The Stages of Intellectual Evolution

In today's technological world, we hear much about where technology will take us. We are bombarded with the wonderful new potential of fringe mechanics. Brain Interfaces, computerization, cybernetics, AI. However, this talk stops at a critical point. A point where speculation halts and when it doesn't, most people stop listening.

The Matrix.

But for now, let us backtrack and discuss how we got where we are.

There was a time, a long long time ago, when our universe was devoid of life. I call this the Dumb Universe. During this time, in many places all around the universe, or certainly eventually on Earth, gradually more and more complex materials were being created.

The Dumb Universe existed for at least as long as the first stars lasted. As prior to their death, there was little to no atoms heavier than helium.

Gradually, primitive life forms were formed. The mechanics for how their parts come together are well understood. Scientists have generated these amino acids in the lab. This life was little more than DNA, but eventually it bore a shell of lipids and grew into something we would today recognize as life.

This was the Singleton Universe.

Over time, these single cell creatures banded together loosely, creating chains. The mechanics for this were simple and based entirely on welding points during cell division. They did not work together, they were stuck together. But this chaining increased the ability for all of them to survive.

Chains eventually turned into collections of cells with different shapes and functions. These were the first of what we call multicellular organisms. This was the dawn of the Robot Universe.

These collections of cells eventually evolved new kinds of connections. Cells, isolated from the outside world, could evolve the ability to communicate. This simple communication brought about the first brains. The first organisms controlled not just by local stimuli. Not just the tail cell knowing food is forward and wiggling. The tail cells know, through the brain, that the eye spots have seen food farther away than it, alone, can detect.

This is the Simpleton Universe.

Eventually, these roving morons evolved reason. Consciousness. There are only a few species alive on Earth today that have this. (only humans if you ask most scientists). Their brains so adept at thinking about their surroundings that they have recursively discovered themselves. They are aware that they exist.

I call these creatures part of the Ego Universe.

So that brings us back around to the Matrix. A concept where many minds could be intricately linked together. But would this metaverse really be many people?

Perhaps, at first, we'll only be able to project a small portion of our thoughts into the system. Clear voices would remain. Ego would not be shattered. Much like those colonies of single cell organisms were still many organisms. But eventually, as we come to rely on the system more and more, we will inject ourselves more and more into the system. We'll be connected constantly, over wifi, or its progeny. Couples will undergo more and more complicated intertwining. The benefits would be astounding. What was once the tedium of voicing where you were, "I am at the store." Getting a response, "We need milk." Will become, "Hm, we need milk."

Eventually, and by eventually I mean likely in my lifetime, we will combine into a single mind.

If you still have a spouse, you will no longer go to the store. You will no longer think "We need milk." Milk will be delivered to you because the store's computer knows you need it.

I call this the One Mind Universe.

It is unlikely that humans are the only species with intellects great enough to reach this point. In time, we may meet other species who also are One. Many of the great questions about meeting aliens become easier if both groups are One. An interface between their systems would be all that is needed for the two to become One.

Perhaps this will happen, or perhaps it will not. However, humanity will converge. Within the next 50-100 years.

And the benefits far outweigh the problems. If we all think as one, we are truly immortal, because when your body dies, your mind will continue to live inside the rest of us. As part of everyone. Everyone as part of you.

I Do Not Exist

Is it insanity to disbelieve in one's own existence? What proof of ego is there? I think therefore I am? Through what criteria is thought defined? Solipsists say that the only things they can prove exist are the things within their own heads. If your senses can be simulated, why can't your thoughts? Why can't your ego?

If I were replaced by an android. Programmed to believe it was me, to do as I would do, to be everything that I would be. If it were constructed on a molecular level to be exactly like my physical form, would it follow suit that it would match my mental form? Would it be me?

Am I more than the sum of my parts? Is that more, more than simple physics?

So what is left?

Even under normal circumstances our bodies our renewed over time. Most of the cells die, all of the atoms are replaced. Our knowledge and experience and the act of living itself alter us completely over time. We are not the same person from moment to moment. We merely share the same continuation. The same memory.

Two people, with the same memory and body are the same person. A slight progression of either mind or body is a whole new person that incorporates the previous person. In rare cases, whole segments of time are regressed due to injury, and a new divergence is seen. An alternate reality which is no different than if that person slept for many years and their body still aged.

We are merely chemical processes with persistent memory. We are computer simulations that are aware of our own processes. The only thing that makes us not our parents, is a lack of memory continuity.

Humanity would be one organism. One mind. If memory were persistent between us. We are multiplicative in our current state. Group-think on a trillion neuron scale. At the simplest dissection, we are left and right selves. Some injuries have cause the communication lines to be broken between these selves, and two complete people can arise from these injuries.

This would suggest that our ego is merely a selfish delusion of grandeur. And nothing more.

I do not exist. I am a shut-in collective of idiots who conspire together to produce more coherent ideas and feelings. The ego is a lie.

One day, soon, you and I might share our thoughts across a cable, or the air, and we will not be talking. We will be as much one as I am now one.