| See my articles, Answering
the Fermi Paradox, 2002, and The
Transcension Hypothesis, 2011 for more recent explorations
of the Developmental Singularity Hypothesis. A longer
treatment of the DSH, in the context of universal evolutionary development,
may be found in my chapter-length article:
Evo
Devo Universe? A Framework for Speculations on Cosmic Culture (PDF),
2008.
Your feedback, edits, and critiques are greatly appreciated, and acknowledged
if desired.
Introduction
The developmental singularity
hypothesis (DSH) is a rather speculative proposal concerning
the mechanisms, purpose, and trajectory of universal accelerating change.
I have periodically revisited it since first conceiving it as a youth
in 1972. It is best treated as speculative philosophy of science, though
it aspires to be investigated, and validated or refuted, by scientific
inquiry. This is something that, to the best of my knowledge, has not
yet occurred. Fortunately, beginning in 2008 I and a colleague, Clément
Vidal, formed a research community,
Evo Devo Universe, to explore and critique this and
a range of related models of universal change. We welcome you to join
us there if you have an interest in these topics.
The DSH proposes that universal complexity emerges
as a naturalistic developmental process within increasingly localized,
accelerated, and energy-dense physical-computational niches over astronomical time.
The historical record of complex systems development has been via accelerating
transitions through a long succession of hierarchically emergent 'substrates'
for information production, computation, and adaptation. The leading edge
of morphological and functional complexity in each of these transitions
always supported greater internal organization, specialization, and control,
greater awareness and modeling of the universal environment, and greater
adaptiveness and autonomy from that environment in the emergent system.
They have been described by many scholars. Systems theorist and computer
scientist Valentin Turchin calls these developmental
emergences meta-systems
transitions, biologists John Maynard Smith and Eors
Szatmary call them evolutionary
transitions. Many of these transitions have a resemblance to what
the physicists call phase change singularities. They may
be described by future models that are analogous to processes occurring
in biological development.
As in developmental processes in biology, the development
of universal complexity may have been previously tuned, via prior episodes
of universal evolutionary development in the multiverse, in a way that
allows not only evolutionary variation, but also a probabilistic convergence
to set of prespecified developmental forms. The DSH places our
apparent local acceleration toward a coming "technological
singularity" (the eventual emergence of human-surpassing machine
intelligence) within the broader framework of universal evolutionary
development.
The developmental
singularity hypothesis, among other models of accelerating change, is
also a topic of interest to our nonprofit, the Acceleration
Studies Foundation. Eventually, we hope to see a range
of paradigms that formally acknowledge, investigate, and seriously extrapolate
the implications of our little-discussed yet long-apparent universal record
of continuously accelerating change. The consistency and resilience of
this universal acceleration, irrespective of local catastrophe, suggests
that the process is developmental, and thus guided and aided by a host
of internal processes, still awaiting scientific characterization.
Developmental
Singularity Hypothesis Overview
An overview of the developmental singularity hypothesis
now follows in brief.
It appears likely, to a growing number of scientists
and scholars, that we inhabit an evolutionary developmental
(evo devo) universe, where many (pseudo-)random evolutionary events
occur, yet certain developmental emergences are future-specified
within the unfolding structure of the system (e.g., Big Bang 'seed'),
much as a biological seed utilizes chaos and evolutionary contingency
in its development, yet temporally specifies unique emergent future
form and function. The history of our universe appears to be one of
creating ever more local (and highly parallel), ever more accelerated
change. The history of complex systems development in our universe involves
the creation of a subset of ever more spatially, temporally, energetically,
and materially (STEM) efficient and dense substrates for computation
and physical transformation. We may call these twin universal trends
of ever increasing efficiency and density of complex adaptive system
structure "STEM
Compression," and observe that the most STEM compressed complex
systems, invariably also emerge as the most computationally complex
(most intelligent and globally adaptive) systems in the local environment.
In this accelerating procession, the coming technological
singularity (Emergent A.I.) may be expected to be constrained to
create a developmental (or "reproductive") singularity
(local black hole equivalent, or new universe seed) very soon after
its emergence, in universal time. This would be consistent with Lee
Smolin's model of Cosmological
Natural Selection (CNS, or universe reproduction and fine tuning
through a succession of replicating black holes in the multiverse),
and such a process of local compression and ever-increasing computational
efficiency would be expected to lead to the formation of a new, more
complex universe in the subsequent cycle.
