Mr. Gantz,

This is certainly the most professional and broad based essay yet entered in this contest. Hopefully you will be willing to also engage further discussion as well.

If I may, I would like to offer up some ideas and suggestions.

Given this is first and foremost a deeply philosophical work, I would like to offer up a point I make regularly in these discussions and has specific bearing on the deeper issues in your entry, even though it isn't warmly received in physics discussions and that has to do with the nature of time. We personally experience change as a sequence of events and so perceive it as the point of the present moving from past to future. Physics further distills this to measures of duration to use in mathematical models. My observation is that it is not so much the present moving from past to future, as it is the changing configuration turning future into past. For example, the earth is not traveling Newton's absolute flow, or Einstein's fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Rather tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. Not to get into all the ramifications and proofs of this, other than to point out it explains how we can go from a determined past into a probabilistic future, without having to assume this process of determination means all future events on that narrative vector are consequently determined, nor to consider it quantum mechanistically, that the past remains probabilistic and the cat has alternate existences. The laws may be deterministic, but the total input into any event only combines with its occurrence.

This then goes to the second point and the relation of complexity to emergence. Yes, we do live in an increasingly complex world, but keep in mind, as you imply, complexity is potentially unstable, as it exists on that boundary between chaos and order, weaving between the two. Emergent situations are usually more complex than that of any particular input into them, but not the combined complexity of all the input. It is the resulting compromise of all that input which emerges. This then is the wave action of increasingly complexity, then its breakdown/consolidation, then wash and repeat as the complexity builds back to another denouement.

It seems evident we are close to the peak of the cycle, with a lot of complex and increasingly precarious structures, all either turning to each other for support, or turning on each other.

In my own entry I argue that the largest illusionary bubble is being created by the common assumption that money is a form of commodity, when in fact it is a contract and that the exponentially increasing obsession with these notational promises, whose combined value far exceeds any value the real economy can rationally support, is an old world issue that will have to be resolved, before humanity has any chance of really moving into a new world, since so many necessary resources are being used up to support it.

Regards,

John M

Hi John - thanks for the compliment, and for the excellent comment. I don't necessarily agree that "money is the root of all evil", but I would agree that it is an emergent institution of civilization with features that we do not fully understand or control. One of those features, perhaps, is that it can eliminate from market transactions the dimension of human relationships and human values, since money is simply an abstraction without intrinsic value. As such, it can lead to the loss of a sense of accountability in financial dealings - and we end up with The Wolf on Wall Street. Under these circumstances, trust can break down and markets can fail (as it did in 2008). That said, it still seems to be pretty robust - I don't think that particular instability will lead to the downfall of humanity.

    George,

    I wouldn't argue money is evil, in fact it is based on trust. The problem is that by treating it as a distinct commodity and not simply as a token of trust, this connection is obscured.

    I argue the likely breakdown of the financial system may well prove to be a benefit to humanity, if it serves to slow our consumption of resources and possibly leads to a situation where we learn to value those resources, rather than the notational impostors.

    I think there are areas we might well disagree, as you would see in reading my entry, but we both see there are deep issues that need to be resolved, if we are to be in better control of our destiny.

    Regards,

    John M

    Your essay is very good. I think I see your business background coming through. The greatest competition is attained through cooperation.

    "Humans consistently demonstrate trust in fellow humans, enabling our species to solve the Prisoner's dilemma, a game theory scenario that pits a rational betrayal against a more risky decision involving trust - if reciprocated, trust leads to a maximally beneficial outcome."

    Thank you for recognizing human social interaction is a positive sum game. Many other essays in this contest refer to zero sum games and the rich get rich at someone else's expense.

    I suggest the Prisoner's dilemma game is not about trust. I'm sure you know the game, but let me review. The game is played with several players, each a stranger (no prearranged agreement to cooperate) and each playing against each other at least once. The tactic that wins most often (but not all the time) is called tit-for-tat. This tactic is to cooperate on the first move when only one move of many is at stake (very small risk). Then play the response of the other player. For example, if the hero plays cooperative on the first move and faces an adversarial player - point to the adversary. The hero then plays what the other played last time (adversary) - neutral outcome. If the hero plays a cooperative player, all the moves are cooperative middle value outcome. At little risk (one move) the hero learns the others intention. A cooperative player against a con man looses big is he continues to play cooperatively. The overall win comes when cooperation is played by both, but this happens infrequently. The hero doesn't always win, but his loss is minimized. These kinds of games are run on sociological studies with different society structures (see http://arxiv.org/list/q-bio.PE/recent for example). If the players know when the end move is, the last play of adversarial wins a bit more against a tit-for-tat plan. So, there is no announced number of moves. But a real world player may determine the end move and play adversarial. This is the idea of a con - build trust then sting. Note ideally there is no trust required. Cooperation is a strategy of interaction. Those who become morally cooperative (trusting) can loose big to the con. People need not be empathetic, they need only function with a cooperative but distrusting behavior.

