Boris Shulitski

The ideological foundations of technological singularity


Скачать книгу

information” and “energy” are used as working concepts of the hypothesis to form a hypothetical worldview, as well as the project of research program. A certain period ago in natural science such concepts as “subtle matter”, “thermal matter”, “phlogiston”, and “entelecheia” were used in the same way. Today it is believed that these concepts were legitimate and useful as a kind of anticipation of the field worldview, the formation of which marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of the natural sciences. In our case, the essential concepts of the substances “information” and “energy” are also auxiliary concepts for generating a hypothetical worldview and research program, therefore they do not require strict justification, they should be considered as one of the possible options for working concepts of the hypothesis project, and nothing more.

      You can look at the other side. There are certain mosaic representations of the special sciences of the surrounding world that implicitly bear some information about its general structure. The task of the researcher can be defined as the search for a code to decrypt this information, and the search option can be an experimental matching of the code and check it for validity. One of the well-known axiomatic variants of such a code can be considered the binary concept “material-ideal” (“matter-consciousness”). Repeatedly, another axiomatic variant may be a binary concept “energy-information”. As part of the energoinformational view of the world, it is suggested to build a system of interrelations of new concepts using selected axioms and hypotheses and on this basis to put a mosaic of separate fragments of knowledge, related to special sciences into a coherent hypothetical worldview. The conformity of the constructed hypothetical worldview with the real one is supposed to be tested based on feedback on the hypothetical construction characteristic, allowing it to serve as an effective matrix of scientific search for new phenomena, processes and new technologies in the field of special scientific disciplines.

      Further, at the third stage, using this axiomatic key and the hypothesis of associative analogy, a hypothetical picture of the surrounding world is constructed, that is, the concept of the “energoinformational” world. In the hypothetical energoinformational world view, aperson is the basic element of one in the variety of interconnected and interdependent structural levels in the multilevel hierarchical organization of the surrounding world. In such a scenario, a person cannot be a “crown of nature”, a finite, terminated element in the hierarchical organization of the surrounding world. The main content of the evolutionary scenario is the process of infinite added complexity of the structural levels hierarchy, the process of self-organization of the new structural levels and forms of the surrounding world. A person is not able to stop the universal cosmological scenario of the world evolution directed to the infinite added complexity of the structural levels hierarchy, self-organization of new forms, including rationalones, of the surrounding world.

      Indeed, one of the universal principles (concepts) of the dialectical theory is the principle of development. According to the generally accepted definition, development is understood as “an essential attribute of matter, an endless process of regular self-renewal, self-organization and generation of qualitatively new forms, including rational ones, of its being and movement.” Taking into account the universality of the dialectic method of cognition and in the frameworks of the concept “development”, it is obvious that organic life as a structural level of the surrounding world organization and homo sapiens as its highest form is one of the transitional forms of organization, suggesting the possibility of further generation of qualitatively new, more highly organized forms of matter, which are aimed at continuing the endless process of its regular self-renewal, self-organization, the process of qualitative, step by step, added complexity of the thinking matter structural forms “from simple – to complex”, “from the particular – to the general”.

      As a result, anthropocentricity is another misconception of humanity, from it is useful to withdraw, because it inhibits the correct understanding of the evolutionary process and the real view of the surrounding world. As history has shown in the certain period, it was useful to abandon geocentrism in favor of heliocentricism, so now a similar situation is emerging for the opposition “anthropocentrism – cosmocentrism”.

      To assess the adequacy of the chosen conceptual approach, a selective comparative analysis of the processes of the hypothetical worldview and the real processes of the surrounding world was carried out. A preliminary analysis showed an unambiguous correlation of hypothetical and real processes of universal meaning.

      In particular, in the hypothetical view of the world at the person’s structural level, the fundamental basic trend is human production activity aimed at forming of the next structural level in an endless hierarchy of structural levels of the surrounding world organization, reflecting the endless process of regular self-renewal, self-organization and generation of qualitatively new forms of its being and movement.

      Indeed, in the real worldview the main content, the “a golden thread” (according to K. Marx) of the historical process is human labor activity, development of the production base and production relations related to it (social formations). And the most noticeable tangible result of the entire historical process is the improvement of instruments of labour, the evolution of instruments of labour from the stick in the hands of ape-man to robotic industries and cybernetic monsters, from the first calculating devices to supercomputers, artificial intelligence, mechanical intelligence and the world wide web, which is developing now completely independently and spontaneously, like a real living organism.

      In the hypothetical worldview, the evolutionary process unfolds in accordance with the dialectical mechanism, in which the trend of evolution is oriented towards the formation of the next structural level and manifests itself through random mutations and natural selection. Natural selection is aimed at preserving mutations that contribute to the formation of the next, more highly organized structural level in the hierarchical organization of the surrounding world structural levels. Indeed, in the real worldview, the real content of the entire world geo-economics is endless mutations of the productive relations form, as well as those of the structural organization of society, followed by the approval of the most productive and technologically effective ones. Productive and technological efficiency is determined by the level of potential for the transformation and structuring of the world, in essence – by the level of technology development – the level of the instruments of labour, both physical and intellectual.

      The inherent and effective mechanism for securing the “correct” social mutations, leading to an increase in the production and technological efficiency of societies in the hypothetical worldview, is power intra- and intersocial conflicts. The indestructibility of power social conflicts throughout all real centuries-old history of mankind clearly confirms their significant role in the mechanism of the surrounding world evolution. Industrialization, informatization, cybernetization, internetization, globalization, artificial intelligence, the forthcoming expected and frightening technological singularity, etc… – all of the abovementioned and actually occurring processes fit perfectly into the framework of the dialectical mechanism of the evolution of the homo sapiens structural level, are predictable, integral and inevitable elements in a hypothetical view of the world. There are reasons to argue about the correspondence between the suggested hypothetical picture of the world and the real one.

      Accordingly, further, at the fourth stage, based on a hypothetical view of the world, a working research program is formed; the directions of priority research in the special sciences are defined in terms of searching for specifically prognosticated new phenomena, processes and practical innovative technologies. As a result, the content of the fourth, experimental stage is the organization and carrying out of specific applied works in the field of special sciences in the areas of priority research, following from the general scientific hypothetical worldview.