Cosmological evolutionary convergence (development),
a necessary counterpart and complement to Darwinian evolutionary variation
and natural selection, allows us to understand the universe as an evolutionary
developmental system, and posits the most parsimonious mechanism
yet advanced to explain the apparent anthropic tuning of observed universal
parameters. Rather than space colonization ("expansion"),
the near-immediate transcension (into hyperspatial domains/new universe
creation) of all technologically sophisticated civilizations, shortly
after their emergence within this universe, via the constrained creation
of black-hole-equivalent densities in their local computational systems,
would also be a simple and coherent solution to the Fermi
Paradox, a fundamental unresolved issue in current models of extraterrestrial
life. The Fermi Paradox is a problem made particularly intransigent
by the likelihood of ubiquitous locally accelerating technological complexity
in a universe apparently well-tuned for the multi-point emergence of
life.
As a paradigm, the developmental singularity hypothesis
also informs the problem of time by specifying the trajectory of the
arrow of universal change, toward the formation of local black holes
in the development of space-time topology. It is consistent with Eric
Chaisson's (Cosmic
Evolution, 2001) measure of the free energy rate density (Phi),
as a metric for the exponential local emergence of computational complexity.
It is also uniquely conceptually parsimonious, as it treats the universe
itself as a system with the same replicative and self-organizing features
as living systems, and thus offers an evo devo dynamic to undersand
such universal and living system properties as self-similarity, modularity,
parallelism, co-adaption, environmental feedback, strange attractors
(chaos), self-organization, and phase transitions in development.
If this model is correct, and all evidence I have seen
so far suggests that it is, we will soon come to understand that our
culture's common perception of the future frontier for exploration is
180 degrees out of phase. In the developmental singularity hypothesis,
outer space appears to be no more than a rear-view mirror,
reflecting the past trajectory of universal intelligence. The DSH argues
that a future in inner space, not outer space, what we may call the
Transcension
Hypothesis rather than the Expansion Hypothesis for universal
intelligence, may be our constrained developmental destiny.
Perhaps the simplest way to understand and critique
the DSH is via the following seven-assertion outline. The first four
steps are courtesy of my colleague Clement Vidal:
1.
Energy=matter (Einstein's e=mc2).
2.
Space-Time is curved by Energy-Matter density (much more by density
than by total E-M in fact)..
3. STEM
density and efficiency of information production/ computation/ metabolism/
perception/ action grow superexponentially at the leading edge of universal
intelligence development (STEM compression hypothesis).
4. This gives ever greater space-time curvature
in complex environments, and at the limit, a black hole.
5.
In standard relativity, black holes are near-instantaneous one-way
information collection (to the hole, almost exclusively) and time
travel (to the future only) devices. Even in our dark energy universe,
black holes merge nearly instantaneously, from their unique reference
frame, with all other black holes in their local gravity wells. For
us, this is Andromeda
and Milky Way Galaxies, which begin to merge in 20 billion years
(our time) but instantaneously in black hole time. All matter in each
gravity well may end up inside
merged black holes.
6.
If Smolin's
CNS is true, then the physics of black hole singularities allows
for universal replication. If the most advanced, miniaturized, and STEM-compressed
universal intelligences can exist either inside or at the edge of black
holes, they will thus nearly-instantaneously merge, compete, cooperate,
and compare their unique, locally developed models with all other local
advanced intelligences prior to the next replication event. Such a transcension
and merger process would add multi-level
selection dynamics and great new diversity to the process of cosmological
evolution and development.
7. In an evolutionary developmental CNS universe under
black hole transcension physics, advanced intelligences should develop
highly effective ethical and physical constraints against sending out
one-way broadcasts or probes prior to transcension, as this would greatly
reduce the evolutionary variety of their later mergers. This provides
a testable
explanation of the Fermi paradox. For this to be proveably true
we would have to develop a predictive information theory of ethics in
complex systems, in the same way that we have predictive physical theory
of STEM processes. We are likely many years away from such a capacity,
though the powerful civilizing
effect of complexity on human nature to date provides early evidence
for this.