    If we are to have freedom and tolerance, we must allow the presents of a con man.

    Therefore, "We must design the fitness landscape for humanity's future in ways that reward cooperation and collaboration and discipline cheating, dishonesty and other moral defections - thereby reinforcing the qualities of trust, honesty, mutual respect, humility and shared commitment." The question is how? I think laws and regulation will not do this.

    "The fitness landscape is no longer determined by the natural world but by the human one." Earlier you noted the process of natural selection is active in the human social structure or did I misinterpret. Draughts and other natural changes have had recent and great impact on humans. Many civilizations have collapsed because of such events. I would agree the human organization sets themselves up for collapse, then a natural change finished the job such as the Tragedy of the Commons idea suggests. The regulation that follows can easily become overregulation that is stifling.

    Thanks again for your insights.

      Thanks, for the comment, John H. I read your essay with great interest and saw a number of parallels between your essay and my own, for example, you note "The practice and advance of science has demonstrated that cooperation is the best form of competition."

      On the Prisoner's dilemma, I think the concept has gotten overused in the past couple of decades, but it's clear to me the original version (involving 2 Prisoner's being asked to betray the other) is all about trust. You are correct that as the participants in the game increase and the rounds continue, it becomes critically important to discipline cheaters to sustain positive behaviors - this is what community norms are all about in successful, long-lived institutions. (see also Martin Nowak 2011)

      As to how, exactly, to design a fitness landscape for current and future institutions, I think that's a question for the next century. Laws and regulations have some role to play - but they are useless without compliance, which is a matter of community norms. And at their worst they become simply a tool for privileged individuals or groups to game the system. Sustaining a shared moral framework and building that into our institutions will be difficult - transparency, the free flow of information, the decentralization of authority, having checks and balances - these are all critical.

      Dear George,

      as promised in the other page, I here is my comment.

      As I wrote, I was attracted by the opening quote by Teilhard De Chardin, and I expected that you would make explicit reference to his views on the future of humanity in the body of your essay.

      I see that this does not really happen, but the path that you follow is still quite interesting, and I find the reasoning in your essay smooth and convincing.

      You express well the idea of a fitness landscape whose pressures are now under the control of humans and their technologies, unlike in the past. A big feedback loop indeed! I never thought about this circumstance in these terms before.

      Less clear to me is the point you want to make with respect to extraterrestrial life, and their possibly exotic cooperative behaviours and morality. Not much can really be said about this extra-galactic-level fitness landscape, except posing questions.

      The discussion on the fitness landscape set up by scientific bodies, expected to promote maximally cooperative behaviour, is also interesting.

      I think the merit of you essay is to effectively put several ideas, even when not terribly revolutionary, under a unifying and unusual perspective - that of darwinian evolution and related concepts.

      (If you are interested in further exchanges on Teilhard de Chardin, do not hesitate to write, here or by email.)

      Best regards

      Tommaso

        Joe - You offer an interesting perspective, one that is far more counter-intuitive than even quantum physics. What I find most interesting is that we can measure scientific theories by testing their accuracy against nature itself - those that describe and predict nature best are the winners. But we have to trust that nature itself was, is, and always will be, consistent.

        Cheers - George

        Thank you Tommaso - I'm afraid my knowledge of TdC is limited. What I recall seems consistent with a recognition of the distinction between physical / mental / spiritual levels of existence, but until I read your essay I was not aware of his grasp on the concept of emergence. Indeed, back when I read him that concept (and the Internet!) was quite undeveloped. I am curious what he (and you) would have to say about the correspondence between levels - does the lower level cause the emergence (supervenience) - or is there a drawing out of the higher level from the lower (top-down-causation). I would suspect that his theology would lead to the latter?

        Respectfully Mr. Gantz,

        We can do no such thing. Perfect straight lines, perfect triangles, perfect circles, perfect squares, perfect pyramids, perfect spheres, and perfect cubes are completely unknown in nature. As you will find out if you read my essay, REALITY, ONCE, reality is unique, once. Far from being in any way helpful, the only thing the scientists have done is to attempt to drown us all in an ocean of unnatural absurd abstraction. The only thing the technicians have done is bury us in mindless anti-natural fabricated sameness.

        With regards,

        Joe Fisher

        Hello George,

        I greatly enjoyed your essay, and I agree on several fundamental points. Though by itself love may be weak, without love the qualities of the intellect fail to give us wisdom. I also agree about the need for cooperation to foster advances in Science. I have attached the slides I used and the proceedings paper for my FFP11 talk "Learning to Cooperate is Essential for Progress in Physics."

