The
measure of any solution is the problem it addresses. Meet the biggest
single
problem modern society has ever had to confront.
A self-organising
system organises itself without any central control or
planning.
Self-organisation occurs naturally but also can be artificially
engineered.
Self-Organisation
This a very simple
artificial self-organisational system. The
red
candles and blue candles organise themselves by colour.
Human
Self-Organisation
This is a
busy
intersection moving freely with no traffic lights or any other type of
central control.
When a
self-organising system is directed to solve a specific problem,
entirely new properties emerge.
Over time, a directed self-organisational system will:
1) drive to solve the designated problem over all other considerations.
2) create solutions beyond human comprehension.
3) apply those solutions to anything blocking the system's progress
towards solving the problem.
4) harness free-will as a resource.
Below is the result of a directed self-organisational system designed
by Dr Hod Lipson. The system started with random robot bits and the
problem to solve was to self organise in order to create moving robots.
Below are three functional robots as they appeared during a particular
stage of the system's evolution. See his video
below or his academic paper where
we obtained these images: "Evolutionary
Design and Evolutionary Robotics", Biomimetics,
CRC Press (Bar
Cohen, Ed.) pp. 129-155 (2005)
If you have played one of
the newer computer games, it is likely that your game is using evolved
computer
code. The reason is that artificial evolution creates solutions that
are extremely
powerful and beyond human comprehension and thus can make simulated
life more
life-like than human programmers ever could.
The
video below advertises one of the companies doing this. How they did it
and the nature of evolutionary solutions is described in The Secret Life of Chaos (BBC 4).
For some time now,
artificial evolutionary systems have been used to solve problems. As
far as we
know, no system containing the necessary prerequisites has avoided
entering a self-organisational process.
Modern
society contains the
precise conditions necessary for self-organisation.
Those conditions aim society to optimise for wealth creation over all
other things. Wealth is solely
defined by the market.
Definitional note:
Artificial evolution is a
specific kind of self-organisation system.
The Implications
With an evolutionary imperative of wealth, society
would take on these
characteristics:
1) The ecosystem will be converted into wealth
regardless of long-term consequences.
2) Starving populations will be systemically ignored
as they don't create wealth.
3)
Because more people can create more total wealth, there will be a
global pressure for population growth even if it reduces individual
wealth and
living space for most people.
4)
Activities leading to wealth creation will become the most empowered
activity in society. Anyone not creating wealth will be disempowered
and considered, in general, to be less worthy than wealth creators.
5)
Anything interfering with the process of
creating wealth will be subjected to solutions beyond human
understanding.
6) People will come to serve the economy rather than
the economy serving people.
7) In exchange for all this, a vast range of goods
and services will be made available at low, low prices.
Many
people sense this process. Some feel a real oppressive force acting
against the interests of people and life but when they seek to
logically explain their feelings, there is nothing they can point at.
In seeking a logical explanation for what they are sensing, many turn
to conspiracy theories.
What We
Cannot Do
Because
an aritificial evolutionary system produces solutions beyond human
comprehension, direct confrontation is unlikely to succeed. As such,
using will-power to change things will not work. Making agreements will
not work. Making certain activities illegal will not work (consider the
US Prohibition Laws). Raising awareness will not work. Political change
will not work. Charity campaigns will not work. Even initiatives that
succeed in a particular area make no difference at the global level.
That is why 58% of all deaths are due to starvation even though we
constantly hear about successful hunger charity drives.
Any action that opposes wealth creation will incur an evolutionary
solution. This is why some people feel an enormously powerful
malevolent force or entity is suppressing all of humanity.
More
On Self-Organisation and Artificial Evolution
What
is
self-organisation?
Self-organisation is used to
describe a system
that gets more complex and/or
orderly over time without any plans, leadership or any outside force.
Emergence is the simplist form of self-organisation.
If
no
one is planng or leading it, exactly
how
does it happen?
The
way the individuals or things within are connected causes
unexpected
results to arise from the population as a
whole. This can be seen in flocking birds and schooling fish. One set
of rules for flocking is this: 1) If alone, fly towards groups. 2) Try
to match the speed and direction of your neighbours. 3) Don't bump
into anything and avoid predators.
Even
you knew that individual birds flew
according to these rules, would you have predicted flocking before
knowing about it? Few would.
That is
why it is unexpected.
Does a
self-organisational system need to be made up of living beings or not?
It
does not matter at all. It works equally well whether the population
is made up of computer code, bits of robots, birds or people.
What is
the
difference between
self-organisation with and without a goal?
A system
self-organising without a goal may simply become
orderly or take on a specific characteristic. For example, a snow flake
is water molecules self organising
themselves in accordance to their nature, but that system is
not trying to solve
a problem.
This is a video of ferrofluid self-organising.
A system self-organising towards a goal is
something else entirely. In
such a system, an individual's performance is measured against
their
peers in a specific task. Over time, successful traits and
organisations are empowered while unsuccessful ones are diminished.
Individuals within such a system
rarely notice these forces because they usually
act outside
their
normal awareness.
This is a video
presenting the findings of a researcher working with
goal driven self-organisational systems (evolutionary systems) using
inanimate objects.
Ignore the rather
sensational 'self-aware' tag.
Above
is Hod Lipson's graph showing how different 'species' of robots
appeared and went 'extinct' as time goes on.
The beginning
of time is at the top of this chart. (source) Why
don't we simply use policy and law or create a popular movement to get
rid of the bad effects?
In any goal
seeking self-organisational system, thousands of battles can
be
won while the war is lost.
Recently,
many in power have become aware of just how important our ecoculture is
to our wellbeing and how damaged it was becoming. It was
so important that an international agreement was signed by 200
countries in 2002 to get rid of this 'bad effect'. Click here
to see how badly that worked out.
This
effect works at all levels. Consider our efforts to solve some of the
problems facing the world today through the eyes of a stand
up comic. Caution: bad
language.
Human SOS - Human
Self-Organisational Systems bringing
modern society back into the circle of life and love
