Boris Shulitski

The ideological foundations of technological singularity


Скачать книгу

for answers to the questions posed using dialectical methodology. The paradoxical forecast in the frameworks of the energoinformational concept is that the singularity may actually be more radical than in the view of R. Kurzweil and will not be limited to the improvement of human capabilities (dynamic models of the Old type). We can talk about the formation of a new structural level of actual reality – the level of dynamic models of the New type. A concrete step in this direction is the emergence and going beyond the human control of an intellectual monster – the global “web” of the network information space – the Internet. Following the creation of artificial intelligence and its symbiosis with the network web, a person will lose the ability to understand and control the processes occurring in it. From the point of view of dialectics, the inevitable leap of IT systems into a fundamentally new quality, which is not amenable to perception at the structural level of homo sapiens, can occur unexpectedly. Dialectic analysis of the processes in progress warns that beyond the horizon of the singularity we expect a new world – a world of dynamic models of a New type. The prospects are fantastic, but from the of the dialectical methodology point of view they are inevitable.

      Chapter 1 Basic Axiomatics

      1.1 Dialectics as a methodology of science

      Dialectics (Greek dialegomai – talking, reasoning) – the science of the most general laws of the nature, society and thinking development. A long history preceded the scientific understanding of dialectics, and the very concept of dialectics arose in the course of processing and overcoming the original meaning of the term. Even in ancient philosophy was put strong emphasis on the variability of everything that exists, it understood reality as a process, shed light on the role that the transition of any kind of each characteristic to the opposite plays in this process (Heraclitus, partly Miletian materialists, Pythagoreans). Then the term “dialectic” has not yet been applied to such studies. Originally, this term (dialektike techne – “the art of dialectics”) denotes the ability to argue through questions and answers or the art of the concept classification. Aristotle considers Zeno of Elea as the inventor of the dialectic, who analyzed the contradictions that arise when trying to think about the concepts of motion and set. Aristotle himself distinguishes “dialectic” from “analytics” as the science of probable opinions from the science of proving.

      Plato, following the Eleatics (the Eleatic School) defines true being as identical and unchanging, nevertheless in the dialogues “Sophist” and “Parmenides” he substantiates the dialectical conclusions that the higher categories of the things existent can only be thought of in such a way that each of them is, and at the same time is not, is equal to itself and is not equal, is identical with itself and passes into its “other”. Therefore, being encompasses contradictions: it is one and plural, eternal and transient, unchanging and changeable, resting and moving. Contradiction is a prerequisite for encouraging the soul to think. This art is, according to Plato, the art of dialectics.

      The most important stage in the development of dialectics was German classical idealism, which, unlike metaphysical materialism, considered reality not only as an object of knowledge, but also as an object of activity. Leibniz was the first to make a breach in metaphysics with his doctrine of monads self-development and the contradictory unity of the principles of knowledge and Kant, who indicated the importance of opposite forces in the physical and cosmogonic processes, introduced (for the first time after Descartes) the idea of development into the knowledge of nature. In the theory of knowledge, Kant develops dialectical ideas in the study of “antinomies”. However, the dialectic of reason, according to Kant, is an illusion, and it is eliminated as soon as thought returns to its limits, reduced only to the knowledge of phenomena. Later in the theory of knowledge, Fichte developed an “antithetic” method of deriving categories, containing important dialectical ideas. Following Kant, Schelling develops a dialectical understanding of the laws of nature.

      The apex in the development of dialectics was Hegel’s dialectic. Hegel “for the first time presented the whole natural, spiritual and historical world as a process, that is, in uninterrupted movement, change, transformation and development, and made an attempt to uncover the inner connection of this movement and development”. It was Hegel who first “discovered”, as Marx wrote, and described the inner essence of dialectics – the dialectical method of studying nature, society and cognition. In contrast to abstract definitions of intellect, the dialectical method, according to Hegel, is such a transition of one definition into another, in which it is found that these definitions are one-sided and limited, that is, contain a denial of themselves. Therefore, the dialectical method is, according to Hegel, “the soul of all the thought scientific unfolding,” it isexactly it, which brings the necessary internal connection to the content of science, and its insuperable strength lies in the internally contradictoryprogressive movement and development”. The discovery of the dialectical method constituted a whole epoch in philosophical thinking. In the first issue of the journal “Dialectics” are the following words of the founders of the journal (G. Bashlyar, P. Bernays, F. Gonset): “The idea of dialectics turns out to be the core one for modern scientific thought. However, it goes beyond this thinking to become a central element of the philosophy that embraces the diversity of knowledge” (Dialectica 1947).

      At present, the understanding of the term “dialectics” is multidimensional. The use of the dialectical method in specific aspects of research has generated many variants of derived concrete dialectical theories, such as dialectical materialism, dialectic existentialism, dialectical structuralism, dialectical negativism, etc. And it is completely incorrect to use the term “dialectics” to denote these theories as then materialistic, existential, structural, negative, etc. dialectics. The dialectical theories that followed the Hegelian philosophical system, including dialectical materialism, did not introduce anything fundamentally new to the dialectical methodology; therefore, Hegel’s philosophical system is of undoubted interest as the primary point of genesis for the dialectical method and the example of its use in the study of nature, society and cognition.

      Thus, first of all, the term “dialectics"means the philosophical method of researching nature, society and cognition. Only from the standpoint of dialectics one can understand the way of the objective truth formation, complex, full of contradictions, the connection of the elements of absolute and relative, stable and changeable at each stage of the science development, transitions from one form of generalization to another, deeper forms of the surrounding world cognition.

      1.2 General guidelines for dialectical method

      The reality, according to Hegel’s dialectic, does not stand still, but changes, develops. Everything that was valid, reasonable, necessary some time ago, is denied in the course of the next time period, loses its right to exist. The place of dying reality is occupied by a new one, more viable. Hence the conclusion: “everything that is real in the field of human history becomes unreasonable over time, and everything that is rational in human heads has reason to become real, no matter how it contradicts existing apparent reality” (30-XXI, 275).

      Hegel’s dialectic, as Engels notes, finally refuted all sorts of ideas about the final significance of the results of human thinking and action. In other words, the process of cognition can never be completed, since the object of knowledge, namely, the nature and society, is in constant change and development. “For dialectic philosophy,” writes F. Engels, “there is nothing entirely and permanently established, unconditional, sacred. On everything and in everything it sees the signs of an inevitable fall, and nothing can stand it except for the continuous process of emergence and destruction, the infinite ascent from the lower to the higher. It itself is only a simple reflection of this process in the human brain…” (30-XXI, 276). “We should never forget that all the knowledge we have acquired is pro re nata limited and are determined by the circumstances in which we acquired them… What is stated as necessary is formed by the pure coincidences, and