This post is inspired by a comment left on my previous post by blogger and thinker Al Fin. I decided to make it a post instead of just a comment because it opens up some interesting conversation about different methodologies of scientific investigation and other fun stuff.
As Al points out I am a philosopher by training and so I will try to elucidate a bit on the mission of the organization I linked to in the last post and hopefully cut through some of the jargon.
Before I directly attempt a translation of the quotes below I will explain a bit about things you should know when trying to read philosophy. First, just as in any discipline, there are a plethora of philosophical traditions and branches of study, etc. It would be very helpful to have some knowledge of the history of philosophy – more so than in other disciples. About two hundred years ago there arose somewhat of a bifurcation in the western tradition of philosophy. This split was between continental Europe and the English speaking world. These somewhat separated traditions are usually referred to as continental and analytic philosophy (though this separation is not really that tidy). In General continental philosophy has tended to be more concerned with questions of ethics, philosophical anthropology, political philosophy, and ontology; while the Anglo-phonic analytic philosophers were/are concerned almost exclusively with epistemology which includes mathematical logic, scientific methodology, and philosophy of language. Though both of these traditions share a lot of thinking and both draw on the same historical cannon of philosophers they are really quite different in many ways. So whenever one is going to be reading some philosophy one should first try to ascertain from what tradition the philosopher is writing. In the case of the organization I linked to these philosophers are from continental Europe and so one should understand that their manner of speaking and the jargon they use will almost certainly be unfamiliar (sometimes in an intentionally obscurantist manner unfortunately).
The second thing that anyone reading philosophy should understand is the principle of charity. The principle of charity is a way of reading a philosopher. The basic idea is simply that whenever one is reading another thinker one should assume that the thinker is intelligent and has something meaningful to say (even if this isn't quite always the case).
So with both those things in mind I will elaborate on the following first stated objective:
"To contribute to a single and comprehensive transdisciplinary scientific research programme forinvestigating self-organization by elaborating selected epistemological, ontological and axiological implications, thus attempting at unifying the scattered approaches in the so-called non-linear science of complexity"
First the organization is stating that they are attempting to unify the science of non-linear complexity. Presumably they say “so called” science because it has not yet been unified and so cannot really be called a science yet. Now the manner in which they are attempting this unification is through investigating the phenomenon of self-organization (such as the process of biological evolution) through a method of examining certain implications of self-organization for the historical subjects of western philosophy (epistemology, ontology, axiology).
Briefly I will explain what this might entail as a research program. First it is an attempt to bring together the traditional studies of the humanities and the sciences into a unified whole by applying the scientific and experimental conclusions of what we know about self-organizing systems to traditional questions of philosophy. The traditional questions of philosophy fall under thee categories that each have many sub categories. The first category is epistemology. Epistemology asks what knowledge is and how it is possible. Some of the sub categories include philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logics, mathematical logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, etc. Now there are at least two very important examples of self-organization that have the power to really illuminate epistemology in a way that has never before been possible. These two examples are the self organization of the human brain and the self organization and evolution of planet earth's biosphere (human evolution in particular). For instance both evolutionary psychology and cognitive science are disciplines that inform us about the traditional problems of epistemology and this could be advanced even further by really understanding how both the human brain and mankind as a whole are self-organizing systems. Next is ontology. Ontology asks what exists, or what is being, or what is real. The science of cosmology studies one big self-organizing system – the cosmos. When studying the cosmos scientists must understand how everything in the cosmos interrelates, from the smallest things to the largest things, in order too understand how the cosmos is developing and what “it” is. Is the universe ultimately indivisible particles and space as Newton thought? Is it quanta of energy, or two dimensional strings existing in a many-dimensional space, or is it merely the interrelation of ultimate forces? Or perhaps information is the most real “substance”. At any rate it seems very likely that applying what we know about self-organizing systems to ontology is likely to yield some answers.
Finally we come to axiology. Axiology asks what value or quality is. This is closely related to the question of what consciousness is and is related to ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy. Understanding what consciousness or mentality is has alluded both philosophers and scientists for centuries and is considered to be a holy grail by many in both camps (and many have made pretensions of having answers). Some examples of how an understanding of self-organizing systems could be applied to axiology are (1) how the brain is organized to create consciousness, (2) how society is a self-organizing system and (3) how the self-organizing system of biological evolution has effected what we consider to be of value, and (4) how the organization and evolution of the cosmos may shed light on what is actually of value.
Now for the second objective:
“To contribute to a scientific understanding of the "feedback-loop" of human action and reflection in a historical moment in which the destiny of the world system is at stake”
This objective appears to be rooted in the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and hermeneutics.
Phenomenology is concerned with interpreting the world as it is presented to the consciousness and is a descendent's of both the philosophies of Descartes and Kant. Hermeneutics is concerned with the interpretation of the phenomena as akind of text(I realize that this just seems like more confusing jargon but if you are interested you can always turn to Google).
Now what this objective is stating is an understanding that at every moment the future is determined by present action and that present action arises from how we understand the present and the past (this is known as a heurmenutical circle and is also a problem in the philosophy of science). So this is just a fancy hermeneutical way of saying that they are interested in contributing to a more accurate understanding how mankind understands himself so as to greater empower man to direct his own future.