Note that of the first four assertions most critical to
contemplating the developmental singularity hypothesis, it is only Assertion
3. the STEM compression hypothesis, that is not widely known by researchers
today. Nevertheless, the data are broadly
evident for this as a natural evolutionary developmental process defining
the leading edge of complexity emergence. For example, see Chaisson
2003 for some density data, and read my Transcension
Hypothesis paper for references on efficiency data.
The developmental singularity hypothesis must remain speculative
until such time as it receives significant further scientific attention,
theory, experiment, and critique. Fortunately, given the rapid rate of
change we are observing today, we may not have to wait much longer for
this to occur. This is a model which can only be confirmed or disproven
by coming advances in theory and universal simulation, as various relevant
academic domains are further investigated by the scientific community.
Like Smolin's cosmological natural selection hypothesis, the DSH is extensively
testable by future advances in simulation, but also by near-term prediction
and experimental observation and quantitation of local trends in STEM
efficiency and STEM density, computational capacity and autonomy.
Arguably, the emergence of increasingly autonomous nanocomputational
systems, furthering the advances seen to date in integrated circuit manufacture,
would be evidence of the latter kind. So would an accelerating deployment
of biologically-inspired, evolutionary computational approaches to hardware
and software development in coming years.
Any theses which investigate local and universal processes
of accelerating change are topics of exploration within the ASF
community, whether supporting, refuting or ignoring the developmental
singularity paradigm, in any of its variants. Independent proposals, supporting
evidence, and constructive criticism are equally encouraged.
Core
Assumptions
The DSH and the evolutionary
developmental paradigm seem to require the following core assumptions
(at least):
1. Evolutionary development of complex adaptive systems
2. Local computational closure in hierarchical substrates (hierarchy theory and local
optima in simulations)
3. Global essential incompleteness
of intelligence in all finite-state simulations
4. STEM efficiency and STEM density (together "STEM compression")
of computation
5. Cosmological selection in the multiverse (both natural/chaotic and self-/development-directed)
For more on these, see the ACSAIDS
summary below.
Relevant
Academic Disciplines
To best explore the implications of these
concepts, and to clearly see developmental patterns and hierarchical emergence
in universal accelerating change, evolutionary developmental systems theorists
and acceleration scholars must strive to understand both basic scientific
knowledge and systems theory within at least the following broad scientific
and philosophical domains:
1. Informational Substrate
Examples: Computation, information theory,
dynamical systems theory
2. Physical Substrate
Examples: Astrophysical, physical and chemical
sciences
3. Genetic Substrate
Examples: Biological sciences, evolutionary
psychology
4. Memetic (Cultural) Substrate
Examples: History, social sciences, cognitive
sciences, philosophy of mind
5. Technologic Substrate
Examples: Engineering (chemical, mechanical,
electrical, software, etc.), science and technology studies, history
and philosophy of science and technology, technology
roadmapping and forecasting
To quantitatively model the way accelerating change leads
to finite-time singularities and phase transitions (hierarchy development,
the emergence of a new and 'partly-decoupled' complex system on top of
progenitor systems) in a range of complex systems, one should attempt
to familiarize oneself with advanced mathematical tools and models. Some
books that outline these challenging analytical techniques are:
Critical
Phenomena in Natural Sciences: Chaos, Fractals, Self Organization, and
Disorder: Concepts and Tools,
Didier Sornette, 2004.
Advanced
Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers: Asymptotic Methods
and Perturbation Theory, Carl Bender and Steven Orszag, 1999.
New
Developments in Singularity Theory, D. Siersma (Ed.) et. al.,
2001
Courses in complex systems mathematics,
such as the Complex
Systems Summer School at the Santa
Fe Institute can build one's mathematical aptitude for exploring these
ideas quantitatively. Courses in nonlinear mathematics are rare, even
in large universities. These subjects are daunting but worth pursuing
for the insights they may potentially provide into processes of change
common to all physical systems. Such mathematics are presently beyond
my own capacity, though I find much can be learned by reading the literature
of these mathematicians.
Some
Key Ideas of the Developmental Singularity Hypothesis
An Evolutionary Developmental Paradigm for
Understanding Universal Accelerating Change
The developmental singularity hypothesis
seeks to describe universal accelerating change as an evolutionary developmental
process culminating in some form of cosmological singularity. A quick
summary of several broad assertions or fundamental ideas underlying this
hypothesis can be presented via an "ACSAIDS"
mnemonic.
