"Practical" Metaphysics for the Young Aspiring Transhumanist

With talks of AGI, destructive technology, and universal transparency during TransVision 2007, I have been seriously re-evaluating the Libertarian approach to things. The benefits of a free market (the most competetive and therefore, hypothetically, the strongest ideas) can only be ensured when there is free discourse running between different agents, diversity will be needed as diverse contributions will lead to greater degrees of input and quality control. In order to maintain diversity of opinions, freedom (in the Liberatarian sense) must be given. However, this freedom will allow also for destructive ideas to occur, which I am all for in the usual case, but with the power of self-assembling nanobots and AGIs strong enough to engineer cosmic projects, is such freedom wise?

During TV07, the presenter from the Lifeboat Foundation has noted this danger and suggested the creation of a universal surveillance network. If such a system is activated, then privacy is lost, something that is fundamental to a Libertarian such as myself. Of course, the loss of privacy on my part only affects me if my power or influence is based on confidential information (i.e. passwords, PIN numbers, etc.) and if sanctimony exists (not to mention the entire Gattaca deal with insurance companies, but that's another story). Benjamin Franklin declared that "those who sacrifice essential liberties for a little security deserve neither liberty nor security." But what if the little bit of security was your planet's stake or even the universe's? Even beyond this, a question was asked during discussions after the conference: "if we had reached a 'perfect' state, how do we maintain it? How do we achieve Utopia?" At first I scoffed at the question, given that Utopias are based on absolutes and Platonic ideals, but I pondered about the modality of Utopia. Feeling like a Zen student, I answered in manner of a koan: "the only way to establish Utopia is to establish Dystopia. In order for us to maintain a stable state, we must have full control of a system, which would require full surrender of our individual freedoms to a benevolent AGI much greater in intelligence than ours." I was horrified by this notion, and I hope my reasoning is flawed somewhere or my premises are somewhat faulty, but I am currently evaluating this idea and developing a vision of the future with "Borg" mentality. Despite the antagonism the creators of Star Trek, however, is the Borg mentality such a horrible thing?

I hope my readers forgive me; I usually never do this, but I feel that this issue can be tackled using light metaphysics, specifically from Taoist and Dharmic ontologies. Ron Bailey of Reason Magazine suggested (in a joking, yet rather grave manner) during his presentation that perhaps the Borg state of existence is that of a Buddhist saint's. I can see where he makes the connections--Dharmic religions generally correlate salvation as freedom from pain and suffering and not necessarily as a transition to a state of perpetual happiness. Happiness cannot exist without sadness, so it is therefore better to escape the cycle of joy and pain through transcendence. My Star Trek knowledge is limited, I must admit, but Bailey listed several traits that Borgs share with Buddhas, which include a form of asceticism. Except for the forced assimilation part, I think Bailey's argument is quite convincing, as Borgs are detached from the shackles of suffering. Of course, this whole deal with assimilation is problematic to liberal theories as it is the theft of individuality. However, what exactly is the nature of this individuality? Is there something essential within it? Assuming there is an essential "me" and an essential "you," what makes it so sacred anyway?

This is where I introduce Taoist metaphysics, which argues a form of anti-essentialism (although at the very core, the Tao itself seems to be an essential idea... paradoxes, paradoxes). According to the teachings of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu (the latter of which I am finishing reading), no ideas have permanence and their relative stabilities in a period of time and a boundary of space is due to the harmonies of universal forces which act according to "its own way" (the Tao). Like Heraclitus' river, all things change, compose then decompose, including identities. Of course, when we bring "Te" and essentialist functionalism into consideration, Taoism becomes an extremely H+ unfriendly philosophy (especially since it appeals to naturalism), but the non-interventionism of Taoism can be considered an ethic code that can be excluded from metaphysical consideration. But the key issue is mutability and transformation, which would therefore include identities. The archetypal "Eastern Mystic" who claims that "everything is an illusion," is half-correct; everything as its permanence and fixed form (i.e. Platonic ideal) is illusory, including individuality. Therefore, this individuality that we try to protect against assimilation is fleeting in the first place. Resistance is futile because you will be assimilated--if not into the Hive Mind, then back into the universe where your body decomposes and your consciousness to who-knows-what (we'll not go into Kantian distinctions, considering it would be almost too ambitious of a project to work on in this small amount of space). This sort of pantheism, curiously similar to many of Spinoza's ideas (which is a comparison also supported by the late Sino-Philosophy Professor Fung Yu-Lan of Beijing/Peking University), seems to be what many of H+ cosmological theories are headed towards (cf. James Gardner's "biocosm" and Stephen Wolfram's "digital physics"). In fact, the information paradigm prevalent in modern systems thought seems to correlate this information to "Tao" or "Te," depending on whose lexicon you accept regarding Taoist hermeneutics. Of course, this is pure speculation and none of the ideas that I'm providing is actually rigorously provided (bad Analytic! No British tea for you!), but it's an issue that I think is worth exploring.

