Human evolution has limits we desire to transcend.
We humans are not fully evolved (surprise :-)) — we still evolve biologically and culturally. Cultural evolution includes rapid technological evolution of the past century — extraordinary advancements and revelations. A small sampling: vaccination, discovering DNA, discovering photosynthesis, radio communication, relativity and computational mathematics. Biological evolution (and our emotional psychology, rooted in the human body) proceeds at an imperceptible pace compared to technology. Our attachments to survival, the genetic imperative and to comfort lead us to be Nature’s ‘jerks’ within the planet’s GAIA system. We’re a planetary experiment who might transcend biological evolution using a mix of rationality and quantum reasoning.
The homunculus as a metaphor for a post-biological being.
The homunculus (defined as ‘a small human being’) is an old idea with roots in Alchemy and popular SciFi films. To try to explain the intelligent behavior of a biological being, this recursive explanation is a crude parlour trick; defining the behavior due to another intelligence being embedded within the first — the reasoning reminds me of the old joke: “Instant water, just add water”.
A better homunculus joke might begin this way:
A nervous intern rushes into his professor’s lab, frantic. “Professor! Professor! The homunculus escaped!
A homunculus is small and fits into something else as a component — an FPGA plus its software plus a sensor system is a good analog when given agency and sufficient software intelligence e.g. a robotaxi drives around our city seeking to earn fare revenue for its masters. The robotaxi masters embed a verbally-dumb, safe driver homunculus in the vehicle robot. We are a small intelligent biological being and preparing to add ourselves into a space that is both expansive and at the same time a confined space.
Potentials for future intelligence and consciousness.
Where we stand right now on a technological hilltop of Machine Learning, we peer into the distance considering journeys we could take to far-off mountain ranges of intellect, business profit, and actual journeying in the Universe. We might consider ourselves as the small person, about to inhabit a larger being. We are replicating elements of our ability to think, reason and act. We are actively developing the elements of a post-biological life-form containing a pseudo-homunculus. We are creating self-directed actors, containing a hoMuncuLus, if you can forgive the caps emphasis — an ML core based on training data and training methods and governance rules we chose, for now, and soon, the ability to self-reproduce. Presently robots are not good at dating and reproduction, but give them time.
We are on a technology path that is congruent with the logical unfolding of basic rules of energy and matter and awareness. Our planet is journeying too, along with its energy supply; the Sun is casually moving at 720,000 km/h thru the cosmos, with the Earth and us in tow. The Petri dish of evolution offers four paths worth considering and evaluating (and let’s assume that these represent crude human wishes and fears, not how GAIA is actually unfolding):
- Humans create post-biological creatures and intelligence that solves human frailty issues to enable humans to continue to co-exist on Earth
- Humans send their partially-evolved frailties into homunculus robots abroad in the Universe, spreading our imperfections to other planets
- GAIA unfolds a new path for intelligence and consciousness, after it cleans house and takes a long break to get over the present experiment
- Human selves travel inwards on a revealing wisdom journey
The other half of the homunculus joke:
The professor, calmly stirring a beaker, replies, “Don’t worry. Where could a creature the size of a peanut possibly go?”
Hours later, the lab is in chaos. Papers are scattered, equipment is toppled, and the professor is sprinting around, swatting wildly at the air. “He’s in the ventilation system!” she shouts. “He keeps yelling existential questions about his purpose and the meaning of life!”