These assertions are presented below in
increasing order of disbelief within the scientifically literate lay populace at the
present time. In other words, the further down the list you proceed, the
less substantiated is each assertion given the present state of science.
All of these ideas may eventually be demonstrated to be central to understanding
accelerating change in a universal context. Some may be refuted in coming
years, and other fundmental ideas are likely to emerge to modify this
framework. But it is possible that the basic insights
of the evolutionary developmental paradigm may be only refined, not shifted,
for many years to come.
Assertion
1:
Accelerating Change Exists Universally
Special elements of the universe have
been continually speeding up for at least the last six billion years,
roughly the last half of the universe's present lifespan.. This perspective
has been represented elegantly by Carl Sagan's Cosmic
Calendar, a record of the rapidly accelerating pace of "important
emergent events" in the latter half of universal history. This
insight is widely shared by modern thinkers.
Assertion
2:
Computational Substrate Hierarchies Exist Universally
The history of the universe involves an
accelerating emergence of hierarchies of complex adaptive systems, or
computational substrates, within our universe. Such physical and computational
substrates as galactic-atomic systems, stellar-elemental systems, planetary-molecular-chemetic
systems, genetic systems, instinctual-neurologic systems, cultural-linguistic-memetic
systems, and technologic complex adaptive systems have unfolded, within
our universe, in an ever more accelerated manner over time.
Each substrate has computational capacities
that are sharply limited by its physical structure, each incorporates
(encodes) some model of its past explorations of universal space within
it physical structure, and each can be usefully seen as semi-independent
(the last, technological systems, perhaps not yet clearly so) of the other
substrates on some relevant computational dimension, such as each systems
unique choice of physical path. (For example, the course of human ideas
does not generally significantly influence pathways in new molecular evolutionary
development, and vice versa.) This insight concerning unique hierarchical
substrates is widely shared by systems theorists who hold a computational
perspective on the universe, yet such thinkers are presently a minority
of those considering accelerating change.
Assertion
3:
Space-Time and Energy-Matter (STEM) Efficiency and Density Trends ('STEM Compression')
Operates Universally
The universal evolution of information
at the leading edge of functional and morphological complexity
involves the continuous movement to new physical-computational substrates,
with the most computationally complex of local emergent systems always
exponentially increasing their information processing pace by comparision
to their immediate ancestors. How has this this been possible over cosmological
time? Apparently computational development, as generally defined, necessarily
involves the continual migration to new, more Space-Time and Energy-Matter
(STEM) efficient substrates over time. Over the last half of universal
history, the leading edge of universal computation has become hyperexponentially
more resource efficient, more energetically and physically dense, more
miniaturized, more localized, and more accelerated in time. I call
this phenomenon Space, Time, Energy, and Matter efficiency and density
of standardized computation or physical transformation. We may colloquially
call this 'STEM compression' when referring to both efficiency and density
trends simulataneously. Systems theorist and futurist Buckminster
Fuller independently observed this phenomenon, calling it the
"ephemeralization"
trend in universal development.
Given our universe's unique
and apparently carefully tuned physical architecture, one that is not
anthropomorphic, but what we may instead call 'infomorphic'
(information-shaping, information-centric), there is plenty of computational
architecture and powerful physical energies and transformation efficiencies
to be discovered "at the bottom." Because of this, universal
computation has always been able to discover these more STEM efficient
and STEM dense (STEM compressed) substrates, "hidden in the microcosm"
of physical and informational transformations. Thus computation as a process,
unlike the replication of physical systems of fixed complexity (galaxies,
organisms, thoughts) has never run into physical resource limits to its
exponential expansion, as each new substrate discovers efficiencies that
turn local STEM into a "paradise of resources."
The dinosaurs, for example, may have died off due to environmental
constraints, but human beings have learned to burn a small fraction of
their decomposing biomass to generate incomparably greater computational
complexity, in a vastly shorter time period. Likewise, the intellligent
nanotechnological systems soon to follow us will be able to make universe-modelling
supercomputers out of the refuse of one modern family, surprising as that
seems from our macroscopic vantage point.
At the same time, the most computationally
complex local systems which emerge, at any time, find no other competition
for these new niches of complexity (e.g., genetic colonization for the
first gene-based molecular energy systems, land colonization for the first
tetrapods, language colonization for the first sophisticated bipeds, silicon
colonization for the first digital computational systems). Thus they can
expand at their intrinsic exponential replication rates, which become
ever more STEM compressed as a direct fuction their complexity.
