Evolutionary Quanta | The Emerging Properties that Define Life
In preparation for a piece I am revising on Metasystem Transition, I was doing some research on Evolutionary Quanta and the concept of sapience. The classical quanta of Metasystem Transition display the emerging properties and defining faculties that have lead us to our current status, and may help us to predict the next step in our evolution. They are as follows:
1. Control of Posistion – Motion
2. Control of Motion – Irritability
3. Control of Irritability – Reflex
4. Control of Reflex – Association
5. Control of Association – Thought
6. Control of Thought – Culture
Hubble Space Image
Most believe that the future lies in what we call Artificial Intelligence (AI), and as an evolutionary quanta would be classified as Scientific Control of Culture. My belief is that social networking will play a significant role in this development, and will be the conduit by which the “Control of Culture” is shaped. Although this shift might not be a Metasystemic Transition in itself, it will most likely contribute to the next one. Previous Metasystem Transitions include:
- the change that occurred on this planet when life formed
- the shift from single celled to multi celled organisms, and
- the emergence of symbolic thought
The last thing i want to mention is that the emergence of sapience (the ability for beings to operate using judgement), as differnet than sentience (the ability for beings to feel/perceive subjectively) may ultimately decide our fate as a species. We have been bestowed by some great force, the responsibility of judgement, intention, awareness, control, and intelligence…and it is up to us to harness this “intelligence explosion”. My guess is that technilogical singularity is a likely scenario…so we better be prepared!
