[extropy-chat] In the Long Run, How Much Does Intelligence Dominate Space?

[Lee Corbin]

Eugen writes

> On Mon, Jul 10, 2006 at 12:48:38AM -0700, J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
> 
> > More generally, "individuals" are fictions that we arbitrarily  
> > delineate at communication bottlenecks (both latency *and*  
> 
> Self-organization has discrete steps in hierarchies. Cell organelles
> (anything with a membrane), cells, cortex modules, organs, multicellular 
> organisms, social organisms (mostly insects, but also mole-rats) and
> large-scale superpersonal organisation levels (corporations, countries,
> etc). Aggregation is conservative, though it does modify individual units
> towards increased specialization.

Yes, though the emphasis in this discussion is on long run trends.
It's as though, say, the first billion years of post-singularity
life is under the (highly speculative) microscope here. What is also
important to remember is that the very concept of "individual" is
in question.

> Anything with discrete units of selection is very unlikely
> to degenerate into a homogenous soup. We might very well form a
> borganism at some point, but the individual people units will
> be still recognizable as discrete units.

Of course, since you are talking about people, I agree. We tend to
be stubborn creatures, and I know that if I happen to survive this
century, I will take steps to ensure that my own identity does not
succumb to fraying at the edges, or problems of "coordinate scale".

But the implications of Andrew's remarks to me are this: in the long
run, homogeneous material (visualize a million mile long and wide
sheaf of thin material orbiting a star) may be intelligent, but may
not have any sense of an "individual". Yes, a local region a meter
or so in size controls its own square meter completely, but works
cooperatively with decimeter patches on its periphery just the way
IBM works with smaller companies (assimilation is not always optimal). 

(I suspect that individualism is so grasping, however, and so imperial
that individuals of the far future will parallel corporations or nations
today, and still be very conscious and protecting of their own boundaries.)

> > bandwidth).  As the communication topology changes with time, so will  
> > the effective definition of "individual", whether it is immediately  
> > recognized or not.
> > 
> > If inter-brain communication was within an order of magnitude of the  
> > technical specs of intra-brain communication, I doubt human organisms  
> 
> But in this universe things which are closer together can talk
> to each other with a higher bit rate.

Exactly. But there is still the problem: why *must* individuals 
emerge from homogeneous material? I've given my extrapolations
that they will, but these are little more than hunches.

(Naturally, new post-humans, like today's individuals if they survive,
may perpetuate the habit of individualism forever, erecting barriers
between themselves and "the other" just as organisms do with their
skins, or everyman does with the picket fence around his castle.

> > [I, Andrew, doubt that organisms [sic] would have much of a concept
> > of "individual" in the same sense that we do today.
> 
> I think we'll see superpersons grow smarter and stronger, but
> this isn't the end of us.

I agree. But from an ultimate Darwinian view, how will they compete
with homogeneous material whose meter-sized (or continent-sized)
regions merge indistinguishibly into each other?  Can they really
produce superior algorithms?  (Rather I should ask, Can it, the 
material, produce the most competitive algorithms?)

My own admittedly weak reason for agreeing with you that this 
homogeneous material will fragment into grasping, recognizing,
selfish individuals is that the Will of material to embrace 
and support a single agenda is too strong.

Lee