The ideological foundations of technological singularity
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The objective basis for the interaction of the general scientific picture of the world and special scientific knowledge is their common object of study – the external world. The general scientific view of the world summarizes and systematizes knowledge about the world received from other sciences, while it itself rises to a higher level and gives the ideological generalization of the results and general methods of further research, which, in turn, allows the special sciences, on condition of new empirical data accumulation, to use this general scientific level of knowledge as a matrix for scientific research in the process of restructuring its own logical foundations during its intensive development. This ensures the emergence of new fundamental theories, in connection with which natural science enters the next phase of its historical movement.
But at the same time, factual material also appears for generalization within the framework of the general scientific picture of the world. It summarizes the achievements of science of a higher development level, clarifies the previous methodological principles and, in an updated form, brings them back to the natural sciences. Along with the heuristic role of the general scientific picture of the world in relation to the processes of formation of new theoretical ideas and hypotheses (as a matrix of scientific research), another important methodological function should be mentioned, namely, the ideological one – as a matrix for building a coherent system, uniting the fragmented mosaic knowledge and forming a value system orientation of the researcher. According to academician A.D. Aleksandrov, “… the statement about the uselessness of dialectics, philosophy, etc., is nothing more than the self-satisfied lack of culture, shown by the undeveloped"hard worker"shows, who boasts of the fact that all these theories are not needed.” Outstanding researchers Louis de Broglie, M. Planck, A. Einstein, I. Pavlov, the founder of cybernetics N. Wiener and many others adhered to a similar point of view. Philosophical principles have great methodological significance and provide an opportunity to intensively develop the special sciences.
At the beginning of the third millennium, it became possible to correct the general scientific picture of the world based on information obtained in the field of special sciences. This process is a multi-stage one; it includes a number of well-known stages of scientific knowledge of the new content, including hypothetical views of the world. The constructive elements of the hypothetical energoinformational view of the world suggested in the book are the concepts of “energy” and “information”, and the dialectical methodology has been adopted as the main method of analysis. Only from the standpoint of dialectics can one understand the complex, full of contradictions, path of the objective truth formation, connection of the elements of absolute and relative, stable and changeable at each stage of the science development, transitions from one form of generalization to another, deeper forms of cognition of the surrounding world. Chapter I considered the general provisions of the dialectical methodology. The suggested hypothetical view of the world allows the separate areas of scientific knowledge to be integrated into a single system, adequately explaining the actual vital processes of the surrounding world in their integrity, dynamism and inseparable interconnection, as well as heuristically prognosticate the evolutionary processes development. Chapter II considers the possible structure of the surrounding world in the framework of the energy-information concept of the world from the standpoint of universal cosmocentrism.
The universal concept of the dialectic theory is the principle of development. According to the generally accepted definition, development refers to “the endless process of regular self-renewal, self-organization of matter and the generation of qualitatively new, including the rational forms of its being and movement”. It is appropriate to raise the question: if development is an endless process of generating qualitatively new forms, then can be organic life and homo sapiens, as its highest form, the final, finite stage of the evolution of being in itsrational forms of being, as well as the movement of matter? Or is it still transitional, suggesting the possibility of the further generation of qualitatively new, more highly organized rational forms of matter, continuing the endless regular process of its self-renewal and selforganization? The answer to this question, perhaps, will determine the development of philosophical thought of the third millennium and will lead to the division of thinkers into two camps – anthropocentrists and cosmocentrists.
The analysis of scientific information of the beginning of the third millennium is evidence in favor of the cosmocentric approach and makes possible to reveal the undeniable signs of continuing the process of qualitatively added complexity of the thinking matter organization forms, and its endless regular self-renewal. The conceptual and informational basis for this is new scientific disciplines born in the 20th century. First of all, cybernetics, which showed the unity of control and communication in the animal and the machine. As a consequence, the fundamental possibilities of inorganic devices self-organization can be the considered, which effectively reproduce rational anti-entropic productive activity of man in the course of transforming and structuring the surrounding world.
Another scientific discipline is psychoanalysis, which discovered the energetic sources of human mental activity. “If it were not for Freud, – said N. Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, – there would be no cybernetics”. The very fact of the existence of dialectic patterns of human functioning, the dialectic of homo sapiens, follows naturally from the universality of the dialectical method of cognition and the inseparable interconnection between the surrounding world and man as an element of one of the related and interdependent structural levels in its hierarchical organization. Chapter III is devoted to the analysis of the dialectic patterns of human functioning and the principle of universal cosmocentrism arising from them.
