Philosophy of evolution and the evolution of the Internet
St. Petersburg, 2012
The text is not about philosophy on the Internet and not about the philosophy of the Internet - philosophy and the Internet are strictly separated in it: the first part of the text is devoted to philosophy, the second to the Internet. The concept of “evolution” is a connecting axis between the two parts: the conversation will deal with the philosophy of evolution and the evolution of the Internet . First, it will be demonstrated how philosophy — the philosophy of global evolutionism, armed with the concept of “singularity” - inevitably leads us to the idea that the Internet is the prototype of the future post-socium evolutionary system; and then the Internet itself, or rather the logic of its development, will confirm the right of philosophy to argue on seemingly purely technological topics.
The concept of "singularity" with the epithet "technological" to designate a particular point on the time axis of the development of civilization was introduced by the mathematician and writer Vernor Vindzh. Extrapolating the well-known Moore's law, according to which the number of elements in computer processors doubles every 18 months, he suggested that somewhere around 2025 (plus or minus 10 years) computer chips should be equal in computing power to the human brain (of course, purely formally - according to the expected number of operations). Vindge stated that beyond this limit, we (humanity) are waiting for something inhuman, artificial supermind, and we should carefully consider whether we can (and should we) prevent this attack.
The second wave of interest in the problem of singularity arose after several scientists (Panov, Kurzweil, Snooks) conducted a numerical analysis of the phenomenon of acceleration of evolution, namely the shortening of periods between evolutionary crises, or, one can say, “revolutions” in the history of the Earth. Such revolutions include oxygen catastrophe and the associated appearance of nuclear cells (eukaryotes); The Cambrian explosion - the rapid, almost instantaneous by paleontological standards, the formation of various types of multicellular, including vertebrates; moments of occurrence and extinction of dinosaurs; the emergence of hominids; Neolithic and urban revolutions; the beginning of the middle ages; the industrial and information revolution; the collapse of the bipolar imperialist system (the collapse of the USSR). It was shown that the listed and many other revolutionary moments in the history of our planet fit into a certain regularity-formula that has a singular solution in the region of 2027. In this case, unlike Ving's speculative assumption, we are dealing with a “singularity” in the traditional mathematical sense - the number of crises at this point, according to the empirically derived formula, becomes infinite, and the intervals between them tend to zero, that is, the solution of the equation becomes uncertain.
It is clear that pointing to the point of the evolutionary singularity hints at something more significant than the banal increase in computer performance - we understand that we are on the threshold of a significant event in the history of the planet.
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The analysis of the economic, political, cultural, scientific spheres of society (I conducted in Finita la history. Political, cultural and economic singularity as an absolute crisis of civilization - an optimistic look into the future "also points to the peculiarity of the nearest historical period (next 10-20 years). ): the extension of existing development trends in the conditions of scientific and technological progress inevitably leads to "singular" situations.
The modern financial and economic system, in fact, is a tool for reconciling separated in time and space production and consumption of goods. If we analyze the trends in the development of networked communications and industrial automation, then we can conclude that over time, every act of consumption will be as close as possible to the act of production, which will certainly eliminate the very need for the existing financial and economic system. That is, modern information technologies are already approaching the level of development when the production of a specific single product will not be determined by the statistical factor of the consumption market, but by the order of a specific consumer. This will also be possible as a result of the fact that a regular reduction in the cost of working time for the production of a single product in the limit will lead to a situation where the production of this product will require a minimum effort, which reduces to the act of the order. Moreover, due to technological progress, the main product is not a technical device, but its functionality - a program. Consequently, the development of information technologies indicates both the inevitability in the future of an absolute crisis of the modern economic system, and the possibility of unequivocal technological support for a new form of coordination of production and consumption. It is reasonable to call the described transitional moment in socium history as an economic singularity.
The conclusion about the approaching political singularity can be obtained by analyzing the relationship of two separated in time management acts: making socially significant decisions and evaluating its result - they tend to converge. This is primarily due to the fact that, on the one hand, for purely industrial and technological reasons, the time interval between making socially significant decisions and obtaining results is steadily decreasing: from centuries to decades earlier to years-months-days in the modern world. On the other hand, with the development of network information technologies, the main problem of management will not be the appointment of a decision maker, but the evaluation of the effectiveness of the result. That is, we inevitably come to a situation when the possibility of making a decision is given to everyone who wishes, and the assessment of the result of the decision does not require any special political mechanisms (such as voting) and is carried out automatically.
Along with technological, economic, political singularities, one can speak of quite clearly manifested cultural singularities: the transition from total priority of artistic styles that successively replace each other (with a shorter period of their prosperity) to a parallel, simultaneous existence of all possible diversity of cultural forms, to the freedom of individual creativity and individual consumption of the products of this creativity.
In science and philosophy, there is a shift in the meaning and purpose of knowledge from the creation of formal logical systems (theories) to the growth of the integral individual understanding, to the formation of the so-called post-scientific common sense, or post-singular world view.