This leads
to a gently double exponential, or "hyperexponential" growth
function, producing increasingly local systems of computation, as they
rapidly drill down to the lowest level of STEM efficiency/density/compression,
allowed by the system. Present physical theory argues that this lower
bound rapidly approaches the Planck scale, and the form of a black hole
singularity. This developmental trend, while occasionally
acknowledged at least in part by prominent systems theorists of my acquaintance,
has not yet been systematically analyzed as apparent natural law.
Assertion
4:
Autonomous Systems Emerge Predictably In Each Substrate
In a parallel with the historical emergence
of life, the technologic substrate is presently engaged in an increasingly
autonomous program of evolutionary development. When they have gained
sufficient autonomy, today's ever more powerful self-replicating, self-repairing,
self-directing, and self-modifying computing systems will soon (perhaps
only a few decades from now) reach human-surpassing levels of intelligence.
Technology, considered broadly as a substrate, is presently engaged in
a generalized program of environmental learning that is progressing at
least ten million times faster than our metazoan genetic learning historically
proceeded. Humans, in co-evolution with technology, are best described
as selective catalysts, rather than true controllers, of this process,
which is an apparently universal phenomenon.
At present, perhaps less than 100,000
scientifically literate and open-minded individuals are today willing
to admit the reasonable likelihood of Artificial/Autonomous Intelligence,
or AI, arriving within a subset of Earth's technological systems some
time during the 21st century. Yet there are a significantly larger number
of individuals, perhaps millions at the present time, who presently have
no firm opinion on this topic, but have decided that our record
of increasingly autonomous and accelerated technological development deserves
serious scientific investigation. We call this larger and perhaps most
important set of individuals "acceleration aware."
Assertion
5:
Informational Metaproperties (such as Intelligence,
Interdependence, Immunity and Incompleteness) Emerge
Within, Predictably Constrain, and Can Be Measured in Each Substrate
As local complex adaptive systems accelerate
their collection of environmental information, they incorporate exponentially
more intelligence (better internal models of external reality), interdependence (computational connection to, and ethical optimization
with, neighboring complex systems), and immunity (ability to protect their average distributed complexity
from informational loss, on a statistical basis) with time.
Each of the above phenomena may be understood
as emergent properties of local computational
closure (local optimization of the search of a physical-computational
phase space, attained by developmentally constrained systems). Local closure
leads to a range of emergent stable metaproperties, but at the same time,
the knowledge that any finite computational system has about the full
possibilities of the larger phase space that they inhabit must always
remain globally incomplete. It is postulated that the interplay between closure and incompleteness,
in addition to the inherent STEM compression gradients built into universal
physics, is an essential driver of the creation of new hierarchical levels
of computational complexity in the universe.
Unlike intelligence and interdependence,
these latter concepts (immunity and incompleteness) are still rather poorly
characterized within the systems theory community, and are often hotly
contested. While increasing intelligence and interdependence have been
long-discussed as a function of complexity, our planet's rapidly
increasing functional immunity from any universal events that might cause
informational destruction is a meme that is largely unknown to most scholars,
though the evidence for it seems pervasive as our planet is on the cusp
of highly redundant and resilient machine intelligence. Dramatic scenarios
of statistically implausible destruction and chaos gain far greater press
coverage, for deep evolutionary psychological reasons. This is valuable,
as it causes us to immediately seek social and political solutions, but
hopefully our misconceptions regarding accelerating plantetary informational
immunity will be rectified in coming years, as our information theory
undergoes inevitable improvement, particularly within the new sciences
of simulation.
Assertion
6:
Developmentalism (Universal Evolutionary Development)
Guides A Critical Subset of Universal Dynamics
In the paradigm of evolutionary development, universal emergence of the broad frameworks and attributes
of physical form, and most morphogenesis at any substrate level, is understood
to primarily developmental, and secondarily an evolutionary process. In
the evolutionary development of a tree, a human, or a universe, chaos,
randomness and evolutionary search are used, in broad but subordinate
and carefully constrained ways, to unfold a future-specific hierarchical
developmental plan. Such disparate events as galaxy formation, stellar
nucleosynthesis, planetary and molecular emergence, biogenesis, multicellular
forms, neural wiring, organogenesis, thought and personality creation,
and social and technological architectures have all been convincingly
described as randomly and contingently driven evolutionary events that
nevertheless rapidly converge on and are constrained by a succession of developmental
endpoints, emergent form and function that is prespecified in both the
specially tuned initial parameters
of the continually cycling seed and in the stable boundary conditions of the developmental environment. The importance
of this rarely-heard paradigm in understanding universal change cannot
be overestimated.
