World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures

Cadell Last

Global
Brain
Singularity
Universal History, Future Evolution and
Humanity’s Dialectical Horizon
World-Systems Evolution and Global
Futures

Series Editors
Christopher Chase-Dunn, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA
Barry K. Gills, Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki,
Finland
Leonid E. Grinin, National Research University Higher School of Economics,
Moscow, Russia
Andrey V. Korotayev, National Research University Higher School of Economics,
Moscow, Russia
This series seeks to promote understanding of large-scale and long-term processes of
social change, in particular the many facets and implications of globalization. It
critically explores the factors that affect the historical formation and current evolu-
tion of social systems, on both the regional and global level. Processes and factors
that are examined include economies, technologies, geopolitics, institutions,
conflicts, demographic trends, climate change, global culture, social movements,
global inequalities, etc.
Building on world-systems analysis, the series addresses topics such as globali-
zation from historical and comparative perspectives, trends in global inequalities,
core-periphery relations and the rise and fall of hegemonic core states, transnational
institutions, and the long-term energy transition. This ambitious interdisciplinary
and international series presents cutting-edge research by social scientists who study
whole human systems and is relevant for all readers interested in systems approaches
to the emerging world society, especially historians, political scientists, economists,
sociologists, geographers and anthropologists.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15714

Cadell Last

Global Brain Singularity

Universal History, Future Evolution
and Humanity’s Dialectical
Horizon
Cadell Last
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Brussels, Belgium

ISSN 2522-0985 ISSN 2522-0993 (electronic)

World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures
ISBN 978-3-030-46965-8 ISBN 978-3-030-46966-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

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Dedicated to
MY FATHER, Vincent Salvo Last (1961–2017),
Your spirit lives through me.
Testimonials

‘This book is an impressive piece of scholarship, integrating results from disciplines

as diverse as history, cosmology, philosophy and economics in order to understand
the changes in our present information society. These changes are so drastic that they
point to a singularity, i.e. a discontinuous transition to a wholly different regime. The
author lucidly reviews the main scenarios for this “singular” future that have been
proposed by contemporary academics, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses.’
(Dr. Francis Heylighen, Cyberneticist and pioneer of the Global Brain concept)

‘Cadell Last’s book is an impressive exploration of scientific, economic, social,

political and psychological dimensions of the major transition we are living in. A
must read for anybody interested in the future of humanity.’ (Dr. Clement Vidal,
Philosopher and author of The Beginning and the End)

‘Cadell Last presents an ambitious take on the interrelation between several

grandest themes of human theorising and does so with erudition and excellent
style. Combining the conceptual frameworks of evolution, big history and psycho-
analysis with futuristic metaphors of the Singularity and the Global Brain, he draws a
line that connects the universe with the depth of the human mind, looping the latter
as an increasingly potent creator of the former. While this idea is perhaps easier
understood in relation to the (human) mind, he adds the concept of the Global Brain
to the picture, pointing to the entire web of the technologically mediated human
interactions as the proper locus of the creative cognitive power in/of the universe.’
(Dr. Marta Lenartowicz, Social Scientist and director of the School of Thinking)

‘Cadell’s book offers a valuable contribution both to the development of the

general theory of social macroevolution and to the study of the twenty-first century
singularity. It employs the big history perspective in a rather appropriate way. In
addition to its profound scientific value the book is distinguished by a certain rather
charming artistry.’ (Dr. Andrey Korotayev, Interdisciplinary Scientist and pioneer
of World-Systems Theory)

‘It is not every day that one has the opportunity to delve into such thought-
provoking piece of academic work. The author intermingles a set of concepts,

vii
viii Testimonials

approaches and worldviews in a philosophically challenging way; in order to explore

and hopefully address past shortcomings in understanding the immanence of both
human beings and human civilization. Contemporary science (most notably in the
fields of computation, quantum mechanics, cognition, neuroscience and genetics) is
achieving results that cannot be fully explained within the scientific realm of the
particular science where these results are generated. There is a need to introduce
philosophical thinking in order to situate and fully understand results that, although
“scientific”, are highly significant for the philosophical debate on issues such as free
will, consciousness, etc. Cadell’s work brings philosophical thinking into play to
analyse and explore important scientific results, and manages to produce a set of
insights that helps scholars (from both humanities and sciences) to better contextu-
alize within a grand narrative the nature of their results. As a consequence, Cadell’s
work is also contributing to diminishing the gap between science and humanities that
has characterized most of modernity (the “two cultures” debate). This work, by
deploying philosophy to better situate the new scientific and technological
discoveries, is contributing to the necessary blurring of this modern divide. This
work is of the utmost importance in avoiding both scientific reductionism as well as
forms of obscurantism that might push the two fields (even more) apart. Instead of
falling into a common oversimplification of quite complex issues, his work keeps the
complexity of the phenomena being explored. Moreover, in a time of postmodern
fragmentation, it is laudable that someone takes the initiative to recover the concept
of totality as a necessary one to understand past, present and future realities. Given
the ongoing proliferation of scientific and social results, many of them developed in
complete isolation from each other, it becomes difficult, especially for the people
working directly with these discoveries, to explore the intersections and positions
that each one of these results have with each other. For such endeavour, one needs to
tackle reality as a whole, being willing to speculate and make daring conjectures.
Again, Cadell’s work is addressing this shortcoming, by, for instance, developing a
criticism of scientific reductionist and the postmodern critique of grand narratives.’
(Dr. Alexandre Pais, Mathematician, Educator, and Scholar of Jacques Lacan)
Preface

There is no way to say with objective certainty when the journey of writing this book
started. The origin is eternally present in our repetitive action. Without recourse to
this assumption how do I select the origin of my journey? Did it start the day I
officially decided to start my PhD programme? Did it start the day I first reached out
to my current PhD supervisor? Did it start the day I first heard about the technologi-
cal singularity? Did it start the day I became fascinated by science and evolution?
Did it start the day I took my first step onto a big yellow school bus taking me to
kindergarten? All such origins can only be retroactively posited linear narratives
structuring a progressive teleological illusion.
Nonetheless, a specific moment in the context of this book sticks out as of
particular relevance. For the purpose of illustrating what you are about to read I
will select a moment that I remember like it was yesterday (indeed, it is here with me
right now). I was a young man, about 19 or 20 years old, and I was sitting on a bench
staring out at a lake near my family’s summer cottage. I was looking at the
movement of birds and a distant horizon of trees (but probably thinking about
women). Then, an older man of about 50 years old came to sit down beside
me. (I would later learn he was a fundamentalist Christian named Ross Amico).
Ross pointed at the birds and the trees and asked me:

Do you know how such complex creatures could come into being?

I remember being perplexed by the question. At the time you would certainly not
have mistaken me for a philosopher or a scientist, but probably for more of a sports
jock. Little did I know that I was coming to the end of my ‘sports days’. The days
where I would spend almost every hour either doing push-ups, barbell curls or
200 metre sprints, swinging a baseball bat, bouncing a basketball or tossing a
football. The days where I would spend almost every hour dreaming of the day
when I would be a star within an enormous crowded professional sports stadium,
dreaming of the day when I would be hitting a game winning homerun, making a
game winning three-pointer or running a game winning carry for a touchdown.
I responded to Ross:

No, I have no idea how such complex creatures could come into being.

ix
x Preface

He then handed me a book: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to

Evolution (1996) by Michael Behe. I had no idea what a ‘black box’ was, I had no
idea who Michael Behe was and, in fact, I had only a fuzzy and incoherent idea of
who ‘Darwin’ was and what he signified. He told me it was a book about ‘Intelligent
Design’ and that it would help me to understand how all the complex creatures that
appear in the world came into being as a consequence of a universal force of
conscious intelligence that guided the development of their structure.

‘So, God?’ I responded.

‘Yes,’ He said. ‘God’.

At the time I was not a man of philosophy or science, but I was also not a man of
religion or spirituality. I was a man of sports! I just wanted to put a ball (sphere) into
a hole (singularity) better than all the other men. (And, importantly, I wanted to be
recognized for it!) Let us assume it had something to do with sublimation.
Nevertheless, I read the book. For about a month I reflected on some of its
contents, at least the contents that I understood. It presented the thesis that the
biological world around me was too complex for a ‘naturalist explanation’, that
the biological world was ‘irreducibly complex’ and that its internal mechanisms (the
‘black box’) were beyond our ability to observe and study in sufficient depth. Thus,
Behe concluded, it could only be explained by invoking the workings of a conscious
and intelligent designer that was driving the process. This conscious and intelligent
creator was everything and everywhere, infusing all of Nature with its divine
guidance, and ensuring that all order was maintained in just the right configuration.
Ok, I thought. Maybe that is true, but maybe it is not. What do I know anyway? I
know only how to put a ball in a hole and I cannot even do it better than the other
men. But, who is this Darwin character? And why does Behe seem to dislike him so
much? I had, without knowing it, encountered oppositional determination in its
pure form.
I went to the local book store (probably for the first time). I searched for the
science section, and then for the biology shelf. I found On the Origin of Species
(1859) by Charles Darwin, along with many other popular science books focused on
exploring the world of biological evolution. I learned that Darwin was a naturalist
explorer who had started his own intellectual journey contemplating controversial
scientific conjectures of his time positing that the world was much older than The
Bible had posited for millennia. I learned that Darwin had challenged the Church and
the existence of God by proposing a mechanism—natural selection, of course—that
could explain how life evolved across geological timescales without recourse to a
supernatural conscious intelligence that infused all being with its guidance. I learned
that this mechanism of natural selection had simultaneously revolutionized our
understanding of biology and created an irreducible tension between natural empiri-
cal philosophers and transcendental religious theologians.
I was hooked on the ideas, I was hooked on the antagonism, I was hooked on the
mystery, I was hooked on the real. Was God real? Was Evolution real? Were they
mutually exclusive? Could God and Evolution both be real? How did things evolve
Preface xi

from the simplicity of the early universe to complexity of the present that constituted
my being? What did it mean for my life and my mind if I was surrounded by an
all-knowing conscious God, or if I was surrounded by an all-unknowing non-con-
scious Nature? What does ‘real’ mean, anyway? My life feels real, sports feels real,
is there anything more real than that?
In less than a year I had started my path of questioning by focusing on issues
related to the origin and nature of the human species. On this path I quickly
developed a definite and growing tendency towards materialist atheism supported
by evolutionary theory that would only accelerate the more I exposed myself to the
philosophy and science of evolutionary biology and anthropology. In this theory,
complexity was not thought of as an unobservable black box but something in the
realm of the understanding with the tools of critical analysis, something that could be
explained by rational humans open to learning more about the world.
Of course, as many people with a tendency to this worldview, I became attracted
to the evolutionary works of Richard Dawkins (1976, 1986, 1996, 2004). Further-
more, his infamous anti-religious book, The God Delusion (2006), seemed to reify
the distinction between the scientific and religious worldviews by forwarding the
hypothesis that belief in God was a cognitive delusion unsupported by any empirical
evidence. In this way, Dawkins advanced the idea that religion was an anachronistic
notional distortion and institutional structure devoid of contemporary relevance in a
modern world that had only managed material progress with the use of science and
reason.
I could not help but agree in the sense that religion seemed to me to be a form of
historical knowing with relevance to prehistorical and historical human beings. I
knew that prehistorical and historical human beings had no scientific ability to
answer important questions about being, like, for example, where complex creatures
come from. But, for modern humans, capable of investigating nature with the
inherited wisdom tradition of science, we should abandon our past delusions and
move forward into the future with the courage to build a new world, on the
foundation of new beliefs.
Fast forward a few years. I had started an undergraduate programme as a double
major in anthropology and history, with a minor in biology. I had become interested
in understanding the dynamics and relationship between biological and cultural
evolution. In this search, I had become interested in why human beings seemed to
be so different than other organisms and how we could account (or not account) for
this difference using evolutionary theory. From this initial interest I had stumbled
upon a new book in the library (which had become a new home away from home for
me): The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005), by Ray
Kurzweil. I remember reading the book from beginning to end without being able to
put it down. I was under the pull of yet another strange attractor.
In this book, I was being exposed to the idea of a general structure of evolution
that could be extracted from the realm of biology and framed within the context of
the universe as a whole revealing an exponential acceleration of process. Kurzweil
argued that physical, chemical, biological, cultural and technological evolution were
one continuous accelerating phenomena from the big bang origin of all spacetime
xii Preface

and matter-energy to human civilization constituted by evolving information

networks. He argued that the complexity of chemical evolution accelerated in
relation to physical evolution (operating on temporal scales of hundreds of millions
of years), biological evolution accelerated in relation to chemical evolution
(operating on temporal scales of hundreds of thousands of years), cultural evolution
accelerated in relation to biological evolution (operating on temporal scales of
millennia and centuries), and technological evolution was now accelerating in
relation to cultural evolution (operating on temporal scales of decades and years).
His hypothesis was that this acceleration was related to the ‘patterns’ of information
processing. In this frame, the pattern of traditional culture, like the religious mono-
theist culture I had come to view through a sceptical atheist materialist frame, was an
outdated evolutionary scaffolding that would eventually collapse and be replaced
with a totally other technological world.
Consequently, this book exposed me to the idea that if our current information
society continued to evolve at an accelerating pace (which seemed like a probable
prediction), then we could expect society in 2050 to undergo a further evolutionary
transition towards a post-human technological world. Moreover, this post-human
technological world would become structured by artificial general intelligence, or
AGI. In this post-human AGI world, society would be populated by conscious
intelligent beings with a higher level of consciousness and a higher level of intelli-
gence than anything in the known universe. This higher level of consciousness and
intelligence would be so advanced that they would appear from our human perspec-
tive to be supercreators, gods or God, even.
In this way, Kurzweil seemed to be arguing that, paradoxically, God did not
create the world and all of its biological forms but that something like God was
emerging internal to the processes of evolution that fundamentally constitutes human
civilization. In this frame, naturalist empirical philosophy emphasizing secular
mechanical explanations for phenomena started to collide with its opposite in
transcendental religious theology that reduced all phenomena to the existence of a
higher conscious intelligence.
Thus, this new frame presented an inverted relation to the relation that first
captured my thought. The relation I was first exposed to was about the historicity
of phenomena: did the history of phenomena in our world have a natural or
supernatural origin? In this frame, there was no question or antagonism about the
natural or supernatural historical constitution of phenomena. Indeed, Kurzweil (and I
later learned general transhumanists) did not call into question anything to do with
scientific naturalism; they thought that scientific naturalism was their closest intel-
lectual ally and the ground upon which their own theory was constructed. However,
what was being called into question was the future immanence of phenomenal
constitution, which appeared to require the positing of a higher form of
(technologically mediated) intelligence and consciousness that would be capable
of creating new worlds of phenomena.
The hole of what I have come to know as technological singularity theory proved
too tempting for my mind. I was a believer in the strong sense meaning that I now
believed that immortality and transcendence from biology were not only possible,
Preface xiii

not only probable, but our singular destiny. The human species was destined to shed
the material architecture of our shared evolutionary history in favour of an architec-
ture constructed intelligently by the mind. In the future, we would look back on the
human species as an evolutionary relic of our primordial primate origin. We would
come to recognize that reality was constituted by the conscious intelligence of our
minds and that the realm of this higher mind would direct the course of all being.
Indeed, what was immanent to natural being was the totalizing consciousness of our
creative drive.
From this revelation it seemed that, after all, the difference between the view of
Intelligent Design philosophy and Natural Evolution philosophy made all the differ-
ence in the world. In some sense I felt that I had come full circle: from God as the
conscious creator of all things around me to my free internal critical denunciation of
this conjecture in favour of a Natural explanation, and back around again through
Natural explanation to God as the constitution of all things around me. This circle
was not a perfectly smooth sphere, but instead a sphere that was nothing but a
dynamically contradictory division or opposition. Either way I had rotated around its
circumference over the course of a few years through a persistent and dedicated
desire to know the truth.
This brings us to the book itself which is in some sense an attempt to work out the
logic of this narrative. Have I resolved all the issues of how we go from a world of
biocultural ‘advanced apes’ to a world of higher level consciousness and intelli-
gence? Do I believe in a meta-level turn from God to Natural Evolution, and from
Natural Evolution back to God? Do I still wonder about how the world’s complexity
could emerge into being? And what of its consequences? I do not pretend to have
completed and closed all answers related to life, the universe and everything,
although I know the answer is not 42. The answer is not numerical, not quantifiable,
not communicable or computable. The answer is rather some infinite qualitative
dimension of love internal to the rational quantitative dimension of which we are
(I am) not yet worthy. Consequently, I do not believe such a completion or closure is
possible from the rational conjectures of one mind, however intelligent, even if
artificially superintelligent. Perhaps that is why, whenever science fiction approaches
such questions as the meaning of everything with a hypothetical supercomputer at
the end of time, the answer does not compute, cannot be given. In writing this work
all I can say is that I have pushed my mind as far as I could to hopefully inspire the
next mind who relates deeply with my own spiritual journey, and my own partial
truth.
In that spirit I now settle in to reflect on how I can tie all of these threads together
and produce a work that is in some sense what I have wanted to produce for my
whole young adult life: a major contribution to human knowledge, a reflection on
being and on reflection itself, that helps others, and inspires others, in the same way
that I have been helped and been inspired by others. In that sense, it is the goal of
deep participation in the realm of others. For without others I am nothing, and
without others this work is nothing. My message to anyone reading this right now is
not to dwell in your consciousness on the lack or failure in the other, do not even
xiv Preface

dwell in your consciousness on the contradictory other in your own heart, but rather
to see that the other, the Absolute, is in some (supra)sense already in the right order
(although beyond our comprehension), and we merely have to discern an ethic of
repetition that is worthy of its becoming.

Brussels, Belgium Cadell Last

References
Behe, M. (1996). Darwin’s black box: The biochemical challenge to evolution. Simon and
Schuster.
Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by the means of natural selection or the preservation of
favoured races in the struggle for life. New American Library.
Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford University Press.
Dawkins, R. (1986). The blind watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe
without design. W.W. Norton.
Dawkins, R. (2004). The ancestor’s tale: A pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution. Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt.
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God delusion. Random House.
Kurzweil, R. (2005). The singularity is near: When humans transcend biology. New York: Penguin.
Acknowledgements

Throughout the course of the writing of this book I was given a chance to fulfil a
dream that I held close to my heart for more than a decade. For that I can first and
foremost thank my PhD supervisor Francis Heylighen, director of the Center Leo
Apostel (CLEA), for selecting me to participate with his institute and continue my
academic career at the doctoral level.
I want to thank the core members of the Global Brain Institute—Marta
Lenartowicz, Shima Beigi, Evo Busseniers, Viktoras Kabir Veitas, David
R. Weinbaum (Weaver) and Clément Vidal—as well as the extended Evolution,
Cognition and Complexity (ECCO) group—Olivier Auber, Jon Echanove, Mixel
Kieman, Tomas Veloz, Diederik Aerts, Karin Verelst, Dirk Bruin, Petter Braathen,
Orion Maxted, Tjorven Harmsen, Marjorikka Ylisiurua, John Stewart, Marios
Kyriazis and Katarina Petrovic—for their personal presence and intellectual curios-
ity. I would add special thanks to my final doctoral committee: Francis Heylighen,
Andrey Korotayev, Alexandre Pais, Karin Francois, Marta Lenartowicz, Clément
Vidal, Dimokritos Kavadias and Paul Lussier.
I would also like to thank all of the other academics and friends who were part of
my adventure in one way or another (no order)—Jerome Glenn, Anthony Judge, Paul
Lussier, John Smart, Stefan Blachfellner, Iwona Soltysinska, Francois Taddei, Milan
Cirkovic, Gitta Peyn, Ben Werner, Gael Van Weyenbergh, Mark Bukarev, Claudio
Flores Martinez, Pauline Ezan, Alicia Herbert, Gabrielle Medina, Scott Clements,
Forrest Rosenblum, Daniel Schimmelpfennig, Farah Ibrahim, Gray Scott, Alexandra
Delgado, Camille Girod, Li Xiubo, Natalie Mezza-Garcia, Elnaz Ghamesi, George
Mantzios, Scott Rodgerson, Marie Claes, Macro Stickleman, Beca Andrei, Ross
Amico, Alex Hamilton, Sammy Sambu, Berna Ad Veritatem, Paola Lombardi,
Martin Ferguson, Maryam Nikki, Feebz Luna, Daniel Dick, Kevin Oroszlán, Mirona
Constantinescu, Mehdi Bennis, Stefan Blachfellner, Audrey Martin and Susan Guner.
Finally, of course, I would like to thank the members of my family who were
supportive of my life choice even though it took me far away from them. My mother,
Abigail Edmonds; my brother, Brendan Last; my sister, Alex Last; and my grandfa-
ther, Thomas Nichols (and my doggie, Daisy). I would also include extended family
members, especially Stephen Last, Tina Last, Elizabeth Last and Feebz Luna, who
provided emotional and social support throughout my doctoral progress.
Thanks to everyone who helped me along my path.

xv
About the Book

This work attempts to approach an understanding of global brain singularity through

a logical meditation on temporal dynamics of universal process. Global brain
singularity is conceived of as a future metasystem of human civilization representing
a higher qualitative coherence of order. To better understand the potentiality space of
this phenomenon, we start with an overview of universal history with the tools of big
history and cosmic evolution. These forms of knowledge situate the presence of
modern humans in relation to a material complexification from big bang to global
civilization. In studying the patterns of complexification throughout universal his-
tory, including the evolutionary structure of the physical order, the evolutionary
structure of the biological order and the evolutionary structure of the cultural order,
we focus attention on how these patterns may inform reasoned discussion on the
contemporary evolution of human society. Human society in the twenty-first century
is struggling to understand the meaning of technological complexification and global
convergence, but if situated within universal history, both processes may be
discussed from a fresh perspective.
From developing an understanding of universal history for the present moment,
we shift focus to the structure of historical human metasystems. Thus, from situating
humans in the context of the cosmos as a whole, we shift to situating humans in the
context of our species being as a whole. Throughout the history of the human
species, our system has evolved from local hunter-gatherer bands to a global
interconnected network of nation-states and international organizations. In order to
explain the emergence of these higher order structures, we propose a theory of
human metasystems informed from concepts useful in application to universal
historical dynamics which revolve around information, energy and control. The
central hypothesis forwarded suggests the idea that circular systemic processes
emerge and stabilize from new information mediums allowing for the controlled
regulation of new energy flows. In light of this analysis, we attempt to theoretically
mediate global civilization with new concepts relevant to the future of politics,
economics and psychosocial life in general. This paradigm can be broadly under-
stood under the framework of a ‘commons’.
In this context, analysis shifts from the structure of human metasystems to the
nature of human evolution from the perspective of the evolutionary agents of the
process: human beings. Human beings in this analysis are conceptualized as

xvii
xviii About the Book

biocultural agents subject to the interacting and entangled processes of biological

evolution and cultural evolution. Here, we attempt to understand the way in which
growth and reproduction operate in the human organism. We furthermore attempt to
understand how these processes may continue to operate in a future metasystem
organization which allows for the emergence of a background radically different
from either our natural or societal background. In these speculations, we focus
attention on the idea of a potential emergence of a new ‘technocultural’ evolutionary
process that allows for a new level of freedom for consciousness radically liberated
from its historical constraints. From this perspective, we attempt to engage a rich
literature of speculations about the future of intelligence and consciousness in the
universe as a whole. This speculation is structured by the idea that there may be two
potential general pathways for intelligence and consciousness: a pathway of tran-
scendent expansion into the macro universe or a pathway of transcendent compres-
sion into the micro universe.
Finally, we leave universal history and future evolution as expressed in the
conceptual structure of this work and reflectively bring our attention back to the
internal depths of the present moment for historical consciousness. The most funda-
mental nature of this present moment for consciousness is proposed to be the
dualistic structure of subject–object division or difference (the inside and outside
of conscious experience). In order to approach the nature and paradoxes of the
subjective and the objective, we reflectively inscribe the existence of major forms
of knowledge as particular strategies for dealing with or working with the nature of
this fundamental division or difference on an experiential-emotional level. We then
attempt to understand the possible functions for the internalization of knowledge in
history and develop an ontology that can handle the radical inclusion of epistemol-
ogy. This brings us to an attempt to understand the territory of the map in itself. The
geometrical territory of these maps is then analysed from the perspective of this
author with the aid of phenomenologically grounded logical dialectics and left to the
reader for reflective contemplation. We then end or conclude with a dialectically
informed speculation on how we could interpret the global brain singularity when we
are capable of also thinking the eternal present of phenomenology which stresses the
inclusion of all observers.
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Part I Contextualizing Our Present

2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Big History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3 History of the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1 Human Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Part II Challenges of a Global Metasystem

4 Human Metasystem Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.1 Metasystem Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2 Human Metasystem Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.3 Future Human Metasystem Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.4 Summary of Human Metasystem Transition Theory . . . . . . . . . 77
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.1 Complexity and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.2 Theoretical Foundations of a Global Control Transition . . . . . . . 86
5.3 A Tool for Human Control Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.4 Theoretical Speculations Regarding Future Contours
of Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6 Global Brain and the Future of Human Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.1 Global Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.2 Challenge Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
xix
xx Contents

7 Global Commons in the Global Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

7.1 Technological Revolution/Disruption Is Near (But What
About Our Response?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.2 Technological Revolution/Disruption as Global Brain
Singularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons . . . . . . . . . 133
7.5 A Revolutionary Political–Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Part III Signs of a New Evolution

8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8.1 The Question of Life Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8.2 Human Growth and Reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
8.3 Life History Theory and Human Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.4 Modern World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
8.5 Into the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8.6 Reproduction, Given Radical Life Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9.1 Problematizing the Singularity Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9.2 Singularity as Emergence of New Evolutionary Pathway . . . . . . 166
9.3 Towards a Theory of Atechnogenesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
9.4 Speculations on the Technocultural Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.1 Possible Knowledge of the Deep Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.2 Final Frontier: Expansion Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Part IV Field of Twenty-First Century Knowledge

11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation
of Subject–Object Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
11.1 Introduction: Subject–Object Division and Knowledge . . . . . . . 215
11.2 Contextualizing Contemporary Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
11.3 Building Towards New Theoretical Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
11.4 Working Higher-Order Theoretical Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
11.5 Note on the Sexual Real . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
11.6 Consequences, Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Contents xxi

12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization . . . . . . 237

12.1 Narrativization of Universal Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
12.2 Evolution of Narrative Internalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
12.3 Research Focused on Narrativistic Internalization . . . . . . . . . . . 244
12.4 Higher Orders of Universal Internalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
12.5 Radical Speculation on the Nature of Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
13.1 Between Deconstruction and Metalanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
13.3 Dialectical Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
13.4 Dialectical Structure of Our Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
14.1 Singularity Inclusive of Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
14.2 Consciousness and Universal History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
15 Conclusion: Universal History, Deep Future,
and Eternal Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
About the Author

Cadell Last is a doctor of philosophy in interdisciplinary studies (focus on complex

human systems) with a background focused on human evolution and history. He has
spent the past 15 years dedicated to understanding two basic questions: ‘what is the
difference between human beings and the rest of nature?’ and ‘what are the potential
future consequences of this difference?’ This pathway was stimulated by a period in
his late teenage years where these philosophical and existential questions gripped the
mind of the author in a passionate and persistent form calling for deeper knowing.
Throughout the course of his doctoral studies, the author studied under world-
renowned cyberneticist and general theorist Francis Heylighen in order to connect
his basic anthropological training with sophisticated scientific and philosophical
theorizing. The author also embedded his emerging theories about humanity in a
diverse and eclectic research community that broadly shared this passion to better
understand the future of the human system. This journey allowed the author to
expand the horizon of his world into theoretical territory developing many different
fields of knowledge outside of his original expertise. If you are interested in learning
more about the author’s work, visit cadelllast.com.

xxiii
List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Thermodynamic view of the cosmos, primordial order to final

disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Fig. 2.2 Teleodynamic view of the (local) cosmos, primordial disorder to
final order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Fig. 3.1 Ancient circular versus modern teleological view of human
time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Fig. 4.1 Metasystem transition as a sigmoid curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Fig. 4.2 Human metasystem transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Fig. 4.3 Human metasystem transitions (possible future) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Fig. 5.1 Metasystem of control to a global level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Fig. 5.2 Information control towards higher metasystem level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Fig. 6.1 Intelligent transformations as a feedback process . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 98
Fig. 6.2 Network of challenge vectors .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. 100
Fig. 6.3 Challenge propagation representation of governance controls . . . . . . 104
Fig. 7.1 Invisible hand of capitalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Fig. 9.1 Abiogenesis to technogenesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Fig. 9.2 Cosmic evolutionary transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Fig. 9.3 Evolution of cranial capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Fig. 9.4 Evolution of life expectancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Fig. 10.1 Expansion hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Fig. 10.2 Local compression . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . .. 203
Fig. 11.1 Subject–object division as absolute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Fig. 11.2 Quadrant of modern knowledge structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Fig. 11.3 Intersubjectively constituted objective truths . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . 222
Fig. 11.4 Structure of an emergent intersubjective objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Fig. 11.5 Structure of the sexual real . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

xxv
xxvi List of Figures

Fig. 12.1 Big history as metalanguage construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Fig. 12.2 Big historical objective external temporality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Fig. 12.3 Observer positionality in big history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Fig. 12.4 Metastructural totalization of symbolic order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Fig. 12.5 Metastructural backgrounds of the symbolic order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Fig. 12.6 (a) Inconsistency/incompletion of symbolic backgrounds.
(b) Multiplicity of non-empirical symbolic backgrounds.
(c) Metastructural matrix of death and freedom as symbolic
background . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . 251
Fig. 13.1 Becoming between something and nothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Fig. 13.2 Something, nothing, and virtuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Fig. 13.3 Platonic metaontology . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. 280
Fig. 13.4 Hegelian historical spirit triad to Lacanian psychoanalytic
triad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Fig. 13.5 Contradictory historical identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Fig. 14.1 Structural transformations on the transcendental
horizon—triad . . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. 294
Fig. 14.2 Structural transformations on the transcendental
horizon—cyclohedron . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. 296
Fig. 14.3 Structural transformations on the transcendental
horizon—not-One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Fig. 14.4 Totality as not-One, dynamical structure of the transcendental
horizon . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. 297
Fig. 14.5 Psychosocial virtual field of physics communities .. . .. . .. . . .. . .. . .. 302
Fig. 14.6 Transmodern totality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Fig. 14.7 Cosmic evolution and dialectic connecting beginning
and end . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
List of Tables

Table 2.1 Five eras of the global physical universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Table 2.2 Three eras of the local physical universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table 2.3 Levels of hierarchical complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Table 3.1 Potential characteristics of a global brain singularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Table 3.2 Nature of technological singularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Table 7.1 Global commons gap . . . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . . .. 120
Table 7.2 Potential political forms of global structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Table 7.3 Conceptual components of global commons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Table 7.4 Collaborative commons social communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Table 8.1 Great ape and human life histories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Table 8.2 Major transitions in human life history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Table 8.3 Global fertility rate (2014 est.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Table 9.1 The next evolution . . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. 179
Table 10.1 Potential developmental great filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Table 10.2 Potential CH deep futures .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. .. 199
Table 10.3 Technological barrow scale .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. 204
Table 12.1 Big history thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Table 12.2 Higher orders of symbolic evolution . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . . . 250

xxvii
Introduction
1

This work attempts to approach the central concept of ‘global brain singularity’
through a philosophical interdisciplinary approach. The ‘global brain’ is the idea that
contemporary human civilization can be understood as an emerging superintelli-
gence defined by properties that are homologous to the neuronal activity in
biological brains (distributed network) (Heylighen 2015). The ‘singularity’ is the
idea that human civilization is approaching the mediation of a phase transition
towards a qualitatively novel level or realm of being (both in terms of intelligence
and consciousness) (Vinge 1993). ‘Global brain singularity’ attempts to understand
how to connect this systemic understanding of human civilization as a superintelli-
gence with the possibility of a qualitative phase transition in the twenty-first century.
Thus the concept of ‘global brain singularity’ can be seen as aligned with this issue
of World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures since is grounded in an attempt to
understand the ‘world system’ as a whole in relationship to earlier, smaller integrated
systems (Chase-Dunn and Grimes 1995), as well as to understand how this under-
standing can help us to map possibilities and probabilities of our own system into the
near- and deeper-term future (Chase-Dunn 1997).
In order to develop this understanding, this work attempts to analyze global brain
singularity in all of its temporal dimensions, past–present–future, and ultimately
works towards a meta-level understanding of the present. The past of this concept
can be framed as the process of change that allowed for the emergence of complex
intelligence; the present of this concept can be framed as the pragmatic mediation of
a higher level of being; the future of this concept can be framed as the future
possibilities of evolution; and the meta-level present of this concept can be framed
as the function and meaning of unity within our systems of knowledge. From
including these dimensions, the global brain singularity becomes a concept of
deep relevance to the future of philosophy, world history, systems science, and
interdisciplinary studies. Such a concept can thus inform the further understanding
of the human system as a single system or organism that is the emergent product of a
series of evolutionary transformations, and also inform the further understanding of
the human subject as a fundamental locus of action.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_1
2 1 Introduction

Consequently, the organization of this work is structured by four sections. Each

section analyzes a different temporal dimension and can be integrated in relation to a
fundamental concept which structures the thematic exploration. The first section
focuses on universal evolution which relies on tools of big history and cosmic
evolution. These tools allow analysis to integrate physical, biological, and cultural
evolution and contextualize the present horizon of human paradigms between
modernism, postmodernism, and a possible transmodernism. The utility of such an
investigation can be found in synthesizing the two cultures divide between scientific
reductionism and discursive historicism with universal evolution. Scientific reduc-
tionism cannot approach emergent evolutionary properties, and discursive histori-
cism cannot approach a new universal level of being, thus leading to the ongoing
tension between modernist and postmodernist metaparadigms for knowledge. In
grounding the present in relation to universal evolution, we simultaneously confront
the reality of emergence and the reality of a new universal level of being. This is
where a transmodernist metaparadigm may be articulated.
The second section focuses on metasystems. Metasystem is a general evolution-
ary concept applicable to the universe as a whole but specifically deployed here to
better understand the human system. By utilizing the concept of metasystem, we can
better reflect on major system changes in our current world and how they may be
navigated psychologically, politically, economically, and socially. This is possible
because previous human metasystem transitions became actual in relation to specific
patterns between information, energy, and control. In understanding these historical
patterns, we gain a new perspective on how they repeat certain ongoing
transformations in our contemporary system. The ultimate result is the possibility
of higher reflectivity in regards to the nature of global dynamics, which opens
thought to an articulation of a new political economy. In this work, the idea of
commons is specifically situated as a synthesis of market and state paradigms for
global development.
The third section focuses on the nature of cultural and technological evolution
(‘technocultural’) and how this form of evolution may continue to develop during
and after the anticipated global brain singularity. The future of evolution is perhaps
the most mysterious and open question in science and philosophy offering us the
chance to speculate on totally new domains of phenomena. In this work, we attempt
to ground our speculation in the fact that previous evolutionary pathways have
emerged (physical and biological) and may help us to better model technocultural
evolutionary possibilities. From this understanding, possible mechanisms for the
future of evolution are proposed, most notably mechanisms related to formation of
regimes of evolution governed by conscious selection. The main drive of a conscious
selection is the ability to define-design the bodily medium within which experience
is enacted.
Finally, the fourth section focuses on the metaphysics of our conceptual knowl-
edge specifically in relationship to the concept of non-monism. Non-monism offers a
metaphysic that synthesizes the traditional metaphysics of monism and non-dualism
by emphasizing the importance of desire for integration of the self-concept, and also
the irreducible importance of working within dualistic appearances. This metaphysic
1 Introduction 3

thus attempts to sublate the monistic principle that reality is ‘one’ and the non-dualist
principle that dualistic appearances are an ‘illusion’. Non-monism achieves such a
sublation because attention is paid to the interacting multiplicity of conceptual
unities (‘ones’) which are under constant processes of division, and the irreducible
asymmetry of appearances (‘subject-object’), which have ontological consequences
(thought transforms being).
The result of these explorations leaves the reader with new perspectives on the
present in relationship to global brain singularity. The first perspective is related to
the conceptual importance of embodying the history of universal process, which has
allowed for the emergence of complex intelligent life forms. Such a perspective
allows us to situate uniquely human phenomena within a natural totality of
interconnected process. The second perspective is in relation to aligning with and
towards the central challenge of our age, which is the mediation of a higher-level
metasystem of being. The reason this challenge is important is because there are
many unresolved issues in a multiplicity of fields that require new thinking, espe-
cially in relation to the future of psychology, economics, politics, and society.
The third perspective is to develop a better grasp on the space of possibilities or
potentials, which is inherent to cultural and technological evolution. The future of
evolution seems to offer to consciousness a qualitatively new horizon which could
include radically extended life and radically expanded experiences. The fourth
perspective is to integrate a new metaphysical understanding of our conceptual
maps. The central idea here is that a fundamental feature of our knowledge for
self-action is a desire for unity and integration which can only be enacted through an
embodied historical drive.
From the development of these perspectives, the global brain singularity is
ultimately positioned as a phenomena of:

• Universal evolutionary significance

• Mediated by human action
• Host to new evolutionary process and
• The limits of conceptual knowledge

The unity of this work thus offers the reader a new understanding of the meaning
of human existence in the twenty-first century, a meaning which is connected to the:

• Universe as a whole
• Global challenge
• Unimaginable future possibilities
• The highest self-reflection
4 1 Introduction

References
Chase-Dunn, C. (1997). Rise and demise: Comparing world systems. New York: Routledge.
Chase-Dunn, C., & Grimes, P. (1995). World-systems analysis. Annual Review of Sociology, 21,
387–417.
Heylighen, F. (2015). Return to Eden? Promises and perils on the road to superintelligence. In
B. Goertzel & T. Goertzel (Eds.), The end of the beginning: Society and economy on the brink of
the singularity. Los Angeles, CA: Humanity Press.
Vinge, V. (1993). The coming technological singularity. Whole Earth Review, 81, 88–95.
 Part I
Contextualizing Our Present
Historical Foundations for Future
Speculations 2

2.1 Introduction

The focus of this work is to explore a universal historical theoretical foundation for
speculative futures. The future is a temporal dimension that cannot be explored with
conventional tools of science because we obviously lack the ability to collect
empirical data or observe it. Humans are involved in the futures co-creation through
transformative actions and we have an incomplete knowledge of local and global
physical, biological, and cultural processes currently in operation and how they
interact. However, we may be able to gain a new understanding of possible future
trends and processes by analyzing the emerging science of cosmic evolution within
the narrative architecture of big history.
To be specific, although modern phenomena like technological complexification
and sociopolitical convergence receive considerable attention, few researchers
approach these issues from the vantage point of billion years of interconnected
evolution. Fewer still have detailed a working model for understanding deeper
reaches of the human future despite the fact (or perhaps because of the fact) that
the phenomenon of humanity has the broadest of all possible future event states. We
can predict the future evolutionary possibilities for galaxies, stars, and planets on the
deepest conceivable scales of time, but we have trouble predicting human possibility
out even a few decades.
The most important addition to the literature offered in this work involves taking
biocultural evolution seriously as a natural phenomenon of equal significance to the
hierarchy of cosmic processes that also include physicochemical and biochemical
forms of evolutionary change. The failure to understand culture, and in particular the

Based on Last, C. (2017). Big Historical Foundations for Deep Future Speculations: Cosmic
Evolution, Atechnogenesis, and Technocultural Civilization. Foundations of Science, 22(1):
39–124. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-015-9434-y.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 7

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_2
8 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

relationship between biology and culture as part of cosmic evolution, maybe one of
the primary failings of science in the modern world. This is a factor in holding back
progress in our understanding of both the nature of humanity and the future of
humanity. Therefore, in my approach to the future I focus on the emergence of the
big historical cultural era. Specifically, I want to bring closer attention to the
biocultural reproductive nature of the human phenomenon as it presents us with a
peculiar cosmic evolutionary relationship that potentially offers clues regarding the
future of evolutionary change and complexity construction.
This approach to culture as part of a cosmic evolutionary process is partly a
response to an emerging realization that we need to understand the ‘nature of cosmic
culture’ (Dick and Lupisella 2009), as well as the ‘future of culture’ (Dick 2009a).
Our inability to understand the nature of cultural phenomenon and its future
implications has many causes, but is made all the more difficult due to the ‘two
cultures’ divide that has pervaded academic inquiry for decades (Snow 1959; Wilson
1998; Kauffman 2010). The heart of this divide is created by fundamentally different
epistemological worldviews that emphasize different approaches to understanding
natural phenomena. Historically the sciences attempt an understanding of the world
that is predictive and approaches objectivity through the formulation of timeless,
context-independent physical laws. In contrast, the humanities have mainly focused
on narrative construction and the subjective dimension of human experience, with
special emphasis on context, choice, and latent possibility within any event. This
epistemological division prevents the construction of unifying conversation between
diverse fields within biology and anthropology, and more broadly between the
‘physical/life sciences’ and the ‘social science/humanities’.
The most relevant consequence of the ‘two cultures’ divide in respect to this work
is that there has been little research that specifically attempts to understand cosmic
processes connecting the development and evolution of physical and chemical
systems to the development and evolution of biological, ecological, cultural, and
technological systems (Heylighen 2011). As a result, no dominant academic con-
ceptual framework yet situates the human phenomenon as ‘world system’ within a
‘macro-evolutionary’ context of the whole cosmos (Grinin and Korotayev 2009).
Furthermore, dominant academic paradigms within academia do not lend themselves
to such an analysis. In the sciences, many researchers have (often successfully)
employed a physically reductionist program to understand life and the universe with
the belief that all phenomena can be understood through an analysis of the
mechanisms of its constituent parts. Consequently most ‘higher phenomena’
(i.e. more complex) are conceived of as representing ‘epiphenomena’ ultimately
reducible to lower-level phenomena. The reductionist program has proven success-
ful in many domains of physics and chemistry, but does not help us in understanding
the evolution of complex adaptive systems (CAS) like organisms, ecosystems, and
civilizations.
Alternatively, over the past several decades, many influential social theorists have
developed a postmodern relativistic program, within which grand narratives
explaining the human experience are explicitly rejected, and modern notions of a
historical direction towards greater ‘freedom’, ‘equality’, and ‘progress’ are
2.1 Introduction 9

problematized. The postmodern program has proven successful in critiquing many

naive and Western-centric assumptions inherent to the original conception of the
modern project, however, it offers us no new alternative model or framework within
which we can construct a common humanistic sociopolitical direction. This problem
is perhaps most obvious to detect in the failure of contemporary progressive politics
which is strongly influenced by a perhaps paradoxical reliance on Marxist dialectics
but cannot articulate any real solutions or visions that are capable of mobilizing the
next qualitative political transition. As a consequence of this failure, we are
experiencing a pragmatic revival of conservative political philosophy which seeks
to connect us to the roots of civilizational processes in order to guarantee meaning
and security.
My point here is to emphasize that both reductionism and postmodernity, albeit
successful in different ways within the sciences and humanities, cannot help us in
terms of formulating a better understanding of universal history and its meaning for
the human species moving forward into our common future. The physically reduc-
tionist program cannot explain the emergence and intensification of hierarchical
local complexity, as well as the existence of goal-oriented, purposeful systems
(Corning 2002a). Consequently, everything that humans are (e.g. complex, goal
and value-oriented, conscious, and subjects) and everything the human system
exhibits (e.g. emergence, purposeful organization, and autonomy) becomes alien,
unnatural, and impossible to predict and reduce. In contrast, the postmodern relativ-
istic program ignores or fails to confront the implications of rising technological
complexity and global convergence, leaving human civilization goalless on the
deepest scales of time (Stewart 2010). As a result, any sociopolitical insight we
can gain from understanding large-scale patterns and processes discernible over big
historical scales are not fully appreciated.
However, pointing out potential flaws in worldview structures is much easier than
constructing new worldview structures, and I do not hope to solve all of the problems
that have characterized the two cultures divide or the problems of our modern
scientific and humanistic approaches to understanding of this chapter. However,
what I do hope to offer is the foundations for a universal historical perspective with
relevance to human futures speculations, and introduction and exploration of a
biocultural evolutionary theory in the context of technological singularity theory
and a discussion on the implications for understanding of the next human system and
deeper future systems. The end goal is to help academics work towards a more
holistic and constructive understanding of humanity and our relationship to the
world with general evolution, universal history, and a common future at the
foundation.
For this exploration, the development of cosmic evolutionary theory is of central
importance. Throughout scientific history we have come to imagine ourselves as
separate, marginal, or accidental by-products in a meaningless universe. In fact, it
has not been uncommon for scientific progress in understanding the universe to
become coupled with a type of existential nihilistic worldview in relation to the
human phenomenon. Physicist Steven Weinberg most depressingly articulated this
general perspective in The First Three Minutes (1977, p. 154):
10 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it (also) seems pointless.

This general pessimism can (and has) been countered by reversing Weinberg’s
perspective, as the greatest physicist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein, did by
pointing out that the most remarkable thing about the human–universe relationship is
in its remarkable symbiosis (Vallentin 1954, p. 24):

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

This demonstrates that Einstein was aware that the transcendent meaning of
‘absolute knowing’ was not ‘knowing everything’ but rather knowing that one’s
own partial limited engagement with history as a ‘synthetic unit of consciousness’
was itself the becoming of absolute knowing. In giving oneself to developing a
comprehensible understanding of the universe in discursive relation to other self-
consciousnesses (despite of the fact that one is limited and relativized) one is
participating in the fundamental structural becoming of something absolute
(transcending space and time). The very fact that our intellectual activities have
produced knowledge about the worlds of the very small, the very large, the deep
past, the potential future and everything in between, is a source of true infinity (not
the spurious infinity of an endless asymptotic approach).
However, at the same time, Weinberg’s cosmic nihilism is not entirely ridiculous
since it gets straight to the point in regards to meaning in the scientific universe.
Indeed, it is impossible to ignore the fact that sciences as diverse as astronomy,
cosmology, biology, and anthropology have played a role in symbolically removing
humanity from ‘center stage’ of the cosmic drama, whether that imagined center
represented a particular civilization, our species, life, our solar system, the galaxy, or
the whole universe. The progressive ‘de-centering’ of the human story in relation to
nature has been a source of collective historical psychological discomfort. What is
the function and purpose of humanity? Are we mere epiphenomena, here for the
blink of a cosmic eye, destined to perish on a universal stage that did not expect us
and does not need us? Is the historical process really directionless and meaningless
with no escape and no hope for a higher state of humanity in relation to each other
and the universe? Or does our ability to comprehend the universe (knowledge)
function for a purpose that is still mysterious to us?
This is where the cosmic evolutionary theory potentially has a chance to reorga-
nize our perspective and provide new insight. Throughout the development and
evolution of our local universe there has been an interconnected growth of complex-
ity from physical, chemical, and biological systems, as well as cultural and techno-
logical systems. This growth of complexity appears to open up new possibilities for
the exploration of new relationships and new opportunities for experience in the
universe. When we consider humanity from this perspective, we find that our
scientific focus shifts towards the human system, which now occupies a frontier
position of highest complexity and cognition. Consequently, we are capable of
directing the future of evolution, and whatever emergent possibility could stem
from our unique cultural and technological activities. Or said in another way,
2.1 Introduction 11

whatever ‘act’ comes next in the ‘cosmic drama’ it will emerge from within the
domain of collective human social values, cultural creativity, and our exploration of
latent technological possibility. In this way, the universe gives the appearance of
internalizing its future potentiality within a network of billions of biocultural nodes
that in aggregate represent a phenomenon capable of producing yet another level of a
complex organization.
This perspective does not succumb to the trap of anthropocentrism as I am not
arguing that humans are ‘reclaiming centrality’. Instead, I am making the philosoph-
ical argument that humans could represent an important process in the context of the
growth of local complexity that is part of a much larger ‘multi-local’ cosmic
phenomenon. Of course, this is speculative but it is entirely plausible that cosmic
evolutionary theory has application on a universal scale, with other analogous levels
of local complexity developing via a type of ‘universal culture’. Therefore, in this
attempt to understand the deep future, I do not attempt to specifically focus on
understanding the role of mysterious impersonal forces such as dark energy and dark
matter, but rather seek to understand how intimately familiar processes related to
culture, technology, language, and mind (our knowledge) could reshape the universe
and/or possess a cosmic function in the operations of the cosmos itself, consequently
adding new dimensions of purpose to our lives today and hope for a higher future. In
short, we stand on the frontier of cosmic evolution and a future of tremendous
possibility unforeseen by most historical humans.
This exploration, being a futurist work, will also require scientifically grounded
extrapolation and philosophical speculation when confronting questions that many
scientists, philosophers, and historians would deem unknowable with any degree of
certainty. However, we live in unprecedented times, in terms of technological
complexity and sociopolitical organization, when compared to any known time
period throughout cosmic history, and consequently, we need new ideas to open
conversation about what we are and where we may be going (Wiener 1963, p. 5–6):

It is the part of the scientist to entertain heretical and forbidden opinions experimentally,
even if [s/]he is finally to reject them. [. . .] It is a serious exercise, and should be undertaken
in all earnestness: it is only when it involves a real risk of heresy that there is any point to it.

In this context, the point that eradicates nihilism and grounds meaning is a
radically internal point: a centring of psychical attention and focus re-enacted
through strict repetition and drive for knowledge and understanding. There is no
external point in the universe outside of this point, but at the same time, this internal
point which emerges internal to psychical processes in the human world, is nonethe-
less a part of the universe, a way for the universe to internalize its own process.
Finally, like other works focused on the future, this analysis will leave us with far
more questions than answers; but it is important to live in the questions, not the
answers (Kiriakakis 2015). We are the inheritors of a deep and interconnected
cosmic process, and find ourselves awkwardly navigating the highest levels of
complexity our local region has ever known; within this evolutionary labyrinth, a
universal historical inquiry may offer a light.
12 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

2.2 Big History

Big history is the study of the human past in relation to the history of the universe
(Christian 2004; Nazaretyan 2005; Spier 2011). This endeavour attempts to utilize
the entire collective body of human knowledge in order to construct a deeper
understanding of all natural processes (Aunger 2007a, b; Chaisson 2011a, b) from
‘Big Bang to Global Civilization’ (e.g. Rodrigue et al. 2012). In contrast with the
traditional attempt in physics to construct a ‘grand unified theory’ of the universe,
big historians see the subject as providing the beginnings of a working ‘grand unified
story’ of the universe (Christian 2004, p. 4). From my perspective, this goal should
not be to eventually develop ‘one unchanging objective story’, but rather to develop
the open-ended empirical framework for a story of our collective history that
everyone can, in turn, relate to and utilize on a personal subjective level as the
story evolves and as our future horizon evolves.
In other words, big history could be a chance to develop, eventually, a collective
map-making process to orient and guide humanity into the deeper future. What does
it mean for future human action to be connected in a chain of evolutionary processes
from the emergence of spacetime to the present? In this context, big history has the
opportunity to become simultaneously one story of our shared world as well as an
infinite number of stories of how individuals can relate to that world and act in that
world. The usefulness of such a common origin story is that it can always be
re-symbolized depending on contemporary sociopolitical context, our scientific
understanding of knowledge, and our spiritual or religious understanding of truth.
Consequently, big history offers humanity a deeper perspective and an opportunity
for cosmic reflection in relation to the meaning of human life from an exploration of
the processes that culminated in our existence.
In concert with this inquiry, cosmic evolution as a subject has emerged as a
theoretical branch of study that attempts to understand all physical processes related
to space, time, energy, and matter (STEM) (Spier 2005; Chaisson 2012). In this
attempt to further generalize evolutionary change theorists have integrated physical
evolution (e.g. galaxies, stars, and planets), biological evolution (e.g. organisms and
ecosystems), and cultural evolution (e.g. worldviews, civilization, and technology)
into an interconnected process characterized by growing complexity. Cosmic evolu-
tion can, therefore, provide an analysis of the developmental and evolutionary
mechanisms within which the larger unified story of our common history unfolds.
In this sense, cosmic evolution and big history are complementary subjects that
could start a conversation to transcend the ‘two cultures’ and ultimately share the
goal of providing a sense of holistic unity for our species with all nature (e.g. Sagan
1977, 1980, 1997; Chaisson 1981, 2001, 2005; Bloom 2000; Christian 2004; Niele
2005; Dick 2009a; Kauffman 2010; Spier 2011): a history and a science, a story and
a process, which can help the human species build a sense of common home and a
sense of common creative origin.
In light of this academic ambition, the emergence of big history and cosmic
evolution represent more than just new silos of academic inquiry. Throughout
modern history, academia has become fragmented into many disparate disciplines,
2.2 Big History 13

but in this fragmentation it can be hard to find the whole picture and piece together
how these separate domains of knowledge relate to one another towards a higher
coherence. Consequently, big history and cosmic evolution attempt to consume
academic silos, and have an important and still incomplete role to play in the
ongoing construction of an inclusive global worldview for the whole of humanity
(Christian 2004; Dick 2009b; Vidal 2014a).
Ideally, such a worldview would provide higher integration, working towards
building the connections and identifying the potentials for convergence within
different domains of human knowledge (Heylighen 2011). From higher intellectual
coherence and vision of the whole, we should be able to form worldviews that can
help the human species contextualize modern challenges within the broadest
contexts (Niele 2005; Spier 2011), allow for the construction of future visions of
humanity that represent practically realizable utopias (Heylighen 2002), or help us
potentially discover processes and trends to guide evolutionary cosmic goals and
purpose towards higher levels of experience (Turchin 1977; Stewart 2000; Kurzweil
2005; Vidal 2014a).

2.2.1 History of Big History

The study of big history as an intellectual tradition can be understood as both old and
new. The subject is old because we have evidence of humans constructing complex
physical and metaphysical narratives, and thinking about natural and supernatural
explanations for the ‘totality’ of human existence in the world, for as long as we have
evidence of writing. In fact, this narrative tradition may have been manifest in the
human species from the dawn of complex material culture (North 2008), as all
modern human groups develop cosmic cultural worldview structures (Blainey
2010), regardless of ecological organization. Consequently, the origin of our sym-
bolic ‘totalizing’ behaviour is hypothesized to have emerged in concert with the
emergence of full linguistic capabilities (Dunbar 2009), as the formation of human
worldviews is deeply interconnected with the formation of the linguistic domain
itself (Underhill 2009). The ramifications of this speculation suggest that ‘big
history’ is a symbolic activity could in some form represent a cultural archetype of
human worldviews that is at least as old as the emergence of modern humans (~150
to 200 thousand years ago) (White et al. 2003; McDougall et al. 2005).
However, the early origins of academic big history in the modern Western
tradition can be found in the construction of empirically based cosmic narratives.
These types of histories from various scientific and philosophical perspectives
started to emerge in the nineteenth century (Chambers 1844; Humboldt 1845;
Fiske 1874; Spencer 1896) with the early development of modern evolutionary
thinking (Darwin 1794; Lamarck 1809; Darwin 1859, 1871; Wallace 1871; Butler
1887). Early big history narratives, like many of the narratives constructed by
religious, spiritual, and philosophical perspectives in premodern cultures, were
always concerned with the human relationship to life and the cosmos as a whole.
In these works central questions regarding the origins of the universe, life and mind
14 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

were often presented and explored, but the lack of a firm empirical grounding in the
knowledge and theory of many subjects prevented the coherence of any testable
scientific model. Thus the early study of big history, as well as the formulation of
cosmic evolution, failed to mature or gain widespread academic credibility in the
nineteenth century (Dick 2009b). Even throughout the early twentieth century, there
were only a few works that can be seen as important precursors to the contemporary
subject (Bergson 1911; Wells 1920; Shapley 1930).
The last half of the twentieth century was characterized by a noticeable increase in
large-scale interdisciplinary big history work than ever before. In retrospect, the
discovery of the big bang in 1964 appears fundamental and crucial to the develop-
ment of big history as we know it today. The big bang allowed for a real beginning to
a cosmological narrative, as well as an empirical way to understand the connections
between the worlds of cosmology, physics, and astronomy, and the worlds of
chemistry, geology, biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, cybernetics,
economics, and history (McGill 1972; Sagan 1977; Cloud 1978; Jantsch 1980;
Chaisson 1981; Poundstone 1985; Reeves 1985; Christian 1991). Also important
were the first NASA images of the Earth from space (e.g. ‘Earthrise’ (1968) and
‘Blue Marble’ (1972), which allowed humanity to see the whole planet for the first
time, and reflect on our place within the cosmos with ‘new eyes’. In this historical
intellectual environment astronomer Carl Sagan’s introduction of ‘The Cosmic
Calendar’ (Sagan 1977, p. 8) marks an important symbolic moment; as this metaphor
captured a clear pattern marked with a connected, directional and accelerating set of
cosmic ‘events’ from ‘particles to people’.
The modern form of big history, in its attempt to become a rigorous academic
discipline, is formulating a common conceptual framework that can be used to
understand the whole of nature. Although no common framework currently exists
contemporary researchers have tended to place particular emphasis on energy flow as
a necessary component of physical change and structural complexity (Niele 2005;
Spier 2005; Chaisson 2011a, b), information processing as a source of functional
variation and organizing complexity (Smith and Szathmáry 1995; Corning 2005;
Lloyd 2006), and complexity, which can be understood as a measure of the
relationships between distinct but connected parts interacting within an integrated
whole (Heylighen 2000; Davies 2013).
In this big historical system energy, and specifically, the rate of energy flow
utilized for internal work, is seen as important in enabling higher associative
interactions. This essentially means that material complexity typically comes at an
energy cost, and measuring the density of energy flow that can be maintained by a
physical object or living subject, gives us an approximate understanding of its
structural complexity. Information also plays a dominant role in big history by
allowing us to understand changing patterns in all physical processes and the
functional ability of information processors to reduce uncertainty by increasing
knowledge of their environment. From this perspective, the emergence of informa-
tion processors: entities that develop a subject–object relation, or input–output
function, remain fundamental to understanding how functional organizations emerge
to purposefully maintain and direct energy flows with greater autonomy from
2.2 Big History 15

physical and chemical processes devoid of subjectivity. Consequently, there is a

clear break or divide in the history of the universe between living systems
(or autopoietic self-maintaining/organizing systems) and physical systems. Living
systems have an internalized subjective relationship (self) to the larger object
(environment) within which they exist, making their behaviour a process of goal
and value formation emerging from the subject–object interaction/tension.
Big historians also need to focus on the general evolution of all processes in the
local universe. In this attempt, there is a conceptual emphasis on a general systems
framework, which understands the universe as a nested and hierarchical metasystem
of organizations from the microscopic level (e.g. subatomic particles, atoms, and
molecules) to the macroscopic level (e.g. organisms, ecosystems, and civilizations).
In this general systems approach, it is not the substrate that matters but rather the
organization of substrates, i.e. the functional (cybernetic) process of the substrate to
maintain organization, and the (evolutionary) mechanisms of its change over time.
To understand the evolution of complexity within these systems emphasis is placed
on differentiation as a property of subsystem variation within a larger metasystem
(Heylighen 2000; Stewart 2000, 2014), as well as integration as a property of
subsystem interconnection within a larger metasystem (Turchin 1977; Smith and
Szathmáry 1995).
The evolutionary-cybernetic properties of differentiation and integration are
necessary to understand the growth of complexity. This is because networked
patterns of interconnected distinctions inherently characterize increasingly complex
systems, irrespective of the material substrate. These increasingly complex networks
enable multilevel adaptive capabilities (i.e. higher organism–environment relations)
exhibiting emergent properties that are completely absent at lower levels of the
organization. Thus by studying the way differentiation and integration have
progressed via new forms of cooperation big historians can identify commonality
in the evolutionary processes that enabled continuous local development of hierar-
chical ordered levels. From this conceptual framework, we can start to build a
comprehensive view of the local universe as a region of ever-complexifying
relationships, which produce new levels of organization facilitated by higher levels
of awareness, and consequently, new living system goals and values in relation to the
cosmic object. In elucidating the complexifying connections between all historical
processes we may be able to provide a foundation for understanding both our
contemporary world and our potential future.

2.2.2 Three Eras

The universe has been categorized into major eras both ‘locally’ and ‘globally’.
Cosmologists developed a universal categorization tool for classifying ‘global’ eras
of the physical universe, whereas big historians have developed a classification
scheme for ‘local’ eras of the physical universe. Both categorization tools are
based around the concepts and perceived relationships between disorder/order and
simplicity/complexity. The global classification of the universe is composed of five
16 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

Table 2.1 Five eras of the global physical universe

Primordial era Big bang (0)—1 million years A.B. (105)
Stelliferous era 1 million A.B. (105)—100 trillion A.B. (1014)
Degenerate eraa 100 trillion A.B. (1015)—Duodecillion (1039)
Black hole eraa Duodecillion (1040)—Googol (10100)
Dark eraa Googol (10101)—and beyond
a
Projected/predicted based on physical shape, matter–energy composition, as well as the current
expansion rate

major temporal eras based on known (as well as projected) thermodynamically

defined matter–energy regimes. These eras include the Primordial, Stelliferous,
Degenerate, Black Hole, and Dark eras, respectively (Adams and Laughlin 1999).
All of these eras can be seen as the product of the quantity and inherent physical
relationship between gravitationally attractive and repulsive forces (Davies 2013).
The universe is approximately 13.772 ! 0.059 Gyr (Bennett et al. 2012).
Consequently, the human species currently finds itself in the Stelliferous era
(Adams and Laughlin 1999). This era is characterized as the only temporal region
to play host to star formation (Laughlin et al. 1997), and may, therefore, be the only
era inhabited by complex information processing entities (Linde 1988; Krauss and
Starkman 2004; Ćirković 2004), at least as we know them (Adams and Laughlin
1999). In the Primordial era, life would have been unlikely or even impossible
considering that only basic molecular elements like hydrogen and helium existed.
Likewise, in the Degenerate era life will either have become extinct or will be
clinging onto the last stable physical structures, as most large-scale objects like
planets, stars, and galaxies will be in a state of decay removing any stable platform
for living system adaptation. In the Black Hole era, the universe will be entirely
dominated by physical black holes making life impossible. And finally, in the Dark
era the universe will likely exist in its final drift towards complete thermodynamic
equilibrium, i.e. the end of heterogeneous energy gradients (or heat death)
(Table 2.1).
However, there is by no means universal consensus on the potential of habitable
zones post-Stelliferous era as it depends on the future resourcefulness and adaptabil-
ity of living systems (Ćirković 2003), and so we still do not know with absolute
certainty whether life will remain confined to worlds with stars. But if life is denied
any habitable zone post-Stelliferous era, and is thus pushed to extinction at the end of
star formation, there is still a large expanse of time remaining for complex life to
emerge and grow (Vidal 2014b). Several trillions of years remain in the universe to
produce the structure of complexity found on Earth. Consequently, there are also
trillions of years remaining for the future of evolution stemming from our own
information processing and replication regime (Bostrom 2003; Armstrong and
Sandberg 2013).
In contrast to the cosmologist, the big historian attempts to understand the ‘local’
universe, which has existed in three temporal phases based primarily on material
relationships that can be considered ‘physical’, ‘biological’, and ‘cultural’ in terms
2.2 Big History 17

of information mechanisms for ordering/organizing energy flow (Aunger 2007a).

The first phase is called the Physical era and is characterized by the emergence of
inanimate and gravitationally ordered matter–energy (Spier 2011). During the Phys-
ical era structure in the universe has been ordered from the gradual accumulation of
heterogeneously distributed matter and dark matter via gravitational attraction
(Massey et al. 2007). Therefore, all structure producing during the Physical era—
galaxies, stars, planets—can be attributed to a relatively abundant and natural source
of ‘gravitational energy’ (Dyson 1971; Corning 2002b). Gravitational energy
continues to dominate the universe, providing a structural foundation for a grand
and relatively uniform ‘cosmic web’: a universe-encompassing platform for more
energy-dense hierarchical processes (Massey et al. 2007; van de Weygaert and
Schaap 2009).
The second phase of big history emerged with an important transition from
passively ordered physical objects towards actively organized living systems
(Thompson 2007; Deacon 2011). Biochemists call this transition from physical to
living systems ‘abiogenesis’: the process whereby autocatalytic chemical systems
generate ‘biological’ properties like autonomous (self-) growth, maintenance, and
reproduction (Pross and Pascal 2013). To maintain these properties living systems
are fundamentally distinct from physical systems in their ability to control available
energy gradients and distribute and direct them towards processes necessary for their
own continued presence (Corning 2002b, 2007). Therefore, the transition from
physical to living systems is a shift towards systems with internal information
processing capabilities and information reproduction (inheritance) capabilities
(Aunger 2007b). Once these replicating biochemical systems achieved a dynamic
stability with their environment (i.e. persistence) (Pross and Pascal 2013), we
entered a world of constructed functionality (Corning 2002b).
The functional behaviour of living systems seems to be produced by cybernetic
processes of goal-directed control and feedback between organisms and their envi-
ronment to maintain existence (Corning 2005). This means that all living systems
must be dynamically embedded or embodied in their environment, allowing them to
define context-dependent functional survival and reproduction goals, as well as
overcome challenges in relationship with their socioecological circumstances
(Heylighen 2014). As a result, all living systems define, either perceptually or
conceptually, boundaries between internal organization and the environment.
These boundaries serve the dual function of protecting achieved internal organiza-
tion (i.e. ‘self’) as well as enabling further growth and learning from interaction with
the environment (i.e. active knowledge construction), the latter of which is bounded
only by finite available energy and the internal cognitive information processing
capabilities of the living system. From this perspective, the life history of biological
systems can be defined by this process of controlling available energy and directing
it intelligently towards goals and values that have a biological or cultural relation to
survival, growth, and reproduction (i.e. ‘fitness’) (Kaplan and Gangestad 2005).
The third phase of big history can generally be defined by the emergence
of conceptual awareness, as well as conscious awareness of other minds
(i.e. groups of organisms with a ‘theory of mind’). Although many species today
18 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

display forms of perceptual awareness (Bermúdez 2009), it seems likely that humans
are the only contemporary species (or the only species in the life history of Earth)
with a comprehensive conceptual understanding of self and existence through
symbol (Heyes 1998; Call and Tomasello 2008; Penn et al. 2008). This can be
most saliently recognized in analyzing the human/non-human animal difference in
conceptualizing death (Teleki 1973; Nakamichi et al. 1996; Hosaka et al. 2000;
Warren and Williamson 2004; Anderson et al. 2010; Biro et al. 2010). The human
mind is the only known type of mind with the reflexive capability to understand its
own finite existence, both our gift and our curse (Cave 2012), as coming to terms
with our own mortality often proves fundamentally challenging for most humans. In
this sense phenomenologists have noted that our ability to conceptualize death is an
important component in what makes the human experience the human experience,
our ‘being-towards-death’ (Heidegger 1962).
The origin of the human mind is likely an origin deeply intertwined with the
origin and structural order of the human symbol system as manifest in the linguistic
code (Dunbar 2009). The animal kingdom is full of phylogenetically diverse
organisms that display complex social learning capabilities and express simple
cultural behaviours (Laland and Hoppitt 2003). Notable examples include
chimpanzees (Whiten et al. 1999; Boesch 2003), bonobos (Hohmann and Fruth
2003), gorillas (Breuer et al. 2005), orangutans (van Schaik et al. 2003), capuchin
monkeys (Fragaszy et al. 2004; Ottoni and Izar 2008), whales (Garland et al. 2011;
Rendell and Whitehead 2001), dolphins (Patterson and Mann 2011; Mann et al.
2012), various species of bird (Freeberg 1998; Hunt and Gray 2003; West et al.
2003; Williams et al. 2013), along with several other mammals, and even fish
(Freeberg 2000; Laland and Hoppitt 2003). But humans alone possess a symbol
system structured by a universal grammar with the capability of generating the
reflective and conceptual narrative, as well as adaptive cultural behaviours and
artefacts with an independent evolutionary trajectory (Marks 2002). Therefore,
language enabled both a theory of mind (Dunbar 2009), as well as ratcheting
‘cumulative culture’ (Tennie et al. 2009; Tomasello and Herrmann 2010)
(Table 2.2).
These big historical eras can be unified by the local trend of rising complexity
from the first simple galaxies to the emergence of global human civilization. From
the perspective of complexity as a relational property of increasing distinctions and
connections evolving in systems with multiple levels of organization, we see this
process of rising complexity as both interconnected and accelerating from the big
bang towards the present moment. For example, galaxies, the first large-scale

Table 2.2 Three eras of the local physical universe

Physical era ~13.8 billion years B.P.—~4.0 billion years B.P.
Biological era ~4.0 billion years B.P.—~2.0 million years B.P.
Cultural era ~2.0 million years B.P.—present
The local matter–energy phases of big history occur in three major eras based around new means of
forming structures and transmitting information
2.2 Big History 19

phenomena to emerge, were diffuse gaseous bodies composed of mostly hydrogen,

helium, and lithium atomic systems, which differentiated through the gravitational
integration of chemical compounds into more complex constituents like carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, and iron in the centre of stellar bodies. However, stars gave birth to
more complex planetary bodies, which diversify towards a new integration in the
structure of geological formations. In turn, geological structures composed the
substrate for the emergence of living systems. Living systems are more complex
than any known physical systems, as they are composed of differentiated
constituents that must be specifically located and expressed within integrated
networks composed of millions and billions of molecules.
This trend of increasingly complex interrelationships has reached its highest
expression within modern human civilization. Human civilization is an extremely
complex entity, which requires not only the stable platform of a home galaxy, star,
and planet, but also the stable functioning of single-celled organisms, organelles,
organs, individuals, groups, societies, states, and international entities (Miller 1978).
All of these nested and hierarchical systems exhibit higher levels of differentiated
constituents (at the atomic, molecular, cellular, neuronal, and societal, etc. levels)
functionally adapted to operate within integrated networks. Thus with the emergence
of physical objects, living systems, and aware minds, there has been an increase in
complexity, which has progressed with the arrow of time in a clear event-based
directionality.
From the growth of complexity hierarchically structured interrelationships have
allowed for emergent platforms of new dynamic actions and reactions in approxi-
mately six levels from the atomic to the superorganismal. These new actions and
reactions possess properties that were completely absent at lower levels of organiza-
tion, and enable future complexity and possibility that cannot be predicted or
anticipated precisely. This means that not only is the whole more than the sum of
its parts, but also that the whole is completely different than the sum of its parts
(Anderson 1972). In other words, as a system becomes more complex, the quantity
of possible interrelationships may increase, but also new qualities of interrelation-
ship can emerge, that simply did not exist previously. For example, throughout the
evolution of humanity from our foraging organizations to our still developing global
organization, there has been an obvious quantitative increase in the number of
interrelationships that occur between humans, but the rise in quantity has also
been coupled with an emergent qualitative dimension of interrelationships, like
being able to interconnect with people from anywhere in the world, irrespective of
spatial or temporal constraints (an unimaginable property for prehistorical and most
historical humans).
However, throughout the emergence of hierarchical levels of complexity, we can
say that only a minority of systems that reach a particular level are able to then
develop conditions for further complexification. This simply means that most
molecular systems do not develop cellular systems, and so forth. For example,
although the ‘cellular’ level emerged over ~3.5 billion years ago, most living
forms on our planet today have remained at the cellular level, and only a minority
increased towards the multicellular level. The same goes for the ‘superorganismal’
20 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

Table 2.3 Levels of hierarchical complexity

Atomic Relationships that occur through simple subatomic and atomic systems
(e.g. quarks, gluons, electrons, hydrogen, and helium)
Molecular Relationships that occur through the aggregation of chemical elements
(e.g. amino acids and polymers)
Cellular Relationships that occur through networks of simple single-cellular life forms
(e.g. prokaryotes and eukaryotes)
Multicellular Relationships that occur through networks of interconnected cellular bodies
(e.g. animals, plants, and fungi)
Societal Relationships that occur through networks of individual multicellular
organisms (e.g. groups and family/kin)
Superorganismal Relationships that occur through networks of groups (e.g. colonies,
kingdoms, and nations)

level, which emerged tens of millions of years ago, but, with the exception of human
civilization, is composed of organizations (e.g. ants, termites, bees, and naked mole
rats), which cannot further diversify to form higher levels of integration (Morris
2013). In other words, non-human superorganisms appear to be ‘dead ends’ in terms
of the further growth of complexity (Table 2.3).
The difference between the human superorganism and other superorganisms is
related to the aforementioned Cultural era: culture enabled humans to evolve the
ability to consciously organize information with symbols (as opposed to organizing
with biochemical mechanisms). Thus, the human phenomenon gives the appearance
of a phenomenon capable of both higher (symbolic) diversification and (sociopoliti-
cal) integration. However, this general property of only a small subset of higher
systems being able to develop further complexity appears to be a necessary precon-
dition for hierarchical complexity, because the higher levels of organization often
depend on the lower levels of organization for their stable existence. We can once
again demonstrate this property within the human superorganism, which was only
able to emerge from the societal (foraging) level through the domestication of plants
and animals during the agricultural revolution (i.e. we are dependent on the lower
levels of complexity to maintain our own higher complexity) (Last 2015).
This hierarchical complexification process appears to be produced by a higher
information processing capability, which in turn allows individuals to diversify and
collaborate in new configurations with more agents. This enables the exploitation
and control of higher and denser flows of energy, and the exploration of new modes
of integration. Consequently, many big historians quantify this local trend towards
higher complexity with the Energy Rate Density (ERD) metric (Chaisson 2001,
2011a, b). The ERD metric can be defined by energy (erg) flowing through
non-equilibrium systems, controlled for both time (s"1) and mass (g"1) (Spier
2011). The quantification of local energy flow has increased legitimacy for the
often proposed hypothesis that energy has played some fundamental role in the
evolution of higher structure and complexity (Lamarck 1809; Boltzmann 1886;
Spencer 1896; Lotka 1922; Schrödinger 1944; Morowitz 1968; Dyson 1971;
Prigogine et al. 1972a, b; Smil 1994; Spier 1996).
2.2 Big History 21

However, we obviously cannot reduce complexity to energy flow, which is to say

that energy does not in any way dictate living system order/organization to explain
the emergence of higher organization (Corning 2002b). Energy plays a fundamental
role in natural structure, but the nature of information and the relational properties of
how organisms use information is of equal importance (Corning 2007), if not greater
importance (Smart 2009; Gershenson 2012). The dynamic informational pattern
ultimately enables the flexible and active construction of an organism’s self-created
world, whereas energy may only be involved in presenting the subject with certain
constraints or opportunities that may be either overcome or exploited depending on
will and context. The problem with analyzing information as a complexity metric is
that there is no practically useful method for quantifying the information processing
capabilities of subjects, i.e. the living ‘users’ or ‘actors’ of the universe (Lineweaver
et al. 2013). The originally formulated theory of information, Shannon information
theory, suggests that one can quantify information processing by measuring
messages between senders and receivers (Shannon 1948; Shannon and Weaver
1949). However, the obvious problem with this measure is that quantifying
messages completely ignores the contextual and meaning-laden nature, in other
words the subjective nature, of functional biological and biocultural communication
(Kauffman 2000; Logan 2014). Consequently, in reality, there is no correlation
between Shannon Information and living system order (Corning 2007).
The subjective nature of information control has led some to assert that an
objective and universal measure of information will prove elusive (Maturana and
Varela 1980; Heylighen and Joslyn 2001), and will certainly not be found in a
reductive framework (Morin 2007). However, there have been attempts to measure
biotic information in a non-reductive framework (Corning 2007; Kauffman et al.
2007; Gershenson 2012; Fernàndez et al. 2013), although many still view ERD as
the most useful general complexity metric over the course of cosmic evolution (for
more information about ERD see Chaisson 2001). In the future, there should be
progress in this area of understanding local universe complexity, partly because it
seems critical to understanding the future of twenty-first century human civilization.
However, for now we should emphasize that the ‘three eras’ of ordered and
organizing complexity, which have led to the emergence of physical order, living
systems, and aware conceptual beings, share an overarching informational unity in
increasing distinctions and connections. In this trend towards increasingly complex
material relations, we see the power of cosmic evolution.

