I’m new to your pieces. Enjoyed this, and will take time to digest. Just wanted to flag that the inevitability and irreversibility of the Neolithic revolution has been strongly challenged by Graeber and Wengrow. Also have you come across Julian Jaynes on the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Some relevance to the phase transition. Old now, and comprehensively dismissed, but interesting. I’m interested in “reading reason back” as an explanation of emergent consciousness cf Hofstadter. Looking forward to exploring your thoughts.
Nice start. Do you later plan on writing about the "dark side" of language/reason seen in Taylor's critique of "giving logos a life of its own" or Habermas's critique of the system taking over the life-world? Seems like this is the right grounds for seeing the dark side of AI too.
Great article. We can trace the origins of human progress across important phase shifts:
1) The Big Bang and the emergence of atoms/laws of physics/chemical evolution
2) Biological evolution with the emergence of life from carbon-based molecules.
3) Cultural evolution which allowed information to be passed within generations.
Each step along this process results in a sum that is greater than the constituent parts. Molecules take on new characteristics that differ from constituent atoms. Life has capabilities that molecules never could…etc
The agricultural revolution enabled us to create just enough surplus energy (calories) such that some of us could move into cities and specialize beyond gathering calories. As these cities became bigger, power scaling laws kicked into gear; per capita, wealth generation, and new ideas greatly increased. This would later be supercharged by the harnessing of fossil fuels in the industrial revolution.
Thanks for this. Stimulating. May I take issue with this: “Darwinian selection is gradual, and even theories of punctuated equilibria don’t operate on such short time scales”?
In “The Beak of the Finch” by Jonathan Weiner we learn how quickly selection can occur under stressful circumstances.
It would be interesting to think about how quickly selection might change society if falsehoods become accepted.
I’m new to your pieces. Enjoyed this, and will take time to digest. Just wanted to flag that the inevitability and irreversibility of the Neolithic revolution has been strongly challenged by Graeber and Wengrow. Also have you come across Julian Jaynes on the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Some relevance to the phase transition. Old now, and comprehensively dismissed, but interesting. I’m interested in “reading reason back” as an explanation of emergent consciousness cf Hofstadter. Looking forward to exploring your thoughts.
Nice start. Do you later plan on writing about the "dark side" of language/reason seen in Taylor's critique of "giving logos a life of its own" or Habermas's critique of the system taking over the life-world? Seems like this is the right grounds for seeing the dark side of AI too.
I love this connection of "permissable, prohibited or obligatory" to "possible, impossible, or necessary."
Great article. We can trace the origins of human progress across important phase shifts:
1) The Big Bang and the emergence of atoms/laws of physics/chemical evolution
2) Biological evolution with the emergence of life from carbon-based molecules.
3) Cultural evolution which allowed information to be passed within generations.
Each step along this process results in a sum that is greater than the constituent parts. Molecules take on new characteristics that differ from constituent atoms. Life has capabilities that molecules never could…etc
The agricultural revolution enabled us to create just enough surplus energy (calories) such that some of us could move into cities and specialize beyond gathering calories. As these cities became bigger, power scaling laws kicked into gear; per capita, wealth generation, and new ideas greatly increased. This would later be supercharged by the harnessing of fossil fuels in the industrial revolution.
Thanks for this. Stimulating. May I take issue with this: “Darwinian selection is gradual, and even theories of punctuated equilibria don’t operate on such short time scales”?
In “The Beak of the Finch” by Jonathan Weiner we learn how quickly selection can occur under stressful circumstances.
It would be interesting to think about how quickly selection might change society if falsehoods become accepted.