Synthetic Philosophy and Deductive Engineering
This document is a speculation about the evolution of intelligent systems over the next billion years, and is presented as background to the rationale for the SPaDE project. The SPaDE project is intended to play into that future, and seeks to exert benign influence on how it plays out. What exactly that means, will never be completely settled, since a part of the evolutionary process which creates that future is the evolution of those aspects of culture which determine desirable metrics and norms for conduct at all levels, the highest of which (in some sense) are aesthetic and ethical norms.
The evolutionary process envisaged is very different to the biological evolution of intelligent life on earth, though the transition from that specific terran biological evolution to the generalised evolution of intelligent systems across the galaxy is already well underway. It may be said to have started with culture, and the much more rapid process which cultural evolution enables. We now see the engineering of non-biological intelligent systems, and may expect to see the transformation of biological evolution by synthetic biology, both of which introduce variation by design and intelligent selection into the evolutionary process.
Other major transformations arise as we transition to the proliferation of intelligence across the galaxy (or beyond), which has some impact on the kinds of system which are evolving. There are already many kinds of evolutionary process, which can be useful in understanding how the future might unfold, and their utility does not depend upon their confining to a single model of evolution. But the rationale for SPaDE is presented at the level of interstellar proliferation.
At that level, the things evolving are self-proliferating intelligent systems, and the evolutionary principle which governs the process is that proliferation predominates, i.e. that those features of self-proliferating intelligent systems which enhance their ability to proliferate will come to predominate in the galactic space.
The rationale offered for the features of the SPaDE project are rooted in this evolutionary principle, and the resulting evolutionary imperative “proliferate!”. To influence the billion year outcome, it is necessary to accept the implications of this principle, and play through it. If in seeking benign outcomes, our proposals conflict with the evolutionary imperative, then our chances of success are compromised.
We may see in this idea a tenuous connection with the gene-centric view of biological evolution which denies the possibility of evolving genuinely altruistic life forms, and it is therefore essential in seeking to advance ethical preferences to limit our ambitions and methods to those which are consistent with the evolutionary imperative.
The evolutionary process which concerns us then, is the evolution of self-proliferating intelligent systems across the galaxy. It is a process which at each generation involves the design and construction of the next generation of self-proliferating intelligent systems. Which of these designs will ultimately prove most influential in shaping the future will entirely depend upon how effective they are in proliferation.
Throughout the Universe, over the next billion years, self-proliferating intelligent systems will be spreading from various points of origin occupying regions around those points which SPaDE speaks of as “diasporas”. The structure of the terran diaspora is relevant to the rationale for SPaDE, and is therefore addressed here.
It is likely to be topologically similar to an onion, of which the layers represent zones progressively remote from the origin of intelligence on planet Earth.
The features of this structure vary widely from the picture of space travel in popular science fiction, where technologies are available which transcend accepted laws of physics to enable astronomical distances to be traversed in the working week.
In reality, human travel is likely limited to one tenth the speed of light, and travel to our nearest star would take 40 years or more. What prospect then of finding or constructing habitat suitable for humans to settle and prosper to achieve the next step forward.
If the race is on, it will not be won by homo-sapiens, but some of its intelligent progeny, most likely completely independent of Earth’s complex ecosystem, non-biological. If human proliferation were the objective, then it seems likely that establishing suitable habitats using autonomous intelligent automatons first would be essential.
But in such a process of human proliferation, humanity becomes merely a burden. If the race is on, intelligent automata will move faster without us.
The outermost layer represents intelligent systems which serve only to gather intelligence and are not capable of self-proliferation. Their primary role is to gather intelligence necessary to the colonisation of that layer by self-proliferating systems to follow.