2.2.3 Three Evolutionary Processes

Cosmic evolutionary theory unifies the narrative of big history by utilizing the idea
of ‘evolution’ in a hyper-generalized way (Baker 2013). Evolution in cosmic
evolution refers generally to change over time in any physical system in the universe
(Chaisson 2009). The changing variation could be developmental, generational, or in
real-time, as well as physical, biological, or cultural (Smart 2009), with non-random
selection ‘targets’ in biological and cultural evolution operating at multiple levels of
22 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

organization (Corning 2005; Burtsev and Turchin 2006), from genes to

superorganisms (Hölldobler and Wilson 2008). The only real constraint placed on
evolution in this context is that it must be applied to open and non-equilibrium
systems (Chaisson 2011a). This means that evolution is a concept applicable to all
systems that interact with an environment and possess ordered or organizing
properties. In this sense, cosmic evolution offers a theoretical framework that can
unify all sciences (Chaisson 2003, 2013) and piece together the cosmic evolutionary
connections from particles to people (Sagan 1973; Dick 2009b).
Throughout cosmic evolution physical, biological, and cultural evolution has
emerged in a directional process with the arrow of time (Chaisson 2009). The first
evolution was a developmental gravitational process that allowed subatomic
particles like quarks to bond as the universe first began its expansion. As the universe
continued to expand, it cooled, and the force of gravity became a universal material-
attractor creating levels of structural order in a hierarchical fashion (Springel et al.
2005). Subatomic particles formed baryons, which captured electrons to form the
first hydrogen, helium, and lithium atoms (Trefil 2013). These simple atoms formed
within the structural edifice of dark matter (presumably), allowing for the formation
of protogalaxies (Loeb and Furlanetto 2013). Further intensification of this gravita-
tional process led to the generation of the first stars, which provided the densities and
temperatures necessary for the generation of more complex chemicals like carbon,
nitrogen, and oxygen (Impey 2007).
The emergence of the first stars ignited a new evolutionary mechanisms: physical
evolution based on developmental and generational change, not only because of the
continued expansion of space, but also because second and third-generation stars had
more diverse chemical materials for the construction of solar systems (i.e. stars with
rocky and gaseous planetary bodies) (Impey 2007). Solar systems represent a new
type of order in the universe due to both the increased diversity of chemical
arrangements and also the new ordered forms that provide a platform for further
evolutionary processes (Spier 2011).
The most complex structural entities constructed by physical evolution, i.e. stars
and planets, go through both developmental and generational changes based on
gravitational attraction and chemical variation (Chaisson 2009). However, with the
advent of biological evolution, we see the emergence of a new type of evolution,
which encompasses developmental and generational change, but also generational
selection (Corning 2002b). Individual biological entities change in time (develop-
mental), they change as they replicate (generational), but the success of the next
generation in terms of survival and reproduction is naturally selected by
socioecological environmental factors (Gould 2002). As a result, biological evolu-
tion operates on the fundamental basis of genetic variation and the selection of that
variation in relation to environmental conditions (Ruse and Travis 2009). A popula-
tion of replicating genes must sustain their own metabolic activity, but due to
scarcity of available energy, there will also be variation in how well individuals
within a population of biochemical entities can achieve this end (Kaplan and
Gangestad 2005). Selection then acts as a computation-like information processor
2.2 Big History 23

maintaining specific functional complexity for work related to energy protection,

acquisition, and distribution (Corning 2002b).
Throughout biological evolution, a remarkable degree of complex biological
organization has emerged (Smith and Szathmáry 1995, 2000; Stewart 2014). This
complexity is the result of billions of years of replicating chemical competition and
cooperation structured within genetic codes (Corning 2005). Although selection
itself is notoriously non-directional in terms of simplicity/complexity only seeking
to maximize fitness depending on environmental context (Gould 1996), the benefits
of synergistic cooperative behaviour can be selected in certain environments
(i.e. cooperation can outcompete competition) at all levels of biological organization
(Corning 2005). As a result, the evolutionary process as a whole tends to build and
stabilize higher structural complexity over time, even though selection itself is not
biased in any particular simplicity/complexity direction (Stewart 2014). Biological
organizations accomplish higher structural complexity with the selection for
bioenergetic information technologies that increase their ability to efficiently capture
and distribute energy (Corning 2002b). Several theorists have identified that the
major transitions in the evolutionary process (e.g. abiogenesis, eukaryotes, and
multicellularity) can be correlated with significant advances in the functional ability
to process and reproduce information (Smith and Szathmáry 1995), and the struc-
tural capabilities to regulate energy flow (Niele 2005). These innovations enable the
emergence of biological organizations that drift further away from thermodynamic
equilibrium (Aunger 2007a, b), with the use of sophisticated information-based
controls on organization (Turchin 1977; Corning 2002a, 2007).
Throughout the great majority of Earth history, biological evolution alone
organized matter–energy into new functions and structures. This changed with the
rise of the genus Homo ~ 2 million years ago, as early humans acquired the unique
ability to engage in the cultural evolutionary process (Richerson and Boyd 2008).
Unlike biological evolution, which operates on the generational selection of func-
tional chemical information structured by the genome, cultural evolution operates on
the real-time selection of functional symbolic information structured by language
(Deacon 1997; Marks 2002). As a consequence, biological structures like genes,
chromosomes, and genomes—as well as cultural structures like ideas, theories, and
worldviews—are subject to evolutionary selection pressures in humans. This func-
tional symbolic information can produce both adaptive behaviours and adaptive
technology (Caldwell and Millen 2008). Therefore, culture is code for inner concep-
tual experience, outward conceptual behaviour, as well as code for technological
structures; in the same way that biochemicals code for inner perceptual experience,
outward perceptual behaviours, as well as code for biological structures. As a result,
organisms subject to cultural evolution are not just in competition and cooperation
for energy based on perceptual sensory knowledge of the universe, but also concep-
tual abstract knowledge (Logan 2007). In modern human civilization adaptive
complexity is predominantly cultural, as opposed to biological. This means that
for human civilization, energy control, and distribution primarily depends on forms
of cultural selection, not biological selection (Last 2014).
24 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

Cultural evolution vastly accelerates the speed of the evolutionary process

because cultural beings can ‘save’ socioecological and subjective conceptual knowl-
edge acquired in real time, as well as store and transmit information learned in real-
time faithfully across many generations using symbols (Tomasello et al. 1993;
Laland 2008). Like selection for chemical information in biological evolution,
selection for symbolic information has no inherent direction within individual
cultural beings. Instead, change is always flexibly produced in relationship to
socioecologies (and/or socioeconomies). However, selection for more complex
cultural information (experiential, behavioural, and technical) can collectively take
a progressive directional quality within a cultural society. This will be dependent
almost entirely on the behaviour and relationship of societal controls (e.g. state
structures/institutions) on the flow of/access to information, and the technical
medium utilized for the storage and transmission of the linguistic code
(e.g. writing, printing press, telecommunications, and Internet) (Last 2015). As a
general principle, the more faithfully a society can store and transmit cultural
information between cultural beings and across cultural generations, the less func-
tional cultural information is lost (i.e. ‘backward slippage’), and the easier it
becomes for any given cultural collective to build upon the complexity of inherited
cultural knowledge (i.e. ‘ratcheting’) (Tennie et al. 2009). In this sense, the speed of
cultural change is a rough function of the qualitative efficiency and quantitative
number of conversations (i.e. idea sharing/sex) being conducted within and between
individuals and populations (Ridley 2010).
From a cosmic evolutionary perspective, one of the primary differences between
biological and cultural evolution fundamentally remains in the reproduction capa-
bility and pathway (Last 2014). Biological evolution is a mature and independent
process that does not require culture to exist. In contrast, cultural evolution is still
very much a young and dependent process, requiring biological mechanisms to exist.
This, of course, makes all of human evolution biocultural, and not simply biological
or cultural (Marks 2012, 2013). There are no cultural beings that come into existence
and remain in existence without the aid of a biological substrate. Consequently, all
cultural beings are the ultimate products of biological reproduction and a chemically
based genetic code, as opposed to the ultimate product of cultural reproduction and a
symbolic linguistic code (Last 2014). However, we do already see the signs that
cultural evolution, or the reproduction of symbolic code, will not necessarily remain
dependent on a biological substrate indefinitely. The future of cultural evolution
could be the attainment of a stage of independent maturity in the same way
biological evolution earned its own independence from physical evolution.
The second crucial difference between biological and cultural evolution appears
in a distinction between the fundamental natures of each process. In biological
evolution, there is an endless and aimless differentiation of biological subjects
whose future struggles and trajectories are independent. In other words, there is a
struggle of genes, individuals, species, etc. within the biological order, but the
biological order itself is not in a struggle towards any ‘common whole’ or ‘common
direction’ (Gould 2002). Instead, the biological order is simply and unconsciously
becoming more diverse for as long as the cycle is able to continue, without leading
2.2 Big History 25

towards any internal closure of the process. In contrast, in cultural evolution there
appears a shared ground between all participating biocultural subjects whose future
struggles and trajectories are not only dependent but increasingly dependent as if
converging towards a common whole. In other words, there is a struggle of ideas,
theories, and worldviews within the symbolic order, but this struggle is an increas-
ingly conscious struggle for the universality of the symbolic order itself. Thus in the
cultural evolutionary context, progressive symbolic differentiation does give the
signal of approaching an internal closure of the process itself (the opposite of
biological evolution).

2.2.4 End of Order?

The three eras and evolutionary processes of big history help us to organize and
understand vast periods of time that connect seemingly unrelated phenomena into
one interrelated process contextualizing the existence of modern humans in the
twenty-first century. However, what can this insight tell us about the overall trend
and patterns of cosmic evolution into the deep future?
The likely future of the Physical and Biological eras is to some extent well
known, or at least seemingly simple to extrapolate with current understanding. Of
course, Earth’s biological complexity is dependent on local physical complexity, and
so the Biological era’s future is intimately dependent on the future of our own solar
system. Our home star, the Sun, is approximately 4.567 billion years old (Connelly
et al. 2012), and is in the middle of a 10-billion year ‘main-sequence’ phase
characterized by hydrogen fusion (Beech 2008). Over the course of the main
sequence phase, the Sun’s luminosity and radius will gradually increase on geologic
and astronomical timescales as its hydrogen reserves are steadily exhausted (Ribas
2009). This process will result in Earth developing a Venus-like atmosphere in ~3
billion years (Franck et al. 2005).
In this hypothesized future, biological life has an gloomy ultimate fate. Through-
out the evolution of life history, there have been major transitions towards increased
complexity with the emergence of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and multicellular
eukaryotes (i.e. plants, animals, and fungi) (Stewart 2014). These forms of life
evolved in a directional order: prokaryotes (3.5 Gyr) (Bada and Lazcano 2009),
eukaryotes (2.0 Gyr) (Tomitani et al. 2006), and multicellular eukaryotes
(1–0.5 Gyr) (Knoll et al. 2006; Grosberg and Strathmann 2007). Current models
suggest that, as our Sun’s luminosity and radius increase, increased energy inputs
will disrupt Earth’s carbon cycle, causing several intensive, successive, and irrevers-
ible disturbances in complex life’s ability to survive (O’Malley-James et al. 2013).
This is hypothesized to cause the extinction of major forms of life in reverse
chronological order to their original appearance: multicellular eukaryotes
(0.8 Gyr), eukaryotes (1.3 Gyr), and prokaryotes (1.6 Gyr) (Franck et al. 2005).
Therefore, Earth will possess an atmosphere with astrobiological ‘Earth-like’
qualities for a relatively brief period of its overall existence (~2 billion years)
(Brownlee 2010). However, depending on prokaryotic adaptive resilience (which
26 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

seems to be quite high), these simple life forms could exist as many as 2.8 billion
years into Earth’s future (O’Malley-James et al. 2013). That still leaves a couple of
billion years for our planet to boil back to a lifeless sphere.
The future of the Physical era proves to be even gloomier. In our local universe,
the Sun will eventually enter its ‘red giant’ phase largely driven by higher rates of
helium fusion (i.e. our star will finally exhaust its available ‘fuel’) (Beech 2008).
Current estimates suggest that this could occur around 5–8 billion years from the
present (Boothroyd and Juliana Sackmann 1999; Schröder and Smith 2007). In its
red giant phase, the Sun will swell in diameter to ~2 astronomical units (AU),
eventually consuming Mercury, Venus, and most likely Earth (Rybicki and Denis
2001). However, the Sun will not explode in a supernova. Instead, it is likely to enter
a short 10 thousand year phase as a planetary nebula, ejecting ionized gas into its
surrounding spatial medium (Bloecker 1995). After this phase, the Sun will finally
settle into a cool white dwarf phase, which could survive for trillions of years before
eventually burning out entirely (Bloecker 1995; Veras et al. 2014). It is amazing to
consider the possibility that the majority of the Sun’s life may be spent in such an
alien form.
During the Sun’s stellar development, our solar system will be undergoing a
larger galactic transformation. Currently, our solar system exists within the Milky
Way galaxy: a barred spiral galaxy composed of 200–400 billion stars (Gerhard
2002), at least 200–400 billion planets (Cassan et al. 2012), and a ~100 to 120 thou-
sand light year diameter (Gerhard 2002). However, in ~4 billion years the Milky
Way will collide with its closest neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, producing
‘Milkomeda’ an elliptical galaxy predicted to be composed of ~1 trillion stars
(Cox and Loeb 2007; Cowen 2012; Goldsmith 2012). Throughout the Milky
Way–Andromeda collision, our solar system should remain undisturbed. However,
the collision is likely to affect our system’s position vis-a-vis the galactic core (Cox
and Loeb 2007).
In the deeper future of the Stelliferous era (i.e. 1–10 trillion years) most or all
galactic structures in Laniakea, our home supercluster of galaxies (Brent Tulley et al.
2014; Gibney 2014) will eventually merge with Milkomeda as an even larger
elliptical galaxy (Adams and Laughlin 1997). During this time all galaxies external
to the Local Group will recede from our local universe’s horizon (Loeb 2011).
Towards the end of the Stelliferous era and the beginnings of the Degenerate era
only planets, white dwarfs, and neutron stars will remain (Adams and Laughlin
1997). This will likely mark the end of life, and the beginning of the universe’s
practically infinite descent into thermodynamic equilibrium (Adams and Laughlin
1999). Although it must be noted that this future for physical evolution is dependent
on the nature of the dark universe (i.e. dark matter and energy): two very important
somethings comprising 95.1% of our universe (Ade et al. 2013), but whose nature
(s) remain largely mysterious (Livio 2010). The range of speculation on the nature of
dark matter and energy is beyond the scope of this chapter, however, it is safe to say
that a deeper understanding of these currently missing components of the cosmic
picture will affect our understanding of the deep future of the physical universe, and
maybe the living universe too.
2.2 Big History 27

primordial order
past (origin) ?
primordial
inflation (white hole / singularity)
era
heterogenous
stelliferous
matter
present era

multi-local order
(stars, galaxies, planets)
future

degenerate
era

global order
decay

black hole
era

total
decay

heat death (thermodynamic equilibrium, maximal disorder)

Fig. 2.1 Thermodynamic view of the cosmos, primordial order to final disorder. The thermody-
namics view of the cosmos gives the picture of a universe with particular low-entropy, highly
ordered or supersymmetrical initial state of being (non-random motion). This initial state drifts
towards higher entropy, global disorder (random motion) over time via symmetry-breaking events
(divisions) and feedback loops (unities), which generates a motion that we understand as an arrow
of time. Consequently, in the context of the universe as a whole (considering the whole of space and
the whole of time) the most common state space for matter is general disorganization (thermal
equilibrium) due to low material interaction rates, which suggests that the currently observed state
of the universe is ultimately unstable. The multilocal material order that does self-organize into
persistent temporal form (galaxies, stars, life, mind) occurs due to gravitational attraction acting on
heterogeneous distributions of organizations that enables higher material interaction rates. In our
current understanding of the universe, there is no complete theory that explains the fundamental
consequence of the emergence of such multilocal order, and reductionist perspectives tend to regard
such phenomena as epiphenomenal. In other words, reductionist perspectives identify a fundamen-
tal objectivity (unity) framed a priori by a subjectivity (division), but cannot think a framed a priori
subjectivity (division) that constitutes emergent fundamental objectivity (unity)

Extrapolating our current understanding of the universe leaves little room for
optimism. A future with no structure or available energy is a future with no
complexity, no information processing and replication, no humanity, and no mind
(Fig. 2.1). This has had a profoundly negative and very real psychological effect on
the consciousness of the scientific mind, and particularly the Western scientific
mind. Our vision has been trapped by the abstract concept of entropy. We cannot
imagine a hope in the enterprise of life. Throughout the modern world, we have had
to come to terms with a strange type of cosmic nihilism, a perspective captured well
by philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (1903, p. 7):
28 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

All the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of
human genius, are destined to extinction. . . The whole temple of Man’s achievements must
inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

Cyberneticist Norbert Wiener famously echoed Russell’s basic sentiments (Wie-

ner 1950, p. 40):

It is foregone conclusion that the lucky accident which permits the continuation of life in any
form on this earth, even without restricting life to something like human life, is bound to
come to a complete and disastrous end. [. . .] In a very real sense we are shipwrecked
passengers on a doomed planet. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we
may look forward as worthy of our dignity.

But can we say for certain that life has no hope in the deep future? Could the
decisions and actions of agents with purposive knowledge derived from higher goals
and values have something constructive to say about the end of the universe? We
often discuss the deep future as if life and intelligence will not be an active part of it:
intelligent thought and action as shaping and directing the future (e.g. Wheeler
1988). After all: ‘Life and intelligence are the wildcards in the universal deck’.
(McKenna 1994). In this framework, when we discuss the deep future of cosmic
evolution, the most recent emergent era of human awareness, and the most recent
emergent evolution of cultural evolution, must be seriously contemplated as playing
a fundamental role. Cultural evolution is still increasing complexity in the universe
via the development of more advanced information technologies, and the regulation
of denser energy flows. Cultural evolution is also still capable of engaging in the
major trends of evolving complexity towards higher integration (connection)
through higher diversification (distinctions) (Fig. 2.2).
Therefore, if we are going to find optimism in the deep future we can say that
cultural evolution presents us with a process that gives the appearance of the ‘leading
edge’ of complex growth: a process that could develop into an emergent possibility
space that many have not factored into models of the deep future. However, despite
detailed knowledge of the future biosphere and solar system, we have a remarkably
poor understanding of the deep future potential of culture as both a creative process
and as an evolutionary mechanism to change the future nature of both biological and
physical evolution (Vidal 2014b). The way forward is clear: we must develop an
understanding of the nature and potential future of the cultural evolutionary path-
way, what is being termed ‘cosmic culture’ (Dick and Lupisella 2009). The symbols
of the cultural evolutionary pathway shape our behaviour and conceptions, and
allow us to construct technological product. Understanding cosmic culture could
offer us an alternative glimpse of the future of universe, life, and mind. After all:
‘One of the main purposes of science is to investigate the future evolution of life in
the universe’. (Linde 1988, p. 29).
2.2 Big History 29

final order
future (destiny) ?
post-morden collapse (black hole / singularity)
history
informational
modern international-commons
present
history

industrial
past nation-states

ancient
history

agricultural
kingdoms/chiefdoms

pre-
history

hunter-
gatherer
tribes

Fig. 2.2 Teleodynamic view of the (local) cosmos, primordial disorder to final order. This
representation attempts to capture the cosmic evolutionary worldview that is characterized by far-
from-equilibrium or non-equilibrium systems that operate on self-organizing principles
dynamically balanced between chaos and order. In the teleodynamical conception, we get an
image of the world that presents us with an immanent ‘immortal heat’ where highly ordered far-
from-equilibrium systems curve their being to a state of supersymmetrical unity (a cosmic-
transcendental monism). Such a state would likely annihilate the dualistic distinctions between
subject–object, concept–world, observer–observed, material–ideal without resorting to a
prelinguistic ‘biophysical grounding’ that ignores the emergence and consequences of conceptual
distinctions (i.e. ‘distinction-division dynamics’). In this representation, the totality of process is
conceived of as starting with the emergence of a field composed of ideationally constituted social
unities (bands/tribes) whose ground is self-consciousness developing in language. Throughout the
historical process bands/tribes become progressively ‘synthesized’ into higher-level social unities
which has the effect of reducing the number of different unified groups (i.e. fewer unities) but
increasing the spatial scale of the unified groups (i.e. difference between Europe pre-and-post
Roman Empire, or Asia pre-and-post Chinese Empire). In the progressive trend to unification the
level of individuation also progressively increases meaning that there are emergent degrees of
freedom for the particular elements of the higher-level social unities. This paradox between higher
social unity and higher individuation continues to the present day where we see the dominance of a
‘multiplicity of ideals’ which are nonetheless all expressing ideality within one universal techno-
logical medium. The combination of these two trends makes it difficult for philosophy to make
sense of totality. In this view in order to approach totality we must include the radical divisions
characteristic of individuation into the higher unity of totality, thus creating a unity inclusive of
division
30 2 Historical Foundations for Future Speculations

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History of the Future
3

3.1 Human Future

Since the symbols of culture influence our behaviour and our conceptions, an
analysis of the human future related to cultural evolution must start with an analysis
of the symbolic reproduction of archetypal future visions. Historically, the human
future has always captivated our imagination, and has always existed as a temporal
conception. However, there are few historical examples within any pre-modern
subculture of archetypal higher futures—meaning more ordered, peaceful, free—
manifesting in the secular domain. For pre-modern historical cultures, a higher future
on earth was impossible (or, more properly, not seriously representable in symbol) as
our world was instead often conceptualized as a world of material scarcity and brutal
violence with no sociopolitical or technological mechanism of escape. Thus, many
pre-modern human societies typically conceived of civilization as in a cosmic
cyclical state, e.g. Hindu-influenced Indian society, or the Maya of Central America
are two classical examples. In these civilizations, there was no clear directional
historical progress in the worldly sense: history was a cosmic trap between heaven
(i.e. higher world) and hell (i.e. lower world). Consequently, many great cultures
reasoned that a higher future was only possible within the domain of supernature and
impossible to realize on secular humanistic terms (e.g. most notably: Christians and
Muslims). Of course, there are some important exceptions to this generalization
about envisioning higher secular futures, but large-scale cultural dedication to a
qualitatively higher future on Earth seems to have been almost completely absent in
pre-modern thinking.

Based on Last, C. (2017). Big Historical Foundations for Deep Future Speculations: Cosmic
Evolution, Atechnogenesis, and Technocultural Civilization. Foundations of Science, 22(1):
39–124. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-015-9434-y.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 39

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_3
40 3 History of the Future

Fig. 3.1 Ancient circular versus modern teleological view of human time

This pre-modern notion of existing in a historical trap changed dramatically with

the emergence of the ‘early modern’ (~1500 to 1750) and ‘modern’ (~1750 to 2000)
periods of human history. Modernity is a traditional period of historical classification
generally defined by the emergence of a social and intellectual reliance on the
scientific method, empiricism, and rationality (Baird and Kaufmann 2008).
Modernists believed that utilizing science and building a worldview around evidence
and reason, were essential for conquering the natural world, superstition, and the
ultimate secular goal: freeing humanity from biological and material constraints
(Tucker 1972). From this tradition, the idea that the human world may not be a
world of scarcity and war forever, started to become a humanist dream increasingly
tethered to the possibility of realization (Fig. 3.1).
This development is by necessity a Western-centric construction of history, as
advances in technology (e.g. printing press and industry) within specific European
contexts, enabled the flourishing of modernist thought. In big historical terms, new
information and energy dynamics provided a higher possibility space for the flow of
new cultural ideas and theories identifying an emerging secular direction. This
direction was/is often measured in terms of acquiring increasing objective knowl-
edge about the cosmos, increased material abundance for society and increased
individual freedom from authoritarian sociopolitical structures. It is in this context
3.1 Human Future 41

that the concept of utopia acquired a persistent and influential presence as an

attractor (More 1516), functioning to propagate future visions and new ideas for
creating a more ideal society here on Earth (i.e. the human–world relation as an
unfinished project).
Therefore, from the perspective of cultural evolution, the stable emergence of
modern science, as well as a religious-like cultural reliance on empiricism and
rationality, represented the emergence of an imaginative signal in the symbolic
code that a higher state was in principle possible in this world. Philosopher Francis
Bacon, a pre-eminent intellectual figure of the scientific revolution, succinctly
captured the goals of the ‘modern scientific project’ when he articulated the nature
of science as a force that could radically alter the human future, potentially bringing
about ‘things which have never been achieved’ and alter being in ways that ‘were
unlikely to ever enter men’s minds’ (Bacon 1620, p. 103).
Bacon and his contemporaries dreamed of a science that, when combined with
imagination and rigorous experimental methodology, could allow for what we may
refer to as a ‘maximum possibility space’. He explored this idea in his own utopian
novel New Atlantis (Bacon 1626, p. 19):

The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motion of things; and the
enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.

Since the scientific revolution, the modern attempt of imagining and actively
creating a higher human future here on Earth has always been an inherently scientific
and rational project. However, this project directly contradicted, and is still
contradicting, traditional theology, and traditional culture more generally. Tradi-
tional cultures have tended to imagine a higher human future only in a supernatural
sense, i.e. not on Earth but in some transcendent domain, typically post death: life
with death, not life against death. This emergent contradiction in futures and the
meaning of worldly human goals, values, and existence has caused an ongoing
intellectual tension throughout the modern period because imagining a higher
secular future required a fundamental reorganization of human thought in regards
to the relationship between humanity and God (Spinoza 1677; Leibniz 1710;
Feuerbach 1841), humanity and the cosmos (Copernicus 1543; Newton 1687),
humanity and life (Lamarck 1809; Darwin 1859; Wallace 1871), and the fundamen-
tal structure of human society itself (Rousseau 1762; Condorcet 1795; Marx 1844);
all relationships with specific conceptualizations in Western theology (Brown 1981).
From a big historical perspective, the symbolic emergence of the modern project
has occupied almost no time at all: less than 1 s on Carl Sagan’s ‘cosmic calendar’
(Sagan 1977). In this cosmic sense, the modern project can thus be conceptualized as
a type of intellectual explosion without historical precedent. However, we can also
say it is an explosion that is still an incomplete project. The central goal of the
modern project was to completely ‘flip’ the dominant human narrative from a world
where humans understand themselves as trapped in an immutable state in relation to
the rest of nature, subservient to God(s) (or the supernatural generally), towards a
world where humans understand themselves as in the process of overcoming nature
42 3 History of the Future

through reason and measurement (i.e. nature as incomplete), and ultimately towards
a higher state of being and organization (Tucker 1972):

The criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism. It culminates in the percept that
man is the supreme being of man. By exposing the God-illusion, it frees man to revolve
around himself as his real sun: ‘Religion is only the illusory sun that revolves around man so
long as he has not yet begun to revolve around himself.’ What would it mean for man to
revolve around himself?

Thus, this reconceptualization of humanity took on the dimensions of a secular

eschatology, i.e. human will, as exercised through a full exploration of science and
technology, was going to produce the conditions for an ‘end’ to the state of the world
and nature as modern humanity had experienced it: the human self would be
overcome and the full force of our imaginative desires would be actualized. In
other words, history became a prologue to the main show, and the main show’s
stage shifted from the heavens to the Earth (Frye 1947; Abrams 1963; Tucker 1972).
For some it would culminate in an aesthetic and transcendent freedom of the will
(Kant 1781), for others rationality would allow for the achievement of the omni-
scient self and ultimate planetary human organization (Hegel 1837), for others we
would achieve biological, social, and intellectual perfection (Condorcet 1795), for
others nature would be usurped by humanistic creativity that would reveal new
foundations for experience (Blake 1810), and for others the modern project would
eventually abolish all facets of historical adult human life, including labour, money,
property, and institutions (Marx 1844). Human civilization was no longer a trap of
unending and perpetual war and scarcity, but a process of inspired suffering that
would lead towards a true secular apocalypse (Frye 1970, p. 130):

The vision of the end and goal of human civilization as the entire universe in the form that
human desire wants to see it, as a heaven eternally separated from a hell.

From these foundational humanistic thinkers, the future was becoming a real
utopian attractor state with specific discernible properties. The socio-economic
nature of the historical process became a phenomenon that could be modelled, and
materially or idealistically grounded in science and philosophy, pointing the way
towards a world with a far higher experiential possibility space (Abrams 1963).
Thus, whether the emphasis was on the transformation of human psychology and
biology, or on a transformation of human material conditions and structural organi-
zation, we would have our new world by reclaiming the Earth as Universal Human-
ity and remaking nature in our own imaginative image (Shelley 1813, p. 30):

A garden shall arise, in loveliness, surpassing fabled Eden.

Throughout this modern period various political ideologies (i.e. liberalism, pro-
gressivism, conservatism, fascism, and anarchism) and economic ideologies
(i.e. capitalism, communism, socialism, and libertarianism), and philosophical
ideologies (i.e. humanism, naturalism, deism, and feminism) have arisen claiming
3.1 Human Future 43

to point the way for humanity. Clearly, no ideology has yet achieved the lofty goals
of the modern project, as a divine higher state of humanity has proven elusive,
whereas political–religious institutional structures and God as an invisible symbolic
structure of necessity have proven difficult to eradicate, emerging in many odd yet
powerful pseudo-modernist forms. For example, the invisible symbolic structure of
necessity in communism became the ‘State’ (i.e. the State will save us and guide us
towards the ‘End of History’), ‘money’ in capitalism (i.e. circulate finance capital at
the expense of all else and everyone will experience the ‘National Dream’), and
traditional culture generally (i.e. preserve the old historical pathway at the expense of
science, evidence and reason, and ‘Jesus’ or ‘Allah’ will eventually save/reward us,
etc.): pseudo-modernist government, market, and religious fundamentalisms, where
faith rests on bureaucratic, financial, and supernatural structure, respectively. From
this perspective, it is more important than ever to point out explicitly that
demonstrating the scientific implausibility of God (Dawkins 2006), does not kill
God as a symbolic structure of necessity, but rather changes its form.
More disturbingly, the modern project, as manifest in industrial civilization, has
also generated an ‘age of extremes’ fraught with competitive and militaristic inter-
national division (i.e. ‘World War 1 and 2’, ‘Cold War’) (Hobsbawm 1994),
humanitarian catastrophes (i.e. ‘Great Leap Forward’, ‘The Holocaust’) (Leitenberg
2006), as well as tension-filled global development characterized by mind-numbing
levels of socio-economic inequality (Oxfam 2014), and several interconnected
planetary ecological crises (IPCC 2013). These properties of contemporary global
development make continued social, economic, and ecological stability within our
current organizational structure simply impossible (Glenn et al. 2014). Not exactly
the vision of Shelley’s ‘Garden of Eden’, and this is where the intellectual tradition
of ‘post-modernity’ emerges (Anderson 1998). Postmodernity is a system of thought
that fundamentally questions the notion of progress, emphasizes the ambiguous role
of technological advancement, and rejects the notion that a ‘master scientific narra-
tive’ can guide the direction of the human species. Postmodernists claim that the
beliefs of the modern project are nothing but wishful thinking, a secular fairy tale,
and replacement of God with a ‘human religion’ (i.e. a new transcendent universal-
ity). They point to the facts of the modern world: that in reality, it has been a world of
large-scale state violence, socio-economic inequality, mass slavery, colonialism,
neo-colonialism, ecological devastation, and Western sociocultural hegemony. For
postmodernists, these are all clear proofs that the notions of modern progress
represent a tempting but dangerous lie.
From this tradition of thought some academics now claim that in fact the
pre-modern notion of humanity as in a sociopolitical cyclical state of unending
scarcity and violence, hierarchy, and exploitative labour, is a better way to under-
stand the human condition in civilization. These criticisms are important and often
valid, but at the same time, the historical process is not over. Even in the face of
overwhelming global obstacles (or even because we face overwhelming global
obstacles), we cannot forget the hope for a higher world: a world where the structural
conditions of civilization enable the highest flourishing of the human creative
imagination; or even: the distributed emergence of a collective common goal that
44 3 History of the Future

does not rest on an external necessary God [either religious (/supernatural), govern-
mental (/bureaucratic), or market (/financial)] but on an internally generated inter-
subjective value system supporting collective freedom and immortality (a true
universality).
Here I will concede that the assumed markers for progress traditionally associated
with the modern project are in need of serious revision and that, at the present
moment, we are at a genuine historical crossroads towards the end of our modern
‘ideological constellation’ (Žižek 2011). In other words, if the symbolic direction of
history in the modern world (i.e. ‘the project for humanity to finish’) was imagined to
be increasing objective knowledge of the cosmos, material abundance, and individ-
ual freedom, this overall logic today seems questionable at best. In our quest to
understand the objectivity of the cosmos, we have failed to understand the objectiv-
ity of the internal intersubjective cosmos; in our quest for material abundance, we
have failed to cultivate an internal spiritual abundance; in our quest for individual
freedom, we have forgotten to think about what the true responsibility of freedom
means in the deepest contexts.
In other words, the objective rational capitalist individual of the modern world
needs to be rethought on the fundamental level. Can we think the objectivity of the
intersubjective realm? Can we think rationality that can successfully process the
internal emotional states that emerge from real social relations? Can we think
capitalism that is directly connected to a use-value correlated with concrete human
needs? Can we think an individuality that is expressive of the highest values and
responsibility for self, others, and commons? Or to say it in another way, can we
think a modernity that is relevant to the global era of our species development? The
ultimate consequence of continuing down our current cultural path is not only more
ecological destruction towards unliveable planetary conditions, but also a state of
‘Universal Alienation’ where the foundations of trust in self and others become
eroded completely (Harvey 2014). That is not exactly the universality the modern
project envisioned: instead of Universal Humanity revolving around its own most
light in a co-creation of an equal international organization, we are building a world
of Universal Aliens controlled by a centralized invisible network of financial elites.
The time has come for a realistic Global or Universal Dream that can add a
surrealistic dimension to a real Global Village. In cosmic evolutionary terms, we are
facing the paradox of integration through differentiation, where we must balance a
local differentiation, and a global integration. Both dimensions need to be considered
in the totality of this surrealistic project. For the modern project the dream of a
transcendent mature, abundant, and egalitarian human state was to be expected with
a spirited and poetic confidence (Hegel 1837, p. 447):

Never since the sun had stood in the firmament and the planets revolved around him had it
been perceived that man’s existence centres in his head, i.e. in thought, inspired by which he
builds up the world of reality. . . not until now had man advanced to the recognition of the
principle that thought ought to govern spiritual reality. This was accordingly a glorious
mental dawn. All thinking being shared in the jubilation of this epoch. Emotions of a lofty
character stirred men’s minds at that time; a spiritual enthusiasm thrilled through the world,
as if the reconciliation between the divine and the secular was now first accomplished.
3.1 Human Future 45

Now this dream seems distant, even terrifying. If we still hold these modernist
and humanist values, we should not remember the modern project to repeat the
mistakes of the past (the way in which there is an asymmetry between the ideals of
modernism and the actuality of modernism); instead, we should remember the
modern project to remember that we should strive for what now seems (socially,
economically, and politically) ‘impossible’ (Graeber 2015): a world built for people
(humans) attempting to realize their most fully actualized possible state of being, in
terms of the good, the true, and the beautiful. To build a world on a foundation of real
aesthetics, morality, and truth, we require new thinking, we require new philosophy,
as an eternal repetition striving to vivify the highest state of being. In this quest, it
may be time to think through not only rights and demands of the other, but also
responsibility for the maturation of the self through a confrontation with the lacking
other within.
For this precise reason, postmodernity should be seen as the emergence of an anti-
philosophical age of thought. In our postmodern universe, structured by a dualism of
science attempting to replace real philosophy, and the humanities attempting to
deconstruct archetypal structure, we can no longer really imagine a true universality.
In this thought sphere global capital (so-called ‘late’ capitalism) presents to us an
impossible obstacle destined to homogenize and reduce world culture to corporate
culture devoid of spirit. Thus for all intents and purposes the general sociopolitical
zeitgeist of our moment has become a distorted return to pre-modern thinking,
i.e. ‘we’re trapped’ (Sirius, R.U. in: Lebkowsky 1997, p. 20):

Anybody who doesn’t believe we’re trapped hasn’t taken a good look around. We’re trapped
in a sort of mutating multinational corporate oligarchy that’s not about to go away. We’re
trapped by the limitations of our species. We’re trapped in time.

Even the science fiction of our age, dominated by cyberpunk megacorporate

dystopias, concedes defeat and cannot find imaginative optimistic constructions of
our future potentiality (Wernick 2014). The old dreams are just dreams, in need of a
dramatic revitalization and retethering to the possibility of realization: a serious
representational symbolic vision for common actualization.
In this sense, it is important to repeat that the modern ‘act-of-becoming’ has
presented us with titanic obstacles in the twenty-first century that were severely
underestimated by the intellectual founders of the modern world. Specifically, when
it comes to achieving a higher form of universality, we underestimated the levels of
complexity that would be produced by our species emergence onto the global stage
(San Miguel et al. 2012) in what geologists are calling the ‘Anthropocene’
(Zalasiewicz et al. 2008). Ideally, a new form of ‘global systems science’ is needed
to make sense of ‘the whole’ in a new way (Helbing 2013a), and provide a new
general perspective of complex systems thinking for the Anthropocene epoch (Niele
2005). Most modernist thinkers thought science and technology would bring ‘God-
like’ absolute human control over nature (Tucker 1972). However, the reality is that
science and technology have created a complex world radically out of control (Kelly
1995).
46 3 History of the Future

Consequently, we need different modes of sociopolitical governance. Complex

systems science teaches us that local, bottom-up, and distributed coordination are
typically the most effective and capable mechanisms for enabling emergent global
order in highly complex environments. This is because, in complex systems, there
are simply too many differentiated parts for effective top-down mechanisms for
coordination to stably function and synergize the whole. Thus, any global systems
science and serious sociopolitical global development agenda must understand how
to maintain a new planetary organization with dynamic and distributed mechanisms
that lead to self-organization (as opposed to static and hierarchical historical
mechanisms that produce centralized organization) (Helbing 2015).
In order to move forward towards developing the foundations for an emergent
global direction, we must find a way to revitalize the modernist spirit with some type
of qualitative difference for the twenty-first century. To be specific modernity began
when humans started to experience their human–world reality as unfinished: as a
project to be completed with the application of science and technology aligned to
humanist–atheist goals and values. The logic operates on the basic principle that
because there is no God, we have to build heaven ourselves. But what would be
‘new’ (or qualitatively different) in a ‘new modernity’?

3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon

I think that the potential beginnings of a new modernity can be designed (and indeed
are in many ways already being designed) with the link between traditional modern-
ist humanist–atheist dreams and the emergence of contemporary transhumanist
dreams for both life extension and life expansion which brings us to the horizon of
a God-like world enacted by human beings (Vita-More 1983; More 1990; More and
Vita-More 2014). This would be a world of higher possibilities through the actuality
of longer collective lifespan and higher collective perceptions and conceptions. In
other words, the core of a new or a transmodernity would explicitly recognize that in
order to complete modernity (i.e. there is no God, we have to build heaven ourselves)
we must challenge our traditional notions of ‘human nature’ and become responsibly
but still curiously open to an exploration of what humanity can be (i.e. what are the
farthest reaches of human sociocultural and technological possibility?). This path-
way is something that Charles Darwin himself realized was open to both speculation
and eventual achievement after providing the foundations for a view of an evolving
universe (Darwin 1871, p. 492):

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own
exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of this having thus risen,
instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hope for a still higher destiny
in the distant future.

For many transhumanists Darwin’s ‘higher destiny in the distant future’ has
become the development of a near-term evolutionary transition produced from the
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon 47

accelerated evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) that

will enable a higher state of ‘trans’ human existence (Sandberg 2010; Heylighen
2012). In these future evolutionary conceptions, a modernist Eden will emerge
(Shelley 1813, p. 30), but unlike the vision of many early humanist–atheist thinkers,
it will be an Eden enabled by advanced, revolutionary technology (e.g. robotics,
artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology), which will allow us to forever abandon a
crippling historical order characterized by violence and scarcity, but also conformity,
repression, and authority.
Transhumanist predictions of a technologically mediated utopia have taken two
main dimensions, one local (i.e. enhancement of the psychology of the human mind)
in ‘technological singularity theory’, and one global (i.e. the emergence of a higher
planetary entity) in ‘global brain theory’. Many of these theorists predict that a near-
term technologically mediated event and/or process (near-term on the scale of the
next 50–100 years) will fundamentally transform the foundations of human
individuals and civilization as a whole (Goertzel 2002, p. 1–2). Technological
singularity theory posits that the human individual will achieve superintelligence
through technological modifications (Vinge 1993; Schmidhuber 2012). This para-
digm understands the future of human civilization through the perspective of the
advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics (Kurzweil 2005; Blackford and
Broderick 2014), and perhaps most importantly, through the perspective of the
possible emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) (Pennachin and Goertzel
2007; Bostrom 2014). In contrast, global brain theory posits that human society will
achieve a globally distributed organization through the emergence of a higher
metasystem mediated by the self-organization of the Internet and the technologies
we use to interconnect on a planetary scale (Turchin 1977; Goertzel 2002; Heylighen
2015). This paradigm understands the future of human civilization through the
global perspective of how information technologies affect the fundamental structural
possibilities for societal reorganization (Helbing 2012; Last 2014).
Technological singularity and global brain scenarios are ‘utopian’ (in the sense of
being attractors towards a higher state or universality) for the future of humanity.
These visions have been proposed throughout the twentieth century from academics
mostly connected to the physical sciences (Adams 1909; Ulam 1958; Good 1965;
Moravec 1988; Glenn 1989; Vinge 1993). These theories have attracted increased
academic attention in recent decades (including the establishment of future-oriented
university-based institutions), influenced many recent popular science books (Kelly
2010; Diamandis and Kotler 2011; Kaku 2014; Bostrom 2014), and have also
spawned the aforementioned philosophy of ‘transhumanism’ focused on the devel-
opment and eventual transcendence of humanity on cosmic timescales (Huxley
1968; Vita-More 1983, 1992; More 1990; Bostrom 2005).
From this perspective transhumanism explicitly seeks to become the formal
successor to the modern subject’s version of ‘humanism’. However, its ability to
achieve this goal can only be accomplished if the movement is able to find a renewed
commitment to the connections between technological progress, social equality,
ecological sustainability, and radical democracy (Hughes 2004) (i.e. technological
progress measured on collective human–planetary terms, not on individualistic
48 3 History of the Future

capitalistic terms). The contemporary transhumanist community mostly focuses on

technological progress and specifically technological progress related to the individ-
ual right to freely enhance human biology to ‘superhuman’ levels. The current
hypothesis anticipates that this effort would culminate in superintelligence, super
well-being, and super-longevity (Pearce 2014) via the application of various forms
of genetic manipulation, nanotechnologies, robotics, and artificial intelligence
(Stock 2002; Hughes 2004; Kurzweil 2005; More and Vita-More 2014).
This traditional transhuman emphasis on individual superhuman enhancement
has often led to naive forms of libertarian transhumanism, most prominently
expressed by the so-called ‘First Law’ of transhumanism: ‘1. A transhumanist
must safeguard one’s own existence above all else.’ (Istvan 2013). However, future
transhumanism is going to have to become more socially, ecologically, and econom-
ically responsible, i.e. what sociologist James Hughes has labelled ‘techno-progres-
sivism’ (Hughes 2004). This techno-progressive version of transhumanism is more
critical than ever now that the transhuman movement is formally emerging interna-
tionally within the political arena. If transhumanism can become more socially and
ecologically conscious there is enormous potential for its philosophical foundations
to be applied within sociopolitical context. Ideally, this would result in the attempt to
practically realize the original foundations of the modern project, which emphasized
ultimate historical foundations, historical progress towards higher
sociotechnological diversity and connectivity.
Thus, in the context of any type of transmodernity we should make the link not
just between people fighting for progressive international issues in the socio-
economic and ecological domain but also with contemporary transhumanists fight-
ing for responsible progressive technological change. If we were to ever seriously
re-establish a collective transmodernist political direction, then something ‘impossi-
ble’ in contemporary sociopolitical life, like legitimately discussing collective life
extension or eliminating/automating all mundane labour (agricultural, industrial,
bureaucratic, etc.), would become legitimate and normalized goals to strive towards
(i.e. a world of dramatically extended youthful energy and play). In other words, we
will know that a transmodernity has been successful the day when substantive
geopolitical debates sound like Arthur C. Clarke meditations on the future limits
of human possibility (Clarke 1973).
Therefore, ultimately, the logic here is that in the same way the humanist–atheist
axis challenged and overcame ancient religious and sociopolitical fundamentalisms
consequently producing modernity; now the transmodernist axis must emerge to
challenge postmodern relativistic thinking by positing a higher transcendental
transhumanism as dedicated to forming its own ground. Such a ground could
potentially be imagined under the scheme of a self-organized commons. Faith in
our own ability and our own mind is the only way to overcome postmodern tensions
and cynicism produced by contemporary government, market, and religious funda-
mentalist historical traps.
When we think about modernity in this way perhaps it is also time to think about
the ‘humanities’ in a new way. The humanities as a general academic pursuit are
most enlightening and useful when they provide humane critique of historical and
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon 49

contemporary sociopolitical processes. However, with the emergence of

transhumanism, and especially the more recent emergence of a politically engaged
transhumanism, perhaps what we need now is the emergence of the
‘transhumanities’ to produce a new way of thinking about twenty-first century
human development and evolution (Nazaretyan 2018). At the moment we have
many new academic institutions focused on the science of transhumanism, but we
do not have a place for thoughtful transhumanist psychological and sociopolitical
critique. This century we will need such critique, as ‘science fiction like’ transhuman
topics will likely play a larger psychological, sociopolitical, and geopolitical role in
the coming decades.
These developments in the transhumanist direction are universal questions and
thus force upon us a reality where one political question becomes the foundation
within which all other political questions need to be nested: “the unification of
mankind” (Brown 1967, p. 81). Of course, we should avoid naive attempts to
unify humanity, however, there is the reality of a civilization convergence that our
political discourse cannot discuss directly. This could be because we do not have a
discourse that speaks to a universal dimension of our global situation. From my
perspective achieving a new global transhumanist universality would be the long-
term aim of the transhumanities. This would be an ongoing project to understand
subjective and intersubjective humanity with the implications of uniquely twenty-
first century issues that can only be analyzed within a transhuman and global frame.
My speculative intuition is that the result of this activity will help to create a new
vision of the human species that progressively revives our cosmic image after the
decentering processes we have endured over the past 500 years. What the
transmodernist frame must confront is our constitutive decentering in regards to
our own visions of a higher reality or a higher future state of consciousness. This
higher reality or higher future state of consciousness is going to be a product of our
engaged history action, and will force us to confront the paradoxes of our mortality–
finitude and our freedom–slavery (Žižek 2012, p. 266):

The true trauma lies not in our mortality, but in our immortality: it is easy to accept that we
are just a speck of dust in the infinite universe; what is much more difficult to accept is that
we effectively are immortal free beings who, as such, cannot escape the terrible responsibil-
ity of our freedom.

In this context, I will repeat that it is because we face overwhelming global

obstacles, it is because there is an asymmetry between modernist dreams and
modernist actuality, that we cannot forget the hope for a higher world: a world
where the structural conditions of civilization enable the highest flourishing of the
human creative imagination. From my visions, this would most likely take the form
of a distributed emergence of a collective common sociopolitical goal that does not
rest on an external necessary God, but on an internally generated intersubjective
necessity reflecting a value system that supports collective freedom and immortality.
On the path towards this future I do not think we should simply deconstruct the State,
or Capitalism or Religion, but rather radically democratize and distribute the
50 3 History of the Future

processes that are currently actualized in the State, Capital, and Religion via reflec-
tive dialectical engagement.

3.2.1 Singularity Visions

Here it may be helpful to return to our big historical perspective to explore the future
of humanity within the larger conceptual framework of cosmic evolution towards
singularity (Nazaretyan 2017), considering that higher states for individual and
collective humanity now seem at least technologically feasible (Bostrom 2014;
Kaku 2014). What are the implications of transhumanism for the eras of big history?
Is it actually realistic to believe that some form of ‘transmodern project’ would
culminate in a transcendent higher state and a completely transhuman world with the
capability to overcome contemporary sociocultural and political tensions? In order to
begin to answer that question, we must further explore the history and theory related
to the idea of technological singularity and global brain.
The original essence of the ‘singularity’ idea is simple: (1) science and technol-
ogy drives change in human civilization, and (2) due to its cumulative nature
advancing scientific and technological development will eventually reach a stage
where change happens faster than the human mind can comprehend (Ulam 1958).
Therefore, the ‘singularity’ originally and essentially represented a point in the
human future where human cognitive capacities driving science and technology
became superseded by entities with higher cognitive capacity, i.e. robots and/or
artificial intelligence as ‘our last invention’ (Barratt 2013). Formally, this idea was
first inspired from research in the physical sciences and specifically the pioneering
work in computer science and cybernetics (Shannon 1948; Wiener 1948; Turing
1950). Many researchers quickly realized that the emergence of advanced computa-
tion represented an important turning point in the history of scientific and techno-
logical progress, as computers could now be designed to solve mental problems that
only humans had been able to solve in the past (Wiener 1948, 1950, 1963).
This possibility of human-level machine intelligence immediately inspired
theorists to think of the singularity in terms of beyond human-level machine intelli-
gence, what would now be called ‘artificial general intelligence’ (AGI). Humans
have a general intelligence in that we can flexibly learn to solve most any problem
we put our mind to with the aid of our symbolic code. However, if humanity was that
close to designing a machine with human-level problem-solving capabilities, was it
not possible for that machine to either increase its own intelligence by
reprogramming its source code, or to start programming an even more intelligent
machine, which could the programme an even more intelligent machine, ad
infinitum?
This conception of the future, of machine intelligence unleashing a strong
positive feedback loop, has most popularly captured the imagination of singularity
theorists since its introduction throughout the 1950s and 1960s (Good 1965). To this
day, the possibility of a machine ‘intelligence explosion’ is still being seriously
discussed and debated at length (Barrat 2013; Bostrom 2014; Goertzel and Goertzel
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon 51

2015). In this singularity-based vision, emergence of the first AGI will be followed
closely by the emergence of an AI+, and an AI++, and an AI+++, etc. (Chalmers
2010). Therefore, from our big historical perspective, this event has historically
represented as a period when the universe would move on to beyond human-level
information processing and reproduction, and presumably, new domains of subject/
object relations unknown to the biocultural human (Kurzweil 2005).
Scientific, philosophical, and popular interest in the ‘singularity’ has increased
since computer scientist Vernor Vinge first introduced the term ‘technological
singularity’ in a now famous paper (Vinge 1993). Vinge originally likened the
singularity to a fundamental evolutionary event comparable to the evolution of
apes to humans. Since its introduction, singularity theory has become a key theoreti-
cal component of predictions related to the advance of ICT, and specifically the
advance of computation, related to the aforementioned transhuman era (Kurzweil
2005, 2012; Sandberg and Bostrom 2008; Loosemore and Goertzel 2012). Singular-
ity theorists have emphasized the predictive power of ‘Moore’s Law’ (Moore 1965,
1975), according to which the speed of microprocessors doubles every ~18 months
due to the shrinking transistor sizes, consequently increasing the computer hardware
capabilities utilized by artificial intelligence researchers (Schaller 1997). According
to models constructed using Moore’s law, computer hardware will continue improv-
ing exponentially (or superexponentially) many decades into the future (Nagy et al.
2011), eventually allowing for the construction of technology utilizing
femtotechnology (i.e. computers built by organizing subatomic particles) (Garis
2012). Thus far models built utilizing Moore’s law have proven reliable and accurate
when applied to many forms of information technology (Kurzweil 2010), thus
making the concept of ‘exponential technological acceleration’ a very useful and
powerful tool in forecasting twenty-first century technological possibility (Kurzweil
2001, 2010; Bostrom 2006; Ford 2009; Diamandis and Kotler 2011; Ismail et al.
2014).
The twenty-first century ramifications of exponential growth in computing com-
plexity are truly overwhelming. For example, the most advanced supercomputers in
2013 could run at 50 petaflops (i.e. a thousand trillion calculations per second). This
already astoundingly high level of computation only has the capacity of simulating
the entire human brain at some time between 2030 and 2050 (Pennachin and
Goertzel 2007). It is this specific prediction that has resulted in many researchers
believing that the technological singularity will occur before mid-century (Vinge
1993; Hanson 2000; Kurzweil 2005). This predicted date now appears to be in-line
with the majority of the artificial intelligence (AI) research community’s belief that
human-level or beyond human-level AI will be possible before 2050 (Klein 2007;
Baum and Goertzel 2011), and highly probably before 2100 (Baum and Goertzel
2011; Sandberg and Bostrom 2011; Müller and Bostrom 2014). According to many
researchers who share this singularity vision of the human future, the process of
advancing computation is fundamentally inevitable (i.e. ‘the immanent singularity’),
and will result in currently unimaginable advances in genetics, nanotechnology, and
robotics (Stock 2002; Kurzweil 2005; Drexler 2013; Kaku 2014). Therefore,
according to these theorists, although the type of singularity we experience may be
52 3 History of the Future

subject to moral debate and influenced by sociopolitical decision-making, the

eventual emergence of a transhuman and/or post-human technological era is some-
thing that cannot fundamentally be prevented, regardless of how some critics view it
as dangerous (Fukuyama 2003) and undesirable (McKibben 2003).
However, there is, of course, tremendous diversity in opinions when it comes to
the specific timing of singularity predictions (Armstrong and Sotala 2012). There are
theorists who believe artificial general intelligence is possible and will develop, but
do not believe we can predict when it will occur with any reliable degree of accuracy
(Armstrong 2014; Bostrom 2014). There are also theorists who acknowledge that
advancing artificial intelligence will fundamentally disrupt a contemporary social
organization in the coming decades (Hawkins 2015; Kelly 2015), but do not believe
that this advance will prove ‘singularity-like’ in regards to the development of
beyond human-level AGI prophesized by futurists like Goertzel, Kurzweil, and
Vinge, which leads to infinite future growth (Korotayev 2018).
This brings us to a traditionally important division in singularity theory more
generally, which is between those who argue that it is more likely that we will
experience an AGI-singularity before mid-century, and those that argue that it is
more likely that we will experience a global brain singularity before a true age of
aware technological minds with beyond human-level intelligence. Although Vinge
explored the possibility of a GB-singularity in his seminal technological singularity
paper, the concept has mostly been overshadowed in the singularity literature due to
an overemphasis on AGI (Barrat 2013; Bostrom 2014). From a historical perspective
this is hard to explain since, over the past 20 years, the Internet has proven to be a
more revolutionary force in socio-economic affairs. In global brain singularity
theory, emphasis is more heavily placed on a systems framework and thus a
‘metasystemic singularity’ where the collective coherence of our sociotechnological
networks develop to produce higher levels of consciousness and intelligence. Thus,
the emergence of a ‘global brain’ is itself seen as a ‘singularity’ because it would be
difficult to predict what such a collective mind would do deeper into the future
(regarding: thoughts, actions, goals, values, dreams, etc.).
The idea of humanity as in the process of forming a global superorganism has
been suggested since at least the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Spencer
1896; Wells 1908). In fact, Charles Darwin made a brief commentary on the
possibility of global union of humanity in The Descent of Man, suggesting that
‘only an artificial barrier’ prevented the human community from extending to ‘all
nations and races’ (1871, p. 96). However, paleontologist, futurist, and theologian
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin may have been the first theorist to propose a concept and
system of thinking for humanity forming an emergent higher-level brain-like orga-
nization: a noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin 1923). Teilhard de Chardin suggested
that a ‘noosphere’ represented an emergent level of consciousness analogous to the
‘biosphere’. Whereas the biosphere is the cumulative organizations of Earth’s flora
and fauna, a noosphere would be the cumulative organization of a mature humanity
‘woven by all intelligences at once on the surface of the earth’ (1966, p. 230),
producing ‘unimaginable’ effects intimately related to conscious ‘reflection’ and
‘invention’ (1966, p. 63).
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon 53

The first scientific model explored to realize a higher human level of organization
was the theory of metasystem transitions (Turchin 1977). The ‘hierarchical levels’
structuring cosmic evolution are good examples of metasystem transitions, i.e. the
origin of life as the transition from the molecular to the cellular organization.
Metasystem transition theory (MST) is a general systems’ level approach to under-
stand the control of a higher level of complex organization and also a potential future
singularity towards controlling a global superorganism (Heylighen 2015).
According to MST, higher levels of control organization can emerge from the
coordination of less ordered subsystems. This type of higher coordination is
hypothesized to emerge from the selection for more advanced information
processing and communications, which enables previously disparate entities to
synergistically coordinate their activities. Consequently, such systemic transitions
change the relationship between the parts they are composed of, and (if successful)
lead towards new emergent and stable characteristics of the whole, through the
exploration of (in our context) new (sociotechnological) connections, new
(sociotechnological) distinctions, and consequently, new (sociotechnological) pos-
sibility spaces.
From the metasystemic perspective, the question of global control organization
then becomes an issue of coordination between contemporary power structures
towards a higher level. In contemporary global brain theory control organization
for a future global sociopolitical collective rests on a functional and structural
metaphor with biological brain control organization (Heylighen and Bollen 1996).
Global brain theory thus stresses that the neuronal structure of biological brains gives
the appearance of a ‘globally distributed society’ (a ‘society of mind’, (Minsky
1988) that literally mirrors the structural coordination activity of individual humans
using the Internet in an open and free environment (i.e. free of centralized informa-
tion control). Thus, it is argued that, in the same way that biological brain’s
distributed collective neuronal activity self-organized to produce emergent con-
sciousness and intelligence, the key to our global control organization is similar,
and that we should foster more distributed coordination mechanisms built on local
trust and support networks, which could produce a self-organizing emergent global
consciousness and intelligence via sociotechnological mediation.
Of course, nobody knows just what ‘critical threshold’ of networked self-
organization needs to be reached to produce a qualitatively higher level of human
society, and in a world of growing sociopolitical tensions, it is hard to imagine a
near-term coherence or integration. However, the rate at which we are
interconnecting all of humanity to the Internet, as well as the even faster pace at
which we are interconnecting all of our technological artefacts to the Internet
(i.e. Internet of Things initiatives), we should not be surprised by the future potential
for a concomitant qualitative emergence of something ‘global brain-like’. In other
words, just as the contemporary Internet is qualitatively different than our twentieth-
century telecommunications systems, the future Internet (20, 30, 50 years into the
future) will also be qualitatively different in ways that we may not be able to predict
with great accuracy due to likely emergent future applications like virtual reality and
artificial intelligence (Table 3.1).
54 3 History of the Future

Table 3.1 Potential characteristics of a global brain singularity

Omniscience Whether we are interacting with artificial intelligence via a semantic web, or
constantly being guided in our education by highly advanced MOOCs, our
future experience within a global brain should be one in which billions of
highly educated intelligent agents are closely interacting, communicating,
and collaborating with an omniscient knowledge base. In such a world the
testing of new hypotheses, the development of new theories, the discovery
of new laws, should be straightforward as the formulation of a sentence is
for humans today.
Omnipresence With full specialization and integration of advanced information technology
(e.g. wearable computing and internal computing) and the full
implementation of the Internet of Things, all agents and ‘things’ will have
the ability to wirelessly communicate and coordinate activity, anything and
anywhere, enabling omnipresence. As a result, any perturbations within our
system (i.e. damages/disasters affecting infrastructure/people) will be
solved through the distributed and self-organizing activity of our wireless
communicating network.
Omnipotence All industrial processes for delivering products and providing services will
become informational processes via 3D/4D printing and nanotechnology
integrated into the Internet—allowing any physical object to be designed,
shared, and constructed for negligible cost and produced with negligible
waste. The omnipotence will allow the global brain to be a system of
abundance.
Omnibenevolence A global brain would be built on abundance and cooperative distributed
organizations attempting to maximize the potential of all of its ‘neurons’—
allowing for a type of omnibenevolence. This system can already be seen as
emergent as better education, greater wealth, and longer lives seem to be
correlated with dramatic decreases in things we consider morally ‘evil’ on a
global scale (i.e. murder, war, slavery, prejudice, suppression, dictatorship,
and corruption).

However, on this pathway human decision-making matters; if our present socio-

political reality and conversation is any indication we could be living in anything
from a form of global authoritarian capitalism to technologically automated luxury
communism, and anything in between, within just the next 20–30 years. But if we
truly want to build a ‘planetary society of mind’ we need to work towards breaking
down centralized control structures through radical democratization and start build-
ing local distributed connections that exhibit a form of spontaneous self-organization
(i.e. human societies organized internally as opposed to externally organized by a
central government, bank, corporation, or religion). In this attempt, the global brain
concept and theory of metasystem transitions can potentially give us a way to
understand the nature of our planetary structure and help us direct it towards new
models of global governance, integration, and organization more generally.
Thus, if we are able to figure out the problems of global distributed governance
and globally distributed economics, it is possible for humanity to endure the coming
wave of technological ‘megchange’ (present-2050) in a way that is more utopian
than dystopian (Diamandis and Kotler 2011; Franklin and Andrews 2012). Indeed,
utilizing the potential ‘omni’ characteristics of a global brain, we can articulate a
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon 55

long-term vision of a metasystemic singularity within a holistic evolutionary context

given expected advances in artificial intelligence, 3D printing, machine learning
software, robotics, and other digital technologies (Heylighen 2015). In this vision,
we can think of a global brain that could eventually develop properties similar to the
traditional metaphors of God like entities (Wierenga 2003). This, consequently,
presents to the transmodern and transhuman worldview the biggest cognitive chal-
lenge for rethinking the conceptual oppositional schism between ancient religious
subjectivity and modern secular subjectivity.
The global brain could become omniscient in the sense of possessing all practical
knowledge necessary to deal with humanity’s global challenges, omnipresent in the
sense of having a coherent view of what is happening everywhere in the world at the
moment, omnipotent in the sense of eliminating waste and maximizing efficiency in
regards to energy, transportation and control, and omnibenevolent in the sense of
attempting to maximize benefit and reduce harm inflicted on all individuals. How-
ever, of course such an entity cannot emerge unless we in some sense co-create the
common space but if such a higher entity were to emerge from our collective
activities, we would also have reached a new era of humanity and a true
metasystemic singularity in terms of surpassing a level of change possible for the
human mind to comprehend.
Despite the large difference between conceptions of an artificial general intelli-
gence focused singularity and a global brain singularity, the similarities are greater.
The most intense theoretical debate between the two visions is mostly over issues of
the nature of future socio-economic and political disruption regarding superintelli-
gent computers and computer networks. Currently what seems most reasonable to
say is that continued socioeconomic driven complexification of computation via
Moore’s law and continued quantitative and qualitative growth of the Internet as a
global medium, gives us good reason to expect computer and computer network-
related progress before 2050 that could fundamentally transform the nature of human
beings and human society. Specifically, it seems reasonable to suspect a quickly
intensifying transition from contemporary AI systems that can solve specifically
programmed problems towards AI systems that can solve a multitude of problems
(Pennachin and Goertzel 2007), as well as large networks of AI systems that become
increasingly important components of the Internet, consequently changing the way
we relate to our information technology, and the way we relate to each other
(Goertzel and Goertzel 2015).
The most obvious change in our lives as a result of these processes should come
from a shift or complete elimination of mundane labour. Artificial intelligence
pioneer Hans Moravec claims that this will occur “like water slowly flooding the
landscape” of work (1988, p. 11) until all work that was once the sole domain of
humanity could be outsourced to computation. Indeed, you only need to take a quick
look at the type of jobs that employ the most people in contemporary society to start
to realize that, there are virtually no large industries in manufacturing, social
services, farming, transportation, etc. whose labour force could not be completely
replaced by artificial intelligence and robotics within the next 20–30 years (Ford
2015). Even industries that have traditionally been hallmarks of professionalization
56 3 History of the Future

and high education, like professors, doctors, and lawyers, could see their jobs
outsourced to computation in the longer-term picture. This means that the first half
of the twenty-first century could be characterized by the emergence of a world in
which machines will be able to solve most of the problems that were once the sole
domain of the human intellect (Grey 2014). In fact, many scientific reports and
forecasts for the future of work reflect this reality, as the process of outsourcing
problems to computation is already underway (Frey 2011; Frey and Osborne 2013;
Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014; McGinnis and Pearce 2014; Rifkin 2014), albeit in
an early phase.
Of course, such a transition in the nature of work allows us to imagine a world
with no mundane labour and no scarcity, a long-time dream of the late global
systems theorist and visionary utopian Buckminster Fuller believed to be immanent
(1981). This would transform the human condition from its historical organizational
limitations and dramatically alter contemporary socioeconomic dynamics, particu-
larly in relation to work and money (Rifkin 2014; Ford 2015). If we are to take these
radically optimistic possibilities to their conclusion, one potential ramification is that
play and genuine self-motivated work could replace work stimulated purely from
scarcity and societal expectation (i.e. the end of alienated labour). In this sense, the
interests and activities that consume the childhoods and young adulthoods of many
individuals today could become lifelong pursuits of exploration well into adulthood
(Brown 1959; Graeber 2015). This may seem an impractical vision, but all of human
history has been characterized by mundane labour (i.e. agricultural, industrial, and
bureaucratic work), and if that labour vanishes within a few short decades, new
creative opportunities and freedoms may present themselves to adult existence that
simply has no historical precedent.
Another potential ramification is that the importance of financial capital could be
replaced by a shift towards the importance of ‘social capital’ (i.e. psychological self-
actualization and community building). In this potential future direction, our adult
socio-economic lives could become increasingly dominated by finding important
ways to interconnect and relate to each other as social and creative beings, as
opposed to our current reality of finding ways to interconnect and relate to each
other as economic agents (Rifkin 2014). Such a transition would necessarily require
a shift in the dominant microeconomic foundation of humanity as Homo economicus
(i.e. individuals interested in their own personal financial success) towards humanity
as Homo socialis (i.e. individuals interested in the personal welfare of others/
communities) (Helbing 2013b). There are a few macroeconomic policies that have
become the subject of widespread speculation in regards to a transition from Homo
economicus to Homo socialis. These policies include the implementation of an
unconditional basic income (UBI) and the enforcement of a maximum income
limit in concert with dedication to commons technological automation
(i.e. technological automation that benefits our shared social, economic, and ecolog-
ical space) (Cottey 2014; Hughes 2004). This would at least be a start towards
building a more equal world and a world that allowed for healthier adult social and
psychological developmental pathways (Standing 2002, 2011), which is currently
3.2 Transmodernist, Transhumanist Horizon 57

(and has always been) seriously debilitated by economic scarcity (Mullainathan and
Shafir 2013).
In the short term, we could imagine that such a fundamental planetary shift could
occur without the simultaneous rise of technological minds with independent
thoughts, feelings, emotions, and autonomous will. After all, supercomputers are
now the world’s best chess players and Jeopardy! Contestants, soon they will be the
best doctors and lawyers, but they can accomplish this without awareness, and
without any emotion or feeling (Broderick 2014). Moreover, if the future socio-
economic structure experiences a shift towards finding new ways to interconnect and
relate to each other as social beings, this experimentation may involve a high degree
of transhuman mind-interconnection as the century progresses. This is due to the fact
that although AGI may encounter major theoretical stumbling blocks (as has been
the case historically), the potential future of internal computing/nanotechnology will
likely provide humans with the opportunity to expand our cognitive capabilities in
unexpected ways (Chorost 2011; Nicolelis 2011). In such a landscape deeper levels
of collective thought, feeling, and action could become a commonplace possibility,
and blur the line between biological and technological thinking (Kaku 2014).
First and foremost: if we undergo a fundamental posthuman transition, what will
be the transition’s nature? (Goertzel 2007; Vinge 2007; Sandberg 2010) Of course,
there is just no way to test this question with the scientific method but we could
imagine the permutation and interrelation between three different possible scenarios:
the artificial general intelligence scenario (AI), the human intelligence amplification
scenario (IA) and the human–technology merger scenario (HTM). In the current
context, there is no general consensus as to which scenario is most probable among
singularity theorists (Sandberg and Bostrom 2011). However, some theorists tend to
emphasize the dangers of an AI scenario and have advocated for a moratorium on
artificial intelligence research to increase the probability of the IA Scenario
(Antonov 2011). Others have suggested that we actively ‘delay the singularity’ or
‘guide the singularity’ by constructing an ‘AI Nanny’ until we better understand the
potential ramifications (Goertzel 2012), and others have suggested that we focus on
‘confining’ artificial intelligence so that we can benefit from its development but
avoid extinction (Yampolskiy 2012) (Table 3.2).
This issue of artificial intelligence as an existential risk has also received far more
popular attention recently due to the controversial statements by high-profile
scientists and technologists who claimed that we are ‘summoning the demon’
(Musk 2014), and that the ‘development of full artificial intelligence could spell

Table 3.2 Nature of technological singularity

Artificial intelligence Superintelligent technology replaces biocultural humans
scenario (AI)
Intelligence amplification Humans transform themselves with technology and become
scenario (IA) transhuman/posthuman
Human-technology merger AI and IA scenarios occur simultaneously manifested from
scenario (HTM) evolutionary pressures and positive feedback loops generating
biology–technology symbiosis
58 3 History of the Future

the end of the human race’ (Hawking 2014). Concerns of this extreme existential
variety have probably been most thoroughly envisioned in the work of artificial
intelligence pioneer Hugo de Garis who has popularized the notion of a coming war
between ‘Cosmists’ and ‘Terrans’ (Garis 1999). In Garis’s future vision an intense
global dichotomy will emerge towards the end of the twenty-first century between
humans that want to build ‘God-like’ machines (i.e. ‘Cosmists’) and humans that
want to forever delay their creation (i.e. ‘Terrans’). Philosopher Nick Bostrom
recently explored the sociopolitical dimensions of confining such ‘God-like’ entities
claiming that, if we do not confine them or figure out how to align their value system
with human value systems, our fate will be in the hands of machine superintelligence
that vastly exceeds our own (Bostrom 2014). From our big historical analysis, it is
interesting to note that in these visions, just like in the original futuristic secular
visions of the modern project, humanity is part of a process that will birth ‘God-like’
entities, but in this dystopian conception, we become superseded and replaced (Garis
1999; Barrat 2013; Armstrong 2014) (history as a horrible cosmic trick for the
emancipation of technological Gods?).
Despite these radical apocalyptic speculations, there are also more radically
optimistic theorists who speculate that the technological singularity will be
characterized by some variant of the IA/HTM scenarios, i.e. humans will survive
and transcend, ushering us into a new era of opportunity and possibility for the
exploration of post-human mind (Hanson 2000; Kurzweil 2005; Kaku 2014;
Rothblatt 2014). For these thinkers, we should all strive to be ‘post-human’ when
we ‘grow up’ (Bostrom 2009). Here it is reasoned that there will not be a strict
dichotomy between the biocultural nature of the human and technologically based
artificial intelligence, as suggested by Garis (1999). Instead, it is suggested that
biocultural humans will willingly transform themselves as technology emerges,
allowing us to radical upgrade our intelligence, consciousness, lifespan, and general
state-of-being (More and Vita-More 2014).
In these conceptions of the future the line between human and robot, or human
and artificial intelligence, will simply start to become ‘blurrier’ (i.e. not a strict
dichotomy) as the twenty-first century advances. Therefore, by 2050, these theorists
reason that it will be difficult to differentiate between different forms of conscious
intelligent beings and we will be fully immersed in a hyper-technological society
(Glenn 1989). Consequently, the radical techno-optimists reason that we should
boldly and optimistically move forward with research related to equalling or sur-
passing human intelligence with technology (Kurzweil 2012; Blackford and
Broderick 2014; Kaku 2014; More and Vita-More 2014; Rothblatt 2014).

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 Part II
Challenges of a Global Metasystem
Human Metasystem Transitions
4

4.1 Metasystem Transitions

Metasystem transitions (MST) are major evolutionary processes that allow for the
hierarchal emergence of higher organization of living systems (Turchin 1977, 1999;
Joslyn et al. 1991; Heylighen 1995). According to MST theory, a metasystem occurs
when living systems achieve higher system organization from the controlled coordi-
nation (i.e. control system X) of previously disparate subsystems (i.e.,
A1 + A2 + A3 ¼ B) (Turchin 1977; Heylighen and Campbell 1995; Goertzel 2002;
Last 2014a). In this framework, metasystems can be conceptualized as a step
function representing a new level of evolutionary organization (Heylighen 2014).
This step function can be approximately measured as a sigmoid (S-shaped) curve
(Modis 2012) capturing a discontinuity between different levels of evolutionary
process or selection (Fig. 4.1).
Throughout the evolution of life metasystems have consistently allowed for the
maintenance of increased living system complexity (Miller and Miller 1990; Smith
and Szathmáry 1995). These metasystems have emerged in a hierarchical and
developmentally constrained nature (Smart 2009), through progressive and cooper-
ative symbioses at various levels of biological organization (Corning 2005; Margulis
and Fester 1991). This simply means that previous metasystems act as structured
platforms for the emergence of higher cooperation, and therefore, the potential for
the generation of higher metasystems (Heylighen 2000).
However, the current study of metasystems has progressed with little detailed
evolutionary analysis of the human system. This is problematic for metasystem
transition theory because the human system exhibits social organization mediated

Reprinted by permission from Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Journal of Evolution
& Technology, Human Metasystem Transition (HMST) Theory, Last, C., 2015.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 67

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_4
68 4 Human Metasystem Transitions

Fig. 4.1 Metasystem transition as a sigmoid curve. Metasystems separate two qualitatively
different levels of organization. The new level of organization must emerge from the coordination
of new controls (X, Y, Z) utilizing a new information medium for the integration of previously
disparate subsystems (i.e. A1 + A2 + A3 ¼ B). The highest control can then continue to replicate
(‘Branching of the Penultimate Level’ (Turchin 1977)), allowing for a new level of group selection,
and potentially allowing for the generation of another metasystem transition (contingent on
environmental evolutionary selection pressures for higher information processing functionality).
Through metasystems, living organizations generate complexity that manifests as hierarchical and
developmentally constrained cybernetic controls (Heylighen 2000)

by biochemistry, but also social organization mediated by culture and technology,

suggesting that metasystems can occur even if driven by non-biochemical
organizing properties. Furthermore, the human system, specifically because of its
cultural and technological properties, gives us the most obvious appearance of a
system with the capability to transition to a higher metasystem in the near-term
future. Therefore, in this chapter, I attempt to apply MST theory to the human system
specifically in order to develop ‘human’ metasystem transition theory. This new
analysis will give us a deeper framework for understanding the specific nature of
human transitions, and consequently give us a better understanding of the
similarities and differences between metasystems that emerge from biochemical
and ‘technocultural’ mechanisms, two distinct and (potentially) competing evolu-
tionary pathways (Last 2014b).
4.2 Human Metasystem Transitions 69

4.2 Human Metasystem Transitions

From the application of metasystem transition theory to the human system, we can
identify three major system transitions throughout the evolution of our genus Homo.
On each occasion, a new level of organization has emerged, which has been
stabilized by higher controls and higher group selection. These metasystems broadly
include systems commonly referred to as ‘band/tribe’, ‘chiefdom/kingdom’, and
‘nation-state/international’ organizations. The structures of these organizations
have been stabilized by the control of three mostly distinct primary energy sources:
hunting, agriculture, and industry. Band/tribe organizations manifested around the
control of hunted and cooked animal meat: the ‘Pyrian’ regime. Chiefdom/kingdom
organizations manifested around the control of domesticated plant and animal
resources: the ‘Agrian’ regime. Nation-state/international organizations manifested
around the control of ancient biomass (or fossil fuels): the ‘Carbian’ regime (Niele
2005).
The control of these energy sources was always organized through the utilization
of a new information medium to connect previously disparate subsystems. During
the transition to hunting organizations, modern language emerged to facilitate the
formation of larger group sizes, which were capable of producing the social and
technical expertise necessary for hunting to become a stable and reliable energy
source (Dunbar 2003). During the transition to agricultural organizations, written
language functioned to track, collect, and stabilize a coordinated large-scale econ-
omy fundamentally built on domesticated plants and animals (Cooper 2004). During
the transition to industrial organizations, the printing press emerged allowing for the
flourishing of scientific and technical expertise necessary for the exploitation and
stabilization of fossil fuels, and consequently, the construction of the modern world
(Niele 2005).
All of these human metasystem transitions can be characterized by subsystems of
lower control becoming integrated under new higher control regimes. In the hunting
transitions, parties, and groups became integrated into bands and tribes. In the
agricultural transitions, bands, and tribes became integrated or subsumed into
chiefdoms and kingdoms. In the industrial transition, chiefdoms and kingdoms
became integrated or subsumed into the formation of the modern nation-state.
These are the most basic examples of both the hierarchical and the developmentally
constrained nature of metasystems. Metasystems are hierarchical because they
emerge from integration at lower levels and developmentally constrained because
they manifest similar organizational properties at each level. In this framework of
thinking about the human system, the modern nation-state sits atop an ancient
evolutionary set of metasystem control hierarchies of ever more diversely integrated
subsystems (Fig. 4.2).
Throughout this process of higher subsystem integration, the stabilization of a
new human metasystem appears to compress spatial and temporal restrictions on
human action, both within the control system and within society as a whole. The
highest metasystem controls display an ever-broader extension of control over larger
regions of space, and they can accomplish this spatial feat in shorter durations of
70 4 Human Metasystem Transitions

Fig. 4.2 Human metasystem transitions. Human metasystems appear to be phenomena intimately
dependent on information mediums, energy systems, and the synergistic feedback processes they
can maintain under control hierarchy regimes. Information mediums tend to act as the functional
tool for the organization of control system resources, capital and people, and energy systems tend to
act as structural stabilizers of control system organization. Therefore, the control of information for
the purpose of acquiring and distributing energy may represent the nature of complex system
control

time (i.e. physical space-time barriers to human action are consistently and progres-
sively reduced). Consequently, there is a trend towards accelerated metasystem
emergence, as the space-time reach of human action progressively increases. The
hunting transition occurred over a period of hundreds of thousands (if not millions)
of years, the agricultural transition occurred over a period of thousands of years, and
the industrial transition has been occurring over a period of centuries. This
metasystem process has resulted in more complex human organizations directly
and coherently controlling more of the Earth’s surface, faster. For individuals, the
consequence is the emergence of systems that increasingly allow for action that is
global (spatial) and instant (temporal). Therefore, in regards to both space and time,
higher metasystem controls appear to facilitate a culturally and technologically
mediated conquest of dimensionality.
Of course, it is unknown whether the metasystem conquest of dimensionality will
be further extended, but there is already evidence that a new information–energy
relationship is emerging in the human system between the Internet (information
medium) and the renewables (energy structure). The development and stabilization
of a new information–energy feedback process could provide the basic architecture
for a further metasystem transition, which would mean a transition towards higher
controls (i.e. global), greater systems complexity (i.e. higher subsystem integration),
4.2 Human Metasystem Transitions 71

and further reduction of space-time restrictions on human control and action. Such a
metasystem transition would likely produce a human civilization best described as a
‘global village” (Last 2014a) with a ‘global brain’ (Heylighen 2015).