As it was already mentioned, the correspondence betweenthe constructed hypothetical worldview and the real one should be tested based on feedback concerning its ability to serve as a scientific search matrix for special scientific disciplines in terms of searching for the fundamentally new phenomena, processes and practical technologies. Chapter IV considers examples of the constructive use of a hypothetical energoinformational worldview as a matrix for scientific search.
First, in the applied aspect, the energoinformational worldview requested as the ideological basis of the AppliedInternetics, which is the new direction of science that studies the properties, patterns and ways of using the global Internet in various spheres of human activity. At a certain stage in the network information formations development, it is completely unexpected for homo sapiens (but predictably and regularly in a dialectical evolutionary scenario) a spontaneous jump-like transformation of IT systems into a fundamentally new quality may occur. The prospects are fantastic, but from the point of view of the energoinformational picture of the world, they are inevitable in the scenario of the dialectical evolution of the surrounding world. How to carry out (and whether it is necessary to carry out?) practical counteraction to the development of such a scenario?
Another significant applied moment is the fact that within the framework of the new view of the world there is a categorical apparatus for analyzing fundamentally new formations of actual reality that can change our daily life in the near future, that is, informational-productive"smart dust” Internet complexes (smart-dust formations). Prototypes of the latter are already being produced by research laboratories. Essentially, we have to deal with mobile local Internet complexes “scattered” in a certain space, unregistered by organs of human senses, but capable of intelligent dynamic interaction with the environment (including human one), and in the future, aimed at targeted transformation of this environment. How to classify such objects of the IT-industry in the context of traditional orthodox ideological views?
In chapter V, the fundamentally new innovative technology of information-controlled self-assembly of nanostructured materials is seen on the horizon. It can be designated as one of the priority areas of applied research in the framework of a new picture of the world. The technology of information-driven processes assumes the ability to control the processes of self-assembly and self-organization of physicochemical systems using super-weak energy (informational) signals and is characterized by the transfer of information between objects, leading to the excitation and development of energy interchange processes that alter the state of objects in accordance with the specified initial requirements. One of the key aspects here is the ability of physicochemical systems to perceive external information with a recorded change in the physicochemical properties (the so-called “informational behavior” systems). Research work in this direction will open the way to fundamentally new innovative technologies, primarily in the field of opto-, nano- and microelectronics, nanostructures replication, recording, storing and reading of the information, and will also be indisputable evidence of the hypothetical worldview the correspondence to the real structure of the surrounding world.
Further, the energoinformational view of the world can become a philosophical basis for new, rapidly developing theories, such as trans-, post-humanism and the theory of technological singularity. Transhumanism (from lat. trans – across, through, and homo – a human) is an international movement that supports the use of science and technology to improve the mental and physical capabilities of a person in order to increase the efficiency of human existence. The question is to what extent the ideas of transhumanism are grounded? Then followsposthumanism – a rational worldview based on the idea that human evolution is not complete and can be radically continued in the future. Supporters of posthumanism believe that if the mind (posthuman) is created, which is fundamentally different from the human, then the future fate of society and civilization cannot be predicted. In this aspect, the energoinformational picture of the world is the only one that currently exists, in which, using scientifically based methods of dialectical methodology, it is possible to predict the further fate of civilization and man, to give logically intelligible correct answers to fundamental questions.
Technological singularity in futurology is a hypothetical explosion-like increase in the speed of scientific and technological progress, presumably following the creation of artificial intelligence, self-replicating automated devices and human integration with IT systems. According to the forecasts of the well-known futurologist R. Kurzweil, the technological singularity may occur already around 2045. One of the fundamental open questions about singularity is whether it will come, when it comes, how fast the technological changes will occur and what awaits us beyond the stage of singularity? Adequate answers to these questions are currently missing.
The energoinformational concept of a worldview allows the theory of singularity and R. Kurzweil’s forecasts to be entered into the scientific view of the world, after withdrawing them from the field of futurology, which creates the basis for a scientifically well-grounded search for answers to the questions posed using dialectical methodology. The paradoxical forecast in the frameworks of the energoinformational concept is that the singularity may actually be more radical than in the view of R. Kurzweil and will not be limited to the improvement of human capabilities (dynamic models of the Old type). We can talk about the formation of a new structural level of actual reality – the level of dynamic models of the New type. A concrete step in this direction is the emergence and going beyond the human control of an intellectual monster – the global “web” of the network information space – the Internet. Following the creation of artificial intelligence and its symbiosis with the network web, a person will lose the ability to understand and control the processes occurring in it. From the point of view of dialectics, the inevitable leap of IT systems into a fundamentally new quality, which is not amenable to perception at the structural level of homo sapiens, can occur unexpectedly. Dialectic analysis of the processes in progress warns that beyond the horizon of the singularity we expect a new world – a world of dynamic models of a New type. The prospects are fantastic, but from the of the dialectical methodology point of view they are inevitable.