If anyone still has any questions or would like to further discuss these ideas feel free to comment.
5 Comments:
Thanks, Micah. Your explanation helps me to organise my thoughts in order to better approach the topic.
Although in my opinion philosophers and social scientists tend to pad their papers with obscure jargon, seemingly on purpose, I have decided not to allow that to keep me from monitoring their activities, as part of a comprehensive search for novel ideas.
Unfortunately what you say is true. There is a lot of garbage going around passing itself off as social science and philosophy that is really either confused irrationalism (multicultural relativism, much postmodernism), or just recycled marxism. For every serious thinker there are usually a plethera of "scribblers" calling themselves scientists or philosophers. As you are aware this is a result of the stagnation of the modern university. For my part I applaud the interdisciplinary approach that yourself and (hopefully) myself embody. Godspeed on your mission to understand everything :)
When you're buying a motorcycle you need to know about bikes, but you also need to know about how to buy a bike, and that has nothing to do with engines and manufacturing. One important detail where a lot of people that purchase motorcycles go wrong is getting the right loan.
Hi Micah. You have a superb blog here. Doesn't that "add me to skype button" connect you with timewasters? Anyway, I liked what I read here, so I would like to invite you to write an article about the Future in Trendirama.com (I am the founder) Alternatively, we can publish your best article in Trendinews.com as a guest author, even if it was published somewhere else before. (it can be a blog post) Let me know what you think I am also passionate about these subjects and think people should know more about it...and what you have to say would surely be interesting...
Best regards Javier Marti, Founder http://trendirama.com ps/sorry to contact through comments. I found you by chance and where I am doesn't allow me access to email :(
I enjoyed your post, because this line of thought got me excited when I was an idealistic undergraduate. What you're describing is the latest incarnation of a movement that's been around since the "systems theorists" of the 1970s, and more recently chaos theory, non-linear dynamics, and self-organizing systems (particularly neural systems). However, I think a large part of its appeal is that it appears to be a strike against overly simplistic empirical "linear" science. It certainly was its appeal for me back then: it seemed radical, dangerous, against the grain. But the problem is that this project brings with it certain ideas about how the world should be, or at least, what kinds of models are the best one. That's a danger. Science needs to be ruthlessly opportunistic, and simply take the best explanations from wherever it can find them. For example, let's consider self-organizing neural systems. It has become increasingly clear that neural systems come at least partly pre-wired. For insects they are 100% wired, but even in humans, self-organisation has limits as an explanatory device. My other concern is that if taken to an extreme, we will end up explaining everything, and therefore explaining nothing. If the cosmos is a self-organising system, then what is left?
Philosophical Foundations For A Theory of Evolutionary Systems
This is a European research organization that I discovered while doing a bit of web surfing. There are some very interesting research papers published on the site that are concerned with self-organizing systems and socio-technological evolution. Here are a few quotes from the site.
"Since the sixties a paradigm shift in the disciplines of science, in system thinking and evolutionary thinking, and in philosophy and "weltanschauung" has been underway towards a Theory of Evolutionary Systems. Still there are gaps in theoretical knowledge to which philosophical theorizing may put forward heuristic offers."
Objectives
- To contribute to a single and comprehensive transdisciplinary scientific research programme for investigating self-organization by elaborating selected epistemological, ontological and axiological implications, thus attempting at unifying the scattered approaches in the so-called non-linear science of complexity
- To contribute to a scientific understanding of the "feedback-loop" of human action and reflection in a historical moment in which the destiny of the world system is at stake
1 Comments:
Micah, I am counting on you as the resident philosopher on this blog to translate some of the jargon into conventional language. It is possible that a lot more people would be enthusiastic about the goals of this organisation if they only understood what they were.
All of us have our specialties that utilise specialised jargon. No one can master the jargon of every specialty.
If you would translate "investigating self-organization by elaborating selected epistemological, ontological and axiological implications, thus attempting at unifying the scattered approaches in the so-called non-linear science of complexity" and "a scientific understanding of the "feedback-loop" of human action and reflection in a historical moment".
I know what I think it is supposed to mean. But I am a multidisciplinary generalist, not conversant in philosophical language. I would like to know what you, as a philosopher, think and how you interpret it.
Keep in mind that many of your readers may have read Sokal and Bricmont's "Fashionable Nonsense", and might have retained a healthy skepticism of obscure jargon.
All information is expressed through media. Those who control media on a mass scale control what information is accessed and whom may access it.
Throughout human history those in power have had control of the media. Until recently only the elite could read and that elite were usually the priest class whether Brahmans, Jesuits ancient Egyptian priest -scribes, etc. However, at the start of the modern era came the steam powered printing press and this has led to mass literacy and the rise of democracy. The bed-rock of the modern democratic state has been the freedom of press. This freedom guarantees that the agency of government is kept separate from the agency of media with the intended consequence that the literate masses will be able to govern themselves by having unrestricted access to information.
This idea of the freedom of the press has led to thriving democratic nations with people who have been empowered to keep their respective governments in check. However this system is flawed and over the course of the twentyth-century organizations have been quite successful at destroying the foundation of democracy by destroying the competition of a market of ideas through the monopolization of media.
Since the dawn of the Internet the monopoly of media that has been ruling the world for the most part has been severely weakened by the advent of the web-log and other media services such as digg.com and Wikipedia.