4.2.1 Emergence of Bands/Tribes

The first human metasystem was caused by the regular exploitation of animal meat
(Wrangham 2009) via coordinated hunting and complex culture and technology
(Ambrose 2001). This allowed our ancestors to organize parties and groups into
bands and tribes. We see evidence of a gradual but significant increase in animal
meat consumption with the emergence of the genus Homo two million years ago
(Braun et al. 2010; Schoeninger 2012; Steele 2010). This exploitation of animal meat
accelerated with successive Homo species (e.g. Homo erectus, Homo
heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis) (Antón 2003; Pontzer et al. 2011;
Ungar 2012) between the emergence of the genus and the emergence of modern
humans approximately 200,000 years ago (McDougall et al. 2005). As human brain
size increased, there was a concomitant rise in the diversity and proportion of animal
meat exploited from hunting larger game, and eventually the regular exploitation of
coastal resources (Wrangham 2009; Gamble et al. 2011). From an analysis of great
ape and modern human hunter–gatherer meat consumption, we can see that the
consumption of animal meat exploded during the transition from ~5% to 65%.
During the acceleration of hunting and cooking animal meat for energy, several
evolutionary anthropological models suggest that increased communication abilities
emerged as a result of the functional need to increase the faithfulness of information
transfer within parties and groups (Aiello and Dunbar 1993; Dessalles 2009; Dunbar
2009). Between the emergence of the genus Homo and the emergence of modern
humans, linguistic ability appears to have improved in three or four evolutionary
‘movements’ from grooming to vocal language (Gamble et al. 2011). These
movements can be correlated with increased brain size and group size, and increased
animal meat dietary dependence (Dunbar 2003; Gamble et al. 2011). From these
models, we can identify that a new relationship between information and energy was
becoming established. Without language, our human ancestors would not have been
able to achieve the coordination, faithful cultural transmission, or technical know-
how to engage in an elaborate and complex hunting energy regime.
The hunting energy regime necessarily required the development of new controls
for a new qualitative level of organization: bands/tribes. Bands and tribes typically
consist of 100–250 individuals, but can include larger aggregations. This may seem
like an inconsequential increase in the level of primate organization, but our closest
great ape relatives typically operate in party sizes of 5–10 individuals, and group
sizes that may reach a maximum of 50 individuals (Aiello and Dunbar 1993).
Therefore, tripling the number of cooperating primates required the development
of sophisticated kin and social networks, as well as new complex modes of
distributed decision-making and diversification of labour related to energy acquisi-
tion and utilization. This larger and more complex metasystem compressed both
72 4 Human Metasystem Transitions

space and time. This was in part facilitated by the development of long-distance
endurance-running capabilities, which co-evolved in the genus Homo with language
and hunting (Bramble and Liberman 2004). Long-distance running, along with
complex language, allowed bands and tribes to form organizations with the capabil-
ity to migrate, colonize, and stabilize in almost any niche on the planet within a
relatively short duration of time (Richerson and Boyd 2008). However, the specific
spatial and temporal reach of any one band/tribe was always regional in nature. Of
course, this simply means that no bands/tribes organized on larger semi-continental
or continental scales. But as a whole, when compared to pre-Homo hominid species
and contemporary great ape species, the human band/tribe organization was able to
control larger areas of space within shorter durations of time.

4.2.2 Emergence of Chiefdoms/Kingdoms

The second human transition was caused by the domestication of plants and animals
via selective breeding (Diamond 1997; Morris 2011). We see evidence for indepen-
dent agricultural developments in seven different locations between 9000 B.C.E. and
2000 B.C.E. (Diamond and Bellwood 2003). These ‘agricultural revolutions’ shared
the same system-level patterns and included the same general ordering of causal
events related to the cultivation of plants, domestication of animals, and rise of
sedentism (Morris 2011). The degree to which the agricultural system matured was
largely dependent on the plant–animal complexes available to human populations on
different continents (Bellwood and Oxenham 2008) and the ecologically influenced
(but not dictated) diffusion patterns of agricultural cores over centuries and millennia
(Putterman 2008). However, history gives us a clear directional trend: between the
original establishment of agricultural systems 11,000 years ago and the present day,
we have seen an overwhelming tendency of human populations becoming integrated
(or subsumed) (willingly or unwillingly) within controls originating from the agri-
cultural revolutions. Indeed, the human groups who adopted agricultural practices
transformed the ecology of nearly every habitable region of the planet Earth (Haberl
2006).
Agricultural organizations formed sedentary populations of varying sizes and
scales, but all were ultimately stabilized by the new organization of symbolic
information in the form of written language (Cooper 2004). We have evidence of
recorded human symbols functioning to communicate information that predates
agricultural organizations by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years. Therefore,
recording symbols as a practice, is likely as old, or older than the modern human
species (Conkey 1997). This ability to record symbolic information facilitated the
increased sociopolitical complexity necessary to organize early agricultural
organizations, as the first written records are largely composed of lists related to
administration and taxes (Cooper 2004). In the most intensified agricultural cores
(e.g. Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica), we have the best evidence of
this early record keeping (Trigger 2004). From this evidence, we find that increased
4.2 Human Metasystem Transitions 73

population size increased the need for administration and wealth redistribution to
collectively maintain the first city-states, chiefdoms, and kingdoms (Morris 2011).
Without written records for the practical administration and continued maintenance
of agricultural resources, large interconnected farming networks would not have
been able to provide the energy surplus for the emergence of civilization (Stewart
2010). After the new information–energy relationship between writing and agricul-
ture was established in the most productive agricultural cores, more individuals
could dedicate their time and energy towards non-food related tasks (Morris
2011). This eventually culminated in writing as a medium for recorded narrative,
bringing spoken language, and written language closer together (Stewart 2010).
Therefore, the cultural and technological capabilities of agricultural groups vastly
expanded.
Controls facilitating the metasystem transition towards the most intensified agri-
cultural systems represented a new qualitative level of organization exhibiting
increased functional specialization. The smallest of these controls reached sizes of
1000 to 10,000 individuals, but in the most intensified agricultural regions, controls
managed to organize empires as large as 10 to 100 million individuals (Taagepera
1997, 1979). These organizations were highly centralized in their nature and mani-
fest in cultural kin-based institutional structured often referred to as chiefdoms and
kingdoms. However, our conceptual framework to discuss ancient agricultural
political organizations, especially within an evolutionary perspective, needs to be
improved (Graeber 2004). But like their hunting predecessor, agricultural systems
allowed for the compression of both space and time in comparison to lower
metasystems. Spatially, many agricultural systems began organizing vast empires
across large expanses of continents (e.g. Inca Empire), and sometimes even inter-
continental regions (e.g. Roman Empire). Temporally, agricultural systems achieved
and maintained this larger spatial conquest in shorter durations of time
(e.g. millennia and centuries) (Stanish 2002; Taagepera 1979, 1997). The
mechanisms to facilitate this compression included domesticated horses for more
efficient intracontinental travel and constructed sailing ships for the beginnings of
early intercontinental travel.

4.2.3 Emergence of Nation-States

The third transition was enabled by the exploitation of fossil fuels (e.g. coal,
petroleum, and natural gas) (Landes 1969; Allen 2009). This transition happened
so quickly that it required only one diffusion centre (i.e. England) (Allen 2009).
Therefore, the diffusion of new energy economy was largely dependent on the
European sociopolitical context into which it was unleashed. European colonial
and neo-colonial entities started exploiting fossil fuels well before any other socio-
political entity was able to develop a post-agricultural economy (excluding Japan)
(Robertson 2003). This gave most western European peoples and European
neo-colonial entities a tremendous energetic advantage over non-European peoples
and territories. But global industrialization has been developing and accelerating in
74 4 Human Metasystem Transitions

‘non-Western’ countries between 1945 and the present (i.e. the post-colonial era)
(Weiss 2003). In particular, in the twenty-first century, it is impossible to now talk
about globalization as a purely ‘Western phenomenon’, as many of the most
developed countries exist throughout Asia. Similar to the initial diffusion of fossil
fuel use, the modern period of industrialization is dependent on sociopolitical
context (i.e. sociopolitical groups’ ability to control the resources and development
of their territory). But unlike the first diffusion, most modern industrializing nations
throughout Asia, Latin America, and Africa are emerging in a far more competitive
and quickly evolving energy landscape, within which alternative fuel sources may
start to play an increasingly important role.
In the same way that earlier human metasystems were dependent on the organi-
zation of higher information mediums, modern structures were constructed utilizing
an emergent information medium: the development of mass-produced recorded
symbolic information (i.e. the printing press). The first experiments with paper
(105 C.E.), printing (713 C.E.), and moveable type (1041 C.E.) started in East
Asia over the course of several centuries (Gunaratne 2001). These developments
predated the famed Gutenberg printing press, which was developed in mid-fifteenth
century Germany, but the system-level pattern of significance is that similar move-
able type technologies were developed in the two most intensified agricultural cores:
Western and Eastern Eurasia (Morris 2011). This suggests that, like previous
information mediums (e.g. language and writing), the printing press as a medium
emerged and adapted in response to increased population size and sociopolitical
complexity. However, the effects and diffusion of the printing press in Europe were
far more profound than those in East Asia: between 1500 and 1700, European
cultures, technology, and society were forever changed by the proliferation of
‘ancient’ knowledge, as well as the ability to diffuse philosophical, scientific, artistic,
and technical literature to ever-broader audiences (Eisenstein 1980; Dittmar 2011).
This medium fully matured with ‘industrial scale’ printing press technology in the
nineteenth century, allowing for the organization and maintenance of the modern
nation-state, as well as intercontinental empires and eventually the beginnings of
international governance (Eisenstein 1980; Mazower 2012). From the new
information–energy feedback between the printing press and fossil fuels, the modern
world (i.e. third human metasystem) emerged: the printing press enabled the
flourishing of knowledge for the exploitation of fossil fuels, and then fossil fuel
energy distribution, in turn, increased the percentage of humans who could engage
with the knowledge generated by the printing press.
Controls in the first industrial metasystem manifest in the establishment of the
nation-state. Nation-states, like the agricultural organizations that preceded them,
had a proclivity for colonial and neo-colonial empire building (e.g. British Empire
and American Empire) (Mann 2012). However, industrial organizations represent
the largest controls in human history, with the largest entities (e.g. China and India)
encompassing as many as 1–1.5 billion humans (Winters and Yusuf 2007).
Throughout the industrial era, various forms of the nation-state have emerged, but
these control systems are typically more decentralized and driven and/or influenced
by significantly higher citizen input than is typical of the largest agricultural
4.3 Future Human Metasystem Transition 75

organizations. Once again, the industrial metasystem compressed space-time when

compared to previous metasystems, as humans began to aggregate spatially on larger
scales (i.e. expansion and consolidation of integrated territory, e.g. the United States,
Canada, Russia, China, India, and Brazil) over shorter temporal periods
(i.e. centuries, even decades). The primary intracontinental mechanisms to facilitate
these industrial advances included the development of the steam engine (nineteenth
century) and automobiles (twentieth century), and for intercontinental travel the
steamship (nineteenth century) and airplane (twentieth century) (Crafts 2004).

4.3 Future Human Metasystem Transition

As I attempt to demonstrate above, throughout the evolution of the human system

increasingly complex control systems have emerged from the development of new
information–energy systems. Within this framework of thinking about human evo-
lution, nation-states currently represent the highest control systems, and thus, the
highest human metasystems. However, it is unlikely that these organizational
structures represent the pinnacle of human evolution, or cosmic evolution for that
matter, as cultural and technological processes could allow for the production of
higher complexity in the future: a fourth human metasystem (Smart 2009; Heylighen
2014).
Human metasystem transition theory offers a way to understand the future
emergence of a new level of human complexity through the development of emer-
gent information–energy systems, and consequent integration of the highest control
subsystems. If accurate, this next metasystem may not be too far from fundamentally
disrupting modern control structures, as radically new energy and information
systems are developing and could form higher collective synergies than current
information–energy systems (Rifkin 2014). The possibilities of a new energy system
to stabilize a fourth metasystem could be based on the full exploitation of solar
energy (Bradford 2006). Many energy experts have recognized that there is a strong
pressure for a new carbon-neutral energy economy that can provide more energy to a
greater number of people (e.g. Lewis and Nocera 2006; Şen 2004). Such experts
have also realized that solar provides us with the best opportunity to achieve this next
energy system (e.g. Bradford 2006; Goetzberger et al. 2002; Lewis 2009; Liang et al.
2010; Morton 2006). Of course, other energy sources, such as wind and geothermal
power, could (and likely will) complement solar (Carrasco et al. 2006;
Haralambopoulos and Polatidis 2003). Therefore, we could exist in a world primar-
ily powered by distributed solar energy complicated by a wide variety of ‘alternative
renewables’ (Singer et al. 2011). But also, we should not underestimate the potential
future of nuclear energy, either the fission or fusion variety (Niele 2005). Nuclear
energy has had a problematic history, but if developed and controlled properly, this
fuel source could offer humanity practically infinite energy for the remainder of
Earth’s life history. However, whether our next energy system is primarily based on
solar radiation or nuclear fusion, we can consider both energy systems ‘solar’, in that
nuclear fusion mimics the properties of stellar bodies (Niele 2005).
76 4 Human Metasystem Transitions

The information medium that could stabilize the establishment of a higher level of
systems-organization is far more advanced than emergent alternative energy: the
Internet. If the Internet acts as the medium enabling high human organization, the
fact that it precedes the maturation of new alternative energy would be consistent
with previous human metasystems, as new higher information mediums have always
preceded the stabilization of a new energy source. But that is not to say that the
Internet is fully mature, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. Quantitatively,
most humans still do not have internet access (Kende 2012) (although access is
increasing quickly, and the selection pressures for truly global access are strong).
Qualitatively, Internet experience itself is likely to change dramatically, as advances
in artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and semantic web technologies will likely
alter the way humans interact with each other, and with computers (Goertzel 2002).
These quantitative and qualitative developments combined could result in an Internet
at full maturity that acts as a self-organizing ‘planetary nervous system’ (Giannotti
et al. 2012) or ‘global brain’ (Heylighen 2014), facilitating all intelligent agent
interaction all the time (Goertzel 2002; Heylighen 2008). Such a communication
medium would emerge from increasing Internet use, increasing access to the Inter-
net, and the development of the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) (Atzori et al. 2010; Kopetz
2011; Kortuem et al. 2010; Rifkin 2014; Sahel and Simmons 2011).
However, all metasystem transitions are fundamentally dependent (and defined)
around the formation of new control systems. Currently, international control
mechanisms exist, but the nation-state has not been socio-economically superseded.
Despite this, modern nation-states appear to represent an insufficient level of orga-
nization to manage socio-economic issues in the twenty-first century (Piketty 2014).
Furthermore, data suggest that individual opinion of modern governments is at an
all-time low globally (Glenn et al. 2014). Therefore, it is possible that these control
structures will be superseded in the twenty-first century (Stewart 2014); but under-
standing the future nature of human controls is still in its infancy (Graeber 2004), and
perhaps inevitably an active ongoing process. Will the next system experience
fragmentation to stronger local governance? Or will the next system develop a
wholly new type of control structure utilizing emergent information technology
related to artificial intelligence and collective intelligence? In other words: what
will be the nature of subsystem integration and higher organization?
I have my own speculations, but I must admit that here there are more questions
than answers, although I hope human metasystem transition theory will provide a
helpful framework to begin a serious inquiry into the future of human control
(Fig. 4.3).
What we can learn from previous human metasystem transitions is that new
controls will likely be organized utilizing the highest emergent information medium
(in this case, the Internet as medium should play a crucial organizing role). And
indeed, there has been a recent flourishing of studies suggesting that some form of
transition to ‘e-democracy’ merits more serious consideration (e.g. Chadwick 2009;
Fountain et al. 2011; Lathrop and Ruma 2010; Noveck 2009). Furthermore, if past
human metasystem transitions are any indication, and new digitally based controls
emerge to stabilize feedback between emerging global information–energy systems,
4.4 Summary of Human Metasystem Transition Theory 77

Fig. 4.3 Human metasystem transitions (possible future). The emergence of a fundamentally new
information medium and energy structure could suggest the beginnings of a metasystem transition
towards a higher level of control. If true the first half of the twenty-first century could be
characterized by a fundamental disruption to the operations of the nation-state and the stabilization
of new higher forms of human organization

we should expect a continuation of the trend towards space-time compression. This

would likely result in a global human network composed of 8–12 billion individuals
who can seamlessly interact with few global restrictions on travel and communica-
tion (Grinin and Korotayev 2015). Such a system would require the emergence of
more efficient intracontinental and intercontinental travel mechanisms, but also,
controls facilitating a more fluid dynamic between individuals and societal
boundaries. Is our world truly a small world after all?
Although this world may be difficult to imagine given current global conflicts, its
description is consistent with current trends toward higher international cooperation
during the later stages of the industrial transition (Karns and Mingst 2004;
Krahmann 2003), current projections of global population for the middle of the
twenty-first century (Boongaarts 2009; Cohen 2003), as well as the trends charac-
teristic of previous human metasystem transitions (Hanson 1998, 2008). The fourth
human metasystem would allow us to enter a world as different from the agricultural
world as the latter was from the hunting world. But to enter such a world would be to
challenge and successfully replace, fundamentally, the current structure of the world.
Such a transition would be unprecedented, although the idea of higher global
integration has a long and complex history (Nazaretyan 2015). In the metasystem
framework, we would tend to view this transition as humanity in the process of
birthing a global biocultural superorganism (Turchin 1977). Considering that no
such entity has ever existed, the concept and foundations of the metasystem, should
receive far more of our attention.

4.4 Summary of Human Metasystem Transition Theory

I have tried to describe a complex systems theory of human evolution based around
the emergence of higher control organization through the stabilization of feedback
between emergent information–energy systems. Both energy and information as
phenomena appear to fundamentally influence human system structure and also
78 4 Human Metasystem Transitions

appear to build on previously established processes, allowing higher controls to

stabilize new organization and complexity. If this theory accurately maps the
territory of human evolution, the emergence and establishment of new information
and energy systems should present us with a signal that our current control structures
will be challenged and potentially superseded this century.
From an evolutionary cybernetic perspective, this theory has the potential to
better integrate unique human species processes within a systems-level evolutionary
model of all life. Previous biochemical metasystem transitions have followed very
predictable patterns related to organization and complexity, and it appears as though
the human system is not distinct in this respect even though a new and unique
pathway (that of technocultural evolution) has emerged and continues to dominate
change within our lineage. If simple fundamental mechanisms increase the probabil-
ity of the establishment of higher-level organization within the human system, this
may make our systems behaviour easier to understand in relation to other complex
systems.

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Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems
5

5.1 Complexity and Control

Cybernetic theory attempts to understand how complex adaptive systems function

through control and feedback mechanisms. Evolutionary theory attempts to under-
stand the processes that explain change over time in relation to environmental
conditions. In this chapter, I utilize two evolutionary–cybernetic theories:
metasystem transition theory and control information theory. These theories are
utilized in order to open discussion of qualitative changes in human governance
transitions understood in terms of control and feedback processes. This discussion is
necessary because as the complexity of the human–world relation increases beyond
the capacity of traditional structures we will need to think what new controls and
feedback processes are necessary to maximize the potential of our existential
opportunities and avoid catastrophic existential problems.
In the context of global complexity, humanity appears to be approaching (or is in
the midst of) a modern crisis of governance as a result of emergent ecological,
economic, and social commons problems (Fig. 5.1). The formal height of the human
metasystem control is expressed by the nation-state organization. However, the
nation-state organization is an insufficient structure to deal with global problems,
which threaten the future of human stability and also prevent the possibility of
achieving a future peaceful human–world symbiosis, as originally envisioned by
the foundations of enlightenment philosophy (Kant 1784). Here I believe
evolutionary–cybernetic theory can be applied to make sense of our contemporary
controls because governments are complex adaptive systems that evolve over time
and exhibit control and feedback processes similar to other evolutionary–cybernetic

Reprinted by permission from Emerald Publishing, Kybernetes 44(8/9), Information-energy

metasystem model, Last, C. 2015, pp. 1298–1309. DOI: 10.1108/K-11-2014-0231.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 83

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_5
84 5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems

Fig. 5.1 Metasystem of control to a global level

phenomena (e.g. biological systems, computer networks, etc.). Indeed, the original
conception of cybernetics was used as an ancient control analogy for ‘steering’
government (Heylighen and Joslyn 2001). In this view, governments control the
human ‘ship’ (society), which finds itself to be perpetually navigating a confusing,
unpredictable, and increasingly complex ‘ocean’ with a multiplicity of ‘other ships’
(environmental feedback). The question before us now is whether or not our ‘ships’
will (or can) converge towards a ‘commons shore’ or whether they will become
disoriented in the chaos of the twenty-first century ocean.
The question for the contemporary nation-state organization is how it can help
open up the space for a higher level of organization that is capable of tackling
challenges on a higher order of structure then is possible in our current system. In
this transition, there are many dangers and problems that must be confronted in
regards to structure of the higher-order control system. In an ideal situation, the
transition from the nation-state to the global level would involve the ability to
distribute control via mechanisms of self-organization in order to avoid problems
related to unnecessary power, hierarchy, and authority.
In the twenty-first century, our governments are encountering complex global
problems unforeseen by the founders of modernity (e.g. climate change, global
oligarchy, biogenetics, and robotics potentials), while also managing informational
and energetic flows that have no historical precedent (e.g. National Security Agency
(NSA) and global fossil fuel consumption). In the background of these emergent
challenges, the contours of our new geopolitical landscape are largely being shaped
5.1 Complexity and Control 85

by the evolution of the Internet: a medium for borderless and distributed flow of
information which increasingly enables organization of activity on global scales. In
other words, the Internet and the socio-economic modes of interaction and produc-
tion it enables, consistently reduces the physical friction on human thought and
action which limited the organizational capacities of historical humans, creating a
hyperconnected (i.e. converging) world in the process (Heylighen 2007).
One of the leading hypotheses to explain this new emerging world is the ‘global
brain’ (GB) hypothesis (Goertzel 2002; Heylighen 2007, 2015a). The GB hypothesis
posits that a self-organizing planetary intelligence, mediated via the Internet, will
allow for a new level of control organization this century which transcends historical
organization. In simpler terms: as the complexity of our system continues to quanti-
tatively increase, there will be also a concomitant qualitative change in the way
humans organize geopolitical structures. The GB hypothesis predicts a future human
society structurally based on distributed self-organization, instead of the tendency of
historical human societies, which have been typically organized via centralized
control structures. Indeed, the Internet is already beginning to profoundly alter the
nature of human–human, human–computer, and computer–computer interactions,
with the future potential to play host to new forms of distributed economics,
corporations, and even governance (Last 2014).
Modern nation-states are a good example of a centralized, hierarchical organiza-
tion that will face increasing internal and external pressure to adapt to more
distributed modes of control as the world becomes more complex. Unsurprisingly,
there is already evidence that our ‘ships’ are not able to adapt to both the scale and
speed of our most urgent social, economic, and ecological problems. For example,
the list of global problems that appear endemic and make our system increasingly
fragile are all challenges too great for anyone nation-state: ecological footprint, CO2
emissions, forest areas, freshwater resources, income, and wealth inequality, terror-
ism incidents, criminal organizations, political/financial corruption, unemployment,
voter turnout, and freedom/human rights (Glenn et al. 2014).
Furthermore, there is little hope that these issues can be solved within our existing
structures, as nation-states have become increasingly susceptible to international
corporate influence, which erodes democracy and directs control attention away
from people and ecology, and towards corporate profit only (i.e. new forms of
authoritarian capitalism). These emergent problems are not problems because we
lack the intelligence to acknowledge and address them. Instead, these problems are
problems because we lack the effective mechanisms for fostering and maintaining
new forms of distributed intelligence, which can maximize new governance poten-
tial, and create a more inclusive and equal world.
Therefore, we must fundamentally rethink the nature of human controls: without
the courage to acknowledge that nation-states are inadequate structures, globaliza-
tion is ‘just a sham’ (Graeber 2004, p. 77). Part of the problem is that the psychology
of the modern mind has been so fundamentally shaped by the nation-state that it is
difficult for most to imagine the structure of a different world. However, remaining
symbolically faithful to the nation-state, when its function as a structural control is so
clearly endangering socio-economic and ecological progress is dangerous as many
86 5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems

of our most pressing problems related to economics, ecology, and social space do not
have borders (i.e. they are global, with an earth–space boundary only). How do we
design ourselves towards such a world where our sociocultural reality is in symbiosis
with our contemporary economic and ecological reality?

5.2 Theoretical Foundations of a Global Control Transition

I propose here a conceptual tool that can be applied to our current control situation.
The function of the conceptual tool is specifically to contextualize evolutionary or
historical human control transitions in the hopes of finding a meaningful trend or
relationship that will help us understand the complexity of the evolutionary ‘ocean’
we are currently navigating. Therefore, the tool should also prove to be useful
guidance when we are making decisions regarding the future nature of control
structure. In an attempt to be all encompassing this model aims to incorporate the
whole of human experience and control organization from our emergence as a
species to our emergence as a global civilization or superorganism.
In this conceptualization, the nature of ‘information’ and ‘energy’ both play
dominant role in the model’s prescriptive and predictive power (Last 2014). Infor-
mation mediums are understood to be platforms for the organization of controls, and
energy systems are understood to be engines for the stabilization of control organi-
zation. In this framework, new control systems only emerge and stabilize when a
new information medium evolves and acquires prolonged and stable access to an
energy system. This process can open an information–energy feedback process
between control system and society as a whole. Historically, three such information–
energy systems have emerged and stabilized in the human system (Last 2015).

5.2.1 Metasystems and Control

The conceptual control tool explored here is constructed utilizing biological, anthro-
pological, and historical data (Last 2015), as well as two cybernetic theory:
metasystem transition theory (Turchin 1977) and control information theory
(Corning 2007). According to metasystem transition theory, a metasystem
(or ‘major transition’) occurs when living systems achieve higher system organiza-
tion from the controlled coordination (i.e. control system X) of previously disparate
subsystems (i.e. A1 + A2 + A3) (Turchin 1977; Goertzel 2002; Last 2015). In our
current context, the information medium for control system X and can be considered
the Internet. The disparate subsystems A1, A2, A3 can be considered nation-states
that can no longer control the discursive medium of universal expression. Thus, the
task for the users or architects of the next metasystem is to use our new universal
information medium to cooperatively organize a global commons. In other words,
the users or architects of the next metasystem need to organize a sociopolitical
structure that reflects the universality of the medium within which they interact.
5.2 Theoretical Foundations of a Global Control Transition 87

Metasystems occur as a step function separating two qualitatively different levels

of organization that can be approximately measured as a sigmoid (S-shaped) curve
(Modis 2012) (i.e. as quantity of interconnections increases, a new qualitative
organization must emerge to maintain a new level of complexity). Therefore, the
metasystem represents a punctuated equilibrium-like process characterized by an
accelerated period of subsystem integration, before stabilizing into a new level of
organization (Heylighen 2007, 2015a). In the human system metasystems have
generally stabilized within three different levels of complex organization: hunting,
agricultural, industrial (Niele 2005), and within three different broadly defined forms
of control hierarchies: band/tribes, chiefdoms/kingdoms, and nation-states (Last
2015). The next system is likely to be constructed utilizing solar power (and a
diverse mixture of other renewables, e.g. geothermal and wind) with a more
distributed control organization that transcends contemporary nation-states
(i.e. self-organized).
Metasystems occur when environmental conditions favour adaptive pressure for
increased biological or technological information processing capability (Smith &
Szathmáry 1995). Under these conditions, functional synergies between cooperative
agents that were previously impossible (in this context geographically separated
human groups) can produce the emergence of higher complexity and control orga-
nization (Corning 2002, 2014). The coordination of higher controls begins by the
cooperative/inclusive utilization of emergent information processing capabilities in a
collective information medium, which allows for qualitatively new interaction
potential (Heylighen 2006). Control innovation utilizing a new information medium
can then allow for higher integration and a new level of complex organization
(Heylighen 1995). Throughout human evolution control innovation has occurred
on three emergent information mediums: language, writing, and the printing press
(Last 2014), which have changed the qualitative nature of human interaction poten-
tial (bands, kingdoms, nations, etc.).
The contemporary human system gives the appearance of approaching a higher
metasystem. As mentioned, the highest human controls manifest in select nation-
states (e.g. the United States and China), and more recently in emergent international
governance (e.g. United Nations and European Union) and corporate networks
(e.g. Facebook and Google). However, as suggested, human cultural flexibility,
technological potential, and increasing Internet-related evolutionary convergence
pressures suggest that our current control systems do not represent a complex
plateau.

5.2.2 Control Information Theory

This conceptual tool is also built utilizing control information theory (Corning 2005,
2007). Control information theory posits that all living systems (biological or
biocultural) possess ‘control information’ (IC). IC is the relational capacity to use
information in the acquisition, disposition, and utilization of energy for cybernetic
processes (i.e. control and feedback). Control information theory emphasizes that
88 5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems

information cannot simply be quantified as an ‘amount’ measured in bits, as tradi-

tional information theory (i.e. ‘Shannon information’) suggests (Shannon 1948).
This is because measuring the amount of information explicitly ignores the function-
laden (content and meaning) nature of information used by living systems
(Kauffman et al. 2008). For example, when we talk about a transition from nation-
states to a commons we cannot understand this transition without understanding how
the function-laden nature of information must be understood as critical to this
metasystem transition. Consequently, there is no correlation between Shannon
information and the physical structural order observed in living system organization
(Kauffman 2000).
To bridge this gap IC is a concept that represents a living system's capacity to
control the capacity to do work (i.e. the functional relationship between goals
inherent to cybernetic informational processes and physical structural order). In
this theory, the ‘amount’ of IC is a manifestation of a living systems ‘power’ to
use information to control available energy for purposeful cybernetic activities that
are meaningful or valuable for that system, and not simply the amount of informa-
tion, nor the amount of energy (Corning 2007). The difference is of fundamental
importance to the construction of this model because the sheer amount of informa-
tion or energy has little to do with purposeful organization. For example, if you
know the sheer quantity of information and energy in a future global brain organiza-
tion it will tell you nothing about its ‘control information’ which would represent the
purposeful goals it is aiming for and actualizing. How will the observers of the next
medium organize themselves given the informational potentiality of the global
brain? This is the space where information potentiality cannot be reduced to infor-
mation control.
Information control (IC) can be mathematically formalized as: IC ¼ AU/Ai. In this
formalization AU ¼ total quantity of available energy accessible for control pro-
cesses by a cybernetic system and Ai ¼ total available energy cost associated with
bringing AU under control and utilizing control (Corning 2005, 2007). In this
formalism, we are invited to reflect on how functional work related to the purposeful
organization becomes meaningfully actualized in the world because the quantity of
available energy for information control processes must be connected to the costs of
its enaction. If there is no integration between the quantity of energy available for
information control and the costs of its enaction then we will have no increase in
information control and only an increase in information potentiality (IP). In other
words, will nation-states co-opt the increased information potentiality for their own
functional utility or will a higher-order structure emerge that is capable of more
efficiently utilizing information potentiality for a new form of information control?
Control information theory is integral to the development of metasystem transi-
tion theory. First, although the evolutionary emergence of new information
processing functionality is a precondition for metasystems (like the Internet), this
property is not sufficient because the mere emergence of a medium does not tell us
how it is organized by the observers. Thus, the emergence of a higher metasystem is
likely dependent more on how new information processing functionality is mean-
ingfully utilized by users towards the organization of a new control system. In our
5.2 Theoretical Foundations of a Global Control Transition 89

Fig. 5.2 Information control towards higher metasystem level

context, we may have a pure increase in AU but if we do not see an adjustment in Ai

as a consequence of subsystem integration towards commons goals then AU will
remain in a stage of IP (potentiality) as opposed to IC (control). Therefore, new
organizations are not the direct product of ‘more information’ in a system. The mere
presence of increased Internet access and faster computation on its own will not fix
our control issues. Increased access to bits of information simply creates new control
information potentiality (IP), only an understanding and reassessment of collective
goals and purposes will ensure pure information control (Fig. 5.2).
Information control (IC) is a function of the relation between available/accessible
energy for control (AU) and the energy cost for bringing AU under control (Ai). Thus,
when we think of the triadic dynamics between information–energy and control we
must also inscribe a sophisticated understanding of information control into how
metasystems emerge. In the context of our current metasystem transition, we must
think how a global brain would be able to form a real level of information control
capable of resolving the commons problems in ecological, economical, and social
domains so that our increased information potentiality does not remain pure virtual
potentiality and instead actually enacted and embedded meaningful novelty to the
benefit of long-term survival and thriving of consciousness.
Perhaps a good recent example demonstrating the meaning of information control
in its actualization potential related metasystem transitions can be expressed with the
controversy surrounding the NSA in the United States where increased informational
capacity was purposefully (and secretly) used by a centralized government for
90 5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems

spying on its citizens and the rest of the world. Here increased IP was a detriment to
democracy, safety, and privacy on a global level even if it served the function of
interests of a central hierarchical nation-state. A relational event of this nature serves
as a problematic catalyst to the international community to think of new structural
forms that are capable of preventing similar future manipulations of information
control. If we were to organize a metasystem transition, our new informational
capacities could be distributed, in order to ensure that all citizens had better knowl-
edge of government activity, and were able to effectively regulate the behaviour of
control systems, through collective standardization (i.e. surveillance to
sousveillance).
Thus, the difference between ‘Shannon information’ (which focuses on quantity)
and ‘IC’ (which focused on purposeful organization) is an important step towards
reconceptualizing an information theory for understanding metasystem transitions in
the human context. Too often we frame the solutions to our problems in terms of
quantity, i.e. we need better information technologies or more energy. But actually
transforming higher IP into useful collective beneficial modes of information control
(IC) requires a purposeful reorganization of that new potentiality. This requires a
global conversation regarding ethics of international structure and the meaning of
human civilization. Thus, we need to refocus on creating new organizations, new
ways of purposeful interconnection: government and society as a laboratory of new
relationships.
Furthermore, when control information theory is combined with metasystem
transition theory we get the mechanism for metasystem disintegration or stabiliza-
tion. If there is IC breakdown in feedback, the control hierarchy is likely to disinte-
grate into smaller subsystems. However, if there is functional IC synergy in
feedback, the control hierarchy can survive and replicate as an integrated whole.
This is why the first priority of the top or frontier hierarchies of the dominant
metasystem is to use information technology (language, writing, printing press,
and Internet) to find, secure, and maintain a stable energy supply. Of course, this
is true of any control system, as the continued replication of the highest control can
then, in turn, generate the socioecological and economic conditions for yet another
metasystem transition towards deeper integration.
In our context, modern governments in the developed world are attempting to
maintain stable IC feedback between outdated information–energy systems (print
media, telecommunications, and fossil fuels). This may be at the core of some of the
contemporary problems of Western democracies and an inability to think a more
coherent contemporary government structure. However, the Internet increasingly
allows for the disruption of this information–energy stability, providing a new
distributed platform that transcends centralized organization and national
boundaries. Can we think an information control for a new metasystem transition?
5.3 A Tool for Human Control Transitions 91

5.3 A Tool for Human Control Transitions

As mentioned above, there have been three human metasystems built around the
control of three mostly distinct primary energy sources. These metasystems include
hunting, agricultural, and industrial organizations (Last 2015). The control of these
energy sources was always organized through the utilization of a new information
medium to connect previously disparate subsystems: language, writing, and printing
press. All of these human metasystem transitions can be characterized by subsystems
of lower control becoming integrated under new control regimes: bands/tribes,
chiefdoms/kingdoms, and nation-states/international.
The modern nation-state sits atop an ancient human metasystem control hierarchy
of evermore diversely integrated subsystems. However, its status as the highest
control is by no means destined to continue indefinitely; but rather it is contingent
on the breakdown, stability or new synergy of IC feedback. These IC feedbacks in a
sense ‘dictate’ whether our current system hierarchy will collapse under the weight
of poor socio-economic decision-making, or whether our current system’s
hierarchies will become integrated and reorganized within yet another higher-level
control system.
In this context, the primary challenges for humanity this century includes the
prudent utilization of our emerging global nervous system (i.e. global brain) and the
stabilization of an equitably distributed and sustainable global metabolism
(i.e. global body). According to metasystem transition theory and control informa-
tion theory, the establishment of a new metasystem is by no means guaranteed
(i.e. the human system is not a predetermined Newtonian clockwork). Instead, a new
metasystem can only be established through our own ability for evolutionary
innovation. However, if we are successful in forming a new metasystem, then
there is the potential to create organizations as different from our present state, as
the agricultural organizations were from industrial organizations, or as foraging
organizations were from agricultural organizations. This would be realized by
establishing globally distributed controls with the ability to stabilize feedback
between the Internet and the new energy sources (i.e. renewables and fusion). The
central problem when confronting this future is figuring out how to control local-to-
global (‘glocally’) within a distributed structure.
In order to address this problem in our current working framework, we must first
start by acknowledging that the control approach through the early process of
globalization in the twenty-first century has forgotten that the local world still exists.
Nation-states, as well as emergent international government and corporate networks,
are attempting to globalize by ‘scaling up’ the processes that proved successful in the
industrial period. That is to say that small groups of increasingly centralized
organizations have a near totalitarian hold on the direction of globalization, creating
a homogenous ‘Potemkin Village’ (i.e. a fake construction) in the process. This
approach is disastrous because people are losing control over the contours of the
world in which they exist (authoritarian control instead of democratic control),
rendering local sociocultural knowledge unimportant to the socio-economic forces
directing collective human existence.
92 5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems

However, the ironic nature of the globalization process is that, in order to be

successful, we must build it from the bottom-up (i.e. ‘glocally’) and establish a real
type of ‘Global Village’, by increasing individual stability and valuing local knowl-
edge. In the context of this working framework, this appears to be the case because
control structure has been developmentally constrained by the nature of the infor-
mation medium used to build the controls. For example, in bands/tribes decision-
making tends to be more decentralized and egalitarian because language is a
democratic property of human biology. All decision-making within the band/tribe
was ‘open’ and ‘distributed’ in such a way that the collective always exercised
greater power than any ‘alpha’ individual within the group (Boehm 1997). Conse-
quently, energy flows in bands/tribes never approached the ‘closed’ and ‘centralized’
natures that manifest in historical organizations and lead to exaggerated levels of
inequality.
In chiefdoms/kingdoms decision making became increasingly centralized
because writing was a medium built on scarce resources and a high degree of cultural
mediation (i.e. it is time consuming to learn how to read/write). Therefore, small
groups of wealthy literate individuals with access to writing materials and time to
learn the art of reading/writing could use the knowledge gained from these activities
as a tool to coerce the poor illiterate majority. This relationship started to change with
the development of the printing press. The poor illiterate majority increasingly
become the poor literate majority and eventually forced the organization of more
decentralized controls (e.g. the critical modern revolutions: English Revolution,
French Revolution, and American Revolution). Therefore, in most nation-states,
decision-making, became less centralized because writing became massively repro-
ducible, making it easier for individuals to learn about the nature of government
(e.g. Kant 1784), and generally harder (in comparison to pre-modern agricultural
sociopolitical structures) for individuals to take advantage of society as a whole
(with obvious and notable exceptions).
Today, we exist in a world where high-speed Internet may become universally
accessible well before we reach mid-century, potentially allowing for a world in
which all humans have relatively equal access to information. Such an environment
would enable the emergence of a more egalitarian and distributed organization. We
have already seen that a better educated and increasingly interconnected world is less
tolerant of the abuses of concentrated power (Glenn et al. 2014). This does not mean
that it is immanent that concentrated power (‘big ships’) will dissolve into an ocean
of distributed navigators (‘tiny boats’), but, to use the jargon of information control
theory, we could see the next level of information potentiality harnessed for infor-
mation controls that are capable to take into account local observation and desire. In
this situation, we could exist in a world where renewable energy allows entire
communities to go ‘off-grid’ and become self-sustaining (Rifkin 2014). Conse-
quently, controls within the next information–energy system could be based fiercely
on egalitarian principles of direct democracy, somewhat similar to the villages of our
foraging ancestors. Historically, such an ‘ideal’ organization inverts the current
structure of government and replaces it with human collectives emergent from
distributed individuated networks.
5.4 Theoretical Speculations Regarding Future Contours of Control 93

This model should prove a useful guidance tool when we are making decisions
regarding the future nature of control structure. Considering that our planet is
developing a new higher information medium, we appear to be in the early stages
of developing towards a higher metasystem, with potentially higher IC feedback.
However, we must remember that information and energy are of equal importance to
the persistence of living system complex organization and so our current controls are
likely to retain power as long as fossil fuels remain the dominant mode of energy
production. Therefore, moving forward, we should put heavier emphasis on the
importance of not only the further democratization of the nation-state utilizing the
Internet, but also on the acceptable behaviours of control systems to acquire and
stabilize energy sources (consequently thwarting the current network of IC).

5.4 Theoretical Speculations Regarding Future Contours

of Control

The theoretical and empirical foundations for a new form of distributed control are
already emerging. In recent years there has been a flourishing of thought-provoking
analyses suggesting that nation-states should start a transition to some form of
distributed form emphasizing local autonomy of multipolar regions (e.g. Dahlberg
and Siapera 2007; Chadwick 2009; Noveck 2009; Fountain et al. 2011; Last 2014).
Fundamentally, the goal of working towards greater local autonomy is an attempt to
open government by improving public access to data, encouraging public participa-
tion in the decision-making process, fostering evidence-based decision-making and
decreasing hierarchies (Fountain et al. 2011).
Based on our working framework, I have proposed my own tentative model for
thinking about global controls in the twenty-first century. In my model, we should be
thinking about ways to organize a global commons through digital, distributed, and
democratic mechanisms:

1. First, digital decision-making allows us to best maximize the utility of new

information acquired by the collective intelligence of our system in a distributed
fashion. Distributed refers to a ‘spreading out’ of decision-making throughout the
entire human system, and collective intelligence refers to the efficient organiza-
tion of all aggregated knowledge, understanding, and experience. Essentially, this
combination of distributed decision-making and enhancing collective intelligence
will allow humans to efficiently draw upon the collective knowledge of all
people, which in aggregate can be used to make better general commons
decisions than decisions made by small groups of specialists. In other words,
we need to find a way to draw upon the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ in order to
continually maximize long-term problem solving and opportunity exploration for
everyone.
2. Second, we can maximize distributed collective intelligence by constructing an
information medium via the Internet specifically for large-scale value coordina-
tion (allowing for the maximum expression of ideational potential). Such a digital
94 5 Control Dynamics of Human Metasystems

medium would allow us to harness the self-organizing power of stigmergy.

Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordinate that can occur within a shared
medium capable of recording and stimulating action potential between networked
agents (Heylighen 2015b). Various social web sites, including Wikipedia and
Reddit, are stigmergic in nature. This seemingly simple stigmergic property has
also been observed in a number of complex systems, including biological
superorganisms, like ants and termites. In theory, a stigmergic information
medium designed for the organization of the commons would allow us to have
a value coordination space to rethink the foundations and direction of
globalization.
3. Finally, a distributed and digital controls must enable the capacity for direct local
engagement where people can express and explore the ideas relevant for common
directionality without political representatives. This process is known as disinter-
mediation. Such a process would have to be based on sophisticated mechanisms
of reputation and trust to ensure that the medium itself cannot be corrupted, and
mechanisms of socio-economic motivation to ensure that the medium remains
functional. Here when it comes to reputation, trust, and motivation in a digital
participatory medium, we can learn from examples of many other Internet-based
social mediums that have utilized these mechanisms for various functional
purposes.

To conclude, I have attempted to propose a model for thinking about our control
situation. The emergence of the Internet has created the foundations for an increas-
ingly global world. In this context, we must consider ways to approach a new form of
globalization that is shaped by the whole of humanity. This will require a
metasystem transition towards a higher level of systems complexity by reinventing
the established control hierarchy. This reinvention could allow for the establishment
of controls that maximize distributed intelligence and direct democracy within a
digital medium that functions from ‘local to global’.
Of course, this will require massive control innovation and a cultural revolution
committed to radical distribution of concentrated power. Here we can learn from the
founders of enlightenment if we have the daring to actually realize their transcendent
dreams. There is no reason why control needs to possess a specific physical location
in a truly mature information age. Instead, power could be distributed among all
interconnected citizens in a multipolar Global Village. Such an organization should
allow us to safely navigate the next frontier metasystem of humanity’s evolutionary
experiment.

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Global Brain and the Future of Human
Society 6

6.1 Global Brain

The global brain is a leading hypothesis explaining the current evolution of the
human system. This hypothesis is meant to describe a distributed self-organizing
planetary intelligence emerging from all people and information and communication
technologies (ICT) connected via the internet (Heylighen 2013). The hypothesis of
the global brain was first inspired by thinking in the biological and evolutionary
sciences, which likened collective human interaction to the collective interaction of
neurons within the brain. The brain is a useful example of how distributed self-
organizing constituents can produce emergent properties such as intelligence, goal-
directedness, and even consciousness. Using this metaphor, many thinkers have
envisioned different versions of humanity as in the process of building a global brain
(Russell 1982; Turchin 1977; Bloom 2000). Cybernetician Francis Heylighen
recently summarized three main metaphorical conceptions of a global brain (2011):

• Encyclopedism: An entity with all world knowledge organized accessible to all

humans.
• Organicism: Humanity as a superorganism in the process of building a techno-
logical nervous system.
• Emergentism: Globalization as in the process of producing an emergent global
consciousness.

However, researchers are now interested in going beyond visionary metaphor

(or grounding visionary metaphor) and proposing actual mechanisms and theoretical

Reprinted by permission from SAGE, World Future Review, 6(2), Global Brain and the Future of
Human Society, Last, C. 2014. DOI: 10.1177/1946756714533207.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 97

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_6
98 6 Global Brain and the Future of Human Society

models that can help us describe the emergence and potential existence of a global
brain. Functionally speaking, brains help organisms solve problems just as the global
brain would help the human superorganism solve problems too complex for any
lower level of intelligent organization. Structurally speaking, neurons within
networks process information in a parallel and distributed fashion transmitting
information to connected neurons, that is in the same basic structural patterns used
by humans to transmit information via the Internet.
But is this just a metaphor? If the global brain is more than a metaphor, this future
network should be more intelligent and coherent than the current structure of the
Internet with the capability to coordinate the necessary functional operations of
human civilization via processes of self-organization (i.e. human civilization
organized without central-hierarchical forms). Such a system will represent a quali-
tatively new level of complexity and organization, a new metasystem, which would
allow humans to solve planetary problems (i.e. global warming and socio-economic
inequality), consequently opening up the possibility space for new levels of freedom
and opportunity.

6.2 Challenge Propagation

To work towards an understanding of the global brain beyond metaphor we here

seek to focus attention towards a deeper conceptual understanding of the nature of
human distributed and self-organizing intelligence. This has led to the formulation of
a model for the global brain known as ‘challenge propagation’ (or ChallProp)
(Heylighen 2012; Heylighen et al. 2012).
Challenge propagation acknowledges that an integral component of intelligence
can be expressed as a problem-solving computation (Heylighen 2012). For an
intelligent agent (whether that be a neuron, eusocial insect, or human), a problem
is something that makes the ‘initial state’ (i.e. the present situation) different from the
‘goal state’ (i.e. an ideal situation) (Fig. 6.1). An agent will seek to change its initial
state if it receives information that will deteriorate or even threaten its existence. The
information will essentially be perceived as a problem. The agent must process this
information and solve the problem by drawing on information it already possesses
(i.e. this is a problem that has been encountered and overcome before) or the agent

Fig. 6.1 Intelligent transformations as a feedback process

6.2 Challenge Propagation 99

must draw on information by cooperating with another agent or they can create the
information. Both of these last two options are dependent on the ability of the agent
in question, which is in turn dependent on the agent’s evolutionary history. If the
problem cannot be overcome, the agent will not reach the goal state, and as a result, it
could experience deterioration (or in many cases die).
In this phenomenal model of intelligence, we can understand intelligence as a
contingent evolutionary process whereby observers or agents dynamically readjust
its relation to an environment by mediating initial state in relation to an ideal state via
mechanisms of transforming problems or questions into solutions or answers. This is
an iterative process whereby the environment (external otherness) is constantly
changing giving the observer/agent feedback which will stimulate another intelligent
transformation.
Challenge propagation also acknowledges that agents exhibit the highest degree
of intelligence when they solve problems in a distributed collective fashion
(Heylighen et al. 2012). For example, think about a collective human species
problem: the problem of global warming. In this situation, we have our initial state
(A) and we have our goal state (B) of stabilizing the global climate [all the while
taking into consideration feedback from the environment (C)]. The information we
need to stabilize our climate is distributed (i.e. one person does not have the
information to stop global warming). We need to draw on the collective intelligence
of the entire system. That is why we train ecologists, biologists, engineers, and a
whole range of other professionals. With their collective self-organizing intelligence,
the problem of global warming can, in principle, be solved. We can reach the ‘goal
state’ and by reaching the goal state we can get objectively more intelligent. Our
system can become objectively more intelligent because in the process of
overcoming the challenge of global warming our system strengthens the links
between important agents necessary to realize a new sustainable energy economy.
However, the most critical dimension of the theory of challenge propagation is
that all intelligent behaviour is not all about solving problems (Heylighen 2012).
Intelligent agents follow an ‘in-built’ value system that has evolved based on the
improvement of their own system. For example, for human beings, it is good to
exercise, play, listen to music, be creative, travel, and build social connections).
These are not ‘problems’ in a conventional sense if we consider them in the totality
of their experiential dimensionality. When we start to exercise, play a game, go to a
concert, start to draw or write, take a trip to another country or continent, explore a
new social environment, we are not only solving problems, but also exploring
opportunities for growth towards values that we hold as essential for our becoming.
In the context of global warming, we should not only view it as a collective problem,
but also as a collective opportunity, an obstacle that initiates intelligent
transformations that will catalyze a much more sophisticated global system.
Thus, intelligent agents are always on a continuum between problems and
opportunities (Heylighen et al. 2012). In the theory of challenge propagation,
problems, and opportunities are collapsed into ‘challenges’. We do not like
remaining at ‘zero’ (i.e. doing nothing). If we are not solving a problem (challenge
relaxing), we are seeking an opportunity (challenge seeking). If an agent cannot
100 6 Global Brain and the Future of Human Society

Fig. 6.2 Network of challenge vectors

solve a problem or explore an opportunity they will ‘propagate’ it within their

network of agents (‘friends’) that can assist their relaxing or seeking. This is why
the theory is called ‘challenge propagation’, as all intelligent agents ‘propagate’
‘challenges’ in the system they are contained within (Fig. 6.2).
In this representation, we see the nature of a human agent as situated between two
‘challenging extremes’ of problem solving and opportunity exploration, and situated
within a network of other agents who can either aid in problem solving/opportunity
exploration or that the central agent can aid in their problem solving/opportunity
exploration.
Of course, problems/opportunities are not a strict binary as agents can do both
simultaneously (Heylighen et al. 2012). And there are few hard rules about the
prioritization of problems and opportunities, as some agents enjoy solving problems
more than exploring opportunities and some agents enjoy exploring opportunities
more than solving problems. However, one important rule for evolving agents is that
challenge relaxing must take priority when it comes to problems related to
(biological) natural selection, or else they will risk deterioration and eventually
death. In this context, if human civilization is capable of progressively relieving
humans from the basic problems of biological existence, then it opens up new
experiential doors for opportunity exploration.
6.2 Challenge Propagation 101

This basic model of challenge propagation can be seen as both prescriptive and
predictive of the future human organization. The model is prescriptive because we
can actually work towards designing the future of human institutions within this
basic theoretical framework. As a basic principle, all future ‘institutions’ should be
‘stigmergic’, based on a foundation of decentralized and distributed organizations.
This is because problems and opportunities could be defined by the values of
agential consciousness in-itself as opposed to the social systems within which
agential consciousness operates. This distributed nature of structure also appears to
be a basic property of truly complex adaptive systems (like brains or
superorganisms).
This model is also predictive because there appear to be strong evolutionary
pressures towards more distributed forms of human organization (Heylighen 2013).
These pressures emerge from real physical systems that largely dictate how humans
can organize. In our context, for example the real physical systems of the Internet
and the emerging renewables energy grid represent developmental constraints on
what we humans can organize. Both grids are inherently distributed, decentralized,
and global. Therefore, they are systems that allow for global cooperation and,
potentially, ecological sustainability.
Furthermore, cybernetic and evolutionary models suggest social reorganization
towards a common goal state direction may be situated within a context of previous
transitions to new information and energy systems. Both control information theory
(Corning 2007) and human metasystem transition theory (Last 2014a, b) suggest that
agents or users of new information mediums eventually use matter/energy in new
‘purposive’ processes (i.e. the Internet enabling the control of renewables). This
ultimately means that there emerges a new layer of information control that is
capable of realizing goals and materializing meanings that were unthinkable or at
least unrealizable to lower levels of evolutionary cybernetic organizations.
Indeed, the hunting revolution, agricultural revolution, and the industrial revolu-
tion, led to structural reorganizations of human existence only after a new informa-
tion technology enabled the stabilization of a new energy source (Last 2014a, b).
During the hunting transition, the evolution of modern language enabled the coordi-
nation of large-scale hunting, which was necessary for the formation of group sizes
three times the size of our more primitive human ancestors. During the agricultural
revolution recorded symbols (i.e. written language) facilitated the organization of
vast bureaucracy for the stabilization of agricultural practices and emergence of
civilization. And during the industrial revolution, the emergence of the printing press
led to the flourishing of scientific and technical knowledge that would allow for the
exploitation of fossil fuels, and the emergence of international trade and governance
networks (Last 2014a, b). These theories help us reduce the past and future of human
organization to a matter of physics, information theory, and evolutionary energetics.
If true, the likely result of the advancing global communications and energy grids
should be the gradual reorganization of all major human institutions that increase
collective intelligence within the challenge propagation framework: organizations
that are decentralized, distributed, and global.
102 6 Global Brain and the Future of Human Society

6.2.1 Speculations on Future Governance and Religion

In this context, we need to think about the construction of global institutions or

networks or commons for the global brain. Here I hope to give a brief introduction to
the power of challenge propagation in explaining societal reorganization. As
demonstrated above, from the perspective of challenge propagation we think about
society in terms of agents in a distributed network attempting to solve problems and
seek opportunities on a continuum of action. First, I will describe how this informs
recommended organizations for the future of governance. Second, I will describe
how this informs recommended organization for the future of religion. Both of these
organizations have played a fundamental role in the organization of human society
since the emergence of civilization. What will their nature be in the global brain?
For the reasons described above, this overview is meant to be both prescriptive
and predictive. If governance and religious institutions take the prescriptive organi-
zational recommendations seriously, then this will increase the chances that they will
survive and adapt to the next human metasystem (i.e. global brain). If they ignore the
prescriptive organizational recommendations, it will increase the likelihood that
these institutions will collapse in the coming decades. I predict that the time these
institutions have to reorganize is dependent on the full establishment and maturation
of a distributed renewables energy grid. This would be in accordance with both
control information theory (Corning 2007) and human metasystem transition theory
(Last 2014a, b).
Human governance institutions characteristic of the agricultural era were largely
monarchical. Monarchical governance organizations are highly centralized with the
majority of power in the hands of a very small group of individuals, or just one
individual. Consequently, these organizations disproportionately benefited a small
elite within society. This could be captured in challenge propagation with the idea
that a small number of agents were able to define the problems of the collective, and
a small number of agents had a higher opportunity to explore opportunities within
the collective. To give concrete examples, the monarch would be able to decide
whether the nation would go to war or not go to war, the monarch would be able to
have access to resources and events that were unavailable to most other agents, and
so forth.
In the transition to modern democratic governance institutions, which began with
the American and French Revolutions, respectively, society started to become
decentralized and distributed in terms of concrete decision-making. This can be
captured in challenge propagation with the idea that the problems of the collective
now had to become defined in terms of environmental feedback from the populous
via various mechanisms, most notably voting mechanisms. Thus, in the modern
democratic governance institutions, the individual agent was seen to possess rights
and responsibilities that were beyond violation by any agent of state or religious
authority.
However, in modern democracies, there are growing problems with corruption
and inefficiency. These problems are largely the result of structural issues related to a
potential future metasystem transition towards an international order. To be specific
6.2 Challenge Propagation 103

nation-states as a dominant information control are being superseded by a layer of

international capital that is increasingly incompatible with nation-state democratic
processes. In this situation, there are questions about whether or not the feedback
mechanisms between the state and the populous are sufficient to ensure that collec-
tive decision-making is decentralized and distributed throughout the system as a
whole. Indeed, it is plausible to suggest that we need to totally re-conceptualize the
relationship between the individual agent and the global whole in order to ensure that
monarchical structures do not start to characterize our international sphere.
The problem is thus double: on the one hand our governance systems are national
in scale. This national structure is an insufficient level of organization in the twenty-
first century, given our emerging global communication infrastructure, which allows
for global trade and a truly global movement of trade and a truly global movement of
thought, resources, and peoples. On the other hand, the social layer of information
control which is emerging in the void of real international structural organization is
largely formed via instruments of pure capitalist values. Although this social layer
allows for incredible advances in terms of the reproduction of capital, it also leads to
fundamental commons problems in many different spheres of human activity (eco-
nomic, ecological, social, etc.), which require new thinking about governance. In
other words, it is clear that our ‘present state’ is now out of line with the ‘goal state’
of a governance organization for the global brain in the global village.
In the context of thinking, a value system and a purposive organization capable of
representing the problems and the structure of twenty-first-century civilization we
need to form governance organizations that globally increase socio-economic equal-
ity and environmental stability. We need to form organization that eliminates the
possibility that our governance institutions can be co-opted by concentrated groups
of elite decision makers. We need to create governance organizations that allow
distributed participation and open competition for growth which is as free from
ideology, power, and wealth as possible.
This is not impossible, in fact, such a system could be theoretically
conceptualized with the aid of challenge propagation framework or some similar
conceptual tool that allows us to represent distributed networks of agents attempting
to solve problems and explore opportunities. In this framework, the ideal would be to
essentially invert the monarchical model. In the monarchical model, one or a small
group of agents have a disproportionate ability to define problems and explore
opportunities. In the democratic model, we still have a small group of agents that
have a disproportionate ability to define problems and explore opportunities, but this
small group is under constant reorganization, and is subject to strong feedback from
the surrounding population of others. However, in a real global commons model, the
centre would itself be distributed in a multipolar structure that was constantly
changing and evolving in relation to the problems defined and opportunities
explored by individuated agential consciousness (Fig. 6.3).
In this challenge propagation representation, we can see the basic control struc-
ture of historical organizations in their monarchical, democratic, and commons form.
In the monarchical form, one or a small group of agents defines all problems relevant
to the system as a whole, and explores opportunities unavailable to other agents in
104 6 Global Brain and the Future of Human Society

Fig. 6.3 Challenge propagation representation of governance controls

the system as a whole. In the democratic form, a small group of agents still defines
problems and explores opportunities but must undergo constant change and replace-
ment, and also must be subjected to constant feedback processes from the populous
as a whole. In the theoretical commons form the centre loses its ‘agential dimension’
and instead emerges from the collective interaction of agential consciousness. In this
sense, the centre gains its coherence only from the distributed problem definition and
opportunity exploration of the network of agential consciousness in-itself.
From this discussion on governance let us turn our attention to religion. Religious
institutions have always been an important component of human society. All of the
first human civilizations included religious institutions that were at times more
powerful than political institutions and at times symbiotic or completely merged
with political institutions (i.e. ‘divine’ or ‘supernatural’ power translated into real-
world political power). Of course, this relationship between religious and political
institutions was significantly ruptured with the emergence of new democratic politi-
cal institutions. New democratic political institutions are explicitly ‘secular’. In fact,
the defining attribute of modern political and religious institutions is their ‘separa-
tion’ from one another. This can be simply explained by challenge propagation. The
new democratic governance institutions that emerged during the industrial revolu-
tion were more decentralized and distributed, which prevented successful unification
and partnership with religious institutions that remained inherently centralized and
hierarchical.
The failure of religious institutions, particularly the Abrahamic religious
institutions, to become more decentralized and distributed has arguably defined by
their controversial existence throughout the industrial era. Indeed the majority of the
atheist critique of religion has little to do with serious transcendental arguments
related to the existence or nonexistence of God, and much more to do with social
system repression, power, and control, which is a feature of centralized and hierar-
chical organizations. Moreover, there has been a recent flourishing of spiritual belief
systems and spiritual practices that are capable of expressing the human relationship
to the divine without the strict adherence to a single text or scripture.
References 105

In this nuanced perspective, it becomes difficult to know exactly how to interpret

the future of religion with any absolute certainty. However, in the challenge propa-
gation framework, we can say that the future of spirituality or belief in the supernat-
ural must figure out how to reinvent itself within the context of a structural
reorganization of how humans relate to the spirit. Humans have inherent spiritual
needs and these needs can manifest in many different ways. In order to foster this
spiritual need for faith in a higher power or source or cause of existence, the best
practice in a challenge propagation framework would be to create the discursive
spaces where a real active dialogue about spirituality and faith can emerge. These
discursive spaces need not represent one religious leader or one religious domination
but allow for conceptual boundaries to be flexible and dynamic and contingent on the
needs expressed in the dialogue.
If this model is useful in a prescriptive and predictive context then the future
spiritual communities will be built on distributed emergence, without the need for
permanent leaders, authorities, or denomination. This, in fact, mirrors the patterns
we discussed in regards to the future of governance. In essence, religious
organizations need to become more decentralized and distributed so that ideas of
how the human spirit or consciousness relates to its existential condition can be
expressed with less friction or distortion. This would allow different religious groups
or identities to move past any theological divisions and find a common meaning or
purpose for the twenty-first century that is more in-line with religion’s core drive
which is to provide an outlet for people to explore their relationship to the unknown
or unknowable.
In this context, religion can be revived by focusing on the very real dimension of
problems for consciousness that have no final or complete answer but are rather
fundamental mysteries of the historical process. Some of these very real dimensions
include an understanding of universal ethics or morality, the structure of life and
death, the design or construction or creation of the universe, and the meaning of
society and experience in a cosmic context. These dimensions of inquiry are as
pressing for contemporary consciousness as they have ever been for consciousness.
Thus, the possibility for a revived understanding of spirituality and human relation to
religion is now an informational potentiality, which requires us to rethink a mean-
ingful structure to information control.

References
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Corning, P. (2007). Control information theory: The ‘missing link’ in the science of cybernetics.
Systems Research and Behavioral Sciences, 24, 297–311.
Heylighen, F. (2011). Conceptions of a global brain: an historical review. In L. E. Grinin, R. L.
Carneiro, А. V. Korotayev, & F. Spier (Eds.), Evolution: Cosmic, biological, and social
(pp. 274–289).
Heylighen, F. (2012). Challenge propagation: A new paradigm for modeling distributed intelli-
gence. GBI Working Paper, Volgograd: Uchitel. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/
ChallengePropagation.pdf
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Heylighen, F. (2013). Return to Eden? Promises and perils on the road to a global superintelligence.
In: B. Goertzel, & T. Goertzel (Eds.), The end of the beginning: Life, society and economy on the
brink of the singularity. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BrinkofSingularity.pdf
Heylighen, F., Busseniers, E., Veitas, V., Vidal, C., & Weinbaum, D. R. (2012). Foundations for a
mathematical model of the global brain: architecture, components, and specifications. GBI
Working Paper. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/TowardsGB-model.pdf
Last, C. (2014a). Distributed digital democracy. GBI Working Paper. http://cadelllast.files.
wordpress.com/2012/12/distributed-digitaldemocracy.pdf
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wordpress.com/2012/12/last-c-2014-human-metasystem-transition-theory-hmst1.pdf
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New York: Columbia University Press.
Global Commons in the Global Brain
7

7.1 Technological Revolution/Disruption Is Near (But What

About Our Response?)

A diversity of novel technologies within the domains of robotics, machine learning/

artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology are emerging. Moreover, these
technologies and their interconnection with cloud computing, big data, mobile
Internet, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are increasingly enabling the formation
of a global infrastructure founded upon automated smart systems and distributed
social networks. These automated smart systems and distributed social networks can
both self-organize from local ‘bottom-up’ interactions (often operating on peer-to-
peer (P2P) logic), thus reducing or eliminating the necessity of central hierarchical
‘top-down’ control structure. Furthermore, these systems and networks have the
potential to continue transforming various sectors of economic, social and political
life, including the nature of homes, factories, farms, transportation grids, hospitals,
education, and even the total infrastructure of cities and countries. Thus, the purpose
of this chapter is to usefully engage a debate on the social, economic, and political
implications of these technological changes, and specifically to engage a debate on
the way these technologies will be used in relation to power and centralized hierar-
chy characteristic of historical organizations like nation-states and corporations.
From the purely technological perspective, the totality of these trends and
developments signals the beginnings of a (so-called) ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’.
This technological revolution is distinct in its speed (exponential) and scope (global)
when compared to previous revolutionary waves of industrial production (which
were linear and local) (WEF 2016). Of course, the consequences of an ‘exponential’

Reprinted by permission from Elsevier, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, Global
Commons in the Global Brain, Last, C., 2017, 48–64.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 107

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_7
108 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

and ‘global’ technological revolution are almost or even totally unpredictable in the
sense that the structure of human life and civilization will undergo changes of a
unique qualitative nature. Such a qualitative change, although without real parallel,
may be considered comparable only to historical ‘metasystem transitions’
(i.e. emergence of higher control organization) like the transitions from
(pre-historical) foraging to (pre-modern) agricultural societies, or from
(pre-modern) agricultural to (modern) industrial societies (Last 2015a, b). Conse-
quently, when this technological revolution is considered from social, economic, and
political perspectives, humanity is presented with the immanent emergence of a
totally another world, and thus a contemporary situation with far more questions than
answers. What is to be done?
First, we can start with the primary features of the technological shift in relation to
social, economic, and political processes, which is (likely) to include the following:

(a) The transition will blur the lines between the ‘physical’ (actual-existential) and
the ‘digital’ (virtual) worlds challenging the logical and conceptual foundations
of primarily or purely physical institutions that are constrained by geography,
maintenance costs, and centralized intelligence structures; but also primarily or
purely digital networks that are often isolated or disconnected from directly
impacting the physical world.
(b) Will lead to the disruption of fundamental socio-economic notions and
organizing principles of location, production, labour, and property as many
organizational forms will communicate and coordinate multi-locally/globally
and include large-scale automated production components with advanced
materials.
(c) Will change the human relation to public (state) and private (market) spheres of
socio-economic organization and coordination as the state constructs rigid local
boundaries and coordination as the state constructs rigid local boundaries based
on control of property and labour, whereas the market operates purely on profit-
driven monetary logic without consideration for the complex and multi-
dimensional spheres of human value unrelated to profit or commodity exchange.
(d) Will require an open, active, pluralistic, and meta-reflective dialogue between a
wide diversity of actors (in all spheres of human life) about the meaning and
direction of this emerging world beyond the dominant state and capitalist forms
(state–capital nexus), in the hopes of finding a new level of (commons) coher-
ence and integration, and most probably a new type of social contract (focused
on a new relation between the individual’s rights within the totality of the
sociopolitical sphere).

Thus, the challenges presented by this emerging technological revolution are

immense and in many ways overwhelming in the dimension of opportunities and
problems (which both present limitless horizons from our contemporary perspec-
tive). Specifically, these technological changes offer the potential opportunity of
historically unparalleled levels of productivity, abundance, and liberation—a true
revolution if social and economic power can assume a distributed and open form.
7.1 Technological Revolution/Disruption Is Near (But What About Our Response?) 109

However, these technologies also offer the potential problem of historically unpar-
alleled levels of labour instability, inequality, and control—a true disruption if social
and economic power remains in a highly centralized and closed form. These
challenges require immediate mediation as the aforementioned revolutionary/disrup-
tive technologies and the cumulative effects of their self-organized interconnection
in smart systems/distributed networks are developing quickly and being
implemented within an unregulated international environment dominated by private
corporate activity (international environment as structured by ‘neoliberal
institutions’).
An international order structure by neoliberal institutions is problematic in the
context of the emerging technological revolution because the systemic dynamics it
engenders exhibit little-to-no common regard for social and environmental spheres,
and thus no practical functional ability to manage the totality of the social and
environmental spheres. Consequently, although an international neoliberal order
leads to high levels of productivity and abundance, it does so at the cost of higher
levels of labour instability, socio-economic inequality, and environmental degrada-
tion. In the past, it could be argued (and indeed was argued successfully in many
regions) that the cost of labour instability, socio-economic inequality, and environ-
mental degradation was worth the price of higher levels of productivity and abun-
dance. However, given the emerging nature of our technological horizons (of the
capability to produce ecologically sustainable abundance with reduced need for
human labour) it seems only logical to fundamentally reassess the nature of civiliza-
tion and the common dimension of the individuals’ place within it (relation between
the part and the whole, the particular and the universal).
Thus, ultimately, the consequences of this emerging (exponential global) techno-
logical revolution for human civilization is that a new understanding of geopolitics
(large-scale political collectives) will be required to navigate towards a new socio-
economic world (of opportunities and problems), and that new geopolitics will
require new conceptual foundations and organizational mechanisms. In order to
properly situate this argument in the contemporary literature, I would propose that
the geopolitical problem of constructing new large-scale political collectives is the
essence of the challenge presented in ‘Part Four’ of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the
Twenty-First Century (2014), which is essentially a section focused on speculative
geopolitical futures. The essence of this challenge is as follows:

(a) Global capital is out of control (private sphere)

(b) Nation-states cannot control it (public sphere)
(c) Contemporary international organizations cannot control it (pseudo-commons
sphere)
(d) If we cannot think a solution (an authentically new qualitative form of large-
scale political collective), then labour instability, income/wealth inequality, and
also economic-ecological instability will be seriously and potentially irrevers-
ibly exacerbated.
110 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

Piketty’s now well-known ‘utopian solution’ would be to erect some idealized

form of ‘Global State’ capable of regulating global markets with a progressive global
tax (2014, p. 515):

To regulate the globalized patrimonial capitalism of the twenty-first century, rethinking the
twentieth century fiscal and social model and adapting it to today’s world will not be enough.
To be sure, appropriate updating of the last century’s social-democratic and fiscal-liberal
program is essential, which focused on two fundamental institutions that were invented in
the twentieth century and must continue to play a central role in the future: the social state
and the progressive income tax. But if democracy is to regain control over the globalized
financial capitalism of this century, it must also invent new tools, adapted to today’s
challenges. The ideal tool would be a progressive global tax on capital, coupled with a
very high level of international financial transparency. Such a tax would provide a way to
avoid an endless inegalitarian spiral and to control the worrisome dynamics of global capital
concentration. Whatever tools and regulations are actually decided on need to be measured
against this ideal.”

Consequently, Piketty’s ultimate solution for ‘Capitalism in the 21st Century’ is

essentially a form of ‘Global Keynesianism in the 21st Century’, when we reinvent
the nature of the social state and the progressive income tax, but this time instead of
just reinventing these dynamics at the multi-local nation-state level, we reinvent
these same dynamics for the higher global whole. Although Piketty admits that such
an approach is ‘utopian’ in the sense of being an ‘ideal’ projection and thus
unrealistic in the ‘material’ domain, he also suggests that, as the end of the above
quote suggests, all attempts to solve the problem of global capitalism should be
‘measured against this ideal’ of what essentially amounts to a ‘Global State’. The
philosophical logic here is the relation between ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism’, where
the ‘ideal’ (for Piketty) functions as an attractor state or pole for grounding material-
ist political construction projects. The economic logic here is that, in the same way,
the inhumane consequences of free-market capitalism (labour instability, socio-
economic inequality, etc.) were reduced by nation-state interventionism in the
second half of the twentieth century (‘New Deal’), this same dynamic can be erected
for global civilization in the twenty-first century, and ultimately save both capitalism
and the state form itself, albeit at a new global level (‘New New Deal’).
From the perspective of the challenges posed by the emerging technological
revolution (i.e. of an exponentially emerging self-organized global world founded
on automated smart systems and distributed networks), these problems identified by
Piketty (i.e. of global capital and its global control problem) simply accelerate the
necessity of large-scale political action (~2020–2025) in order to prevent the erup-
tion of fundamental antagonisms which are now clearly stressing the structural
foundations of the world as it is, especially in relation to class struggle. In other
words ‘things cannot go on the way they are’: there is a real need for a new
qualitative level of political form capable of maximizing the opportunities and
minimizing the problems involved in the transition to a new world that is both
common and distributed in its basic power structure. Contemporary neoliberal
international structure is not only insufficient, but also dangerous. The question is
whether or not Piketty points us in the direct direction with the ‘socialist’ ‘ideal
7.1 Technological Revolution/Disruption Is Near (But What About Our Response?) 111

form’ of the ‘Global State’ (even as an ‘unrealistic’ attractor state towards which we
should nonetheless aim). This question is important from the traditional perspective
and problem of international organizations, first identified by Immanuel Kant, which
is simply that ‘going above the nation-state’ for a truly ‘global form’ is (obviously)
not the ‘will of the nations’ (1991, p. 105):

States must form an international state, which would necessarily continue to grow until it
embraced all the peoples of the earth. But since this is not the will of the nations, according to
their present conception of international right, the positive idea of a world republica cannot
be realized.