Growth, maturation, seed production, and
senescence are essential phases of all known cyclic developmental systems,
the universe included. In all such systems, growth to maturity is period
of deceleration (starting from a very energetic initial seed, slowing
to an unfolded mature state), and seed production to senescence is a phase
of acceleration (seed creation and courtship are positive feedback cycles,
and senescence involves a slowly accelerating loss of function). Evidence
for both phases at the universal level can be found in what I propose
as the "U shaped curve" of emergent events in evolutionary development.
The first half of our Cosmic Calendar involved deceleration and unfolding,
and the second half is now apparently engaged in acceleration and local
seed creation.
If certain multiverse cosmologies are
correct, this seed will involve the production of a new universe as a
lineage descendant of Earth's intelligence, apparently soon after the
emergence of a local technological singularity, in cosmologic time. New
cosmological discoveries, including the phenomenon of dark energy, are
also providing early evidence of the accelerating senescence of this universe.
The evolutionary developmental
paradigm is presently underdeveloped in the scientific community. Even
within the realm of biology, there are today perhaps only a few thousand
publishing evolutionary developmental (evo-devo) biologists (e.g., Rudolf
Raff, Wallace Arthur, Simon Conway Morris, Stan Salthe). The
evo-devo perspective often notes the ways that evolutionary processes
can be considered subordinate to developmental cycles, as the
process of development must strongly constrain the "evolvability"
of biological systems within any particular developmental cycle, in ways
that are intuitively obvious but not yet scientifically demonstrable.
Within the realms of cosmology, astrobiology, computer science, science
and technology studies, future studies, and other disciplines of systems
theory, there are again only a handful of individuals, at present, who
are cognizant of this paradigm and its potential application to their
work.
Assertion
7:
Self-Organization Guides Evolutionary Development of
the Universe in the Multiverse, via Developmental Singularities.
All cyclic complex adaptive systems quickly
tune their developmental parameters to produce internal models of the
external environment. They rapidly learn how to use evolutionary processes,
specifying the unfolding of their complexity with a minimum of initial
developmental information. This "tuning" of developmental parameters
to exploit stable boundary conditions eventually produces highly specified
complexity in ways that appear undirected by any local agency. This is
self-organization, what Stuart Kauffman calls "order
for free." Where evolutionary events emerge by a process of chaotic
natural selection, developmental events
emerge by a process of cyclic self-selection (or directed selection),
and both sources of selection are fundamental to evolutionary development.
Our universe appears to be
one of a long chain of replicating universes, the seeds of which are still
in the early stages of scientific description. Our universe is also full
of apparently non-locally directed (self-selected, not naturally selected)
emergence. Scholars within the anthropic cosmology and astrobiology communities,
and a few scholars within the (extremely problematic and politicized)
"intelligent design" community are among those few who most
clearly understand this at the present time, though the latter apparently
interpret this as evidence for a supernatural, embodied Designer. Such
an interpretation is not parsimonious, as in biological systems, evolutionary
developmental order is self-organized, not designed. So it seems
likely to be with the universe as a system, evolving and replicating within
the multiverse.
Assuming a multiverse with boundary conditions
that are stable to the replication of universes, the high degree of observed
self-organization in our universe provides early evidence that the developmental
parameters which created our present universe have been carefully self-selected, through a multitude of prior self-improving developmental
cycles, for the emergence of universe-modeling intelligent systems (our
ancestors, humanity, and our descendants). This selection for increasing
universal intelligence would occur if that complexity, at the start of
each new replicative cycle, had the ability to less-than-randomly improve the computational parameters of universe created
in the subsequent developmental cycle.
The growing body of literature on the anthropic principle/design-for-intelligence
provides circumstantial evidence for the specialness of the parameters
of our universe for supporting the emergence of universe-modeling intelligence.
The history of the evolutionary development of life on Earth also provides
a strong analogy for the history of universal evolutionary development.