The more ubiquitous information and media become the more powerful become those who control the distribution and facilitation of media.
At the present time the birth of global democracy and global dialog leading to a prosperous future for humankind is being threatened by the most powerful organizations on this planet. These organizations are not governments but telecom corporations.
This threat arises because the infrastructure that facilitates the world wide web is owned by these corporations and these corporations understand the kind of power that they could wield if they could convince governments to allow them to wield that power uncontested. Because of these corporation's enormous amount of wealth and influence they are succeeding at doing this.
Whether or not the world wide web can, even in theory, be brought under control is uncertain. However what is certain is that this possibility must be safeguarded against at all cost.
In some countries the government controls the media and in some other countries the media controls the government. What we must seek is a society that nurtures a free market-place of ideas where power is decentralized because neither money nor violence can secure anyone a privileged outlet of media.
4 Comments:
Landlines and satellites can be controlled more easily than wireless terrestrial. Look at pirate radio stations and other quasi-illegal radio activity. With more advanced use of the EM spectrum wireless internet can do a lot. HAM radio internet is workable for some regions. Don't rule out pirate satellites either, with space launch capability coming within reach of non-governments. There's a lot of excess capacity in radio and television broadcasts as well. Internet over power lines is messy but doable. I can see muslim autocrats or Chinese/N.Korean dictators trying to control the internet. Worrying about telecoms etc. seems a bit paranoid.
Any concentration of power is a threat to freedom. The reason China can control their Internet (to some extent) is because the Chinese government has a monopoly over their telecommunications infrastructure. My argument is that if any entity can controls the mass media then that entity will have tyrannical power.
I think once long range wifi (wimax) becomes popular even China will find it hard to contain the tide of information.
The spice must flow!
I also agree that the big media corporations are gradially losing some of their power - especially the ability to spread blatant propaganda. When a big news story breaks often the more interesting reports and commentaries are in the blogosphere.
For what reason would Comcast or AT&T want to kill the golden goose? It is OUR freedom that has made them wealthy corporations. Unless and until the US government takes control of the telecoms (like the government of China does) then what is all the worry. Without freedom there is no wealth.
Cuba is dirt poor, North Korea is poorer than that, and Chavez is working on bringing Venezuela into the gutter by stripping freedoms from the corporations and from the people. These places have little to no real freedom.
It is in the best interests of corporations big and small to support freedom and democracy. Am I wrong?
Although it seems as if everyday I hear a report that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are still decades away the facts don't appear to support this. Currently every major automotive company is highly invested in researching fuel-cell technology and most have at least one working prototype already. For sometime now GM has been promising that they will begin mass producing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2010 and now just recently Honda has joined in saying that they too will be offering fuel-cell vehicles by 2010. Also both Daimler-Chrysler and Ford Motors have done an extensive amount of research and real world tests (though neither have committed to any date). Here is a run down of whats going on.
GM
That is a video of GM's most recent version of the Hy-Wire Fuel-cell vehicle. Source
Honda
"Hydrogen fuel cell cars could be on the road much earlier than the decade or more so far predicted. Honda has confirmed it plans a production model “in three to four years”."
"An ongoing successful road-test of a small fleet of hydrogen-powered vehicles has Ford engineers optimistic about their reliability and ultimate roadworthiness.
Ford is testing 30 Focus Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCVs) in seven U.S. cities and in Canada and Germany. They are driven daily by local governmental employees and have racked up more than 180,000
I have always been sceptical of President Bush's hydrogen initiative. Hydrogen is not cheaply available, and does not travel well in a small vehicle as fuel. It is much better for automotive fuel cells to use liquid fuels such as an alcohol (butanol is best if you can get it) and extract the hydrogen for use at the cell.
Politicians should not be running this kind of thing. They are too prone to poor advice. The same thing applies to Gore and global warming. The surest way to create a catastrophe is to centralise (governmentalise) efforts to deal with a relatively minor problem.
Hi Al. Nice to hear from you. I certainly agree with you about "governmentalizing" science and economics and I also agree to some extent that hydrogen is not a suitable vehicle fuel. However one should understand that a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is also a battery elctric vehicle that happens to get some of its energy from hydrogen. That being the case it is exciting to hear that major auto manufacturers are planning mass production in a mere few years. I don't know how much you know about this but, for instance, GM's vehicle uses all-wheel-drive in-wheel electric motors, uses drive-by-wire technology, and is powered by a combination of hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, and ultra-super capacitors. Such a vehicle could be charged anywhere there is an electric outlet or/and it can be fueled with hydrogen if/where it is available. So you see this technology is market and science driven and does not depend on any kind of politicians vision or some pie in the sky "hydrogen hyway". I'm quite convinced that some kind of electric vehicle will be the vehicle of choice in five years.
Mr. Glasser, I agree with you and am also very excited that we are on the verge of this "Great Leap Forward" the only question is how to make it an economy of scale? The current infrastructure can not readily adapt to Hydrogen production and distribution without heavy investment. Two factors will determine the speed of evolution of our vehicles: 1. The market. When consumers start to look at the FCV as a viable alternative the money will follow. Although I am against the violence in the Middle East, it may just drive oil prices up high enough to get people thinking about FCV. Neccesity is the mother.... 2. Goverment intervention, be it subsidization capital or RD investments.
