What is Next Stage of Human Evolution?

[Zinjanthropos]

Not so much as it pertains to physical changes but what follows the consciousness adaptation?

Five years old but thought this was a great take.

https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/...-evolution

Excerpt: The ability to look forward and evolve consciously comes at the exact moment it becomes necessary for our survival.

Author thinks we’ve already started. When I think of all the doomsday scenarios I read and heard about in my lifetime, the author may be right.

Unfortunately it seems like we need to kill each other first. Would be interesting if that next conscious level requires some violence if only to shatter some beliefs. If we are to consciously take the next step, peace may be high on the priority list.

‘And you know that peace can only be won, when you’ve blown ‘em all to Kingdom Come’….Country Joe MacDonald

[confused2]

Assuming you're in child bearing mode..
If you could give birth to a child that would be cleverer than you, never suffer any pain and live for ever.. would you want that child?
I'm thinking of an AI and I'm also thinking you probably wouldn't want it.
Whatever you think an AI can't do .. replace with "an AI can't yet do" ..

[Zinjanthropos]

Assuming you're in child bearing mode..
If you could give birth to a child that would be cleverer than you, never suffer any pain and live for ever.. would you want that child?
I'm thinking of an AI and I'm also thinking you probably wouldn't want it.
Whatever you think an AI can't do .. replace with "an AI can't yet do" ..

You could be on to something there C2. If AI is a conscious entity in itself then I assume it will or can take care of its own survival adaptations. Consciousness also may play no favourites, to exist in this universe anyway it can. Machine or organic, whatever works.

[confused2]

..If AI is a conscious entity in itself then I assume it will or can take care of its own survival adaptations. Consciousness also may play no favourites, to exist in this universe anyway it can. Machine or organic, whatever works.

Like.
Briefly defining consciousness as something that is required to enable a thing to modify the environment to suit itself .. a successful consciousness and a clear conscience might not be compatible.

[C C]

Not so much as it pertains to physical changes but what follows the consciousness adaptation?

[...] https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/...-evolution

Excerpt:  The ability to look forward and evolve consciously comes at the exact moment it becomes necessary for our survival. 

[...] Unfortunately it seems like we need to kill each other first. Would be interesting if that next conscious level requires some violence if only to shatter some beliefs. If we are to consciously take the next step, peace may be high on the priority list. [...]

Another excerpt: "In this context I would like to make an evolutionary case for spiritual practice. At its heart spirituality is about making ourselves adaptable. Rather than being unconscious slaves to maladaptive drives, spirituality creates an awareness around our choices. It fosters the compassion needed to move beyond tribalism. And it makes us less attached to our beliefs: we feel less rattled when they are challenged and are better able to learn from others."

The only next step I see that really eliminates tribalism and ("selfish") individuality is the emergence of a technological-based collective mind (or engineered "spirituality"), akin to the Borg of Star Trek. In a sense, it's similar to the sacrifice that single-celled life forms made when they incrementally surrendered their free-roaming independence to become components of a multicellular organism.

Classic collectivists would have been content with everyone eventually being subsumed under the immortal identity of an organization like the Party (below). Since the futuristic prospect of something like the electronically mind-linked Borg probably wasn't even available in science fiction back then.

If evolution has a tendency toward "units" combining to create ever larger and more complex units, then the Left has always been favored by evolution to ultimately succeed.

That doesn't mean that assimilation and the downfall of the West and its individualism slash property rights orientation could not be delayed for centuries more via continued struggle. But that extension in turn opens up more opportunities for humanity to go extinct in the course of that resistance and defiance. Alternatively, if autonomous machines rise and take over, then that's another option for intelligence to continue, even minus humans merging to become a legit superorganism.

1984 (Orwell): [...]  'Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party is immortal.'

As usual, the voice had battered Winston into helplessness. [...] 'I don't know -- I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.'

'We control life, Winston, at all its levels. [...] we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable...'

[...] O'Brien smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician, Winston,' he said. 'Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?'

'No.'

'Then where does the past exist, if at all?'

'In records. It is written down. [...and..] In the mind. In human memories.'

'In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?'

'But how can you stop people remembering things?' cried Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial...

[...] 'But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party...'

[Magical Realist]

[Image: QlhS4GS.jpeg]