In the initial developmental cycles of living systems, it is clear that
fundamental parameters (critical genes) are initially primarily naturally
(chaotically) selected (e.g., Darwinian evolution), while still guided
by occasional developmental attractors (eyes, binocular vision, jointed
limbs, vertebrae, neurons, instincts, language, math, technology, etc.).
But as local computational complexity increased, our natural genetic parameters
have became increasingly self-selected (e.g., rationally-directed, by
human society, first through mating choices, and then through medical
intervention). This is indeed the apparent teleology, or purpose, of intelligence,
to move us from evolutionary (random, chaotic) to developmental (statistically
predictable) contexts.
In the same manner, then, we can expect that the parameters
for universal replication in the multiverse were initially randomly developed,
within some minimal fundamental developmental framework. This is Lee
Smolin's speculative model of "Cosmological Natural (e.g.,
Evolutionary) Selection" (see The
Life of the Cosmos, 1997) Yet as internally developed cosmological
intelligence has increased in subsequent cycles, we must assume that those
parameters have become increasingly self-selected (determined by the models
of internal intelligences), which increasingly influence the conditions
for subsequent development. We might call this extension to Smolin's model
"Cosmological Directed (e.g., Developmental) Selection."
It appears to be a necessary and important refinement.
My speculative proposal then, the developmental
singularity hypothesis, is that, due to STEM compression trends that have
long been self-tuned into the structure of universal computational development,
local intelligence (local life, humanity and our descendants) is
rapidly engaged in a developmental transcension from, and computational
outgrowth of, our present universe, and that the form of this transcension
will be analogous to the production of a local black hole/new universe
by intelligent systems, leading directly to some form of "bounce"
(white hole, Big Bang singularity, or analogous new universe creation)
in a recursive restart of the developmental cycle. All multi-locally emergent
universal intelligences are apparently engaged in this process of evolutionary
developmental universe modeling and seed recreation—this again is
the apparent cosmological developmental purpose, or teleology
of intelligence in the universe.
As in
biological processes, having a robust and redundant program of evolutionary
search provides both critical variation and immunity to any univesal developmental
process as it seeks to increase its adaptive complexity. Therefore, our
universe protects this variation by starting with initial parameters (speed
of light limit, vast distances between planetary systems) that create
enforced isolation of cosmic intelligences, allowing our universe to engage
in multiple independent pathways of exploration in the construction of
universal simulations/new universal seeds. This drive for universal computational
diversity in the search to better understand the multiverse provides a
powerful, parsimonious explanation of the Fermi Paradox, a longstanding
open question in astrobiology.
Discussion
Note that the first four of these ACSAIDS
assertions, "ACSA," Accelerating change, Computational
substrates, STEM compression (efficiency and density)
trends, and Autonomous systems serve as a useful summary of the
technological
singularity hypothesis, as described by Vernor Vinge
and others. The last three memes, "IDS," Informational
metaproperties, Developmentalism, and Self-organization
within the multiverse, serve as a useful summary of the developmental
singularity hypothesis, which may occur if our present sustained double exponential
growth in computational complexity leads us relatively soon in cosmologic
time (1,000 years? 10,000?) to a universe-modelling and universe recreating
system involving Planck-scale processes. In the DSH model, the future of Earth's intelligence
must involve a constrained transcension into some postuniversal state
or environment.
As one of a range of possible hypotheses in universal
evolutionary development, we look forward to increased scientific critique
of the DSH in coming years. Conjectures and hypotheses with similarity
to the DSH have been proposed by cosmologists such as Lee Smolin,
Ed Harrison, and Bela Balazs, astronomers such as Steven
Dick, complexity theorists such as James N. Gardner, and
systems theorists such as myself (John Smart).
This is a multidisciplinary approach to the study of complex
adaptive systems which suggests that the nature and trajectory of accelerating
change may be similar on many different substrates and timescales, including
the universe itself as a coherent substrate. It also suggests that new
developments in astrobiology, cosmology, and evolutionary developmental
biology may soon provide us with a powerful framework for understanding
the constrained future of local computation.