Traditionally, the talk about singularity - and technological singularity associated with fears about human enslavement by artificial intelligence, and the planetary singularity derived from an analysis of environmental and civilizational crises - is conducted in terms of disaster. However, based on general evolutionary considerations, it is still not necessary to represent the coming singularity as the end of the world. It is more logical to assume that we are dealing with an important, interesting, but not unique event in the history of the planet - with the transition to a new evolutionary level. That is, a number of singular decisions arising from the extrapolation of trends in the development of the planet, socium, digital technology, indicate the completion of the next (socium) evolutionary stage in the global history of the planet and the beginning of a new post-socium. That is, we are dealing with a historical event that is comparable in importance with the transitions from protobiological to biological evolution (about 4 billion years ago) and from biological evolution to socium evolution (about 2.5 million years ago).
In the mentioned transition periods, singular solutions were also observed. So, during the transition from the protobiological stage of evolution to the biological sequence of random syntheses of new organic polymers, it was replaced by a continuous regular process of their reproduction, which can be referred to as the "singularity of synthesis". And the transition to the social stage was accompanied by the “singularity of adaptations”: the series of biological adaptations grew into a continuous process of production and use of adaptation devices, that is, objects that allow almost instantaneously to adapt to any changes in the environment (it got cold - put on a fur coat, it started to rain - opened an umbrella). Singular trends indicating the completion of the social stage of evolution can be interpreted as the “singularity of intellectual innovations”. In fact, in recent decades we have seen this singularity as the transformation of a chain of individual discoveries and inventions, previously separated by significant periods of time, into a continuous stream of scientific and technical innovations. That is, the transition to the post-social stage will manifest itself as a change in the successive appearance of creative innovations (discoveries, inventions) by their continuous generation.
In this sense, to some extent we can talk about the formation (namely, the formation, not the creation) of artificial intelligence. In the same measure as, say, the social production and use of adaptation devices can be called “artificial life”, and life itself from the point of view of continuous reproduction of organic synthesis - “artificial synthesis”. In general, each evolutionary transition is associated with ensuring the functioning of the main processes of the previous evolutionary level in new ways that are not specific to it. Life is a non-chemical method of reproducing chemical synthesis, mind is a non-biological method of providing life. Continuing this logic, it can be said that the post-sociological system will be an “unreasonable” way to ensure human intellectual activity. Not in the sense of "stupid", but simply in a form unrelated to rational human activity.
On the basis of the proposed evolutionary hierarahic logic, it is possible to make an assumption about the post-socium future of people (elements of a sociosystem). Just as bioprocesses did not replace chemical reactions, but, in fact, showed only a complex sequence of them, just as the functioning of society did not rule out the biological (vital) nature of man — so the post-socium system does not replace human intelligence, but does not exceed it. The postsocial system will function ON the basis of human intellect and for ensuring its activity.
Using the analysis of patterns of transitions to new evolutionary systems (biological, socium) as a method of global forecasting, we can point out some principles of the coming transition to the post-socium evolution. (1) The preservation and stability of the previous system during the formation of a new one - man and humanity after the transition of evolution to a new stage will preserve the basic principles of their social organization. (2) Non-catastrophic transition to the post-socium system - the transition will be manifested not in the destruction of the structures of the current evolutionary system, but is associated with the formation of a new level. (3) The absolute inclusion of the elements of the previous evolutionary system in the functioning of the subsequent one - people will ensure a continuous process of creation in the post-social system, maintaining their social structure. (4) The impossibility of formulating the principles of a new evolutionary system in terms of the preceding ones — we do not have and will not have neither a language nor concepts to describe the post-socium system.
All the described variants of the singularity, indicating a future evolutionary transition, are in one way or another connected with scientific and technical progress, or rather with the development of information networks. Vinge's technological singularity directly hints at the creation of artificial intelligence, the supermind, capable of absorbing all spheres of human activity. The graph describing the acceleration of planetary evolution reaches a singular point, when the frequency of revolutionary changes, the frequency of the emergence of innovations presumably becomes infinite, which again is logical to associate with a certain breakthrough in network technologies. Economic and political singularities - the combination of acts of production and consumption, the convergence of points of decision-making and evaluation of its result - are also a direct consequence of the development of the information industry.
Analysis of previous evolutionary transitions tells us that the post-socium system should be implemented on the basic elements of the socium — individual minds united by non-socium (non-production) relations. That is, as life is something that is necessary to ensure chemical synthesis by non-chemical methods (by reproduction), and reason is something that is necessary to ensure the reproduction of life by non-biological methods (in production), so the post-socium system should be thought of as something that must be ensured by rational methods . The prototype of such a system in the modern world, of course, is the global information network. But it is a type that, in order to break beyond the point of singularity, she herself has to endure more than one crisis in order to transform into something self-sufficient, which is sometimes called the semantic web.
In order to discuss the possible principles of the organization of the post-socium system and the transformation of modern information networks, in addition to evolutionary considerations, it is necessary to fix some philosophical and logical foundations, in particular, regarding the relationship between ontology and logical truth.