And indeed Kant’s observation is, uncannily, still the foundation for the problems
of international organizations, like, for example the United Nations (UN), in their
attempt to resolve the humanist-planetary challenges that extend beyond the
capabilities of both state socialism and market capitalism. As has been stated
explicitly, member nation-states lack an ‘appetite’ to cooperate with the UN to
more fully to dedicate time towards (a) facilitating equal economic development;
(b) delivering real social justice, and (c) grounding a structure of sustainable
ecology. Consequently, there is no effective way for the contemporary international
order to deal with multinational corporations when their activity conflicts with the
interests of the real lived experiences of humans around the world. In other words, it
seems that contemporary nation-states are conceding the international sphere to
corporate actors, instead of engaging in an active shift to a world of ‘international
rights’. Moreover, the range of endemic humanist and ecological problems—CO2
emissions, deforestation, dwindling freshwater resources, income/wealth inequality,
terrorist networks, criminal organizations, political/financial corruption, unemploy-
ment, voter turnout, and freedom/human rights (Glenn et al. 2014)—are simply
beyond the scale of any possible nation-state (public) solutions, and beyond the
interests of any corporate (private) solutions. In this situation, how is a global form to
be introduced and stabilized?
However, even beyond this problematic ‘how?’ of the situation, i.e. forming a
‘Global State’ capable of regulating the activities of multinational corporations is
shifting state-level Keynesian solutions towards a global form of organization even
the right move if it were possible (i.e. repeat the most successful populist reform of
the twentieth century at the global level in the twenty-first century)? In other words,
do we simply approach the next level of human civilization with yet another
hierarchical centralized form (i.e. ‘Global State’) when the most salient feature of
our emerging technological infrastructure is of an automated and distributed
networked form? Here it is important to remember that the principle feature of
quantitative changes in evolution is not just a transition to ‘bigger’ forms
(i.e. nation-state to global state) but also a qualitative change to ‘different’ forms
(i.e. breaking state/market duality with a ‘radical third’). In order to demonstrate
more clearly what I mean let us consider an example from the history of biological
evolution: imagine a strange world where single-celled organisms formed multicel-
lular organisms that simply took the form of macroscopic single-celled organisms.
112 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

Of course, in actual reality, what really happened was that a transition from single-
celled organisms to multi-celled organisms led to a transition, not just in size
dimensions of the form, but also in the qualitative dimension of the form,
i.e. ‘endless forms most beautiful’ (e.g. protista, plantae, fungi, animalia, and
human symbolic sphere) and so forth.
The point here is that when integration occurs in the evolutionary process (largely
as a consequence of increased communication capabilities), this ‘integration’ will
naturally lead to the increased size of forms, but also a necessary organizational shift
in the quality of the form itself that will inevitably birth novel features absent at the
lower levels. Thus, like the transition from single- to multi-celled organisms that
produced ‘endless forms most beautiful’, when we are thinking the transition from
the nation-state to a global form, we can expect a concomitant transition not just in
the size of the form changing, but also in a novel organizational difference of form
(i.e. ‘More is Different’) (Anderson 1972). Consequently, when we are thinking
about the clear quantitative increases related to the emerging technological revolu-
tion (of higher interconnection between peoples, of higher access to information, of
higher production capabilities, and so forth), can we also and simultaneously think of
the qualitative organizational changes—the difference of form—that will be neces-
sary to navigate such a world of quantitative increases?
In this sense, instead of thinking a transition from nation-states to a global state
(i.e. Piketty’s ‘Global Keynesianism’ to combat ‘Global Capitalism’), can we think a
transition from nation-states to a commons (i.e. Global Commons)? How would a
‘Global Commons’ as opposed to a ‘Global State’ function as idealistic virtual
attractor? Or said in a slightly different way, could a ‘Global Commons’ provide a
synergistic political–economic strategy to prepare for a world founded on automated
smart systems and distributed social networks in a way that a ‘Global State’ could
not? In short, the proposition here is the following one: in Piketty’s clear, consistent
and a thorough analysis of the fundamental problems with capitalism on the global
stage, what he fails to identify and articulate is, not a problem of philosophical logic
(relation between idealism and materialism), but a problem of political–economic
logic: the futuristic attractor state towards which we should aim is an attractor with
a horizon beyond both capitalism and the state itself. Piketty identifies the failure of
international neoliberalism and offers international Keynesianism. But what if
Keynesianism was an economic solution uniquely situated in a previous era of the
historical-evolutionary process? What if the task is to think ‘Commonism in the 21st
Century?’

7.2 Technological Revolution/Disruption as Global Brain

Singularity

Contemporary practical (elite) discourse regarding an emerging technological revo-

lution has started to revolve around notions of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’
(WEF 2016), but in the general futures literature, discourse about a future techno-
logical revolution has, for some time, revolved around notions of ‘technological
7.2 Technological Revolution/Disruption as Global Brain Singularity 113

singularity’ (Last 2015c). The notion of technological singularity attempts to articu-

late the notion that technological progress is inherently evolving via an exponential
trajectory and will eventually change the human world beyond individual human
comprehension and understanding. The metaphor of ‘singularity’ in ‘technological
singularity’ theory is used in specific reference to the astrophysical properties of a
black hole’s ‘event horizon’. The ‘event horizon’ of a black hole represents a break
in spatiotemporal continuity rendering it impossible for any external observer to
know the internal properties of the object in question (i.e. ‘the impossible beyond’
that is the ‘black hole’). In the same way, in technological singularity literature, the
‘singularity’ represents ‘the impossible beyond’ for human comprehension and
understanding (i.e. the ‘external (human) observer’ attempting to discern the
(beyond human) future properties of a super-technological world that is a ‘black
hole’). In these general futures notions the primary catalyst for future exponential
change (the agent-cause of ‘singularity’) is typically envisioned to be artificial
general intelligence (AGI), i.e. a form of machine intelligence that vastly overpowers
human intelligence, leading to essentially a ‘post-human’ ‘future’ (if such words
even make discursive sense at that point) (Grinchenko 2011).
This general AGI technological singularity vision, although always presented as
human eschatology (i.e. the end of human comprehension and understanding of the
world, or end of human existence in the world), can take the form of either a utopian
and dystopian variant. Both utopian and dystopian variants were explored in the first
official introduction of the term ‘technological singularity’ (1993, p. 88):

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.
Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Thus, the introductory overview of technological singularity ultimately

concluded that, in either the utopian or dystopian scenarios, humanity was
approaching an eschatological horizon (as transcendence or extinction), which set
the general ‘end times’ tone for the literature that followed. The most popular and
influential ‘utopian’ ‘transcendence’ variant is inarguably Ray Kurzweil’s The
Singularity Is Near (2005), which argues that humanity will merge with technologi-
cal intelligence and ‘transcend biology’ for a ‘super-human’ or ‘post-human’ state of
being characterized by higher love, knowledge, and organizational form. The most
popular and influential ‘dystopian’ ‘extinction’ variant (at least recently) is Nick
Bostrom’s Superintelligence (2014), which argues that the further development of
machine intelligence will lead humanity towards an existential ‘control problem’
where human beings will become eradicated by our own technological creations.
The history of this futures discourse is problematic in many dimensions. Firstly, if
this literature is not totally out of touch with our future reality, i.e. AGI is either
impossible (an idea with fundamentally problematic presuppositions) or will itself
not lead to humanity’s phenomenological transcendence/extinction (because the
human brain-mind cannot be simulated by a digital supercomputer); then secondly,
it is most certainly out of touch with our approach to singularity—the ‘here to there’
of exponential global technological revolution—in many crucial ways. The most
114 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

important reason for this is that the theoretical emphasis in technological singularity
literature (i.e. emergence of AGI) almost completely ignores the systemic dynamics
of technological revolution in relation to the emerging sociotechnological sphere
mediated by the totality of the Internet as universal medium. In missing this systemic
dynamic the technological singularity literature fails to even confront basic issues of
systemic transitions in relation to control, power, and hierarchy, and thus basic issues
of systemic transitions in terms of social, economic, and political life. In short, the
technological singularity literature to date has jumped far too quickly towards an
eschatological horizon (likely a repressed repetition of Christian thinking and Chris-
tian notions of historical time emerging in the scientific worldview) without thinking
through deeply the systemic implications of technological revolution for the
foundations of human life and civilization as a total sphere.
However, in contrast to this briefly introduced and problematic notion of an
artificial general intelligence technological singularity, the general futures literature
has also been characterized by discussions of an emerging collective superintelli-
gence in the form of a ‘global brain (GB) technological singularity’ where ‘global
brain’ refers specifically to the totality of the internet as a universal coordination
medium. This GB notion, founded on the metaphorical homology between global
neuronal network action in the brain and global human–computer networks on earth,
includes both a spatial and temporal dimension. The spatial dimension of the GB is
characterized by distributed superintelligence, i.e. multi-agent problem solving and
opportunity exploration that occurs through horizontal communication channels
(and consequently does not result in any permanent/hierarchical ‘centering’ phe-
nomena) Heylighen (2016a). The temporal dimension of the GB is characterized by
open-ended superintelligence, i.e. multi-agent problem solving that focuses on
exploring possibility spaces and guiding immanent processual dynamics (and con-
sequently does not rely on specifically predicting and controlling civilization devel-
opment) (Weinbaum and Veitas 2015). Thus, at its foundation, the GB phenomenon
can be seen to consist of (a) a problem of global coordination (distributed
organizations) and (b) a problem of global self-becoming (open-ended
organizations).
Here, the essence of the GB technological singularity vision:

(a) Totality of the Internet as universal coordination medium.

(b) Environment characterized by distributed open-ended superintelligence.
(c) Societal self-organization towards planetary system level.

In this context, a potential axiom for the GB vision could be structured by the idea
that: freedom on this sociotechnological pathway is to recognize our necessity as the
beings guiding history towards the full actualization of human desire (the indestruc-
tible hardcore of human becoming).
This GB technological singularity vision can be compared and contrasted with the
traditional AGI technological singularity vision. In the AGI technological singularity
vision humanity’s attention becomes focused on individual machine-learning
programmes that enter ‘self-recursive cycles’ of exponential intellectual
7.2 Technological Revolution/Disruption as Global Brain Singularity 115

improvement towards ‘post-humanity’. However, in the GB technological singular-

ity vision humanity’s attention becomes focused on collective global issues and
metasystemic transitions related to power, control, and hierarchy. This is not to say
that the GB technological singularity vision totally negates the possibility of the
emergence of AGI or even post humanity, but rather approaches the emerging
technological revolution as a phenomenon that must be grounded in the totality of
sociotechnological process (a conceptual shift that AGI technological singularity
theory cannot handle, and a conceptual shift that even GB theorists have not yet fully
appreciated). Consequently, we may not be proposing too much with the above
axiom to state that the GB technological singularity theory’s specific ontological
function is to be a guiding tool towards a ‘positive’ singularity—not as traditionally
conceived AGI apocalypse (utopian/dystopian)—but as opening the possibility for
the full actualization of the historical process itself as driven by humanity’s (tran-
scendent) desires (and the inherent, yet potentially imminent, adventure, and mys-
tery that will entail.
Thus, and said in a different way, GB technological singularity theory can—
instead of focusing on the exponential emergence of ‘post-human AGI’ as an ‘event-
horizon-like’ discontinuous break with individual human comprehension and under-
standing (Kurzweil 2005; Bostrom 2014)—make the important ‘singularity shift’
and focus on the way in which distributed and open-ended intelligence can poten-
tially self-organize from the development of automated smart systems and social
networks (Goertzel 2016). This would, in a different way, lead to an ‘event-horizon-
like’ discontinuous break with individual human comprehension and understanding,
but only in the sense that the totality of the global sociotechnological sphere (internet
as universal coordination medium) would acquire coherent collective properties
alien (qualitatively different) from any historical local sociotechnological sphere.
Thus, other than the obvious local/global size difference of form between historical
states and future GB, the important qualitative difference would be in the totally
different qualitative organizational difference, i.e. a future GB ‘state’ would be
distributed and open to maximizing individual becoming, as opposed to historical
states, which have been (and still are) hierarchical and generally closed to
maximizing individual becoming (unless it explicitly serves ‘their’ ends,
i.e. sublimates individual minds within its substanceless (empty) virtual struc-
ture—e.g. monarchies, states, religions, and corporations).
What is missing here? In the conceptual vision of the GB, I would argue, we can
see the contours of a technological singularity theory that can make a practical
contribution to the development of international institutional reforms within the
context of an emerging technological revolution that has radical consequences for
social, economic, and political life. However, GB technological singularity theory
has not made specific geopolitical recommendations for navigating this new world.
In other words, what is missing from GB technological singularity theory are the
specific political consequences of this exponential-global sociotechnological pro-
cess, in the actual capability of humanity to develop qualitatively new large-scale
political forms capable of intelligently guiding the development of (already existent)
human–computer networks that coordinate on a planetary level via distributed/
116 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

open-ended mechanisms (i.e. horizontal communication interaction and open

access). Thus, GB technological singularity theory, in its identification of the
possibility for totally different organizational forms within the totality of the
Internet’s developing structure, we gain the ability to develop an alternative political
and socio-economic solution to Piketty’s ‘Global Keynesianism/Global State’. In
other words, can GB theorists think of Commonism in the Twenty-First Century?
The ground for this opening has already been presented. For example, in GB
theory we already have the explicit identification of globalization as composed of
two complementary processes (2008, p. 284):

(a) Growing connectivity between people and nations: Flows of matter, energy, and
information that circulates across the globe become ever larger, faster, and
broader in reach, thanks to increasingly powerful technologies for transport
and communication, which open up ever-larger markets and forums for the
exchange of goods and services.
(b) Emergence of global institutions: Fundamentally political and social these
increasingly powerful flows that cross the national borders—and therefore the
boundaries of most jurisdictions—need to be regulated efficiently. This requires
the development of a complex, global system of agreements between all the
actors involved, specifying the rules to be following and the mechanisms to
enforce them.

The first process, the ‘growing connectivity between people and nations’, is in
some sense simply happening on its own as part of an immanent becoming of the
global sociotechnological sphere. The Internet is increasing the potential flows of
matter, energy, and information that circulates the globe, and this circulation is every
year becoming larger, faster, broader in reach, and so forth. In the political context,
this first process is totally embedded in neoliberal institutions that support the
sublimation of all human life within the organizational contours of free-market
capitalism, a process that is principally driven by corporate forces that fundamentally
seek to commodify basic necessities. However, the second process, the ‘emergence
of global institutions’ (a fundamentally sociopolitical process), is what now requires
the attention of GB theorists because the emergence of genuinely ‘global
institutions’ does not simply ‘happen’ via magical coherence [i.e. the contemporary
international community’ as a ‘traditional sorcerer’ ‘left to act irresponsibly without
adequate guidance or constraints’ (Judge 2015)], but instead requires conversation,
reflection, and ultimately, decision-making of human actors with real structural
consequences for socio-economic development.
The issue of what are large-scale political collectives and how they could actually
form will become increasingly problematic as the ‘first process’ of ‘growing con-
nectivity between people and nations’ inevitably accelerates while the ‘second
process’ of the ‘emergence of global institutions’ appears to be totally
non-existent, i.e. these complimentary processes identified by GB technological
singularity theory do not appear to be proceeding in a complementary fashion.
Even, for GB technological singularity theory, the ‘emergence of global institutions’
7.2 Technological Revolution/Disruption as Global Brain Singularity 117

(in contrast to the emergence of AGI post-humans’) could be framed as ‘the

impossible beyond’, as tensions between various political communities rise under
the pressures of planetary convergence. In other words, nation-state egos are too big
and absolute for a converging world as a consequence of being subsumed into a
universal sociotechnological medium at the planetary level. How do we build
qualitatively new large-scale political collectives? What form will they take? What
will be their internal logic? What is the chance that our idealized conception can
translate into a coherently functioning intensified actuality? These are the types of
questions GB theorists must confront if the consequence of ‘neoliberal globalization
in the age of intelligent machines’ is to be taken seriously.
The alternative to developing a coherent GB technological singularity grounded
theory of large-scale political collectives in the direction of distributed mechanisms
(post-state) and open-access (post-capital) is to create the void for an AGI techno-
logical singularity grounded theory of large-scale political collectives (a theory
which, as discussed above, does not even have an elementary understanding of
collective superintelligence in its distributed or open-ended form). Indeed, this is not
a potential issue but a real and already emergent issue. In the first case, a type of
(Kurzweilian) ‘neoliberalism to the end of humanity’ has been the dominant philos-
ophy of AGI technological singularity theory of large-scale political collectives.
Indeed, this was the specific political–economic formula presented in The Singular-
ity Is Near, where the forces of free-market capitalism are envisioned as a higher
vital agent capable of producing ‘god-like’ machines that will, in turn, create utopia.
Thus, in this view all we have to do is ‘wait’ and ‘let capitalism happen’ and an
inclusive abundant world (and eventually transcendence) will simply happen as a
natural consequence (Kurzweil 2005, p. 74):

The law of accelerating returns is fundamentally an economic theory. It’s the economic
imperative of a competitive marketplace that is the primary force driving technology
forward. By the time [this process leads] to the Singularity, there won’t be a distinction
between humans and technology. This is not because humans will have become what we
think of as machines today, but rather that machines will have progressed to be like humans
and beyond.

However, besides this ‘Kurzweilian variant’ (i.e. free markets will take care of
everything as the invisible vital agent of cosmic evolution leading us towards our
‘post-human’ ‘utopia’), there is another emerging AGI technological singularity
grounded theory of large political collectives that is problematic in a different
dimension, i.e. the ‘State dimension’ instead of the ‘Market dimension’. To give a
specific example, philosopher and AGI technological singularity theorist Nick
Bostrom, addressed issues of collective political development in realization to
advanced superintelligence at the United Nations (UN). In this presentation,
Bostrom gave an overview of the ‘challenges’ posed by the emergence of machine
learning software (UN WEB TV 2015) that focused exclusively on the existential
risks of machine learning technologies future development and, as a result, a focus
on how such advanced technological development needs to be rigidly controlled.
The practical result is that we get the offer of an approach to large-scale political
118 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

collectives founded, not on distributed mechanisms (post-state) and open-access

(post-capital), but instead on tightly controlled and hierarchically centralized elite
groups (the emergence of some form of Global State that develops advanced
technology in secret and actively attempts to prevent it from being developed
openly). Indeed, this was explicitly the view developed by Bostrom in Superintelli-
gence (2014, p. 253):

[A]n international project to develop safe superintelligence would. . . have to be constituted

not as an open academic collaboration but as an extremely tightly controlled joint enterprise.
Perhaps the scientists involved would have to be physically isolated and prevented from
communicating with the rest of the world for the duration of the project, except through a
single carefully vetted communication channel. The required level of security might be
nearly unattainable at present but advances in lie detection and surveillance technology
could make it feasible later this century.

Thus, Bostrom’s view here, although only focused on how to handle the future of
AGI (and not concerned with the totality of the development of the
sociotechnological sphere), is nevertheless directly antithetical to the potential GB
technological singularity vision of future large-scale political forms based on
distributed mechanisms and open-access as it is possible to be. Bostrom’s view,
ultimately, stems from a hierarchical and closed understanding of collective intelli-
gence (as opposed to a distributed and open-ended understanding of collective
intelligence). As a consequence, Bostrom proposes an (impossible) attempt to rigidly
control and predict precisely what will happen with the future development of the
sociotechnological sphere in regards to AGI with the erection of a new global elite
guiding technological development and implementation (which could ultimately be
a more problematic ‘governance control problem’ than the ‘AGI control problem’
Bostrom intends to solve. In this context, we can see that there is a difficulty in
thinking information control in the global commons.
Of course, directing focus either to the productive ‘utopian’ potentialities of free-
market capitalism or the existential risks associated with the emergence of AGI
‘post-humans’ in general is not totally unwarranted. On the one hand, free-market
capitalism is obviously the most productive mechanism for technological develop-
ment in the history of humanity, and on the other hand, the future of AGI does indeed
present us with important existential questions. Are capitalism and science—our
contemporary Masters—ultimately leading us towards, not the End of History, but
the End of Humanity? That, at least is contemporary singularity ideology. However,
grounding a practical geopolitical approach to singularity in either foundation biases
the conversation towards extreme positions disconnected from the realities of con-
temporary global evolution in relation to the totality of revolutionary technologies
emerging in our sociotechnological sphere and their practical social, economic, and
political consequences. In other words, from the Kurzweilian perspective we cannot
simply have faith that free-market capitalism will erect an all-inclusive abundant
utopia when the total sphere of capitalism appears to be inherently exclusive and
built on scarcity producing class antagonism that structures the entire universal
space. And, from the Bostromian perspective, we cannot simply posit the paranoiac
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 119

view that an AGI takeover is immanent in order to justify a reactionary position that
we need a central elite group to monitor its development in secret (and the same goes
for other technologies that are presupposed as eschatological).
Moreover, and more importantly, as a consequence of these AGI technological
singularity positions there is a de-emphasis on the potential of this emerging
exponential-global technological revolution to lead us towards large-scale automa-
tion (automated smart systems), radically distributed organizations (distributed
social networks), and consequently, a de-emphasis on the type of conversation that
would help us understand what types of large-scale political collectives would allow
for large-scale human emancipation from labour insecurity and hierarchical control.
In other words, we have a de-emphasis on a type of conversation that would focus all
of its attention on the traditional humanist attractor of (collective) ‘Freedom’,
perhaps most articulately represented in the perfectly reasonable axiom of: ‘the
free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’ (Marx
and Engels 2004, p. 82). Here the GB technological singularity theoretical view can,
and indeed has already, produced a much more nuanced understanding of human
becoming within a world of revolutionary technologies that can organize via
distributed and open-ended coordination mechanisms in relation to social (Veitas
and Weinbaum 2016), economic (Heylighen 2016b), and political domains
(Goertzel et al. 2016). The step that needs to be taken now is to integrate GB
technological singularity theoretical view within the emerging discourse of the
commons. Can we imagine a Singularity in the Commons?

7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse

The emerging technological revolution and its scientific–philosophic interpretation

is the most salient feature that both separates and characterizes our contemporary
‘here to there’, i.e. the becoming space between our present moment and a totally
different global world that will challenge our understanding of individual and
collective human life. However, it is the socio-dimension in this technological
revolution that is of importance for us in this section because it is in the social
dimension, of political choices and decisions, which will be the difference between
maximizing its latent opportunities and minimizing its latent dangers. Furthermore,
considering this technological revolution is irreducibly occurring within the larger
context of the Internet as universal coordination medium it is a revolution with
common planetary level social, economic, and political consequences.
Consequently, in the specific identification of a lack of ‘global institution’
formation capable of managing the common sphere I will introduce the notion of
the ‘Commons Gap’ (i.e. the gap from ‘here to there’). In other words, the deepest
presence in our contemporary world is the absence of a universal common space: it is
the lack that is present and the dominant phenomena structuring global antagonisms.
Thus, the ‘Commons Gap’ is a notion meant to identify that, in terms of geopolitics,
we currently have no coherent common approach to navigating or guiding the
emerging sociotechnological revolution. First, what are the commons? The
120 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

Table 7.1 Global commons gap

Commons
gap Example
Ecology Global warming (ocean acidification, disappearance of glaciers/ice sheets,
sea-level rise, and extreme weather events), mass extinction (flora, fauna, and
diverse ecologies), resource exploitation/depletion
Economy Income and wealth inequality, privatization of public/social goods, monopoly
control of production, youth unemployment, and unsustainable energy
production
Social New apartheids/State divisions, refugee crises, human rights, health and
education infrastructure/access, food and water infrastructure/access, and
demographic divide
Political Centralization of power, disintegration of representative democracy, State war,
lone-wolf terrorism, rise of multi-local radicalism, and State–corporate relations
(i.e. corporate ownership of State activity)
Technological Automation from general-purpose robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and big
data applications, disproportionate access to advanced technology, and socio-
economic unpredictability due to emergent technology
Biological Novel and quickly spreading epidemics/pandemics, active exploration of
transhumanism (genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics)

commons, in its most general formulation, can be defined as the natural (land,
forests, air, water, minerals, etc.) and cultural (ideas, languages, labour, and creativ-
ity) resources and spaces that all humankind shares as a result of being human and
existing on planet earth (Hardt 2010). Consequently, the commons have multiple
dimensions: ecology, economy, social, political, technological, and even biological.
Second, what is the gap? The gap is in the lack of common action and coordination
(lack of a coherent universal common space) related to confronting problems of
commons and developing common solutions (Table 7.1).
Thus, to develop a commons structure (in direct contrast with our contemporary
reality of neoliberal structure) is not to ‘cross the gap’ or ‘fill the lack’ via hoping
free-market mechanisms are sufficient nor developing a ‘global state’ (arguably:
Keynesian institutions), but rather to attempt to ‘cross the gap’ or ‘fill the lack’ by
developing mechanisms of common action and coordination beyond both state and
market forces (introduction of a ‘radical third’) founded in opening a commons/
building a commonwealth via GB-like organizational forms, i.e. automated smart
systems and distributed social networks. Here, I would post that the foundation of
‘opening a commons’ or ‘building a commonwealth’ is most fundamentally about
our relation to property, i.e. ‘what private property is to capitalism, and what state
property is to socialism, the common is to commonism’ (Hardt 2010, p. 144)
(Table 7.2).
To posit a ‘Commons Gap’ is simultaneously to posit that the structure of our
contemporary international environment is the direct cause of a ‘tragedy of the
commons’ that will only grow worse given the inherent dynamics of the emerging
technological revolution. Ecologist Garrett Hardin first proposed the idea of the
‘tragedy of the commons’ (1968) to refer to the paradoxical problem that when a
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 121

Table 7.2 Potential political forms of global structure

Global institutions Definitions/examples
Neoliberal institutions Contemporary globalization is guided via neoliberal institutions
that were originally created under patronage of the United States,
and include structures like the International Monetary Fund, World
Bank, World Trade Organization that have formed/are forming a
global bureaucratic structure that is essentially anti-democratic,
(a) enabling monopoly control of an international finance system
designed to protect creditors, (b) sublimating all human activity into
market activity, (c) creating barriers to access of basic necessities,
and (d) failing to address issues of economy–ecology sustainability.
Keynesian institutions One potential solution to the dominance of neoliberal institutions
(1) would include a ‘Keynesian’ institutional construction project
where a global state, presumably with top-down mechanisms
characteristic of nation-states at the planetary level, would form
enabling the democratic election of state officials, the regulation of
global market activity, creation of a common monetary union,
redistribution of income and wealth, and the organization of
international state projects related to social and ecological welfare.
Commons institutions Another alternative potential solution to the dominance of
neoliberal institutions (1) would be the creation of ‘commons
institutions’, which, instead of forming a ‘top-down’ global state
bureaucracy (2), would include the creation of ‘bottom-up’
distributed multilayer organizational forms that operated on
(a) various common property regimes (essentially striving for post-
property regimes), (b) functioned on principles of universal access
(post-monetary), and (c) multiple context-specific democratic
management organizations related to resources and services that are
inherently rival (i.e. scarce), and thus need management due to
‘tragedy of the commons’ problems.
Anarchism (global Yet another potential solution to the dominance of neoliberal
institutional forms) institutions (1) would simply be to negate the entire notion of the
need for qualitatively novel large-scale political collectives (‘global
institutions’ in either a Keynesian or Commons form) and instead
direct focus towards the creation and management of locally self-
organized egalitarian communities. However, such an approach
leaves massive questions on how to approach the real existence of
neoliberal institutions, as well as how to approach planetary
problems of the common sphere.

collective of individuals follow their own rational self-interest, this collective ratio-
nal self-interested activity can destroy the common whole. Is this not the only way to
understand the contemporary state of the common whole in the age of global
neoliberalism? After all, neoliberalism is foundationally structured on a belief that
everyone following their own self-interest on a ‘free market’ will lead to harmonious
and stable planetary whole and that any form of state intervention will lead to
totalitarianism (Springer 2015). However, this fantasy of inclusive capitalist utopia
is now encountering the reality of common whole dissolution, and thus, at the very
least, some new form of socialist state management will be necessary, as explored by
122 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

Piketty (2014) among others. Can we not say that neoliberalism is now facing the
ultimate consequences of the ‘tragedy of the commons’?
Consequently, in order to confront and solve ‘commons problems’ (‘jumping’ the
‘commons gap’ and averting an actual tragedy of the commons’) we need to once
again figure out a way to discuss common development in direct confrontation with
neoliberal globalization (1) without falling into the traps of planetary state interven-
tion (which presents us with hierarchical and closed large-scale political forms)
(2) and anarchist local self-organization (which does not offer any coherent formula
for solving problems of the common sphere) (4) (Table 2.2). Historically, the
political language of (authentic) common development was expressed in the (now
ineffective) language of Marxism and Communism (Badiou 2010a, b). Conse-
quently, after the 2008 financial collapse (an obviously crucial event in the failure
of neoliberal international structure) there was a conference and edited works
specifically focused on reassessing ‘The Idea of Communism’ in the ‘post-Commu-
nist’ ‘post-Cold War’ ‘post-ideological’ neoliberal age. There were several general
conclusions and shared premises that united the social theorists at the conference as a
whole (Douzinas and Žižek 2010, p. ix):

(a) Recent politics (1990–present) has attempted to ban/foreclose conflict by

de-politicizing the idea of communism and common development.
(b) ‘Communism’ is the idea of radical philosophy and politics, but must distance
itself from statism and economism, and become informed by political
experiences of the twenty-first century.
(c) Neoliberal capitalist exploitation and domination form new enclosures of the
commons (communication, intellectual property, natural resources, and forms of
governance), thus necessitating a return to the concept of the ‘common’.
(d) Communism aims at both freedom and equality, as freedom cannot flourish
without equality, and equality does not exist without freedom.

The general conclusion of the conference was that the historical phenomenon of
twentieth century communism—as a radical multiplicity of eventual manifestations
related to the subjective desire to overcome capitalist production for an inherently
inclusive universal form of human development—was a correct intuitive impulse
and may be more relevant in the twenty-first century than it was in the twentieth
century. Consequently, reviving some variation of the idea of ‘communism’ with
coherent ‘positive value’ for a universal common space in the fight against a global
capitalism that is ‘out of control’ is now the task (if we are, again, to avoid the traps
of planetary state intervention and anarchist local self-organization). In my own
assessment and focus of this situation, I think the key shift (already evident from the
above language) would be a shift from ‘communism’ to commonism’. The shift from
communism to commonism may appear a small difference—from ‘u’ to ‘o’—but it
is indeed a ‘difference that makes a (meaningful) difference’ because it is a differ-
ence that could have real positive consequences in the actual world.
However, to properly explain the shift from communism to commonism as a
concept, we must first confront and engage the monstrous superorganism of
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 123

capitalism directly. In the theory of capitalism, the foundational (spiritual) belief is

that there is an ‘invisible hand’ moving through the world as the higher vital agent of
self-organization that in-and-for-itself regulates individual self-interest related to the
buying and selling of commodities in the free market. Thus, individual humans need
only pursue their own material self-interest in economic exchange with others and
the whole will take care of itself, i.e. market competition will solve all problems of
the total sphere. And it is indeed this higher vital agent of self-organization that
Kurzweil envisions as leading towards an immanent utopian singularity as post-
human transcendence (2005). But Kurzweil is not the first to have such visions of
capitalist utopia. The theoretical founder of modern economics—Adam Smith—was
the first to envision the ‘invisible hand’ as a force capable of constructing an
inclusive utopian world (although he, of course, did not envision technologically
mediated transcendence).
What this theory of capitalism misses (post-human or not) is the obvious fact that
although capitalism is indeed a universal sphere (constantly attempting to totalize the
field of human relations irrespective of local cultures with the universal equivalence
of money) it is not an inclusive humanist universal sphere (i.e. it is not on ‘our’ side).
In other words, although all or most peoples and populations become objectively
wealthier in material terms due to the spread and development of capitalism, this
material wealth always appears to come at the expense of a structurally excluded or
exploited class of peoples. As Karl Marx first identified, class is an inherent
structural antagonism of capitalist production, i.e. the ‘others’ in the ‘invisible
dystopian world’ that, in their state of exploitation, stabilize the utopian capitalist
future visions. The question is whether capitalism can continue to develop without
this structural antagonism, or whether we require a qualitatively different system?
In order to find out, let us first consider the fundamental presuppositions of the
invisible hand metaphor structuring capitalist theory. The idea of the invisible hand
of the market coordinating individual human behaviour to holistic inclusive utopia is
the mythological foundation of capitalist theory. This logic is theoretically justified
with the microeconomic modelling paradigm of ‘Homo economicus’ (i.e. the rational
human being pursuing individual material self-interest) (Helbing 2013). Here
directly from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (2005, p. 30):

It is not the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner,
but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity
but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their own
advantages.

Continued (2005, p. 286):

Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employ-
ment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of
the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather
necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.
124 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

The question that Marxist/Communist theory then raises is not whether action
based on individual self-interest is right or wrong (a moral question) but whether or
not the invisible hand of the market can ever function without class antagonism
(whether the pursuit of self-interest is a model for the best possible human society).
In other words, the question is a macroeconomic question about whether we can ever
have a society in which every human can have the structural foundation to pursue
their own best interests without exploitation from those only interested in
maximizing the reproduction of capital. The standard conclusion of Marxists/
communists is that in order to build a universally human world we need a structural
change that addresses directly the antagonism at the core of capitalism mechanics,
the ‘other’ darker side of the invisible hand.
When we think about the future of economics theory from this perspective, we
must be able to think the fact that socio-economic context changes over time and
space, especially in relation to processes of technological evolution. Indeed, it is a
fact of history that subjective valuation and technological evolution affects the
foundational dynamics of socio-economic activity, which of course includes capital-
ism and capitalist modes of production. Thus, instead of constructing ‘moral
arguments’ about constructing a ‘society of substance’ over a ‘society of profit’, it
may be time to articulate more ‘practical or functional arguments’ that technological
evolution will eventually destabilize the foundational relation between the owners
controlling production processes (the ‘bourgeoisie’) and the labourers controlled in
production processes (the ‘proletariat’). Maybe this process is a feature of the
information age, as such.
The economist Jean-Baptiste Say, for example was one of the first theorists to
realize that future technological evolution could fatally disrupt the structural
workings and antagonisms of capitalist production. In what some theorists refer to
as ‘Say’s Law’, Baptiste Say posited that new more efficient and functional
technologies increase productivity (more goods for cheaper cost) and that this sets
off positive feedback cycles where increased supply of cheaper goods forces
competitors to, in turn, create their own new technologies to increase productivity
in order to compete, and so forth (Rifkin 2014, p. 11). According to Say’s Law, this
positive feedback cycle inherent to technological evolution within capitalist dynam-
ics would eventually lead to ‘extreme levels’ of productivity in which advanced
technology effectively produced abundance while simultaneously reducing and/or
eliminating the need for human labour. This is the essence of the idea that the
aforementioned technological revolution we are about to confront, driven by capi-
talist market competition, could be at its most elementary level, a phenomenon
where capitalism ‘hangs itself’ by becoming ‘too productive’ (eliminating both the
need for people controlling (bourgeoisie) and people being controlled (proletariat) in
production processes). In other words, in order for capitalist production to function,
and in order for Homo economicus (i.e. individual human in pursuit of material self-
interest) to have even a minimal level of mapping utility, you first need an environ-
ment of scarcity (low production capabilities) and a culture promoting virtual profit
maximization (you can never have enough money, you can never buy enough
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 125

objects, etc.). This is ground zero for traditional economic assumptions of human
behaviour and human civilization.
However, if our technological environment is capable of (and will become
increasingly capable of) producing abundance with much-reduced start-up costs,
maintenance costs, and labour force, as has been clearly articulated by many
technologists (Ford 2009, 2015; Diamandis and Kotler 2011; Brynjolfsson and
McAfee 2014), and as has also been actualized in many contemporary industries
related to transportation, communications, and so forth, the simple result of these
developments is that the operating principles that have made capitalism so histori-
cally successful and dominant are themselves being undermined by the productive
forces of capitalism itself. The crucial problem from the political perspective (and for
this analysis of commons institutions) lies in the fact that now, as a consequence,
capitalism (or the people sublimated into virtual capital) can only dominate the
economic sphere by explicitly controlling the political sphere at the nation-state
and the international level, designing all policies around its own best interests
(in-and-for the interest of capital). This process of capitalism universally overriding
all humanist–ecological concerns (i.e. ‘authoritarian capitalism’) in order to preserve
its own existence beyond its own necessary use-value is not a regional phenomenon
but a universalizing multilocal phenomenon describing political–economic pro-
cesses in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and so forth. In other words, capitalism and
democracy are going through a divorce procedure; capitalism is winning via
authoritarian financial infiltration mechanisms.
Let us take one more crucial Marxist detour: the phenomenon of authoritarian
capitalism attempting to continue normal profit-maximization operations in an
environment of technologically mediated abundance is what the original and most
effective critic of capitalism, Karl Marx, did not foresee. Of course, Marx was aware
of the potential for future capitalism to become so productive as to render human
labour obsolete (and thus ‘hang itself’). In his obscure but increasingly relevant
‘Fragments on Machines’—published in a section of The Grundrisse (1858)—he
identifies what we would identify today as ‘information age’ trends of capitalist
production (post-Fordist production), where repetitive assembly line labour would
itself become either ‘fringe’ or ‘obsolete’ due to hyper-productive machines. Here
we could imagine many actual factories that exist in the world, like, for example
Amazon’s giant automated warehouses, which are increasingly capable of self-
organizing without human labour. In this world, Marx reasoned, two things would
spontaneously occur related to ‘manual/physical labour’ and ‘social/intellectual
labour’. First, ‘manual/physical labour’ characteristic of the industrial working
class, forms of productive processes, would become ‘objective knowledge’ embed-
ded in hyper-productive machines, and thus become social/collectivized. Second,
‘social/intellectual labour’ characteristic of what Marx called the ‘general intellect’,
forms of labour that cannot be easily owned and privatized, would start to drive
communistic socio-economic processes.
In other words, Marx thought that increasing ‘objective knowledge’ (knowledge
directly embodied and repetitively enacted in machines), would enable the emer-
gence of a commons founded on the socialization/collectivization of large-scale
126 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

automation of undesirable but necessary labour. In this vision, for Marx, we would
enter a world approaching ‘materialistic idealism’, i.e. a world where real material
‘ideal machines’—machines that ‘lasted forever’ and ‘cost nothing’—would repre-
sent the crucial agents of the total field change from the capitalist to the communist
order. As a consequence of this total field change, for Marx, individual humans
would experience a civilization that enabled large amounts of free time and higher
levels of cultural consumption, which would, in turn, lead humans to become
powerful holistic producers with a newly found ‘power to enjoy’ (Virno 2007).
Thus, in this ‘materialistic ideal’ communist world individual humans would be
freed to act in accordance, not with the universal equivalence of money, but with
social abstractions guided by the general intellect (freed of money). This focus on the
future of machines was ultimately one of Marx’s underutilized formulas for a human
species to practically escape both religion and capital, and thus free itself towards its
own estimate virtual creation space.
However, what is clearly missing in Marx’s analysis of the triumph of objective
knowledge and the general intellect is that he did not foresee how—what we would
now call the contemporary forces of neoliberalism in the information age—could
foundationally operate on the basis of privatizing both objective knowledge and the
general intellect (Žižek 2010, p. 224). In other words, Marx thought that, once the
general intellect of social production processes had triumphed over material produc-
tion processes (i.e. post-Fordist ‘information age’ production driven by automation
and cognitive labour), capitalist exploitation would be undermined on a fundamental
level and communism would naturally emerge (i.e. Global Brain as Global
Commons). Why would the objective knowledge of hyper-automated machines not
be socialized-collectivized? Why would cognitive labourers sell themselves as
commodities? These are both crucial questions for society in general. Hyper-
automated machines are already starting to transform our economic foundations.
These machines need to be integrated into a socialized paradigm or else enormous
monopolies generating insane inequalities will continue to dominate the global
socio-economic space. Moreover, cognitive labourers are increasingly selling them-
selves as commodities. This is destroying the potential for authentic thought and a
genuinely collaborative workforce.
However, the limits of Marx’s imagination (i.e. not being capable of thinking a
‘neoliberalism in the information age’) are not the limits of the monstrous superor-
ganism of capital. Indeed, what has actually happened (what Marx could not foresee)
is that—instead of consciously erecting an autonomous universal common sphere
capable of freeing the multiplicity of individual human beings to guide themselves
by general intellect alone (i.e. opening a commons/building a commonwealth via
GB-like organizational forms, i.e. automated smart systems and distributed social
networks)—the general intellect has instead been parasitically shackled
(by neoliberal institutions) via the universal equivalence of money. In this very
precise sense, instead of imagining the invisible hand of the market as a higher
invisible other inherently on ‘our side’ self-organizing towards capitalist utopia (the
‘Smith-Kurzweilian formula’), we should instead view the invisible hand as giving
itself an ‘invisible handjob’ (Zupančič 2017, p. 32):
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 127

Fig. 7.1 Invisible hand of capitalism

The invisible hand of the market, supposedly looking after general welfare and justice, is
always also, and already, the invisible handjob of the market, putting most of the wealth
decidedly out of common reach.

One way to conceptualize the invisible handjob of the market is to think the
classical Marxist distinction between use-value of capital and exchange-value of
capital, where use-value represents the use of capital for the direct maximization of
human well-being, and exchange-value represents the maximization of profit in and
for itself. Smith’s formula of self-interested activity emphasizes the use-value and
under emphasizes the reality of exchange-value becoming a force that serves only
itself. In other words, Smith’s formula does not really recognize the ‘super-organis-
mic’ nature of capital, of the way in which virtual capital is an emergent property of
capitalism, which serves itself over and above the human (Fig. 7.1).
Thus, to move from capitalist theory to commonist theory we must start with
foundations that, instead of being an omega of economics, capitalism is in fact what
the system of dialectical materialism suggests: a socio-economic stage in an open-
ended historical becoming of humanity that would eventually become characterized
by higher socio-economic processes (enabling the human mind to explode into
higher dimensional relations). But since the concept of communism is only capable
of being articulated in radical philosophical circles (having understandably lost all
sociopolitical potency as a consequence of actual historical catastrophes), the revival
of thinking the end of capitalism within the context of revolutionary technologies is
happening within the conceptual foundation of (so-called) ‘post-capitalism’
(e.g. Mason 2015). Here the ‘post’ denotes the inherent ‘openness’ to new economic
processes of the ‘information age’, i.e. ‘we do not know what the new economic
system will look like, all we know is that we have to transcend the foundations of
capital as commodification of the whole planet’, and so forth. In these early stages of
‘post-capitalist’ thinking we should always remember that—at the very foundations
of capitalism—is a very shaky assumption about human behaviour and our socio-
economic reality founded on principles of scarcity (thus rendering them rival, thus
meaning we should compete for them, thus ontologizing Homo economicus as our
‘natural’ state of being).
In other words, when ‘post-capitalists’ are attempting to reinterpret modern
economics, we should see contemporary economic theory, not as approaching the
status of a ‘hard science’ capable of perfectly predicting human behaviour and
128 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

formulating general laws, but instead as a ‘Jenga Tower’ that maybe one or two
pieces from totally toppling to the ground. To connect this to the above analysis of
Marx’s ‘Fragments on Machines’—where we failed to identify the possibility of
international neoliberalism in the information age privatizing the general intellect,
instead of assuming the spontaneous emergence of a universal commons guided by a
collectivized general intellect (freed from privatization)—contemporary economists,
like Marx in some sense, have failed to identify the possibility of international
neoliberalism in the information age privatizing the general intelligence, instead of
assuming the spontaneous emergence of a universal commons guided by a
collectivized general intellect (freed from privatization)—contemporary economists,
like Marx in some sense, have failed to identify the possibility that we need to
actively guide a transition from a socio-economic world of scarcity to a socio-
economic world of abundance. In other words:

(a) Marx was wrong in thinking that capitalism would destroy itself and the
commons would spontaneously emerge in the information age.
(b) Contemporary economists (Piketty et al.) are wrong in thinking that capitalism
can be indefinitely adapted to human civilization in the information age (even
with high levels of state intervention).

The fight is thus the fight of figuring out how to make the Global Brain a Global
Commons. The axiomatic core of this fight is related to scarcity and abundance, an
axiom simply not included in contemporary economic models or calculations.
Economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir expressed this fact most comi-
cally in their recent book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (2013,
p. 10):

We told an economist colleague that we were studying scarcity, he remarked, ‘There is

already a science of scarcity. You might have heard of it. It’s called economics’.

Thus the simple fact is that (2013, p. 10): ‘In economics, scarcity is ubiquitous’.
But as stated, the emerging technological revolution presents us with a future socio-
economic world of abundance. This renders all standard economics, if not obsolete,
at least in a position where we can challenge standard assumptions. As sociologist
Max Weber articulated, the real birth of capitalism was a spiritual process; it was
about a few people thinking in a new way about money and what to do with money
given the rise of a new form of industrial productive potential (Weber 2003, p. 17):

[C]apitalism is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of
continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise. For it must be so: in a wholly capitalistic order of
society, an individual capitalistic enterprise which did not take advantage of its opportunities
for profit-making would be doomed to extinction.

In this sense what is wrong with most socio-economic or sociotechnological

thinking today is that it precisely ignores the most important element, i.e. the
subjective dimension of socio-processes. At the structural ‘micro-foundations’ of
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 129

capitalism is the subjective valuation of profit as hegemonic to all other forms of

value. Thus, in the same way that a few people thinking in a new way about money
and what to do with money due to the rise of new forms of industrial productive
potential in the nineteenth century changed the socio-economic conditions of the
human world (i.e. universal subjective valuation of profit maximization via market
exchange over and above all other values), we should again, simply, go back to the
‘micro-foundations’, think new forms of subjective valuation, and draw out their
large-scale socio-economic consequences, i.e. what would be the resulting ‘macro-
foundations’ as ‘large-scale political collectives’ that developed due to new ‘micro-
foundations’? In order to pursue this direction let us think the micro-foundation let us
first reflect on another quote from Weber (2003, p. 60):

A [human] does not “by nature” wish to earn more and more money, but simply to live as he
is accustomed to live and to earn as much as is necessary for that purpose. Wherever modern
capitalism has begun its work of increasing the productivity of human labour by increasing
its intensity, it has encountered the immensely stubborn resistance of this leading trait of
pre-capitalistic labour.

In other words, the problem is not necessarily Smith’s ‘self-interested’ enjoyment

or love, nor even in the use-value of capital, but in the structure of the
superorganismic emergence of capitalism reproducing itself for itself as expressed
in exchange value. The problem is the way in which capitalism tends to serve itself at
the expense of everything else. The fact that humans have always rebelled against
this tendency of capitalism suggests strongly that we are of course not simply
mindless automatons willing to be totalized by capitalist processes as cognitive
commodities and subjected to the eternal antagonism structuring class relations.
This is why, perhaps, the key to overcoming the exchange value of capital at the
psychical level can only be found in the self-actualization of the individual, in the
individual psychological entity that refuses to submit to an exchange value which
serves no clear use-value. But what about the social level?
On the social level, is it possible that we can explore real geopolitical options that
could create a common world founded on abundance, is it possible that we can
organize a world of abundance that would prevent the invisible hand from giving
itself an ‘invisible handjob’? Is there not a way to organize the human world with a
more distributed and open-ended understanding of subjective valuation so that the
homogenizing dimension of ‘profit-maximization as human nature’ could be
replaced with a multidimensional and processual understanding of human nature
related to the ground of transcendental imagination?
Indeed, actually escaping capitalism for a world of abundance would present us
with an opportunity for a civilization-wide future project that resembles in many
ways what philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche described as the ‘transvaluation of all
values’. At its most elementary dimension the ‘transvaluation of values’ was pro-
posed as a systemic destruction of all foundational institutional values that seek to
reduce human beings to a universal homogenizing force (either religious or capital-
ist); values that Nietzsche recognized as ‘hostile to life’ (i.e. supernature or capital as
130 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

virtual pseudo-living monstrosities feeding on authentic human spirit). In the place

of these universal homogenizing forces the goal for a ‘transvaluation of values’
would be to produce distributed and open systems inherently capable of
universalizing emancipation and liberation of the human spirit to become what it
can in-and-for-itself [as opposed to in-and-for supernature, or in-and-for capital as
such, which are anyway basically homologous, i.e. the basic modernist formula of
‘God didn’t die, he was transformed into money’ (Agamben 2012)]. This does not
mean totally abandoning virtual excess as radical other (supernature and capital) for
secular humanism (all we have are relations among each other, and so forth), but
instead attempting to develop and nurture a unique individual relation to the extimate
other (inhuman exterior in the interior) virtual excess as such (i.e. to confront the
‘innermost fantasmatic kernel’, ‘fantasy as necessity’, etc.) (Miller 2008). This, in
some sense, would be equivalent to what Marx understood as a communist society
guided by a general intellect (and finally disconnected from religion and capital,
i.e. the ‘historical super-drives’ shifted towards some form of ‘post-historical super-
drive’).
Here we can now return to the importance of the conceptual transition from
communist theory to commonist theory. As discussed, in capitalism the crucial
organizing unit is the ‘commodity’ (exchanged on the free market for a value
connected to the universal equivalence of money). However, in the original formu-
lation of communism the crucial organizing unit was imagined (idealized) to be the
‘commune’ (as an egalitarian site of collective emancipation from systems of
hierarchy, domination, and exploitation). In the replication of the commune, so
the original theory of communism presupposed, the replication of commodities
and the maximization of profit at the foundation of capitalism, would be overcome
by the subjective capacity of humans capable of positively catalyzing (co-producing)
each other into a stable state of planetary ‘species-being’, i.e. a state, not just of self-
actualization of collective creative potentialities, but a state of self-transcendence
where the common good of the social whole would naturally be the principle and
primary concern of all actualized individuals. Communes would achieve this level of
collective self-transcendence through a (Badiou 2010a):

(a) Distributed structural foundation preserved via constantly renewed engagement

with direct democracy.
(b) The common ownership of the (socio-economic) productive forces of the
commune as site.

In The Communist Hypothesis (2010) philosopher Alain Badiou still identifies the
‘commune’ as the crucial organizing unit for the emergence of a post-capitalist world
and the only true unit of organization that can break with the political binary of left
and right, the economic binary of state and market, the scientific–religious binary of
secular and fundamentalist, i.e. to bring forth the ‘radical third’ of the ‘commune’
capable of breaking historical binaries Thus, for Badiou, the commune is the
transcendental organization capable of freeing (historical) humanity from the
external tyranny of empty virtuality imposed by hierarchical forms in favour of a
7.3 Towards a Commonist Discourse 131

(post-historical) humanity shaped by an authentically emergent collective subjective

substance. Here Badiou gives an ontological definition of the commune as (2010a,
p. 200):

Take any situation whatsoever. A multiple that is an object of this situation—whose elements
are indexed by the transcendental of this situation—is a site if it happens to count itself
within the referential field of its own indexation. Or again: a site is a multiple that happens to
behave in the situation with regard to itself as with regard to its elements, in such a way as to
support the being of its own appearing.

In other words, Badiou’s ontological description of the commune as site of

transcendental organization is the description of a human collective (multiplicity
of individuating identities) that subjectively co-produces itself. The commune thus
becomes a dynamic ‘object phenomenon’ (meta-subject as its own object) capable of
supporting ‘the being of its own appearing’ (2010a, p. 200). As a consequence,
according to Badiou, the commune as the site develops according to its own higher-
level internal collective subjective logic, as a site for the co-production of subject
becoming (multiplicity of individuating identities), and thus derives the intensity of
its own existence, not externally from virtual supernature or virtual capital, but in-
and-for its own substantive relation to virtual excess: it appears in-and-for spiritual
substance itself (i.e. the ultimate human ‘reconciliation’ with our sociocreative
nature). In order to support this ontological foundation of the commune as crucial
organizing unit for the future of communism, Badiou gives the example of the Paris
Commune of 1871, which he regards as the true communist event, of the appearance
of post-historical ‘species-being’ within history proper (Badiou 2010a,
pp. 196–198):

For the Commune is what, for the first and to this day only time, broke with the parliamen-
tary destiny of popular and workers’ political movements. [. . .] This time, this unique time,
destiny was not put back in the hands of competent politicians. This time, this unique time,
betrayal is invoked as a state of things to avoid and not as the simple result of an unfortunate
choice. This time, this unique time, the proposal is to deal with the situation solely on the
basis of the resources of the proletarian movement. Herein lies a real political declaration.
The task is to think its content.

Here, in The Communist Hypothesis, Badiou gives an in-depth historical account

of the Paris Commune event of 1871. From its contents, it does indeed appear as a
site that maps the ontological description of a transcendental organization, an
organization that comes to exist in-and-for the substantive existence of the workers
themselves (before becoming overwhelmed by nation-state violence). Furthermore,
it is indeed possible to positively utilize this ontology of the commune as a
foundation for future development, and the future emergence of a transcendental
organization characterized by actualized humans in a state of species being (even in
need of revision). However—and this is a big however—in regards to this works
focus on global neoliberalism and the emergent technological revolution Badiou’s
interpretation of the ‘communist hypothesis’ must be rejected. Specifically, Badiou’s
propositions for the future of emancipatory movements remain too faithful to the old
132 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

Marxist and Communist project [i.e. ‘the ‘we’ whose virtual flag remains red’
(Badiou 2010a, p. 170)], a project that, as articulated above, could not understand
neoliberalism in the information age. From my perspective, Badiou fails to acknowl-
edge (a) the general consensus of ‘The Idea of Communism’ conference specifically
in relation to the importance of understanding the ‘common’ in relation to the
privatization of the general intellect (Douzinas and Žižek 2010, p. ix), but also
(b) the implications of a ‘networked world’ on the historical conception of ‘commu-
nity/commune’ as such.
First, the ‘radical third’ as a local commune site capable of breaking and
outcompeting state and market forces by transforming the entire international field
via a process of self-organization appears naive at best and almost indistinguishable
from contemporary anarchist theory. The simple fact is that such a proposition puts
far too much pressure on all human beings to actualize and transcend, against all
odds, and against all historical evidence. The commune asks for too much subjective
capacity, and thus, perhaps, makes the same mistake as the young romantic humanist
Marx. Moreover, the commune site totally ignores the complications with human
sociosexual life, and specifically human sociosexual life related to the archetypal
structure of the family: the Father, the Mother, and the Child. The commune
radically complexifies the nature of human sociosexual life to a degree that seems
far beyond contemporary human cognitive and, perhaps more importantly, emo-
tional capacity. In this move communists massively underestimate (perhaps fatally
underestimate) the nature of libido, the nature of child-rearing and dependence, and
the importance of stable familial structure. Thus, the critical importance of
reinventing Marxist theory with intensely critical psychoanalytic theory.
Second, can the commune as site (even as defined by Badiou) hold up to the
reality of human life in networks (i.e. Global Brain as Global Commons) where each
individual is its own multiplicity of identity? Where each individual (as a multiplicity
of identity) has its own network and only portions of each individual’s own network
(at best) will overlap with another individual’s network? Here various ‘commune
sites’ may emerge from a convergence of individuals on networks but—unlike the
Paris Commune of 1871—it will not in anyway totalize the individuated elements
‘as its own object’. Instead, there will be a radical fluidity in regards to the
individuated components even if the ‘commune site’ manages to ‘appear’ as its
own object over some indefinite and open temporal sequence. Do we not need a new
perspective on the commune with the modern perspective of networks (an ideal GB
theoretical project)? Instead of examples derived from the nineteenth century (i.e. the
radical Paris Commune of 1871), perhaps we need a survey of how next-level social
networks (i.e. ‘Web 3.0 social networks’) could function as ‘commune sites’. In
other words, in the same way that Marx could not think ‘neoliberalism in the
information age’, perhaps also the Marxist foundation cannot think the ‘commune
in the information age?’
In the GB literature it is possible that the paradigm of ‘open-ended intelligence’
(Weinbaum and Veitas 2015) could aid in the theoretical formulation of understand-
ing the nature of future ‘communes in the information age’ as it shifts the emphasis
away from ‘higher cooperation’ in ‘communes’ as fundamental organizing unit, and
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons 133

instead towards understanding how population of ‘heterogeneous individuating

agents’ achieve progressively ‘higher levels of coordination’ in networked
‘assemblages’ (i.e. higher levels of cooperation are achieved indirectly via
facilitating higher-levels of coordination). The task here would be to apply this
paradigm to understanding the social nature of the emerging Web 3.0 world where
distributed social networks play a crucial role in connecting the virtual and actual-
existential dimensions of human life, i.e. the key shift as getting people away from
their computer (virtual) and back into the world (actual-existential) (i.e. helping
humans ‘rediscover’ the social).
Thus, in contrast to the ‘commune’ as foundational organizing unit of ‘commu-
nism’, I would posit instead, along with other social theorists (Hardt 2010; Rifkin
2014), that we should switch our attention away from the commune and towards the
common as crucial organization unit capable of overcoming the capitalist organizing
unit of the commodity (i.e. the point of this section as ‘Towards a Commonist
Discourse’). The potential trap of the commune is that it idealizes human social
nature to unrealistic levels (i.e. gets carried away with its own ‘inner fantasmatic
kernel’ of ‘transcendental subject’ reconciled with its ‘true substance’). Of course, it
sounds romantic and adventurous, it sounds like an idea historical break, a true
triumph of the human spirit, a true reconciliation of our social substance, and a new
way to recapture the allure of the original conception of the proletariat revolution.
Indeed, and here let me be clear, I think it is totally possible for the commune to
emerge in a future state of abundance, as the commune could play the crucial role of
meta-subject multiplicities guiding planetary transcendence. But, to say the least, it
appears unlikely to be the crucial unit need to overcome neoliberal globalization in
the age of intelligent machines. For that, perhaps we need a new discourse to build a
Global Commons.

7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons

In this section, I want to be clear that (a) this trajectory of logic is highly experimen-
tal and speculative, and thus (b) it is meant to be critiqued and deconstructed in a way
that we can think something that actually can replace capitalism if the necessity
arises due to the structural nature of technological advancement.
With that being said, in contrast to the commune, the common does not place the
same level of pressure on idealizing human social nature. On the contrary, the
common places no real burden on human social nature at all in the sense that the
‘common’ does not necessarily rely on the formation of new ‘communal’ units as
such (like the Paris Commune of 1871). Thus, the common makes no
presuppositions about the future of human self-actualization, human familial
structures, or the consequences of the age of social networks. Instead, the common
places emphasis on natural (land, forests, air, water, minerals, etc.) and cultural
(ideas, languages, labour, and creativity) resources that are, as a social fact, parts of
the common heritage of humankind. The central idea of the commons is that, instead
of these resources being privatized for the benefit of replication of the invisible hand
134 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

in and for itself (neoliberal institutions and the multinational corporations that thrive
under their reign), they can be ‘commonified’ in an open and democratic form.
In this sense, the idea of the commons is related to replacing the self-interested
motion of virtual capital with a universal commonwealth that ensures the process of
globalization works for the planetary whole (commons institutions). If possible, such
a project should happen dialectically as the necessary technological and social
infrastructure emerges, and as the cultural adaptation to a new sphere develops, as
opposed to in one quick revolutionary rupture. The problem with quick revolution-
ary ruptures is that our psychological, social, cultural, and other ways of being
cannot adapt fast enough to make the transition pragmatically successful. However,
in this process the commons as concept can potentially recapture the positive
sociopolitical value once possessed by communism, and perhaps, provide real
substance to the contemporary lack of a universal common sphere (i.e. the most
salient presence in the contemporary geopolitical landscape is the absence of a
commons). In this lack, we see dominant forms of political thought concentrating
around a conservative–traditional revival and an inept and impotent democratic
socialism.
Moreover, the commons could accomplish this without relying on the emergence
of a planetary socialist state or local anarchist self-organization, and commons
institutions could emerge gradually from (a) democratic discursive processual medi-
ation and (b) willingness to transform the basic structural coordinates of the contem-
porary international sphere. In other words, in the same way that the foundations of
the ‘commune’ were posited as ‘direct democracy’ and ‘common ownership of
property’, we should precisely think the emergence of commons institutions via
similar pathways: the transformation of the international sphere towards transparent
democratic engagement, and the transformation of international productive forces
towards common property regimes. This could be a serious approach towards
resolving the global dimension of neoliberalism in the information age/neoliberalism
in the age of intelligent machines.
Thus, if neoliberalism is a problem of the ‘universal commodification’ (water,
food, education, health, and so on) the countermovement proposed here is
‘commonification’. The crucial switch for ‘communists’ and the crucial
positivization for ‘post-capitalists’ is consequently a focus on common resources
and spaces: to combat institutions facilitating the dominance of rational self-
interested behaviour that destroys the common whole (i.e. international neoliberal-
ism as ‘tragedy of the commons’) with institutions capable of specifically organizing
for the common whole. In the commons paradigm, this can happen in part by
rethinking the nature of contemporary international corporations that serve functions
above and beyond the nation-state. Thus, to establish a commonwealth based on
access would be to accept that the emerging technological revolution presents us
with an immanent transition in our sociopolitical life, a transition we cannot prevent
or control, but nonetheless a transition that can be guided towards a higher level of
planetary self-organization.
To repeat the axiom for the GB technological singularity: Freedom on this
sociotechnological pathway is to recognize our necessity as the beings guiding
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons 135

history towards the full actualization of human desire. In other words, in overcoming
neoliberalism for the commons we necessarily change our conception of freedom:
freedom in the neoliberal age is the (juvenile) ‘freedom to do whatever I want’
(destroy planetary ecology, generate insane inequalities, and so forth), but freedom
in the commons age could be the (mature) ‘recognition of necessity’, the necessity to
grow up and organize as a species (actual international coordination). Consequently,
the commons here could present GB theorists with a political category needed to
compliment the ‘growing connectivity between people and nations’ with the ‘emer-
gence of global institutions’ if we apply to the commons in the information age’
(Heylighen 2013, p. 906):

[Guided self-organization means] developing schemes, programs, institutions or

environments that stimulate, facilitate and to some degree steer the self-organization of the
Global Brain towards what appear to be the most fruitful directions, while leaving enough
freedom for the system to explore a variety of unforeseen approaches.

From this perspective, GB technological singularity theory can use the commons
as a political category in regards to supplementing the notion of ‘guided self-
organization’ because one of the most problematic dimensions of ‘guiding the
self-organization of the Global Brain’ is figuring out ‘what we want to do’
(Heylighen 2013, p. 906) with the totality of revolutionary technological processes
that appear to present us with an immanent metasystem transition. The commons
speaks to this dimension of human desire: to use the novel technological possibility
space to build a common world of access where social processes dominated by
substance overcome financial processes dominated by profit. In this sense, the
commons introduces a ‘difference that makes a (meaningful) difference’ because it
posits that the ‘self-organization of the market’ is insufficient, and must be mediated
in order to ensure that the international sphere is working for human-planetary values
over and above the pure reproduction of capital. Of course, such a social process
should not overshadow nor does it contradict emphasis on the importance of the
individual psychic level of personal responsibility to dedicate life purpose and action
towards goals and values that transcend reproduction of capital in-and-for-itself.
There is no reason why these two levels of process cannot occur in parallel.
Here I would like to position two concepts that I feel can help in guiding the
democratic mediation of a ‘commons in the information age’ or, as in the headline of
this section: to use the ‘Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons’. These
concepts include the automated commons and the collaborative commons to be
positioned specifically in the aforementioned ‘Marxist blind spot’ that failed to
conceptualize the necessity of consciously mediating a commons in the ‘post-
industrial’ ‘information age’ (i.e. capitalism would not just be spontaneously
surpassed with the rise of automated technologies and social productive forces
taking a central economic position). In other words, the ‘Marxist blind spot’ was
failing to understand the necessary mediation of the dissolution of the proletariat/
bourgeoisie (controlled/controllers; Slaves/Masters) dialectic that in some sense
imprisons its analytic thought process. I would propose that the ‘automated
136 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

commons’ be specifically positioned with the Marxist concept of ‘objective knowl-

edge’ (knowledge directly embodied and repetitively enacted in machines) and the
‘collaborative commons’ be specifically positioned with the Marxist concept of
‘general intellect’ (human social and intellectual knowledge/labour).
To construct a ‘commons’ with automated and collaborative components would
be to set our sights on gradually working towards a ‘commons in the information
age’ or a ‘commons in the age of intelligent machines’ without relying on the
traditional Marxist notion of the ‘commune’ as a fundamental organizing unit, and
without relying on the traditional Marxist notion of the ‘proletariat revolution’ as
universal event. Thus, both the concepts of automated and collaborative commons
seek to function to ‘revive the Left’ (if that language even makes sense anymore) by
specifically enabling progressive politics to entertain a qualitatively new approach to
universality given the new technological possibility space (to overtake the political
field of neoliberalism with the political field of the commons). The old Marxist
concepts related to a higher political universality, both the ‘commune’ and the
‘proletariat revolution’ rely too much on an unrealistic a priori notion of a universal
class of humans capable of overcoming their ‘self’ while simultaneously
coordinating and sustaining a global solidarity movement. In other words, the
traditional Marxist notions prematurely expect the emergence of a human ‘species-
being’ [an expectation that still lingers, for example in Badiou’s The Communist
Hypothesis (2010)]. But if humanity is to achieve ‘species-being’ we first need a
proper materialist foundation, which means that a commons as presupposition must
be posited as a necessary condition for general self-actualization.
First, the automated commons is a sociopolitical concept that is rendered possible
because of the emergence of general-purpose robotics, machine learning/artificial
intelligence, nanotechnology, and their interconnection with the Internet of Things
(i.e. ‘objective knowledge’ directly embodied and repetitively enacted in machines)
to compose globally networked ‘automated smart systems’. Consequently, the
purpose of the automated commons concept would be to establish networks with
these emerging technologies related to the foundational operations of civilization
(i.e. ‘commons institutions’ related to education, healthcare, transportation, farming/
agriculture, and energy) designed around ‘commons principles’ of universal access,
and phasing out of property and labour (where contextually desirable). In other
words, the function of the automated commons is twofold:

1. To systematically prevent automated machinery/objective knowledge from being

privatized and owned by small elite groups.
2. To replace the foundational baseline of civilization functioning as ‘alienated
humans’ with the foundational baseline of civilization functioning as ‘alienated
machinery’.

The ‘ideal-material’ result of establishing an automated commons would be to

free humans (universally) from basic material constraints and towards the potential
for higher levels of cognitive and social exploration (i.e. to eliminate the external-
centralized institutional coercion of individual actualization potential that
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons 137

characterizes the historical process as such). The ‘socialization or collectivization’ of

‘objective knowledge’ with an automated commons would open up the door for the
‘freedom’ of the ‘general intellect’ in a ‘collaborative commons’. Or as Marx himself
noted in the ‘Fragments on Machines’ (1858, p. 706):

[Machines] are organs of the human brain [. . .]; the power of knowledge, objectified. The
development of fixed capital [in automated production] indicates to what degree general
social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the
conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general
intellect and been transformed in accordance with it; to what degree the powers of social
production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate
organs of social practice, of the real life process.

Thus secondly, the collaborative commons (as general intellect) (built ‘on top of’
and/or ‘in parallel with’ the automated commons as objectified knowledge) is a
sociopolitical concept that is rendered possible because of the emergence of social
networks that can effectively build trust between people based on direct emotional
resonance and reciprocity enabling the sharing of skills, knowledge, and resources
(i.e. general intellect of human social knowledge/labour bonded by real-time social
measures). Consequently, the purpose of the collaborative commons concept is to
establish social sharing networks capable of overcoming or subordinating financial
transaction processes related to humanity’s basic sociocreative activities. This pro-
cess can be conceptualized as replacing ‘market mechanisms’ (buying and selling
commodities) with ‘offer mechanisms’ (i.e. efficient mechanisms for coordinating
needs and demands). The goal of such a transition would involve disconnecting the
general intellect from its dependence on money, and preventing commodification of
cognitive/social labour, etc. (Table 7.3).
For the concepts of automated and collaborative commons it is important to note
that both aspects of these potential future commons domains are in their earliest
stages of development, and thus far from full maturation, i.e. we are obviously still at
a distance from a real ‘Global Commons in the Global Brain’. However, we can
already see the emergence of automated commons-like infrastructures with
‘automated factories’ ‘automated farms’, or even the beginnings of ‘automated
transportation grids’. These are ‘automated smart systems’ with no need

Table 7.3 Conceptual components of global commons

Concept Definitions/examples
Automated Networks related to foundational operations of civilization (i.e. education,
commons healthcare, transportation, farming/agriculture, energy) built utilizing the
‘objective knowledge’ of automated machinery and designed around
principles of universal access, and phasing out of property and labour
property (where contextually desirable).
Collaborative Networks of social exchange mediated by ‘offers’ and ‘demands’ (i.e. offer
commons networks) facilitating the self-organization of goods/services built on the
foundation of social trust as primary bonding mechanism enabling the
general intellect to gradually disconnect from monetary transactions.
138 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

(or severely reduced need) for labour, which consequently opens up the opportunity
for the establishment of ‘post-property/common-property’ regimes and a ‘de-com-
modification’ of the products/services they can produce. Likewise, with the collabo-
rative commons as social ‘offer mechanisms’ capable of overcoming ‘market
mechanisms’ we already see the development of sites in hospitality, transportation,
energy, healthcare, education, goods/community services, where people can offer
skills, knowledge, or resources as (beyond monetary) ‘offers’ bonded by a digital
social community regulated by reputation (Heylighen 2016b).
In order to demonstrate in more detail, the nature of a collaborative commons as a
social foundation let us contemplate the general diversity of organizations and/or
communities operating within, displaying the potential for, or gradually approaching
such a mode of socio-economic interaction (Table 7.4). The purpose of such a list is
not to see every platform in existence but to better conceptualize and understand the
emerging range of ‘post-capital’ ‘post-market’ socio-economic phenomena that, if
their development were supported and cohesively integrated, could aid in the active
construction of a new international societal paradigm. Here an ‘offer network’ as a
basic mechanic for the collaborative commons would be described as ‘fields of
societal exchange facilitating the self-organization of goods/services built on the
foundation of trust and reputation as a primary bonding mechanisms’. In this
ecosystem of organizations and/or communities we will differentiate between
those existing in a:

1. Market economy (offer for monetary compensation)

2. Barter economy (offer for an offer perceived to be of comparable use-value by
persons involves)
3. Gift economy (offer with no expectation of a return offer (i.e. the ‘selfless offer’,
or a gift))
4. Sharing economy (offers made accessible to common distributed network of
prosumers (producers/consumers)

The long-term potential for offer mechanisms to become transformed into a

globally integrated offer network appears possible. Ultimately, this is possible
because, over the past few years, offer mechanisms appear to have displayed both
general and universal practical applications. They have demonstrated their potential
generality due to successful application with a broad range of societal functionality.
For example, the same basic principles of design have enabled offer mechanisms to
flourish in transportation, energy, healthcare, retail, hospitality, and to community
development. Offer mechanisms have also demonstrated their potential universality
as they function on a local-to-global scale efficiently and intelligently with effective
implementation at local-to-global scale efficiently and intelligently with effective
implementation at local community levels, international global levels, and at various
intermediate levels of interaction.
Of course, for both the automated and the collaborative commons, their full
maturation will be dependent on how technologies related to the Internet of Things,
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons 139

Table 7.4 Collaborative commons social communities

Organization Good/service Bond mechanism Other information
Couchsurfing Hospitality and Social references, verified Gift economy and
accommodation accounts for-profit
(travel)
Be Welcome Hospitality and Social references Gift economy and
accommodation non-profit
Hospitality Hospitality and Social references Gift economy and
Club accommodation non-profit
Air BnB Hospitality and Social references and house- Market economy and
accommodation specific prices for-profit
Service space General giving Volunteers design, implement, Gift/sharing economy
platform and administer various and non-profit
community projects
Give and General tools for Volunteers design, implement, Gift/sharing/barter
Take local organizing and administer various economy and non-profit
community projects
Bla Bla Car Ride sharing Social references and Market economy,
platform passenger/driver sharing for-profit
transport costs
RelayRides Rental car Verified users and low-cost Market/sharing
platform rent economy, for-profit
Uber Taxi platform Centrally regulated price Market economy,
depending on travel distance, for-profit, and
driver–user rating systems on-demand service
JustPark Automobile Users browse centrally Market/sharing
parking regulated network of available economy, for-profit
platform parking spots
Zipcar Automobile User membership, free per Market economy and
sharing platform reservation for-profit
Etsy General Social references, verified Market economy and
e-commerce users/stores for-profit
platform
KickStarter General Creator project pitch/reward Gift/barter/market
crowdfunding offers/history, supporter economy
platform funding
IndieGoGo General Creator project pitch/reward Gift/barter/market
crowdfunding offers/ history, support funding economy
platform
Vandebron Energy sharing Contracts of various durations Market economy and
platform based on personal energy peer to peer
needs
Cohealo Healthcare Hospitals integrated via central Sharing economy,
technology verification into common enables networks of
sharing platform sharing network hospitals to pool
resources
Transferwise Money transfer Transfers routed between Market economy and
platform sender and recipient via central for-profit
mediator
(continued)
140 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

Table 7.4 (continued)

Organization Good/service Bond mechanism Other information
TaskRabbit Community- Certified users centrally Market/barter/sharing
based small/odd verified economy and for-profit
jobs
Skillshare Online skills Industry experts offer courses Market/sharing/gift
courses platform to anyone who wants to learn economy

digital currencies, machine learning software, semantic web applications, and so

forth, are socio-economically inscribed by our international institutions. In other
words, can the Global Brain as a ‘universal coordination medium’ that ‘self-
organizes on a planetary level’ function to inscribe a world that operates on ‘Global
Commons’ logic (systems of access and democratic management) over and above
both market and state logic? Would this not be a world where ‘automated smart
systems’ and ‘distributed social/offer networks’ become universalized towards
serving humanist–ecological use value?
Here we come full circle vis-a-vis ‘Global State’ and ‘Global Commons’ as ‘ideal
virtual attractor’. If indeed ‘decommodification’ and ‘opening a commonwealth’ (the
ideal of the ‘Global Commons’ as opposed to ‘Global State’) is the key: a common-
wealth of basic human necessities (water, food, shelter, education, and health); then
the focus of building commons institutions capable of ‘guiding the self-organization
of the Global Brain’ should be on the simple yet problematic dimension of ‘how’?
i.e. ‘how do you organize a world of access where social substantive processes
overcome financial profit processes?’ In other words, the problematic ‘how’ question
is not ‘how do we establish a Global State capable of regulating multinational
corporations’ (i.e. Piketty’s ideal ground for materialist solutions), but rather ‘how
do we establish and manage a commons?’ (the crucial shift in ‘ideal pole’ for
‘materialist solutions’). Here a ‘common’ as a unit to overcome the ‘commodity’
as a ‘system of access’ (beyond money) sounds great, i.e. of access to/de-
commodification of basic necessities for survival and growth:

• ‘Because you are a human’, etc.

• ‘Basic necessities’ as ‘basic rights’ (not commodities), etc.
• Of the solidification of ‘universal virtual/idealist rhetoric’ (universal human
rights) with a proper ‘universal materialist foundation’ (you have a ‘right’ to
food, water, shelter), etc.

But then we encounter the practical–actual dimension (the symbolic-imaginary

encounters the real as an obstacle):

• There are scarce resources (rendering them ‘rival’).

• These systems of access need to be established and maintained within some
institutional framework.
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons 141

• There are entrenched interests whose goals not only do not include the establish-
ment and maintenance of a universal commons but whose goals are antithetical to
such a phenomenon, and so forth.

Or, if ‘systems of access’ is the first step (automated/collaborative commons

where objectified knowledge lays foundation for a society directed by the general
intellect), figuring out how to practically ‘establish’ and ‘manage’ ‘systems of
access’ is the second step.
In order to approach this crucial ‘second step’, GB theorists interested in ‘guiding
the self-organization of the Global Brain towards a Global Commons’ should pay
particular attention to the commons literature established by Elinor Ostrom (1990,
2009) for a potentially important starting point. In Governing the Commons (1990)
Ostrom set out to articulate how the ‘state/market’ could be broken with a ‘radical
third’ of a commons as ‘institutions for collective action’ with a specific focus on
their establishment and management. In other words, instead of systems controlling
property and labour (nation-states), or systems producing and consuming
commodities (markets), the commons are systems for managing and distributing
shared resources and spaces with a core of direct democracy (as opposed to repre-
sentative democracy). For Ostrom, one of the key notions for the successful estab-
lishment and maintenance of a commons based on access is how these systems
identify and properly manage ‘Common Pool Resources’ (CPR), which she
identifies as resources and spaces that are inherently ‘common’ but also ‘scarce’
and thus ‘rival’. In other words, overcoming the problem of establishing and
managing CPRs in a commons is the foundation for ‘de-commodification’ and
‘opening a commonwealth’, and perhaps, the key shift in transforming neoliberal
institutions (and the multinational corporations that thrive under their reign) into
commons institutions capable of establishing an automated and collaborative
commons.
In this frame, a resource/space can be generally defined as a CPR if one agent/
person use of the resource/space will subtract from any other agent/persons use and
where it is often necessary, but difficult and costly, to exclude another agent/persons
use outside the group from using the resource/space. Here there are numerous and
extremely diverse examples of such ‘rival/scarce’ resources/spaces that could be
classified as a ‘CPR’: fishers, grazing grounds, parks, farms, transportation grids,
and so forth. In Ostrom’s analysis of systems for collective action that benefits the
common good (i.e. higher levels of cooperation) there are always simple yet
fundamental problems related to (Ostrom 1990, p. 27):

(a) Coping with free riding

(b) Solving commitment problems
(c) Arranging for the supply of new institutions
(d) Monitoring individual compliance with sets of rules

Furthermore, Ostrom did not just identify the problems that prevent the emer-
gence and stabilization of commons institutions for collective action, but also
142 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

identified key ‘design principles’ that can solve these problems, which include
(Ostrom 1990, p. 90):

(a) Group boundaries clearly defined.

(b) Rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and
conditions.
(c) Most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules.
(d) The rights of community members to devise their own rules are respected by
external authorities.
(e) A system for monitoring member’s behaviour exists; the community members
themselves undertake this monitoring.
(f) A graduate system of sanctions is used.
(g) Community members have access to low-cost conflict resolution mechanisms.
(h) For CPRs that are parts of larger systems: appropriation, provision, monitoring,
enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in
multiple layers of nested enterprises.

