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