In modern philosophy, there are several competing theories of truth: correspondent, authoritarian, pragmatic, conventional, coherent, and some others, including deflationary, which deny the very need for the concept of "truth." This situation is difficult to imagine as solvable, which could end in victory for one of the theories. Rather, we must come to an understanding of the principle of the relativity of truth, which can be formulated as follows: the truth of a sentence can be stated only and exclusively within the boundaries of one of the many more or less closed systems that I suggested to call logical worlds in the article “ Many-world theory of truth ”. For each of us it is obvious that in order to confirm the truth of the sentence we uttered, stating a certain state of affairs in personal reality, in our own ontology, no reference to any theory of truth is required: the sentence is true simply by the fact of being embedded in our ontology, in our logical world . It is clear that there are also supraindividual logical worlds, generalized ontologies of people united by a particular activity - scientific, religious, artistic, etc. And it is obvious that in each of these logical worlds the truth of sentences is fixed specifically - by the way they are included in a specific activity. It is the specificity of activity within some ontology that determines the set of methods for fixing and generating true sentences: in some worlds the authoritarian method prevails (in religion), in others coherent (in science), in the third one the conventional (in ethics, politics).
So, if we do not want to limit the semantic network to the description of only one sphere (say, physical reality), then we must initially proceed from the fact that there cannot be only one logic, one truth principle - the network should be built on the principle of equal rights of intersecting but fundamentally not converging to each other logical worlds, reflecting the set of all imaginable activities.
And here we move from the philosophy of evolution to the evolution of the Internet, from hypothetical singularities to the utilitarian problems of the semantic web.
The main problems of building a semantic network are to a large extent related to the cultivation by its designers of a naturalistic, scientistic philosophy, that is, attempts to create the only correct ontology reflecting the so-called objective reality. And it is clear that the truth of the sentences in this ontology must be determined according to uniform rules, according to the universal theory of truth (by which the correspondent one is most often meant, since it is a question of the conformity of the sentences of some “objective reality”).
A question should be asked here: what should an ontology describe, what is the “objective reality” for it, which it should correspond to? Some indefinite set of objects, called the world, or a specific activity within a finite set of objects? What interests us: reality in general or fixed relations of events and objects in a sequence of actions aimed at achieving specific results? In answering these questions, we must come to the conclusion that an ontology makes sense only as finite and exclusively as an ontology of activity (actions). And consequently, it makes no sense to talk about a single ontology: how many activities - so many ontologies. Ontology does not need to be invented - it must be identified by formalizing the activity itself.
Of course, it is clear that if we are talking about the ontology of geographical objects, the ontology of navigation, then it will be the same for all activities that are not oriented towards changing the landscape. But if we turn to areas in which objects do not have a fixed binding to space-time coordinates, are not related to physical reality, then ontologies multiply without any restrictions: we can prepare a dish, build a house, create a training method, write a program political party, to combine words into a poem in an infinite number of ways, and each method is a separate ontology. With this understanding of ontologies (as methods of fixing a specific activity), they can and should be created only in this activity itself. Of course, provided that we are talking about activities that are directly performed on the computer or recorded on it. And the others will soon be completely gone; those who will not be “digitized” should not be of special interest to us.
Any activity consists of separate operations that establish connections between objects in a fixed subject area. The worker (hereinafter we will traditionally call him the user) time after time — whether he writes a scientific article, fills a table with data, draws up a schedule of work — performs a completely standard set of operations that ultimately lead to the achievement of a fixed result. And in this result he sees the meaning of his activity. But if you look from a position not locally utilitarian, but systemically global, then the main value of the work of any professional is not in the next article, but in the method of writing it, in the ontology of activity. That is, the second basic principle of the semantic network (after the conclusion of “ontologies should be an unlimited set; how many activities, so many ontologies”) - there should be a thesis: the meaning of any activity is not in the final product, but in the ontology recorded during its implementation .
Of course, the product itself, say, an article, contains an ontology - it is, in fact, an ontology embodied in the text, but in such a frozen form the product is very difficult to ontologically analyze. It is about this stone - the fixed final product of activity - and the semantic approach breaks off its teeth. But it should be clear that the semantics (ontology) of the text can only be identified by already having the ontology of this particular text. It is difficult even for a person to understand a text with a slightly different ontology (with a modified terminology, a conceptual grid), and the program is beyond its powers. However, as is clear from the proposed approach, it is not necessary to analyze the semantics of the text: if we are faced with the task of identifying an ontology, then there is no need to analyze a fixed product, we must turn directly to the activity during which it appeared.