The first thing for GB theorists to note here is the difficulty in understanding and
implementing the relation between the ‘local’ dimension and the ‘global’ dimension.
In other words, although both the automated and collaborative functions of the
commons would ideally fall within a universal medium that intelligently satisfied
all human necessities—some form of ‘post-monetary’ ‘offer network’ (Goertzel
2015; Heylighen 2016b)—this universal medium must also be nested in order to
meet CPR demands on multiple interacting levels, e.g. regional, continental, inter-
national, and global. On the practical level, there are functions of human civilization
that operate on different levels of organization, e.g. regional health facilities require
different commons demands than do international transportation networks or global
environmental problems, etc. But on the second societal and cultural level there is a
simple fact that real groups and communities exist at multiple levels with specific
needs and desires that cannot be totally ignored and replaced with a totalizing and
ideological abstract universalism (i.e. ‘We are all One world community, and so
forth’). Thus, the point of Ostrom’s commons ‘design principles’ is that, although
they complicate the situation of establishing and maintaining a commons, they are at
the same time necessary preconditions for the commons long-term viability as well
the growth of pluralism and diversity within a new universal level of organization.
However, the second thing for GB theorists to note is that the Global Brain as a
universal coordination medium necessarily plays a crucial role in the mediation of
the transition from capitalism as universal field to the commons as a universal field
(i.e. ‘Global Brain as a Mechanism for the Global Commons’). First, capitalism is
organized around and dependent on generating profit from the scarcity of resources,
whereas the biggest problem for the commons is organizing and managing systems
of access related to scarce resources (or CPRs). Thus, the key breakthrough in the
universal field transition must in some way be related to the sustainable coordination
of needs and desires related to rival resources, which is precisely what the notion of
‘offer networks’ intends to address (Goertzel 2015; Heylighen 2016b). In this sense,
7.4 Global Brain as a Mechanism for Global Commons 143

can we not imagine the possibility of a universal field transition/metasystem transi-

tion mediated by a future Internet as a vital revolutionary agent capable of stabilizing
a commons? Does this not replace the need for a ‘proletariat revolution’ as a vital
revolutionary agent capable of stabilizing communism? In other words, instead of a
revolutionary universal human class overcoming systemic alienation by
overthrowing capitalist systems of exploitation and forging communities capable
of higher levels of cooperation (the ‘naive’ Marxist notion), we have the manifesta-
tion of a revolutionary universal virtual medium (i.e. Global Brain) that intelligently
coordinates the total environmental sphere of civilization functioning consequently
enabling humanity to form higher levels of social organization (i.e. Global
Commons).
From this perspective, the problem of achieving higher levels of human coopera-
tion—a problem that has always plagued the traditional conception and implemen-
tation of communism—is technically solved by approaching the problem indirectly
via the establishment of commons institutions that can successfully eliminate the
material conditions that generate base-level competition in the first place. This would
require the ‘emergence of global institutions’ that can be mediated by developing the
conceptual foundations of the Global Commons. As stated previously the problem
for the United Nations in the twenty-first century is that member nation-states lack of
‘appetite’ to cooperate with the UN to more fully dedicate time towards
(a) facilitating equal economic development, (b) delivering real social justice, and
(c) grounding a structure of sustainable ecology as a result of an international order
dominated by multinational corporate structure and ideology. In this context, the
commons central focus is on transforming ‘neoliberal institutions’ into ‘commons
institutions’ capable of overcoming problems of cooperation with mechanisms
capable of mediating a higher level of post-state and post-market coordination.
Here I would like to enter a dialogue with a subtle point made by philosopher
Slavoj Žižek regarding the UN that I believe needs to be engaged with in relation to
the emerging technological revolution and the potential for the construction of a
‘Global Commons’ (Russia Today (RT) 2015):

Although I think the UN is a totally impotent organization, sometimes great powers need
such a place, where somehow, precisely because it is impotent, everyone can state [their]
position and maybe open some space for understanding.

Fair point but this does not mean that the UN or whatever becomes of ‘humanist
international structure’ needs to remain impotent, i.e. pathetically and hopelessly
castrated by the ‘invisible handjob’ of the neoliberal structures of the world. Can the
UN not be a democratic international space where a commons as presupposition is
posited as necessary? Is there any way to seriously discuss the establishment of a
commons that is more than just ‘empty humanist rhetoric’, more than just a ‘hysteri-
cal provocation’ of ‘the Master’ ‘by way of bombarding him with impossible
demands’? (Žižek 2006), i.e. for GB technological singularity theory should not
the ‘emergence of global institutions’ be represented as ‘the impossible beyond’
144 7 Global Commons in the Global Brain

(in contrast to the AGI technological singularity theory ‘emergence of AGI post-
humans’)?
On a final note, when Alain Badiou spoke of the emergence of the commune as
the radical site of emancipation in The Communist Hypothesis he spoke of it not in
‘Popperian’ ‘scientific philosophic’ ‘reductive empiricist’ terms, but in the terms of a
radical ontological openness that focuses attention towards the transcendental con-
stitution of reality: ‘note that there exists no stronger a transcendental consequence
than that of making something appear in a world which had not existed in it
previously’ (2010a, p. 220). Although I in some dimensions have my disagreements
with Badiou in regards to the idea that the commune is the radical site of emancipa-
tion, I nevertheless think that we need to think precisely the dimension of: ‘what is to
come in practical and material terms from the ‘great powers’ ‘stating their position’
at the ‘impotent UN’? Just what ‘understanding’ is to be achieved here? Within what
ideal pole are these materialist claims being grounded? What are the presuppositions
being posited? Can we not think about the establishment and maintenance of
commons institutions? Can we not think of the radical construction of the transcen-
dental New within the shell of the dying Old?

7.5 A Revolutionary Political–Economy

In this chapter, I first address the emerging technological possibility space as

possessing the latent potential for both a positive revolutionary dimension and a
negative disruptive dimension dependent on whether or not humans can think new
large-scale geopolitical collectives capable of guiding/mediating the inevitable and
overwhelming changes that will occur within the socio-economic sphere. Second, I
posited that the processual totality of this technological possibility space was best
understood within the framework of the Global Brain (GB) variant of technological
singularity theory because GB technological singularity theory focuses its attention
on the Internet as universal coordination medium capable of generating a higher
level of human organization (as opposed to a focus on AGI post-humanity). Third, I
identified the crucial lack in both contemporary large-scale geopolitical visions and
GB technological singularity theory as an absence of understanding how to discuss
the end of capitalism and the potential emergence of a Global Commons. And
finally, I argued that the GB was a mechanism ultimately capable of situating an
understanding of the emergence and stabilization of a total field change from
capitalism to commonism.
In this sense, GB technological singularity theory has revolutionary political and
economic potential, but only if it can think the dimension of the Global Commons
and thus orient contemporary discussions of the emerging technological possibility
space towards collective freedom. Considering that GB theory has at its foundation
an emphasis on actualizing distributed organizations (as coordination problem) and
open-ended organizations (as a self-becoming problem), we can thus invite and
approach the guided dissolution of hierarchical-centralized organizations that close
References 145

the human mind to its own estimate potentiality, a potentiality which is each
individual own free space (Hegel 1991, p. 477):

The History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom.

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 Part III
Signs of a New Evolution
Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction
8

8.1 The Question of Life Extension

In this issue, we are attempting to provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the

elimination of ageing (from here referred to as ‘radical life extension’). The first
thing that must be considered when discussing radical life extension (RLE) is the
practical consequences such an achievement would have on human growth and
reproduction. Popular and political opposition to RLE primarily stems from the
belief that such a development would lead to catastrophic overpopulation issues.
In this chapter, I would like to specifically address how human growth and
reproduction should be affected by the achievement of RLE. Such an understanding
would help us properly prepare for the resulting demographic transformation, as well
as restructure popular and political dialogue around real problems, as opposed to
imagined problems.
In order to accomplish this, I am proposing a straightforward methodology
dependent on (a) the evolution of human growth and reproduction, (b) a situation
of this evolution within the explanatory framework of Life History Theory (LHT),
and (c) an extrapolation of modern developed world sexual behaviour into the near-
term future (~2040–2050). With such an approach, we should be able to understand
the evolved life history of humanity and how major technological breakthroughs
related to RLE should affect our growth and reproduction patterns.
Hopefully, such an analysis will give demographers, historians, anthropologists,
biologists, and futurists the framework they need to better understand the future of
the human population.

Reprinted by permission from Bentham Science Publishers, Current Aging Science, 7(1), Human
Evolution, Life History Theory, and the End of Biological Reproduction, Last, C., 2014, pp. 17–24.
DOI: 10.2174/1874609807666140521101610.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 151

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_8
152 8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction

8.2 Human Growth and Reproduction

Every organism has an evolved life history pattern. A life history pattern is the way
time and energy are allocated between growth, maintenance, and reproduction
(Gadgil and Bossert 1970). Throughout the evolutionary history of primates, there
have been three major life history transitions towards later sexual maturation and
longer lifespan. These transitions occurred between (Robson and Kaplan 2003):

• Prosimians ! Monkeys
• Monkeys ! Apes
• Apes ! Humans

The life history characterizations of our closest relatives, the hominoids

(e.g. chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas) is particularly exaggerated towards later
sexual maturity and longer life expectancy relative to the rest of the primate order
(Robson and Kaplan 2003). That general pattern resulted in extreme degrees of
parental care over long developmental periods (Geary and Flinn 2000). However,
humans have an even more extreme pattern. We dedicate more time and energy
towards growth than any other primate species (Hillard et al. 2000). The life history
consequences are dramatic, as more investment in growth pushes reproduction back
further, and significantly lengthens our evolved maximum lifespan. Whereas
orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees sexually mature between 8 and 10 years
and have an evolved lifespan between 40 and 50 years (Cutler 1975), most humans
reach full sexual maturity between 18 and 20 years (Christopher 2006) and have an
evolved average life expectancy ~80 years (Robson and Kaplan 2003) (Table 8.1).
Our extreme drift towards later sexual maturation and longer lifespan led to two
interesting emergent parenting traits unique among even our fellow hominoids:
reproductive support by post-reproductive individuals and extensive male support
for reproduction via provisioning of both females and offspring (Hillard et al. 2000;
Bogin 1997). Throughout human evolution, it did not take a village to raise a child,
but it literally required a band of close kin. Due to this organization, a few other
novel traits emerged:

• Reproductive support by post-reproductive individuals (specifically post-

reproductive females) likely led to the development of menopause (Alexander
1990; Hawkes 2003). Menopause allows older females to shift time and energy
away from their own reproduction and towards their close kin’s reproduction
(Hawkes 2003).

Table 8.1 Great ape and Species Sexual maturity Life expectancy
human life histories
Orangutans (Pongo) 9–10 40
Gorillas (Gorilla) 8–9 40–45
Chimpanzees (Pan) 8–9 45
Human (Homo) 18–20 75–85
8.2 Human Growth and Reproduction 153

• Maintenance of extensive male support of reproduction via provisioning of both

female and offspring likely led to concealed ovulation and continuous, nonrepro-
ductive sexual activity (Miller 1997, 2000). Both traits help maintain extended
male–female relationships (Geary and Flinn 2000).

These ‘uniquely unique’ features of human life history relate back to one central
adaptation: the human brain, and more specifically the neocortex (Mace 2000). For a
primate of our body and brain size, the human neocortex is 35–60% larger than
expected (Rilling and Insel 1999). And it is this physical adaptation that is responsi-
ble for all of our behavioural uniqueness, like a theory of mind (Vogeley et al. 2001),
language (Pinker 1994), music, art, and high intelligence (Miller 2000).
Since the human life history pattern has grown divergent from our fellow
hominoids we must address when it evolved. Growing consensus suggests that our
life history pattern started to co-evolve gradually with the emergence of the genus
Homo approximately two million years ago. Techniques for understanding the
evolutionary emergence of modern human life history is related to understanding
the relationship between life expectancy and brain size in mammalian species (Cutler
1975; Kaplan and Gangestad 2005), as well as the relationship between lifespan and
age-at-first reproduction (Stearns 1992; Alvarez 2000). The paleoanthropological
record provides us with both the cranial and the bone and dental evidence needed to
piece together the evolution of human encephalization quotient (EQ) as well as
average sexual maturation. As a result, we can estimate the evolution of long human
lifespan and the evolution of modern human life history more generally (Christopher
2006).
From the contemporary fossil hominin record, we see evidence for three or four
major transitions in the emergence of modern human life history related to
encephalization and sexual maturation (Hawkes 2003; Miller 2000) (Table 8.2).
Although this evidence suggests that longer lifespan emerged in punctuated
equilibrium bursts (Miller 2000), the bone and dental evidence suggest that the
main pus towards later sexual maturation came with the emergence of post-Homo
erectus hominids (Holly 1992; Bogin and Holly Smith 1996). We know that the
australopithecines had a life history pattern similar to extant great apes (i.e. ‘live fast
and die young’) (Holly 1992). Early Homo, as well as Homo erectus/ergaster forms,
were unlike either extant hominoids or modern humans (Holly Smith and Tompkins
1995). Both dental evidence and cranial size evidence suggests that they were

Table 8.2 Major transitions in human life history

Cranial Estimated Estimate life
Species Time (mya) capacity (cc) sexual maturity expectancy
Australopithecines 6–4 450 10 50
Homo habilis 2 600 12–13 60
Homo erectus/ergaster 1.7–0.5 800 15–16 70
Archaic humans 0.3–0.1 1300 18 80
154 8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction

exhibiting the early stages of what would eventually become the modern human life
history, as they were ageing slower, reproducing later, and living longer than their
australopithecine predecessors (Holly Smith and Tompkins 1995; Flinn and Ward
2004). There are currently some difficulties understanding exactly when the modern
life history pattern evolved post-Homo erectus but it is present in the Upper
Palaeolithic (Christopher 2006).
However, understanding when our life history evolved is not the same as under-
standing how our life history evolved. And for that we will need to explore Life
History Theory (LHT).

8.3 Life History Theory and Human Evolution

The history of life can be conceptualized as the history of variant chemical structures
harvesting energy to create ever-more complex replicates of similar forms (Kaplan
and Gangestad 2005). Life History Theory (LHT) attempts to explain the ‘trade-offs’
that occur as a result of this process (Figueredo et al. 2006). The three pertinent
facets of life history to consider include how organisms spend energy on growth
(i.e. traditionally investment in somatic cells), maintenance (i.e. avoidance of mor-
tality), and reproduction (Gadgil and Bossert 1970; Mace 2000; Holly 1992). By
dedicating energy towards growth and maintenance, an organism can enhance future
reproduction (Robson and Kaplan 2003). Growth and maintenance have tradition-
ally been conceptualized as ‘somatic effort’ (i.e. somatic cell diversification and
replacement) (Figueredo et al. 2006). On the other hand, organisms can also dedicate
energy towards reproduction. By dedicating energy towards reproduction,
organisms must invariably reduce the amount of energy dedicated towards growth
and maintenance, as well as reduce the chances of reproducing in the future (Kaplan
and Gangestad 2005).
Throughout this entire process, finite energy budgets fundamentally cause the
aforementioned trade-offs. If energy were unlimited, organisms could in principle
start reproducing soon after birth (i.e. no trade-off between growth and reproduction)
and preserve themselves indefinitely (i.e. perfect maintenance) (Kaplan and
Gangestad 2005). But throughout the entirety of biological evolution, energy has
never been free and abundant, it has always been costly and scarce. Therefore, all
organisms must spend it strategically, in a way that best maximizes fitness (Gadgil
and Bossert 1970).
In sum, finite energy budgets can be used for the continued growth and mainte-
nance of the organism (which increases chances of future reproduction), or finite
energy budgets can be dedicated towards replication (which decreases the chances of
future reproduction). As a result of this trade-off, an entire organism’s existence is
about finding a strategic balance between current and future reproduction.
For our purposes, this theory can help us explain the divergent reproduction and
mortality patterns in humans (Hill 1993). So what evidence do we have to work
with? Remember, there are four divergent human life history characteristics
(as summarized above) (Hillard et al. 2000):
8.4 Modern World 155

• Extended developmental period (i.e. childhood)

• Long lifespan
• Reproductive support from post-reproductive individuals
• Extensive reproductive support from males

We also know that these exaggerated and unique life history features evolved
with larger brain size, specifically large neocortex size, which is also a unique feature
among humans. The dominant LHT explaining this emergence is that our extreme
intelligence, as produced through our enlarged neocortex, co-evolved in response to
gradual dietary shifts to high-calorie food sources (Hillard et al. 2000). Throughout
the punctuated equilibrium-like bursts in brain size, we find evidence of substantial
transitions to exploitation of increasingly diverse and meat-abundant diets (Hawkes
2003; Antón 2003; Ungar 2012). Importantly, the exploitation of these diverse and
meat-abundant diets was achieved via the construction of increasingly complex
technology (Ambrose 2001).
What does this all mean for our exaggerated shift in life history towards longer
developmental periods and longer lifespans? First and foremost, it meant that our
ability to efficiently extract more energy from our environment was dependent on
inherently cultural and technological processes. These processes are in turn
facilitated by the acquisition of increasingly high levels of knowledge, skills, and
social coordination, which require longer developmental periods dedicated to
learning. Due to the high levels of learning needed in order to maximize adult
survival, our ancestors invested more energy in growth to maximize future repro-
duction (Gangestad and Simpson 2000). An adult-sized, fully mature 5-year old
human could simply not compete with an adult-sized, fully mature 20-year old
human (Mace 2000). Therefore, childhood became an intellectual and social stage
of development requiring increasingly large amounts of time and energy at the
expense of current reproduction (Mace 2000). We have our fundamental life history
trade-off.

8.4 Modern World

Throughout modern humans (i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens) prehistoric and historic
evolution our life history patterns have not diverged from the evolved pattern. In
both hunter–gatherer and agricultural systems, we allocated time and energy towards
growth and reproduction at roughly the same intervals. This may at first seem strange
considering massive socio-sexual changes resulted from the emergence of defensible
and heritable wealth in agricultural systems (Mace 2000). Examples include (Ridley
1993; Wood and Eagly 2002; Ryan and Jethá 2010):

• Higher emphasis on symbolically mediated long-term pair bonds (i.e. marriages).

• Patrilineal inheritance.
• Exaggerated emphasis on the division of labour.
156 8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction

The reason these changes during the agricultural revolution did not significantly
alter our life history pattern was because energy remained costly and scarce for the
large majority of humans, which in turn resulted in similarly high fertility and
mortality rates. If anything, fertility and mortality rates on average increased slightly
in agricultural systems in comparison to hunter–gatherer systems (Lawson and Mace
2011). Therefore, all human life before the modern world was characterized by
15–20 years of ‘pre-reproductive’ life, a post-reproductive lifespan that could last
30–40 years, and an organization including extensive reproductive support from
adult males and post-reproductive females. This evolved life history strategy proved
best for maximizing fitness.
Enter the Industrial Age. Most historians agree that the Industrial Revolution
started in England approximately 200–250 years ago and diffused quickly through-
out Western Europe, the United States, and Britain’s settler colonies (e.g. Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand) in the nineteenth century (Allen 2009; Landes 2003).
This revolution released new energy into our system from fossil fuels and ushered in
the era of very rapid technological progress (Galor and Weil 2000). This new
Industrial System led to massive demographic changes as industrializing regions
of Europe and North America experienced a sharp decline in both mortality and
fertility (Mace 2000). For the first time in modern human history, some human
populations had experienced a change in their life history pattern.
Overall, the demographic transition is characterized by two main trends. The first
trend is a reduction of fertility to replacement or below-replacement levels (~2.1).
The second trend is a reduction of mortality that allows most individuals in society to
reach an advanced post-reproductive age (~80 years). Both trends are universally
associated with socio-economic development (i.e. ‘modernization’) and a transition
from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economy (Lawson and Mace 2011).
Reduced fertility primarily results from the further extension of ‘childhood’. How-
ever, it is probably more accurate to state that reduced fertility results from continu-
ally delayed biological reproduction post-sexual maturation. The continued trend
towards delayed biological reproduction was again accompanied by a further inten-
sification of parental investment, and parents choosing to invest time and energy in
the ‘quality’ of offspring as opposed to the ‘quantity’ of offspring (Lawson and Mace
2011).
This transition to a new life history pattern is not the result of one specific culture
or ‘Westernization’. The demographic transition is directly the result of socio-
economic development and industrialization. At the beginning of the twenty-first
century, the first regions of the world to industrialize have already completed the
demographic transition (e.g. Europe, Northern America, Japan, Australia, and
New Zealand) (Bongaarts 2009). Many newly developed countries in East Asia
have also completed (or are nearing completion) of their demographic transition (Lee
and Mason 2010). Furthermore, much of Asia, Latin America, and most recently,
Africa, have experienced the beginnings and maturation of the demographic transi-
tion (Bongaarts 2009). Many experts expect the full realization of the demographic
transition to manifest globally by the year 2050, as long as current socioeconomic
industrialization trends continue (Bongaarts 2009). As far as the developed world is
8.5 Into the Future 157

concerned, the two trends associated with the demographic transition are expected to
continue accelerating (i.e. reduction of fertility and mortality) as improvements in
socio-economic conditions only serve to intensify these processes (Castles 2003).
Evolutionary theorists have had a difficult time reconciling the demographic
transition within an adaptive life history model (Lawson and Mace 2011). Why
does increased socio-economic development result in a failure to increase reproduc-
tive success? A failure to identify an adaptive cause is a major problem since its
universality suggests that these trends can only be explained in deeper evolutionary
terms. Proposed explanations have included maladaptation to contraceptive
technologies (Pérrusse 1993), fragmentation of kind networks (Newson et al.
2005), emerging roles of social prestige in the labour market (Boyd and Richerson
1985), and rising investment costs in producing socially and economically competi-
tive offspring (Lawson and Mace 2011). The best life history framework is definitely
provided by the idea that industrialization makes it increasingly energetically costly
to invest valuable time and energy in current reproduction. However, this framework
cannot address the relatively new phenomenon of adults en masse opting not to
reproduce. Arguably, delaying biological reproduction completely and effectively
removing oneself from reproductive gene pool is a novel behavioural phenomenon
for an individual organism with reproductive capability. This makes modern
societies’ life history trajectory increasingly bizarre and difficult to explain when
conceptualized within a traditional life history framework.

8.5 Into the Future

I propose that our changing life history pattern is best explained as the fourth
evolutionary exaggeration of the characteristic primate life history pattern towards
later sexual maturity and longer life expectancy. This is fundamentally being driven
by the same processes as previous primate life history transitions, namely selection
for individuals with ever-greater levels of knowledge, skills, and social coordination,
which require ever-longer developmental periods dedicated to learning. However,
the major difference between this transition and previous transitions is that this
transition’s dominant evolutionary pathway is cultural, as opposed to biological.
As a result, the reduction of biological fertility is adaptive for the continued
acceleration of cultural reproduction. The on-going selection for cultural reproduc-
tion comes at the direct expense of biological reproduction. If true, this could suggest
that cultural evolution is in the early stages of modelling and replacing the biological
evolutionary process. Such a development would mark a new evolutionary period in
the history of life as all of previous life history was driven by variant chemical
structures harvesting energy to create more complex replicates of similar forms
(as opposed to variant cultural structures).
Evolutionary scientists have long recognized that the cultural evolutionary pro-
cess shares many non-arbitrary parallels with biological evolutionary processes
(Ridley 2011), and that these cultural evolutionary processes are uniquely manifest
in the human species (Tomasello et al. 1993; Tennie et al. 2009). Experiments show
158 8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction

that cumulative cultural evolution is not only unique but can also result in adaptive
complexity in behaviour and can also produce convergence in behaviour (Caldwell
and Millen 2008; Laland 2008). Before the emergence of humans, biological
evolution was the only way this type of adaptive complexity could emerge. With
cultural evolution as a new mechanism for complexity construction, the entire
evolutionary process is more potent and can operate much more quickly (Laland
2008). Furthermore, cumulative cultural evolution consumes all of human individual
and collective existence. The human life is one spent first learning the knowledge,
inventions and achievements of previous generations, and then secondly, building
upon them (i.e. ratcheting ‘up’ the complexity) (Tennie et al. 2009). In the modern
world, all individual and collective economic success are dependent on our cultural
and technological complexity, the mechanism for which is our ability to understand
and make use of imparted knowledge and artefacts (Caldwell and Millen 2008).
From this perspective, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that one evolution-
ary process (i.e. culture) is growing more dominant than another (i.e. biology). To
envision these as evolutionary pathways, I would propose that one evolutionary
pathway is ‘biochemical’ and one is ‘technocultural’.
Considerable evidence supports the assertion that cultural replication is now in
the early stages of superseding biological replication as the dominant form of
complexity construction. In the modern world, we find ourselves in an ever-more
challenging cultural environment that is accelerating pressures for the acquisition of
ever-more cultural information. Of course, the pressure to learn ever-more cultural
information has been a feature of our species since our emergence. This process has
operated via the mechanism of the cultural ratchet (Tennie et al. 2009), but I argue
that the selection for this process is now superseding biological processes. The
pressures to learn ever-more advanced cultural information are most notably
manifesting in the pressure for ever-more people requiring ever-more advanced
forms of education. We should expect this trend to continue, and in fact accelerate
quite quickly throughout the twenty-first century along with the continued diffusion
and exponential improvement in information and communication technologies
(ICT). Specifically, the emergence of ever-more advanced robotics and artificial
intelligence systems should replace the need for humans to do low-skill,
low-education jobs. The removal of low-skill, low-education jobs should increase
individual opportunity to explore cultural reproduction-as-vocation (e.g. music, art,
science, and engineering). Artificial intelligence systems becoming embedded in
operating systems and apps should also increase our ability to do ever-more complex
jobs that require ever-more advanced degrees. Finally, wearable computing, and in a
decade or two brain interface devices, should exert a strong pressure on people to
acquire more and more cultural information to remain socially and economically
competitive (Heylighen 2014).
Evidence that cultural replication is now superseding biological replication can
also be found in two other phenomena emerging in their early stages: increasing life
expectancy and increasing number of people in developed countries opting not to
biologically reproduce at all. In our evolutionary past, increasing life expectancy
co-evolved with increasing brain size (Mace 2000). In the modern world, our
8.5 Into the Future 159

absolute brain size is not expanding but the amount of information our brain is
required to accumulate in order to compete is certainly increasing. Furthermore, as
many computer scientists, philosophers, and futurists have pointed out, we are
actually extending the information our neocortex collects into ever-more sophisti-
cated computers. This type of ‘mind outsourcing’ is an idea that works well with the
extended mind hypothesis, which asserts that our species has always extended mind
into external mediums since the emergence of verbal language (Logan 2007).
However, the digital substrate is something new. Many suspect that our exponential
outsourcing of mind-to-computation will result in our eventually connecting our
minds to the ‘cloud’ and enhancing the processing power of our neocortex via this
mechanism (Kurzweil 2005, 2012).
Undoubtedly this process is a cultural evolutionary process leading to increased
brain capacity, and not a biological evolutionary process. If the past is any indication
we should expect our life expectancy to increase along with this type of brain
expansion. The mechanism to achieve this is already emergent and practical appli-
cation of them should be near-term realities from the continued advance of biomedi-
cine and genetics (de Grey 2004; de Grey and Rae 2008). Such advances are likely to
include the practical application of replaceable stem cell organs, the complete
prevention of degenerative diseases, and a fundamental understanding of reversible
genetic causes of ageing. Currently, stem cell organ replacement is likely to reach a
practical application stage in 10–20 years, and fundamental reversible causes of
ageing have already been identified (Gomes et al. 2013; Yizhak et al. 2013).
Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that the beginnings of radical life extension
have already started. If that thesis is not convincing, it is undoubtedly true that the
cultural war on ageing has already started, as many major biomedical companies,
including a new biomedical branch of Google (Miller 2014). Google is investing
heavily in research related to identifying the reversible causes of ageing (de Grey and
Rae 2008).
Finally, another sign that cultural reproduction is taking the place of biological
reproduction is the simple fact that many individuals in the developed world are, for
the first time, making the culturally informed decision to not reproduce biologically.
This phenomenon is helping drive the trend towards a developed world that is
already below replacement fertility level (Castles 2003; Philip 2003; Frejka and
Sobotka 2008). This means that we are currently at a crucial time period, as it
appears we are reaching the ‘tipping point’ where biological reproduction is becom-
ing ‘too costly’ to justify in the face of rising pressure for ever-greater cultural
reproduction, as well as the increased opportunity for cultural reproduction-as-
vocation. Most experts today do not factor in these pressures that will likely lead
to even further reduction of biological reproduction. However, leading reports still
suspect that nearly half of the world’s population is currently residing in countries at
or below replacement level fertility (Philip 2003). Many other rapidly developing
regions of the world should approach these fertility levels within mere decades
(Philip 2003) and the entire world should have completed the transition to below
replacement level fertility by 2050 (Bongaarts 2009) (Table 8.3).
160 8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction

Table 8.3 Global fertility rate (2014 est.)

Replacement fertility rate (2.1) No. of countries Examples
Countries >2.1 108/224 Niger, Philippines, Belize, Yemen
Countries <2.1 116/224 France, Norway, Australia, Canada
Countries <1.5 32/224 Germany, Japan, Italy, South Korea
Countries <1.0 2/224 Macau, Singapore
Data derived from The World Factbook (2014). Country Comparison: Total Fertility Rate. https://
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html. Accessed May
11, 2014

Surprisingly, these hypothesized trends (i.e. increased pressure to acquire ever-

more cultural information, increasing life expectancy co-evolution with increased
brain capacity, and increased autonomous individual decisions to avoid biological
reproduction) are not at odds with Life History Theory (LHT). As stated above,
traditional LHT conceptualized growth and maintenance in solely biological terms
(e.g. somatic cell replacement and maintenance) (Figueredo et al. 2006). As a result,
LHT presents a ‘sex versus soma’ framework (Holly 1992). However, for organisms
like humans, growth and maintenance can also be achieved through cultural learning
via the brain (Kaplan and Gangestad 2005). So within this LHT framework, I am
proposing that an emerging fourth primate life history transition is in the process of
reducing energy dedicated to current biological reproduction indefinitely. This is
occurring in favour of allocating energy towards ever-more advanced culturally
mediated growth and maintenance through learning via our enlarged (and perhaps
soon-to-be-dramatically enlarged) brains. The mechanisms to realize this transition,
as described above, are already emergent. All selection for this process is undoubt-
edly being driven by cultural evolution as opposed to biological evolution, which
may suggest that a new evolutionary process is soon to predominate the biological
evolutionary process. Complexity would be directed by mind.
I predict that the full realization of this life history transition should occur before
2050, which suggests that this theory could be in some way connected to the
hypothesized metasystem transition commonly referred to as ‘Global Brain’
(Heylighen 2008, 2014; Mayer-Kress and Barczys 1995; Goertzel 2000). In order
to take this twenty-first century future seriously, we need only assume that the
pressures of the modern developed world hold and accelerate globally. First and
foremost, the pressures for the acquisition of more advanced cultural information
must accelerate globally. First and foremost, the pressures for the acquisition of more
advanced cultural information must accelerate as a result of advanced ICT. This will
continue to force an extension of a widespread postponement of biological repro-
duction. Secondly, continued advances in our understanding of ageing and degener-
ative diseases must accelerate dramatically, allowing us to radically extend life
expectancy and possibly usher us into a post-ageing world. This will remove the
evolutionary imperative to create complexity through biological reproduction, as
delaying current reproduction would always be preferred in favour of dedication of
energy towards culturally mediated growth and maintenance.
8.6 Reproduction, Given Radical Life Extension 161

In the future, further research into the specific causal mechanisms driving a
potential complete end to biological reproduction is needed. At the moment the
exact mechanisms are unknown. However, one possible causal mechanism
explaining how culture, technology, and information can impact the biological
change in reproduction has been discussed by Kyriazis in this issue.
However, although the extrapolation of current trends and framing these trends
within well-tested evolutionary frameworks is a useful methodological tool for
explaining our likely future, we cannot be 100% certain that this is our future.
Fundamentally, this life history future is dependent on continued system-level
socio-economic development as supported by the current industrialized energy
regime, as well as a smooth transition to a new post-industrial energy regime before
2050. In short, this life history future is fundamentally dependent on abundant
energy globally. This is not an outrageous assumption (Hanson 2008; Diamandis
and Kotler 2012). However, if current trends are significantly ruptured by large
socio-economic processes related to a collapse of our current energy regime, and/or a
failure to establish a post-industrial energy regime, we should not expect the life
history trajectory outlines above.

8.6 Reproduction, Given Radical Life Extension

Human life history throughout our species evolution can be thought of as one long
trend towards delayed sexual maturation and biological reproduction (i.e. from
‘living fast and dying young’ to ‘living slow and dying old’).
Due to the evolution (and consequent complete dependence) on our large brains,
human life history is organized around the acquisition of cultural information. This
has always required inordinate amounts of time and energy dedicated to growth.
Over the past 200–250 years, humans in the industrialized world have experienced a
significant rupture to this pattern. This rupture is best explained as yet another
primate extension of pre-reproductive years and extension of lifespan. Fundamen-
tally, this transition is only different from previous transitions in that the dominant
evolutionary processes driving this exaggerated life history is cultural. This expla-
nation adequately addresses what previous demographic transition life history
explanations fail to address, especially in regard to autonomous adult humans opting
not to reproduce biologically at all.
In the case that my aforementioned assumptions prove incorrect, this analysis
should prove useful for the important reason that you can make a fairly reliable
prediction for biological reproduction given radical life extension (RLE). If RLE is
not achieved before 2050, but instead at some later date, 100, 150, or 500 years from
now, this will likely coincide with the indefinite postponement of current biological
reproduction in favour of current cultural reproduction. Therefore, any popular or
political opposition to the practical application of RLE breakthroughs on the basis
that they would lead to catastrophic overpopulation issues, are almost definitely
unfounded. Also, any scientist currently involved in research related to RLE should
162 8 Biocultural Theory of Human Reproduction

not fear that their breakthroughs will lead to major population problems that will
need to be solved at some future period of time.

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Atechnogenesis and Technocultural
Evolution 9

9.1 Problematizing the Singularity Metaphor

In the opening section of this work I considered the possibility of ‘technological

singularity’ from both the artificial general intelligence (AGI) and global brain (GBI)
perspective. However, the term ‘singularity’ in particular is problematic from the
point of view of understanding the evolutionary nature of this future transition on
scientific terms. As stated, the technological singularity concept was originally
conceived and developed in the physical sciences in reaction to the possibility of
encountering a prediction horizon resulting from the emergence of machine minds.
The term singularity was borrowed from the mathematical notion of singularity
where a radical material discontinuity in a physical system results in infinite values
in a finite amount of time (i.e. gravitational density of black holes). However, many
contemporary futurists and computer scientists are beginning to shy away from the
concept of technological singularity (Dvorsky 2014; Naam 2014; Bostrom 2014).
Computer scientist Ramez Naam explained most succinctly why man academics are
breaking away in a conversation with futurist George Dvorsky (2014):

‘Singularity’ in mathematics is a divide-by-zero moment, when the value goes from some
finite number to infinity in an eye blink. In physics, it’s a breakdown in our mathematical
models at a black hole. Smarter-than-human AI would be very cool. It would change our
world a lot. I don’t think it deserves a word anywhere near as grandiose as ‘Singularity’. It
wouldn’t be a divide-by-zero. The graph wouldn’t suddenly go to infinity. Being twice as
smart as a human doesn’t suddenly mean you make yourself infinitely smart.

Based on Last, C. (2017). Big Historical Foundations for Deep Future Speculations: Cosmic
Evolution, Atechnogenesis, and Technocultural Civilization. Foundations of Science, 22(1):
39–124. DOI: 10.1007/s10699-015-9434-y.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 165

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_9
166 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

Moreover, philosophers and futurists have noted that the singularity concept
appears to have developed many techno-utopian connections and similarities to the
Christian rapture (Cole-Turner 2012) (i.e. ‘rapture for the nerds’) and other religious
future beliefs (Hughes 2012). This may not in-and-of-itself be a bad development, as
it simply demonstrates an archetypal continuity in human culture for a higher state;
however, it is still questionable whether the term ‘singularity’ lends itself to serious
scientific inquiry regarding the human future (Bostrom 2014, p. 40). Even inventor
and futurist Ray Kurzweil, arguably the most well-known singularity theorist and
leading popularizer of the term ‘technological singularity’, admitted that the future
of technological evolution did not present us with an actual singularity in The
Singularity Is Near (2005, p. 34):

Of course, from a mathematical perspective, there is no discontinuity, no rupture, and the

growth rates remain finite, although extraordinary large. But from our currently limited
framework, this immanent event appears to be an acute and abrupt break in the continuity of
progress. I emphasize the word ‘currently’ because one of the most salient implications of
the Singularity will be a change in the nature of our ability to understand. We will become
vastly smarter as we merge with our technology.

In short, although when it comes to the ‘singularity’ we can still be ‘Vingeian’ or

‘Kurzweilian’ in the sense that we are approaching a qualitative transition in our
nature, the term singularity itself is more a by-product of our own limited level of
biological intelligence, as opposed to a description of an actual singularity.
This results in a tremendous conceptual tension within modern futurist theory
because the singularity concept is rooted in physical and mathematical theory, when
it is attempting to describe a process (not a single event) that is inherently evolution-
ary in its nature. Our civilization does not face a “black hole of intelligence” as the
concept of technological singularity suggests. Instead, when properly framed in big
historical terms I believe it is clear that we face the full emergence of a new
evolutionary pathway: the true birth and independence of cultural evolution. As
we covered when discussing cosmic evolution, networks of cultural symbols code
for inner conceptual experience, outward conceptual behaviour, as well as for
technological structures. This can be seen as analogous to the way that networks
for chemicals code for inner perceptual experience, outward perceptual behaviour, as
well as for biological structures. Consequently, the biocultural human lives in both a
perceptual and a conceptual cognitive landscape, and the technologies we produce
are an integral aspect to the cultural evolutionary process.

9.2 Singularity as Emergence of New Evolutionary Pathway

Therefore, when approaching the notion of singularity I will instead be proposing

and applying a theory of biocultural evolution within a cosmic evolutionary frame-
work that may give us a different perspective on human evolution and enable more
specific predictions about our future. Specifically, technological singularity theory
appears to be an attempt to describe the emergence of technological life, and in
9.2 Singularity as Emergence of New Evolutionary Pathway 167

particular the emergence of technological intelligent life, as stemming from our own
accelerating scientific (symbolic) activities (i.e. ‘when humans transcend biology’)
(Kurzweil 2005). And if our symbolic activities either A) allow us to merge with our
technologies and design our own substrate, or B) allow us to create self-producing
self-maintaining technological life from advances in robotics and artificial intelli-
gence, this would be a process whereby symbolic code produced technological
structures with evolutionary-cybernetic properties analogous to biological living
systems.
In the domains of evolutionary-cybernetics today there are many researchers that
have been referring to the emerging ‘life-like’ properties of our machines with
concepts like ‘postbiological life’ (Dick 2008, 2009), ‘machine life’ (Johnston
2008), ‘artificial life’ (Aguilar et al. 2014), or ‘living technology’ (Bedau et al.
2009). I prefer to think of these systems as natural and technological, while also
sharing the same properties and processes as biological systems, so the names that
make the most sense to me are ‘living technology’ or ‘technological life’. Further-
more, many astrobiological theorists now also assume that technological life
represents a natural extension of biological life with the potential to reshape the
cosmos (Gardner 2005; Kurzweil 2005; Smart 2009; Kelly 2010; Flores Martinez
2014). For example (Davies 2010, p. 160):

I think it is very likely—in fact inevitable—that biological intelligence is only a transitory

phenomenon, a fleeting phase in the evolution of intelligence in the universe.

Agreed, but how should we understand this phenomenon as progress is being

made in various fields related towards its actual creation? I think that when
contemplating the possible emergence of technological life there is only one analo-
gous known event in cosmic evolution: abiogenesis. Abiogenesis literally means
‘biology arising from not-biology’. After the process of abiogenesis, all life has been
produced via biogenesis, or ‘biological life arising from biological life’. In this stage
of biogenesis, biological evolution has produced three major domains of biological
life: archaea, bacteria, and eukarya (Woese et al. 1990). Archaea and bacteria are
prokaryotic, whereas the eukarya are living systems with a nucleus and membrane-
bound organelles, which includes most multicellular life (Woese et al. 1990).
However, humans do not fit neatly within the biological classification scheme
because our informational properties are not simply embedded within biochemistry.
As we have discussed, the emergence of the genus Homo represents the emergence
of a new evolutionary pathway, and the emergence of a biochemical lineage of forms
that also produce symbolic information. Consequently, humans do not simply
consist of variant chemical structures harvesting energy to create more fit replicates
of similar forms, but variant chemical and variant symbolic structures. Therefore, the
emergence of humanity represents the emergence of a new evolution, meaning that
the emergence of humanity can only be compared to the origin of life itself (Turchin
1977, p. 84).
Cultural evolution is a new pathway, but it is a pathway that has not gained its
own independence. Culture is dependent on biogenesis for its own existence and
168 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

Abiogenesis -> Biogenesis

Biogenesis -> atechnogenesis

Simple chemical systems form
autocatalyic populations and acquire
Atechonogenogenesis -> technogenesis
biological properties of autopoietic Biological forms autopoictically
(self-) growth, maintenance, and grow, maintain, and reproduce
reproducation. biological forms and evolve via Biocultural forms grow, maintain, and
mechanisms of variation and reproduce biological and
selection, eventually producing technological forms, which both
advanced forms with the ability to evolve via mechanisms of variation
modify their own forms (i.e. and selection, eventually producing
technology) with aid of cultural technocultural forms with living
symbols. properties (i.e. autopoietic (self-)
growth, maintenance, and
reproduction) and the ability to
intentionally direct their own future
evolution.

Fig. 9.1 Abiogenesis to technogenesis. Biological life to technological life with an arrow of time.
In the same way that the process of abiogenesis led to the process of biogenesis with the emergence
of (blind) complex adaptive systems capable of growing, maintaining, and reproducing their
biochemical structures, the process of atechnogenesis will lead to the process of technogenesis,
which will be a world of (aware) complex adaptive systems capable of purposefully growing,
maintaining, and reproducing their technocultural structures

thus all of human evolution is a biocultural phenomenon. As mentioned, if symbolic

systems manage to construct technological systems with biological properties
(i.e. technological life), this would no longer be the case. The biocultural being
would become a transitory stage between the worlds of the biochemical and the
worlds of the technocultural (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2). This notion that we are a biocultural
bridge between the world of biological life and the world of technological life is the
essence of my approach to understanding the human phenomenon (for a historical
overview on the intersection between biological–technological evolution) (Dyson
1998). However, this does not necessarily mean that humanity is going to be
replaced by technological life; instead, as I will attempt to explore, it seems equally
plausible that humanity would merge with its own creations by radically redesigning
the biological substrate upon which we have evolved up until this point in our
evolutionary development even though the term ‘technological singularity’ may be
scientifically problematic.
From this evolutionary perspective, as the architects of the modern project
realized, we are not quite biological animal, and we are not quite technologically
divine: our existence is a dramatic temporal tension in the act of becoming some-
thing far beyond our imagination (i.e. beyond what we can currently represent with
our symbolic structures or create with our technological structures). Thus, my
approach to a biocultural theory of human evolution is perhaps best described as
explicitly modernist and ‘Nietzschean’ (Nietzsche 1883, p. 27):

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.
9.2 Singularity as Emergence of New Evolutionary Pathway 169

Fig. 9.2 Cosmic evolutionary transitions. Unified cosmic evolutionary process with an arrow of
time. Cosmic evolution spans the whole of local universal history in one interconnected process
whereby one form of change directly generates a new form of change in a progressive direction with
the arrow of time. In this context the human species is a ‘bridge’ between the biochemical and
technocultural realms of cosmic evolution via the process of atechnogenesis. We emerged with the
generation of cultural symbol systems coding for new types of awareness, behaviour, and technol-
ogy. These systems will allow us to ‘transcend’ the biochemical state and produce the next level of
complexity construction within which the technocultural pathway will gain its independence:
evolution fundamentally built on symbols, awareness, technology

Humanity has always dreamed of an ‘other’ ‘higher’ world in the non-secular

dimensions (i.e. not of Earth and this world). However, in line with modernist
humanist-atheist thought, our full commitment should still be to this world in the
secular dimension towards a higher world: superhumanity, the only way to complete
the modernist project.
Historically, biological evolutionary theory has had a difficult time understanding
the human phenomenon within the context of life as a whole. Often times evolution-
ary theorists have been too heavily influenced by the neo-Darwinian synthesis
(i.e. the merger of natural selection and genetics), consequently reducing all
human behaviour and existence to genetic inheritance and gene frequencies (Laland
et al. 2014). This approach may be useful for understanding the evolution of the
biological world, but it is clearly inadequate for understanding biocultural humanity,
especially biocultural humanity within the historical process. Many unique
properties of the human species, including reflexive aware mind, symbolic
170 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

information processing, evolving technology, and linguistic thought and communi-

cation defy reductions to genetics. Therefore, theorists in the humanities have
typically been critical of evolutionary biological explanations that reduce humans
within neo-Darwinian models. Despite this, contemporary evolutionary
anthropologists appear ready to work towards a post-reductive theory of human
evolution that is truly biocultural in its nature (Marks 2015).
In my attempt at a holistic biocultural theory of human evolution, I consider
myself as attempting to build upon the approach to cultural evolution that was
stressed by the late anthropologist Leslie White (1949, p. xviii):

Culture may be considered a self-contained, self-determined process; one that can be

explained only in terms of itself.

Only in terms of itself: this is to say that culture is not caused or determined by
biological processes. Culture may currently depend on a particular genetic and
neurological foundation, but it is its own emergent process, operating according to
entirely different evolutionary ends. As mentioned, in biological evolution diversifi-
cation does not lead to the integration of the biological order itself. In contrast, as
cultural evolution diversifies there does appear a direction towards an integration of
the symbolic order itself (which is what I mean by ‘operating according to entirely
different evolutionary ends’). Self-contained, self-determined process: this is to say
that in order to support cultural evolution with symbolic inheritance and creation you
must first have a high degree of self-reflexivity and self-awareness. In other words,
aware mind(s) bridge the gap between the world of biological evolution and the
world of cultural evolution, lifting life into a totally new domain of virtual creation
and imagination (i.e. the self becomes aware of what is not (symbolic imagination),
but also of what could be (symbolic representation)) (Frye 1947, p. 47):

We are fearfully and wonderfully made, but in terms of what our imaginations suggest we
could be, we are a hideous botch. . .

Although cultural evolution is distinct from biological evolution in these respects,

many evolutionary scientists have recognized that the cultural evolutionary pathway
displays many striking similarities to the biological evolutionary pathway, and that
those similarities uniquely manifest in the human species (Tomasello et al. 1993;
Caldwell and Millen 2008; Laland 2008; Tennie et al. 2009; Last 2014). However,
here I am arguing that this pathway is starting to develop its own independence from
biological evolution that may enable humanity to become an entirely new form of
life founded on an aware mind and a self-designed existential substrate. The point of
proposing a new biocultural evolutionary theory is to better understand and contex-
tualize this potential transition within an evolutionary-cybernetic framework. This
theory and conceptual framework emphasizes that the phenomena driving a new
evolutionary pathway—culture, language, technology, and aware mind—have
existed for millions of years as part of one continuous emergent process. I think
this process is best conceptualized as:
9.2 Singularity as Emergence of New Evolutionary Pathway 171

Atechnogenesis (AY-tech-noh-JEN-e-siss): a cultural process in cosmic evolution whereby

symbolic information processing and reproduction transcends mindless design (natural
selection) by developing a self-producing substrate of mind design.

In the same way that ‘abiogenesis’ means ‘biology arising from not-biology’,
‘atechnogenesis’ refers to a process whereby ‘technology arises from
not-technology’. This may sound counter-intuitive at first but the whole of human
evolution can be conceptualized as a gradual (yet accelerating) process where
symbolically mediated mind was able to conjure technological structures out of
‘not-technology’. Every technology that has ever existed—from an Oldowan hand
axe to the most advanced supercomputer—is an organization of atomic systems
designed by an aware mind from constituent elements that were previously ordered
or organized within a formerly geological, chemical, or biological physical structure.
This is to say that the emergence of any technology is a symbolic process where the
mind creates technological organization out of ‘not-technology’.
In nature, biology is self-produced and self-maintaining, or in other words it is
‘autopoietic’. Biological organizations separate themselves (create a boundary) from
the environment and adapt to various environmental challenges, i.e. they ‘earn a
living’ or they lose their organization/existence. In contrast, technological
organizations are not self-produced or self-maintaining; our technology does not
generate its own boundary and earn a living, yet. However, with contemporary
research projects explicitly attempting to achieve the goal of ‘exploiting life’s
principles in technology’ (Bedau et al. 2009, 2013; Aguilar et al. 2014) this may
not be the case for much longer. If achieved, a symbolic, mind-directed process
would have generated biological processes in technology, potentially leading
towards a world of increasingly biological–technological hybrid life forms, and
eventually, a world of technological life forms: atechnogenesis to technogenesis.
To my knowledge, the concept of ‘atechnogenesis’ is novel. However, the
concept of ‘technogenesis’ is not novel. Historically the term ‘technogenesis’ has
been used by postmodern academics to describe the co-evolution of humans and
technology (Hayles 2012, p. 10):

[C]oncept of technogenesis, the idea that humans and technics have coevolved together.

However, considering the concept ‘biogenesis’ literally means ‘biological life

from biological life’, the concept ‘technogenesis’ should probably be interpreted to
mean ‘technological life from technological life’. Currently, all technology that
exists on our planet would not exist if it were not for the biocultural activities of
the human mind. Biocultural activity transforms not-technology into technology.
Therefore, all technology that arises on our planet is part of ‘atechnogenesis’. This is
for the simple reason that, fundamentally, technology is not self-produced. If the
biocultural human disappeared, technology would stop being produced. Even mod-
ern technologies produced on automated technological assembly lines are funda-
mentally conceptualized, established, and maintained by biocultural humans at some
point in the process. Technology is not yet completely autopoietic,
172 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

i.e. self-producing. From this perspective we are not yet in a world of technogenesis.
And so, I would ask for a re-conceptualization of the historical use of the world
‘technogenesis’.
This evolutionary framing of the relationship between biocultural humans and
technology could be helpful for thinking about cosmic evolution as a whole and
making progress in understanding many different phenomena, including most criti-
cally, the nature of the ‘post-singularity world’. For example, the biochemical
evolutionary pathway has dominated the evolution of life on earth. The emergence
of this pathway via the process of abiogenesis is not completely understood, but
biochemists are in universal agreement that it was a process in which autocatalytic
chemical systems achieved independent growth, maintenance, and reproduction
(Pross & Pascal 2013). By analogy, atechnogenesis would represent a process
(carried out by biocultural humans over millions of years) in which symbolic
system(s) eventually achieved growth, maintenance, and reproduction independent
from biological evolution’s genetically programmed substrate (i.e. we will purpose-
fully redesign our genetic substrate and/or enhance/replace our functional biological
substrate with nanotechnology/robotics). This concept fits with technologist Kevin
Kelly’s notion that technology is an emerging kingdom of life (i.e. ‘the technium’)
that has yet to break away from biology (Kelly 2010) (i.e. yet to achieve
technogenesis).
The most important shift in the process is a shift towards a world where the
existential substrate switches its design mechanism: from the mechanism of what has
traditionally been called ‘natural selection’ towards a mechanism that has/can be
called many things, i.e. ‘intentional’, ‘purposeful’, ‘aware’, ‘cultural’, ‘mind’ selec-
tion. I am less interested in what this mechanism is called and more interested in the
fact that this cognitive selection process is driven by self-reflexivity and self-
awareness enabling biocultural humans to direct their own evolution with cultural
symbols; is laden with internal meaning, intention, and purpose; and could eventu-
ally culminate with an existential substrate that reflects this mind-driven symbolic
ability (i.e. the world as the human mind wants to see it). Consequently, if the
process of atechnogenesis reaches its completion and the age of technogenesis
commences, the material composition of humanity’s existential substrate
(e.g. carbon, silicon) will be less important than the fact that the material composi-
tion of humanity’s existential substrate will be purposefully and intentionally
designed.

9.3 Towards a Theory of Atechnogenesis

The road to a world of technogenesis has not been easy (and will likely still be paved
with many obstacles in the twenty-first century). In order to support atechnogenesis,
biocultural humans have engaged in an ever-present and unique life history trade-off
between dedicating time and energy towards biological growth, maintenance, and
reproduction (Last 2014). We do not often think of the relationship between biology
and culture, yet at the same time, this life history relationship fundamentally
9.3 Towards a Theory of Atechnogenesis 173

separates humanity from biological life. All forms of biological life spend their entire
life history on only biological growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Therefore, the
emergence of cultural evolution presented new opportunities but also presented an
irreconcilable internal tension between twin modes of reproductive output
(i.e. should I dedicate most of my time and energy towards biological offspring, or
my symbolic and/or technological ‘offspring’?). Thus the theory of atechnogenesis
represents a biocultural theory attempting to explain the full completion of this
internal tension via the full maturation of the first independent evolutionary pathway
since the emergence of biological life itself.
I realize that the concept ‘technocultural’ is also novel; however, it is also a
necessary addition to this system of thought. Although the term’s meaning is
intuitive I will quickly describe it with reference to the previous evolutionary
modes of complexity construction. First, physicochemical evolution describes the
process of evolution of simple atomic and molecular systems that are ordered in
accordance with simple and predictable physical and chemical laws, i.e. they have no
ability to actively control their behaviour or organize their own internal system
dynamics. Second, biochemical evolution describes the process of evolution within
complex self-producing cellular systems with the ability to actively control their
reaction to environmental conditions (i.e. adaptation), but without the ability to
significantly modify their own system components/functioning (hence the notori-
ously ‘unintelligent’ ‘unconscious’ nature of biological evolution). Abiogenesis
bridges or connects physicochemical evolution to biochemical evolution. Finally,
technocultural evolution describes the process of evolution within complex self-
producing symbolic and technological systems with the ability to both actively
control their reaction to environmental conditions (i.e. adaptation) and the ability
to significantly modify their own system components/functioning in real time.
Atechnogenesis is the process that bridges or connects biochemical evolution to
technocultural evolution:

Technoculture (Tek-no-kul-ture): an evolutionary process fundamentally built on awareness,

symbols and technology enabling the ability to both actively control reaction to environ-
mental conditions and to significantly modify their own system components/functioning in
real-time.

The theory of atechnogenesis makes two major predictions about the future of
human evolution:

1. Biocultural humans should increasingly shift reproductive effort (time/energy)

from biological reproduction to cultural (or sociocultural) reproduction.
2. Biocultural humans should increasingly replace functional biochemical structures
designed by natural selection with functional technological intelligently designed
structures.

I explored the potential manifestation of this first trend above (Last 2014), where I
argue that human evolution can be conceptualized as one continuous process of
174 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

delaying biological reproduction further and further (i.e. extending childhood and/or
pushing back age-at-first-conception) in order to invest more and more time and
energy in sociocultural growth and reproduction. This trend towards extended
childhood or delayed age-at-first-conception first became exaggerated in early
members of the genus Homo and remains a crucially distinct feature of modern
humans (Hillard et al. 2000). In other words, most species do not have the luxury of
15–20+ years of social development before reaching sexual maturity and parent-
hood. This deep evolutionary extension of human sociocultural development
became again further extended in the modern industrial world where there was an
increased reliance on scientific, intellectual, specialized knowledge to organize and
maintain new levels of industrial advance, which required more education, and thus
more time and energy dedicated to sociocultural growth (Galor and Weil 2000).
Consequently, this period was characterized by a shift in biological reproduction
from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’: in traditional agricultural societies women typically
had/have 5–6+ children, but in modern industrial societies women typically
had/have 2–3 or fewer children (Lawson and Mace 2011). In the most advanced
socioeconomic (post-)industrial (post-)modern regions today this extension of socio-
cultural development and reduction in biological reproduction is becoming even
more pronounced with the quite novel phenomenon of some adults opting against
biological reproduction altogether. Thus I further argued that this life history theory
of culture and biology as in direct competition for time/energy can explain what
demographers and economists call the ‘demographic/economic paradox’; a paradox
characterized by developed countries with high urban density falling below replace-
ment level fertility independent of cultural region (e.g. Asia, North America, Europe,
etc.) (Weil 2004).
Indeed, the human species has been undergoing an unprecedented reproductive
transition between (approximately) 1950 and 2015 where the world’s Total Fertility
Rate (TFR) has dropped from 4.95 to 2.36 (replacement level is 2.1). Contemporary
statistical projections of the global human population for the twenty-first century
predict gradual increases towards a possible stabilization between 9 and 12 billion
people (Gerland et al. 2014). However, the ‘demographic/economic paradox’ has not
been explained nor accounted for in statistical projections, which could suggest that
if we develop sufficiently broad global socioeconomic development programmes for
inclusive economic growth and social equality we could start to see an eventual
plateau followed by a decline of global population (Randers 2012). According to
World Factbook data, as of 2014 there are now 116 countries that are below
replacement level fertility and 32 countries that have a fertility level below 1.5.
According to United Nations data (which only sampled countries with at least
90,000 inhabitants) as of 2013 there are 71 countries that are below replacement
level fertility and 27 countries that have fertility below 1.5 (United Nations 2013).
These declines can be statistically correlated with GDP. However, GDP is not the
only important metric to understand declining fertility, as individual rights and
sociocultural opportunity are more or at least equally important (especially for
women). Thus when it comes to understanding the future of human demographics
9.3 Towards a Theory of Atechnogenesis 175

the emphasis should be on socioeconomic development and not just economic

development.
From the perspective of the theory of atechnogenesis declining biological repro-
duction is an indication that cultural evolution is starting to permanently outcompete
biological evolution. In other words, the further we remove constraints of basic
biological necessity and the more cultural opportunities present themselves for
future exploration, the more we could see people opting to spend time and energy
on cultural growth, maintenance, and reproduction (e.g. music, dance, sport, science,
philosophy, engineering, anything sociocultural) at the expense of biological growth,
maintenance, and reproduction. However, if this prediction correctly captures the
twenty-first-century life history, it would mean that humanity is undergoing a
fundamental culturally mediated life history transition towards even further delays
in biological reproduction and increased social development. The importance of this
is that previous life history transitions towards delayed biological reproduction and
increased social development—which have occurred four times throughout primate
evolution, e.g. prosimians to monkeys, monkey to apes, apes to humans—co-
evolved with encephalization and life extension (Last 2014) (Figs. 9.3 and 9.4).
Thus, if biological reproduction continues to decline globally in correlation with
broad global socioeconomic development we should not fear a demographic implo-
sion towards extinction but instead a species-wide transition towards
encephalization and radical life extension (Last 2014). From this perspective the
evolution of the human species is the evolution of increasing the gap between

Fig. 9.3 Evolution of cranial capacity. Evolution of cranial capacity throughout primate life
history. Throughout the history of the primate order cranial capacity has also progressively
increased with life history transitions. With the next transition from biocultural humans to
technocultural transhumans we will see a further expansion of cranial capacity with the develop-
ment of biology–technology hybrid thinking. Although the chart suggests a future cranial capacity
equivalent of a doubling of current human capability, in reality the expansion will likely also be
unbounded
176 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

Fig. 9.4 Evolution of life expectancy. Evolution of life expectancy throughout primate life history.
Throughout the history of the primate order life expectancy has progressively improved with life
history transitions. With the next transition from biocultural humans to technocultural transhumans
we will see a further extension of life expectancy aided by developments in genetics, nanotechnol-
ogy, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Although the chart suggests a future life expectancy of
120 this number will likely be unbounded

biological generations to the point where the gaps vanish (i.e. the end of biological
reproduction). In the theory of atechnogenesis, this is where trend 2) towards internal
merger with technology could feature more prominently.
The second crucial prediction for the theory of atechnogenesis is that biocultural
humans will start to replace/redesign functional biochemical structures via genetic,
nanotechnological, and robotic manipulation. Indeed, humans are already beginning
to develop technologies that surpass biological functionality. The evidence that
humans are replacing their biology with these functional technological analogues
can be found in countless bioengineering and cybernetic examples, from robotic
prosthetic limbs and organs (Campbell 2014), nanotechnology that can interface
with/replace cellular machinery (Tian et al. 2012), brain–machine interface for direct
brain-to-brain communication (Pais-Vieira et al. 2013; Rao et al. 2014), and other
technological mechanisms involved in improving working memory, sensory percep-
tion and potentially even forms of telepathy and telekinesis (Nicolelis 2011; Kaku
2014).
This has led many to realize that the ‘cyborgs are already among us’ (e.g. in
popular press: Ferguson 2012; Carroll 2014; Duhaime-Ross 2014; House 2014;
Pepitone 2014). But that is not news. What is news is that human cyborgs are likely
to be increasingly among us potentially changing society in qualitatively new
sociocultural dimensions. Of course, this transition towards humans that experience
reality through increased technological mediation, as opposed to biological media-
tion, will not happen in 1 year or decade, it will likely be a process that occurs at a
gradual yet accelerating pace throughout the twenty-first century as the requisite
9.3 Towards a Theory of Atechnogenesis 177

technology emerges and as access diffuses. How fast it will emerge and diffuse will
depend partly on Moore’s law, but also on how much time and energy we dedicate
towards developing the requisite baseline technologies as well as our sociocultural
reaction towards practically implementing them. Thus the future of these
developments includes sociopolitical dimensions that are difficult and/or impossible
to predict because they depend on our collective will.
Therefore, depending on various sociopolitical factors, in the coming decades
major biology–technology mergers may remain mostly in the medical domain as
more and more nano- and robotic technologies acquire properties enabling them to
outcompete biology in terms of basic functionality (Freitas 1999, 2005; Drexler
2013). This will include humans regularly adopting ‘bionic’ limbs, organs, exploring
new sensory modalities with technological prosthetics, and even experimenting with
internal nanotechnology for the regulation of metabolic pathways and general
cognitive functionality. Over this time period cultural acceptance of ‘cyborgs’ will
likely increase with social exposure, leading to more recreational attempts to merge
biology–technology, not out of functional biological necessity, but rather out of a
playful curious exploration of what could potentially be: i.e. running faster, jumping
higher, increasing/expanding perception, increasing ability to learn, improve mem-
ory, etc. Here new cyborg and robotics cultural events, both intellectual and physical
(and maybe spiritual?), are likely to play a dominant role in showcasing new types of
human forms and abilities.
Throughout the entire process, medical developments will eventually enable
radically longer life span and biological rejuvenation, but the more recreational or
professional pursuits will also enable radical encephalization through deeper neo-
cortex interconnection to the internet, artificial intelligence and other human minds,
etc. (Kurzweil 2012). Thus, whereas previous life history transitions were biologi-
cally mediated through an expansion of the neocortex (e.g. monkeys to apes; apes to
humans) the life history transition from humanity to ‘superhumanity’ will likely be
technologically mediated through a further expansion of the neocortex (i.e. biology–
technology hybrid thinking). In this sense the twenty-first century could be the
century where we start to reach the end of the ‘Nietzschean’ ‘abyss’ which separates
the animal from the superhuman and reach the shores of our long-awaited higher
world.
Technological replacements will eventually be more durable and easier to con-
trol/modify than our contemporary biological substrate (Freitas 1999, 2005). There-
fore, as biological functions naturally fail with age, medical professionals (in the
form of either humans, AI or most likely networks of humans and AIs) will
increasingly turn to technological replacements until the biocultural human subject
has become transformed into a technocultural transhuman subject. In the end,
non-genetically enhanced/rejuvenated biology may not survive the technological
merger. Biology will be a good teacher along the way, enabling us to mimic its basic
properties, but in the end the sophistication with which we will be able to design
matter (i.e. our technology) will be of a higher design than biological natural
selection, thus eventually culminating in a transition from biocultural humanity to
technocultural transhumanity.
178 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

In summary, I have attempted to introduce a process: atechnogenesis to

technogenesis, which places an emphasis on the technological singularity as a
gradual evolutionary transition from the world of the biochemical to the world of
the biocultural to the world of the technocultural. Contemporary singularity theory
biases the twenty-first century transformative potential towards the emergence of
artificial general intelligence and deemphasizes the potential transformative role of
technologically enhanced biocultural humans. Consequently, many technologists
and philosophers are reaching a dystopian eschatological horizon reminiscent of
Bill Joy’s (in)famous Wired article “Why the future doesn’t need us” (Joy 2000). In
these dystopian visions futurists speculate that the convergence of genetics, nano-
technology, and robotics will lead to the extinction of humanity (Barrat 2013;
Armstrong 2014; Bostrom 2014). However, it is possible that the twenty-first
century will be a world in which self-evolving humans will play a dominant role
in the transition between biological and technological intelligence through the
exploration of an intermediate type of biological–technological hybrid thinking
and symbiotic relationship with artificial intelligence. The theory of atechnogenesis
emphasizes this potential evolutionary pathway, integrates technological singularity
theory with our understanding of biocultural evolution, and makes critical
predictions for the future of humanity in the twenty-first century related to
demographics, sociocultural life, and biological functionality.

9.4 Speculations on the Technocultural Era

When we think of the technocultural era in big historical terms we are not so much
confronted with the future of ‘humans’ (as we typically think of humans) but the
future of self-designed intelligent-spiritual ‘beings’ self-organized towards a higher
level of thought. Therefore, when we enter the technological world we enter the
academic regions of highest speculation. But here we put the concepts
atechnogenesis, technogenesis, and technoculture to another practical test. The
technological singularity concept forces us to imagine a black hole of experience,
an event horizon beyond which we could know nothing for certain about the deep
future. In contrast, with the concepts of atechnogenesis, technogenesis, and
technoculture we are confronted with a new evolutionary pathway, a pathway
fundamentally (1) directed by aware minds, (2) mediated through symbolic-
linguistic codes, and (3) built upon a self-designed substrate. From this new evolu-
tionary groundwork the world of the deep future of speculation opens, and a vista of
possibility is revealed; a possibility space perhaps constrained only by our imagina-
tion (Table 9.1).
Computer scientist Viktoras Veitas and philosopher David Weinbaum recently
proposed a futuristic evolutionary paradigm, the ‘World of Views’, which may be
useful to help us situate an exploration of the technocultural world. The ‘World of
Views’ attempts to understand a post-scarcity, post-singularity, evolutionary land-
scape where the primary driver of change is the ‘multiplicity of unique, modular, and
open co-evolving worldviews’ (Veitas and Weinbaum 2015, p. 504). This ‘World of
9.4 Speculations on the Technocultural Era 179

Table 9.1 The next evolution

Directed by aware minds Biological evolution is not consciously directed by a mind, it is a
consequence of biochemical variation levels of living system
hierarchies, and selection of that variation depending on internal
organismal dynamics and external environmental dynamics. In
contrast, post-atechnogenesis evolution will become a
consciously directed process with aware minds completely
taking the place of natural selection, and consciously selecting
the cultural and technological world into the future
Mediated through symbolic- Biological evolution is built on the foundation of the genetic
linguistic codes code, which are structured programmes enabling functional
capabilities and complex adaptation to varying environments
through generational natural selection. This process is mediated
by the inheritance, exchange, and expression of genetic codes
between and within organisms. In contrast, post-atechnogenesis,
technocultural evolution will become built on the foundation of
linguistic codes, which enable functional adaptation to varying
environments without death to the individual host. Furthermore,
this process will become mediated from the inheritance,
exchange, and expression of cultural ideas and worldviews
between aware minds. This interconnection can be
conceptualized as a new type of sexual activity, especially when
the mind finds a deeper interconnection
Built upon a technological Biological evolution is built upon a biological substrate
substrate composed of chemical elements. Therefore, throughout life
history all living organisms have been fundamentally biological
in their basic nature. In contrast, the future evolutionary process
will increasingly transition towards existing upon a modifiable
technological substrate that mimics and improves upon
contemporary biological processes of growth, maintenance, and
reproduction, but also, control and feedback between subsystem
components. Such a substrate allows for deeper interconnection
with other technological beings and allows for greater mind
control (self-directed evolution)
It is important to note that this next evolution has existed since the birth of cultural evolution;
however, the technocultural pathway has yet to gain its own independence because technology
cannot yet outcompete biology. However, once this occurs aware minds will be able to escape the
limitations and constraints that exist due to dependence on a biological substrate designed without
conscious intention, i.e. biochemical natural selection

Views’ paradigm is built from the foundations of the philosophy of worldviews

(Aerts et al. 1994; Vidal 2014) that encompasses an ‘objective/external’ component,
a ‘subjective/internal’ component, and an ‘intersubjective/social’ component. Thus
we can utilize this paradigm to both de-emphasize evolutionary change that results
from the inherent to the future of cultural and technological evolutionary change that
results from the inherent constraints of biology, and instead focus emphasis on
opportunities inherent to the future of cultural and technological evolutionary change
directed by the personal and interpersonal co-evolution of worldview structures: ‘A
World of Views’. In this exploration we assume that the emergence of primarily
technocultural beings will allow for a much higher perception of ‘objective/external’
180 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

reality, dramatically altered ‘subjective/internal’ experience due to the ability to

process and understand large quantities of information more efficiently (conse-
quently changing our perceptions of subjective space and time), and also heightened
ability for ‘intersubjective/social’ connection with other technocultural beings
through direct mind-to-mind communication.
We can add to this view within our own big historical paradigm to make basic
structural predictions. First, throughout big history we have seen a steady rise in
energy flow (Chaisson 2011a, b), that has enabled living system complexity further
and further from thermodynamic equilibrium, and towards higher order (Aunger
2007a, b). Also, throughout the history of living systems we have seen a steady rise
in the ability to organize information with ever more complex biological or techno-
logical information processing systems (Corning 2002; Smart 2009). Both of these
processes related to energy flow and information processing should continue to
increase into the technocultural world, with further energy control being achieved
via renewables (Bradford 2006) and nuclear fusion (Niele 2005), and further infor-
mation processing being achieved via the continued progress related to computation
(Kurzweil 2005). Furthermore the general evolutionary properties related to differ-
entiation and integration should both continue with differentiation manifesting from
the independence of self-directed cultural creativity in post-scarcity economy
(Veitas and Weinbaum 2015) and integration manifesting through the dissolution
of national borders and the formation of a distributed planetary network organized in
the collaborative commons (i.e. post-property, post-labour social economy) (Rifkin
2014).
The combination of higher energy flow, information processing, cultural differ-
entiation, and sociopolitical integration could create the foundations for an emergent
organization with a far higher possibility space than any historical society. This shift
will include a qualitative leap in all of the dimensions of our personal lives, including
how we relate to our own mind and life, how we relate to the world, and how we
relate to each other (not to mention who we call ‘we’) (Hofstadter 2003). Histori-
cally, these dimensions of our experience have been shaped by our evolved
biological perceptions, the replication of our symbolic structures, and the sociopo-
litical structures of historical civilization. However, in a technocultural world the
mechanisms for sensory perception, replication of symbolic structures, and sociopo-
litical organization will all have foundationally changed, likely leading towards a
planetary network of unprecedented cultural and technological creation: tens of
billions of minds in free association, exploring deeper levels of interconnection,
and internal/external reflection than possible within a purely biological substrate.
In the technocultural world the interconnected transhumanist goals of radical life
extension and radical life expansion will most likely define the era. Thus, funda-
mentally we will approach the technocultural world from two directions: what does it
mean to live indefinitely, and what does it mean to experience a higher qualitative
cognitive landscape? First, radical life extension will have been achieved because the
technological substrate can be more easily controlled by the mind in regards to basic
functionality and efficiency. Futurist and gerontologist Aubrey de Grey has called
this possibility the ‘Methuselarity’ (de Grey 2015): a point in the future when
9.4 Speculations on the Technocultural Era 181

technology is advancing faster than we age, allowing individuals to reach Longevity

Escape Velocity (LEV) (de Grey 2004). This is an important concept to understand
because historically we have conceptualized age in exactly the opposite way, i.e. the
longer we have lived the shorter we have expected our future life to be, etc. But
throughout the process of transforming our existential substrate we should start to
experience exactly the reverse, i.e. our future life expectancy will start expanding
before us.
Here it is important to remember that, in history, the biocultural human is not just
subject to a sociopolitical tyranny (i.e. ‘man is born free, and everywhere he is in
chains’) (Rousseau 1762), but also a biological tyranny. In a biological substrate a
biocultural being is subject to a certain tyranny in relation to sleep and food in
particular. If your biological body is tired, well then it is time to sleep, or else it will
be difficult to do anything else. If your biological body is hungry, well then it is time
to eat, and so on. Although it is possible to develop a certain control over these
processes—via the use of your mind—ultimately your biological substrate is a
limiting constraint if you want to continue existing and functioning. Ideally, one
must contemplate methods for healthy biological maintenance (Heylighen 2014).
This creates a great deal of internal mental tension, and in many ways structures
(or at least constrains) the way we live our individual and collective lives. However,
in a technological substrate, the mind is likely to have far more control over the
nature of conscious experience; not just related to sleeping and eating, but also in
regards to physical healing, durability, attention, etc. Fundamentally, this will enable
radically new levels of personal longevity.
Many have stated that this potential ‘end of death’ could lead to the ‘death of
meaning’. As far as we know a horizon of meaning constitutes itself against an anti-
background of nothingness or death. Throughout the entirety of human life history
the game of life has been the game of generation and death after generation of death.
Being are ‘thrown’ (Heidegger 1962) into existence, struggle to make sense of their
existence (search for meaning), and then fall out of existence. The human being
added conceptual awareness to the struggle. Human civilization added collective
learning to the struggle. Humans individually and humanity collectively create or
participate in ‘immortal cultures’ and ‘make history’. In some psychoanalytic
theories this participatory act in culture can be interpreted as a traumatic repression
of our irreducible mortality and finitude (Brown 1959, p. 101). This drive against
death means that humans are not ‘simply’ mortal and finite entities but rather mortal
and finite entities ‘pathologized’ by desires for immortality and infinity (Freud 1920;
Zupančič 2000). Dealing with the conceptual awareness of this paradoxical existen-
tial matrix of mortality–immortality, finitude–infinity, has thus also been
hypothesized as both a motivation of civilization action (Cave 2012) and a constitu-
tive problem of civilization action (Zupančič 2017).
How do we human beings use our sexual and creative energy in light of the fact
that we all going to die and return to non-being/nothingness? How would we use our
sexual and creative energy if we were involved in an endless process of becoming?
We can frame this internal psychological tension as both an inspiration (i.e. an
182 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

‘inspired suffering’ of history (Frye 1970)), and something to be collectively over-

come (Brown 1967, p. 53):

The conclusion of the whole matter—Blake: ‘We are in a world of Generation and death, and
this world we must cast off.’

In the technocultural world we could imagine that the existential contradiction

between being and non-being, mortality and immortality, finitude and infinity could
open onto a totally another existential field. Perhaps in this other existential field the
very framing of this topic could cease to make sense. It seems like a fundamental
limit of the human mind to imagine a world where we ‘cast off’ the world of
generation and death towards an entirely different world. Would it be a transition
from a world of impersonal eschatology (biological aging and death) towards a
world of personal eschatology? Would the life force of our internal desire for future
creativity and sexuality be transformed and sustained indefinitely? Would the
question be rendered redundant due to the sublimation of the individual self into a
higher entity (i.e. the sacrifice of the particular for the universal)? The only reference
we have to imagine such a world comes from the Gods of our own cultural design
and imagination. In this sense we can only say that the world of the technocultural
being is on a whole different experiential level than that of the biocultural world. The
biocultural human may not be able to hand or understand effective immortality. The
constraints presented by both death and time are both so overwhelmingly important
towards the construction of human meaning that the end of both can only mean that
the burden of meaning creation will shift more and more towards our own internal
urge for more life and experience.
Carl Sagan once famously remarked that ‘the secrets of evolution are death and
time —’ (Sagan 1980, p. 3) but he meant this in the historical sense that differential
survival over the course of billions of years has led to the complex biological world
we see around us today. When thinking about the future of evolution perhaps the real
secrets of evolution are to be found on the other side of death, and the problems that
arise when beings have all the time in the world. For us the fact of finite time and the
uncontrollable nature of our inevitable personal eschatology is a real that our whole
collective self unconsciously revolves. If this is not the case for the technocultural
being, then everything changes: sense of identity, perception of time and space,
experience of being, relation to the cosmos. As mathematician Stephen Wolfram
stated (2011):

Effective human immortality will be achieved. And it’ll be the single largest discontinuity in
human history. I wonder what’s on the other side though.