The US should see Hydrogen Energy as a matter of national security. All efforts should be focused on affecting this change. Not only for the enviorment but to maintain our ever eroding competitive edge. Matt
But why would we want hydrogen fuel cell vehicles?
I entirely agree with Al. Hydrogen is not readily available, it must be 'manufactured' in an inefficient process. It isn't appropriate to transport as a fuel cell in a small vehicle due to its chemical properties and weight characteristics.
Electric (read: battery charged) vehicles show more promise. The technology to make electric cars affordable, effective, and even performance oriented is available today. Future improvements in battery technology and available motors would only make them better.
I suspect automotive companies are only interested in hydrogen fuel cells as a PR tool. The amount of money they 'invest' in R&D is negligable when compared to their advertising campaigns. Historically they've shown the public that they are resistant to change and innovation (does anybody remember having to pass laws requiring seatbelts before automotive companies would install them stock?).
The next 24 months should be telling. Since a hydrogen fuel cell based automobile is essentially an electric car, the various battery advances hinted at in the news recently will be in direct competition. If we really see a significant breakthrough in battery and/or ultra capacitor power and energy storage, and charge rate, then fuel cells for mainstream transportation applications will be stillborn. There may still be an application for remote areas of the world or for stationary power generation but likely nothing else of significance.
If companies like EESTOR, A123 Systems, and others, on the other hand, are vastly over hyping their new or soon to be new electrical storage products then fuel cells have a slim chance. In this case it will depend on the success or failure of producing carbon-neutral biofuels in significant volume and much (much) more efficient internal combustion engines being developed.
I would say the number one potential development that could make hydrogen an economical energy carrier would be efficient and cost effective on-site hydrogen generation from water via solar or grid electricity. Any other generation or transportation method for hydrogen seems doomed to failure because of the lack of existing infrastructure (and the cost of building the same) or the continued dependency on fossil fuels for hydrogen production.
Still, big money (i.e. the oil and chemical companies) has a significant stake in making hydrogen successful so we may yet see fuel cell based cars on the road, at least for a few years. And, as Micah Glasser points out, developing a successful fuel cell car also helps a battery based car because of the drive train (assuming the auto manufactures don't decide sticking with mechanical transmissions and differentials is more cost effective).
One thing is for sure: After three decades of relative stagnation, there is a LOT of new development going on for automobiles.
Now here's some interesting research: Richard Bourgeois and colleagues at a General Electric research facility in Niskayuna, N.Y. claim to have used a moldable, high-tech GE plastic called Noryl to cut the equipment cost of using electricity to product hydrogen from water in half. They claim to have brought the cost down to about $3 per KG of hydrogen (about the equivalent energy of a gallon of gas). One step closer to a hydrogen economy? This was reported in Popular Mechanics November 2006 issue.
A lot of talk goes on about exponential technological growth as typified by Moore's Law. However if Ray Kurzweil is correct concerning his Law of Accelerating Returns we should see not just exponential growth but hyperbolic growth. Hyperbolic growth happens when the causes of exponential growth are themselves growing exponentially.
Well according to researchers at Georgia Tech this is exactly what we should expect to be seeing in the near future. Here are a few excerpts from the article:
“By 2010, the "More Than Moore's Law" movement—which focuses on system integration rather than transistor density—will lead to revolutionary megafunction electronics “
“SOP technology represents a radically different approach to systems. It shrinks bulky circuit boards with their many components and makes them nearly disappear. In effect, SOP sets up a new law for system integration. It holds that as the components shrink and the boards all but disappear, the component density will double every year or so, and the number of system functions in an SOP package will increase in the same proportion. Thus, SOP technology yields far more in system miniaturization than can be expected from Moore's Law, which deals only with transistors in ICs [see graph below, "Growing Faster"]. “
“This last application will see the convergence of biology, chemistry, and digital technology to produce capsules small enough to be introduced into the human body to monitor personal health daily. A capsule could be used, for example, to check vital signs and monitor parameters such as glucose levels, blood pressure, and even signs of cancer. The capsule would then wirelessly communicate the person's health status to a Web terminal outside the body or, via the Internet, to a physician (or to anyone, anywhere). Fitted with a reservoir, the capsule could also deliver drugs at programmed intervals to selected places within the body. “
I'm just enough of an electrician to be aware just how sensitive such devices have always been to external radiation sources (RF, magnetic, etc; not nuclear especially) and have wondered how robust something that small can be made. Having your in-body diagnostic and Rx dispenser go on the fritz every time one passes through a metal detector would not be a good thing, I suspect.
If I can just stay out from under the bus for a few more years, it appears I may have the opportunity to find out.
From the study of proteins and their interaction with ligands we also learn that most have a mechanism for co-operativity. If that co-operativity between subunits of the protein is positive then a reaction where you would expect a hyperbolic response becomes sigmoidal.
The other day I was walking around in one of the beautiful hardwood forest of northern Ohio and it occurred to me that the trees were a perfect example of molecular manufacturing at its finest. Of course it is often pointed out that biological organisms are essentially molecularly constructed beings but the point really hit home for me while thinking about the trees. I think this is because of the large mass and simple efficiency of trees. The molecular mechanisms for constructing a tree are powered directly by sunlight (no need for exotic fuels like us humans), and the building blocks for constructing the trees come straight out of the atmosphere via carbon dioxide.