In essence, this means that it is necessary to create a software environment that would simultaneously be both a working tool of a professional user and an ontological parser that captures all its actions. The user is not required to do anything more than just work: plan the text, edit it, search for sources, highlight quotes, put them into appropriate sections, make footnotes and comments, organize an index and thesaurus, etc., etc. Maximum additional Action is to mark new terms and link them to the ontology using the context menu. Although any professional will only be glad of this additional “load”. That is, the task is quite specific: you need to create such a tool for a professional of any field that he could not refuse , a tool that not only allows you to perform all the standard operations for working with all sorts of information (collecting, processing, configuring), but also automatically formalizing the activity who builds the ontology of this activity, and with the accumulation of “experience” correcting it.
It is clear that the described approach to building a semantic network will be truly effective only if the third principle is fulfilled: the software compatibility of all ontologies created, that is, ensuring their systemic coherence. Of course, each user, each professional creates his own ontology and works in its environment, but the compatibility of individual ontologies according to the data and the ideology of the organization will ensure the creation of a single universe of objects (data).
Automatic comparison of individual ontologies will allow, by identifying their intersections, to create thematic cluster ontologies - hierarchically organized non-individual structures of objects. The interaction of an individual ontology with a cluster will significantly simplify the user's activity, guide and correct it.
The essential requirement of the semantic network should be to ensure the uniqueness of the objects, without which it is impossible to realize the connectedness of individual ontologies. For example, any text should be in the system in a single copy - then each link to it, each quotation will be recorded: the user can track the inclusiveness of the text and its fragments in certain clusters or personal ontologies. At the same time, it is clear that a “single instance” means not storing on a single server, but assigning a unique identifier to an object, independent of its location. That is, the principle of finite volume of unique objects should be implemented with the multiplicity and infinity of their organization in ontology.
The principal consequence of the organization of the semantic network according to the proposed scheme will be the rejection of cytocentrism - the site-oriented structure of the Internet. The appearance and presence of some object in the network means only and exclusively assignment of a unique identifier to it and inscribing at least one ontology (say, an individual ontology of the user who placed the object). An object, for example, text, should not have any address on the Web - it is not tied to either the site or the page. The only way to access the text is to display it in the user's browser after finding it in an ontology (either as an independent object, or by reference or by quotation).The network becomes exclusively user centric: before and outside the user’s connection, we only have a universe of objects and many cluster ontologies built on this universe, and only after connecting, does the configuration of the universe take place regarding the structure of the user’s ontology — of course, positions of other, neighboring or distant ontologies. The main function of the browser is not to display content, but to connect to ontologies (clusters) and navigate in them.
Services and goods in such a network will appear in the form of separate objects, originally inscribed in the ontologies of their owners. If the user's activity traces the need for a particular object, then if there is one in the system, it will be automatically offered. (In essence, according to this scheme, contextual advertising is now in effect - if you were looking for something, you will not be left without proposals.) On the other hand, the need for any new object (service, product) may be revealed when analyzing cluster ontologies .
Naturally, in the user center-centric network, the proposed object will be presented in the user's browser as an embedded widget. To view all the offers (all products of the manufacturer or all the texts of the author), the user must switch to the supplier ontology, in which all objects accessible to external users are systematically displayed. Well, it is clear that the network immediately provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the ontologies of cluster producers, as well as, most interestingly and importantly, with information about the behavior of other users in this cluster.
, , . . . / . – , – .
*
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that neither the philosophical nor the technical aspect of the upcoming singularity has anything to do with the problem of so-called artificial intelligence. The solution of private applied problems will never lead to the creation of what could be fully called intelligence. And what is new, which constitutes the essence of the functioning of the next evolutionary level, will no longer be an intellect - neither artificial nor natural. Rather, it would be more correct to say that it will be intellect as much as we can understand it with our human intellect.
Working on the creation of local information systems, one should treat them only as technical devices and not think about philosophical, psychological and, especially, ethical-aesthetic and globally-catastrophic moments. Although it will undoubtedly be done both by the humanities and techies, but their reasoning will not speed up and slow down the natural course of solving purely technical problems. The philosophical understanding of both the entire evolutionary movement of the World and the content of the coming hierarchical transition will come with this transition itself.
The transition itself will be technological. But it will not happen as a result of a private brilliant decision. And on set of decisions. Overcoming a critical mass. Intellect embodies itself in the "iron". But not private intelligence. And not in a particular device. And he will no longer be an intellect.
PS Attempt to implement the project noospherenetwork.com (option after initial testing).
Literature
1. Vernor Vinge. Technological singularity, www.computerra.ru/think/35636
2. A. D. Panov. Completion of the planetary cycle of evolution? Philosophical Sciences, № 3–4: 42–49; 31-50, 2005.
3. A. Boldachev. Finita la story. Political, cultural and economic singularity as an absolute crisis of civilization. An optimistic look to the future . SPb., 2008.
4. Boldachev A.V. The structure of global evolutionary levels . SPb., 2008.
5. Boldachev A.V. Novations. Judgments in line with the evolutionary paradigm , St. Petersburg: S.-Petersburg Publishing House. University, 2007. - 256 p.