For a brief, accessible, and valuable background paper
to the developmental singularity hypothesis, read Bela Balazs'
"The Role
of Life in the Cosmological Replication Cycle," 2001. James
N. Gardner's books, Biocosm:
The Mission of Life in the Universe, 2003, and The
Intelligent Universe, 2007, are another commendable introduction
to some of these ideas. Lee Smolin's The
Life of the Cosmos, 1997 and Eric Chaisson's Cosmic
Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, 2001 are two additional
books that provide highly valuable support and background, though their
authors do not yet state the hypothesis in the manner of the first two
authors. To understand some of the theory and evidence for developmentalism,
the idea that certain (and certainly only a minority) of outcomes may
be statistically predictable in macrobiological change, an excellent introduction
is Simon Conway Morris's Life's
Solution, 2004.
For a brief article overview of Chaisson's thesis, read
Chaisson, E.J., "A Unifying Concept for Astrobiology," International
Journal of Astrobiology, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp 91-101, 2003. For
a brief article overview of Smolin's thesis, read Smolin, L, "Did
the Universe Evolve?" Classical
and Quantum Gravity,
Volume 9, pp. 173-191, January 1992.
The DSH assumes that the modelling of locally accelerating
change is a potentially universal process, and a phenomenon of
all complex adaptive systems when analyzed from a multidisciplinary perspective.
It draws on such disciplines as cosmology, physical science, complexity
studies, niche construction, theory of computation, information, communication,
and autonomy studies, cybernetics, systems theory, and evolutionary and
developmental biology. Additionally, models of complexity in linguistics,
evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, economics, sociology, anthropology,
history, future studies, computer science, artificial intelligence, evolutionary
computation, communications and internet evolution may also yield deep
insights into computational mechanisms of locally accelerating change.
Finally, studies of the technological singularity hypothesis can play
a useful role if evidence for sustained acceleration of technological-computational
capacities remains consistent in the decades ahead.
As an independent scholar of accelerating change for over
twenty years, my primary goal is to use this site, my writings and research,
and my networking connections to collect and publicize multidiscipinary
perspectives on accelerating change. My secondary and personal goal is
to see the speculative topic of the developmental singularity hypothesis
gain further scientific attention so that it may be modified, refuted,
or further refined.
As a proponent of the topic of accelerating change, and
one who holds an unusual, minority view of the dynamics of this change,
I consider these goals to be a similar challenge to that faced by Christopher
Langton in the early 1980's, when he was attempting to promote the
serious study of artificial life.
Through a series of academic conferences, beginning in
1987 at the Santa Fe Institute,
Chris succeeded in helping the field of A-Life progress quickly from a
fringe subject, considered almost pseudoscience by many researchers at
the time, to a thriving academic and professional discipline. In this
process, Langton was not hesitant to propose some of his own A-Life hypotheses
which were then productively critiqued in scientific debate. His "edge
of chaos" concept is the most famous of these, and it persists today
only a modified form as a successor hypothesis, Per Bak's self-organized
criticality, due to the insightful critiques of Melanie Mitchell
and others at SFI. None of this lessens the great value of Langton's influence
on the development of the field. A similar fate may occur with the developmental
singularity hypothesis, and I welcome constructive critique. Each of us,
whether theorists or experimentalists, should seek out such informed criticism,
as this allows our understanding to rapidly advance.
For my part then, with regard to the multidisciplinary
study of accelerating change, I wish with this site and its projects to
recapitulate Langton's catalytic role on a more modest scale within the
developmental systems theory and futurist communities, without the significant
resources of the Santa Fe Institute, and so perhaps over a substantially
longer interval, at least until such time as other better known academics,
institutions, or philanthropists see fit to join in this endeavor or to
take up this banner themselves.
I have some self-interest here as well, as promoting the
development of the field may be one of the most direct ways that the DSH
will eventually receive the scientific attention (including model construction,
metrics, and falsifiable prediction and experimentation) that I believe
it deserves.
Should
you have evidence or arguments for or counter to this perspective, you
are welcome to contact us.
We hope you will also subscribe to our newsletter,
and participate in the ongoing conversation about our fascinating and
ever-accelerating journey. As our community develops in coming
years, we look forward to refining and critiquing this dialog on what
may be the most important and fundamental questions of our era.
Further
Reading
Some additional literature relevant to
the DSH may be found at found at Background Readings on
the Developmental Singularity Hypothesis.
Comments? Additions? Critiques? Please share your feedback
at johnsmart{at}accelerating{dot}org. Thank you. |