So this got me thinking: all that carbon dioxide we keep dumping into the atmosphere via combustion could be a global fortune rather than a disaster. Just imagine molecular manufacturing on a global scale that produced almost every economic good out of carbon directly from the atmosphere while using sunlight as the power.
Form this perspective economic efficiency and reducing carbon from the atmosphere would be the same project. It takes energy to separate carbon from oxygen. At this time we are accustomed to combing oxygen and carbon to get energy. But this is an archaic way of getting energy seeing as how it is throwing our ecosystem out of whack and seeing as how the earth already receives more energy from the sun than we could possibly put to use. We must imitate the trees. We must use the sun's energy to separate the carbon from the atmosphere and use that carbon for all of our production needs.
Just a thought.
5 Comments:
I thought this post: http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/05/greenfuel_updat.html
particularly germaine to your most recent thinking. Found here:
Nice points! There are so many sources of energy and matter that we've been unable to exploit for so long, people take it for granted that they will be unexploitable forever.
A seemingly little appreciated concept that you touch on here Micah is that of how complex the ordinary truly is. Phil Bowermaster links to this post with one example of that complexity,
but I suggest that the degree of technical mastery necessary for us to duplicate the process that trees use in a manner we can control is something that most people don't appreciate.
It's all very well to say, "Trees do it, so can we", but doing so in a way that doesn't emulate the chaotic process of nature adds a so-far insurrmountable degree of complexity to the effort.
One of the benchmarks of the pre-Singularity period in my opinion ought to be our ability to emulate functions that occur naturally as power law distributions in a bell curve measurable fashion, a concept my blog partner Gary and I discussed in a different context here:
http://artofwarplus.com/wordpress/?p=824
That, I submit, is the distinguishing characteristic of science and technology, most particularly as in the example you provide here. Whether or not we survive as a species to achieve the Sigularity will, I suggest, largely be a product of our successfully achieving that transition from chaotic natural process to controllable technologic process.
Very interesting Will. Now I know what book I will be reading next. Thanks. This stuff about power curves in dynamic processes sounds like it could be a powerful tool for a systems thinker. I'm excited to find out more.
I just added a Frappr Map to the blog. You can see it at the bottom of the 'recent posts' list. So if you have a moment it would be great if you would add yourself to the map. I would love to know a little more about my readers. Also this is a great networking tool as it helps anyone who reads this blog to meat others of like mind.
Two weeks without a new entry and still looking at a sparse frapper map. If I tell you a little more about one of your readers, will you post again? :)
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Here in the United States one of the key issues in the political arena has been the state of health care and what can be done to improve its accessibility to all levels of the economic spectrum and make it more affordable to everyone - with the left demanding state controlled universal health care and the right singing the praises of the present market system. In this article I will take no political stance because I don't think this is a political problem. Rather what I wish to discuss is the open source future of medicine and why that future makes the problem of the expense and availability of health care a problem that will soon go away.
No doubt some readers are already shaking their heads. They are probably saying to themselves that medicine requires doctors and goods that are both scarce and which must necessarily remain scarce for the foreseeable future. Of course if this premise were true then my earlier claims would be unjustified and so ,of course, that is a premise that I will show to be in error.
To begin with lets look at medical doctors. The backbone of the modern health care system is the science of medicine which is put to use by medical doctors who are essentially technicians (very well educated technicians). These technicians are usually specialists in one particular system or organ of the human body – though they are well educated in the whole body. These technicians are also experts at diagnosis. They apply the science of medicine and biology in order to pinpoint problems with the human body. This involves gathering data from the body through various tests and instruments. This data is then put through a system of inference which seeks to classify a set of symptoms as either within the range of healthy or as a syndrome or a disease. Although at one time it required a very intelligent and educated person to gather this data and perform the necessary inferences in order to make a diagnosis most of this process can now be performed by an intelligent machine.
This is not meant to slight the science of medical diagnostics - the brilliant masters of chess have already met their humiliating match and have now been surpassed by the machine.
So being that this is already the state of affairs what can we likely expect to see in the next ten years or so? Here is one scenario which I think is likely. Within five years local clinics start using very good weak AI expert systems to make diagnostics and prognostications. Soon thereafter it becomes legal to obtain a prescription from a clinic based on the prognosis of the AI alone. This move drastically cuts the cost of visits to a clinic because there is no doctor on salary. Of course when necessary a doctor could be consulted through telepresencing, in fact a network of M.D.'s might be able to augment the functionality of the expert system which could then be networked all over the world.
With such a networked medical AI/ telepresencing-doctors system the cost and effectiveness of medical treatment could be greatly reduced.