The text is not about philosophy on the Internet and not about the philosophy of the Internet - philosophy and the Internet are strictly separated in it: the first part of the text is devoted to philosophy, the second to the Internet. The concept of “evolution” is a connecting axis between the two parts: the conversation will deal with the philosophy of evolution and the evolution of the Internet . First, it will be demonstrated how philosophy — the philosophy of global evolutionism, armed with the concept of “singularity” - inevitably leads us to the idea that the Internet is the prototype of the future post-socium evolutionary system; and then the Internet itself, or rather the logic of its development, will confirm the right of philosophy to argue on seemingly purely technological topics.
Technological singularity
The concept of "singularity" with the epithet "technological" to designate a particular point on the time axis of the development of civilization was introduced by the mathematician and writer Vernor Vindzh. Extrapolating the well-known Moore's law, according to which the number of elements in computer processors doubles every 18 months, he suggested that somewhere around 2025 (plus or minus 10 years) computer chips should be equal in computing power to the human brain (of course, purely formally - according to the expected number of operations). Vindge stated that beyond this limit, we (humanity) are waiting for something inhuman, artificial supermind, and we should carefully consider whether we can (and should we) prevent this attack.
Evolutionary planetary singularity
The second wave of interest in the problem of singularity arose after several scientists (Panov, Kurzweil, Snooks) conducted a numerical analysis of the phenomenon of acceleration of evolution, namely the shortening of periods between evolutionary crises, or, one can say, “revolutions” in the history of the Earth. Such revolutions include oxygen catastrophe and the associated appearance of nuclear cells (eukaryotes); The Cambrian explosion - the rapid, almost instantaneous by paleontological standards, the formation of various types of multicellular, including vertebrates; moments of occurrence and extinction of dinosaurs; the emergence of hominids; Neolithic and urban revolutions; the beginning of the middle ages; the industrial and information revolution; the collapse of the bipolar imperialist system (the collapse of the USSR). It was shown that the listed and many other revolutionary moments in the history of our planet fit into a certain regularity-formula that has a singular solution in the region of 2027. In this case, unlike Ving's speculative assumption, we are dealing with a “singularity” in the traditional mathematical sense - the number of crises at this point, according to the empirically derived formula, becomes infinite, and the intervals between them tend to zero, that is, the solution of the equation becomes uncertain.
It is clear that pointing to the point of the evolutionary singularity hints at something more significant than the banal increase in computer performance - we understand that we are on the threshold of a significant event in the history of the planet.
')
Political, cultural, economic singularities as factors of the absolute crisis of civilization
The analysis of the economic, political, cultural, scientific spheres of society (I conducted in Finita la history. Political, cultural and economic singularity as an absolute crisis of civilization - an optimistic look into the future "also points to the peculiarity of the nearest historical period (next 10-20 years). ): the extension of existing development trends in the conditions of scientific and technological progress inevitably leads to "singular" situations.
The modern financial and economic system, in fact, is a tool for reconciling separated in time and space production and consumption of goods. If we analyze the trends in the development of networked communications and industrial automation, then we can conclude that over time, every act of consumption will be as close as possible to the act of production, which will certainly eliminate the very need for the existing financial and economic system. That is, modern information technologies are already approaching the level of development when the production of a specific single product will not be determined by the statistical factor of the consumption market, but by the order of a specific consumer. This will also be possible as a result of the fact that a regular reduction in the cost of working time for the production of a single product in the limit will lead to a situation where the production of this product will require a minimum effort, which reduces to the act of the order. Moreover, due to technological progress, the main product is not a technical device, but its functionality - a program. Consequently, the development of information technologies indicates both the inevitability in the future of an absolute crisis of the modern economic system, and the possibility of unequivocal technological support for a new form of coordination of production and consumption. It is reasonable to call the described transitional moment in socium history as an economic singularity.
The conclusion about the approaching political singularity can be obtained by analyzing the relationship of two separated in time management acts: making socially significant decisions and evaluating its result - they tend to converge. This is primarily due to the fact that, on the one hand, for purely industrial and technological reasons, the time interval between making socially significant decisions and obtaining results is steadily decreasing: from centuries to decades earlier to years-months-days in the modern world. On the other hand, with the development of network information technologies, the main problem of management will not be the appointment of a decision maker, but the evaluation of the effectiveness of the result. That is, we inevitably come to a situation when the possibility of making a decision is given to everyone who wishes, and the assessment of the result of the decision does not require any special political mechanisms (such as voting) and is carried out automatically.
Along with technological, economic, political singularities, one can speak of quite clearly manifested cultural singularities: the transition from total priority of artistic styles that successively replace each other (with a shorter period of their prosperity) to a parallel, simultaneous existence of all possible diversity of cultural forms, to the freedom of individual creativity and individual consumption of the products of this creativity.
In science and philosophy, there is a shift in the meaning and purpose of knowledge from the creation of formal logical systems (theories) to the growth of the integral individual understanding, to the formation of the so-called post-scientific common sense, or post-singular world view.