Chapter 1 Basic Axiomatics
1.1 Dialectics as a methodology of science
Dialectics (Greek dialegomai – talking, reasoning) – the science of the most general laws of the nature, society and thinking development. A long history preceded the scientific understanding of dialectics, and the very concept of dialectics arose in the course of processing and overcoming the original meaning of the term. Even in ancient philosophy was put strong emphasis on the variability of everything that exists, it understood reality as a process, shed light on the role that the transition of any kind of each characteristic to the opposite plays in this process (Heraclitus, partly Miletian materialists, Pythagoreans). Then the term “dialectic” has not yet been applied to such studies. Originally, this term (dialektike techne – “the art of dialectics”) denotes the ability to argue through questions and answers or the art of the concept classification. Aristotle considers Zeno of Elea as the inventor of the dialectic, who analyzed the contradictions that arise when trying to think about the concepts of motion and set. Aristotle himself distinguishes “dialectic” from “analytics” as the science of probable opinions from the science of proving.
Plato, following the Eleatics (the Eleatic School) defines true being as identical and unchanging, nevertheless in the dialogues “Sophist” and “Parmenides” he substantiates the dialectical conclusions that the higher categories of the things existent can only be thought of in such a way that each of them is, and at the same time is not, is equal to itself and is not equal, is identical with itself and passes into its “other”. Therefore, being encompasses contradictions: it is one and plural, eternal and transient, unchanging and changeable, resting and moving. Contradiction is a prerequisite for encouraging the soul to think. This art is, according to Plato, the art of dialectics.
The most important stage in the development of dialectics was German classical idealism, which, unlike metaphysical materialism, considered reality not only as an object of knowledge, but also as an object of activity. Leibniz was the first to make a breach in metaphysics with his doctrine of monads self-development and the contradictory unity of the principles of knowledge and Kant, who indicated the importance of opposite forces in the physical and cosmogonic processes, introduced (for the first time after Descartes) the idea of development into the knowledge of nature. In the theory of knowledge, Kant develops dialectical ideas in the study of “antinomies”. However, the dialectic of reason, according to Kant, is an illusion, and it is eliminated as soon as thought returns to its limits, reduced only to the knowledge of phenomena. Later in the theory of knowledge, Fichte developed an “antithetic” method of deriving categories, containing important dialectical ideas. Following Kant, Schelling develops a dialectical understanding of the laws of nature.
The apex in the development of dialectics was Hegel’s dialectic. Hegel “for the first time presented the whole natural, spiritual and historical world as a process, that is, in uninterrupted movement, change, transformation and development, and made an attempt to uncover the inner connection of this movement and development”. It was Hegel who first “discovered”, as Marx wrote, and described the inner essence of dialectics – the dialectical method of studying nature, society and cognition. In contrast to abstract definitions of intellect, the dialectical method, according to Hegel, is such a transition of one definition into another, in which it is found that these definitions are one-sided and limited, that is, contain a denial of themselves. Therefore, the dialectical method is, according to Hegel, “the soul of all the thought scientific unfolding,” it isexactly it, which brings the necessary internal connection to the content of science, and its insuperable strength lies in the internally contradictoryprogressive movement and development”. The discovery of the dialectical method constituted a whole epoch in philosophical thinking. In the first issue of the journal “Dialectics” are the following words of the founders of the journal (G. Bashlyar, P. Bernays, F. Gonset): “The idea of dialectics turns out to be the core one for modern scientific thought. However, it goes beyond this thinking to become a central element of the philosophy that embraces the diversity of knowledge” (Dialectica 1947).
At present, the understanding of the term “dialectics” is multidimensional. The use of the dialectical method in specific aspects of research has generated many variants of derived concrete dialectical theories, such as dialectical materialism, dialectic existentialism, dialectical structuralism, dialectical negativism, etc. And it is completely incorrect to use the term “dialectics” to denote these theories as then materialistic, existential, structural, negative, etc. dialectics. The dialectical theories that followed the Hegelian philosophical system, including dialectical materialism, did not introduce anything fundamentally new to the dialectical methodology; therefore, Hegel’s philosophical system is of undoubted interest as the primary point of genesis for the dialectical method and the example of its use in the study of nature, society and cognition.
Thus, first of all, the term “dialectics"means the philosophical method of researching nature, society and cognition. Only from the standpoint of dialectics one can understand the way of the objective truth formation, complex, full of contradictions, the connection of the elements of absolute and relative, stable and changeable at each stage of the science development, transitions from one form of generalization to another, deeper forms of the surrounding world cognition.