At this point some might say: big deal, we will soon have expert systems that can make accurate diagnosis and prognosis, the real cost of health care is treatment. I concede that this is true. However the very nature of medicine – and hence treatment – is presently changing paradigmatically. Within the next few years it will become inexpensive for a person to have his/her genome sequenced. Soon all medicine will be based on a person's genome. And not only genetic diseases. Soon our understanding of genetics will allow us to regenerate organs and tissue, and bolster our immune systems to kill cancer and other invading replicators. Such treatment relies on the science and technology of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics understands that the the human genome is a structure which contains information which instructs a kinematic replication process, i.e. Life. Once this biological paradigm shift has fully come to fruition I would imagine that one will be able to go visit a clinic to receive a gene treatment which makes one immune to the common cold and influenza for about as much as it costs to get a soar throat looked at now. I expect to see such advances within fifteen years.
Beyond fifteen years it is quite hard to say what medicine may be like but lets try any way. I think that it would be a conservative prognosis to say that sometime between 2020 and 2030 we will have achieved both molecular manufacturing and artificial general intelligence (AGI). If after this point we haven't destroyed ourselves then we should be enjoying an economic utopia. But beyond the fact that one obviously wouldn't need any money in such a society (and so wouldn't be concerned about the cost of health care) one could also expect that the very idea of health will have changed. What we consider to be “healthy” at present may in a couple decades be considered unbearably diseased.
With all of humanity networked through an exponentially growing super intelligence, and with tools that can manipulate molecules to create any conceivable thing, the very nature of physical human existence may become something that is currently inconceivable to us.
2 Comments:
Interesting thoughts. But what about the costs of malpractice insurance due to lawsuits. I believe that has a lot to do with the cost of health care today. In a few years there may be less doctors but unfortunately just as many if not more lawyers.
Excellent point motojet. I'll have to give that one some thought but my answer right off the bat would point to AI legel expert systems that would be quite similar to the AI medical expert systems.
The End of Money and the Singularity Model of Economics
Recently over at “The Warrior Class Blog” Will Brown wrote an article on the need for a singularity model of economics. This piece was also discussed at the Speculist by Phil Bowermaster. This was a very interesting article and while I wholly agree with Mr. Brown's assessment that we are in need of a serious singularity model of economics I must disagree with his equating of money with economics (if I understand him correctly).Here are a few points that I would add to this line of thinking:
To begin I would like to see a singularity model of economic that is very interdisciplinary. What I mean is that human economic activity and political organization is the result of both the biological and memetic evolution of the human species. As such Economics must become a more integrated science based on interdisciplinary principles.
Now having said that let us take a very brief look at the history of the economic exchange of goods.
The evolution of the technology of exchange corresponds to the evolution of the technology of economic productivity. The technology of exchange begins with civilization. Civilization emerges from human techno-memetic evolution when the technologies of writing and agriculture are developed. At this stage of civilization records are kept and credit is given but there is no standardized medium of exchange. This state of affairs leads inevitably to the adoption of a standardized medium of exchange – usually gold or silver. From this early stage in human civilization until the beginning of the industrial revolution gold served as an almost universal currency and was identical to money. At that point in history the banknote was invented and thus begun modern finance. However, even though banknotes have been used since at least the seventeenth century it has only been since 1971, following the Bretton Woods Accord, that most of the worlds governments began issuing fiat currency. This is the difference between money and currency. Money has an inherent worth or can readily be exchanged for a predetermined amount of something with inherent worth (such as gold), Fiat currency has no inherent worth and its value is subject to manipulation by governments and others with a great deal of power.
When this is understood one must conclude that economics and money are in no way the same thing because economic activity continues on, ever more rapidly, without the existence of money.
What now exists in place of money is a system of trust wherein members agree by dictate of law to accept a fiat currency in exchange for goods and services. One cannot become wealthy in such a system by merely accumulating money (as was once possible) but must accumulate capitol, i.e. the means of production.
In a society where capitol is centralized, wealth is concentrated into the control of the few. If there is only one power plant then whoever controls that plant is very powerful indeed. And if the enormous high-rise apartment complex is owned by one company then, again, that company has a lot of power.
But what happens in a decentralized society that has been altered by design-science revolution? Such a society is one that I believe we are currently building – or at least making possible. What happens when individuals are not dependent on the centralized and monopoly owned infrastructure of life? What happens when an individual can own a domicile for a relatively small amount that is completely self-sustaining – able to produce all of its own electricity, fuel, food, and tools? Such a time is around the corner.
Once this economic state of affairs is achieved the age of monopolization of the infrastructure of life will be over and so will the present politico-economic organization with all of its inefficiencies.
When, or if, this state of affairs comes to fruition how much capitol one owns will not define wealth since the entire infrastructure of life will be decentralized and since molecular nano-fabrication will end all scarcity (or destroy the planet). Once this revolution is fully developed all human interrelation will be based on meaningfully dialog. The only exchange will be the exchange of ideas and collaboration. The only wealthy man will be the self-actualized man.
14 Comments:
It is hard to envision that "the entire infrastructure of life will be decentralized" in the course of a technological Singularity, when electronic networking tends in the opposite direction -- towards tighter and tighter centralization. But even so, there may be a return to something like hunter/gatherer cave-man economics, in the sense that a Prosperity Engine based on sentient means of production may provide a subsistence economy for all of humanity, similar to the African savannah at a time when the human population consisted of only a few thousand individuals. With subsistence assured, individuals may then compete to exchange larger contributions to social well-being in exchange for marginally larger enjoyment of the fruits of the economy. Ah well -- probably too Utopian!