Singularity as the completion of the evolutionary period
Traditionally, the talk about singularity - and technological singularity associated with fears about human enslavement by artificial intelligence, and the planetary singularity derived from an analysis of environmental and civilizational crises - is conducted in terms of disaster. However, based on general evolutionary considerations, it is still not necessary to represent the coming singularity as the end of the world. It is more logical to assume that we are dealing with an important, interesting, but not unique event in the history of the planet - with the transition to a new evolutionary level. That is, a number of singular decisions arising from the extrapolation of trends in the development of the planet, socium, digital technology, indicate the completion of the next (socium) evolutionary stage in the global history of the planet and the beginning of a new post-socium. That is, we are dealing with a historical event that is comparable in importance with the transitions from protobiological to biological evolution (about 4 billion years ago) and from biological evolution to socium evolution (about 2.5 million years ago).
In the mentioned transition periods, singular solutions were also observed. So, during the transition from the protobiological stage of evolution to the biological sequence of random syntheses of new organic polymers, it was replaced by a continuous regular process of their reproduction, which can be referred to as the "singularity of synthesis". And the transition to the social stage was accompanied by the “singularity of adaptations”: the series of biological adaptations grew into a continuous process of production and use of adaptation devices, that is, objects that allow almost instantaneously to adapt to any changes in the environment (it got cold - put on a fur coat, it started to rain - opened an umbrella). Singular trends indicating the completion of the social stage of evolution can be interpreted as the “singularity of intellectual innovations”. In fact, in recent decades we have seen this singularity as the transformation of a chain of individual discoveries and inventions, previously separated by significant periods of time, into a continuous stream of scientific and technical innovations. That is, the transition to the post-social stage will manifest itself as a change in the successive appearance of creative innovations (discoveries, inventions) by their continuous generation.
In this sense, to some extent we can talk about the formation (namely, the formation, not the creation) of artificial intelligence. In the same measure as, say, the social production and use of adaptation devices can be called “artificial life”, and life itself from the point of view of continuous reproduction of organic synthesis - “artificial synthesis”. In general, each evolutionary transition is associated with ensuring the functioning of the main processes of the previous evolutionary level in new ways that are not specific to it. Life is a non-chemical method of reproducing chemical synthesis, mind is a non-biological method of providing life. Continuing this logic, it can be said that the post-sociological system will be an “unreasonable” way to ensure human intellectual activity. Not in the sense of "stupid", but simply in a form unrelated to rational human activity.
On the basis of the proposed evolutionary hierarahic logic, it is possible to make an assumption about the post-socium future of people (elements of a sociosystem). Just as bioprocesses did not replace chemical reactions, but, in fact, showed only a complex sequence of them, just as the functioning of society did not rule out the biological (vital) nature of man — so the post-socium system does not replace human intelligence, but does not exceed it. The postsocial system will function ON the basis of human intellect and for ensuring its activity.
Using the analysis of patterns of transitions to new evolutionary systems (biological, socium) as a method of global forecasting, we can point out some principles of the coming transition to the post-socium evolution. (1) The preservation and stability of the previous system during the formation of a new one - man and humanity after the transition of evolution to a new stage will preserve the basic principles of their social organization. (2) Non-catastrophic transition to the post-socium system - the transition will be manifested not in the destruction of the structures of the current evolutionary system, but is associated with the formation of a new level. (3) The absolute inclusion of the elements of the previous evolutionary system in the functioning of the subsequent one - people will ensure a continuous process of creation in the post-social system, maintaining their social structure. (4) The impossibility of formulating the principles of a new evolutionary system in terms of the preceding ones — we do not have and will not have neither a language nor concepts to describe the post-socium system.
Post-socium system and information network
All the described variants of the singularity, indicating a future evolutionary transition, are in one way or another connected with scientific and technical progress, or rather with the development of information networks. Vinge's technological singularity directly hints at the creation of artificial intelligence, the supermind, capable of absorbing all spheres of human activity. The graph describing the acceleration of planetary evolution reaches a singular point, when the frequency of revolutionary changes, the frequency of the emergence of innovations presumably becomes infinite, which again is logical to associate with a certain breakthrough in network technologies. Economic and political singularities - the combination of acts of production and consumption, the convergence of points of decision-making and evaluation of its result - are also a direct consequence of the development of the information industry.
Analysis of previous evolutionary transitions tells us that the post-socium system should be implemented on the basic elements of the socium — individual minds united by non-socium (non-production) relations. That is, as life is something that is necessary to ensure chemical synthesis by non-chemical methods (by reproduction), and reason is something that is necessary to ensure the reproduction of life by non-biological methods (in production), so the post-socium system should be thought of as something that must be ensured by rational methods . The prototype of such a system in the modern world, of course, is the global information network. But it is a type that, in order to break beyond the point of singularity, she herself has to endure more than one crisis in order to transform into something self-sufficient, which is sometimes called the semantic web.
Multinational theory of truth
In order to discuss the possible principles of the organization of the post-socium system and the transformation of modern information networks, in addition to evolutionary considerations, it is necessary to fix some philosophical and logical foundations, in particular, regarding the relationship between ontology and logical truth.
