The ideological foundations of technological singularity - Boris Shulitski

The ideological foundations of technological singularity

Boris Shulitski

© Boris Shulitski, 2019

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Preface

Two centuries ago, Friedrich Engels emphasized: dialectical materialism must change its form in the course of each new major discovery in natural science. It was evident for him, that scientific philosophy is not a dogma, but if it claims to be a worldview, it must develop and substantially enrich itself both in respect of its form and in content together and in parallel with the scientific progress in science. As the history of the development of the Soviet philosophical school showed, that this was not always the case.

In the former Soviet Union space, philosophy today is experiencing a serious crisis, primarily because of its ignoring of the new reality that has now been formed, which is briefly described by the term informational society. Concentrating on the historically established, traditional model of the world cognition  through the binary opposition matter-consciousness  still not enough attention is paid to information as the third element, forming scientific ideas about objective reality and very significant for a scientific worldview the construction.

Meanwhile, here are found such intensively developed ways of creating information technologies that require reflection, primarily at the worldview, philosophical level, in order to create an adequate methodological basis for scientific research in this area, to provide an adequate understanding of human practice and creativity. It is important for us to understand, comprehend, explore this new perspective from the standpoint of its informational phenomena and give informational concept on the background of the small number of works in this area, thereby partially compensating for the lack of knowledge and ideas that has arisen here, covering the absolute blank that is also called tabula rasa. It is exactly this way, that the research program by B.G. Shulitsky is being developed, moreover, very effectively.

It is important to mention, that the author, unlike other modern research groups and teams looking for new ways, means and methods of cognition through the exploitation of metaphysical ideas, correctly focuses on the need of comprehensive using of dialectical methodology as the leading epistemological line of conceptual development in the scientific search of the third millennium. The book attempts to apply the dialectical methodology in its generalized interpretation, with the involvement of its informational element, which greatly expands its capabilities, providing its effective application in a number of interdisciplinary areas. In particular, it concerns the integrated worldview of applied internetics, where it acquires a new appearance and new functions, further, exploratory research of information-stimulated processes in nanotechnology, as well as in other areas. The author raised a number of fundamental questions. The answers to them have beenyet received by neither science nor philosophy, but these questions are of undoubted interest for interdisciplinary complex analysis and synthesis.

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Doctor of Philosophy, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus

Author prefaces

Speaking about the practical activities of man, G. W. Hegel prophetically pointed out the special role of its material elements  the instruments of labour. People seek to satisfy their interests, but because of this, something bigger is accomplished, something that is hidden in them, but that they were not conscious about and that was not part of their intentions. People work, set limited goals, achieve them, but at the same time something different is achieved than these goals people actually set. This is something that Hegel associates with the active nature of the Absolute Idea, which dwells beyond human passions, interests and goals, acts as if behind peoples backs, but at the same time is hidden inside them, solving the infinite task associated with the function of its self-knowledge. It is here that the brilliant prophetic insight of Hegel can be found: The instruments of labour, as stated in Logic, stand above those final goals of man, the realization of which they serve.

At present we see practical confirmation of Hegels brilliant insight. The analysis of the processes, phenomena and trends of the modern technocratic world shows that what is happening really contains elements that may be something different than the declared goals of people; these are elements that are above the interests and goals of people, as if staying behind their backs, concealed, but at the same time present in peoples goals. In this regard, exploratory research is in the field of adequate understanding and awareness of the true role and real place of a person in the world, its objective evolutionary goals and tasks, as well as optimization of ways to achieve them, taking into account its personal interests, is of utter importance. This should be possible as part of a new general scientific global picture, the formation of which has long been in demand by the scientific and technological revolution of the last few centuries.

One of the options of search for a new general scientific picture of the world is a hypothetical picture of the world, which is based on certain axioms and hypotheses. The criterion of the appropriateness of this kind of conceptual constructions is the correspondence of the conceptual conclusions of this kind to the real processes of the surrounding world, as well as its heuristic and prognostic capabilities, in particular, in the field of searching for fundamentally new, innovative technologies to be practically implemented. This criterion allows the method of successive iterations, through a series of hypothetical worldviews, to reach, step by step, the real worldview.

This book suggests a constructive research program focused on the formation of one of such possible hypothetical pictures of the world and an assessment of its correspondence to the surrounding world. An axiomatic approach is used as the basic element, that is, an experimental matching of a key (code, cipher) to the structure of actual reality in the form of an initial set of basic axioms. This is a well-known principle of stepwise scientific knowledge of the new, consisting of six stages, six steps of scientific search: axiom hypothesis concept experiment theory practice. The indisputable and final criterion to verify the hypothetical conceptual constructions is the correspondence of the conceptual conclusions to the real processes of the surrounding world, as well as its heuristic and predictive capabilities that open the way to applied innovative technologies.

At the first stage, a set of basic axioms is suggested, which has shown its practical effectiveness (efficiency) as a key, a code to the structure and global processes of actual reality. The starting point for the new general scientific worldview, or let us designate it as the energoinformational world view, are two basic axioms:

 Dialectics is the universal inherent basic property of actual reality (the axiom of the universality of dialectics).

