human being – the most objective difference being information-processing ability.

Ummm. Well, that was what I was taught as a biologist, yes: evolutionary progress is a rather dangerous myth, implying as it does a "Great Chain of Being" and a gradual improvement in fitness. Some argumentative fellow named Gould, as I recall, wrote a good deal about it. But then again, he's dead now, so his obsolete perceptions may be suspect.

Of course there are qualitative differences between the evolved strategies of organisms like us and organisms like amoebae. But an innovation (say, multicellualrity) does not imply superiority. After all, most of your evolutionary predecessors are quite able to compete with you, and on a gram-per-gram basis are winning handily. Bacteria, to use a frequent example of mine.

I'm afraid that you're going to have to prove to me that the amount of information (in bits, say) being processed by your brain is quantitatively more than the amount of information processed by an equal mass of bacterial community. Of course the bacterial community does not watch TV or engage in online debates about fine philiosophical points. But your brain cells pay far less attention to high-speed chemical community-building, gliding around, eating each other, and breeding -- since they are used to each other by now. Those mundane aspects of life require information processing as well, and are arguably learning stuff faster than your brain cells learn stuff from your sensorium.

Bill

But your brain cells pay far less attention to high-speed chemical community-building, gliding around, eating each other, and breeding -- since they are used to each other by now.

But I have other cells that can do what those bacteria do. Moreover, when you put all of my cells together, they start writing blog entries and finessing expense reports. A pile of bacteria equivalent in mass to my body (um, yuck) might be performing more quantitative data processing than my cells do, but surely the fact that I'm comtemplating what it's doing while we know perfectly well that it will never contemplate diddley squat implies a qualitative difference.

Please don't bother to defend the pile of bacteria's potential reasoning capabilities. At this point, I will accept input on that subject only from the bacteria itself. ;-)

Well, the word "information" must be a term of art then. You're using it to mean "words and ideas and stuff" (a lay definition), while those of us who study information flow in complex systems use it to capture the Shannon information measure of a system, which describes the system's state.

If you'd like to propose a reasonable and mutually agreeable replacement word, which describes the very limited and special form of information processing you're talking about, I'm game. Give me something you can measure, and we can have this entertaining discussion like adults.

Bill:

I said:

The "myth" of evolutionary progress? There is a substantial and very real difference between a single-cell organism and a human being – the most objective difference being information-processing ability.

You said:

Ummm. Well, that was what I was taught as a biologist, yes: evolutionary progress is a rather dangerous myth, implying as it does a "Great Chain of Being" and a gradual improvement in fitness. Some argumentative fellow named Gould, as I recall, wrote a good deal about it. But then again, he's dead now, so his obsolete perceptions may be suspect.

Obviously DNA does not "care" about progress. The code that creates a bacteria doesn't have aspirations to one day form a sentient being. The only thing that matters is preservation of the information. Improvement is incidental to the interaction of environmental stress and mutation.

Mutations are almost always detrimental to the individual organism. But rarely the mistake can be a subtle improvement. I use the word "improvement" because the mutation objectively improves the chances that the organism will live to reproduce (the only thing that matters).

Of course each species is adapted to its environmental niche. A mutation that might be an improvement for one species could be deadly for another. And nature is loath to abandon a niche once it's exploited – we still have single celled organisms because they are well adapted to their niche.

So, who are the evolutionary "winners?" Would it be those creatures who have successfully defended their ecological niche since the dawn of single-celled life on earth? If so, then bacteria win. Would it be those creatures that hold the largest percentage of the biomass on this planet? Again bacteria. Or, would the winners be we creatures that can appreciate all of this?

I see little logical cost in saying that humans are the "winners." I see no logical cost in saying that we are the beneficiaries of evolutionary progress. I understand that it didn't have to be this way. Again, neither DNA nor the environment "care" about sentience. Nevertheless, it happened and I'm grateful.

I do see a logical cost in saying that evolutionary progress is a myth. You seem to be arguing that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" mechanism has led to no meaningful improvements in any organism. Am I misunderstanding you?

With this in mind I need to modify something I said earlier. We are not evolving toward something in particular. Bacteria at the dawn of life didn't have aspirations or a destiny to evolve into oak trees, or dinosaurs, or humans. Sitting there in the tidal pool you couldn't say that this bacteria is destined to spawn oak trees and that bacteria over there is destined to spawn humans. The future was wide open and undetermined. The same can be said of us today.

Unless those pesky bacteria intervene, life is evolving toward something better. "Better" meaning greater intelligence, greater order. The question is, will it be us or will we humans be displaced?

"Early in the evolution of life-forms, specialized organs developed the ability to maintain internal states and respond differentially to external stimuli. The trend ever since has been toward more complex and capable nervous systems with the ability to store extensive memories; recognize patterns in visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli; and engage in increasingly sophisticated levels of reasoning. The ability to remember and to solve problems -- computation -- has constituted the cutting edge in the evolution of multicellular organisms."

- From The Age of Spiritual Machines, Chapter 1

http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/exmain.htm

Bill

For my thoughts on your claimed ownership of the word "information," please see my new entry, W.W.I.A.D?

As far as a replacement term, I think what Stephen and I are getting at is developmental complexity. The pile of bacteria may contain more information than I do, but the kind of information that I can contain is much more varied. What good is a pile a bacteria? It's good at eating, making more bacteria, and defending itself from competitors. What good is a Phil? He's good at eating, making more Phils, and defending himself from competitors. Is the bacteria better at these things than Phil is? Maybe. But Phil is also reasonably good at doing things like changing a flat tire and playing Scrabble.

Plus, I appear to contain information about information. I can talk about things in the abstract, including myself. The bacteria may have a model of itself and of the universe and even of me, but I think that my model of each of those things is richer -- that is, it contains more varied information -- and is more accurate and more nearly complete. My system includes information about the Sun and the planet Neptune and the Andromeda galaxy. Does the bacteria's?

You wrote:

...evolutionary progress is a rather dangerous myth, implying as it does a "Great Chain of Being" and a gradual improvement in fitness.

The notion of "fitness" is the problem. Evolution does not work towards fitness alone. As you pointed out, bacteria are often as fit (if not more fit) than human beings. Evolution seems to work towards optimal fitness within increasingly complex designs. If evolution was concerned only with fitness, there would be as many examples of complex creatures devolving to simpler forms (which happen to be more "fit") as there are of simpler creatures evolving towards more complex forms. But I'm not aware of any such examples, leading me to conclude that either:

1. There is always an evolutionary advantage to greater complexity.

--or--

2. Evolution simply runs towards the more complex.

I can't account for why either of these would be true, although it may have to do with the ability to create models. Maybe there's a long-term survival advantage in being able to model the universe more accurately. Or perhaps the universe just works naturally towards systems that are better at modelling it.