Re: Transhumanism

From: Wolf Kirchmeir (wwolfkir_at_sympatico.ca)
Date: 10/02/04 

Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 15:47:47 -0400

Alexander Sheppard wrote:
> Hello, I was wondering if anyone with a degree in neurology or
> computer science or some related field had any thoughts on the
> possibility of transhumanism. I certainly don't have specialized
> knowledge in these areas, but it seems to me that, supposing
> civilization survives this current century (which is being made
> increasingly unlikely by our current political drift) it seems pretty
> inevitable that we will reach some kind of transcendence. In your
> opinion is this idea
>
> 1. Crazy

I wouldn't call it crazy, exactly, just a) unclear; and b) misguided.
Unclear because it's not at all obvious what you mean by
"transcendence", and misguided because it arises from an erroneous
understanding of evolution and how it works.

The only direction of evolution is survival. If distinctly human traits
don't improve the survival of individuals, and if the individuals who do
survive don't tend to promote the survival of their fellow-humans, then
the species may well disappear. Humans could disappear entirely, leaing
no descendanst whatsoever. Or else humans could evolve into something
quite different from what we now think of as human - it all depends on
what kind of environment our descendants inherit from us. You seem aware
of the fact that we deciding what that environment will be, so you will
appreciate that it could be one in which many if not most of the traits
we prize may be a liability, not an advantage. See Vonnegut's book
Galapagos for a blackly humourous story that works thorough this theme.

Other SF has played with the theme of humans evolving into different
species in different parts of the universe, supposing that large scale
migration of humans from Earth to elsewhere is possible. Star Trek had a
story about this - an ancient race found itself alone in the universe,
and seeded life-supporting planets with itss own DNA in the hope that
some beings like themselves would evolve. It's unlikley IMO that sucn a
scenario would actually play ou as told in Star Trek, but the ideas
underlying it are sound. One of these is that any species (including
humans) will inevitably disappear - it will either die out or evolve
into something else.

NB that the most successful groups of species are also the oldest,
namely single celled creatures and viruses. About half the tonnage of
all living things on Earth consists of these simple creatures, who have
changed very little in billions of years. Whatever works will survive.
And if it works, why change?

As for change, it's not inevitable, especially in the (relatively) short
term of a few hundred thosuand or few million years. So long as the
environment is stable, there's no evolutionaruy pressure to change on
the contrary, a stable environment puts pressure on a species to remain
the same.

If and when the environment changes, there will be evolutionary pressure
to change, since small differences from one generation to the next may
become advantageous as the environment changes. But most of the time,
the environment changes slowly, so that there is plenty of time for
species to adapt. Just which traits are advantageous or not depends not
only on the species in question and its interaction with its
environment, but also on similar species that may compete for the same
resoureces of food and water. What's good for the emu isn't good for the
swan, and vice versa. But since mutation is random, just which
advantageous traits will appear in which species in which environments
cannot be predicted. The best that can be done is to explain by
hindsight, and hindsight shows that although more recent species are
generally more complex than the older ones, they are also far more
likely to disappear. Hence the survival of bacteria, etc, while the
dinosaurs have long gone. So have all hominids except us and the
chimpanzees. (Yes, chimps are hominids - but we humans don't like
admitting that we are closely related to other animals. Many humans
don't want to admit they are animals, period. Odd trait, that.)

BTW, arrival of a a few members of a species on an island is the same as
sudden environmental change _for that species_, hence the sometimes
rapid evolution of distinct species from a small stock or new arrivals.

Then there's genetic drift, which will occur when a small population is
cut off from the larger group. In this case, some gene variations may be
absent or occur in small numbers, so that these variations have no
effect or may die out, in which case the small population will become
distinct from the larger group. This could be quite sepctacular if the
variations that do remain have different dominance-recessive
characteristics compared to the parent group. It may well be that
genetic drift may account for a sizable number of new species,
especially if accidents such as floods cut off small breeding groups.
The mathematical models of speciation are not very good, probably for
the same reason models of the weather are not very good - too many
factors working in too many directions at once.

Sexual selection can also cause changes in a species, and may produce a
new species (Think of a species as a group of creatures that breed only
with amongst themselves, and normally will not or cannot breed with any
outside the group.) Thus "closely related" species may differ in such
things as the colour and size of the male's feather crest, etc. Such
differences are likely to be exaggerated if genetic drift can also
occur, and if they reach the point where females from one breeding group
stop breeding with males from another, even a nearby one, a new species
has appeared.

And so it goes.

Bottom line: I don't think that a few million years from now there will
be Homo Sapiens on Earth. If we are both wise and lucky, what will be
living here will be recognisable descendants of Homo Sapiens. If we are
unwise and unlucky, there will no such creature.

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