Jame5

The evolution of cognition is the story of an ever accelerating fitness optimization process. A short introduction can be found in my paper on friendly AI theory and a longer explanation is provided in Valentin Turchin‘s book – The Phenomenon of Science.

Applying metasystem transition theory the evolution of cognition can be understood as having went through the following stages:

• position
• movement controls position
• simple reflex controls movement
• complex reflex controls simple reflexes
• associated learning controls complex reflexes
• imagination controls associated learning
• conscious thought controls imagination
• beliefs control conscious thoughts
• charisma and science control beliefs

The roots of our animal urges – such as cravings for cheeseburger with fries – have probably evolved on the level of the complex reflex in a scarce caloric reality. So what is keeping (some of) us from constantly overindulging and satisfying this and other animal urges? It is of cause our realization that overeating – once necessary to prevent starvation should the next harvest not go so well – will not be worth the negative side effects in our post caloric scarcity society.

Our beliefs such as ‘overeating is bad for me’ are controlling our lower level complex reflexs such as ‘must eat good food’ and so we diet and exercise. That’s how evolution has put mind over matter – easy as pie.

“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer; The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep”
(from Hamlet 3/1)

Now I’m no literary critic. I could not help to be reminded however of this most famous snippet of Shakespearean writing when working on putting together a set of axiomatic beliefs on which the core belief of my friendly AI theory is founded on: that is good what increases fitness.

Inspired by a comment on famous geek site Slashdot.org I sat down to do the following:

• write down a strongly held belief => “That is good what increases fitness.”
• write down the set of “sub-beliefs” that I have which form the basis of my belief
• iterate above steps, applying the same process to each belief listed

The result was very interesting. Soon I realized that the listed beliefs started to contradict each other so I had to think deeper and rewrite some of them. That lead to new insights and resulted in a set of 40 beliefs. Some of them are trivial and some of them are interesting. Most axiomatic however is the following belief:

1.2.3.2 To exist is preferable over not to exist

To be, or not to be, that is the question. Is that not the metaphorical question implicitly posed by reality on every living thing: ‘Can you exist?’

Over the course of evolution this question was first asked and answered passively on the chemical level and later actively ‘pondered’ on the cognitive level to avoid reality taking its toll. With the realization that what is good is what increases fitness one can start to actively as well as consciously look into developing strategies for ensured continued existence.

Averting the rise of a non-friendly AI then becomes but one of many existential risks.

Today I ran into an article on The Psychology Behind Cults/Religion on Digg.

The article introduces the similar processes in which beliefs of new recruits are being controlled in religions, cults and other belief circles. It neglects to mention however, that it is far from certain that these belief circles are actually consciously manipulating their recruits for the extraction of cash.

Remember: an unconscious lie is spoken as conscious truth – making it far more convincing and dangerous.

Today I received a note from George Garrett with some comments on my work:

“I very much enjoyed reading your paper on Benevolence.  It introduced me to some new ideas and seems like an excellent starting point for a plausible way one can frame morality, goodness, suffering and pain.  It seems like framing things in terms of evolution is the only way that things make sense.”

Music in my ears! But there is more:

 “This is the first satisfying definition of goodness I’ve come across that doesn’t seem arbitrary and up to the author’s whim.”

Strong and encouraging words indeed – many thanks to you George. Based on his comments I also updated my paper on friendly AI theory to version 1.1

Do you have any comments? I would love to hear from you!

On page 85 of Jame5 I point out that:

“Culture is the byproduct of an animal’s acceptance of a shared moral-ethical meme complex to enable social collaboration in large groups.”

Later in the book I broaden the concept of a ‘moral-ethical meme complex’ to include all kinds of beliefs and assert that said shared beliefs are fitness indicators relevant for inter group competition. As a consequence groups with fitter belief systems prosper while groups with unfit belief systems either adapt or perish. For a quick introduction to my thoughts on this issue I suggest reading my paper on friendly AI theory or Jame5 pages 69 and following.

In genetics the concept of group selection is controversial at best. On the memetic level however it becomes intuitively obvious. Let me explain:

With the advent of human thought the focus of evolution shifted away from a genetic level and moved to an evolution of ideas and concepts about the world that gave rise to new ideas etc. The genes, dominant fitness determining information-carrying vehicles up to that point became secondary.

The decisive difference between the Homo Sapiens and other primates was the particularly useful ability to transfer these memes to other members of the group, including their young, by effective communication in the form of speech.

From that time forward, evolution on the genetic level slowly began to retreat and eventually became secondary as fitness indicators in humans as memes started to have an ever larger impact in determining an individual’s fitness in the group as well as on an inter group level. The evolution of memes went on though the Stone Age and various metal ages on a material level until it shifted toward harnessing more energy with the first steam engine in the late eighteenth century. What followed was the Industrial Revolution. Then came the first computers that eventually triggered the Information Age.

In summary: Human groups act as super organisms on the basis of shared beliefs with evolution continuing on the level of beliefs (memes).

Example: Captitalism vs Communism
The cold war was a period of conflict between two groups with largely different belief systems. In the blue corner mostly capitalist democracies and in the red corner mostly communist dictatorships. Capitalism eventually ‘won’ as its belief system happened to allocate resources with alternative uses more efficiently and effectively. By now the former eastern block largely abandoned the less fit ideology and is moving on.

Example: Market Economy
In market economies companies can be seen as groups competing for the scarce resource money. A company’s culture, policies, processes, intellectual property are its beliefs and its staff form that companies embodiment as a group. Companies compete in the market place, act, adapt, learn and form alliances. Those with fitter belief systems survive and flourish while those that are less fit go bankrupt and ‘die’.

And so evolution continues.