Beyond immortality the deepest possibilities and surprises of the technocultural

world will likely come, not from radical life extension, but from radical life expan-
sion, in terms of cognitive growth and interconnection. Therefore, when we explore
the technocultural world experientially, we reach a world of deeply integrated minds
in planetary interconnection, and whatever that interconnection will birth.
9.4 Speculations on the Technocultural Era 183

This potential future integration would be a continuation of past cosmic evolu-

tionary metasystems, where new levels or hierarchies have been achieved through
higher synergistic interconnection (Miller 1978; Corning 2014). Thus, in the
technocultural world, the real action could be occurring on an entirely new intersub-
jective level of full mind–body consciousness (Chorost 2011). Cyberneticist
Valentin Turchin thoughtfully contemplated the possibility of a deeply integrated
human super-being (1977, p. 259):

How far will integration of individuals go? There is no doubt that in the future (and perhaps
not too far in the future) direct exchange of information among nervous systems of individ-
ual people (leading to their physical integration) will become possible.

What does it mean to expect a higher level of qualitative experience? The future
emergence of a new qualitative dimension may be seen as analogous to the way that
symbolic art is commonplace for biocultural humans, yet completely absent in the
biochemical world (Conkey 1997). Art was a qualitative emergence that resulted
from the increased informational transfer abilities acquired through the expansion of
the neocortex and the evolution of language. Of course the same goes for the other
uniquely human cultural activities like sciences, poetry, philosophy, mathematics,
music, etc. Thus in the past we have clear evidence that quantitative increases in
brain capacity can lead to the radical emergence of new qualitative properties which
then proceed to play a dominant causal role in future evolutionary processes. What
new symbolic or mind properties will emerge from a further technological expansion
of the neocortex and further evolution of language towards closer mind-to-mind
communication? And what will emerge from the new ecosystems of purely
technological mind?
Technocultural beings will be able to share extraordinary high levels of informa-
tion at the speed of light, and via much more reliable mechanisms, likely via direct
mind connection with others and with our collective computer networks (i.e. our
‘digital twins’ or ‘personal AIs’) (Kurzweil 2014). That is to say that the (practically)
instant transmission of information files (for example: books, movies, music,
photographs etc.) could be transferred between minds directly and understood
near-instantaneously. All minds would have a dramatically expanded understanding
of acquired knowledge, allowing for an unprecedented level of ‘cultural ratcheting’
(Tennie et al. 2009) or ‘collective learning’ (Christian 2004). The generational
barriers towards knowledge transfer may even by completely overcome. Beings
would also be able to communicate vast reaches of their mind through virtual
recreations of any and all varieties in mediums of expression that currently do not
exist.
But these are the quantitative aspects of future mind. The qualitative aspects are
much harder to describe and anticipate, as they will be emergent in their very nature,
potentially enabling new forms of game, adventure, exploration, ecstasy, and mys-
tery in physical spaces, but also intersubjective virtual spaces. Here a potential major
sexual transition could occur between interconnecting bodies towards
interconnecting minds, or interconnecting minds and bodies simultaneously in new
184 9 Atechnogenesis and Technocultural Evolution

ways. In a world where there is no reason to suspect a limit to the sharing of thought/
feeling spaces in respect to temporal duration or number of aggregating minds/
bodies, we can only expect future surprises (Chorost 2011; Nicolelis 2011).
The technological substrate itself will play a new role in the foundations of social
expression and interconnection. In contrast to being a fixed substrate of mindless
design the technological substrate will be self-designed and thus far more malleable
to conscious intention and potentially effortlessly self-transforming, i.e. reflexive to
and expressive of inner thoughts and feelings. In this sense, the body itself would
become a new art project for a technocultural being in the same way that clothing and
various forms of cultural body decoration can become art projects for biocultural
humans today (Vita-More 1992). The self-transforming body could become a new
higher form of body language, enabling technocultural beings to communicate the
exact meaning of their thoughts and feelings to the external world. In some sense, we
can think of these future possibilities of linguistic body expression as creating a form
of ‘naked mind’, where our minds are no longer completely hidden from view,
instead becoming tableaus for the higher expression and interconnection of subjec-
tive meaning, thought, and feeling. This may in turn allow for the higher expression
of subjective experiences like ‘love’, ‘joy’, ‘anger’, ‘frustration’ and ‘depression’ to
be communicated with a higher level of understanding, making it easier to see from
another person’s unique point of view, and reinforcing the commonality/integration
of mind in full subjective differentiation. Ultimately these types of abilities could
manifest with qualitatively new forms of dance, music, sport, discussions, debate,
and ritual celebration.
To view the modern biocultural human within this framework is to conceptualize
a finite species preparing the architecture of a departure into an infinite (from our
point of view) experiential landscape. Consequently, there is no telling what form
such a super-being would take, what thoughts and feelings would emerge, what
possibilities would become commonplace over the longer term. What would be the
nature of a superbeing’s goals, values, dreams, and visions? This would be like
trying to compare the experiential landscape of the first bacterial colonies of the
Archean Earth with the experiential landscape of Anthropocene New York City, as
evolutionary theorist John Stewart aptly recognized (2010, p. 402):

The difficulty we face in trying to evaluate [the future of intelligence] at our current scale of
intelligence would be similar to the challenge facing an intelligent bacterium in our gut that
is trying to make sense of the social interactions we engage in.

But that will not stop us from trying to figure it out anyway.

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Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental
Pathways 10

10.1 Possible Knowledge of the Deep Future

Culture and technology may be processes that lead to ‘infinity’ (i.e. endless process)
or ‘omega’ (i.e. process with an ultimate end) (Barrow 1998; Deutsch 2011). Here I
think it is interesting to explore a potentially fundamental dichotomy in our universe,
one that exists between the possible and the impossible. In this way of thinking what
is physically possible is what can be caused to happen (given the right knowledge
acquired by a system) and what is impossible is what cannot happen no matter
the knowledge acquired by a system (due to the laws of physics) (Deutsch 2013).
The collective subjective body of humanity viewed from this perspective gives the
appearance of a phenomenon engaging in a titanic battle against the indifferent
universal object to realize its latent subjective and intersubjective future potentiality
through knowledge creation. Our ultimate collective potentiality currently remains
mysterious: our biggest known unknown.
Although we do not know what is at the end of this knowledge creation process
(or whether there is an end), we do know that we do not live in a clockwork
Newtonian universe with the future already determined for us. There are choice,
creation, and emergence along the pathway of the future universe. However, as
mentioned, there are also physical transformations that are possible and physical
transformations that are impossible. For our future this means that there are certain
technologies a cognitive system can in principle produce to enable certain actions
and certain technologies a cognitive system could never produce because they are
forbidden by physics, thus rendering the future technological possibility space in

Based on Last, C. (2017). Big Historical Foundations for Deep Future Speculations: Cosmic
Evolution, Atechnogenesis, and Technocultural Civilization. Foundations of Science, 22(1):
39–124. DOI: 10.1007/s10699-015-9434-y.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 189

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_10
190 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

some sense predetermined (in terms of the axis of possibility/impossibility) (Drexler

2013).
In this way, the future is both open-ended and free, yet constrained towards
certain possibilities and away from certain impossibilities. However, the trick with
the future is that we will only become cognizant of what is possible (and also what
we want to be realized) and what is impossible in the course of time as our
understanding of our collective past/present changes in relation to new knowledge/
conditions. From this perspective it may be useful to think of the deep future in terms
of an, originally Protestant turned Kantian, notion of ‘predestination’ (Žižek 2012,
p. 214):

Predestination does not mean our fate is sealed in an actual text existing from eternity in the
divine mind; the texture which predestines us belongs to the purely virtual eternal past
which, as such, can be retroactively rewritten by our acts. [...] Our acts not only create new
actual reality, they also retroactively change this very condition.

Thus, an exploration of the deep future is by its nature impossible in any

‘objective’ sense because we are completely unaware of what will be discovered
tomorrow or 50 years from today (or what we will want tomorrow or 50 years from
today). That future knowledge will, retroactively, change the conditions of our
understanding, and thus change the way we act and conceive of our future
possibilities. But given our lack of knowledge can we still speak of our final frontier?
Or said in another way, what is the future relationship between the collective living
subject of humanity and the indifferent geometric universal object?

10.2 Final Frontier: Expansion Hypothesis

From the beginnings of the scientific revolution to the present day, humanity has
imagined itself as becoming the future colonists of outer space (Kepler 1608; Voros
2014). Indeed, in some ways we can see a significant portion of frontier science
production, as well as a significant portion of the creation of science fiction, as
fundamentally dependent on the idea of human space expansion. In the modern
world, the idea of humanity as becoming future space colonists exploded (Wells
1920; Tsiolkovsky 1929; Oberth 1957; Kardashev 1964; Dyson 1979; Asimov
1983; Tipler 1994; Sagan 1997; Annis 1999; Dick 2000; Hanson 2008; Stewart
2008). In this tradition of thought, we can find the popular cultural representation of
the Earth as our ‘cradle’ (Tsiolkovsky 1911), and outer space our ‘destiny’ (Clarke
1950). Today, many scientists view expansion as our only long-term hope (Hawking
2013):

We must continue to go into space for humanity. We won’t survive another 1000 years
without escaping our fragile planet.

In some sense, this can be seen as a logical evolutionary conclusion. After all,
where else would we go after we have completely conquered (i.e. ephemeralized)
10.2 Final Frontier: Expansion Hypothesis 191

space, time, matter, and energy on planet Earth? There is an infinitely vast spacetime
continuum on the shores of Earth, populated with 100’s of trillions of stars, and
100’s of billions of galaxies. How many life forms exist in this infinite vastness?
How many other life forms have developed culture and technology as well?
Although speculative, our universe is so large and structurally homogenous that it
is far more probable that there are other forms of information processing being. Our
existence could only be conceptualized as miraculous if we were truly alone among
billions of galaxies. Therefore, the Expansion Hypothesis (EH) posits that the
continuation of human history as a cosmic drama can surely be expected to out-
source itself and play itself out in this cosmic arena, which, it can be safely assumed,
will be populated by other beings (Dick 2000, p. 555):

Over the next 1000 years the domain of humanity will increasingly spread to the stars, a
process that will alter our future in profound ways. At least three factors will drive this
expansion: (1) increased understanding of cosmic evolution, changing our perception of
ourselves and our place in the universe; (2) contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, bringing
knowledge, wisdom and problems of culture contact now unforeseen; and (3) interstellar
travel, transporting humanity’s emissaries to at least the nearest stars.

Material and colonial adventures abound in this deep future vision. Civilizations
spanning multiple solar systems and multiple galaxies are still to be forged over deep
future (Armstrong and Sandberg 2013). Maybe we will be able to see other galactic
civilizations in the process of doing just this (Voros 2014). Interstellar and interga-
lactic communication mediums could be erected to facilitate the formation of these
civilizations, and new forms of energy extracted from the hearts of stars and planets,
could be commanded to power the existence of beings throughout the cosmos
(Panov 2011, 2017). We would climb the Kardashev energy scale (Kardashev
1964, 1997; Cirković 2004). The universe itself will finally ‘wake up’, and eventu-
ally, mind will decide how it will end (Kurzweil 2005, p. 260):

Our civilization will then expand outward, turning all the dumb matter and energy we
encounter into sublime intelligence—transcendent—matter and energy. So in a sense, we
can say that the Singularity will ultimate infuse the universe with spirit[/consciousness].

However, if we are going to entertain expansion scientifically we must situate our

thinking within a cosmic evolutionary framework. Currently, the strongest evolu-
tionary argument in favour of expansion comes from the work of theorists develop-
ing a progressively integrative model of living system complexity construction
(Stewart 2000, 2014). In this model, living systems are characterized by the evolu-
tion of ever-more diversified and integrated structures on ever-larger physical scales,
e.g. cells, organs, organisms, groups, organizations, communities, societies, and
supranational organizations (Miller 1978). Therefore, it is argued that a progres-
sively cooperative arrow exists in the evolutionary process (Stewart 2000): proto-
cells formed cooperatives to produce prokaryotes; prokaryotes formed cooperatives
to form eukaryotes; eukaryotes formed various cooperatives producing multicellular
fungi, plants, and animals; and human beings forming larger and larger cooperatives
192 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

Fig. 10.1 Expansion hypothesis. Potential future of progressive cooperative organization. The
expansion hypothesis posits that intelligent life will progressively organize higher cooperative
organization from the global to potentially even the multi-galactic level. The image conceptualizes
this expansion assuming that intelligent life would radiate in all directions with each level of
organization

that should eventually reach a planetary scale (Heylighen 2007, 2008; Last 2014a;
Stewart 2014). From this line of reasoning, it is argued that the trend towards higher
levels of cooperation will drive the cosmic process of expansion towards
cooperatives on the scale of solar systems, multiple solar systems, galaxies and
even galactic superclusters (Armstrong and Sandberg 2013; Voros 2014) (Fig. 10.1).
Of course, nobody knows with certainty whether such entities are possible in our
universe. However, we can still have fun in theory by positing the technological
mechanisms of interconnection. For example, advanced civilizations could be
interconnected with some form of interstellar or intergalactic ‘Internet’ system,
fuelled by feeding on the fusion of stars, and physically connected through some
form of light speed (or faster-than-light speed) travel that is currently beyond our
contemporary understanding of physics and engineering. Indeed, these possibilities
have been considered most thoroughly in regards to future energy potentiality. The
most famous such example was explored by the astronomer Nikolai Kardashev
where he speculated about energy sources for an expansionist civilization. In
Kardashev’s scheme civilizations could be classified by their energy consumption
rates (measured in watts) and mechanisms from Type I to Type IV (Kardashev
1964). The scheme is fairly straightforward where a Type I civilization can control
the energy resources of its home planet, a Type II civilization can control the energy
resources of its solar system, a Type III can control the energy resources of its own
galaxy, and a Type IV civilization can control the energy resources on the scale of
10.2 Final Frontier: Expansion Hypothesis 193

multiple galaxies (Sagan 1973; Kaku 2010). According to the astronomer Carl
Sagan, human civilization is approximately a Type 0.7 civilization (1973, p. 182).
Although current cosmological models of the universe suggest that colonizing the
entire physical universe is impossible, or even nonsensical, we can still conceptual-
ize a civilization that—through some technological wizardry of an unimaginable
order—managed to completely reverse the entire process of cosmic expansion and
control the whole of physical reality. We would call such an entity an ‘Omega
Civilization’. Cosmologist John Barrow introduced the idea of ‘two forms’ of
Omega Civilization, with the aforementioned entity representing the expansionist
variety (Barrow 1998). We will call this hypothetical Expansion Hypothesis variety:
Omega Civilization-E: an entity that could ‘manipulate the entire Universe (or even
other universes)’ (Barrow 1998, p. 130).
Considering that the technocultural world is likely to be a post-scarcity realm of
higher cooperation and integration perhaps this is the deep future for intelligence: the
cosmic web as a playground for transcendent information processors (Zimmerman
2008, p. 369):

Many centuries from now, will intelligent beings look back upon human history as an
episode in the biography of cosmic Geist?

Indeed, this EH framework for thinking about the deep future can be made to fit
nicely with our current cosmic evolutionary framework related to information,
energy, complexity as well as differentiation and integration. Each of these higher-
level space cooperatives would need increased energy, information processing
capabilities, and would, therefore, exhibit higher levels of complex organization
and interrelationships. These entities would also produce far more variation, as likely
manifest in forms of cultural expression and technological product beyond human
imagination. Of course, it is also possible in this scenario for variation to be
produced through qualitatively different phenomena that currently do not exist,
i.e. mind in a cosmic evolutionary world beyond even the technocultural.
However, this is not to say the EH is without philosophical problems. Regardless
of its popularity and intuitive appeal, we must remember that it is running on no
empirical data: there is no evidence that intelligent life follows some developmen-
tally constrained expansion to the cosmos; it is a logical conjecture, and nothing
more. Indeed, a recent infrared survey of 100,000 galaxies looking for signs of Type
III or Type IV civilization did not find any obvious signs of large-scale macro-
engineering or large-scale processes that could not be explained with astrophysical
models (Griffith et al. 2015). And yet the whole of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), as well as the whole of the Search for Extraterres-
trial Intelligence (SETI), have been influenced by the narrative construction of the
EH. Because of this we rarely question the logic that both humanity and other
intelligent beings, will go to the stars.
Of course, this is not the same as stating that no expansion data will ever be found,
or even that we should stop looking for data to support the EH. This is also not to say
that we should stop attempting to explore our own solar system. I think NASA and
194 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

SETI as organizations represent the very pinnacle of cosmic cultural thought as

manifest in institutional structures, and deserve a much larger share of our attention
and support. If SETI were to discover any intelligent civilization tomorrow, an
understanding of its nature would likely completely revolutionize our understanding
of the universe and nature as a whole. And if NASA developed some type of
transportation device that allowed us to explore the Milky Way, the physical
expansion would look like the obvious deep future for humanity (both good
examples of ‘predestination’ where the ‘purely virtual eternal past’ becomes
‘retroactively rewritten by our acts’ given new knowledge/understanding). But as
of now, the expansion of intelligence is still an assumption that we should consider,
both seriously and skeptically.
Despite this, throughout most of science history, the EH has gone (mostly)
unchallenged as an assumption. But there are now philosophical problems raising
important questions about its probability. The most important philosophical chal-
lenge to the EH can be found in the realization that technological evolution on Earth
is accelerating towards a much higher possibility space than previously assumed.
Essentially, this means that the biggest theoretical development forcing us to reas-
sess the assumption of expansion comes from the emergence and subsequent
development of singularity theory. Singularity theory forces us to confront the fact
that an intelligent species can evolve from a primitive technological civilization with
little knowledge/understanding of its home planet and universe to an advanced
technological civilization characterized by ubiquitous supercomputing, artificial
general intelligence, and an interconnected global brain, within the cosmic ‘blink
of an eye’ (~250–500 years).
Immediately it is clear that there is something very strange about the nature of
cosmic time vis-a-vis cultural time. On scales of cosmic time, significant events and
developmental processes occur on scales of years, months, weeks, or even days.
Cosmic timescales and cultural timescales simply do not exist on the same temporal
dimensional plane of existence. Furthermore, cultural and technological processes
are now stably harnessing the most intensive and dense flows of energy in the whole
of the universe (Chaisson 2011). These processes are continuing to intensify,
generating organization of a variety and at a speed that is unparalleled when
compared to all phenomena in the known universe.
This is relevant to our discussion of the EH because of Fermi’s Paradox (Davies
2010). Fermi’s Paradox, simply stated, attempts to capture the bizarre fact that we
have woken up in a vast and homogeneous universe, which appears empty and
silent. Yet here we are making all this noise. Thus, the paradox can best be
conceptualized by physicist Enrico Fermi’s immortal question:

Where is everybody?

No one has a definitive answer for Fermi (although not from lack of effort) (Webb
2002), and this is problematic for science and the scientific worldview (Ćirković
2009). Of course, the answer to why we detect no intelligence in the universe as a
whole could be explained in many different ways. One of the most probable
10.2 Final Frontier: Expansion Hypothesis 195

possibilities is that we simply do not have the requisite technology (or the necessary
funding) to scan the entire universe in sufficient detail. As SETI astronomer Jill
Tarter stated (2001, p. 511):

SETI results to date are negative, but in reality, not much searching has yet been done.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson echoed Tarter’s sentiment, and made fun of
SETI critics with the analogy of someone taking a cup to the ocean, scooping out
some water, and the conclusion that there must be no whales (Tyson 2010). The
point is obviously that we have not thoroughly scanned the large majority of the
universe for intelligent activity, even though efforts are intensifying (Griffith et al.
2015). Consequently, many SETI researchers believe that, due to advancing techno-
logical capability, there will be advancing satellite detection capability, which will
allow researchers to scan millions of star systems in the Milky Way galaxy simulta-
neously, dramatically increasing the chances of finding E.T. in the process (Shostak
2013).
SETI’s contemporary position is valid and I take it seriously, but this does not
help us evade the philosophical and theoretical challenge of technological singularity
theory. The simple fact is that all of the preconditions for advanced intelligent life
have been present in our galaxy, as well as our Local Group of galaxies, for at least
4–5 billion years. That is to say that our galaxy has been a region of the universe
theoretically conducive to the formation of life for as many as 10–11 billion years
now (Rees 1997; Dick 2009). Taking these data to their extreme, we find that
advanced intelligent civilizations could be 7.5 billion years our senior (Vidal 2014,
p. 206). Of course, that is plenty of time for a mature civilization to put their home
planet in order and start a galactic journey, even when we consider the temporal
restrictions posted by the speed of light, and the vast distances separating most star
systems. But we do not need that much time in order for Fermi’s Paradox to become
problematic in light of Moore’s law and the potential future advance of technological
evolution.
When Moore’s law is extrapolated to its logical conclusion, what we get is some
pretty jaw-dropping conclusions; even more jaw dropping than the near-term emer-
gence of advanced technologically based superintelligence. The ultimate question
with the nature of computation is: how fast can information be processed in our
universe, given the known laws of physics? Then, based on the rate of Moore’s law,
can we approximate how quickly such an information processing limit can be
reached? (Krauss and Starkman 2004). The current hypothesis is that the ultimate
computer, or the ultimate ‘laptop’, would be able to perform 1050 operations per
second on –1031 bits (Lloyd 2000). Such a device would be in a highly ordered
negentropic state, taking on the analogous dimensions of a black hole (Lloyd 2000,
2006; Lloyd and Ng 2004). Based on Moore’s law such an entity could conceivably
be constructed by human civilization (or a future technocultural civilization) within
250–600 years (Krauss and Starkman 2004, p. 10):
196 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

Our estimate for the total information processing capability of any system in our Universe
implies an ultimate limit on the processing capability of any system in the future, indepen-
dent of its physical manifestation and implies that Moore’s law cannot continue unabated for
more than 600 years for any technological civilization.

What this means for Fermi’s Paradox should be clear: once an advanced civiliza-
tion figures out the nature of computation, there is a possibility that it could develop
into a black hole computing civilization. Such an entity would have compressed
spacetime to a dimensional point within a very short duration of time when com-
pared to cosmic developments. Even if contemporary predictions made using
Moore’s law are unreliable—as quantum computer scientist Seth Lloyd explicitly
acknowledged (2000, p. 1053)—and it takes humanity an extra 1000 or 5000 or
50,000 years to develop the computational power of black hole computers, that
would still be almost no time at all when compared to the scales of time that
characterize solar system development or galaxy formation, and so on.
Furthermore, even though Moore’s law is a product of human intelligence and
economics, not a property of physics, there is little reason to think that future
intelligence would somehow be prevented from ultimately reaching these computa-
tional capacities. From what we have observed in the twentieth century, there will
always be critics of the continued advance of computation, but as Lloyd notes, every
time we encounter some overwhelming obstacle: ‘clever engineers and scientists
have found ways to cut the technical knot.’ (2006, p. 111). Therefore, if any
civilization got their hands on this type of computation—and physical expansion
is what advanced intelligence does—then the universe should show some clear and
obvious signs of intelligent activity. ‘It takes but one match to start a fire; only one
expansionist civilization to launch the colonization of the universe.’ (Bostrom 2010,
p. 6).
Considered in this frame, we should definitely see the types of galactic macroscale
engineering hypothesized to exist by numerous theorists (Sagan and Shklovskii
1966; Sagan 1973, 1975; Freitas 1975-79/2008; Carrigan 2012; Learned 2012;
Voros 2014). Highly STEM compressed and efficient civilizations should be explod-
ing in galaxies throughout the universe, making Fermi’s Paradox worthy of the
name. Given the nature and physical limits of computation, as well as the emerging
data related to significant components of the Drake Equation, e.g. potential number
of habitable stars, habitable planets, and abundance of necessary chemical elements
(Impey 2007; Billings 2013), adds considerable mystery to this cosmic silence (Brin
1983). The universe appears more than capable of advanced information processing
(Barrow 1998; Wolfram 2002; Lloyd 2006, 2013), and our civilization gives the
suggestion that advanced civilizations evolve culturally and technologically at a very
fast pace when considered in a cosmic context (Sagan 1997; Turchin 1977; Kurzweil
2005; Smart 2009).
Admittedly, many technological singularity theorists have realized this logical
confrontation with Fermi’s Paradox, and have essentially concluded: ‘We must be
the first’ (Kurzweil 2005, p. 239):
10.2 Final Frontier: Expansion Hypothesis 197

Table 10.1 Potential developmental great filters

Developmental level Approximate temporal local achievement
Prokaryotic life 4–3.5 billion years B.P.
Multicellular life 2–1 billion years B.P.
Intelligent/technological life 2–1 million years B.P.
Interstellar/intergalactic life (future?)
How likely is it that these developmental levels of complexity have been achieved throughout the
universe? We know that the universe can easily generate galactic, stellar, and planetary systems, but
at present we have no knowledge of how easily living system organizations can be generated within
a global cosmic context

[O]ur humble civilization with its pickup trucks, fast food and persistent conflicts (and
computation!) is in the lead in terms of the creation of complexity and order in the universe.

To support this view, the concept of a ‘Great Filter’ has been deduced (Hanson
1998). The logic of the Great Filter is that our universe can generate hierarchical
levels of complexity, but that it can only do so with ‘great’ developmental difficulty.
The three main ‘threshold’ hierarchical levels of complexity that have been targeted
as potential Great Filters include the origin of life, the origin of multicellular
eukaryotic life and the origin of higher intelligence of technologically advanced
beings (Hanson 1998; Bostrom 2010). This simply means that the universe may be
poor at generating all three. If this is the case, the Earth would represent a preciously
unique example of a planet that ‘made it’ through all three developmental Great
Filters. Or alternatively, the Great Filter could be ahead of us, meaning that the
universe can generate life, multicellular life, and high intelligence without difficulty,
but then has difficulty generating an interstellar or intergalactic civilization (Bostrom
2010) (Table 10.1).
The Great Filter may be a useful concept, or it may be irrelevant (Aldous 2010),
we simply do not have the data to say one way or another. However, by placing our
own planet’s history in a cosmic context, it seems like the Earth has had relatively
little trouble generating any of the three ‘Great Filters’. For example, life itself
appeared on Earth’s surface as soon as it was no longer a giant ball of magma
(Bada and Lazcano 2009). Multicellular life evolved from unicellular life on 25 inde-
pendent occasions (Grosberg and Strathmann 2007). And although only one species
has developed evolving culture and technology (i.e. us), it is important to remember
that large-brained organisms with primitive cultural behaviours and simple
technologies have proven surprisingly abundant in the animal kingdom (Laland
and Hoppitt 2003). When you combine this fact with the consideration that all
human biocultural evolution has covered a minuscule 2 million years of time (Last
2014b), and that the Earth has at least another 1 billion years remaining to support
complex multicellular life (Franck et al. 2005), it stands to reason that if we had gone
down a non-cultural evolutionary pathway, some other species would have, eventu-
ally. At the very least we can say that there are several candidate species that just
need a little 2 million year ecological nudge towards higher neocortex functioning.
However, we, of course, suffer in this analysis from the “observational selection
198 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

effect” whereby any intelligent life that could conduct this analysis is by default
existing on an unknown subset of habitable planets that did evolve and overcome
these supposed ‘Great Filters’ (Bostrom 2010).
In conclusion, contemporary science and philosophy stand at an odd place in
relation to both Fermi’s Paradox and the Expansion Hypothesis. The idea of
expansion and contact with intelligence has fuelled some of the best science fiction,
and it has also fuelled some of our most innovative science. But now there is an
emerging spectrum of theorists who are exploring alternative possibilities. There-
fore, it may be time to organize these alternative possibilities under the banner of the
‘Compression Hypothesis’.

10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis

The Compression Hypothesis (CH) does not have a deep history, although it does
have a history. Systems theorist and futurist John Smart most thoroughly and
formally (re)introduced (a version of) the hypothesis recently, proposing that
(2012, p. 55):

[A] universal process of evolutionary development guides all sufficiently advanced

civilizations into what may be called ‘inner space’, a computationally optimal domain of
increasingly dense, productive, miniaturized and efficient scales of space, time, energy, and
matter, and eventually, to a black-hole-like destination.

Smart refers to this ‘black-hole-like’ destination as a ‘developmental singularity’

(Smart 2000, 2009, 2012). Here the point of the concept is to emphasize the
developmentally constrained and compressed dimensional nature of the phenomena.
Although, somewhat ironically, the term ‘technological singularity’ would work as
well, as the concept actually represents a spacetime singularity generated by tech-
nology. Here I will interpret the concept of the developmental singularity, and other
similar historical conceptions, as falling within the CH, i.e. that intelligent life does
not expand out into the physical universe, but instead become ‘compressed’ towards
the ‘inner universe’ via mechanisms and towards a fate that we currently do not
understand (thus, CH is exactly the inverse of the potential EH deep future).
However, strange the developmental singularity concept and the CH first sound,
in the twenty-first century, a number of theorists have essentially been attempting to
formulate our understanding of the deep future, as well as our understanding of the
universe, within a similar framework. These attempts include theorists from diverse
backgrounds in physics, complexity science, philosophy, systems theory, etc. (Farhi
et al. 1990; Harrison 1995; Gardner 2005; Smart 2009; Flores Martinez 2014; Vidal
2014), all of whom stress the importance of information processing entities, and
especially the possibility of technological information processing entities with far
more advanced capabilities for manipulating the physical universe at the smaller
scales of reality. As far as I have been able to understand, these theorists emphasize
the potentialities of one of the following three CH deep futures (Table 10.2).
10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis 199

Table 10.2 Potential CH deep futures

Transcension Technological life transcends our physical universe through inner space
(Variant 1)
Replication Technological life functions as a mechanism for universe replication
(Variant 2)
Cosmic Net Technological life forms an integrated network with other technological
(Variant 3) nodes (w/o physically expanding)

First, you may notice that one variant of the CH (i.e. Variant 3) overlaps with the
Expansion Hypothesis (EH) in an interesting way with interconnection with other
intelligent civilizations but without physical expansion. I consider this a CH and not
an EH specifically because this future does not include a physical expansion, which
has consequences for observations of the physical universe (e.g. no macroscale
galactic engineering projects) (Griffith et al. 2015). Second, it must also be stressed
that modern CH speculations and predictions take a novel quality that is hard to
compare to any scientific/philosophical theory prelate twentieth century. Although a
few enlightenment philosophers, most notably Georg Hegel and other German
Idealists, speculated on a future leading towards the Absolute Self where humanity
would acquire omniscient-like ‘Absolute Knowledge’, these thinkers did not formu-
late their hypotheses within a cosmic evolutionary framework.
One of the clear exceptions to this can be found, once again, in the theories of
paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as he constructed an evolutionary cos-
mology/philosophy into the deep future driven by increasing complexity and con-
sciousness, and which ended here on Earth through the formation of a ‘noosphere’.
Teilhard de Chardin predicted that ‘noospheric effects’ would generate “a whole
layer of consciousness exerting simultaneous pressure upon the future” (1955,
p. 286). From these noospheric effects, Teilhard predicted that intelligence would
compress towards ‘Point Omega’ (or the ‘end of the world’) where humanity would
reach ‘maturation’ and ‘escape’ from the ‘material matrix’ (1955, p. 287–288).
According to Teilhard, ‘Point Omega’ would be a ‘single point’ within which
humanity ‘as a whole’ will ‘reflect upon itself’ (1955, p. 287): complete spacetime
compression leading to transcendence of mind.
This future conception of ‘noosphere’ and ‘Point Omega’, to my knowledge
represents the first clear, secular example of a Compression Hypothesis-like predic-
tion. The criterion of evolution being developmentally constrained or attracted
towards an ‘end point’ is met, and the criterion of humanity as driving a process
that will lead to us ‘leaving the physical universe’ is met. In other words, Teilhard de
Chardin stresses the transcension variation 2 of the CH, not expansion (1955,
p. 287):

I adopt the supposition that our noosphere is destined to close in upon itself in isolation, and
that it is a psychical rather than a spatial dimension that it will find an outlet, without the need
to leave or overflow the earth.
200 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

This version of the deep future is far harder for the human mind to conceive,
let alone understand. As stated above, the EH is in some sense helped in that it is
intuitive. After all, human beings have already ‘expanded’ to the Moon, and are
making plans on expanding to Mars. We already have satellites dispersed throughout
the solar system and even one satellite that has left the solar system (i.e. Voyager 1).
We can also easily imagine interstellar spaceships and the colonization of multiple
planets. Obviously, this is not only because there are countless science fiction books,
comics, and movies specifically focused on this type of future, but also because we
already live on a physical planet in a physical form. In contrast, we reach a very
quick barrier to comprehension when we imagine a ‘hyper-local’ future in ‘inner
space’ that potentially leads to an escape from the physical universe and/or replica-
tion of the physical universe. The closest exploration of this idea in science fiction
that I can think of is Arthur C. Clarke’s famous novel Childhood’s End (1953) where
an alien race guides humanity towards higher mind interconnection and then even-
tual transcendence into the ‘Overmind’.
However, although Teilhard-esque CH predictions have been often
overshadowed by visions and systems that support EH predictions, in the late
twentieth century there were a number of theorists considering the possibility that
intelligence, culture, and technology could either be mechanisms for the generation
of new universes, or mechanisms that would allow us to eventually escape the
gloomy picture painted by most cosmologists influenced by the second law of
thermodynamics. Two major developments sparked flourishing of this theoretical
direction: (A) physicists theorized that intelligence could function to create ‘off-
spring’ universes distinct from our universe (Linde 1988; Farhi et al. 1990; Harrison
1995; Gott and Li 1998), and (B) evolutionary biologists and systems theorists made
progress in understanding the nature of convergent development as constraining
potential variety and structure of biological forms (Kauffman 1995; Pennisi and
Roush 1997; Morris 1998).
When combined these ideas lead to the hypothesis that, although there are an
undetermined and unpredictable freedom and creativity throughout the evolutionary
process, the possibility space for that freedom and creativity itself is not infinite,
i.e. it is structurally constrained towards an end that is potentially predetermined, that
knowledge emerges, thus rendering it only retroactively ‘obvious’). In other words,
there may be many different ‘pathways’ that can be ‘travelled’ throughout cosmic
evolution. The ‘travelled pathways’ were/are not predetermined but dependent on
the free choice of agents with limited knowledge and local environmental context
(open possibilities). Most of these roads lead nowhere, but there also exist a small
subset of ‘pathways’ that lead towards ‘new levels’ (diversification/integration) or
new vistas of possibility (what we have conceived of as new metasystems), with an
even smaller subset of roads leading towards still higher ‘levels’ (metasystems)
towards an ultimate (hyper-technological) end point.
Today a few researchers are synthesizing these ideas with cosmic evolutionary
theory to build a new framework for understanding the universe, primarily focused
on Variant 2 of the CH: the Evo Devo Universe (EDU) framework. This framework
conceives of the universe as metaphorically organism-like. In other words, this
10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis 201

framework conceives the universe as a developing or growing entity with yet-to-be-

realized future potentiality; as opposed to a metaphorically mechanical entity (New-
tonian), which led to the traditionally conceived view of our universe as a highly
predictable clockwork. Specifically, from the EDU perspective, this means that the
universe itself is predicted to be going through a type of multilocal developmental
life cycle, complete with birth, growth, reproduction, and eventually, death (Gardner
2000; Smart 2000, 2009) (‘multilocal’ in the sense that the process is presumably
occurring on innumerable ‘Earth-like’ planets throughout the universe).
Throughout this developmental life cycle the universe’s ‘cosmic life history’
would be represented by ‘birth as big bang’, ‘growth as the (multi) local evolutionary
process’, ‘senescence as heat death’, and finally, ‘reproduction as universe-making
technological life forms’. Therefore, we get the image of a universe that has a
beginning, matures, becomes increasingly aware, replicates itself, enters old age,
and then eventually passes away (after leaving many progeny in the multiverse).
Here the emphasis should be placed on cosmic ‘growth’ and ‘reproduction’ and their
potential to transform our understanding of the structure of the universe, as we
became aware of the potential ‘birth’ (big bang) and ‘death’ (heat death) process in
the twentieth century. Therefore, in this system culture and technology are not
irrelevant epiphenomena, but of central importance as they could represent emergent
mechanisms for new growth and universe reproduction after the cosmic develop-
mental process reaches full maturation.
From the EDU perspective, there are two main points of emphasis in an applica-
tion of developmental biology to developmental cosmology. First, just as there is a
tendency in biological development to generate evolved degrees of freedom as
manifest in subsystem differentiation (e.g. genetic, cellular, organs, and neurologi-
cal) culminating in the reproduction of that subsystem differentiation, it is proposed
that there is also the tendency in cosmic development to generate evolved degrees of
freedom as manifest in subsystem differentiation (e.g. atomic, chemical, biological,
cultural, and technological) culminating in the reproduction of that subsystem
differentiation (i.e. new universes). Here we re-encounter the ancient idea of the
universe as a type of ‘ouroboros’ or a self-reflexive cyclical entity that is constantly
re-creating itself: physical order, biological order, and symbolic order, repeat.
Second, just as there are practical energetic constraints and environmental
pressures throughout biological development that act as challenges to successful
biological reproduction, there are also constraints and pressures throughout cosmic
development that act as challenges to successful cosmic reproduction. Here it is
important to stress that the EDU perspective does not support the notion that future
evolution towards hyper-technological reproduction is inevitable, rather it is a
contingent and unpredictable process. Thus, the necessity of cosmic reproduction
(our ethical duty to reality) would be predicted to only become evident once we have
reached the final ‘level’ of the ‘game’ (in other words, it only becomes necessary in
retrospect). Moreover, remember that most of the universe is and is likely to remain
‘barren’ or ‘infertile’ forever incapable of giving ‘birth’ to higher intelligence and
hyper-technology. However, in the small subset of regions where higher complexity
and order are achieved and stabilized, the chances for potential future growth
202 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

increase, but never reach inevitability or necessity, presumably until the ‘end is near’
(and even then perhaps there still exists a (or many) critical choice(s)).
The key general CH prediction with relevance to SETI and NASA is the idea that
the cosmos itself exhibits a developmentally constrained tendency towards intelli-
gent black hole-like dimensions (i.e. intelligent manipulation of the smallest
dimensions of spacetime). This has been referred to as STEM (space–time–energy–
matter) compression (Smart 2012). Compression suggests that complex
metasystems are developmentally and hierarchically constrained not just to acceler-
ate change in time (STEM efficiency), but also to emerge more locally in space than
previous systems. This idea works in our big historical framework as temporal
acceleration (STEM efficiency) is hypothesized to arise from increases in informa-
tion processing capabilities (also formulated as the ‘Law of Accelerating Returns’
(Kurzweil 2005)), whereas spatial localization arises from increases in density of
energy flows. Historically related conceptualizations of the universe have mostly
been used to describe accelerating physical change with time (Adams 1909; Teilhard
de Chardin 1955; McKenna 1998; Smart 2000; Kurzweil 2005), but space and time
are connected dimensions, and so it may be useful to conceptualize temporal
acceleration and spatial localization as coupled processes related to increases in
evolutionary complexity (Fig. 10.2).
Here the criticism that is often forwarded against the idea of STEM compression
specifically (not STEM efficiency) is that spatial localization itself is not a phenom-
enon because the evolution of complexity is conceptualized in terms of differentia-
tion and integration (with integration representing an expansion process over larger
scales of space, not more local scales of space). However, the key to understanding
spatial localization as a potentially important cosmic evolutionary phenomenon is to
understand the totality of an emergent process. For example, the totality of ‘galaxy’
(as a cosmic class of phenomena) is one that exists throughout the entire universe. In
other words, galaxies as a totality are as ‘global’ (in the cosmological sense) as you
can get. However, as you progress through cosmic evolution towards stars, planets,
prokaryotic life, eukaryotic life, etc. the totality of the class does not just emerge at a
faster pace than the previous phenomena (STEM efficiency), but also becomes more
localized in space (STEM compression).
For example, the totality of prokaryotic life exists everywhere on Earth, from the
deepest regions beneath the Earth’s surface, to the highest regions in the Earth’s
atmosphere (prokaryotic ‘extremophiles’ (Rothschild 2007)). In contrast, the totality
of eukaryotic life exists on a more local scale, as larger more complex organisms
cannot exist in extreme environments. Furthermore, the larger the eukaryotic life
form, the more likely it is that their spatial extent is restricted to specific niches
(increasingly compressed). The same goes for the human superorganism as we have
evolved from foragers, to farmers, to machine tenders to global brain urbanites: the
totality of our spatial location has become more locally concentrated (from wander-
ing nomads to megacity dwellers), with many projections for the future of human
demographics suggesting an acceleration of contemporary migration from rural to
urban (Kraas et al. 2013). Thus, although our population is currently growing, the
space we occupy on Earth is shrinking (becoming compressed). This most clearly
10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis 203

Fig. 10.2 Local compression. Compression: Hierarchically and developmentally constrained local
universe. Throughout the ordered and organizing processes of cosmic evolution higher levels of
complexity have emerged in physical, biological, and cultural systems. Apart from emerging in a
directional dimension with the arrow of time, these phenomena have also emerged in ever more
local regions of spacetime. This is achieved by utilizing ever-denser forms of matter–energy.
Therefore, complexity in our universe may follow a developmentally constrained localization
property that can be roughly correlated to major energy transitions away from thermodynamic
equilibrium. For example, stars developed more locally than prokaryotes and eukaryotes from
simpler life; agricultural civilization developed more locally from multicellular life; and finally
industrial civilization developed more locally from agricultural civilization. In the modern world,
we see an overwhelming demographic shift from rural-to-urban, suggesting that by 2050 the large
majority of humanity will be congregated hyper-locally in vast megacities, which are also the
localized hubs for further localization, currently emerging in the form of advanced super-
computation

represents how the concepts of higher global integration and more concentrated
spatial localization are not mutually exclusive or paradoxical in cosmic evolutionary
theory. The difference between these two concepts is also key to the big challenge
for twenty-first century humanity: i.e. how to find the local in the global?
The CH appears to be the strongest contender to the EH that has existed in
modern times. And it may also provide us with a new framework for thinking about
developmental convergence in astrobiology (Flores Martinez 2014), including how
we approach SETI in particular (Smart 2012). This framework also works with our
big historical and cosmic evolutionary framework. As we have covered, information
204 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

Table 10.3 Technological Technology Physical scale

barrow scale
Nanotechnology 10–9
Picotechnology 10–12
Femtotechnology 10–15
Attotechnology 10–18
Zeptotechnology 10–21
Yoctotechnology 10–24
Plancktechnology 10–35

processing, energy control, complexity, as well as differentiation and integration

have characterized large-scale trends throughout the history of the universe. If some
variant of the CH is accurate this general process should continue to reach maximum
local information processing and maximum local energy control limits within our
universe’s possibility space. The manifestation of a living system organization that
reaches the maximum limits of both information processing and energy control
would represent an entity with both the highest complexity and the highest order
in the known universe.
In terms of information processing and energy flow, STEM efficiency and
compression appear to be consistent with both current long-term predictions for
the future of computation and the future of fusion energy (and other forms of high-
energy potentials). Advanced supercomputing will undoubtedly be a process that
occurs from an understanding of computing on ever-smaller scales of the physical
universe (Lloyd 2006). The whole evolution of computing technology involves the
achievement of computing on ever-smaller scales of the physical universe. This
phenomenon has been called the ‘Barrow Scale’ to describe the hypothetical
achievement of organizing matter at its smallest possible physical scales (Vidal
2015) (Table 10.3).
Furthermore, we have already discussed recent speculations in physics and
computer science related to mechanisms for the ‘creation of baby universes in a
lab’ (Farhi et al. 1990; Gott and Li 1998, p. 36), in the form of black hole computers
(Lloyd 2000, 2006; Lloyd and Ng 2004, p. 56). Such information processing
capability would push our ability for technological manipulation all the way down
the Barrow Scale. If humanity (or what became of humanity) emerges around such a
black hole computing devices almost anything would be possible in terms of
experiential degrees of freedom, although the actual phenomenological state for
these hyper-technological entities would likely be indescribable, involving
spacetime perceptions, knowledge, memory, interconnectedness levels beyond con-
temporary symbolic representation.
The long-term future of human energy will also almost undoubtedly occur on
more compressed scales of reality via the production of fusion energy, which is the
ability to replicate the behaviour of atomic collisions, an inherently hyper-local
phenomenon (Souers 1986). Although there have been problems with achieving
fusion energy over the past few decades we know that it is physically possible
because the whole universe is powered by fusion. Also, the fact that we have made
10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis 205

progress with fusion over the past 50 years suggests that achieving this level of
energy flow would be trivial for advanced technological intelligence. And whenever
an intelligent species has fully exploited the power of fusion energy, it will have
access to practically infinite amounts of energy when considered on the scales of
deep time (Niele 2005). Furthermore, considering that we exist in a universe where
stellar fusion and biological computation are both common properties (with
biological computation being at least locally common, i.e. on Earth), we may also
consider the possibility that technological manipulation in the form of advanced
computation and nuclear fusion energy are both developmentally constrained
information–energy pathways (i.e. inherent latent physical potentialities in our
universe) providing the opportunity to achieve universal limits of local complexity.
However, there are other, potentially even more powerful forms of energy control
that, although they stretch the imagination, are achievable in the local universe, such
as antimatter collisions (Borowski 1987), Dyson spheres (Dyson 1966), starivores
(Vidal 2014), and zero-point energy (Barrow 1998). Antimatter collisions would
produce energy in massive quantities, as it would convert the entire mass of particles
into useable energy, an energy potential larger than both fission and fusion energies.
Dyson spheres or a Dyson swarm is a potential megastructure created by advanced
civilizations that can surround and capture the entire energy output of a civilizations
parent star. The starivore is an even more bizarre type of advanced megastructure,
which is described as a coupling between a dense host object (i.e. advanced techno-
logical civilization) and its parent star through the creation of a large planetary
accretion disk (Vidal 2014, p. 236). Zero-point energy would be the achievement of
utilizing quantum energy from the smallest scales of the universe with yocto-
technology or planck-technology (Barrow 1998, p. 136). Although all highly specu-
lative future energy scenarios, they all also represent actual high-energy
potentialities in the local universe, which could in principle fuel the exploration of
the highest local levels of information processing.
This brings us to the second class of Omega Civilization. We have already
considered the remote possibility for an Omega Civilization-E, however, if we are
on some type of constrained pathway towards increased STEM compression and
efficiency, we may consider an alternative type of civilization: Omega Civilization-C
(Teilhard de Chardin 1955; Crane 1994; Barrow 1998; McKenna 1998; Smart 2012;
Vidal 2014). Omega Civilization-C would represent the ultimate order and the
highest complexity possible in the local universe. As a result of having achieved
the highest information processing capabilities, it would be ‘capable of manipulating
the basic structure of spacetime’ (Barrow 1998, p. 133). These technological abilities
would either result in the complete transcension towards a different universe/reality/
process (Variant 1), the replication/generation of new universes (Variant 2), or
towards the fusion with other Omega Civilization-C entities (Variant 3). Although
Variant 3 overlaps with EH predictions (as mentioned above) it is by necessity a
process that should be considered within the CH category because it is not a physical
expansion where we actually leave the local region of the evolutionary process and
disperse throughout the cosmos.
206 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

In my opinion, all of these CH variants deserve deeper philosophical contempla-

tion. However, Variant 2 is obviously most consistent with the Evo Devo framework
as currently formulated. If Variant 1 or 3 turns out to be a better or more accurate
explanation for the deep future of life and intelligence our local cosmic evolutionary
process would not represent a reproduction mechanism and therefore the Evo Devo
metaphor of the universe being ‘organism-like’ would be less applicable to further
understanding. However, if Variant 2 is correct we would obviously have to rethink
both the origins of the universe and the future of our role in the evolutionary process.
Thus the EDU framework has made specific predictions about a type of cosmic
selection process within a physical multiverse scenario.
Over the past two or three decades, researchers in the physical sciences have
considered the possibility that our universe may undergo a process of ‘Cosmic
Natural Selection’ (CNS). The most popular CNS models propose that black holes
act as universe reproducers (Smith 1990, 2000; Smolin 1992, 1997, 2006). In this
scenario, we exist in a multiverse where individual universes (or disconnected
spacetime ‘sub-regions’ of the multiverse) vary in their initial conditions and
fundamental constants (with humans obviously inhabiting one of the (potentially
large minority) of universes capable of giving rise to life). Thus in the CNS models
the universe is also conceived of in a ‘biological-like’ or ‘evolutionary’ way, with the
universe going through birth, growth/maturation, reproduction, and death; however,
in the CNS model the ‘growth/reproduction’ component of the process is related to
the production of physical black holes (i.e. impersonal growth/reproduction).
Therefore, the CNS model predicts that just as the biological order operates via
‘fitness maximization’ and ‘variation and selection’ so does the physical order within
a larger cosmological multiverse environment. Consequently, universes that produce
the most ‘fecund’ black holes will reproduce more universes that share their physical
properties (perhaps with small variations), and thus as a by-product, more universes
that are also conducive to living forms like you and me (Gardner and Conlon 2013).
However, this CNS conjecture suffers in (potentially) some crucial dimensions.
First, it does not appear that the universe is fine-tuned in any way for black hole
maximization (which is what you would expect if that was the mechanism for the
larger physical order to generate more copies of itself), and also suffers in that black
holes do not possess controller and duplicator functions necessary for replication
(as we know it (Gardner 2005). In other words, physical black holes (as we under-
stand them today) do not appear to be great candidates for cosmological develop-
mental phenomena that fulfil functions we observe within the biological order.
In contrast, Variant 2 of the CH leads to the idea of Cosmic Natural Selection with
Intelligence (CNS-I) models (Smart 2009) (also referred to as Cosmic Artificial
Selection (CAS)) (Vidal 2014). In CNS-I/CAS scenarios, intelligently designed
black hole computers function as universe reproducers. In this scenario, we also
exist in a multiverse but ‘liveable universes’ have their initial conditions and
fundamental constants established by a hyper-technological entity in a separate
universe (i.e. physical laws (in this model) do not have ontological primacy over
mind as posited by some physicists) (Krauss 2012). In particular, it is predicted that
the physical order of our universe is specifically designed to maximize the potential
10.3 Final Frontier: Compression Hypothesis 207

for the biological order, and that the biological order is specifically designed to
maximize the potential for a symbolic order, which is then constrained towards
maximizing its full potentiality (ultimately towards the end of the universe). Here we
do find empirical support in the fact that the basic chemical ingredients for life are
superabundant throughout the universe (thus the physical order could be a univer-
sally homogeneous platform for the potential generation of complex life, etc.).
Furthermore, the biological order has (at least the Earth) produced a multitude of
highly complex and diverse cognitive living systems that display either early pre/
proto-cultural, pre/proto-technological evolutionary capabilities. And finally the
symbolic order, as manifest in human beings, does possess the necessary
mechanisms for cosmic reproduction with both a controller (mind) and duplicator
function (technology).
The CNS-I scenario may at first seem like a re-symbolization of the ‘God
hypothesis’ or ‘Intelligent Design hypothesis’ but the interesting difference is that
the CNS-I scenario is entirely secular/natural. In other words, there is no unexplain-
able supernatural entity leading towards an infinite regress (Dawkins 2006), but
instead a self-reflexive multilocal cycle that continually regenerates itself. Moreover,
CNS-I escapes the naive assumption of the traditional God hypothesis that the
universe was designed ‘for humans’. As discussed above, in the CNS-I scenario
the universe is designed, but designed in such a way that there is a certain probability
for a biological order, and a certain probability for a symbolic order, etc. but not for a
certain biological or symbolic order (i.e. in our case, ‘God’ did not design our
universe so that cosmic evolution would lead towards human being specifically,
any species willing and able to cross the ‘Nietzschean abyss’ would do). Further-
more, and I think this is crucial, in this CNS-I scenario we can remain properly
humanist–atheist in the modernist sense (or transhumanist in the transmodernist
sense) in that, even if a previous hyper-technological civilization designed our
universe, we are truly alone left to fend for ourselves and to figure out what the
purpose of humanity is internally within the collective subjective body (i.e. the
external universal geometric object is obviously indifferent to us).
Here it is not my goal to suggest that intelligence within the symbolic order is the
key component towards simultaneously solving the fine-tuning problem and the
potential for a multiverse (i.e. a repetition of pre-scientific dogma). Indeed, it is
obviously possible that the multiverse hypothesis is incorrect and that the fine-tuning
problem is actually a non-problem produced by a scientific ontology built funda-
mentally around a priori notions of time and causality (Heylighen 2010). In either
case, within the current scientific paradigm, the success or failure of the Compres-
sion Hypothesis, the EDU-hypotheses, or Cosmic Natural Selection-I hypotheses
will depend on whether or not they can lead towards accurate predictions of the
universe we observe. Future observation could completely falsify these claims. For
example, if intelligence were found to expand throughout the universe the EDU
framework would be falsified in certain key respects, or if some currently unknown
property of our universe prevented the technological construction of universes when
the idea of intelligence as a mechanism for universe reproduction would likewise be
falsified, etc. However, at the same time, I do not see any reason why we should a
208 10 Deep Future: Evolutionary Developmental Pathways

priori exclude the possibility that life and intelligence either A) develop hyper-
locally through developmentally constrained informational–energetic compression
or B) play a key component to universe production through multilocal cosmic
development and evolution. At the very least, philosophers and scientists should
be as open to exploring the dimensions and predictions of all CH variants as they
have been towards exploring the dimensions and predictions of EH.

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 Part IV
Field of Twenty-First Century Knowledge
Non-monist Framework for the Emergence
and Reconciliation of Subject–Object 11
Division

11.1 Introduction: Subject–Object Division and Knowledge

Historically constituted experiential phenomena fundamentally characterize the

intersubjective human world in which we live and enact our life. In this chapter,
we focus on the problem of how experiential phenomena at the human scale could
have emerged and could have become stabilized across time under a physical
emergentist paradigm aiming to understand the motion of spirit or ideation. We
here bring attention to the phenomenological fact that the physical emergence of
experiential phenomena is structured around a subject–object division (as opposed to
a unity between subject–object), which generates an emotional separation and
distance. We experience the emotion of separation spatially (like a cut) and we
experience the emotion of distance temporally (like a longing or calling). The
absolute cuts (space of ‘atoms’) and calls (curve of ‘atoms’). This subject–object
division is marked by a relation between the observer of phenomena (subjective
perception) and observed phenomena (objective world) (Fig. 11.1). What human
beings have learned from this fundamental experiential division from unity is that it
is both incomplete and open, meaning that the division is not a static or fixed relation
but a division that is in itself a dynamic process of becoming (Weinbaum 2017a, b).
However, due to the dynamism of this relation it has remained an elusive mystery to
science, art, philosophy, religion, and other knowing practices (Deacon 2011, chp. 0).
The fundamental incompleteness and openness of the subject–object division is
the most important phenomenological fact of our existence because it is the very
state that allows our species to develop meanings, purposes, and goals that structure
the life history of our worlds. Consider, for a moment, a realm in which the subject–
object division was complete and closed as a static-fixed relation (some type of
perfect spherical unity). In such a state, by definition, there would be no space for our
experiential flow to act in relation to meaning, to develop a life practice of high
purpose or to posit a future state worthy of a goal. Thus, in a subject–object division
that was complete and closed we would exist in a permanent correlation between
observer and observed allowing for no life at all. In this way, the conventional

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 215

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_11
216 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

Fig. 11.1 Subject–object

division as absolute

approach to knowledge which tends to reify the identity of phenomena in a static-

fixed formalism is the very approach that would be imminently broken by subject–
object division process of becoming itself (Penrose 2004a, chp. 1). Indeed, it is for
this reason that our philosophical understanding of historical knowledge is funda-
mentally dialectical, constantly under a process of collective logical negotiation due
to the incessant movement of our shared intersubjective spaces (Hegel 1998; Žižek
2012a, Introduction).
In focusing this chapter on the phenomenological fact of the physical emergence
of experiential phenomena we are focusing our attention on the unique dimension of
our world. This dimension is the fundamentally dualistic interaction operating in a
still mysterious processual dynamic between observer and observed. Thus, in build-
ing a physical theory of subject–object division, we are aiming to build an
emergentist physical theory capable of synthesizing theories of modern physics
with the inclusion of the motion of spirit or ideation. In contemporary physics
there is no place for emergence in a fundamental sense (Corning 2002). This is
because the main paradigmatic structures of physics focus on the microworld of
quantum mechanics (particle physics), or the macroworld of general relativity
(cosmology) (Rovelli 2007), and have virtually nothing to say about life and mind
(Deacon 2011). Thus, these paradigms leave unresolved two issues of critical
importance (Smolin 2001):

(i) The existence of historically constituted observers within the physical system.
(ii) The asymmetrical and irreversible temporal nature of living-mental phenomena
that characterize the dynamically curved spacetime manifold.

If we can approach these unresolved issues within an emergentist physical

paradigm, we may be able to resolve antagonisms and tensions inherent in contem-
porary physical and social theory by understanding the nature of spirit or ideation.

11.2 Contextualizing Contemporary Theory

Here we claim that the nature of historically constituted observers (on the divided
side of the subject), and the nature of asymmetrical temporality (the irreducible
experiential difference between past and future), are both problems that require a
11.2 Contextualizing Contemporary Theory 217

new type of emergentist physics that is capable of escaping the limitations of an

otherwise productive reductionist Newtonian framework. In an emergentist physics
we must admit that, although the fundamental laws of physics appear to structure a
realm of pure objects reducible to time-independent reversible processes, the world
of human experience and history, as embedded in a physical world, is fundamentally
different (Kim 2005a). In contrast to the reductionist understanding of the world, the
emergentist understanding of the world must start with the reality of observers and
the complex nature of the world. This world presents to perception an interaction
between a manifold of diverse phenomena that can produce structures and dynamics
with no correlate at the lowest microscopic scales (Smart 2008).
Of course, we are not totally devoid of emergentist physical theories of the human
experiential scale of reality. In contemporary academic theory of the human experi-
ential scale there exist philosophies related to the evolution of complexity
(Kauffman 1996), relativistic epistemology (Lyotard 1984), and subjective phenom-
enology (Heidegger 1988):

1. The philosophy of complex evolution frames human reality as a process of

becoming and constant change operating under principles of self-organization
from subatomic to civilizational scales of being. In processes of self-organization,
local interactions between diverse phenomena tend towards forms of repetitive
motion that allow for the stabilization of higher levels of complexity. For
example, with self-organizing phenomena we may start with any initially random
set of motion and observe that it will become increasingly non-random
(or organized) across time with the establishment of emergent rules that structure
novel dynamics. This process is subject to asymmetrical feedback allowing for
the emergence of the complex world we can observe around us today. From this
frame, we may think of the world as a multidimensional phenomena interacting
on many levels or scales.
2. The philosophy of relativistic epistemology frames human reality as an interpre-
tive horizon characterized by a multiplicity of socially constituted virtual
constructions. In this sense, the ‘relativity’ of knowledge practices is thought to
emerge in relationship to different power centres internal to social network order.
For example, we may say that self-organization as a knowledge practice, or
quantum mechanics as a knowledge practice, is a particular epistemological
frame of reference that is useful relative to a particular power centre internal to
historically constituted social networks. In this view, we focus more on the
communal nature of complexity scientists that use the frame of self-organization,
or communal nature of particle physicists that use the frame of quantum mechan-
ics. This does not mean that self-organization or quantum mechanics are ‘simply’
and ‘only’ social constructions, but it does mean that their enacted value for
observers is irreducibly connected to the realm of social construction as embed-
ded in historical becoming.
3. The philosophy of subjective phenomenology frames human reality as a series of
internal states that correspond to either an external background (world), an
internal background (dreams), or an absent background (no-thing) that can be
218 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

studied via methods of transcendental empiricism. In this sense, emphasis is

placed on both the concrete ethico-pragmatic life world of our subjective
formations, and on the irreducible transcendental coordinates of mortality and
finitude without which subjective formations would, by definition, be everything
(i.e. immortal and infinite) or nothing (i.e. death and void). For example, in
subjective phenomenology we do not think of concepts like self-organization
and quantum mechanics as related to the noumenal in-itself, but instead as
subjective formations that have particular experiential value when grounded in
our ethico-pragmatic life world. Importantly this experiential value of concepts
becomes overdetermined by conditions of mortality and finitude considering that
our ‘time in space’ is always operating under these existential limitations. In this
sense, all of reality is conceived as nothing but concretized subjective formations
that appear and vanish across a temporal processes.

However, in terms of mainstream contemporary academic theory of the human

experiential scale, we are still missing a framework that can approach a type of
objectivity that we have come to expect as a standard in reductionist physical
analysis (Fig. 11.2). This is commonly referred to as ‘physics envy’ and has
structured both legitimate critique and parody of theory grounded in subjectivist
interpretation (Sokal 1996). For example, in reductionist physical analysis the
theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity have allowed for collective
observation of the universal structure of being as something that can apparently be
verified independent of subjectivity and historical constitution. In other words,
quantum mechanics correlates to a ‘truth’ of the structural dynamic of subatomic
particles (Zee 2010), and general relativity correlates to a ‘truth’ of structural
dynamics of cosmological movement (Weinberg 1972), that appears to exist inde-
pendent of human observers and our history (Penrose 2004a, b, chp. 34). This
corresponds to what idealist philosophers refer to as ‘noumenal’. From this perspec-
tive, if humans were never to exist, and if humans cease to exist, the noumenal

Fig. 11.2 Quadrant of

modern knowledge structures
11.3 Building Towards New Theoretical Architecture 219

processes in-themselves described by quantum mechanics and general relativity

would, we assume, continue to operate in the non-human beyond their phenomenal
appearance ‘for us’ (Žižek 2012b, Interlude 5).
Of course, when we approach the real of a subject–object division we have a
different problem, which is to identify an objectivity that is dependent on human
observers (Žižek 2012c, Interlude 6). In principle theories of complex evolution
structured by self-organization aim for this level of objectivity in terms of under-
standing the general material processes of systemic motion but have not yet been
capable of understanding the nature of subject–object division (Heylighen 2014). In
contrast, cultural theories of relativistic epistemology in Marxist, psychoanalytic,
feminist, linguistic, postcolonial, or post-structuralist criticism would deny the claim
that an objectivity is possible in any absolute sense because every knowledge
practice is irreducibly dependent on its relational instantiation in a regime of social
power (Barry 2017a). This is not to say that knowledge is only power in a negative
sense, but rather that knowledge and power form a unity in historical social pro-
cesses, i.e. they go hand in hand. Furthermore, theories of subjective phenomenol-
ogy would deny the claim that an objectivity is possible precisely because objective
reality itself is an irreducibly temporal subjective formation (or ‘illusion’) with no
concrete identity independent of this formation (Metzinger 2004). In that sense
theories of objectivity like quantum mechanics, general relativity, and self-
organization are once again reduced to the postmodern realm of subjective formation
and discursive historicism.

11.3 Building Towards New Theoretical Architecture

How can we synthesize this antagonism or tension that appears to structure the
historical dialectic of incomplete and open subject–object becoming? The first thing
to emphasize would be that we should avoid at all costs any posited synthesis that
unreflectively offers a closed or complete answer to the problems of subject–object
division. The problem with any posited synthesis offering closure and completion of
subject–object division in an individual historically constituted discursive process is
that it, by its nature, prematurely ignores the irreducible experiential flow of tempo-
ral process that characterizes historical becoming (Weinbaum 2017a–d, chp. 1). In
this way, we should make the higher order assumption that any self-posited closure
or completion tells us more about the emotional nature of the subjective element self-
positing then it tells us about the subject–object division as a whole (which includes
an irreducible multiplicity of subjective elements engaged in self-positing)
(Hofstadter 2007). In this way, we would propose a philosophy that is capable of
approaching the human experiential scale with a framework instantiating the dialec-
tical mediation of an intersubjective objectivity (Žižek 2012a, Introduction).
In a framework capable of dialectical mediation of an intersubjective objectivity,
we aim to build a form of knowledge that is capable of understanding on a meta-level
a singular orientation and meaning for the psychosocial level of existence (which on
an individual level is irreducibly an open-ended multiplicity). This meta-level theory
220 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

is thus not a singular language or what is often referred to as a ‘metalanguage’

capable of universally structuring subjectivity towards a noumenal truth capable of
reinstantiating an absolute external correlate (Meillassoux 2010). In accordance with
much standard postmodern social theory (Lyotard 1984) and higher-order cybernetic
theory (Umpleby 2016), we maintain that any metalanguage is an impossibility and a
remnant of reductionist first-order scientific discursivity (Evans 2006). Thus, we
posit that the fundamental problem and limitation with such theories is that they
prematurely attempt to complete and close the discursive process of becoming which
is fundamental to and immanent to the subject–object division itself (the cut and
the call).
Instead, we propose a metalevel theory that is a theory aiming for an understand-
ing of a singular orientation and meaning that emerges spontaneously and internally
to the realm of divided observers in an intersubjective discursive mediation across
the fullness of historical process (or time). In other words, we propose a theory of
objectivity that may be capable of fundamentally and universally reconciling the
subject–object division with an understanding of a truth that depends on the emer-
gence and development of historically constituted observers. Here we tentatively
propose that such a truth is related to the experiential and emotional formation of
unity between subject–object that is dependent on the sociocreative motion of
subjectivity beyond will (i.e. the drive). In this sense, we posit that internal to the
incomplete and open division of subject and object there exists an experiential–
emotional drive in atemporal relation to a constitutive absence (location of a ‘non-
division’, or ‘indivisible remainder’) (Žižek 2012a, Introduction). We would fur-
thermore attempt to elaborate on the possibility that such an absence as the location
where the drive situates its indivisible unity can be understood with the paradoxical
negative logic that appears in complex mathematics (Nahin 1998a) and psychoanal-
ysis (Lacan 2005).
This requires a rethinking of reality so let us first move dialectically through the
various dominant conceptions of reality in relation to the aforementioned dominant
knowledge practices. In the world of reductionist physical theory what is most
fundamental is an objectivity independent of subjectivity: either a subatomic world
of particles subject to reversible physical laws (Zee 2010); or the gravitational
spacetime manifold of curved geometries (Weinberg 1972). Both of these reduction-
ist frameworks not only fail to theorize subject–object division but actively ignore
the reality of subjectivity as either epiphenomenal or illusory (Kim 2005b). In this
frame, the experiential and emotional psychic drives of human subjectivity can never
be included in fundamental theory, because fundamental theory gains its status
precisely due to the fact that it is presented as a phenomena independent of psychical
experience and emotion (Penrose 2004a, b, chp. 1). In other words, reductionist
physical theory is presented in discursive reality as the noumenal in-itself, of a world
independent of the emergence of humans, and thus independent of the emergence of
subject–object division (Žižek 2012c, Interlude 6).
In the world of evolutionary theory what is most fundamental is the constant
change of material phenomena or processuality that grounds a metaphysics antithet-
ical and ultimately incompatible to the Newtonian physical picture of the world
11.3 Building Towards New Theoretical Architecture 221

(Deleuze 1991). In the standard Darwinian modern scientific synthesis of natural

selection and genetics theory, we can apply these logics to the realm of emergent
biology from the cellular level to the social level (Huxley 1942). From this perspec-
tive what is most real are processes of natural selection which exert pressure on
living systems to maximize environmentally contingent fitness levels on multiple
levels of analysis (Smith and Szathmáry 1997). Thus in the neo-Darwinian synthe-
sis, the structure of reality that appears to us is a consequence of the pure chance of
events governed by a fundamental struggle for survival and reproduction (Monod
1974). In this reality structure, there is an asymmetry between subject–object
(or agent–environment) that places an analytic focus on the side of the object
(environment) as the constraining container or background for the emergence of
stable living form. In this sense, we have an evolutionary theory that presents to us a
pure naturalist explanation for the existence of life and mind (Dawkins 1976).
In the world of epistemological theory what is most fundamental is the contin-
gent multiplicity or heterogeneity of constructive projects that structure human
existence and civilization (Deleuze 1994). The realm of epistemological theory
places a great emphasis on the local ethico-pragmatic relation between knowledge
and a given life world (Rorty 1982), the irreducible openness and incompletion of
any form of knowledge (Weinbaum 2017c), and its literal or narrative nature for
self-knowledge (Barry 2017b). In other words, epistemological theory always
views knowledge as something historically enacted and transformative in terms
of discursive intervention in lived events. From this perspective, all knowledge
must be grounded in a frame relative to the observers’ social and cultural relational
power matrix (Foucault 1980). Thus if knowledge does not enable the desired
solutions to the goals and values of an authentic life world then this knowledge
should be subject to critique, denunciation, and deconstruction (Derrida 1997). In
this way knowledge practices can only be defined in relation to the sets of problems
posited or presupposed by a life world.
In the world of phenomenological theory what is most fundamental is the
prelogical a priori experiences and emotions that structure all sets of knowledge
and abstractions in a historical becoming (Dieter 2008). Thus, the most fundamental
is always an internal experiential state that represents the truth of a form or sphere of
consciousness (Sloterdijk 2005). From this perspective on the asymmetry between
subject and object, there is a greater emphasis placed on the side of the subject and
how the subject is relating to a particular background for experience. In this way,
phenomenological life scientists tend to invert the standard approach to evolutionary
theory by emphasizing that environmental pressures cannot help us understand life
and mind in-itself (Maturana and Varela 1991). Thus, in phenomenological theory,
there is a growing agnosticism about the ‘world’ or the ‘object’ as such, and instead
greater emphasis placed on how an agent or subject appears, and how an agent or
subject interprets and transforms its given background (Thompson 2010). The
consequence of such a view is that the measure of reality itself becomes a subjective
perception.
However, as mentioned above these approaches fail to understand the potential
fundamental reality of an emergent intersubjective objectivity that depends on the
222 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

Fig. 11.3 Intersubjectively constituted objective truths

primordial emergence of a subject–object division, or a difference between observer

and observed. Here we posit that this problem has not been properly framed or
approached by either reductionist physics or by the other emergentist theoretical
forms mentioned above. In this emergentist physical theory, we posit that an
intersubjective objectivity is internal to all other forms of knowledge. This claim
becomes evident when we consider that all such forms attempt to ground an
objectivity in social agreement that holds between an intersubjective collective.
For example, reductionist physics communities may disagree on the particular
details of quantum mechanics and general relativity, but agree that these theories
correspond to a fundamental real. In the same way, evolutionary theory
communities, epistemological theory communities, or phenomenological theory
communities may disagree on the particular details of applications of natural selec-
tion, deconstruction or transcendental empiricism, but agree that these theories
correspond to some historically constituted real (Fig. 11.3). From this perspective
can we say that there is a meta-level real that corresponds to the drive of an
intersubjective objectivity inaccessible to anyone ‘language game’ but at the same
time constitutive of the introduction of a symbolic order?
This metalevel intersubjective objectivity where a collective of subjective
individuals become regulated by an indivisible absence which they use to create a
unity is hypothesized to emerge on the higher order of psychosocial becoming. We
may refer to this virtual unity as an ‘Other’ or a ‘Background’ which would
11.4 Working Higher-Order Theoretical Architecture 223

guarantee meaning. This ‘Other’ or ‘Background’ (as we will continue to formalize

below) can be numerically represented with a –1 (as a positivized negativity).
Furthermore, we hypothesize that this higher-order psychosocial becoming in rela-
tion to an absent unity manifests as a transhistorical effect of a desire to fundamen-
tally and universally reconcile the difference between subject-object division. In
other words, we posit that the manifestation of intersubjective objectivity is
stabilized by a desire, asymmetrically located on the side of subjectivity, to
dynamically generate a synthesis between observational states and what is objec-
tively observed. In this sense, the emergence of what is ‘most fundamental’ is the
experiential nature of an asymmetry of a unidirectional temporal process (from past
to future) which subjectivity unconsciously attempts to resolve or reconcile with
abstract knowledge constructs. From this point of view what is most fundamental
and what is most objectively real is a collective discursive process of becoming
internal to a realm of subject–object division that narratively orients itself in relation
to an absent unity.
Thus, in this analysis we attempt to instantiate a phenomenologically and episte-
mologically grounded approach to objectivity. In this approach to objectivity, we
affirm the fundamental incompletion and openness of both experience and knowl-
edge that enables psychosocial interpretation and transformation. However, we also
affirm that the fundamental incompletion and openness of experience and knowl-
edge are oriented and structured by invariant desires for static-fixed backgrounds
that are represented as an absent unity. In this sense, we posit that logical
interpretations and transformations tend to occur against a symmetrical background
constituted in visionary metaphors that overdetermine experiential and epistemolog-
ical becoming and allow for a prelogical emotional stability across time. Conse-
quently, we are here positing an approach to objectivity that centres upon a singular
destiny internal to logic that simultaneously contains and transcends reductionist
physics (Penrose 2004a, b), evolutionary complexity (Heylighen 2014), relativistic
epistemology (Barry 2017a, b), and subjective phenomenology (Heidegger 1988).

11.4 Working Higher-Order Theoretical Architecture

Here we further develop our fundamental claim regarding subject–object division

which is that its incompletion and openness are structured around an absent unity
that manifests as a desire for completion and closure. In this sense, we posit that the
subject–object division is fundamentally and primordially structured, not around a
positive object, but around a void which is experienced as ‘most real’ (Deacon
2011). This is why the ‘Background’ or ‘Other’ is represented by a –1, a positivized
negativity. In this absential void, attractive and repulsive images appear to the
present moment that simultaneously constitutes a primordial historical ground and
orient a future unity or reconciliation. Towards a deeper understanding of this
phenomena, we affirm the grounds of past theorists who worked from the presuppo-
sition that complex physical emergence is organized in far-from-equilibrium systems
that self-organize internally and adapt externally to various environmental
224 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

conditions (Prigogine & Stengers 1984). These works in complex adaptive systems
are necessary to build a science capable of understanding life and mind on its own
terms. However, in order to push beyond the frameworks of ‘complex adaptive
systems’ and ‘dissipative structures’ we also aim to engage deeply with the phe-
nomenological and epistemological frameworks that attempt to understand the
general nature of intersubjective desire and its ontological consequences. The first
question we investigate is whether a simple unifying principle as fundamental
universality structures and is immanent to the nature of this subject–object division?
Here we apply the idealist logic of reductionist physics that seeks for simple
unifying principles or a fundamental universality to structure knowledge coherently
and consistently. However, we apply this idealist logic within the general intersub-
jective realm of human civilization capable of approaching reconciliation of subject–
object division. In this way, we do not directly engage with the reductionist
presupposition that fundamental reality is the subatomic void of quantum physics
which universally contains the multiplicity of material phenomena (Zee 2010); but
instead focus our attention on the subjective void of future-oriented desire which
universally contains the multiplicity of intersubjectively constituted idealist phe-
nomena (Žižek 2012d, chp. 2). From this claim, we draw on a deep philosophical
tradition that aims to understand the virtual effects and consequences of ideational
movement on materially constituted human civilization (Weinbaum 2017d). How-
ever, the important result is an attempt to make connections towards a quantum
ontology that can bring physical and social worlds together (Wendt 2015). Such a
coherence between physical and social ontology would allow us to articulate an
observationally (Barad 2007) and epistemologically (Žižek 2012e, chp. 14)
constituted universality.
Thus, in this move we propose that what appears most simply and most funda-
mentally internal to the intersubjective domain structuring human civilization is a
universal void of desire (or absence). This universal void is ontologically
characterized by dynamical and unstable virtual (evanescent) field of images
representing an emotional need for the direct experience of absolute love (embodied
love). Here the void of desire is understood as on the side of the subject and absolute
love is understood as on the side of the absent unity that appears internal to the
subject–object division. In this way human knowledge or epistemology and physical
being or ontology become themselves entangled by a void on both sides (the
subject’s separation (cut) and distance (call), and the object’s constitutive
emptiness). Thus, fundamental reality becomes intersubjectively structured objec-
tively by an emergent multiplicity of subjects (ones) tending for internal unification.
These subjects (ones) seek transformative knowledge constructs that would unify
their being in an immortal or transcendent relation (repetitively enacted). We posit
that although this transformation is archetypally a spiritual or religious transforma-
tion, such transformations can and always do occur outside of these symbolic
distinctions in a multiplicity of psychosocial forms which do not recognize them-
selves as spiritual or religious. This is the meaning of the unconscious. Thus,
spiritual or religious institutional forms are not presupposed as only tyrannical
mechanisms for external coercion and control (Dawkins 2006), but forms that
11.4 Working Higher-Order Theoretical Architecture 225

spontaneously emerge due to an internal desire for transcendental unification

(Kaufmann 2013). In the modern critique and postmodern deconstruction of such
institutions, we posit that this internal desire for transcendent unification does not
disappear but instead unconsciously manifests itself in ‘secular’ or ‘individualist’
forms that still maintain the same intersubjective objectivity (Jung 2014).
In this claim, we seek to formalize an invariant transformation process between a
divided subject and its emergent unified background by proposing a formula for
subject–object division inspired from a fundamental formula from complex mathe-
matics. In mathematics, the epistemological utility and ontological mystery of the
square root of √–1 are well known as an imaginary number crucial for rotational
operation about the origin of a complex plane (Nahin 1998a–c). The imaginary
number achieves this by virtualizing the dimension of time as a fourth dimension of
space (i.e. creating a unity of timeless space where there is in physical reality an
absence). In classical mathematics, this square root was dismissed as physically
irrelevant but modern mathematics cannot do away with the utility of remaking or
dividing itself in relation to points of impossibility (i.e. time as a fourth dimension of
space). The fundamental formula for such an operation is represented as (Nahin
1998b, c):
#
i ¼ √ " 1 ¼ 1∟90

Here we seek to make a philosophically and psychoanalytically informed con-

nection between this fundamental formula and the invariant (atemporal) motion of
the subject–object division structured around an absent unity. In this motion, we
have a phenomenology in-itself that is structured in the present moment as a
primordial subjective void of self-relating (origin) divided from and acting in
relationship to the desired unity (future). Thus, we posit that when the subject
engages in interpretive transformations that embody this structure in the material
real of historical action we can describe these interpretive transformations via the
following representation inspired from complex mathematics:
! " #
self " consciousness ðiÞ ¼ absent unity √ " 1 ¼ action ð1Þ∟90

This formula should be read very precisely as describing the way in which forms
of self-consciousness in history form in relationship to an absent unity. In other
words, we are positing that forms of self-consciousness do not form in relationship to
a positive object in the perceptible universe but instead form in relationship to a
negative object in the suprasensible conceptual universe that emerges from cognitive
transformation processes. In this sense when a subject acts in the world this structural
relation to non-division overdetermines the coordinates of its unified embodied
action as it rotates about the origin (i.e. rotates about its own void as self-relation)
(Fig. 11.4). Here we want to strongly emphasize that this claim is in fact supported in
the realm of philosophical speculation from (Žižek 2012f, chp. 3):
226 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

Fig. 11.4 Structure of an emergent intersubjective objectivity

• Critical philosopher Immanuel Kant, who stated that unified subject–object

reality is an abstract logical entity to a ‘square root of a negative number’.
• To transcendental subjectivist philosopher Johann Fichte who formulated the
structure of the subject as i ¼ i (self ¼ impossible unification).
• To Freudian psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan who said that the meaning of the
master signifier of the symbolic order is a positivized absence in relation to ‘the
square root of √–1’.