In modern philosophy, there are several competing theories of truth: correspondent, authoritarian, pragmatic, conventional, coherent, and some others, including deflationary, which deny the very need for the concept of "truth." This situation is difficult to imagine as solvable, which could end in victory for one of the theories. Rather, we must come to an understanding of the principle of the relativity of truth, which can be formulated as follows: the truth of a sentence can be stated only and exclusively within the boundaries of one of the many more or less closed systems that I suggested to call logical worlds in the article “ Many-world theory of truth ”. For each of us it is obvious that in order to confirm the truth of the sentence we uttered, stating a certain state of affairs in personal reality, in our own ontology, no reference to any theory of truth is required: the sentence is true simply by the fact of being embedded in our ontology, in our logical world . It is clear that there are also supraindividual logical worlds, generalized ontologies of people united by a particular activity - scientific, religious, artistic, etc. And it is obvious that in each of these logical worlds the truth of sentences is fixed specifically - by the way they are included in a specific activity. It is the specificity of activity within some ontology that determines the set of methods for fixing and generating true sentences: in some worlds the authoritarian method prevails (in religion), in others coherent (in science), in the third one the conventional (in ethics, politics).
So, if we do not want to limit the semantic network to the description of only one sphere (say, physical reality), then we must initially proceed from the fact that there cannot be only one logic, one truth principle - the network should be built on the principle of equal rights of intersecting but fundamentally not converging to each other logical worlds, reflecting the set of all imaginable activities.
Ontologies of activity
And here we move from the philosophy of evolution to the evolution of the Internet, from hypothetical singularities to the utilitarian problems of the semantic web.
The main problems of building a semantic network are to a large extent related to the cultivation by its designers of a naturalistic, scientistic philosophy, that is, attempts to create the only correct ontology reflecting the so-called objective reality. And it is clear that the truth of the sentences in this ontology must be determined according to uniform rules, according to the universal theory of truth (by which the correspondent one is most often meant, since it is a question of the conformity of the sentences of some “objective reality”).
A question should be asked here: what should an ontology describe, what is the “objective reality” for it, which it should correspond to? Some indefinite set of objects, called the world, or a specific activity within a finite set of objects? What interests us: reality in general or fixed relations of events and objects in a sequence of actions aimed at achieving specific results? In answering these questions, we must come to the conclusion that an ontology makes sense only as finite and exclusively as an ontology of activity (actions). And consequently, it makes no sense to talk about a single ontology: how many activities - so many ontologies. Ontology does not need to be invented - it must be identified by formalizing the activity itself.
Of course, it is clear that if we are talking about the ontology of geographical objects, the ontology of navigation, then it will be the same for all activities that are not oriented towards changing the landscape. But if we turn to areas in which objects do not have a fixed binding to space-time coordinates, are not related to physical reality, then ontologies multiply without any restrictions: we can prepare a dish, build a house, create a training method, write a program political party, to combine words into a poem in an infinite number of ways, and each method is a separate ontology. With this understanding of ontologies (as methods of fixing a specific activity), they can and should be created only in this activity itself. Of course, provided that we are talking about activities that are directly performed on the computer or recorded on it. And the others will soon be completely gone; those who will not be “digitized” should not be of special interest to us.
Ontology as the main result of activity
Any activity consists of separate operations that establish connections between objects in a fixed subject area. The worker (hereinafter we will traditionally call him the user) time after time — whether he writes a scientific article, fills a table with data, draws up a schedule of work — performs a completely standard set of operations that ultimately lead to the achievement of a fixed result. And in this result he sees the meaning of his activity. But if you look from a position not locally utilitarian, but systemically global, then the main value of the work of any professional is not in the next article, but in the method of writing it, in the ontology of activity. That is, the second basic principle of the semantic network (after the conclusion of “ontologies should be an unlimited set; how many activities, so many ontologies”) - there should be a thesis: the meaning of any activity is not in the final product, but in the ontology recorded during its implementation .
Of course, the product itself, say, an article, contains an ontology - it is, in fact, an ontology embodied in the text, but in such a frozen form the product is very difficult to ontologically analyze. It is about this stone - the fixed final product of activity - and the semantic approach breaks off its teeth. But it should be clear that the semantics (ontology) of the text can only be identified by already having the ontology of this particular text. It is difficult even for a person to understand a text with a slightly different ontology (with a modified terminology, a conceptual grid), and the program is beyond its powers. However, as is clear from the proposed approach, it is not necessary to analyze the semantics of the text: if we are faced with the task of identifying an ontology, then there is no need to analyze a fixed product, we must turn directly to the activity during which it appeared.