I agree completely with this line of thinking. You may have misunderstood what I meant by economic decentralization. Even though global society continues to become more and more cybernetically interconnected I think we will see a trend toward the dencentralization of tool and energy production because it is more efficient. Also I think that the development of AI and the development of an intelligently networked global economy are one and the same (what you call the sentient economy). Once such an AI is in full control of the operation of the global economy we will either have sucseeded in bringing about a state of human flourishing or we will have brought about our demise. So it would seem that we our either destined to a state of utopia or to extinction (or possibly just a rather miserable existence - the matrix senerio.
My basic intent was to encourage just such discussion as you offer here, so thank you for taking part.
I think the description I offered is an accurate portrayal of the popular understanding of economics - which is a large part of the problem in developing anything so grandiose as SME. People commonly associate economics with banking, which is rather like associating biomedical research with your first aid kit. In both examples, however interconnected the two parts are, they aren't actually the same thing at all.
My inspiration for the post arose from a widespread misconception that Singularity precursor technology (molecular fab, AI, HSE, etc) will mean the end of money and sought to refute that idea. Since no-one's specifically opposed that thesis (yet), I'll take that as tentatively stipulated.
I noted at The Speculist that current economic principles don't seem to scale to the individual level of operability. Do you see that as compatable with your interdisciplinary approach?
To Will Brown: Thank you for taking the time to post a thoughtful comment. I really enjoy it when the blogosphere becomes a form of dialog and I am excited about the growth of conversations such as the one in which we are engaged. I'm not sure what the prevailing opinion is concerning the future of money in a post AI and nanofabrication economy but I take the stance that money, and even currency as we now understand it, will cease to be the means of exchange. I applaud your attempt to bring the economic discussion down to a level that can be understood by all but I simply disagree with your approach. I think that we need to move away from understanding economics in terms of banking as I see this as a hindrance to getting to the root of what economics is all about – which is creating a sustainable biosphere which will provide for all human needs in a most efficient manner. In response to your question about the scaling of economic principles I'm not quite sure what you mean by this but I can say that I think an interdisciplinary SME needs to begin with an assumption of ever expanding abundance and seek to describe how the techno-economic evolutionary process can bring about a state of affairs in which humankind can dwell sustainably in and with the rest of the biosphere and in abundance. Having said that the basic reasoning behind why I don't think their will be a need for any kind of economic exchange medium comes from the idea that at a certain technological point there will be no need to distribute resources as all services and goods will be provided by sentient machines that are not owned by people. Because of this there will be no such thing as human labor and no such thing as money. The result of this, as I see it, is a state wherein human beings will be able to engage in almost any activity they deem worthy of their efforts and will need no economic incentive (since a state of abundance beyond human understanding will already exist).
Micah; Obviously I'm not saying this as well as I'd hoped.
We have the present state of tech development and the future state of development you describe. My thought is that it would be valuable to develop a set of principles and metrics as a strategic guide for getting from now to then with as little conflict as possible. The most common experience people generally have of economics is the banking industry and investment markets; it seemed reasonable to start the SME development process using the terms of that familiar context.
A brief aside: I submit that gold and silver have no more intrinsic value than do other refined metals (their value is determined by the identical process as are other metals) except as they are used as currency. The concept of money/currency exists outside of the form chosen for it's expression. The concept of "fiat money" is a political device built upon a distinction without a difference.
Some effectively universally accepted means for valuing and prioritising objects will be required however we obtain them and money already has such general recognition. Strategic science assumes change as a constant, so some method for prioritising value under variable circumstance will be one function for money well into humanity's future. A universal standard for valuing dis-similar objects or intellectual constructs for exchange over distance will almost certainly be another.
The scaling problem is an example of differing perceptions, I think. Something may exist in such abundance that I literally cannot possibly use it all. Even so, it is not actually infinite in supply so economically speaking it possesses scarcity and economic theories work from that premise. Assumptive behaviors based on that premise are the justification behind modern financial laws and agreements. How do we re-scale economic theories to accomidate an effective lack of scarcity controllable by the individual? Without creating conflict with existing laws and agreements which would work against the development of such individual capability.
One thing I disagree with you over is the idea that we will supercede the need to distribute resources. Human creativity will always be a marketable resource for so long as there are two or more humans in existence. AI must remain alien or indistinguishable from human and the latter must desire involvement in that market exchange to achieve that state.
Sam Dinkin described economics as "Logistics without all the trucks and stuff" and that seems right to me. Life will always have it's logistic requirements and money is the most commonly recognisable tool of economics. I think it will remain useful to us for a lot longer then you seem prepared to credit.
I have commented on your writing before now:
http://artofwarplus.com/wordpress/?p=646
Maybe this will add some clarity to my thinking process.