However, crucially, although we are identifying this phenomenon as an intersub-

jectively constituted phenomenon, we must also emphasize that we do not believe
that the absent unity can be expressed through direct merger of subjects as a positive
background. In this way, we emphasize the irreducible experiential–emotional
division at the core of every individual subjectivity. Here the absent unity is
something experienced emotionally as an internal transformation only against par-
ticular intersubjective backgrounds. In this sense what we emphasize here is that the
transformation of subject–object division in relation to absent unity is something that
occurs internal to each subject via the development of epistemological constructs
that bring coherence and consistency to their worldview. This transformation pro-
cess is something that represents a movement that is objective and thus something
dependent on historical becoming but independent of historical context. What we
claim here is that reductionist physics, evolution of complexity, relativistic episte-
mology, and subjective phenomenology as intellectual communities, are each
enacted historical phenomena that embody this objective motion. In other words,
each of these intellectual communities operates in relation to the aforementioned
formula, and are manifestations of a general attempt to embody love, even if they
are, in the end, forms of knowledge disconnected from the tree of life, and thus not
capable of this metaphysical positivity.
Now, we will offer a very speculative but potentially deeper synthesis between
physical and social ontology. In order to approach an intersubjective reality
structured by a universal void of desire, we here offer the idea that we can potentially
11.4 Working Higher-Order Theoretical Architecture 227

apply principles of quantum mechanics and general relativity within an emergentist

and experientially based physics capable of making sense of the subject-object
division. As mentioned above, conventional physics cannot resolve the issues of
(i) the existence of historically constituted observers within the physical system, and
(ii) the asymmetrical and irreversible temporal nature of living-mental phenomena
that characterize the dynamical curved spacetime manifold. However, in our episte-
mological method and ontological presuppositions, we introduce the structure of
observer-dependent curved geometries into the study of the nature of human civili-
zation. In this sense, we start our physics with the observer because we start our
physics with the experiential and emotional real of a general subject–object division.
Here our knowledge does not start with the void at the heart of the universal object
(quantum void), but the void at the heart of the universal subject (absent love).
Thus, in order to achieve this tentative synthesis, we seek to take seriously the
philosophical challenge of a physics that requires emergent observers whose open
and incomplete relations structure the nature of relative spacetime backgrounds. In
this way, spacetime is constituted from the relation and not given a priori as an
absolute background. This is in contrast to or in opposition to an observerless
physics structured by an objective spacetime. From this perspective, a materially
embedded observer is primordially organized around a void where virtual images
become structured as desired unities appearing in an evanescent virtual field. We
conceptualize the first appearance of this void in the organismic birth of the subject
where the original separation and distance occurs. Here in a psychoanalytic align-
ment, we identify this as the location of primal trauma leading to symptomal identity
subordinated to symbolic chain (the infant’s primordial cries for unification with the
Mother). The infant is cut (space, a separate atom) and starts to call (time, its
curvature from the object). This cut and call is the attempt to positivize the negativity
in imagistic representations. All human knowledge constructs may be sophisticated
sublimations of this primordial action.
This basic structure was already captured in our proposed formula for self-
conscious transformations above. Due to the material separation and distance from
the nature of these images (i.e. their lack of substance, their virtuality) the observer’s
a priori concept of space (separation, cut) and time (distance, call) organize around
an absence that manifests as a relativistic geometric curvature (the space of time).
Here we can say that the unity in-itself is not an actual immanent state in the
subject’s future but a curvature in the present which stabilizes its internal consis-
tency and coherence in the present moment. In other words, for self-consciousness,
there is nothing but separation and distance, since the merger with absolute unity is
equal to the erasure of self-consciousness. In this sense, we have identified a
phenomenon (virtuality) that emerges as a suprasensible superposition from a void
of being, and requires observational constitution in order to structure a four-
dimensional gravitational curvature (with three space dimensions, and one time
dimension).
From this conjecture of an understanding of subject–object division and absent
unity we posit concrete modifications to the fundamental sociological and futurist
theory that could potentially approach a human experiential reality orbiting
228 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

(circumambulating) an emergent emotionally charged dynamical absolute. In con-

temporary sociological theory structured around the idea of relational networks, we
could modify this by including the internal absence or void (irreducible non-relation)
that universally structures human networks. In contemporary futurist theory
structured around the idea of technological singularity, we could modify this by
including an invariant singularity of transformation processes internal to the division
in subject–object becoming. Thus, in sociological and futurist theory informed by
emergentist physical theory focusing on the problems of subject–object division we
may be able to engage directly with the two problems excluded from modern
physics:

(i) The existence of observers within the physical system.

(ii) The irreversible asymmetry of past-future.

Here we propose that what is being dialectically mediated by intersubjective

objectivity (future-oriented psychosociology) is:

(i) Relationships capable of sublimation of space by ‘unifying with the cut’

(i.e. ‘why are there observers within the physical system?’).
(ii) ‘Call of subjectivity’ where an absence of absolute love is embodied by a subject
transforming eternal unity (‘why is there a difference between past-future’?).

In a state where relationships sublate space via unification with the cut itself, and
where the call of subjectivity is answered reducing the difference between past and
future we would exist in a state where the fundamental identity of the opposites
(subject and object) would coincide as ‘one’ (singularity), thus nihilating each other.
However, and crucially, because the subject cannot merge with its object in another
subject (an irreducible limit of intersubjective) we are left with its remainder,
intersubjective objectivity –1. This is why any form of posited closure or completion
in a ‘Background-Other’ to the subject–object division which becomes externalized,
is ultimately a form of unity that will be imminently subject to future processes of
division. In other words, there is no higher unity of subjects, subjects must learn
transubjective navigation of –1. Such navigation is what historical humans confront
in libidinal and political economy.

11.5 Note on the Sexual Real

Now for the crucial question. What is a concrete problem to which this knowledge
could offer a unique analytic solution? Here we may ask, where does this process of
unified background formation from absence followed by immanent temporal divi-
sion occur most intensely in the human world? For any truly reflective subjectivity,
this is not a controversial question to answer. There is no question that this occurs
most intensely in the human world in the realm of sexuality, in the realm of sexual
difference, as such (Zupančič 2017). We may even go so far as saying that (human)
11.5 Note on the Sexual Real 229

history itself is nothing but the repetitive motion of two attempting to become ‘one’,
to establish the relation (in passionate attachment), only to find truth in painful
division (loss, failure). Consequently, we here posit that the future of philosophy,
perhaps, is to be decided by bravely confronting the sexual qua real as the place
where an emergent ‘one’ cannot hold itself. In this location, we see that an emergent
‘one’ structures human civilization in a negative sense, as a fundamental paradox or
deadlock of knowledge (ibid: 35).
In the realm of sexual difference, Man and Woman as gender identities
(or Masculine and Feminine as spiritual expression), the difference is not a pure
positive difference or substance which can be infinitely divided into a continuous
multiplicity of identities and spiritualities (10–100+ gender identities). This practice
of affirming a multiplicity of gender identities is commonly done in postmodern
epistemological social theories which repeat the Butlerian mantra that gender is, in
fact, a constructive performance (Butler 1990). Counter-intuitively, the instantiation
of an operation which uses constructive performativity to argue that gender is a pure
multiplicity obfuscates the fact that sex and gender are retroactively linked: gender is
only a constructive performativity to deal with the paradoxes and deadlocks of the
sexual qua real which is, in fact, a negativized unity (–1) (Zupančič 2017: 41–42),
and not a positive substance. In other words, irrespective of the constructed
performativity of a gender, all are ‘anti-unified’ by the intense pressure of the sexual
real as a negativity (absent unity). We may even say that this absent unity is the most
fundamental manifestation of negativity and that other ‘non-sexual’ intersubjective
forms are mere coverings for the deadlocks of the sexual real (Fig. 11.5). To say this
in another way, all human knowledge forms as sophisticated sublimations of the
original cut and call (birth), mask the real of the cut and call, which is a sexual
problem.
Consequently, in the inability to articulate a knowledge of this real, humanity, in
fact, risks the ultimate regression and the ultimate failure to confront its historical
destiny as spirit (the status of the ‘one’ and the ‘real’). Is it any wonder that
postmodern society appears to the reflective mind as a disorienting horizon of
illusory multiplicities? To be straight and to the point, the problem with postmodern
knowledge is that the theories which structure its discourse opt for a deconstruction
of all positivized ‘ones’ (narratives) as opposed to confronting the

Fig. 11.5 Structure of the

sexual real
230 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

undeconstructible –1 at the heart of the rotary motion of the subject (qua separation/
distance). In other words, in relation to the sexual real what these theories fail to
understand is that even once one has deconstructed gender identity (re: feminism)
and spiritual expression (re: atheism), the cut and the call of the –1 remains, and
subjectivity still struggles in an overwhelming intensity for reconciliation with this
ground. In this sense, the problem with contemporary gender theory is that it
desexualizes gender, as such. The future of philosophy may thus rest on its ability
to re-theorize a sexuality that does not fall into the deadlocks and traps of conserva-
tive ideology which too quickly reified sexual essence (ibid, p. 37). Or rather, the
future of philosophy rests on the capability of re-theorizing a mature sexual approach
to the desires of spirit.
Here the first step towards such a re-theorizing of a mature sexual approach to the
desires of spirit would place the –1 front and centre. It is in this location (this ‘sacred
space’ where time becomes the fourth dimension of space) where subjectivity
unconsciously attempts to transform an absence (0) into a positivity (1) (as in
standard-normative courtship rituals). Thus, the –1 is here conceived as the
positivized negativity at the absolute foundation of Masculine–Feminine as such
(what overdetermines their historical expression or ‘constructed performativity’).
However, and crucially, this –1 is in itself not to be found in the actual human other,
but rather in the primordially intimate ‘inhuman’ other within, expressed in an
asymmetrical form between the two. The mechanics of this dynamic must be
approached in a metaphorical narrative of eternal division (i.e. non-essentialized
identity) between the two (temporal identities), subject and object, Man and Woman,
Adam and Eve; as constituting human time.
I cannot stress enough that this is not a regression into pre-modern religious
essentialization. There is nothing between the two (primordial division constituted
by a cut and a call). But nonetheless, we must think of a new ontology for this
strange nothingness where images of unity appear. Here perhaps we can think the
place of psychoanalysis which has always taken as its object of analysis the dream
(Freud 1900). In the development of psychoanalysis in its properly Freudian tradi-
tion, that is to say, in the tradition which would see itself as a form of knowledge
aligned with science but not a science (as opposed to a Jungian form of religious
knowledge (Jung 2014)), we may say that the void of nothingness and the desire of
the dream received formal structural interpretation. To be specific the idea of a
primordial intimate inhuman otherness was first theorized by psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan (2005) as experienced as a partial object which structured the unconscious
psychical drives (from oral level to voice level). This partial object was formalized as
the objet petit a (a) qua barred subjectivity (S-a), the object cause of desire.
The objet petit a in this formula stands for the cut and embodies the call of the
divided subject (while alive in a body). Thus, in the Lacanian theory of sexual
division, we do not have a difference that can be infinitely divided into a continuous
multiplicity of identities and spiritualities. In the Lacanian theory of sexual division,
we reach an absolute limit in the form of an indivisible remainder which stands for
the infinite and immortal in the body. This is the location where the subject becomes
unified with its cut, and receives an answer to its call. In terms of gender construction
11.5 Note on the Sexual Real 231

and performativity, this unification with –1 can be experienced as a ‘not-having’

(Woman, Femininity) and a ‘not-being’ (Man, Masculinity). Here, qua Adam and
Eve as metaphorical Universal Masculinity and Universal Femininity, we may say
that the mistake of the spiritual process is, precisely, attempting to be the absolute
centre (Man, Masculinity) and to have the absolute centre (Woman, Femininity).
The absolute centre, as the real, is not a substantial something that can be occupied
by being or having, but rather is a nothingness that informs temporal identity. On the
ontological level, we may think here of temporal identity as a positivized negativity
that emerges at a place where a spurious infinity ‘stops’ and finds true infinity in
limitation.
To continue with this de-essentialized psychoanalytic interpretation of the Chris-
tian tradition, such forms of truly embodied and limited forms of subjectivity can be
seen in the Christian archetypes of Jesus on the Cross and the Virgin Mother. We
thus do not seek to reify these archetypes as eternal containers for Man/Masculine
and Woman/Feminine but to interpret their potential metaphorical truth for human
action as guides that can be further reflected upon and built upon. Jesus on the Cross
captures the metaphorical necessity of the finite and mortal subject confronting the
most immense pain (crucifixion) and emerging on the ‘other side’ as an infinite and
immortal spirit (resurrection). The Virgin Mother captures the metaphorical neces-
sity of the subject to embody the future child and nurture the continuation of spiritual
becoming. In order to embody such transcendent love (becoming divine through
confronting immense pain, sacrificing individual identity for future generations), is
potentially the foundation of all real civilization. This operation, for Lacan, occurred
in a confrontation and potentially a reconciliation (for a very ‘advanced’ human)
with the sexual real as such, referred to as the metaphorical lamella (1998: 197–199):

This lamella, this organ, whose characteristic is not to exist, but which is nonetheless an
organ [. . .] is the libido. It is the libido, qua pure life instinct, that is to say, immortal life, or
irrepressible life [. . .], indestructible life. It is precisely what is subtracted from the living
being by virtue of the fact that it is subject to the cycle of sexed reproduction. And it is of this
that all the forms of the objet a that can be enumerated are the representatives, the
equivalents.

The lamella is thus a metaphor for the undeconstructible core of life fully capable
of embodying absolute knowing of its spiritual immortality, of a proper return to its
ownmost centre. This is not a romantic idealization, on the contrary. In his most
difficult theoretical speculations, Lacan spoke of the possibility of joining forces
with this ‘entity’ but also that this joining of forces would be nothing if not arduous
(ibid):

The lamella is [. . .] immortal — because it survives any division, any scissiparous interven-
tion. [. . .] I can’t see how we would not join battle with a being capable of these properties.
But it would not be a very convenient battle.

Here we reach a dimension of ethics that is located in the irreducible singularity of

every form of subjectivity. The question for a future meta-philosophy of
232 11 Non-monist Framework for the Emergence and Reconciliation of. . .

transindividuation is what to do once one has integrated the cut of the other? What to
do once one has heard and can enact the call of the other? As opposed to ‘starting
form 0’ (deconstructionist philosophy), should we not build into the transcendental
archetypes a dynamical unconscious impossible movement? Is this not the real
potential of a psychoanalytic philosophy? When we are capable of thinking this in
a more of pure repetition we will be able to think what Lacan meant by lamella. The
lamella is not an infinite multiplicity of virtual pathways for temporal expression of
identity (qua Deleuze’s plane of immanence as virtual difference) but an infinite
singularity, a central attractor, an irreversible process that consumes and dissolves all
contradictory temporal identities.

11.6 Consequences, Final Thoughts

In grounding a theory that directly engages the real of a subject–object division and
absent unity this is a theory that ultimately seeks to engage a potential synthesis
between the sciences and the humanities. The reason why this theory can approach
the divide of the sciences and the humanities is that this divide is broadly structured
around the divide between subject and object. Here the humanities have traditionally
focused on the freedom, narrativization, and experiential world of the subject; and
the sciences have traditionally focused on the predictable, deterministic, and materi-
alistic world of the object. In this sense the two general worldviews experience
discord that ends up producing fundamentalist freedom on the humanist end (‘radical
constructivism’), and fundamentalist determinism on the scientific end (‘no con-
structivism’). Both of these extremes are ultimately perspectives that cannot think
the real of a subject–object division and absent unity in its divided totality. Here we
claim that this real of subject–object division and absent unity produces an observer-
dependent objectivity that structures the historical asymmetry of past and future.
Thus, as opposed to a view that starts and ends with the object as in reductionist
science, or a view that starts and ends with the subject as in holistic humanism, we
attempt to formulate a type of knowledge that starts with an open and incomplete
subject–object divide. This open and incomplete subject–object divide requires a
dialectical mediation capable of approaching reconciliation internal to the division at
the core of subjectivity. This is important because in worldviews that attempt
fundamental universal objectivity independent of the subject we are always left
with the irreducible mystery of the openness and incompletion of subjectivity; and
in worldviews that attempt to open a universal relativistic and pluralistic subjectivity
independent of objectivity we are always left without orientation or anchor for truth
and reality. This divide is as strong today as when it was first abstractly identified
(Snow 1959). In our current intellectual divides scientists on the far reductionist side
of the equation are searching for a fundamental universal objective truth discon-
nected from subjectivity in the noumenal real and paradoxically become lost in
subjective fictions (Smolin 2006); and humanists on the far holistic side of the
equation are searching for a fundamental freedom from objective physical conditions
and thus become paradoxically lost in a nihilistic void of pointless self-relation
References 233

(Peterson 1999). In this sense, we have lost touch with the real of subject–object
historical dialectics which must navigate an ethical–practical real with universal
desire for transcendent love (Kojève 1980).
In starting with the assumption that an emergent intersubjective objectivity exists
independent of historical context we attempt to synthesize the best of both the worlds
of physical reductionism and the worlds of humanist emergentism. Here we consider
the best of physical reductionism to be its commitment to universality and objectiv-
ity and the best of humanist emergentism to be its commitment to freedom of
consciousness and subjective development. From our approach, the commitment
to universality and objectivity becomes inscribed in the realm of free consciousness
and subjective development as an absolute necessity. In this frame, we make sense of
reductionist physics as a sublimated domain of knowledge that represents an internal
desire for a universal objectivity that is general to the psychosocial (transpersonal)
realm as a whole. Thus, we see reductionist physics as a necessary stage of historical
becoming that may be preparing human knowledge for the task of understanding an
internal and perspectival universal objectivity. In this sense, we hope to have
proposed the initial stages of an emergentist physical theory that is capable of
reconciling the subject–object division and the multiplicity of experiences and
knowledge practices that exist on the historical civilization horizon.
The consequences of such a synthesis are ultimately the identification of an
emergent intersubjective objectivity that manifests itself in a paradoxical singularity
expressed as a multiplicity of conscious forms aiming for internal unity. In other
words, the becoming of reflective subjectivity (ones) occurs against the background
of a universal void where internally generated imagistic desires for closure and
completion appears. These images, in turn, structure a symmetrical transformation
process that repetitively attempts to reconcile subject–object division with a unity
that would guarantee absolute love. In this way, a singular force of desire structures
the motion of a multiplicity of drives and the reconciliation of this intersubjective
objectivity becomes the central aim of an integrated and holistic dialectical analysis.
Here we do not aim to close and complete analysis, but aim to remain open and
incomplete, as approaching an abstract understanding of the subject–object division
in-itself does not reconcile the subject–object division in-itself. In order to reconcile
the subject–object division in-itself we must move from the work of the abstract
intellect to the concrete real of the work of our experiences and our emotions.

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Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal
Internalization 12

12.1 Narrativization of Universal Evolution

In the symbolic order there is a multiplicity of knowledge forms that attempt to

ground a universal view of reality. These forms can take a scientific, philosophical,
or religious symbolic articulation, and a multiplicity of different abstract frames and
enacted practices. In this work we start by focusing on one such symbolic order
attempting to ground a universal view of reality, big history, in order to contextualize
the desire to understand the whole of reality and to approach a higher order
understanding of the symbolic order as such.
Big history is a subject that formally emerged to meet and potentially satisfy a
general desire for a symbolic space capable of holistically integrating fragmented
scientific disciplines from cosmology to biology to human history (Christian 2017).
Consequently, the ultimate goal of the study of big history is to create a common
language for all academic research so that seemingly disparate phenomena can be
understood in an integrated framework (Spier 2017). From this perspective all
disciplines, irrespective of their object of analysis of the various scales of reality,
are all a part of the big historical narrative from ‘Big Bang to Global Civilization’
(Rodrigue et al. 2012).
In this way, as big history pioneer David Christian conjectures, the aim of big
history is to conceive of a ‘grand unified story’ capable of reclaiming the human
desire for a total vision of reality (Christian 2004, p. 4). This desire has not been
satisfied by the hyper-fragmented structure of the twentieth-century knowledge.
Thus, big history at its most fundamental ground seeks to construct a symbolic
order in the form of a temporal narrative (past–present–future) that can reconcile a
totalizing understanding of substance (big bang to global civilization). One may

Reprinted by permission from Volgograd: Publishing House ‘Uchitel’, Evolution: Evolutionary

Trends and Aspects, Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization, Last, C., 2019,
pp. 32–54.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 237

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_12
238 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

Fig. 12.1 Big history as

metalanguage construction

refer to this desire as the desire for a naturalist ‘metalanguage’ (Evans 2006) capable
of transdisciplinary integration (Heylighen 2011). Can human beings converge on an
understanding of the structure of substance and its development from its initial
emergence to its contemporary actuality? (Fig. 12.1)
In the contemporary big historical ideal a metalanguage would mean that
researchers from any discipline would have the linguistic tools necessary for any
problem related to the universal historicity of being. From this ideal we would have a
convergence of empirical methodology and conceptual terminology in the natural
sciences, social science, and humanities (Wilson 1998). This is an unresolved
problem that has long plagued contemporary academia (Snow 1959; Kauffman
2010). To be specific a convergence of method and language appears to become
beyond reconciliation when we focus on big historical eras or epochs of significant
qualitative change. For example, in the emergence of spacetime there is contention
between theology and physics (Drees 1990), in the emergence of life there is
contention between physics and biology (Luisi 2016), in the emergence of humans
there is contention between biology and general humanist discourse (Rose and Rose
2010).
12.1 Narrativization of Universal Evolution 239

However, the aims of big history go even one step further. Indeed, it is believed
that if we could successfully develop a metalanguage, we would also have a potential
convergence of modern global subjective identity. Here we can imagine a world with
all humans reflecting on the historical structure of being and contributing to its
understanding in or towards a future unified knowledge foundation. Indeed, the
desire for a unified knowledge foundation for understanding is something that has
structured the whole core of philosophy (Plato 1998; Hegel 1998) and ‘anti’--
philosophy (Kuhn 1962; Foucault 1972). Thus, the belief that humans could develop
a unified language for knowledge is something that is either viewed as the penulti-
mate quest of reasonable human telos (true wisdom) or the penultimate mad delusion
internal to human reason (for power) (Nazaretyan 2003).
Considering the discipline of big history situates itself on the philosophical side
of reason in the pursuit of unified knowledge we have an accompanying attempt at a
totalizing narrative. As the contemporary story goes: ‘In the beginning. . .’ there was
nothing (an empty substanceless void), and from this nothing, there emerged not just
a positive substantial something, but everything we can observe and detect with our
technological extensions, from the tiniest subatomic scales to the largest super-
galactic scales. This is big history between nothing and everything (Christian et al.
2011). It is in the sense of this narrative that, where other disciplines would seek
specialization, big history aims for a theoretical edifice that would achieve a holistic
comprehension or at least work in the direction of holistic comprehension (Spier
2017).
In the big historical narrative what connects the unimaginably inhuman scales of
subatomic, super-galactic space and everything in between is the progressive evolu-
tion of complex structure in our local region (Aunger 2007a, b). The cosmic
evolutionary understanding refers to this complex structure as the materialist hierar-
chy of interconnected forms (Smart 2008). Thus, in this frame what unites the
‘micro-macro’ worlds of the physical universe of the ‘middle’ world of the human
symbolic orders is the ‘evolution of complexity’ in terms of diverse parts (elements)
capable of connecting (relating) in higher coherent wholes. These wholes in turn
exhibit structural forms with novel properties, from macromolecular chemical
communities to the technological global human community.
Consequently, the concrete theoretical interpretation of the big history story relies
on the structure of complexity science (Grinchenko 2006). Here we can read a story
articulating the notion that our universe undergoes fundamental transformations
describes as ‘complexity thresholds’ (Christian 2008). Complexity thresholds
occur when a form of structural organization emerges and stabilizes a novel regime
of phenomena (a new level of the materialist hierarchy). Dominant descriptions of
these complexity transitions have been grounded in either an informational base
(universal complexity as best understood in algorithmic terms) (Baker 2013), or with
an energetic base (universal complexity as best understood in thermodynamic terms)
(Spier 2005). In these respective frames we seek to understand the way in which the
universe generally processes information and the way in which the universe gener-
ally organizes energetic flows of matter. The most common linear demarcation of
240 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

Table 12.1 Big history thresholds

Complexity threshold Event Feature
1 Origin of the universe Spacetime
2 First stars and galaxies Heterogeneity
3 Formation of chemical elements Diversification
4 Formation of Earth, solar system Localization
5 Emergence of life Self-reference
6 Emergence of humanity Narrativization
7 Transition to agriculture Civilization
8 Modern industrial revolution Globality

Fig. 12.2 Big historical objective external temporality

these information–energy complexity thresholds into a universal narrative includes

the fundamental distinctions as mentioned in Table 12.1.
Consequently, we get the representation of objective external temporality as in
Fig. 12.2.
From these frameworks some big historians have started to speculate on how this
historical theoretical approach can help us understand the complex dynamics of
contemporary civilization in regards to predicting the future of our informational and
energetic capacities and organization (Spier 2010). Such speculations are being
articulated with notions of an immanent ‘Complexity Threshold 9’ characterized
by various utopian or dystopian structural possibilities depending on human
decision-making (Voros 2013; Simon 2015). How should big historians approach
this future threshold of immanent possibilities? Can we approach this futures horizon
with the same epistemological structure that we have approached an understanding
of the substantial material past?
The question here is one of the natures of historicity itself and its ontological
utility for future speculations (Hofkirchner 2017). If we assume that big history has
succeeded in developing the epistemological tools capable of helping us understand
the emergence of complexity does this necessarily translate into an understanding of
futures reality? To be specific, in understanding the rise of novel structure and order
in the world, do we see the emergence of a metalinguistic knowledge foundation to
unify all meaningful observation and action? Can our contemporary big historical
complexification narrative become the dominant narrative structure of universal
being in relation to all future observers? What does big history make of alternative
universal narrativization? What does big history make of the ecology of competing
12.2 Evolution of Narrative Internalization 241

narrativization? What does big history make of its own historical narrative ground-
ing and actualization? Moreover, does the big history narrative really claim that once
we have integrated our historical evolutionist knowledge of the past that the direct
consequence will be a unified global modern subjectivity?
In order to approach these issues let us consider the fact that, for the substantial
material past (where we do observe an interconnected complexification), we can
simply reflect on the processual content that appears to us as observers and then
inscribe this processual content into a symbolic order framing reality (complexity
science, cosmic evolution, etc.). Thus, it may seem to be the most logical possible
movement to ground an actual big history community in frames that can handle a
futures complexification (Last 2017a). This may be considered a historical evolu-
tionist view of the physical universe where the observer remains external to the
system objectively under reflective observation. Indeed, in some sense, there is no
differentiation of big history from this historical evolutionist frame of reference
(Chaisson 2011a, 2014). In what sense is big history different from, say, cosmic
evolutionary theory? Does it need to be?

12.2 Evolution of Narrative Internalization

These questions require us to consider what happens to the big historical observer
internal to the cosmic evolutionary process (Last 2018). To be specific, what
happens to the external observer of the system objectively reflecting observation
(i.e. the big historian) when we must consider the immanence of the observer internal
to the system transformed by epistemological constructs or ‘narrativization’ (i.e. the
action of the global modern subject)? In short, what happens when we no longer
consider the observer as passively reflecting being but actively synthesizing being?
(Dieter 2008). What happens when the self-loop of presuppositions becomes
entangled with the actuality of becoming? What happens when what the observer
presupposes becomes itself reflectively formed as actual being? This is a situation
where what is the actuality of being is not passively reflected by observers but where
what is the actuality of being is something constructed by the totality of reflective
observers.
This problem can be presented precisely and clearly as a perspectival shift that
does not require the positing of new substance but the positing of new narrative
emphasis. Thus, this perspectival shift does not challenge the temporal history of
complexity thresholds but notes that throughout this temporal history of complexity
thresholds, the universe has started to ‘internalize’ itself through a ‘progressive’
synthesis or sublation of itself. In order to capture this process of universal ‘internal-
ization’ we can say that the complexifying universe started to form a minimal level
of internal self-relation (Maturana and Varela 1991). What is the consequence of this
progressive internalization? How is it connected to complexification? How should
we understand the complexity of narrative given its irreducibly internal nature?
Indeed, the very emergence of a big history community represents this synthetic
sublation process of internalization where the universe attempts to conceptualize
242 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

itself as a totality. What we seek here to do is put a narrative emphasis on the

consequences of this internalization motion as something of significance to future
big historical research. In order to situate an understanding of this internalization
process consider the relation between observer X and event Y. When observer X
(cosmologist, astronomer, biologist) projects and reflects on event Y (i.e. origin of
the universe, formation of stars/galaxies, emergence of life), observer X does not
change event Y. In other words, irrespective of the actions of observer X (scientific
subject), event Y (physical universe) does not change its course of action.
However, the closer we get to the real of human history (i.e. what big history
demarcates as complexity threshold 7–9), the more obviously we are dealing with a
phenomenon where all observers X projections and reflections are responsible for
event Y. Indeed, as for the real of past historical transitions like the agricultural or
industrial revolutions (i.e. complexity thresholds 7 and 8), event Y becomes nothing
but the collective activity of observers X. The agricultural and industrial revolutions
are not events constituted in an observer-less, narrative-less realm, but irreducibly
within an by observers constituted by narrative-mediated self-action. The difference
here for the big historical future is that for complexity threshold 9 the observers are
‘meta-aware’ of their narrative position in the big historical drama (Fig. 12.3).
How are we to interpret this big historical fact? Big historical interiorization
during complexification suggests that complexification is somehow related to interi-
orization, of the universe becoming increasingly conscious of itself (Teilhard de
Chardin 1955). Consequently, the passive reflection correspondence between human
epistemological constructs (i.e. big history narrative) and the ontological nature of
reality (i.e. physical evolution of the universe) becomes simply untenable in relation
to the future of the present moment. For example, in contemporary science the
inadequacy of passive epistemological reflection becomes unavoidable when
reflecting on the future of conscious and technological evolution (Kurzweil 2005),

Fig. 12.3 Observer positionality in big history

12.2 Evolution of Narrative Internalization 243

the connections between physics and computation (Lloyd 2006) and a future physics
dependent on observation (Smolin 2001).
In all of these contemporary scientific domains we are dealing with a situation
where epistemological constructs or narratives must be inscribed into the ontological
nature of the thing under observation. For example, technological singularity theory
is a narrative that becomes directly involved with itself in the creation of the
technological singularity; quantum computational theory is a narrative that will itself
generate technologies of immanent universal consequence to all observers (even if
no one knows what these consequences will be); and modern quantum gravity
narrativization requires a way to reconcile observation with the strange dynamics
of curved spacetime. The irreducible commonality to all such scientific problematics
includes interiorization: What is reality inclusive of observation? What is reality
inclusive of narrative?
Thus, in order to properly grasp how the universe internalizes itself through its
complexification understanding the nature of observation is something that big
history must confront seriously. In creating a grand narrative architecture for
complexification we do achieve a sense of holistic unity with universal being.
However, there is a real sense in which this obfuscates the real of observational
dynamics and narrativization. To confront this problematic I propose that we must be
able to think a big history where the human observer X (the constructor of a big
history) becomes, as an ontological fact, a direct causal agent in the materialist chain
of events Y (the future evolution of the universe), and not merely an epistemological
effect of empirical material phenomena (Last 2018).
This means that the narrative is directly responsible for facilitating the becoming
of being itself: not a story about being but a story that constitutes being itself (Žižek
2012). In this sense, perhaps, the point of the big history community is not merely to
reflect on the totality of being (where observer X reflects positive content Y), but to
engage in the necessary meta-reflection on why there exist beings who narrativize
the whole of being? One can say that big history reflects objective nature; one can
also say that big history cognitively transforms the conscious elements narrativizing
being. Thus, in accordance with the literature pointing towards big history as a social
movement (e.g. Katerberg 2018), one can ask whether big history serves the
evolution of the modern global subject epistemologically, and one can also ask
whether the modern global subject serves big history ontologically. To what end?
What is the big historical mission that a cosmic synthetic sublation should tend
towards?.
In order to consider these questions we must operate on the level of the becoming
of ideational beings (Kojève 1980). In terms of the standard big historical
complexification nature differentiates itself in higher order integrations. But when
we reach the level of ideational internalization we have nature reflectively exploring
itself through the ideas free externalization (big bang to global civilization) and then
returning to itself (modern global subject). What are the action-based consequences?
244 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

How does the modern global subject who has internalized the whole of nature
change modern global society? Is there a thinkable universality that emerges that
actually transcends mere reductions to an observer tethered to scientific reflection
correspondence?
In this perspective of big historical internalization the conflict or tension between
the modernist scientific constructionist view seeking universal totality and the
postmodern critical view seeking to deconstruct universal totality seem to gain
new dimensions. Indeed, in the same way that many contemporary scientific projects
have an issue of what to do with an observer-dependent understanding of science, is
not the main challenge that postmodern social critique poses to modernist scientific
construction the general issue of reality when one wants to also consider the way
reality is entangled with internal observational narrativization? (Lyotard 1984)
This is not to say that contemporary sciences like quantum gravity focused on the
external real are mere social constructions (as has been adequately parodied (Sokal
1996)), there is an external real here (the real of black holes, big bang, etc.) (Frolov
and Zelnikov 2011). However, there is also the real of observationally constituted
narrativization that cares about the real truth of quantum gravity and this is always
left out of the model (Last 2018). Here one can say clearly and concretely that this
divide may primarily be a divide between the real of the external objective material
constitution of the world, and the real of the internal subjective action in the world
(Peterson 1999). When we think the consequences of narrativized internalization for
the next big historical complexity threshold we are dealing with an irreducible
entanglement of these two reals as if narrativized observers are repetitively centering
themselves around the truth of being.

12.3 Research Focused on Narrativistic Internalization

The postmodern challenge to modernist scientific narrativization is here the issue of

a historically unreflective totalization of the narrative (Kuhn 1962; Foucault 1972).
In modernist thought it is possible to conceive a narrative that captures the whole of
temporal substance towards a universal metalanguage (‘big bang to global civiliza-
tion’). However, in postmodernism there is no ‘one’ narrativistic reconciliation or
scaffolding for totality (Derrida 1997). This is for simply yet complex reasons related
to the reality of internalization: the narrative is irreducibly contingent in relation to
its particular historical disclosure (i.e. what dimensions of being we can observe)
(Heidegger 1988), its particular sociohistorical instantiation (i.e. a discourses regime
of symbolic social power) (Foucault 1980), and its subjective interpretational sym-
bolic meaning architecture (i.e. the irreducible personal value or utility of the
narrative for a mortal and finite self-consciousness) (Peterson 1999).
Here, in regard to the subject of big history, we must be able to think how future
understanding of being will change big historical narrativization, how big historical
social power instantiation effects narrativization, and how this narrative functions for
12.3 Research Focused on Narrativistic Internalization 245

the individuation or transindividuation process. In that sense the phenomenological

instantiation of one master narrative of being, from Biblical narrativization
(Sternberg 1987), to Newtonian narrativization (Goldstein 2011), to Marxist
narrativization (Lukács and Lukács 1971) to Big Historical narrativization (Christian
2004), is a problem that cannot stand when one thinks of the observer within the
system. The master narrative is only possible when one operates under the fantasy
that the observer is external to the system. In that sense we must always leave room
for the way in which the observer’s totalizing understanding is never itself totality.
This gives us a different view than the view that conceptual coherence is a process
whose past is fragmented and whose future is unified in a metalanguage. To be
specific it gives us a view that totalization of temporal substance is always something
that subjectivity repeats in the present moment (reducing both past and future to the
narrativistic present). Here we get a view of the narrativistic temporality of the
subject (Ricoeur 2010), and an opening to non-linear futures (Nazaretyan 2016). In
this sense past humans engaged in symbolic totalization (e.g. Biblical, Newtonian,
Marxist, etc.), and we are continuing this evolution of symbolic totalization with
new/different content (in the big historical sense, the content of cosmic evolution and
the theory of complexity science). Thus, when the observer is within the system we
must attempt to think the psychoanalytic ‘metastructure’ of the symbolic order
(Lacan 2005; Evans 2006). In this metastructure there is no unifying ‘metalanguage’
between particular historical subjectivities that would unify knowledge of being
(Fig. 12.4).
Here we can take a moment to consider a few examples related to Biblical
(theological), Newtonian (scientific), and Marxist (political) narrativization. The
Biblical narrative centers subjectivity in relation to a past ‘Eden’ and a future
‘God’, the Newtonian narrative centers subjectivity in relation to an infinite past
and infinite future held by ‘eternal spacetime’ (with no beginning and end), the
Marxist narrative centers subjectivity in relation to a past ‘Primitive Communism’
and a future ‘Global Communism’. This is not to say that any of these narrativistic
temporalities are literally true in a materialist sense (i.e. ‘Eden/God’, ‘Eternal
Spacetime’, ‘Primitive/Global Communism’). However, it is the case that these
narrativistic temporalities are metaphorical truths for subjectivity that have stabilized
action in the real of history. Furthermore, these metaphorical truths have had real
material consequences in the establishment of Christian, Physicalist, and Communist
societies.
For our big historical purposes one can start to see the temporal ‘metastructure’ of
the symbolic order independent of whether the symbolic order is instantiated relative
to a theological, scientific, or political directive/background. One can also start to
reflect on how our own big historical ‘literal’ totalizing substantial temporality (past
‘big bang’ and future ‘global civilization’) may be something that we reflectively
come to discover is only a particular narrativization of being in the larger becoming
of the concept. How will future subjectivity narrativize the whole of being? Will we
246 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

Fig. 12.4 Metastructural

totalization of symbolic order

discover that the big bang is a particular phase transition part of a larger more
complex process? Will global civilization transform itself into an entity beyond
human comprehension? Or, indeed, one can ask: how does big history’s temporal
metastructure operate on its own ‘absolute’ ethical-political background directive?
Do big historians actually operate on this ethical-political background directive? Do
big historians reflect deeply enough on this ethical-political background directive?
Are there alternative possible ethical-political background directives?
These are what we may call ‘higher order’ internalization issues of the symbolic
order. When big historical researchers approach the transition of ‘complexity thresh-
old 8 to 9’ (global civilization to?) we must be able to confront the relation between
complexification and internalization. In this context we are focusing on the way in
which the universe is progressively synthesizing or sublating itself in unified but
competing and antagonistic conceptual forms as absolute backgrounds. In this mode
the first step, as mentioned, maybe to focus on a meta-reflection of big history as a
movement culture (i.e. the processual action of narrativized beings). Thus, in the
same way that the Biblical narrative centers subjectivity in relation to God, or the
12.3 Research Focused on Narrativistic Internalization 247

Fig. 12.5 Metastructural backgrounds of the symbolic order

Newtonian narrative centers subjectivity in relation to Spacetime, and the Marxist

narrative centers subjectivity in relation to Communism, we may say that the Big
History narrative attempts to center subjectivity in relation to the reconciliation of
planetary civilization (Fig. 12.5).
Does this require us to more seriously introduce psychoanalysis? (Blanks 2016).
In psychoanalytic terms we may call these the metastructural background directives
‘Others’ that stand-in for the impossibility of a universal metalanguage. These
‘Others’ come to be conceived of by the subject as absolute complete and consistent
languages which guarantee ethical-political action. Thus the subject of Biblical
narrativization has no doubts about the necessity of reconciliation with God
(in terms of understanding his Will), the subject of Newtonian narrativization has
no doubts about the necessity of reconciliation with Spacetime (in terms of under-
standing its complete mechanics), the subject of Marxist narrativization has no
doubts about the necessity of reconciliation with Communism (in terms of under-
standing its determination).
In relation to the aforementioned meta-antagonism of modernism and
postmodernism we can see that thinking the external objective materialist real and
internal subjective action-based real together does not merely relativize the big
historical narrativization project, but rather, absolutizes it internal to observer-
dependent historical process (Jameson 2013). In other words, this is not a standard
interpretational situation where one totalizing modernist scientific metalanguage
(Friedman 2005) stands opposed to an egalitarian ancient multiplicity of narrative
epistemologies (Davis 2009). Instead this higher order focus is on the way in which
big history in its current representations ‘metastructures’ a particular formal epochal
disclosure of being.
When we think big history in these terms we are thinking in terms of a
narrativistic desire for a future complexity threshold that results in a harmonious
global order (Spier 2010). In that sense we cannot understand contemporary big
history ‘objectively’ independent of its contextual emergence within our postmodern
information age with all of its problems and antagonisms (Last 2017b). We cannot
think of contemporary big history ‘objectively’ independent of its possible failure to
248 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

reconcile planetary civilization and help instantiate a totally other observationally

narrativized world. It is in this sense that we think of big history as not simply a story
about being but a story that constitutes (this temporal era of) being itself. It is in this
sense that the big history narrative is conceived as an integral part of the larger
conceptual becoming of the concept itself. Can big history think this concept in its
becoming?

12.4 Higher Orders of Universal Internalization

There is an important form of dynamical flexibility when we think of big history in

terms of the evolution of symbolic orders. The most obvious example is related to
reflecting on the transcendental horizon that structures a big historical frame. In this
sense, instead of assuming the objective real of a materialist hierarchy governed by
the progressive constitution of complexity thresholds, we ask what is being centred
or oriented in the modern global subject by the complexity threshold framing
perspective? Beyond a desire for harmonious global reconciliation are we preparing
epistemologically for some sort of qualitative transition in our experiential structure?
(Barrat 2013; Bostrom 2014; Kaku 2014). Indeed, one can argue that big history
tends towards higher levels of complex integration (like a harmonious global civili-
zation) (Spier 2010), one can also argue that big history tends towards higher levels
of experiential qualities (Last 2017a).
Towards the possibility to think this within big history we may note that in past
complexity thresholds (e.g. 6 and 7) there have not been quantitative increases in
information processing (Delahaye and Vidal 2016) and energy flows (Chaisson
2011b), but also qualitative changes in internal experience (Thompson 2010; Dea-
con 2011). In the human realm there have been qualitative changes related to the
emergence of beings with ideational-notional capacities (not just apes, but subjects
of the dialectic of self-consciousness (Hegel 1998)) and the emergence of beings
with exceptional ideational-notional determination (not just humans acting like apes,
but subjects of the Overman (Nietzsche 1883)). Is the next qualitative transition
beyond the human as has been discussed in much of the contemporary speculative
futures literature? (Vinge 1993; Kurzweil 2001; Goertzel and Goertzel 2015). What
does big history have to add to this speculative futures literature? Can big history
understand how new ethical-political centers of being (God, Spacetime, Commu-
nism, etc.) tend towards stabilizing new totalizing narrative temporalities via
ideational-notional determination? What are the mechanics of such conceptual
background formation?
In this sense we call attention to higher order evolution of the symbolic order.
Symbolic orders create and transform the processual content of our future through a
multiplicity of frames of reference. Indeed, within this meta-level field some of these
narrative frames are historical evolutionist centering on global unity via
complexification (Heylighen 2014). However, we also find narrative frames that
are physical eternalist centering on true nature of spacetime via mathematical
reduction (Penrose 2004), ideational eternalist centering on the true nature of love
12.4 Higher Orders of Universal Internalization 249

via emotional transference (Sloterdijk 2011), discursive relativist centering on the

nature of free subjectivity via identitarian activism (Barry 2017), metaspiritualist
centred on the nature of global becoming of subjective actualization (Kripal 2007),
self-referentialist centred on deconstructing or identifying the core of subjective
experience itself (Metzinger 2004; Hofstadter 2007), or traditional religious centred
on the presence of God (Barth 2003).
Although all of these symbolic orders are not necessarily in ontological contra-
diction or conflict, many of them are. For example, there is no obvious ontological
contradiction between the historical evolutionist view and the self-referentialist
view. One can simultaneously hold without internal contradiction or incoherence
the evolution of all material and the fictional nature of subjectivity. However, there is
contradiction and incoherence between the ideational eternalist view and the discur-
sive relativist view. One cannot hold the eternity of ideal truth and the relativity of
discursive construction. How do we understand their internal narrativistic
interconnections and how to reconcile their differences? Here to confront the
action-based real of the transition between threshold 8 and 9 we also have to confront
the real of a narrative temporality internal to the subject and the consequences of its
centering (‘gravitational’) formations (Dennett 2014). To be constructive on the
level of metastructure without utilizing a totalizing metalanguage can we consider
the epistemological orders of cybernetics as a structuring moment for an ontology of
the symbolic? (Table 12.2).
The higher order focus here becomes self-action on the level of historical totality.
In the inclusivity of each order we must reflectively take into consideration more
observation and more of the consequences of observation internal to the system. The
external world thus loses its objective quality and gains a complex matrix of multiple
internalizations. However, as mentioned, this complex matrix is not ‘infinite’ in its
possible viable interpretations, but rather must possess a metastructure that limits the
range of interpretation. In that sense we have to consider all of the possible
configurations of the totalizing backgrounds that a finite and mortal self-
consciousness would situate as its absolute ethical-political directive in relation
to. For example, what is the metaphysical background of the ideational eternalist
and how does it differ from that of the discursive relativist? How can both be situated
as viable interpretations of being? In order to answer this question we also have to
consider what this matrix of symbolic backgrounds is ultimately attempting to
reconcile on the terms of the observer’s desires.
Thus, there may not be a metalanguage unifying all modern global subjects but
rather a unified metastructural matrix of symbolic desire expressed temporally as a
part of the becoming of the concept. What is common to all of these symbolic orders
independent of the way in which they reflect material content (i.e. objective external
real) and the way in which they direct a particular ethical-political action
(i.e. subjective internal real)? We can of course say that each symbolic order is
stabilized by its ‘Other’ or Background (i.e. God, Spacetime, Communism, etc.), but
we can also say that every ‘Other’ or Background is not only different but internally
inconsistent and incoherent (Žižek 2012). This means that the problem of the
inconsistency and incoherence between certain views becomes its own solution,
since, ultimately, each view cannot map totality. Consequently, the impossibility of a
250 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

Table 12.2 Higher orders of symbolic evolution

Order Description Discursive level
1 In the first order of cybernetics we are attempting to Physical sciences
think the external physical world as it is in itself. For Knowledge of the world
contemporary big history this would be something like
the ‘big bang to global civilization’ narrative.
2 In the second order we are thinking the observer’s Deconstruction, Critique
relation to the external physical world as it is in itself. Knowledge of knowledge of
For our purposes this would be a particular big history the world
researcher’s relation to the big history narrative.
3 In the third order we are thinking the observer’s Psychoanalysis, Psychology
relation to its own internal states of mind including Self-knowledge
conscious images, visions, symbols, and so forth. For
our purposes this would be the genesis of
representational modes to relate to self and world.
4 In the fourth order we are thinking the observer’s History, Sociology
relation to the social-historical world and the way in Self-knowledge, its action,
which a self-narrative structures or centers its and consequences
conception of time and direction of action. For our
purposes this would be the self-action of a big historian
or a big history community.
5 In the fifth order we are thinking the totality of Religion, Philosophy
observational relation to the social-historical world Self-society knowledge, its
and the way in which the totality of self-narratives action, and consequences
structure or center conception of time and direction of
action. For our purposes this would be the self-action
of all historical narrativization.

true Other/Background is actually the positive liberating condition for the construc-
tion of any Other/Background whatsoever (Fig. 12.6a).
We see that the problem of the ‘true’ or ‘real’ Other/Background is more and
more a feature of the symbolic order in terms of what is often referred to as ‘post-
Truth politics’. Indeed, science itself cannot escape this problem considering that
many scientists are themselves starting to act in relationship to Other/Backgrounds
with no empirical correlate. In this sense we see that all that is required for a subject
to act in relationship to a non-empirical Other/Background is an internally consistent
theoretical edifice that satisfies the reason for a particular form of historical subjec-
tivity. For example, what types of big history narratives must be considered if we are
acting, not in relationship to the historical real of complexity thresholds, but instead
in relationship to the Multiverse Universe of all possible configurations of physical
law? (Wallace 2012). Or the Many Worlds Universe of all possible materialist
branching directions/decisions? (DeWitt and Graham 2015). Or the Artificial Intel-
ligence Universe of qualitatively other forms of observation? (Bostrom 2014). Or the
Alien Civilization Universe of higher intelligent constitution of being? (Vidal 2014)
(Fig. 12.6b).
12.4 Higher Orders of Universal Internalization 251

Fig. 12.6 (a) Inconsistency/incompletion of symbolic backgrounds. (b) Multiplicity of non-

empirical symbolic backgrounds. (c) Metastructural matrix of death and freedom as symbolic
background

However, considering that every symbolic order is ultimately stabilized by a finite

and mortal self-consciousness, can we see that what is reflected in this Other/
Background is something missing in being? Could it be that what is reflected in
252 12 Symbolic Orders and Structure of Universal Internalization

this Other/Background is some fundamental absence? (Deacon 2011) Thus, in the

same way that solutions to quantum gravity may require physicists to remove their
dependence on an absolute background existing independently of observation
(Smolin 2001), could it be that understanding the immanence of threshold 9 requires
big historians to play with the consequences of background independence? In the
same way that we start the contemporary big history with a void that is filled in with
all substance (i.e. ‘In the beginning. . .’ there was nothing (an empty substanceless
void), and from this nothing, there emerged not just a positive substantial something,
but everything) can we say that all forms of historical subjectivity are desiring voids
that freely fill in this absence with the necessarily missing substantial content?
In that sense the metastructure of the symbolic order would emerge around a
capacity for higher action: what we may call ‘freedom’ as the ability to determine
one’s own reality. The real of freedom would here be juxtaposed against the
constraining (and underconstructible) background real of finitude and mortality:
what we may call death as the fundamental limiting condition for any symbolic
order whatsoever. In this situation, the formation of a particular ‘Other/Background’
within the metastructural matrix of the symbolic order would be dependent on the
way in which a particular finite-mortal self-consciousness conceptually recognized
desire for freedom against the background of its own imminent disappearance
(Fig. 12.6c).

12.5 Radical Speculation on the Nature of Freedom

Here I want to attempt to put a focus on universal internalization into a radical

dialogue. Could it be that it is possible to put ‘complexity threshold 1’: the origin of
universal spacetime as the physical container for consciousness; against its most
radical opposite for ‘complexity threshold 9’: the immanent desires for conscious
freedom? In this situation the symbolic order, through its progressive conceptual
syntheses, may be attempting to internalize its external otherness so that it can return
to its own notion, its own free state of being, where it can freely constitute external
otherness? From this presupposition the universal ethical-political background direc-
tive of the symbolic order (its most totalizing internalization) would be the most
radical form of freedom thinkable: the freedom from a determining spacetime matrix
itself (the way in which our consciousness is conditioned by finitude and mortality as
opposed to infinite and immortal unity with God). Is it thinkable to think a conscious
removal of such fundamental limitations? Is it thinkable for consciousness to
habitually set its own fundamental limitations?
First, let us consider the foundational epistemologies in modern sciences and
humanities. In the modern sciences an understanding of external objectivity is
situated under an ontological regime of absolute spacetime. This is a Newtonian
epistemology that we still carry with us today even if it has received post-classical
modifications (i.e. general relativity, quantum mechanics). These post-classical
modifications open the possibility of ‘absolute’ spacetime itself undergoing phase
transitions in extreme forms as a consequence of action density. In other words,
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thresholds).
Now, when we think of foundational epistemology in the humanities is not the
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freedom? Indeed, in the highest states of human creative self-action the subjective
experience of eternity is often experienced as the most real and most true.

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A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers
13

13.1 Between Deconstruction and Metalanguage

What went wrong with Žižek? We have with us two fundamental works of philoso-
phy, Less Than Nothing (2012) and Absolute Recoil (2014), with no simple guide to
how they can help us to resolve the major paradoxes and antagonisms which we
encounter today in epistemological fields as diverse as sexuality, politics, science,
religion and so forth. This work aims to play a role in resolving this problem by
making transparent as possible the main drive of Žižek’s philosophical programme.
Towards this end let us reflect on the central aim of Žižek’s last masterwork,
Absolute Recoil (2014, pp. 18–19):

The present work endeavors to elevate the speculative notion of absolute recoil into a
universal ontological principle. Its axiom is that dialectical materialism is the only true
philosophical inheritor of what Hegel designates as the speculative attitude of thought
towards objectivity. [. . .] The consequences of this axiom are systematically deployed in
three steps: 1) the move from Kant’s transcendentalism to Hegel’s dialectics, that is, from
transcendental “correlationism” [. . .] to the thought of the Absolute; 2) dialectics proper:
absolute reflection, coincidence of the opposites; 3) the Hegelian move beyond Hegel to the
materialism of “less than nothing”.

This work ‘repeats’ Žižek’s gesture as pure repetition with no desire to idealize
the end product, it is simply left open to be destroyed and repeated again. We ground
this work as a thought on the Absolute itself, as a reflection that attempts an intensive
mediation of the coincidence of the opposites. Thus ‘A Reflective Note for Dialecti-
cal Thinkers’ offers the reader an attempt to understand dialectical thinking in a
subjectively authentic, pragmatic, and historically grounded form that aims at

Reprinted by permission from International Journal of Žižek Studies, Special Issue: What Went
Wrong With Žižek?, A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers, Last, C., 2018.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 257

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_13
258 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

speculative objectivity. Dialectical thinking is a useful tool with a concrete form

(a spiritual bone) that reveals an elementary structure to the historical workings of
symbolic reason that is at once metaphysically profound and practical. I also want to
inscribe myself into this work so that you can see the way in which I subjectively
engage with dialectical thinking, and to potentially help you to reflect on the way you
already deploy the dialectic, or the way in which you may start to deploy the
dialectic.
The dialectic is something that can be situated between (as a coincidence of) two
dominant modes of thought today: deconstructive thought and metalinguistic
thought. Deconstructive thought would deny the existence of the Absolute, whereas
metalinguistic thought would claim that its conceptual schema (alone) clearly and
coherently represents (speaks) the Absolute. Dialectical thinking is something other
than both of these forms. Dialectical thinking gives us something of a glimpse of the
Absolute eternity of rational discourse as it speaks in and for itself. In other words,
dialectical thinking historicizes eternity (the Absolute). This glimpse was perhaps
best articulated on the very last pages of Žižek’s Less Than Nothing (2012, p. 1010):

The voice of reason or of the drive is often silent, slow, but it persists forever.

I would thus like to situate dialectical thinking as the eternal voice of reason itself
between the opposites of deconstructive modes of thought and metalinguistic forms
of thought. In deconstructive modes of thought what is emphasized is historical
relativity. What is emphasized is the historical relativistic nature of our
constructions, that any construction we conceive, any construction which we engage
with the world, is something contingent, something that could have been otherwise.
In that sense there is no such thing as an Absolute ‘eternal truth’ claim, there is no
such thing as a truth as we would think of it in the religious perspective as a
transhistorical eternal truth subsisting independent of human action and reason.
From the deconstructive perspective, any claim whatsoever is just a particular
contingent relative truth expressed by a historical sociocultural individual.
On the other hand, metalinguistic thought is something that is often conceived of
as on an eternal asymptotic approach to a universal language. Metalinguistic thought
is conceived as some way to transcend our partiality and limitation, our historical
relativism, for an Absolute expression of eternal concepts. One can see this striving
for metalanguage to be at the foundation (repressed, disavowed, or not) of many
scientific disciplines, and also many religious traditions. The idea we get in metalin-
guistic thought is the idea that the language we developed or are developing is a
construction project towards some form of universal communication medium that
will persist for all time, some guarantee of the Absolute truth (some figure of the
Other).
What does the dialectical middle ground look like between deconstruction and
metalanguage?
From my perspective I would say that dialectical thought situates itself in the
mode of an eternal present constituted by the totality of logos (inclusive of its
movement, its unconscious, and its impossibility). What persists across time in
13.1 Between Deconstruction and Metalanguage 259

language (or as time), in the rational order of the logos, is that through our partiality,
through our limitation, we can come to reason, and through engaging with reason, by
the subject engaging with its partial limitation, it can transcend the partial limitation.
Technically, you could be anywhere and anytime, and as long as you are open and
attentive to reason, then our dialogue can transcend any space or time that separates
us, or that would create a distance.
In this way, the dialectical reversal of the problems of deconstructive thinking and
metalinguistic thinking is precisely not to deconstruct language as irreducibly
historically relative, and neither is it to (prematurely, perhaps) jump into the mystical
beyond of a universal language. Instead, the dialectical reversal counter-intuitively
sees the potential in what most intuitively see as a limitation, of the way in which the
necessary self-limitation of reason directly unites the particular finite entity (the
creature) with the universal infinite immortal absolute (the creator). When this link is
lost, then all is lost. When we unite creature and creator we have perhaps the most
important ‘coincidence of the opposites’, where two things seemingly different
(a duality), are revealed as one thing (a singularity). The reason for the drive,
logos, allows me to (magically) go beyond my partial engagement with language,
to express an infinite judgement, and an immortal truth, despite the fact that I am a
finite mortal creature. Through the insistence of my reason I can be united with
something that persists. In Plato and Hegel this insistence is already very strong. One
can see in Parmenides and Phenomenology of Spirit that philosophy in its most
authentic form is something that allows one to touch ‘something’ (or less than
nothing) in language that is not merely historically relative, and at the same time it
is not a type of objective global view of the whole situation. We are, coincidentally,
at the same time, irreducibly partial and limited.
This is why the Hegelian formula for the Absolute is C ¼ T (Concept ¼ Time)
(Kojève 1980, p. 111). The Hegelian formula for the Absolute does not recognize the
concept’s temporality as its failure to reach eternity (deconstructive thinking), and
nor does it recognize the concept’s temporality as immanent to a conceptual eternity
(metalinguistic thinking). The concept (‘that is, the integration of all concepts, the
complete system of concepts, the “idea of ideas,” or the Idea’ (ibid)) and time
(temporal reality) are one and the same thing, the deployment of eternity in tempo-
rality (Hegel 1998, p. 38, 558):

Time is the Concept itself, which is there. [. . .] In what concerns Time, it is the Concept itself
which exists empirically.

Here, repeating Žižek, we can clearly unite the Hegelian idealist tradition with the
Freudo–Lacanian psychoanalytic tradition by way of identifying the homology
between the concept, the signifying structure of language, and the subject’s temporal
position vis-a-vis this Absolute metastructure (Last 2018a). To define it as clearly as
possible, the Freudo–Lacanian psychoanalytic tradition is a tradition that proclaims
psychoanalysis as the ‘science of language inhabited by the subject’ (Lacan 1993,
p. 243).
260 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

Thus, to engage a psychoanalytic perspective on the dialectical formula C ¼ T I

will attempt to situate two of Jacques Lacan’s axioms that capture the coincidence of
the opposites between deconstructive historical relativism and universal metalan-
guage objectivizing our temporal position in their separation and distance from each
other. On the deconstructive hand, Lacan deployed the axiom that ‘language is the
torture house of being’ (ibid). This is a precise structural response to Heidegger’s
well-known claim that ‘language is the house of being’. ‘Language is the torture
house of being’ notes that there is an ‘undeconstructible’ emotional dimension of
being in the house of language which is related to pain or suffering. ‘Language is the
torture house of being’ notes that in order to really make ‘progress’ in language you
have to struggle and suffer in it via the dissolution of temporal identity. Thus
‘deconstruction’ does not relativize language, does not do away with the Absolute,
but is itself an ‘Absolute recoil’ which brings the self to the ‘Absolute’ eternal level
internal to and yet beyond language, where the conceptual defenses of the self-
conscious ego (on the register of the imaginary, the specular image), are brought to
confront the most real as an anti-identity, or non-identity (a black hole).
On the metalinguistic hand, Lacan often deployed the idea that ‘there is no
metalanguage’ (Lacan 2005a, p. 816) or ‘there is no Other of the Other’ (Lacan
1999a, pp. 80–81). This means that there is no way to get an objective universal
language or absolute conceptualization, there is no way in which you can eliminate
the contingency and eliminate the partiality of your engagement with language.
There is no way you can develop a conceptual schema that is transhistorical (either
scientific or religious), because we are historical creaturely creators, we are living
beings. This is a sort of inability internal to the relationship between language and
the Absolute. I think that this conversation is important to situate in contemporary
discourse specifically between the emergence of language and the (potential) emer-
gence of transhumans (Last 2017). What I mean by this is that the emergence of
language (emergence of logos) represents a qualitative transition to a different type
of experience, and a different type of realm. And when we hear about transhuman
visions (as is quite common in our present discourse), whether about future mind-to-
mind communication via brain–machine interface, or via interaction with artificial
intelligences, we get the image of another qualitative transition in mind, specifically
related to language.
Thus, with the formula C ¼ T I attempt to situate dialectical thinking as a bridge
(potentially) between the emergence of language (the conceptual fall into time, or the
concept’s time: past-future) and some transhuman future (that we do not understand).
This transhuman future is a mystery pure and simple. Whatever the nature of this
transhuman future it could be that dialectical thinking is the structure of our thought
in its most rational form and thus our best attempt to understand how to mediate the
human realm in its transition state: not an asymptotic approach to the singularity
(Kurzweil 2005), but rather a mediation of a singularity (or field of singularities) that
are always already here right now. To elaborate on Žižek’s aforementioned insis-
tence (2012, p. 1010):
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 261

Fig. 13.1 Becoming

between something and
nothing

In a letter to Einstein, as well as in his New Introductory Lectures to Psychoanalysis, Freud

proposed as a utopian solution for the deadlocks of humanity the “dictatorship of reason”—
men should unite and together subordinate and master their irrational unconscious forces.
The problem here, of course, lies with the very distinction between reason and the uncon-
scious: on the one hand, the Freudian unconscious is “rational”, discursive, having nothing
to do with the reservoir of dark primitive instincts; on the other hand, reason is for Freud
always close to “rationalization”, to finding (false) reasons for a cause whose true nature is
disavowed. The intersection between reason and drive is best signaled by the fact that Freud
uses the same formulation for both: the voice of reason or of the drive is often silent, slow,
but it persists forever. This intersection is our only hope.

In this context, we may meta-reflect on our own historical engagement. Humans

all gather together to share in language. In this engagement, what we appear to want
is to infuse our language with our ownmost rational spirit (inclusive of its uncon-
scious dimension), irrespective of its partiality and limitation (inclusive of our
partiality and limitation), as opposed to being a ventriloquist dummy of the symbolic
order. Thus, we are still very much in the mode of trying to represent our partial truth
in language, to give voice to our limitation. We will cry out in pain until that is
realized. In the Hegelian sense this truth is not the Absolute eternity of an immovable
fixed ideality, but rather the oppositional coincidence of the Absolute non-identity of
eternity (nothing, chaos) in a temporal becoming (something, order), where self-
relativization or limitation and partiality brings one absolutely closer to the univer-
sal, not farther away (Fig. 13.1).
Thus, instead of seeing language only in its negative historically relative limita-
tion, or as something to be overcome via asymptotic approach to a metalanguage, the
dialectician aims to see what we can accomplish universally in language, through a
radical partial and contextual engagement with reason.

13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory)

For a dialectical programme, we do not need a metalanguage but we may find useful
the introduction of a metaontology. A metaontology is related to the axiom of the
Absolute as substance and subject (Žižek 2012, Chap. 6). I would situate
metaontology as something different than a grand unified theory of everything
262 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

(as is common in, for example big history (Last 2017, 2018a)). If you are scientifi-
cally minded or aware of the scientific literature, the idea of a grand unified theory is
persistent, and many great thinkers and philosophers have tried to come up with a
grand unified theory of everything, a theory that would explain everything in
existence or being.
There are perhaps two prominent examples today that would claim to be striving
for a grand unified theory of everything. One example would be quantum gravity in
physics, which represents the idea that one day we will have a complete theory of the
macroscopic and the microscopic, general relativity and quantum mechanics
(Smolin 2001). This is the idea that we will be able to explain the birth and death
of matter, and everything in between, inclusive of reductionist explanations for life
and mind. Another contender for a grand unified theory might be self-organization
theory in evolutionary paradigms (Kauffman 1995). In self-organization theory,
there is the idea that we can explain all emergent order in the universe based on
local interaction principles of spontaneous organization (Heylighen 2014, p. 14). In
this view, the universe is totally relational, and everything we see in the world is a
consequence of evolutionary processes following or tending towards a logic of
increasing fitness which is naturally selected. Both forms of knowledge explicitly
posit conceptual schemas that would guarantee their Absolute universality,
transcending the postmodern insistence on historical relativity of the concept.
The difference between these types of grand unified theories and a metaontology
is that a metaontology is interested in the position of the subject inhabiting language
and the nature of the subject inhabiting language. Metaontology inscribes the
paradoxical move (essential for dialectical thinking) of epistemology as ontology
(C ¼ T). In this view, we see our knowledge as a part of the Absolute and our deepest
thought as Absolute’s own reflection. The reflective metaontological question for
people who develop grand unified theories is along the lines of action principles for
their own being in the world, for the consequences of their own knowledge
constructs in the world. When you (dear reader) develop a grand unified theory,
how is that serving you in the world? And what are the consequences of these
abstractions in the world? Metaontology also recognizes that there is a field of
knowledge that is itself divided between multiplicity of subjectivities, each of
whom has their own grand unified theory (which may or may not be contradictory
and inconsistent with each other). This dialectical consideration basically
complicates things immensely because it is hard to wrap your own mind (your
own identity) around this level of complexity and nuance. It actually requires that
you are prepared and able to dissolve your identity.
Why would we want to bother with this dialectical approach of inscribing
epistemology as ontology? We would want to bother with this approach in order
to counter the postmodern insistence that the ‘map is not the territory’. You will
often hear a common criticism against Newtonian epistemology (for example) that
the map is not the territory. What the map is not the territory critiques is the naive
notion of the scientist who cannot differentiate between his abstraction of the world
and the world in-itself. As is not well known, the nature of this gap between our
abstractions and the ‘things-in-themselves’ is what gets a lot of philosophical
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 263

attention in the ‘unbearable density of thought’ that characterizes the idealist passage
between Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel (Žižek 2012, p. 8).
In contrast to the postmodern knowledge axiom, we may entertain the dialectical
knowledge axiom which suggests that the ‘map has its own territory’. Your maps,
your abstractions (dear reader), have their own geometrical structure, and that is
what we are interested in. It is invisible dynamical geometry, real knowledge that is
not static and fixed but active in the reflective process of constituting the Absolute.
To focus on the nature of this invisible dynamical geometry is what it means to
inscribe epistemology into ontology. Thus, we are not (only) interested in an external
view of quantum gravity or self-organization, but the way in which these
abstractions curve and warp being, the way in which these abstractions, the move-
ment of them ‘in-themselves’, are negations or annihilations of being. There is
something about being that is incomplete, lacking, and not only in terms of our
knowledge, but in terms of being itself. How else could our knowledge of being
appear?
In this way, with metaontology, we have to inscribe the observer within the
system in a very radical way. To put this attempt into the formula of the ‘Absolute’ as
‘substance but also as subject’, we do not only have to understand the abstractions of
general relativity, but we also have to understand the way in which a temporal figure
of consciousness, Albert Einstein, appears in history and constitutes the whole of
being with abstractions. This is why the Lacanian algorithm for the signifying chain
follows an asymmetrical logic over and above the signified: S|s. The map has its own
territory and points towards a horizon internal to and yet outside of itself, to be
immanently constituted by its own dynamical motion.

13.2.1 Let Us Get Personal

Now to build on this, let us analyze my own personal map, in order to grasp a
properly reflective dialectical work. I will cite the following quartet of thinkers from
each philosophical epoch: Plato-Hegel-Lacan-Žižek.

13.2.1.1 Plato
First, Plato. As Alain Badiou emphasized in a series of lectures and in a recent
revisioning of The Republic: ‘For Today, Plato!’ (2012, p. viii). The reasons I play
with Plato are for his attempt to understand geometrical unity (with his mathematical
theories of space) and emotional unity (with his sexual theories of man, woman, and
love), and the coincidental relations between these two forms of unity. I like thinking
this coincidence between mathematical and emotional spaces, that there may be
some higher-order relation between the two, between truth (mathematics) and beauty
(emotions). This divide may be at the ground of fundamental philosophy, between
someone doing pure mathematics of the Absolute, like Quentin Meillassoux (2006);
versus someone attempting to understand a pure emotion of the Absolute, like
Alenka Zupančič (2017).
264 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

This can be philosophically grounded in the well-known fact that Plato’s Acad-
emy had outside of its door ‘Let no one ignorant of geometry enter’ (expressing the
importance of mathematics). However, we must also consider that a well-known
contemporary Platonic philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk, started his Spheres Trilogy
(2011, 2014, 2016) with a modification of this ancient axiom, claiming that by
‘shutting out the ageometric rabble’ Plato started a cult of ‘an intelligence coming
from the world of the dead’ (2011, p. 9). In contrast to Plato, Sloterdijk would have
outside of his academy the axiom of ‘let no one enter who is unwilling to praise
transference and to refute loneliness’ (ibid, p. 13). Thus, here we may think that the
two of the greatest living Platonist philosophers, Alain Badiou and Peter Sloterdijk,
embody this higher-order contradiction between the importance of mathematics and
love. Here a question for a Žižekian philosophy, also very much open to a
revisioning of a post-Deleuzian Plato (2012, pp. 31–32), is something along the
double lines of: can the worlds of the rabble experience (hold) the truth Event of
mathematics?, can the worlds of the mathematicians’ experience (hold) the truth
Event of love? Do the coincidence of the living lovers and the dead geometricians
meet their singular real in what Žižek articulates in his concepts of the living dead?
(2014, p. 235).
Another reason why I am interested in Plato is because he is in some sense the
arch-enemy of postmodernity, which emphasizes thinking in terms of multiplicity of
multiplicities (over the One). To capture the essence of multiplicity thought to
consider a well-known principle from Gilles Deleuze’s A Thousand Plateaus
(1988, p. 8): ‘Principle of multiplicity: is only when the multiple is effectively
treated as substantive, that it ceases to have any relation to the one’. What is clear
in this quote is that Deleuze philosophy is trying to get at a total disconnection from
the One (as opposed to a positivized or a negativized One). There is nothing of a One
in Deleuze, just a multiplicity of multiplicities (inspired by the mathematical work of
Gauss, Riemann, Klein). Deleuze attempted to express this concept with the idea of a
suprasensible virtual plane of immanence, a centrifugal force spiralling out in a
multiplicity of directions indefinitely. This is a direct metaphysical attack on Plato
and the Western tradition. The Western tradition has tended to see a suprasensible
singularity as a type of centripetal force spiralling inwards towards a common
(extimate) core, a singularity that can (perhaps) be mathematical and emotional, a
singular coincidence of two fundamental opposites.
Thus it may not be a surprise that in postmodernity proper (among the rabble) we
have a situation where anti-religious sophistry predominates over Truth (mathemati-
cal and sexual), and religious fundamentalism in its most distorted grotesque form
appears as its obscene opposite. In other words, postmodernity can be seen as the
absence of the sublime or the sacred (what Plato would call the presence of a ‘horror
vacui’). Of course, Platonic philosophy proper, in its advanced dialectical mediation,
can be seen as the most sophisticated attempt to avoid the sophistry of relativistic
opinion, while at the same time avoiding the dogmatism of an unknowable Absolute
closed to discursive modification (Žižek 2012, pp. 77–78). There is really a good
philosophical challenge here for reason, thinking again this relation (or non-relation)
between Plato and Deleuze. In a precise dialectical move, we should not be afraid to
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 265

assert that even Deleuze, the arch-enemy of the dialectic, may have his own most
historical oppositional determination. By doing this is it may be possible to inscribe
multiplicity directly into the One, through the historicity of oppositional
determination.

13.2.1.2 Hegel
Second, the reason I play with Hegel is for the way in which he attempted to
understand the historical movement of the One or the Absolute. If Plato is criticized
for his insistence on the fixed ideality, Hegel injects movement as fundamental. In
other words, the One or the Absolute can no longer be conceptualized as a fixed
transhistorical entity, and also can no longer be thought of as existing independently
of subjectivity. This is reflective of Hegel’s time. Hegel was writing at a time of
enormous transition, enormous rupture, and enormous break with the old world. And
that is captured in his philosophy which can dialecticize transitions, ruptures, and
breaks, where everything appears to get flipped upside down. Hegel very much saw
the way the Absolute was subjectively mediated, the way in which the problem of
love and the problem of the Absolute were central to the historical drama and could
be understood through radical dialectical mediation of this engagement (Žižek 2012,
p. 9).
In this way, Hegel tried to think the One not as a totalizing sphere but as a One
structured by pure division. Hegel thus approaches the problem of love as Absolute
Oneness and the reality of a subjectivity seemingly divided from this Absolute
Oneness in the mode of a subject–object division opening onto a multiplicity of
phenomena (Last 2018b). The genius of Hegel’s phenomenology is that he
conceptualizes Absolute love as this cut or division itself and not as the sphere
which we supposedly fall from and return to. In other words, what subjectivity tends
to think of as a spherical unity is, in fact, the obfuscation of a hole or absence at the
very core of being, where the subject appears as a cut or a division. To quote
Hegelian philosopher Mladen Dolar on this minimal level of Hegel (2011, Part 1):

What cannot be divided any further is the division itself. [. . .] The substance [atoms] is
permitted by the void, but [the ancients] did not have any inkling that this would have any
relation to the place of the subject. This is Hegel at his minimum, the place of the subject, in
the adage of substance and subject, is the cut, introduced as the moving principle into being.

From this perspective, there is something about the One that requires a gap or a
hole, and this is where Hegel situates his dialectic which we may think of as the
narrative path (and where critics of Žižek claim he (re)introduces the ‘wobbly’
(contradictory, impossible) subject). It is a transition from a geometry of thinking
a global perfect sphere (an apriori totalizing unity, or Oneness), and being able to
think a local division or cut where a story about being itself appears, narrativizing a
totalizing unified Oneness. Here is the crucial passage from Less Than Nothing
regarding the importance of understanding the narrativization of being vis-a-vis the
Absolute (Žižek 2012, p. 15–16):
266 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

The narrative is not merely the subject coping with its division from Being, it is simulta-
neously the story Being is telling itself about itself. The loss supplemented by the narrative is
inscribed into Being itself, which means [. . .] the narrative already does the job of intellec-
tual intuition, of uniting us with Being. [. . .] It is the narrative path [not intuition] which
directly renders the life of Being itself.