Now, to address the compatibility between Hive Mind, Taoism, and evolution. When looking at the loss of individuality in the Borg model, competition ceases within the system and therefore there is no directed mechanism for evolution (of course, this is not accounting for internal change). Assuming that the components within the Hive do not themselves change, which can be accomodated through maintenance networks, evolution will then cease within the system. This meets the Hardy-Weinberg conditions: absence of competition will elimate selection, maintenance will blanket all forms of population change, and various mechanisms can address stochasticity, especially given the powerful abilities and cognitive capabilities of the supermind. However, taking a constructivist view of things, this Hive Mind system is still a subset of objects in the universe and will therefore have to adapt to its surroundings. This argument reintroduces natural selection, but care must be taken to identify the Hive Mind as an actor itself instead of the individual elements that make up the system. Similar to the rise of multi-cellular organisms, I see the Hive Mind as a multi-organismal "organism," akin to Gaia and Deep Ecology theories. James Gardner furthers this argument to the universe, thus coming up with the notion of the "biocosm": the universe itself as an organism. However, without going into anything beyond the Hive Mind, it is crucial to evaluate whether this Hive Mind will be subject to the same laws of guided evolution that we are accustomed to, not because it is a supermind, but because of the capabilities of a supermind that will allow for radical self-engineering. Another question to ask is if this Hive Mind is unique, or if it will have competition with other Hive Minds. This is probably a non-issue, given the transcience of identity that I have alluded to before, but it is nevertheless a question that is important for the "near" far-future (an argument against multiple guiding AGIs is war between these "gods"). What will the "natural" way such a situation will proceed, if such a question is necessary to ask?

This leads back to Taoism and brings up the issue: should we as Transhumanists consider it as a purely descriptive philosophy, or should we take some of its ethical imperatives? Should we let alone and let nature run its course, given the many dangers of tampering with powers we do not understand? Here, I hope to attack the interpretation of naturalism that seems to pervade modern Taoism (uh oh! an exegis! flee, my rational comrades! flee!!) The argument against development and modernization that comes from modern day Taoists seems stem from a false dichotomy between human and nature: anything synthetic is "unnatural" and will mess with the natural harmonies that are governed by the Tao. Modern medicine should be abandoned because it merely upsets the flow of material energy ("ch'i") using "energetically subversive" materials like chemicals (obviously water is not a chemical because it's "natural"). The internal inconsistency between naturalism and anti-essentialism in Taoism is quite clear--is the Tao itself subjected to the laws of Tao? If Tao doesn't change, then it's a Platonic ideal that is fixed, and it becomes describable, something that Lao Tzu vehemently denies. If Tao changes, it must change according to the Tao, which is formally a self-referential paradox. One might bring in "real time" arguments, such as Tao changes according Tao at that point. However, what happens when the Tao that changes Tao is such that Tao is not to follow Tao? This critique of Taoism might be crippling my advocacy of it, but I would like to emphasize its description: change. If this change exists and nothing is fixed, then there is no distinction between humans and nature, which totally destroys the naturalism touted by Chinese herbalists and New Age babblers. However, if the mode of Tao and Te still apply, then human beings should be let to do what they naturally do: create. Synthesis is therefore natural because that is what humans do. Adopting the ethics of Taoism, human beings have an imperative to create, which is an imperative to progress towards the many technologies described so eloquently by our futurists.

With this entry, I present a revised Taoist metaphysics for H+s. I hope that more is developed on this subject, although not as sloppily as I have done. I must be ill if I am suggesting this rather primitive form of pantheism as a paradigm to adopt (given my penchant for epistemology and strong dislike for metaphysics), but I nonetheless offer a system in which scientific naturalism and ethical imperatives of progress intersect. Perhaps it'll bring clarity to the H+ movement. If not, it'll at least provide interesting bits of texts to laugh at.