Posts Tagged ‘ evolution ’

Human’s future evolution according to science fiction

Future Evolutionary Progression:

  • Biological (Current)
  • Part Biological, part Robot – Cyborg
  • Permanently part of virtual reality – live “Plugged” into the internet (With an interface to external reality?)
  • Pure Energy

I just finished reading 2001: A Space Odyssey, another book that astounded me and gave another perspective for viewing life.

In this book Stanley Kubrick details how his alien race advanced, and I have given the gist in the list above. Also many physicists (Michio Kaku) and technologists agree that this is what is likely to happen to all intelligent life as it advances.

Most people can imagine cyborgs or a future where we have mechanical replacements for body parts. It isn’t too much harder to imagine our brain controlling things other than humanoid equipment, in Space Odyssey it is suggested that the alien’s bodies were actually the spaceships they used to traverse the universe (Seen as the “graveyard” of ships after the aliens had advanced beyond physical bodies).

It’s harder to imagine a point where we replace our brains though, we would keep our memories and personality (and soul?) and simply upload these to a virtual reality where we live permanently as an virtual avatar or something. Possibly controlling drones to interact with the external environment, but in this case virtual reality would be as real as the external reality.

Finally it is suggested that the protagonist is transformed into a “starchild” where his pure life energy is freed from its physical container (Space Oddysey reckons the energy would emit light) and he gains full control over everything (Space, Matter, Time, etc).

The book suggests that these starchilds have control over time (He travels back to watch the big bang) but I would assume that he not only can go back and forward through time, but also sideways (If the world splits at a flip of a coin, one world for heads, one world for tails, being able to travel sideways in time would mean being able to choose what world you are in and therefore whether it lands on heads or tails).

Pretty much he can go to any time and understand what subtle changes will cause what, giving him the ability to control the outcome of anything (Like a baseball game).

Kubrick plus anyone who believes in transhuman evolution (Yours truly) think that this is the final step for intellectual beings. Where everyone is an omnipotent god.

2012
11/29
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philosophy
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Gaps in our mental models

Occasionally things in this world don’t make sense. We all have a self-created model of how things in this world should work and if something reacts differently to what our model describes we are forced to ask ourselves why (Or Ignore or Worship, but that is something completely different).

A model I rely on is evolution, I believe that everything in the biological world should be explainable in terms of making an individual’s genes “fitter”, within the boundaries of gene mutation.

Normally this model is solid, but I did find something that doesn’t fit. I mean it probably does have an explanation but it is beyond me what it could be..

The anomaly is the phrenic nerve.

The phrenic nerve is what your brain uses to control your diaphragm, ie it controls your breathing. Normally nerves stay inside the spinal column for protection and the vertebra passes right through the diaphragm, it would make sense for the nerve to leave the spinal column right next to the muscle it controls right? This would mean it would only have to travel a few centimeters. But no, the phrenic nerve arises from the top of the neck and travels the length of your chest to the bottom of your ribs.

This is the reason a quadriplegic, who has no control over muscles below the severed spinal cord can still breath, because the nerve leaves the spine really early.

But it makes no sense for this to exist, there is no evolutionary advantage (As far as I can tell) and it exposes an important nerve.

So I’ve posted this question to an evolutionary forum, because according to my mental model this shouldn’t exist.

 

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Actually discrepancies between our mental models and the real world are good, they force a re-evaluation of the hypothesis.

2012
09/20
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Evolution

Have always been a big fan of the evolution concept, I believe it explains much about our history and answers a lot to do with the “why” in the world.

The only thing I don’t appreciate is that it is not very good at predicting the future unless you are knowledgeable in genetics, organic chemistry and biology, plus understand exactly how a single generation mutation occurs (along with the implications).
Regardless it does give an insight into many peculiar things that animals and humans do (or have). This includes human behaviour and instinct which can be very unpredictable. Social behaviour and psychological evolution is very interesting in this aspect and often allows a sort of unfair advantage when dealing with others.
Its pretty straight forwards stuff too, this quote sums up why knowing about psychological evolution can be useful.
“The brain is a flawed lens through which to see reality.  This is true of both mouse brains and human brains.  But a human brain is a flawed lens that can understand its own flaws – its systematic errors, its biases – and apply second-order corrections to them.  This, in practice, makes the flawed lens far more powerful.  Not perfect, but far more powerful.” From here
In short we are not perfect, but once you know your imperfections you can correct for the deviation.

2011
11/04
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