        The talk and paper were inspired by a comment Gerard 't Hooft had made in a lecture at FFP10, where he stated that many of the looked for advances in Physics will never come, unless we see a marked increase in cooperation, not only among physicists of various disciplines, but also with mathematicians, programmers, engineers, technicians, and even philosophers. So you see, you are needed.

        These documents are also among the references for my essay which is about recognizing the value of play, and I think you will enjoy it. I wish you the best of luck in the contest.

        Warm Regards,

        JonathanAttachment #1: 1_JDickauFFP11.pdfAttachment #2: LearningtoCooperateforProgressinPhysics.pdf

          George and John, you ask HOW we create a landscape where cooperation is encouraged and cheating is discouraged, and the answer, as I've seen it, is to first tell others that we care about them and know that they need to get their basic needs met, unconditionally, so that they can be their best possible selves (self-transcendent, as Maslow called those higher levels of human motivation). Then we invest our resources only in those things that actively support the needs of ourselves and others, rather than wasting so much of our precious time, energy, and materials on "earning a living" and "keeping up with the Joneses" so to speak. In other words, we focus on what really matters to us, what we really want to get and do in life, and use our time here to make those things happen, rather than falling for the scams of mainstream media, corporations, and government of what we "should" want and do in life.

          Once we eliminate all the waste and invest wisely in our own best selves, then we'll have naturally created an environment where we and all the other social animals we share our planet with will automatically function as well as possible (meaning as pro-social as we can be). We just need to stop letting the artificial crap get in the way of nature doing what it does best!

          (The only laws and regulations that might be helpful here are positive ones, such as laws declaring the UN's Universal Human Rights, which say that all humans have a right, unconditionally, to the food, water, shelter, outlets for active work, and basic health care that they need to take good care of themselves and their families. That's a totally valuable law/regulation. Anything that is negative (violence/threat/harm) is, obviously, harmful. That's why my own policies for governance speak only of what a government is for - and that's serving the needs of the people.)

          Turil - Thanks for the comment. Many of the essays have focussed on the importance of "knowing thyself" and then learning to act accordingly. I agree our basic human empathic qualities (caring) will guide us to do good things in our relationships. Beyond that, we also need to answer the need posed in my essay - creating a fitness landscape that influences the institutions that now control our lives and our future. We have to build feedback loops with our institutions and provide for a competition between them that rewards empathic behaviors and penalizes negative ones.

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          • Post #14

          Joe -

          I do agree that the only reality we possess is the one we are in now, and that it is unique. But that reality has a history (past) and a range of possibilities (future), and part of the fun of being human is to navigate between the two. In this process of navigation, empirical science is profoundly helpful - using information from the past to help explain/predict/steer into a future that is more desirable. Remarkably, mathematics (which I find quite beautiful) and its abstractions facilitates that process with "unreasonable effectiveness", a fact for which I am quite grateful.

          At the same time, the directions that we choose for our future need to be shaped by our values / wants and desires. If these are unknown or inconsistent, the results can be disastrous, but if they are based on love for ourselves and fellow humans - our human empathic qualities - then our future will be more connected and more satisfying. This is where the problem lies, not with science itself.

          Joe - Apologies - the prior anonymous post was from me! - George

          Jonathon -

          Thanks for your comment and the papers you attached. I very much enjoyed your essay - one of several that are far more "playful" than my own.

          What a wonderful world it would be if we could all be more "child-like" (sense of wonder / openness to new ideas / collaborative / playful), as opposed to "childish" (petulant / self-absorbed / demanding / close-minded).

          I also agree with your focus on "fair play" - fairness is one of the key moral perceptions of children ref: Haidt) and is critical to the empathic qualities at the heart of my essay. We all need to work to inculcate these qualities into our institutions - like physics! - and I hope your efforts have been favorably received.

          Cheers - George

          Hi George,

          I really enjoyed your well written essay. You have clearly set out what you regard as the major challenges of the future and the solution. Glad to see altruism highlighted. Altruism is a characteristic of human beings that needs to be taken with us and not forgotten, as people become increasingly separated from each other in real life and more connected online. Young children especially have to learn all about social interaction and not just how to navigate in the cyber world and vegetate in front of the TV.

          IMHO As practice for meeting ET and because it would be good, respectful inter- species communication, cultural exchange and symbiotic development should begin with learning to communicate well with the many cetaceans of our own planet. We already have contact with other intelligent life but they don't have technology. Wisdom and technology are different. Both can be valuable but wisdom is unlikely to be dangerous. We can then taking great precautions to avoid alien disease, predation, parasitism and domination apply the same inter-species diplomacy and respect we have learned on our own planet, should intelligent alien life be encountered. We ought as a species to learn respect for non human life before we meet ET.