Ontological parser
In essence, this means that it is necessary to create a software environment that would simultaneously be both a working tool of a professional user and an ontological parser that captures all its actions. The user is not required to do anything more than just work: plan the text, edit it, search for sources, highlight quotes, put them into appropriate sections, make footnotes and comments, organize an index and thesaurus, etc., etc. Maximum additional Action is to mark new terms and link them to the ontology using the context menu. Although any professional will only be glad of this additional “load”. That is, the task is quite specific: you need to create such a tool for a professional of any field that he could not refuse , a tool that not only allows you to perform all the standard operations for working with all sorts of information (collecting, processing, configuring), but also automatically formalizing the activity who builds the ontology of this activity, and with the accumulation of “experience” correcting it.
Universum of objects and cluster ontologies
It is clear that the described approach to building a semantic network will be truly effective only if the third principle is fulfilled: the software compatibility of all ontologies created, that is, ensuring their systemic coherence. Of course, each user, each professional creates his own ontology and works in its environment, but the compatibility of individual ontologies according to the data and the ideology of the organization will ensure the creation of a single universe of objects (data).
Automatic comparison of individual ontologies will allow, by identifying their intersections, to create thematic cluster ontologies - hierarchically organized non-individual structures of objects. The interaction of an individual ontology with a cluster will significantly simplify the user's activity, guide and correct it.
Uniqueness of objects
The essential requirement of the semantic network should be to ensure the uniqueness of the objects, without which it is impossible to realize the connectedness of individual ontologies. For example, any text should be in the system in a single copy - then each link to it, each quotation will be recorded: the user can track the inclusiveness of the text and its fragments in certain clusters or personal ontologies. At the same time, it is clear that a “single instance” means not storing on a single server, but assigning a unique identifier to an object, independent of its location. That is, the principle of finite volume of unique objects should be implemented with the multiplicity and infinity of their organization in ontology.
User centering
The principal consequence of the organization of the semantic network according to the proposed scheme will be the rejection of cytocentrism - the site-oriented structure of the Internet. The appearance and presence of some object in the network means only and exclusively assignment of a unique identifier to it and inscribing at least one ontology (say, an individual ontology of the user who placed the object). An object, for example, text, should not have any address on the Web - it is not tied to either the site or the page. The only way to access the text is to display it in the user's browser after finding it in an ontology (either as an independent object, or by reference or by quotation).The network becomes exclusively user centric: before and outside the user’s connection, we only have a universe of objects and many cluster ontologies built on this universe, and only after connecting, does the configuration of the universe take place regarding the structure of the user’s ontology — of course, positions of other, neighboring or distant ontologies. The main function of the browser is not to display content, but to connect to ontologies (clusters) and navigate in them.
Services and goods in such a network will appear in the form of separate objects, originally inscribed in the ontologies of their owners. If the user's activity traces the need for a particular object, then if there is one in the system, it will be automatically offered. (In essence, according to this scheme, contextual advertising is now in effect - if you were looking for something, you will not be left without proposals.) On the other hand, the need for any new object (service, product) may be revealed when analyzing cluster ontologies .
Naturally, in the user center-centric network, the proposed object will be presented in the user's browser as an embedded widget. To view all the offers (all products of the manufacturer or all the texts of the author), the user must switch to the supplier ontology, in which all objects accessible to external users are systematically displayed. Well, it is clear that the network immediately provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the ontologies of cluster producers, as well as, most interestingly and importantly, with information about the behavior of other users in this cluster.
Conclusion
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In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that neither the philosophical nor the technical aspect of the upcoming singularity has anything to do with the problem of so-called artificial intelligence. The solution of private applied problems will never lead to the creation of what could be fully called intelligence. And what is new, which constitutes the essence of the functioning of the next evolutionary level, will no longer be an intellect - neither artificial nor natural. Rather, it would be more correct to say that it will be intellect as much as we can understand it with our human intellect.
Working on the creation of local information systems, one should treat them only as technical devices and not think about philosophical, psychological and, especially, ethical-aesthetic and globally-catastrophic moments. Although it will undoubtedly be done both by the humanities and techies, but their reasoning will not speed up and slow down the natural course of solving purely technical problems. The philosophical understanding of both the entire evolutionary movement of the World and the content of the coming hierarchical transition will come with this transition itself.
The transition itself will be technological. But it will not happen as a result of a private brilliant decision. And on set of decisions. Overcoming a critical mass. Intellect embodies itself in the "iron". But not private intelligence. And not in a particular device. And he will no longer be an intellect.
PS Attempt to implement the project noospherenetwork.com (option after initial testing).
Literature
1. Vernor Vinge. Technological singularity, www.computerra.ru/think/35636
2. A. D. Panov. Completion of the planetary cycle of evolution? Philosophical Sciences, № 3–4: 42–49; 31-50, 2005.
3. A. Boldachev. Finita la story. Political, cultural and economic singularity as an absolute crisis of civilization. An optimistic look to the future . SPb., 2008.
4. Boldachev A.V. The structure of global evolutionary levels . SPb., 2008.
5. Boldachev A.V. Novations. Judgments in line with the evolutionary paradigm , St. Petersburg: S.-Petersburg Publishing House. University, 2007. - 256 p.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/255745/
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