 Structurality is a universal inseparable basic property of actual reality (an axiom of structurality).

As a consequence, the basic mechanism for structuring actual reality in the process of its regular evolution should have a dialectical specificity. The concept of actual reality includes both objective and subjective reality.

The second stage of the worldview constructing is a hypothesis. In the conceptual framework the working hypothesis is suggested about the structure of actual reality, using the well-known method of scientific knowledge, namely, the method of associative analogy. The structure of reality is associated with the internal hierarchical structure of modern mathematical theory. The main content of the hypothesis is that thegeneral internal structural organization of modern mathematical theory reflects the fundamental features of the structural organization of actual reality (the hypothesis of associative analogy).

To describe the model of the structure of reality within the framework of this hypothesis, auxiliary basic concepts (structural parts) of the substances information and energy are introduced. The substances information and energy are used as working concepts of the hypothesis to form a hypothetical worldview, as well as the project of research program. A certain period ago in natural science such concepts as subtle matter, thermal matter, phlogiston, and entelecheia were used in the same way. Today it is believed that these concepts were legitimate and useful as a kind of anticipation of the field worldview, the formation of which marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of the natural sciences. In our case, the essential concepts of the substances information and energy are also auxiliary concepts for generating a hypothetical worldview and research program, therefore they do not require strict justification, they should be considered as one of the possible options for working concepts of the hypothesis project, and nothing more.

You can look at the other side. There are certain mosaic representations of the special sciences of the surrounding world that implicitly bear some information about its general structure. The task of the researcher can be defined as the search for a code to decrypt this information, and the search option can be an experimental matching of the code and check it for validity. One of the well-known axiomatic variants of such a code can be considered the binary concept material-ideal (matter-consciousness). Repeatedly, another axiomatic variant may be a binary concept energy-information. As part of the energoinformational view of the world, it is suggested to build a system of interrelations of new concepts using selected axioms and hypotheses and on this basis to put a mosaic of separate fragments of knowledge, related to special sciences into a coherent hypothetical worldview. The conformity of the constructed hypothetical worldview with the real one is supposed to be tested based on feedback on the hypothetical construction characteristic, allowing it to serve as an effective matrix of scientific search for new phenomena, processes and new technologies in the field of special scientific disciplines.

Further, at the third stage, using this axiomatic key and the hypothesis of associative analogy, a hypothetical picture of the surrounding world is constructed, that is, the concept of the energoinformational world. In the hypothetical energoinformational world view, aperson is the basic element of one in the variety of interconnected and interdependent structural levels in the multilevel hierarchical organization of the surrounding world. In such a scenario, a person cannot be a crown of nature, a finite, terminated element in the hierarchical organization of the surrounding world. The main content of the evolutionary scenario is the process of infinite added complexity of the structural levels hierarchy, the process of self-organization of the new structural levels and forms of the surrounding world. A person is not able to stop the universal cosmological scenario of the world evolution directed to the infinite added complexity of the structural levels hierarchy, self-organization of new forms, including rationalones, of the surrounding world.

Indeed, one of the universal principles (concepts) of the dialectical theory is the principle of development. According to the generally accepted definition, development is understood as an essential attribute of matter, an endless process of regular self-renewal, self-organization and generation of qualitatively new forms, including rational ones, of its being and movement. Taking into account the universality of the dialectic method of cognition and in the frameworks of the concept development, it is obvious that organic life as a structural level of the surrounding world organization and homo sapiens as its highest form is one of the transitional forms of organization, suggesting the possibility of further generation of qualitatively new, more highly organized forms of matter, which are aimed at continuing the endless process of its regular self-renewal, self-organization, the process of qualitative, step by step, added complexity of the thinking matter structural forms from simple  to complex, from the particular  to the general.

As a result, anthropocentricity is another misconception of humanity, from it is useful to withdraw, because it inhibits the correct understanding of the evolutionary process and the real view of the surrounding world. As history has shown in the certain period, it was useful to abandon geocentrism in favor of heliocentricism, so now a similar situation is emerging for the opposition anthropocentrism  cosmocentrism.

To assess the adequacy of the chosen conceptual approach, a selective comparative analysis of the processes of the hypothetical worldview and the real processes of the surrounding world was carried out. A preliminary analysis showed an unambiguous correlation of hypothetical and real processes of universal meaning.

In particular, in the hypothetical view of the world at the persons structural level, the fundamental basic trend is human production activity aimed at forming of the next structural level in an endless hierarchy of structural levels of the surrounding world organization, reflecting the endless process of regular self-renewal, self-organization and generation of qualitatively new forms of its being and movement.

Indeed, in the real worldview the main content, the a golden thread (according to K. Marx) of the historical process is human labor activity, development of the production base and production relations related to it (social formations). And the most noticeable tangible result of the entire historical process is the improvement of instruments of labour, the evolution of instruments of labour from the stick in the hands of ape-man to robotic industries and cybernetic monsters, from the first calculating devices to supercomputers, artificial intelligence, mechanical intelligence and the world wide web, which is developing now completely independently and spontaneously, like a real living organism.