1.2 General guidelines for dialectical method
The reality, according to Hegel’s dialectic, does not stand still, but changes, develops. Everything that was valid, reasonable, necessary some time ago, is denied in the course of the next time period, loses its right to exist. The place of dying reality is occupied by a new one, more viable. Hence the conclusion: “everything that is real in the field of human history becomes unreasonable over time, and everything that is rational in human heads has reason to become real, no matter how it contradicts existing apparent reality” (30-XXI, 275).
Hegel’s dialectic, as Engels notes, finally refuted all sorts of ideas about the final significance of the results of human thinking and action. In other words, the process of cognition can never be completed, since the object of knowledge, namely, the nature and society, is in constant change and development. “For dialectic philosophy,” writes F. Engels, “there is nothing entirely and permanently established, unconditional, sacred. On everything and in everything it sees the signs of an inevitable fall, and nothing can stand it except for the continuous process of emergence and destruction, the infinite ascent from the lower to the higher. It itself is only a simple reflection of this process in the human brain…” (30-XXI, 276). “We should never forget that all the knowledge we have acquired is pro re nata limited and are determined by the circumstances in which we acquired them… What is stated as necessary is formed by the pure coincidences, and what is considered a coincidence is in fact a form, beyond which necessity is hidden” (30-XXI, 302). These are revolutionary conclusions implied by very spirit of Hegel’s dialectic.
1.3 Universality of the dialectical method of knowledge
The universality of the dialectic theory of development has recently caused great debates, and in the course of criticism of the recent past, dialectics in all its variants is often rejected as “the ideological support of totalitarianism”. They avoid dialectic, guided by very superficial considerations: the collapse of the social system, which, as it seemed, was constructed on the foundations of materialistic dialectics; failure to build a system of categories of dialectics suitable for any material; unpromising controversy about the relationship between formal-logical and dialectical contradictions; scandalous condemnation from the standpoint of dialectical materialism of the most outstanding achievements of modern scientific knowledge (31, 33).
K. Popper, for example, believes that “Hegel and his school put forward a theory that exaggerates the significance of dialectics and is threateningly deceptive” (5, 127). One can hardly take seriously the criticism of dialectics by K. Popper, because it is aimed at the most primitive ideas about dialectics that have taken place in Russian philosophy and are associated with an understanding of the contradictions in formal logic and dialectics. A number of researchers (for example, V. Sadovsky, V. Smirnov, and others) do not accept dialectics because “dialectics in Hegelian (and, therefore, in Marxist) understanding forms the basis of the ideology of both fascist and Soviet totalitarianism” (5, 139). This is similar to the absurd rejection, for example, of the theory of
atomic physics only because it is the basis of destructive nuclear weapons.
It must be admitted that the baselines of the “professional dialecticians” themselves in Soviet philosophy also contributed to the rejection of dialectics. Unfortunately, serious and honest supporters of the dialectics tradition, who sought to rely on the experience of the history of philosophy, primarily on the German classics, failed to adequately modernize the dialectic and demonstrate its constructive potential for the philosophical and scientific thought of our time (5, 152). However, this does not diminish the significance of dialectics as a phenomenon of philosophical culture. According to B. S. Bibler, – dialectics is “the most characteristic offspring of philosophical logic – especially that of the modern age” (5, 171). “It is wrong to disregard the dialectical tradition in philosophy — said B.S. Shvyrev, – it is necessary to clearly identify its real semantic content, which has not lost its constructive significance in our days” (5, 158). At present, in modern Western philosophy, there is a new interest in dialectics, and “well-known experts in symbolic logic are discussing the possibility of creating systems of dialectical logic” (5, 118). A number of research schools are solving the problem not only of rehabilitation, but also of the further development and improvement of the theory of dialectics (39, 130).
Despite numerous and fruitless discussions, the dialectics in rather vigorous and quite correct way, without references to Kant, Hegel or Marx, is mastered by modern natural scientists. Whatever branch of knowledge we take, dialectic situations are found everywhere, more precisely, movements towards dialectics, that is, towards acquiring a holistic vision of the object of knowledge. First of all, this refers to the branches of modern scientific knowledge, where contradictions in the dialectical sense are presented in the most obvious way: a view in the biological theory of evolution, exploited by the methodologists of science in the branch of special scientific knowledge; set, topos in mathematics; phoneme in linguistics; socio-economic formation in historical knowledge, etc. (32, 50). It is exactly the dialectical contrariety to create the implications, which allow things to enter the historical process. All the sciences, that are on the evolutionary path, finally come to the conclusion on the necessity of the dialectically contrary characteristics of the evolving object (31, 32). According to the Nobel laureate I. Prigogine, the time of the science of Galileo, Newton, Kant is over, and the time of the science of Hegel, Darwin and, especially, Marx begins (31, 45).