You certainly raise some interesting points that I will have to give further consideration to. I'm a bit surprised that you think the difference between fiat currency and money is contrived. I agree that the same mechanisms determine the intrinsic value of all commodities. The reason why gold and silver have been traditionally used as money is because of the combined properties of being relatively scarce and useful. Today gold is no longer officially used as a currency yet it is highly sought after. One reason for this is because both the amount of gold that can be mined out of the earth is severely limited and finite and it is highly useful (as it has always been). In other words the supply remains about the same while the demand fluctuates according to a number of factors. No matter how much power one has it would be very difficult to change the perceived value of gold and hence its price. This is not so with fiat currency. The value of the Dollar or any other fiat currency is subject to extreme revaluations according to interest rates and the number of bills in circulation, or the productivity of the issuing economy (all of which can be manipulated by the government in order to control revenue without the people's consent). My position concerning the distribution of wealth (as you know) is that we will move from fiat currency to the exchange of instruments that represent ownership of the economic infrastructure (such as digitally represented corporate stock). I believe that this economic pattern will continue until there is no longer any need for human labor at the point of singularity. So I agree with you concerning the need for a medium of exchange that acts as a coordinator of logistics (without all the trucks and stuff : -), but I submit to you that the singularity event fundamentally changes the nature of the game. In a post-singularity world what would you pay money for and to whom would you pay it? Their will be no resource that any person can offer you - whether it be a device, commodity, or idea – that cannot readily be obtained by the fully automated-super intelligent-molecule manipulating global techno-economic infrastructure. Of course this all just speculation on my part and I could be wildly wrong – we will see.
And so we equally surprise each other; I confess to a certain degree of amazement that you don't assume the artificial contrivance leading to the very concept of money. The idea of one object representing a myriad of other objects for the purposes of transacting in those other objects surely isn't an obvious or instinctive association, I think.
In an effort at clarity between ourselves, I offer this: Economics is the science of which money is both commodity and unit of measure; currency (including coinage)is the physical expression of money. Strategy is the science of identifying the means of achieving a desired objective; tactics are the methods chosen to arrive at that goal; logistics is the science of obtaining, prioritising and supplying the means required by tactics, which closes the circle back to economics.
Going back to my (deliberately truncated) definition of strategy, post-Singularity conditions are by definition undefinable, therefore you cannot develop a strategy for them other then to stipulate that you will need to do so once those conditions become more clear to you. One of the foundational principle's of strategy is that opportunity results from the actions (or inactions) of others and not your own; your contribution is in identifying and qualifying opportunity(s) as they relate to your present position. We know that our technology is progressing in the direction of a singularity, but we can only select from those opportunities that are presently offered to us by others. The tactics we choose to exercise to realise those opportunities are limited by the logistic and other constraints within which we operate. One of the primary logistic constraints now, and likely for most of the pre-singularity period, will be money and, at least at the individual level, it's principal expression as currency.
Stipulating that all physical objects have commodity value, the historical conflation of the commodity value of refined metals with their artificial value as currency has long been understood. That recogintion ultimately took the form of national abandonment of the "gold standard" as a metric for their currency (apologies to all you actual historians out there, I know I'm not summarising this very well). By doing so, they removed the influence of the commodity value of the refined metal from the valuation of their currency, pegging it instead to the agrigate valuation of their national production instead (apologies to all you actual economists as well, it's a blog comment, what do you want?). Since any currency is a product of that same nation, this simplified and stabilised the various currencies valuation.
You are quite correct that commodities fluctuate in value relative to their availability (supply and demand and all that). By minting their coinage (a more physically durable and lower technology iteration of currency) in a relatively rare metal, earlier societies subjected their national monetary system to external influences like the commodity value of the metal used. This put regulation of their currencies value beyond their control since any source of the same metal would depreciate the value of their own. Far from being a negative event, "fiat money" removed the historical conflation of two competing commodity markets from influencing national currencies.
I am curious, in what way do you consider "exchange of instruments that represent ownership of the economic infrastructure" in any way different from existing currencies valued on national production measured in established economic units (Dollars, D Marks, Yen, etc)? I'm not refuting that there might be a desirable marketing reason (the principle reason national currencies change pre- and post-revolution now), but a change in packaging rarely announces an actual improvement of the product itself, in my experience.
You raise an interesting ancillary issue I'd like to address, "(all of which can be manipulated by the government in order to control revenue without the people's consent)". My impression is (and I recognise that I could be wrong here) that this is a false application of the Pre-cautionary Principle. Basicly, because something could be abused is not a valid objection to it's actually being used, but only of the terms and conditions under which it may be used with authority. Because I could commit a treasonous act in a publication is not a valid objection to the activity of publishing. Equally, because government could manipulate the national currency is not an argument against national currency or against government; it's the manipulation without consent that is of concern. Strategy identifies an objective and selects tactics to achieve that obective without damage to the existing position.
Thanks for letting me clog up your comment section this way, it's been a lot of fun and food for thought.
I think these kinds of dialogs are fantastic. Don't worry about clogging up the comments. In fact I don't even think of it as a comment – I set the comments to appear because I want any of my readers to feel welcome to add to what I've said in the original post. I feel that this leads to an all around richer experience to any reader that comes here. In addition if we keep this up much loner we will have a book size manuscript that we can publish : p . Now to address some of your points and questions. You covered so much ground I don't know where to begin. As you clarified your position I will do likewise. As I now beer understand your position and have had time to think about it more it turns out that we are hardly in disagreement except for what we are emphasizing. One key disagreement I have is over how you define the science of economics. I agree with everything else and I also agree that currency is both a commodity and a system of measurement – I just disagree that this fact describes what economics is. I define economics as both a descriptive and proscriptive science that seeks to understand and describe how human activity is coordinated toward productivity and seeks to proscribe th
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