          You have picked some really important human values that need to be treasured into the future.Your essay deserves to do well. Good luck, Georgina

            Thanks for the comment, Georgina -

            I've been interested in research (Gopnick, Barrett, Haidt and others) indicating that children are born with the capacity for agency detection and moral judgement - these are shaped and the details filled in by parents, teaching and culture - but it's reassuring to know that empathy and altruism have been built in by evolution.

            I like the concept of trying to improve communications with cetaceans - most of the research I've read about has been about communicating with primates, which are, of course, more accessible. Cetaceans pose more logistical problems for researchers - but it would help the process if we could de-instrumentalize our attitudes towards them...

            Cheer - George

            Dear George!

            I welcome your well worked out essay, bolstered with such human high values and your positively formulated high requirements, which are undoubtedly and inevitably needed living in a higher evolutionary platform based on moral, mutual respect and acceptance, and cooperation.

            It has a message sounding similar as I, and many ones here promote likened the operation of a social, economic organization to a healthy natural organism.

            Unfortunately, while the development threads, and trends you mentioned and exerted them from a respectfully positive insight show a truly considerable increasing claim, both in business and institutional systems, however the hard fact is our present state has been yet far from to be collectively achived based on those estimated high values.

            I think, and hardly experience too in my life time, unfortunately neither the empathy nor love and trusted mutual respect, approximate fulfilling laid high estimations in several of religious doctrines are enough without a satisfactorily applied - where are the frontiers - knowledge which goes without self-interest.

            Unfortunately truly not the money itself is an 'evil', as you and John Brodix Merryman argue and agree. Turil's claim about ...a governance system is serving for the needs of people.. seems me a little naive yet, however considerably expectable.

            The problem is all present institutional systems, even the inventive propelling forces for a successfully enough and required technological and scientific, moral development are yet mostly established and owned and ran by 'individuals' who own the tremendous money to finance the evolutionary system development and keep that in anyhow working . What kind of interest for and with how much empathy and love for our common survival and best health which is our natural right? It is under question yet.

            In my essay, albeit it may be a bit far going and exoteric, even there is a question buried deeply inside - Whether how much money can be worth being invented for ones to build a virtual surviving system to keep up a false reality trial to overcome the natural one and what will we tax for this development?

            It is also a question yet, who is in the Prison, truly? Who can't free itself from a game, or one albeit who is sitting in a cage, nevertheless he is free from this game.

            As far as I can understand our present hard reality situation.

            Kind regards,

            Valeria

              George, my suggestion is that we naturally create a healthier landscape when we, ourselves, have both the high quality information about what kind of environment we need to function well in, and when we are able to get our basic needs met for at least reasonably healthy functioning. In other words, the output is dependent on the input. The better quality (relative to our needs) the input is, the better quality the output will be.

              And I agree that we have to build feedback systems, but in this case, that feedback needs to be the highest quality possible, so that we can use that information to make better choices.

              Harm, on the other hand, through threats, competition for needed resources, penalties, etc., only causes us problems, since it means that people aren't getting the high quality things they need to function well. Punitive/violence/harm based approaches only make people sick. Bad input leads to bad output. That's a basic biological and mechanical understanding, which we've somehow been brainwashed to discard. That unempathic theory alone is perhaps the worst quality input humanity has so far been subjected to, leading to our exceptionally bad output in the form of war, incarceration, abuse, and so on. Instead, we can use science/engineering to see how individuals (animal, vegeteable, or mineral) function well, and do our best to provide those needs, unconditionally, and when things don't function well, we can look to whatever lack of need is getting in the way.

              This attention to taking good care of ourselves, and looking to fix problems (rather than trying to cause more harm to the individual through violence, physical or mental) is the only way I've ever found to create an environment more fitting to our needs as a planet.

              A well-argued essay, George; I'm happy to find someone other than myself who realizes that religion must have evolutionary fitness. I wrote a paper a few years ago, "Dedicare Omnimodus: A New Ontology of Introspection", which explores that subject. Although it's not 100% accurate it's close enough to count. You may find it interesting.

              I don't agree with Freeman Dyson's speculation regarding biological evolution at all. George Ellis has written a really nice paper exploring top-down causation, "Top-down Causation and Emergence: Some Comments on Mechanisms", which you may find interesting. It includes a couple of references to works which show how society and culture act down on biology.

              Also, Ben Goertzel, the editor of Humanity + magazine, recently compiled a number of H+ interviews into a book, "Between Ape and Artilect". It includes a really nice interview with Francis Heylighen, founder of Principia Cybernetica and the Global Brain Institute, and the last six interviews all generally relate to what I would term futurist spirituality.

              With regards,

              Wes Hansen