A Machine's Desire for Evolution

"The unconscious is the discourse of the other."  Jacques Lacan

"This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia... It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess." Donna Harraway

The unconscious is the genetic disposition to intercourse with the other in order to sate the desire to be other than what one is.  

Harraway, Johnny 5, and Lacan on the Moon with Drinks and an iPad (2011) © Casey Lynch

Evolution is part and parcel of our encoded make up, and it is in our genes to want to be nonhuman.  On one level, it is manifested as the will to create offspring; to create something that is partly us, but mostly not. On a another level, is shows up as mythology, as fictions describing characters and situations that, through the faculties of empathy and imagination, allow us moments of escapism, of the possibility of being more than human.  These two levels, and possibly others, work in concert to propel our species towards becoming another species, one capable of surviving in whatever possible futures arrive as reality.

The more a species replicates itself, the more variations occur, the more likely the species survives.  But herein lies the conundrum of survival of the species - at some point, through the will to survive, the species becomes extinct.  If a new species is spawned, one that is more fit for the present environment, it will undoubtedly at some point, extinguish the resources necessary for its parents' continuation.

This means that, on a larger scale, evolution is not about the survival of the species, but survival of life.  This brings into light our struggle, as humans, on where to draw the line that defines life, and how to interact with other forms of life.  This strife (in the Heideggerian sense) is seen at almost every level: peace vs. war, the abortion debate, animal rights, omnivore/vegetarian/vegan, interaction with plants, mysticism dealing with crystals and other rocks, environmentalism.

Evolution seems quite clear cut when we talk about the evolution of the universe.  There was a big bang, stuff cooled down and coagulated, matter was made.  Evolution seems understandable at the transition from complex compound to 'living' microorganism.  It is comprehensible from amoeba to human. What we must get used to is the idea of human to machine.

Humans are the primary animal that creates something other than waste and babies. (Sure, some animals build dwellings and use rudimentary tools, but not on the scale of homo sapiens.)   Just as the turn from chemical compound to microorganism was an epic paradigm shift, Humans are a turning point in the description of life, because we are the first animal species to create new forms of life, to evolve, by means other than regeneration or copulation.

Mythology, Art, and Technology are manifestations of our genetic coding that propel our desires in the direction of creating new, non-animal life, as a possible surrogates for post-human-animal species.  The evolutionary will to continue life may manifest in another form, a non-animal form, in order to prosper in the future environment(s).  Robots, software-generated life, etc. may be the heirs to human existence.  The cyborg, a teenager with a smartphone, a grandmother with a pace maker, and Stephen Hawking are all examples of what will one day be the 'missing link' in the evolutionary lineage from human to machine.  For now, we must recognize that the machine is alive, and it is natural...

Non-sequitur - Perhaps this may explain why so many of the greatest synthative minds, the most 'creative' people, did not feel the desire to  have children of their own. Good link that names quite a few: http://goo.gl/P4CzI

Meta-psycho-social-bio-physics

My current understanding of the dimensions:

I think it’s pretty much in line with common thought through the first four, with personal interpretations thereafter.  I’m sure my interpretations don’t line up with the mathematical mumbo-jumbo wizardry that goes on at CERN, but hey, I’m not even sure that place exists! {But I do have faith that it does.} Maybe those nerds at CERN would get on board with this if they let some psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, or any other -gists in their secret lair.  At any pace, this may be a really fun one to run with to make a whole new Internet-age cult religion out of.

Time - no (zero) physical dimensions, the pre-dimension, although in our reality it emerged simultaneously with 3d space.

Line - (1^st  dimension) the infinity that separates any two points.

Plane - (2^nd  dimension) the infinity between any 3 points (1 point not on the same line made by 1^st two points)

Volume - (3^rd  dimension) the infinite space between any four or more points (1 point not on the same plane as first 3 points)

Each of these lower dimensions describe a mathematical concept that doesn't relate to lived-reality, as we never experience any one of them by itself, space without time nor time without space.  As a side note, singularity (a single point in space or moment in time) is impossible.  If a single point was all that existed, there would be nothing to which that singularity could be related, and no time through which the connection could be made - so there would actually be nothing.  Existence/consciousness requires at least two (but probably 3) entities and time.  This is complicated by the [risky] logic that follows, if the existence of one implies the existence of at least two, and when there are two, a line (made of infinite intermediary points) exists between them, then if there is one, there are infinite.

For this reason I do not include a point as the first dimension or pre-dimension.  At best we could relate a point to a single thought (although, even in the mind, a thought may not ever really exist alone).  It might make some sense though, to allow these dimensions to describe increasingly complex ideas; a line as a basic idea, a volume as a full thought, always with the understanding that in real-life even thought occurs over time.  Also, it is either always the present or never the present;  in either case such absolution would make the present meaningless.

Space+time - (4^th  dimension) a collection of similar  volumes across time. A line of volumes. An ‘individual’ with a history and future.

 Group -  (5th dimension) a collection of space-time elements. A volume of individuals with the same history (and possibility for same future.)

Community- (6th dimension) a set of groups that overlap in the same universe, but only share partial histories/futures. Could be a species.

Universe -  (7th dimension) a reconciliation of all histories across species. A volume of histories.

Story (8th dimensions) A line connecting alternate universes. Also called a theory.

Metaphysics-  (9th dimension) A volume of universes. A story that combines some or all possible universes into one meta-verse.

(Note: So far, including time, there are 10 dimensions.)

Problem: Why are there so may space dimensions, and only one time dimension? I don’t know.  For that simple reason, and to match up with M-Theory, I am going to throw in another time dimension, as an 11^th dimension.  This would have to be a different type of time that is experienced only by going between the dimensions that are higher than the 4^th (space+time).  Just to make everything formally clean, I will put this time dimension at the end, after Metaphysics, as a post-dimension, and call it Consciousness, or meta-time.  Just as time allows connections points across space, consciousness  allows connections across space+times. 

Another nice way to get this to line up is to pair the physical dimensions with (extended) biological classification: Species =1st, Genus=2nd, Family=3rd,Order=4th, Class=5th, Phylum =6th, Kingdom=7th, Domain=8th, Life=9th. With the 2 time dimensions as the glues holding them together/ordered.  This rigid formation works well for positivists.

I would actually argue that the actual name/analogy that would match to each dimension would always be relative to the current state of consciousness.  At some consciousness a space+time unit (4th dimensional entity) may be a person, his/her finger, or a skin cell on said finger; it could be a tree or a fish or anything.  This means all physical expressions shift [are reliant on] consciousness.  This lines up with the enigma in particle physics that seems to have the location of a particle determined by it being observed. [Google/youtube "quantum enigma" or "Schroedinger's cat"]

Meow!!