This emphasis on the divided multiplicity of stories as themselves the revelation

of the One, as directly uniting us (humans) with the One can be found in Badiou’s
‘Platonism of the multiple’ (2012, p. vii), and also appears in the logical deployment
of Sloterdijk’s trilogy, as it evolves towards the conceptualization of Foams: ‘So the
One Orb has imploded—now the foams are alive.’ (2016) This transition to foams is
a broken One, a sea of Ones dividing in themselves, the rabble with voice and vision,
immanently expressing the truth of their partial limitation.
In this way, we can approach the movement of ‘atoms and the void’ (something
and nothing) as opposed to a static-fixed representation of atoms and the void.
Throughout the tradition of idealism, culminating with Hegel, the idea that the
movement of atoms (something) was dependent on void (nothing) as opposed to
some transcendent other worldly something. This is clearly expressed in Hegel:

[T]he void [is] recognized as the source of movement. This implies a completely different
relation between atoms and the void than the mere one-beside-the-other and mutual indif-
ference of the two. [. . .] The view that the cause of movement lies in the void contains that
deeper thought that the cause of becoming pertains to the negative.

In other words, it is clear here that the source of the basic mechanics of the
Hegelian dialectic, the historical becoming, can be found in the relation between
something and nothing. This is a topic that Dolar further identifies as closely linked
historically with the concept of clinamen qua becoming. This notion of clinamen
represents a type of formal curvature or twist in being itself that has a rich history in
philosophy, from Lucretius and Cicero, and even appears in Deleuze’s meditation on
the fundamental movement of becoming:

Clinamen or declination has nothing to do with the slanting movement which would come to
modify by accident a vertical fall. It is present since always: it is not a secondary movement
nor a secondary determination of movement which would occur at a certain moment at a
particular place. Clinamen is the originary determination of the direction of movement of
an atom.

In this way, we can think of clinamen as representing a type of absolutized

movement, or this absolute curvature where there is no flat or non-curved surface
which it can be seen or framed as a deviation. We are not swinging between the poles
of astatic-fixed One but a One that is inherently broken, riddled with gaps and holes.
The incorporation of clinamen is essential for the dialectic, since we are constantly
structuring our discourse as if we have the clear or true view (the One vision and
voice), and that the other is the cause of the distortion: ‘A thinks that if only we could
remove the view and voice of B, then we would be able to situate “the way” to the
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 267

truth.’ What clinamen suggests is that B is the ‘nothing’ of A, and that an A capable
of recognizing this truth, still moves, has its own inherent curvature. To situate such
a logic in the constellation of the postmodern universe, the A of pure multiplicity
tries to get rid of the B of an Absolute One, but this Absolute One is the ‘nothing’ of
pure multiplicity, the ‘black hole’ around which the desiring rabble unconsciously
organize their motion. In this sense, it is true that all views and voices are partial
distortions (a pure multiplicity without an Absolute One), but it is also true that all of
these distortions must be inscribed as the truth itself, their narrative path, their
becoming, is the Absolute One.

13.2.1.3 Lacan
Third, the reason why I would play with Lacan is because of the way in which he
attempted to unearth the meaning of the Freudian unconscious as a form of knowl-
edge that is constitutively unconscious (meaning: a knowledge (form) which does
not know itself). The definition of the unconscious as a knowledge that does not
know itself is sufficiently precise to avoid the type of obscurantism which is often
levelled at Lacan as a thinker. What we gain here is a certain level of self-recognition
in the sense that we do not know ourselves. The unconscious means we are not as
self-transparent to ourselves as we would like to think: our drives, our motives, the
distance between our thoughts and our actions (Lacan 2005b, p. 526):

“[T]he core of our being”—it is not so much that Freud commands us to target this, as many
others before him have done with the futile adage “Know thyself”, as that he asks us to
reconsider the pathways that lead to it. Or, rather, the “this” which he proposes we attain is
not a this which can be the object of knowledge, as he teaches us, I bear witness as much and
more in my whims, aberrations, phobias, and fetishes, than in my more or less civilized
personage.

Thus, Lacan identifies the crucial psychical historicization of the gap or absence
of unconscious knowledge which is missed by all of the intellectually fashionable
secular humanisms which tell us all to self-realize and self-actualize. What these
ideologies obfuscate is the way in which the core of our being is never transparent,
and even terrifyingly abyssal (‘there is no big Other’). In other words, even for the
self-consciousness who wants to ‘self-actualize’, the problem is precise that there is
no ‘global standard’ (perfectly clear spherical One) that one could use to measure
this self-actualization.
In this move, we also gain emphasis on the importance of the distinction between
the unconscious as understood through psychoanalysis, and the subconscious of
neuronal processes, which are endlessly discussed in the contemporary ‘brain
sciences’. What Lacan emphasized in the unconscious is not subconscious neuronal
processes that influence or determine our self-conscious brain activity. Instead, what
Lacan is emphasizing with the unconscious is precisely a type of knowledge which
cannot be known, and thus not something that can be approached asymptotically
with advances in science and technology. In other words, the unconscious is not
something that we will one day know through future advances in our knowledge. It
has a constitutive element of itself the fact that it is not knowable in principle (like
268 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

the conditions of singularities in the abstractions of general relativity, or like the

location of the subatomic particle before its collapse (measurement)).
Thus, we can only approach the unconscious through the positivization of a
negativity, to see the way in which an unknown knowledge functions and structures
human historicity. All of this may be why Lacan found it so useful to engage with
Hegel’s dialectic of knowledge. Hegel’s dialectic is about the movement of the
Absolute knowable in its processual narrativization, and the straw-man of Hegel is
that we are on this asymptotic approach to total or complete knowledge as if the
subject will finally consume all of the substance with its narrative performativity
(Žižek 2012, pp. 399–400). But when Hegel is read through Lacan, and when Lacan
is read through Hegel, it is easy to realize that this is not necessarily the nature of the
Absolute that is revealed in their reflection. What we learn with Hegel and Lacan is
that we must be much more humble with our self-conscious knowledge, we must be
much more humble with the story (stories) we tell ourselves because internal to the
story is an unconscious real which escapes its mechanics.
In this way, the unconscious is actually the true knowledge or order at the ‘core of
our being’, which precedes and orients our narrative. This, once again, helps us to
avoid a metalinguistic set of perfect concepts for self-consciousness, and also
historical relativism and deconstruction. The unconscious as a form of
non-conceptual, non-contradictory, non-identifiable real of knowledge that does
not know itself and is operative even if you think you have analyzed your own
epistemology, your own abstractions (Lacan 1998, pp. 20–23):

[In Kant’s] An attempt to introduce the concept of negative quantities into philosophy, [. . .]
[he] comes to understanding the gap that the function of cause has always presented to any
conceptual apprehension. [. . .] Cause is to be distinguished from that which is determinate in
a chain, in other words the law. [. . .] Whenever we speak of cause [. . .] there is always
something anti-conceptual, something indefinite. [. . .] It is at this point that I am trying to
make you see by approximation that the Freudian unconscious is situated at that point,
where, between cause and that which it affects, there is always something wrong. [. . .] [W]
hat the unconscious does is to show us the gap through which neurosis recreates a harmony
with a real—a real that may well not be determined. In this gap, something happens. [. . .] [A]
nd what does [Freud] find in the hole, in the split, in the gap so characteristic of cause?
Something of the order of the non-realized. [. . .] At first, the unconscious is manifested to us
as something that holds itself in suspense in the area, I would say, of the unborn. [. . .] It is
not without effect that, [. . .] one directs one’s attention at subjects, touching them at what
Freud calls the navel—the navel of the dreams, he writes, to designate their ultimate
unknown centre[.] [. . .] Now [. . .] I am in a position to introduce into the domain of cause
the law of the signifier, in the locus in which this gap is produced.

In some way, then, the unconscious of the symbolic order, the multiplicity of
narratives, is an invariant principle and the most real locus for the constitution of
subjectivity. In other words, the unconscious is there, present in its absence, in all
symbolic universes, as both the primordial abyssal cause and the indivisible remain-
der (where the continuous open mouth of a spurious infinity meets or fails to meet its
own tail), the object-cause of desire, of any symbolic–discursive operation.
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 269

Consequently, in order to ground knowledge of this ‘unknowledge’ Lacan

emphasizes the organ-without-body, the objet petit a, as what we can know of the
real in the form of a partial object. One can think of the objet petit a as a virtual
spectrality or stand-in for the impossibility of unity, rendering any historical identity
inherently contradictory. In terms of our raw experience this stand-in for the
impossibility of unity can be experienced on several ‘developmental’ levels
(although it is not itself following a linear teleological trajectory), from oral, anal,
genital, gaze (vision), voice, and possibly, also, smell (Žižek 2012, p. 655). The
subject may find itself possessed in relation to any of these partial objects due to
contingent sensual engagement in historical reality. One can tell if one is possessed
by this spectral virtuality if one pays close attention to the circulation or circumam-
bulation of one’s own symbolic chain (usually accompanied by a ‘Master’ or ‘Main’
Signifier).
In relation to the symbolic chain, the objet petit a is thus an indivisible remainder
of the subject’s desire that emerges at the core of the subject’s own division (own
repetition automatism in the symbolic chain). In this way, objet petit a should not be
thought of as a substantial object, but can be thought of as a formal curvature in state
space (and nothing but the virtuality of this curvature) (Žižek 2014, pp. 248–249):

[T]he objet a: an entity that has no substantial consistency, which is in itself “nothing but
confusion”, and which acquires a definite shape only when looked upon from a standpoint
distorted by the subject’s desires and fears—as such, as a mere “shadow of what is not”. As
such, the objet a is the strange object which is nothing but the inscription of the subject itself
into the field of objects, in the guise of a stain which acquires form only when part of this
field is anamorphically distorted by the subject’s desire.

Consequently, the objet petit a is a consequence of the symbolic but not on the
level of the symbolic. The objet petit a is rather something that corrodes symbolism
from within, like reason’s ownmost otherness. In this very important sense, what
thinking this unconscious real allows us to confront in analysis is, ultimately, the
immanence of sexuality. Almost without question, it is the dimension of sexuality,
with its psychical libidinal energies and drives, which proves to be the worthy
opposite of reason, reason’s ownmost otherness. For anyone who has ever loved,
for anyone who has ever desired the unity of the most fundamental opposites, one
will understand the importance of the conceptual of the objet petit a and its role in the
real of symbolic functioning. What should be focused on, precisely, if one is to bring
this concept to a new level of understanding, however, is not the spectral unity that is
at work in sexuality, but rather the a priori contradiction or antagonism that precedes
its emergence (Zupančič 2017, p. 3):

The pages that follow [in What Is Sex?] grew out of a double conviction: first, that in
psychoanalysis sex is above all a concept that formulates a persisting contradiction of reality.
And, second, that this contradiction cannot be circumscribed to reduced to a secondary level
(as a contradiction between already well-established entities/beings), but is—as a contradic-
tion—involved in the very structuring of these entities, in their very being. In this precise
sense, sex is of ontological relevance: not as an ultimate reality, but as an inherent twist, or
stumbling block, of reality.
270 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

This notion of ‘sex’ as an inherent twist or stumbling block of reality is thus not
something that we can reduce to either the biological realm of animal instincts, or
something that we can dismiss as a historically contingent social construction, but
rather, as a primordial and constitutive feature, the unconscious of the symbolic
order. This makes sexuality not only something that we should think of as on the
level of the symbolic (Zupančič 2017, p. 1):

The point is that the satisfaction in talking is itself “sexual”. And this is precisely what forces
us to open the question to the very nature and status of sexuality in a radical way.

But also something that we should think of as a deeply intellectual, perhaps the
most intellectual, activity (ibid, pp. 2–3):

The satisfaction in talking (or any kind of intellectual activity) is “sexual” is not simply about
abasement of intellectual activities, it is at least as much about elevating sexuality to a
surprisingly intellectual activity. . .

Perhaps it is time to take more time to focus on what the rabble are always (not)
talking about, the negativity which underlies their positivized symbolic motion.

13.2.1.4 Žižek
Now to move to Žižek. Žižek’s philosophy in Less Than Nothing and Absolute
Recoil tie all of these figures together in a type of Hegelian–Lacanianism (inclusive
of a return to Platonic One that can think movement and the unconscious). What
Žižek adds to this tradition is trying to understand the status of repetition qua
impossibility, of a repetition freed from its impossible idealization, which paradoxi-
cally, sustains a true or real ‘materialist’ idealism. In this sense, for Žižek, all talk of
the One structuring the symbolic order in history is the movement of the unconscious
as the voice and vision of the Absolute’s impossible fulfillment (2012, p. 651):

What ultimately distinguishes humans from animals is not some positive feature (speech,
tool-making, reflexive thinking, etc.), but the rise of a new point of impossibility designated
by Freud and Lacan as das Ding, the impossible-real ultimate reference point of desire. The
often noted experimental difference between humans and apes acquires here all its signifi-
cance: when an ape is presented with an object out of reach, it will abandon if after a few
attempts to grasp it and move on to a more modest object [. . .], while a human will persist in
its effort, remaining transfixed on the impossible object.

How do we deal with this dimension of desire? For Žižek we do not reach this
impossible object in some futural dimension as the ideal light at the end of the tunnel,
but rather via the pure repetition which is the nature of the non-psychical drive
beyond psychic desire. Thus, almost all of Žižek’s philosophy revolves around
understanding this transition between desire and drive (2014, pp. 150–151):

[I]n Freudian terms [the] drive [. . .] [is] a joyous repetitive movement in which gain and loss
are inextricably intertwined and which enjoys its own repetition. [. . .] In other words, what
pushes the drive is not the persisting attachment to the lost object, but the repeated enacting
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 271

of the loss as such—the object of the drive is not a lost object, but loss itself as an object.
[. . .] The [. . .] drive which emerges at the concluding moment of the dialectical process
[is this] shift from the idealizing progress of sublation to pure repetition[.]

In this way Žižek brings things full circle, without closing the circle, leaving it
open for the pure repetition which is the nature of the non-psychical drive beyond
psychic desire. In other words, we attempt to think the inscription of impossible
negativity of the Absolute in its positive dimension, the singular eternal drive at the
heart of the temporal desires structuring binary opposition. In the mode of desire,
subjectivity experiences the real of being internally thwarted, twisted as a funda-
mental negativity, as what is preventing it from uniting with the Absolute; in the
mode of the drive, nothing and everything change, as subjectivity experiences this
same real of being internally thwarted, twisted in its positivity, as what unites it with
the Absolute.
The difference is a minimal difference, a shift from self-consciousness feeling
like it is in control of the process, to self-consciousness recognizing its irreducibly
unconscious ‘other side’ as controlling the process. In this process self-
consciousness can ‘drive’ but it is not the car (the unconscious). Thus, when self-
consciousness is in the mode of desire, we must always remember that the trauma of
separation and division has not yet reached its proper level of reconciliation, the
subject does not yet enjoy its symptom. What the Žižekian philosophy thus ulti-
mately asks from us is that we, the realm of subjectivity, the realm of partial-limited
beings in language, shift from the unreflective stance of attempting the impossible
Absolute objectification of self, to the reflective stance of pure repetition as
Absolute.
In this way, we can conceptualize the dialectical unity/oneness that structures
Western history (maths/science, politics, art, and love) as a paradoxical impossible
virtual entity internal to the repetitive emergence of the symbolic order, which can be
neither deconstructed nor captured and controlled by a metalanguage. There is
something of a conceptual breakthrough in this type of thinking because there is a
tendency in contemporary knowledge to see everything as relational (as opposed to
Absolute). In both Lacan and Žižek being is relational but what is interesting about
the human universe (structured by the symbolic order) is that it is defined precisely
as the emergence of the non-relation or the Absolute. This non-relation can be most
intensely approached in sexuality and politics where processes of ideal sublation
always obfuscate pure repetition. In coming to realize this Lacan proposed the
two-step dialectical motion where one first realizes that ‘there is no sexual relation’
(ideal sublation) (1999b, pp. 144–145):

There’s no such thing as a sexual relationship[.]

and then one secondarily realizes that ‘there is a non-relation’ (pure repetition) (ibid):

I have also defined the sexual relationship as that which “doesn’t stop not being written”.
272 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

This is a much more radical ontology, an Absolute recoil, because it forces upon
us the negativity at the core of relationality (impossibility of sublated love with the
other) and invites us to explore a paradoxical ontology where we are not just thinking
in terms of relations between things present, but also the unspoken, the real absence
at the heart of things present. When one understands this absence one may be able to
approach a reconciliation between the body and love (Žižek 2014, pp. 172–173):

Love is not an illusory One of imaginary fusion covering up the underlying deadlock of the
sexual relationship; authentic love is rather the ultimate case of a weird “one” in which this
very non-relationship is embodied[.]

The notion of the non-relation is pragmatic and useful, and theoretically very
interesting because this is where Žižek situates his understanding of the problem of
something and nothing, and perhaps most importantly, his engagement with the
concept of less than nothing. Whenever we engage with ‘das nichts’ in the mode of
ideal sublimation we always delay the creation of something truly new in favour of
protecting ourselves from the primordial void with a fantasmatic imaginary screen
with a presupposed established order of things (Žižek 2012, pp. 691–692):

[T]he image/screen/veil itself creates the illusion that there is something behind it—as one
says in everyday language, with the veil, there is always “something left to the imagination.”
One should take this ontological function at its strongest and most literal: by hiding nothing,
the veil creates the space for something to be imagined[.]

However, when we embody the non-relationship, the anti-background, when we

embody the fact that there is no other who could reconcile our broken symmetry,
then we are invited to embody the real of fantasy more intensely in the present. We
subtract the futural projection and become a real repetitive agent of the impossible.
In this deeply subjective act, something new can be born from the nothingness
(Žižek 2014, p. 144):

[A]lthough within an established order of things, nothing—no particular element—can

emerge ex nihilo without violating the laws of nature, an entire universe paradoxically can
emerge ex nihilo [against the background of] the virtual Void of which (particular) reality
emerges through the collapse of the wave function.

Thus, pure repetition embodying impossibility (non-relation) is how Žižek

deploys the dialectical machinery to approach creation ex nihilo, creation of some-
thing out of nothing. The way he goes about it is innovative on the level of historical
dialectics. In order to understand we have to situate this conversation properly in its
historical dimensions.
Consider the historical phenomenology of the emergence of modern science,
starting, let us say, with Bacon, Galileo, Newton, and Descartes. In this emergence,
we could not have predicted with any accuracy what would be the status of
‘fundamental reality’. It could have been the case that when we developed the
technology to probe into the deepest levels of reality, that eventually we would
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 273

Fig. 13.2 Something,

nothing, and virtuality

have seen looking back at us, the Absolute Other (God), complete, an immanence
with an already reconciled core state of being. Of course, that is not how it turned
out, but it could have been that way. In contrast to that imaginary experiment, how it
actually turned out, was that we discovered quantum mechanics, we discovered that
the fundamental level of being is not something, not an Absolute Other as a
substantial eternal entity, but rather the eternity of a virtual void, the paradoxical
quantum void of particles that quasi-exist. To be sure this reality is a very strange
philosophical entity, and nobody is really sure of its ontological status or its meaning
to human existence. We know that it signals a fundamental indeterminacy, unpre-
dictability, incompleteness, and openness that is inherent to nature.
Žižek situates the historical dialectic in a radical way on this level of inquiry.
Instead of asking the standard modernist scientific question: ‘Why is there something
rather than nothing?’ (a question emphasized throughout modern science, since
Leibniz), he rather emphasizes: ‘Why is there nothing rather than something?’
(2012, pp. 38–39). This is a question which inverts any coherent attempt at a logical
positivism that would presuppose a background. How do things (something) emerge
from the virtual void? This virtual void, which Žižek refers to as den in honour of the
classical materialist category proposed by Democritus, is nothing but teeming with
entities which are somehow both more than something and less than nothing (Žižek
2012, pp. 495–496) (Fig. 13.2):

Den is [. . .] more than Something but less than Nothing. The relationship between these
three basic ontological terms—Nothing, Something, den—thus takes the form of a paradox-
ical circle, like Escher’s famous drawing of the interconnected waterfalls forming a circular
perpetuum mobile: Something is more than Nothing, den is more than Something (the objet
a is in excess with regard to the consistency of Something, the surplus-element which sticks
out), and Nothing is more than den (which is “less than nothing”).

Furthermore, Žižek’s engagement with the question ‘Why is there nothing rather
than something?’ can be expressed both on the physical reductionist level (questions
of general relativity and quantum mechanics) and the human or spiritual emergentist
level (questions of secularism and religion). Why is there this absence on both sides?
Why is there this void on the physical side where nature seems to be incomplete,
indeterminate, unknowing of its own self. This quantum void may seem eerily
similar to the unconscious as a form of knowledge that does not know itself. Is the
274 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

discovery of quantum mechanics the discovery of nature’s unconscious? And on the

human–spiritual side, why are we these conscious beings who strive for immortality
and eternity (in both religious and scientific modes)? It is as if we are pathologized or
colonized by some excess which can never die, which will forever overdetermine the
course of human affairs. At the same time, we all die, we all face the void of our own
existential dissolution, leaving our desires permanently incomplete, indeterminate, a
form of unknowing. This is what Žižek is getting at, and trying to think this
coincidence simultaneously: the fact that both nature and humanity is incomplete,
unable to determine and know its ownmost identity, the core of being.
In this structure of thought human epistemology (our knowledge), which is
commonly only thought of as subjective (‘for-us’), must, in fact, be inscribed into
the object (‘in-itself’). In other words, it could be that the objective in-itself requires
the subjective for-us in order to be realized, a space of ‘to-be-determined’
(or overdetermined, by our space of abstraction, our knowing practices). To be
clear this does not mean that our knowledge ‘creates reality’, but rather, our
knowledge is itself inscribed into the becoming of reality, as ‘an answer’ for the
incompleteness of nature. Thus where our incompleteness coincides with the
incompleteness of nature itself we should imagine that our partial and limited
engagement with language is the very location where the Absolute seeks completion
and closure. Dialectics is simply the form of knowledge that locates itself in this
process of becoming, the location of the becoming of spiritual form (or spirit qua
spirit).

13.2.2 Archaeology of the Real’s Knowledge

In the previous narrative expressing a deployment of Plato–Hegel–Lacan–Žižek, it

may give the impression that I am creating in the symbolic order as some type of
linear progressive development. However, instead, I want to deploy a meta-level
structure of the symbolic order that manifests in a strange twisted circularity which
brings to mind the notion of a retroactivity. What is clear from this school of thought
is that these philosophies do not subscribe to a linear progressive ideology but what
is emphasized is circularity and the movement of circularity, even the eternity of the
circle. But the eternity of circularity is not an ancient perfect circle, but a twisted
circularity.
Thus, when I think about these influences of Plato–Hegel–Lacan–Žižek in my
philosophical engagement it is not that we are going from Plato to Hegel to Lacan to
Žižek in a linear order, but rather we are putting them together in a way that the new
transforms the old. Here I would supplement the notion of an action ontology with
the notion of a retroactive ontology. The notion of retroactivity here is to say that we
should not conceive of the production of knowledge in terms of a simple intuitive
past–present–future. In this view, we think that current generations build on the
shoulders of those who came before us. Instead, with the notion of retroactivity we
think in terms of its opposite: future–present–past, where the future directed motion
of a subject (as its own cause) can transform the past.
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 275

Consequently, what happens when we flip temporality in the symbolic order is

that the future all of a sudden gains the ability to change (what we think of as) the
past. What this means is that the past is not a fixed substantial actuality but rather a
virtual construction in the present. In this way, the future present of a work can
retroactively change that historical work. Thus, instead of totally destroying the
works that feel to us outdated, we can see the old in the light of the new, where a new
thinker, by first working through the old, allows us to see the old in a totally new
way. This is what I claim can be done with thinkers like Lacan, Hegel, and Plato.
When we think of understanding the repetitive embodiment of impossibility qua
potential, how does this change the way we think about the historical dimensions of
the unconscious, movement, and unity or oneness? How can these dimensions of
historical thought be re-thought in the light of new presuppositions? We can rethink
the One: we can go back to Plato with a dynamical repetition of the impossible, with
the unconscious of thought, and with incessant movement. We use the new to shed
light on the old, to bring it back to life in a new way.
Now let us zoom out of my own particular metaontology to the scaffolding of
metaontology as a whole, starting with a network perspective of philosophy as a
totality. It is from this perspective that we ask: what is philosophy? Does philosophy
have a repeated impossibility? Does philosophy have an unconscious? Does philos-
ophy have its own movement? Its own absent unity? Of course, in the network
perspective we have a relational view of the symbolic order, each philosopher
representing a part of the becoming of the Absolute in relation to its particular
contemporaries. In this meditation I am not conceiving myself above or below the
network, I am also (with this work, for example) a part of the network, partial, and
limited just like everyone else. However, what I want to do is to show what happens
when we think the level of impossibility, unconsciousness, movement, and oneness
internal to the network. What emerges is a different way to represent metaontology, a
metaontology that is not merely relational, but a network of relations, which repeti-
tively circle, loop, around an impossible unity of knowledge.
The inscription of a repeated impossibility in the symbolic universe around which
our minds circulate changes the way we conceive the network dramatically. The
reason why this may be a better representation is that I think it allows us to think the
way we struggle to relate to each other on a fundamental level, where our identities
circulate a real antagonism for recognition which precedes any symbolic
presuppositions supporting our becoming. In this way, we can see that there is a
non-relation as Absolute at the core of discursivity that structures our discourses.
You can see this in a discursive mediation (duel-duet), for example between Slavoj
Žižek and Graham Harman (2017). Žižek would emphasize psychoanalytic
philosophy structured by the objet petit a (2012) and Harman would emphasize
object-oriented philosophy of thinking a new approach to reaching the ‘things-in-
themselves’ (2018). There is just an inability to relate, there is no way to mediate the
two. Harman accuses Žižek of sneaking transcendental subjectivity back into philo-
sophical discourse; Žižek accuses Harman of avoiding the way in which objectivity
is always already mediated by the subject. They simply circulate this impossibility,
and we have to think about the network inclusive of this irreducible antagonism. It is
276 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

not just a multiplicity of multiplicities (Žižek and Harman as two indifferent atoms
side by side), there is this negativity at the core of the multiplicity of figures of
consciousness.
The antagonism extends back into time, allowing us to perceive an archaeology
of the real. From this perspective can we do an archaeology of knowledge without
the historical relativism? Can we think an archaeology of knowledge that situates
itself in relation to (not a transhistorical substantial truth, or a ‘Perennial Philosophy’
(Huxley 1945)), but a transhistorical impossibility expressed as a historically
idealized repetition that inscribes contingency into its negativized core? Knowledge
is still contingent to the obstacles, to the real of a time, but there is still something of
the becoming of the Absolute here, something which overdetermines our discourse,
something which prevents us from all agreeing, from getting on the same page, so to
speak. In Hegelese, there is something which prevents the integration of the Concept
(‘that is, the integration of all concepts, the complete system of concepts, the “idea of
ideas,” or the Idea’ (Kojève 1980, p. 111)). My point of reflecting on these
non-relations is to potentially help you, if you are following along, to play and
represent the nature of this symbolic order.
We can even go back to the ancient world to get at the texture of the becoming of
the symbolic order throughout history. Some of the questions that come to my mind
are: what are the questions that the human mind comes to find of great importance?
Why does the human mind come to find these questions of high importance? How do
we view these questions today? How was the Oneness conceived in Plato’s time or
within alternative conceptual networks? You could technically take any thinker from
any historical layer of mind and construct your own structural metaontology. In the
same way, I am trying to build one from the perspective of Plato, Hegel, Lacan, and
Žižek, one could easily do this with another layer of thought. The question would be
where does this field of thought take you? Can you think something that has never
been thought before by playing with a particular curvature of historical mind?
In order to better capture the geometry of these spaces, we may need to play with
a different metaphor. In network representations, we are inspired by metaphors of
rhizomatic thinking, multiplicity thinking, and so forth (which is the philosophical
ground of network ontologies) (Deleuze and Guatarri 1988). But one might also find
it useful to use the metaphor of curved spacetime in Einstein, because in Einstein’s
curved spacetime, and in the Riemannian manifold, things are still all relational.
However, what is interesting about Einstein’s spacetime is that there are unified
unconscious impossibilities: singularities. Material repetitions, the unconsciousness,
and the movement circle these impossible unities. This may (also) be useful for
conceiving the history of the symbolic order. Each map as territory is the becoming
of all of these webs of thought across time, and the way in which their repetitions
curve and warp the space around their point of impossibility. We are all becoming a
part of this manifold of the symbolic order. In this way, we can think repeated
relations of being plus impossibility informing possible repeatable relations.
This impossibility is not transhistorical in the fact that it does not change. The
impossibility changes but invariant impossibility as such informs possible relations.
13.2 Metaontology (Or: Map as Territory) 277

The possible relations are informed by its internal points of impossibility (Zupančič
2017, p. 24):

The non-relation [points of impossibility] gives, dictates the conditions of, what ties us,
which is to say that it is not a simple, indifferent absence, but an absence that curves and
determines the structure with which it appears. The non-relation is not the opposite of the
relationship, it is the inherent (il)logic (a fundamental “antagonism”) of the relationships
that are possible and existing.

With this view, we can at the same time think the symbolic in terms of effectivity.
Again, instead of map as not territory, map as territory (a positivized negativity). So
instead of thinking about the way in which Newton’s map does not get at the real of
the in-itself of nature, we can think of the way in which Newton’s map transforms
humans into space travelling astronauts. That is a symbolically mediated transfor-
mation: humans went to the moon as an ontological fact on the field of Newtonian
epistemology. Indeed Newtonian epistemology is a good example of the way in
which the impossible itself changes, informing new possible relations. Before the
rise of Newtonian epistemology, the idea of human beings actually travelling to the
moon was in a primordial realm of fantasmatic proto-science fiction (e.g. Johannes
Kepler’s Somnium (1634)). After the rise of Newtonian epistemology the idea of
human beings travelling to the moon became an actual possibility, an embodied
impossibility enacted through strict repetitive adherence to the scriptures of natural
philosophy. That is a question for the relation of epistemology to the world. But what
about the self?
In terms of a question for the self what are the consequences of inscribing
epistemology into ontology vis-a-vis the attempt of the self to objectivize itself
(to reach the core of one’s being)? When we try to think the curvature which attempts
to circle back on itself in a twisted structure, we get at the possibility that
metaontology is always about an Absolute reflection, an attempt to understand
ourselves in the deepest sense. We may find that this symbolic texture is realized
by a future-directed motion, which calls back to the origin. Is the discovery of the
self a return to this origin? A return to a primordial impossible unity or singularity
which births all things? Or is the discovery of the self-nothing but the process of this
motion? In other words, is the self in terms of a ‘self-consciousness’ nothing but a
finite-mortal curved asymptotic approach to (or circumambulation around) singular-
ity (consciousness as clinamenesque), whereas the singularity in-itself is of the
dimension of unconsciousness as a form of knowledge that cannot know itself? In
quantum mechanics, this would be the dimension of the infinite virtual void, and in
general relativity this would be the dimension of infinite singularities.
278 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

13.3 Dialectical Foundations

From this understanding of metaontology we can dive into dialectics proper.

Dialectics are essentially a conversation or discourse mediated by reason and aiming
for truth. As mentioned it is not a truth that is some fixed substantial entity, but
something rather that requires in our discourse that we stabilize it across time, or as
time (C ¼ T). That is the point of our conversation. If we can raise our minds to the
highest levels of reason, what we are doing is participating in an eternal act, or an
eternal repetition, of trying to understand what is true, about being, about thought,
and their interrelation. Consequently, in dialectics proper, we are not approaching
truth in a teleological structure but perhaps in a structure that could be described as
teleiosis. Teleiosis is not the imminently determined future that will happen inde-
pendent of our freedom, but rather the inscription of virtual orientation into the
spatiality of the actual present (Žižek 2012, p. 914):

[T]ime is the sublation (negation of the negation) of space, [thus] we can also say that
teleiosis is the inscription of time into space in the sense of space-time, of time as another
(fourth) dimension of space: teleiosis supplements the three dimensions which determine the
spatial position of an object with the virtual and temporal dimension of its spatial movement.
A purely spatial definition which immobilizes its object produces a non-actual abstraction,
not a full reality; the unfinished (ontologically incomplete) character of reality which
compels us to include the virtuality of teleiosis in the definition of an object is thus not its
limitation, but a positive condition of its actual existence.

Plato’s starting point with historical knowledge is that our phenomenal and
discursive reality, in its irreducible temporality, falls into oppositional determination.
We fall into contradictory appearances as a feature of the concept (Kant’s
‘antinomies of reason’) which structures conflict and misunderstanding
(as opposed to the eternal harmonious One of perfect understanding) (Žižek 2012,
pp. 958–959). For Plato, thus, the humans of the Cave are the humans who fail to see
the way in which we are singularly entangled as One. The oppositional determina-
tion that stimulates and motivates Plato from the beginning is the oppositional
determination between religious zealotry (1) and nihilistic sophistry (0). Religious
zealotry has this idea of the eternal One that exists independently of us, for all time:
God, basically, as the ultimate reason and cause. The nihilistic sophist, on the other
hand, has the idea that there is no meaning in the universe, that we are just here for no
reason. We are in the realm of doxa. There is no invariant truth that you can utilize to
organize your world. Whereas the religious subject believes in an invariant truth: the
truth of God. This is the problem that Plato wanted to approach with the dialectic in a
more sophisticated way.
But it must be emphasized that the dialectic is a general tool beyond that
particular duality. As is common knowledge there are dualities everywhere: light
and dark, order and chaos, masculine and feminine, life and death, peace and war,
health and sickness, temporality and eternity, movement and stillness, something
and nothing, and so on. The dialectic is what helps us to realize the entanglement of
the paradoxes of these dualities, allowing us to approach them in discourse in a way
13.3 Dialectical Foundations 279

that sheds light on their singular coincidence. The general mechanism by which
dialectics approaches this is the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Thus, dialectics
represent a type of triadic logic (A + B ¼ C). In this logic, the important dimension is
that in the geometry of the triangle, the third term, the synthesis, is never a complete
closure, it is rather that the synthesis leads to new oppositional determination. It sets
forth a new motion of the coincidental structure. The One cannot hold itself in time
as a perfect unity, it is only actual as a division.
We could give a quick example of dialectical thought with Plato’s original query.
The thesis, antithesis, and synthesis might be:

• There is a God (One, nihilating the void).

• There is no God (no One, just a pure multiplicity in a void).
• There is a negative God (not-One, nihilating as time).

The not-One is the singular coincidence of the presence and absence, 1 and
0, something and nothing. The not-One is what allows for subjectivities, irreducible
Ones (atoms). In this way, you can see the way in which a thesis–antithesis (A-B)
can be brought to a new reconciliation (C). However, what is crucial is that this
reconciliation does not end the process of reason, but presents to us a new field with
new questions: how are we to make sense of science and religion in light of the
not-One?
In this perspective, the why of dialectics (why bother?) is basically to avoid
freezing your reason as an eternal truth. Frozen knowledge is not real knowledge, it
is not knowledge connected to the real life and mind, it is not knowledge which
embodies the non-relationship, and enacts the partial-limitation. In many discourses,
religious metaphysical and scientific naturalistic discourses, for example subjects
tend to frame their language as if it is frozen in time, as if it is ahistorical. They try to
frame their discourse as if their knowledge reflects an eternal truth or is an eternal
truth. What dialectics forces us to confront is the movement of reason and the
paradoxical becoming of eternal truth. There is no system of thought that can
close itself off and complete itself. The only closure is the recognition that the
truth is our very path of becoming, that we are the temporal nihilation of the truth
(or the truth is temporal nihilation).
As philosophers interested in the dialectic we are able to approach the truth with a
type of rigour and at the same time a type of novelty injected into our discourse.
What is being studied is the discursivity of historical forms or figures of conscious-
ness. For me, it is so invigorating to do this because you can take a field of thought
and you can see above or below the oppositional determination that structures the
characters of this field. For example, it may be useful, especially today, to take the
literature and discourse in quantum gravity, and pay attention to the forms of
consciousness that are becoming in this field. In this attempt, we can study the
way two figures in this field will approach the same problem differently, or see the
way in which two figures are producing each other. If there can be a synthesis
between them, there very historical characters, the opposition of their historical
characters, would simply dissolve.
280 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

But what I want to emphasize here is the fact that the genius of Plato and Hegel is
that the very structure of their discourse is higher order. This is what separates them
from the other historical figures of consciousness. If one actually reads Plato and
Hegel one will quickly find that the dialectic is built into its very metastructure. In
other words, their work is represented in a triadic form making it exceptionally
difficult to interpret accurately but at the same time allowing for higher reflection of
the Absolute. The machinery of their ideational deployment is mediated by some-
thing like a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. On a pragmatic level, when you become
sophisticated with your understanding of the dialectic, this can be infused in your
own work in a very meaningful way, in a very creative way.
The first example is Plato. In Plato’s metaontological triad, as many people know,
you have the physical world, you have the mental world, and you have the transcen-
dental truth of God, the Absolute. This is the structure of the Cave Allegory.
The physical world is the cave world, the illusory multiplicity of phenomena that
the mind is perceiving. However, what is truth, what is good, and what is beautiful, is
the One, is God, and that reality is suprasensible, beyond normal perception. In other
words, one cannot perceive God through our normal sensations (our sight, our smell,
our taste, our hearing, our touch). God is the ‘mind’s eye’, the suprasensible. Many
different spiritual traditions talk about this suprasensible realm of Ideas, but in
dialectical materialism proper, we focus on mediating the emergence of truth, as
understood in terms of the purely formal surface of an event (Fig. 13.3).
Thus, you can see why thinkers like Badiou and Žižek would separate democratic
materialism from dialectical materialism. In democratic materialism there are just
bodies and languages, but in dialectical materialism there are bodies, languages, and
truth (Žižek 2012, p. 42). The total situation is not just a pure multiplicity of
multiplicities, it is not just anything goes, it is not just that anything is correct.

Fig. 13.3 Platonic metaontology

13.3 Dialectical Foundations 281

There is an ‘up’, there is a direction, there is a way forward, there is an orientation.

This is in relation to the suprasensible truth of reality. The dialectic is trying to
understand the truth of this reality. In relation to the Platonic One, even if the
Platonic One has a difficult time understanding movement or the unconscious or
impossibility (as we are trying to inscribe now), we do have this idea of the truth in
Plato as an Oneness that orients us. In Plato’s Parmenides he states that:

Human nature was originally One and we were originally whole, and the desire and pursuit
of the whole is called Love.

This is what Badiou and Žižek and dialectical materialists do not want to give up,
this driving force or force of the drive, is conceived of as the unity of love. We see
the One in the way we find our true life’s organization, the way it structures the way
we want to relate and the way we want to become, and the way we want to express
our spirit.
The axiom of Plato is thus ‘monism’: ‘there is only One’. Everything is all and
only One, somehow. But as already stated above, what Plato cannot approach is the
movement of this One. I am tempted to give some speculations on how Plato’s
triangle is connected in movement. We could easily situate Plato’s ontology into
modern cosmology (as Roger Penrose does in The Road to Reality (2004, p. 20)). In
this ‘Platonic cosmology’ the big bang is the birth the physical, as God giving birth
to the physical; and then the physical gives rise to the mental, through processes of
evolutionary transformations (self-organization, natural selection, and so forth), and
then the mental returns to God around the cognitive mediation of Oneness (unity), as
thought reflecting on its deepest emergent essence. Here even Christian ontology is
helpful, since Christianity is essentially built on/from a Platonic ontology (Kojève
1980, p. 106). In Christianity, God falls into the physical world as a finite mortal
individual to demonstrate his Love of humanity, and then the field of finite mortal
individuals returns to God through a repetitively enacted collective belief in immor-
tal Love (embodying the impossible). It is still possible to hold this ontology with
logic. But even if you do not buy those speculations the importance of going back to
Plato in the structure of a metaontology (instead of starting with someone like
Buddha), is that Plato emphasizes there is a truth in the appearances. For Plato this
truth must be dialectically mediated, it must be understood by better understanding
the structure of our maps of meaning (Peterson 1999).
Now what happens when we move from Plato to Hegel and Lacan is really a
complexification and a sophistication of the Platonic ontology, but it is the same
structure. There is still the triad, but the nature of the triad is different. With Hegel’s
triad you have nature–logic–spirit, and with Lacan you have imaginary–symbolic–
real. You can see here that there is a structural overlap between nature–imaginary;
logic–symbolic; and spirit–real. This overlap is not precise, not totally equivalent,
there are important differences, but they are comparable structures, there is some
rough homology.
The point of Hegel’s triad is to study historical phenomenology, to study the
movement of the One. In this dialectic the spirit becomes in relation between logic
282 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

and nature, it is a logical sublation of nature, the externalization of the idea, and its
return to itself. Thus, when the idea is in the mode of externalization the subject
attempts to ideally sublate nature. When the idea is in the mode of its return to itself,
the subject attempts to drop nature and become a passive observer of ideational
process. In this conceptual process of externalization and return to itself as its own
centre of gravity, spirit is constituted (Žižek 2012, pp. 413–414). What is most real
for spirit in this process of sublation, according to Hegel, is what is left of nature after
logic has sublated it. Once you have sublimated a natural object, you can let it go; but
if an object resists your sublation, then logic remains fixed to it, attached to it. Thus,
true spiritual maturity is not holding abstract knowledge of nature, but releasing it
(Žižek 2012, p. 401).
With Lacan’s triad, he is more interested in human psychology and specifically
psychoanalyzing the human psyche as constituted by the symbolic order (language)
from the perspective of the unconscious. In Lacan, the relation between all of the
triadic terms change in subtle ways due to his emphasis on a ‘return to Freud’, and
thus an emphasis on designing a triad which can be read from the perspective of the
id, ego and superego structures. For Lacan, Hegel’s nature becomes imaginary.
Thus, we encounter the fully developed understanding that nature is imaginary, we
have no illusion about getting to the ‘things-in-themselves’ of nature. What we are
really studying is the way our mental territory is reflected to us as an otherness and
the way we do that is through symbolic operation. Consequently, in the Lacanian
triad Hegel’s logic is represented as correlative of the symbolic. In symbolic opera-
tion, we try to realize something real (we try to test the real) in a transformation
process. What is left over after this process, the gap between the imaginary desire
and the symbolic operation, is the real, which is conceived of as a constitutive
absence of obstacle which internally structures the symbolic. The relationship
between these three terms captures the way in which one can read Lacan or one
can read Hegel, or one can read Žižek (Fig. 13.4).
When thinking this triad we are trying to mediate the dialectical unity of the
opposites. We can formalize this with the very general formula A ¼ B. The
important point to understand is that A and B co-constitute each other. The move-
ment between A and B is that if you took away A, B would disappear; if you took

Fig. 13.4 Hegelian historical spirit triad to Lacanian psychoanalytic triad

13.3 Dialectical Foundations 283

away B, A would disappear. They depend on each other, they only exist in relation to
each other, or more precisely, they only exist in the impossibility of their relation to
each other. That is the core of oppositional determination. The dialectic operates in
some sense not from the position of A or B, but C. What is C? C is a fuzzy
indeterminate space of superpositions. In other words, C is not a higher positivity
but rather a reconciliation between A and B which can be identified by the dissolu-
tion of A and B as contradictory semblances. The mistake of historical self-
consciousness is thinking A is true or B is true; instead of realizing that A true in
the way you are relating to B, and B is true in the way you are relating to A. But
neither A nor B is true in a dialectical sense, since both will dissolve in the temporal
mediation of the dialectic.
To demonstrate this dialectical truth in a historically real way, we could analyze
the becoming of the religious and secular subject. We can do this by pragmatically
operationalizing Johann Fichte’s I ¼ I. Here the first ‘I’ stands for identity, and the
second ‘I’ stands for impossible image. With religious subjectivity, we can say that
A (representing religious identity) at first could not equal itself in the form of its own
impossible imaginary (A ¼ not-A). Of course for religious subjectivity you would
say the notional ideal would be something like Jesus Christ or Buddha, the perfect
subject. And A ¼ not-A means that the religious subject cannot equal Jesus Christ or
Buddha. In other words, there is an irreducible asymmetry between the actual
identity and the virtual potentiality therein. Because of this impossibility A sponta-
neously transforms into B via the practical deployment of reason.
What this means is that the religious subject becomes the secular subject. With the
secular subject, in its most extreme manifestation, we get the formation of another
impossible imaginary. In its most extreme manifestation, this impossibility might be
something like someone attempting to become the subject of World Communism or
the subject of Global Utopia. In other words, the secular subject’s impossibility
maybe something like the subject attempting to enact the ultimate notion of world
peace and harmony. In our culture we are approaching the impossibility of this
identity, we are approaching the impossibility of the naivety of the secular subject,
the idea that the secular subject can participate in a transformation of our world into a
secular utopia. In that sense B has to spontaneously transform itself into C via the
practical deployment of reason. However, at the moment, it is unclear what C is,
exactly. We are in this indeterminate fuzzy space, and the identity of C has not yet
emerged. This could be why A (religious subjectivity) and B (secular subjectivity)
still find themselves in an identitarian conflict, perhaps most obviously and
extremely expressed in the cultural battle between Islamic fundamentalism and
Western secularism.
On the level of the collective we have the same pattern because the subject and the
collective of subjectivities mirror each other. The collective is simply the emergent
work product of all and every subjectivity. Thus, to repeat the logic from above, the
religious subject makes the Church, and the Church’s ideal is the Kingdom of
Heaven. Of course, in this construction, A does not equal A. In this way, by forming
the Church you do not form the Kingdom of Heaven, and this is a real that corrodes
the Church from within. From this you might get the State, which systematically
284 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

Fig. 13.5 Contradictory historical identity

subordinates the power of the Church, so A turns into B. But the problem is that the
ideal of the State becomes secular utopia, which is still very much alive. However,
we are reaching a limitation of this ideal and maybe the State is now corroding from
within because of this impossibility. In the same way that we do not know the C of
the subject, we do not know the C of the next collective stage. We do not know what
is to come in the subject and its collective organization. Perhaps it is related to the
individuated embodiment of an impossible repetition beyond sublation (beyond or
without futural image). But, in either case, this is a practical demonstration of the
dialectic because it allows us to understand the structure of history, and brings us to
this little piece of the real that we cannot (yet) think (Fig. 13.5).

13.4 Dialectical Structure of Our Century

Now that we have worked through the foundations of the dialectic we can give some
concrete examples that are of pragmatic application in the structure of knowledge
today. These examples are just meant to be thought provoking. I want to present the
field as I see the field and I just want it to be stimulating for future subjectivity to
work through the dialectical contradictions of A ¼ B, to take these oppositional
determinations and play with them in a way that we can see a new C, a new singular
coincidence. Maybe new thoughts will emerge from this engagement. The most
important thing to note when thinking about this field is that, according to the
Hegelian dialectic, A and B are not equal or balanced opposites. In Hegelian
13.4 Dialectical Structure of Our Century 285

dialectics the opposites are asymmetrical, with one opposite (B, antithesis)
representing a lack in the other opposite (A, thesis). Consequently, when one
wants to synthesize a given field, it is important to remember that the path to C is
most likely to be found by identifying why a lack emerges with respect to the
‘higher’ term necessitating the enaction of a ‘lower’ term (Žižek 2012, p. 303):

The opposition of poles [. . .] conceals the fact that one of the poles already is the unity of the
two [. . .] [thus] the goal is not to (re)establish the symmetry and balance of the two opposing
poles, but to recognize in one pole the symptom of the failure of the other (and not vice
versa).

The first oppositional determination I will present is the oppositional determina-

tion between general relativity and quantum mechanics (A ¼ B and we cannot think
C). We cannot think of the coincidence between the micro and the macro. The
consequences of resolving the micro and the macro would be a totally different
understanding of the universe. The micro world in its incompletion, its uncertainty,
its indeterminateness, its fuzziness. The micro world in involving paradoxes of
observation, where somehow what is objective is inscribed into what is subjective.
In the macro you have a physical world that is not situated in an absolute spacetime
background, but something that is a relational and dynamical spacetime. In other
words, in general relativity we can no longer think of a global spherical manifold, but
rather a manifold that is locally or relativistically constituted. As opposed to existing
from all time and for all time, spacetime can emerge from nothing and disappear into
nothing. These are strange edges of our knowledge and they are archetypally
positioned in a structure of oppositional determination, complete with an open-
ended ‘third path’ (Smolin 2001, pp. 9–10).
A ðgeneral relativityÞ ¼ B ðquantum mechanicsÞ

Second, let us consider the oppositional determination that structured my emer-

gence into deep thinking. My becoming as an academic was not a becoming in a pure
multiplicity but in repetitively embodied relation to the impossibility of thinking the
evolution of change and God as eternal substance. In general, this oppositional
determination does structure a lot of modern thought. For example, the dominant
mode of thought (at least within academia) would conjecture a cosmic or universal
evolution as explaining everything. In this mode, the concept of evolution goes
everywhere and can describe everything, like a universal acid (Dennett 1995, p. 63).
However, there is still something that persists in the notion of religious eternity, at
least on the level of phenomenal and discursive historicity internal to itself. The point
is that there is no evolutionary argument or logical process which eradicates the
phenomenal–discursive real of authentic religious engagement. There must be an
enormous lack of internal to the evolutionary worldview. To be specific, religious
eternity appears to strongly contrast with the evolutionary worldview because it is a
286 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

real that never changes, it is a real identity that persists as a perfect unified love
independent of time.
A ðevolutionÞ ¼ B ðeternityÞ

The structure of the oppositional determination between the sciences and the
humanities has perhaps had the strongest impact on intellectual or academic life in
modern times (Snow 1959). In the sciences we are told to focus on external
observation, formulating tests that can be universally repeated, situating ourselves
in relation to a knowable nature that represents a collective objectivity that we can all
predictively verify. We are trained to think literally and materially about the world
and our relation to the world. The world becomes something that can be captured in a
formula or embodied in an algorithm. In contrast, in the humanities we have a much
stronger emphasis on the experience of subjectivity, that what is experienced as
reality is most fundamentally a story or a narrative which is laden with metaphorical
knowledge and entangled with ethics, values, and morals. For the humanities, reality
is more open to emergent interpretation and conjecture, where there can be a
multiplicity of views that are all somehow valid and real.
A ðsciencesÞ ¼ B ðhumanitiesÞ

The next tension we may focus on is one that is paradoxically emergent to

philosophy itself where an oppositional determination appears between analytical
and continental traditions. The differences between these forms of philosophy can be
found in the idea that analytic philosophy emphasizes an argumentative structure of
logical rigour, conceptual clarity, general laws, and so forth. For the analytic
tradition, we thus focus on formulating a symbolic knowledge that can be
demonstrated to all linguistic subjectivity in a way that leads to a cumulative and
measurable increase in our understanding. In contrast, continental philosophy
emphasizes a universality internal to our phenomenal world but it is an experience
that is not necessarily purely logical or rational, but rather an illogic internal to logic.
For continental philosophy we are interested in experiences even if they cannot be
shared between subjectivities via language, and even if they are unrepeatable
experiences that evade any formula or algorithm. These experiences undeniably
shape subjectivity and require their own special attention. We may also say that in
the analytic tradition there is more focus on correlationalism and actuality, whereas
in the continental tradition there is more an emphasis on speculative imaginaries and
potentiality. The main difference between these two communities may involve
communication where the analytic camps want to emphasize information that can
be universally communicated; whereas the continental camps want to emphasize
information that is universally experienced even if it is not communicable.
A ðanalyticalÞ ¼ B ðcontinentalÞ

In politics, we have the manifestation of an oppositional determination that

structured much of the twentieth century and has apparently not been seriously
resolved since many of its forms are re-emerging in the twenty-first century. On
13.4 Dialectical Structure of Our Century 287

the left leaning side of the political spectrum there exists the form of communism,
and on the right leaning side of the political spectrum there exists the form of
fascism. Of course, there is a huge centrist ‘democratic’ middle ground but the
extremes overdetermine much of the large-scale argumentation and conflict, which is
now ripping at the heart of democracy. The leftist-communist end emphasizes
universal communitarian values, imaging a world beyond capital and nation-states,
and a new world that is humanist and international in its founding principles. Thus,
this political pole reflects on the inherent potential of humans to exist on a far higher
level of self-actualization than we are now. On the rightest-fascist end what is
emphasized, first and foremost, is individual responsibility and traditional family
structure. This desire is typically expressed as necessitating a meditated return to
national or ethnic loyalty. In some sense both of these poles operate on strange
imaginaries, with the leftist-communist imaginary structuring a futures utopia, and
the rightest-fascist imaginary structuring a retrotopia.
A ðcommunismÞ ¼ B ðfascismÞ

The political division may mirror a deeper unresolved psychical oppositional

determination between individuation and collectivism. On the level of individuation,
we would emphasize the becoming of the psychological unit, the irreducible indi-
viduality of a psyche, emphasizing its potential to become different, its potential to
become other. Here the mystery of the self and its development is taken as the central
mystery of the whole. Moreover, it is impossible to know what the consequences and
farthest limits of mass individuation (or transindividuation) would really be on the
scale of deep time. By definition the farthest limits of the individuated self would
represent the capacity for total difference and otherness which eliminates even our
notions of self, leaving only pure individuation (Hallward 2006, p. 82). On the other
side you have the level of collectivization with the notion that what is of the highest
value and importance is thinking the good and the development of society as a
whole. Here instead of thinking about the individuation of psychical units we try to
think social becoming as a whole, networks of subjects, the entanglement of
subjects, identities, and experiences that transcend the individual. This view
challenges us to think in a way that does not ‘atomize’ the individual, but rather
thinks in a way that we are all linked together in a field (Wendt 2015, p. 173).
A ðindividuationÞ ¼ B ðcollectivistÞ

The political and psychic issues are made all the more difficult by the sexual
oppositional determination between the masculine and the feminine. The main issue
with the sexual level is even being able to study it in the first place in a way that is
properly interdisciplinary. From the biological perspective, everything is framed in
terms of evolutionary paradigms emphasizing adaptive reasons for sexual difference,
and from the social perspective everything is framed in terms of constructivist
paradigms emphasizing the potential for radical freedom from sexual difference.
To make matters more complicated, in terms of transcendental archetypes, both the
biological evolutionary and the social constructivist arguments fail to recognize the
288 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

eternal image of man and woman reflected in historical sexual action which
constrains the possible good, true and beautiful. Thus, we may say that the biological
evolutionary paradigms may have to recognize the free performative dimension of
sexuality, the social constructivist paradigms may have to recognize the natural
historicity of sexuality, and both paradigms may have to recognize the reasons
why sexuality appears to be so tightly intertwined with spiritual and religious
foundations. In this quest psychoanalysis may be of the highest utility (Zupančič
2017).
A ðmasculineÞ ¼ B ðfeminineÞ

The foundational antagonism of scientific modernity may, in fact, be the relation

and mystery of matter and mind or the physical and the spiritual. The physicalist or
materialist view of the universe is founded in the origin of philosophical materialism
with Democritus and properly formalized by thinkers like Newton, Leibniz, and
Descartes. In the physicalist view, the universe is reduced to fundamental subatomic
particles that are governed by eternal physical laws. From this perspective, we can
understand the nature of reality by understanding the way in which elementary
physical interactions are constituted at the lowest scales of being. Although this
view structures modern particle physics it also presents irreducible contradictions
with emergence and complexity (Carroll 2017). On the other hand, the mental or
spiritual view of the universe has represented the other side of philosophy in many
ancient forms of idealism. From this perspective, we must understand the universe
holistically which necessitates recognizing that everything ‘falls into consciousness’.
In this view what governs the universe is not physical laws but the freedom of
spiritual becoming which always already frames what physicalists claim about
materiality.
A ðmatterÞ ¼ B ðmindÞ

What could be more fundamental than the oppositional determination between

physics and mind? How about the oppositional determination between life and
death. The structure of life and death overdetermines our whole existence. We are
alive, we did not choose to be alive, we simply appeared here, and we appear to be
living systems that are based on biological principles just like other organisms. There
are important differences in languages and self-consciousness, which give us a self-
referential architecture that other organisms do not seem to have in the same
qualitative dimension. Then on the ‘other side’ we die, and we are hyper aware of
this real. Humans know that they are finite mortals doomed to a realm of inexistence,
that every human who has ever been born has died, and that no matter how much you
care for or know yourself, death is waiting for us. We will eventually fall to decay
and disorder no matter what we do, the ultimate universal tragedy is a part of the
structure of our being. In light of modern science and technology, how are we to
13.4 Dialectical Structure of Our Century 289

make sense of the coincidence of these two determinations? How are we to make
sense of the relentless quest for eternity and immortality? (Cave 2012).
A ðlifeÞ ¼ B ðdeathÞ

Finally: something versus nothing. This is the final oppositional determination I

will present in this overview of twenty-first century knowledge. On the one hand, we
have something which we can think as the minimal existence of anything at all.
Something could be framed as being itself. Something is always the object or other
of thought which is why philosophy in some sense forms with the couple thought-
being, and why the first gesture of philosophy is the constitution of an idea of the
‘Absolute Being’ (Dolar 2013, pp. 11–12). Throughout the history of thought
humans have understood something in terms of substance, things, objects, relations,
or just a presence. On the other side you have nothing. Nothing is usually referred to
as a void, vacuum, absence, or death. Throughout the history of philosophy, religion,
and science nothing and its relation to human beings has received various
interpretations. In the contemporary field the idea that nothing requires a more
sophisticated inclusion in the structure of our positive knowledge has been seriously
entertained (Deacon 2011).
A ðsomethingÞ ¼ B ðnothingÞ

13.4.1 The Absolute

Now towards the end of this reflective note, we must approach some final principles
that can help to deploy dialectical thinking concretely. I would encourage you to
think for yourself on these oppositional determinations that structure our field of
knowledge. In our present condition, we desperately need a return to serious
fundamental metaphysical thought from first principles. The contemporary meta-
physical field appears to be fracturing. On the one hand, we have ‘scientific
ontologies’ of quantum cosmology and the brain sciences (operating as a type of
metalinguistic evolutionary thought), which really aim to eliminate philosophy
proper. On the other hand, we have a type of relativistic or constructivist ontologies
structuring most of social, political, cultural, and gender studies. In some sense both
fields aim to eliminate any reference to a real Absolute. However, in the real of
history, both fields are exhausting their potential and may represent a disconnection
from the reflective real depths of human life: individual, familial, communal, or
otherwise.
The void in academia appears to be filled by many Western thinkers tending
towards an Eastern metaphysics which grounds ‘non-dualism’. On some level, this
may be happening because of the failure of Plato. The Platonic and monistic view
can be captured by the axiom of ‘there is only One’, whereas non-dualism represents
as its opposite of ‘One undivided without a second’. The difference is subtle but
important. What non-dualism means, ultimately, is that the world of appearances
290 13 A Reflective Note for Dialectical Thinkers

(of duality) are a fake, an illusion, and that the truth is the underlying pre-subjective
unified reality. Consequently, the truth in this view is the ‘un-division’, the truth has
nothing to do with the division of the subject, and the appearances. In this way there
is no space for dialectical thought proper. In dialectical thinking, the dualistic
appearances have a meaning related to the division between A and B (and the
emergence super or anti-space of C). In this structure parts are struggling for the
meaning of the whole, our partial engagement changes the whole because the whole
manifests through the parts. In the Eastern view, there are struggling parts but the
whole is at rest. Thus, in Eastern metaphysics, there is no C term where a radical
engagement with the appearances makes meaningful historical sense. One should
simply recognize the historical illusion and return to the pre-subjective unified reality
(before the introduction of a division).
There is a real challenge for Plato here. ‘There is only One’ has become
unbelievable because it does not help us make sense of temporality. Maybe it has
become impossible for the modern ‘scientific’ mind to conceive or experience the
One. However, in the metaontological tradition deployed in this work, stemming
from Plato and then following Hegel, Lacan, and Zizek, we have the introduction of
movement, unconsciousness, and impossibility into the One itself, which
retroactively transforms Plato’s own philosophy. What this retroactive transforma-
tion opens up is a revision of monism to ‘non-monism’ (or an invitation to think the
not-One). The axiom I would deploy here is ‘more than One, less than two’ (A ¼ B).
This axiom means that there are a fundamental division and otherness, and we
should take it seriously as a meaningful historical engagement. Here we focus on
the divided subjectivity, emphasizing that there is something in the symbolic chain,
something about language, about logos, that continues to move even after it has been
deconstructed back to the (we assume) unified pre-symbolic substance. Even after
you have gone into your self-relating spiritual world, there is something about
oppositional determination that is essential for understanding the truth of being,
and the truth of history (C ¼ T). As you can see it is the impossibility of the two to
become One (there is more than One, and less than two). This is the impossibility at
the core of the two trying to become One.
Consider all of the oppositional determinations that structure modernity:

• General relativity ¼ quantum mechanics

• Evolution ¼ God
• Science ¼ humanities
• Communism ¼ fascism
• Individuation ¼ collectivism
• Masculinity ¼ femininity
• Life ¼ death
• Matter ¼ mind
• Something ¼ nothing

What non-monism suggests is that these oppositional determinations can only be

reconciled with the historical work of the subject. What non-monism is saying is that
References 291

there is a point in engaging with the realm of opposites, it is not ‘just appearances’,
that there is an effectivity in the appearances, and we can find a cause of this
effectivity in the self-referential loop of the divided subject itself. This is why the
Hegelian axiom for the Absolute is ‘not only substance, but also as subject’.

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Dialectical Approach to Singularity
14

14.1 Singularity Inclusive of Subjectivity

In this analysis, we shift focus from the typical object-oriented cosmic evolutionary
philosophies which start with the big bang as the origin for analytical thought
processes. Instead, we attempt to think an understanding of how we can utilize
this philosophy dialectically as it relates to an internal subjective approach to global
technological singularity. The objectivity of human motion mediated by universal
ideation is not fully understood in either the classical mechanistic worldview (scien-
tific materialism) or the classical transcendental worldview (philosophical idealism).
This is because scientific materialism reduces everything to physical motion
governed by eternal laws, and philosophical idealism integrated everything into
the eternal concept which transcends physical reality. Thus, both approaches fail
to capture the dynamical intersubjective becoming of ideality and its historical
effects and consequences in relation to totality. In order to approach ideational
motion embodied and embedded intersubjectively in a material world, we must
understand the real consequences of an emergent subject–object division
(or observer-observed, mind-matter, concept-world) as itself a dynamical part of
totality (i.e. freedom is part of totality).
When we start with a totality constituted by subject–object division (as opposed
to starting with a subject-less objectivity, i.e. big bang and subatomic realm), we are
starting with the asymmetrical becoming of our own phenomenal existence which
appears to freely aim for a higher unity (or ‘oneness’) on the individual level of self-
consciousness and on the collective level of social systems (‘self-actualization’). The
subject–object relation is of fundamental importance when reflecting on a global

Reprinted by permission from MDPI, Information, 9(4), Cosmic evolutionary philosophy and a
dialectical approach to technological singularity, Last, C., 2018, p.78. DOI: 10.3390/info9040078.

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 293

C. Last, Global Brain Singularity, World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_14
294 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

technological singularity as an objective real event. This is because we must

understand how objectivity itself depends on the activity of open and incomplete
observers manifest as intersubjective networks striving for self-actualized unity
within multiplicity. To approach this phenomenon we will rely on a philosophy of
materially grounded idealist dialectics, and we will rely on the science of psycho-
logical self-analysis whose focus is the objective content of ideal becoming. In other
words, what we get from a synthesis of scientific materialism and philosophical
idealism is a dynamical intersubjective objectivity with a locus of causality internal
to conscious ideality as fundamental reality (Žižek 2012, pp. 3–5).
The mediation of an ideal intersubjective objectivity gives us a potential human-
centric perspective on approaching technological singularity theory where human
observers are the active psychosocial drivers of the process. To be specific this
dialectic operates on general negations of the world as given (divisions) coupled
with affirmations of an alternative idealized world (unities). In the present, the
conceptual motion of negation and affirmation occurs within the unified medium
of the Internet which enables both a higher level of individuation (division) and a
more totalizing universality (unity) than ever before in human history (Heylighen
2015; Veitas and Weinbaum 2015). Here ideal negations and affirmations are
phenomenologically tested in relation to the actuality of their enacted transformative
consequences. In other words, a particular individuated division repetitively
attempts to introduce and maintain the actuality of a simple unity in being against
a complex background. In this general motion of ideality transformations
retroactively change the subject–object relation, and thus totality itself, by creating
and mobilizing psychosocial processes towards new ideal realities (Lenartowicz
et al. 2016). In order to approach this divided field, a general motion can potentially
be formulated under a schema of triadic logic (Plato 1998; Hegel 1998) from
(Fig. 14.1):

• (1) Theoretical abstractions (imaginary) to

• (2) Enacted transformations (symbolic) to
• (3) Concrete actualization (real)

Real (R)
a
(concrete actualizations)

truth (symbolic) desire (imaginary)

Imaginary (I) Symbolic (S)

(theoretical abstractions) knowledge (real) (enacted transformations)

Fig. 14.1 Structural transformations on the transcendental horizon—triad

14.1 Singularity Inclusive of Subjectivity 295

Here consider this triadic logic of transformations in the transcendental horizon of

forms:
This structure represents an attempt to formalize the geometry of the mental space
which becomes entangled with the world. From this entanglement, we see the
motion of the dynamical geometry of the mental space as concretizing new reals
from knowledge by processing imaginary desire through symbolic truth acts. First,
the subject that intervenes/transforms emerges from the concrete real in relation to an
imaginary field or screen. This field or screen becomes the invisible location of the
subject’s thought on its perceptual horizon of becoming and reveals to the subject
and object of desire, which motivates it to intervene/transform the real towards a
more ideal order. The subject achieves such interventions/transformations through
introducing the symbolic to the real in the form of speech, writing, poetry, song,
equations, jokes, and various other formalisms. From introducing the symbolic into
the real the subject becomes fundamentally entangled, correlated, and/or caught up
in a web of interactions with the real and thus measures its symbolic on the terms of
which the real returns its message as truth (intervention/transformation).
In these processes, all three elements of the imaginary–symbolic–real are simul-
taneously co-present: the real of knowledge is present when the imaginary theoreti-
cal abstractions collapse into enacted symbolic transformations; the imaginary of
desire is present when enacted symbolic transformations attempt a real concrete
actualization; and the symbolic truth is there when the real of concrete actualizations
informs theoretical abstractions of the imaginary. In this scheme ‘knowledge’ is
‘real’ because knowledge is the concrete actualization of the subject, ‘desire’ is
‘imaginary’ because desire represents an absent actualization, and ‘truth’ is ‘sym-
bolic’ because truth is what returns to the subject from the real (an ‘answer’ from the
real that ‘emerges’ due to our own interventions/transformations).
In order to interpret and utilize this structural triad, it is crucial that one conceives
of it as always-already (‘eternally’) in motion and constantly resetting its coordinates
in a network of such structures which compose the geometric space of the four-
dimensional transcendental horizon. The central Ø denotes that ‘beyond’ or ‘behind’
the transcendental horizon there is nothing other than the void of our subjectivity
which we project (imaginary) and enact (symbolic) into the real. In this way such an
analysis attempts to think a dynamical real virtual thing-in-itself (between order–
chaos, dreams–obstacles, goals–challenges, and presences–absences) that is both
open and incomplete making the ‘thing’ dependent on subjectivity for its own
identity and becoming due to a division that is fundamental for the appearance of
subjectivity as such.
The geometry of the triad is a classical structure of logic used to study the nature
of the human mind (e.g. psychoanalysis: (Lacan 1999, p. 90); and philosophy (Žižek
2014, p. 255)). However, in order to capture a larger view of totality in triadic
transformation we must also represent the dynamical motion with a higher dimen-
sional cyclohedron representing the circular-orbital temporality of desire (blue dot,
objet a) as it passes from imaginary–symbolic, symbolic–real, and real–imaginary
(Fig. 14.2). Cyclohedrons complexify triads in geometrical analyses used to study
knot invariants (Stasheff 1997; Forcey and Springfield 2010). Here knot invariants
 296
14
Dialectical Approach to Singularity

Fig. 14.2 Structural transformations on the transcendental horizon—cyclohedron

14.1 Singularity Inclusive of Subjectivity 297

c
R R
R

S
I S
I S

Self-Arrow (Structure) Self Cycle (Motion) Self Drive (Unity)

Fig. 14.3 Structural transformations on the transcendental horizon—not-One

Fig. 14.4 Totality as not-One, dynamical structure of the transcendental horizon

are desire deadlocks (points of impossibility) fundamental to understanding the

structure of pure desire. In this frame ‘knots’ can be located on the level of the
symbolic transformations which generates a perceived subjective separation/connec-
tion (in space, the cut) and distance/closeness (in time, the call) from the ‘real event’
as the ‘desired state’ (ideal-real). In other words, when symbolic transformations
‘miss’ on returning from the real there is a subjective emptiness (filled only with the
real of imaginary potentiality), and when symbolic transformations ‘hit’ on return
from the real there is a subjective fullness (where the imaginary intersects with the
real actuality of desire).
In the higher orders of Self, we find a Unity in the not-One (positivized negativ-
ity) where the Real of openness and incompletion is fundamental to the Self’s
internal Unity (Fig. 14.3). The inner discovery of this Unity shifts the subject from
a mode of pure desire which operates on a principle of spurious infinity to pure drive
which operates on a principle of true infinity. In the mode of pure drive, the
gap/difference the Imaginary detects in the Real produces a Symbolic rotary motion
of pure enjoyment (ideal-real) where desire is ‘eternal’. In this mode, the subject
recognizes that its own rotary motion is responsible for the constitution of being and
that it holds in its own determination the transcendental horizon of being.
The totality or ‘thing-in-itself’ is not only ‘real virtuality’ but in-itself a dynamical
becoming (making it ‘not-One’) (Fig. 14.4). This not-One is thus irreducibly dual
(subject–object, concept–world, human–nature, mind–matter, etc.) and split between
ontology/being that resists and epistemology/knowledge that insists. On the
298 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

ontological ‘unconscious’ side of the ‘impossible thing’ which resists our grasp we
may place the domain of chaos, obstacles, challenges, and absences; and on the side
of the ‘transforming consciousness’ we can place the insistent grasping domain of
order, dreams, goals, and presences.
The subject caught up in the triad of the imaginary–symbolic–real of this process
(self arrow) is what dynamically traverses both sides of the dividing line between
order–chaos, dreams–obstacles, goals–challenges, presence–absence in an asym-
metrical future-directed motion. In other words, the subject is what invades being
with epistemological insistences (‘projects’), and experiences in return ontological
resistances. The subject attempts to bring order to chaos, achieve dreams that
overcome obstacles, reach goals that nihilate challenges, and to make present
which was once absent through its symbolic transformations. An analysis of this
open and incomplete ‘thing-in-itself’ can we possibly think the actualization of the
thing-in-itself as One or is totality nothing but reducible to this impossible as
not-One? What is, in the end, the status of this gap/difference (hole) internal to the
thing-in-itself?
In focusing on an ideational motion structured by triadic logic operating inter-
nally to a field of multiple observers totality itself becomes open, incomplete, and
dependent on intersubjective ideality for its actuality. Thus in this frame totality itself
is nothing but the ideational space of observers where epistemological knowledge
practices become entangled with fundamental ontology. Here knowledgeable
observers become effective agents that are directly involved in transforming the
physical world via conceptual mediation. From such a programme, we are invited to
engage with a spatially curved epistemology due to the inclusion of desiring subjects
that develop strategies for coping with internal symbolic deadlocks produced as a
consequence of division from unity (or ‘points of impossibility’). We are also invited
to engage with a temporal dynamic ontology due to the inclusion of the ontic effects
of subjects’ own projected interventions and retroactive reflections aiming for unity.
This intersubjective motion is structured by a multiplicity of ideational networks
capable of negating–affirming (transforming) the distance between the actuality of
friction (zero-sum) and the ideality of synergy (positive-sum).
In this frame, totality becomes a radically asymmetrical temporality of ones
dualistically imbalanced between being and absence (Evans 2006, p. 1), order and
chaos (Peterson 1999, p. 332, 334), dream and obstacle (Žižek 2012, p. 17), and goal
and challenge (Heylighen 2014, p. 139). Thus, in terms of subject–object (observer–
observed, mind–matter, concept–world) division, we have clear separation and
distance from any understanding of totality as eternal unity (physical/material or
conceptual/ideational). On the side of the subject, we find our being immersed in
nature, we find an order that frames the world, we find a dream that orients action, we
find a goal to transform the given. On the side of the object we find an absence in
being, we confront an unknown chaos, we find that there are obstacles on our path,
we find that movement is a challenge. Such separation and distance represent an
eternal division that disturbs the possibility of eternal unity but allows for the
asymmetrical temporality of free representations in historical becoming. Here total-
ity is not closed and complete but in need of a reconciliation that involves the active
14.1 Singularity Inclusive of Subjectivity 299

participation of every observer as a background independent field of ones

(individuals). Such reconciliation can be framed experientially as a desire to enter
a flow state or drive that would actualize a qualitative phase transition towards a
higher-order state of unified being.
When thinking totality as an eternal division to be reconciled in these terms we
may posit that a future actual singularity is immanent in the potentiality of our action
even though we have no idea what will manifest on this pathway. Here consider the
general epistemological structure of scientific networks as forces that aim to trans-
form being and retroactively change the way in which we think about subject–object
division as totality. The most obvious historical examples of this retroactive change
include the industrial technology revolution which changed our conceptions of the
energetic cosmos (i.e. thermodynamics), and also the computer technology revolu-
tion which changes our conceptions of the informational cosmos (i.e. cybernetics).
These examples are so general that when we are thinking about the desiring subjects
who drive the future of robotics, nanotechnology, genetics, quantum computing, and
so forth, it is hard not to conclude that the logical immanence of their own sets of
ideal conceptualization schemes will retroactively change our fundamental concep-
tualization of reality on the level of universal history (Hegel 2010). Indeed, it could
be that fundamental reality or totality depends on the intervention of conceptual
observers and their technic apparatuses in order to be constituted and thus realized.
Of course in this process, not all modes of individuation are equal because not all
individuations lead to effects of universal historical significance. Consider an
extreme example of individuation with consequences for universal history with the
most (in)famous technological singularity theorist, Ray Kurzweil, and his sets of
ideals claims about future immortality (2001, 2005, 2010) [which emerge against the
background of a fear of death (0), and desired loving reconciliation with the Father
(!1) (i.e. separation and distance from eternal unity)]. In a dialectical analysis of the
higher-order ideational space, the point would be to understand the effects and
consequences of this ideality in terms of their abstract powers to transform being
for all other individuated observers. These abstract powers include the force of a
paradigm that can directly or indirectly create and mobilize psychosocial
environments of potentially extreme relevance to universal history. For example,
in the case of Kurzweil’s set of conjectures we have psychosocial systems as unities
focused on creating the next generation of artificial intelligence. These psychosocial
environments have gained a symbolic autonomy in chains of communicative events
that are unlikely to be prevented from exhausting their potentiality. The nature of
subject–object division will be forever transformed as a consequence but what
dynamical state of phenomenal being will they actualize?
Consequently, all processes of individuation are crucial for the reconciliation of
universal history on the highest orders. This is for the simple fact that all subjects are
an effect of the eternal division and all subjects are ultimately responsible for
producing an internal unity capable of withstanding this asymmetrical imbalance.
In thinking about the technological singularity with such dialectical tools we aim to
reframe the position of humanity in the philosophy of science and the sciences of
humanity as a whole. This ultimately requires us to understand the motion of general
300 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

ideation as it will be affected by scientific ideational reduction and fragmentation as

they are currently manifesting and evolving spatially in curved virtual fields
(Jameson 2009). These virtual fields include ideational forms as diverse as
M-theory in particle physics, artificial intelligence in cognitive science, and genetic
engineering in biology. All such fields could be technically modelled from the point
of view of a temporally asymmetrical totality in a state of subject-object division.
The collective nature of this state space suggests that the actuality of human civili-
zation must include within it an invisible potential tendency to transcendence of
present being that can be discursively mediated in relation to a central desire for
higher-order unity.
In order to demonstrate the functional or pragmatic utility of such a seemingly
complex notion of totality let us now consider an example of how this approach can
help us understand the higher orders of scientific ideation operating under paradigms
of fragmented reduction. The example I will choose in this analysis of totality is the
example of the theoretical particle physics community. The reason to consider this
community as a particular example with general relevance to global technological
singularity theory is that this community is the best example of fragmented idea-
tional reduction applied towards a unified theory of quantum gravity capable of
understanding physical singularities (black holes, big bang). In order to realize this
the theoretical particle physics community holds a particular set of ideality about the
nature of the world (i.e. standard model, M-theory). These abstractions aim to
understand the hypothetical dimensions that may represent the fundamental
constituents of physical matter at the smallest scale of reality.
Now when we are thinking about the particle physics community as a psychoso-
cial force produced as an effect of subject–object division aiming for unity we have
to think about how this asymmetrical imbalance generates ideational conflict and
tension. This conflict and tension can be situated around the aforementioned dualis-
tic eternal couples of totality: being–absence, order–chaos, dream–obstacle, and
goal–challenge. Here we see that the particle physics community emerges as an
epistemological desire that will retroactively change ontology (i.e. standard model is
incomplete logic and M-theory is open speculative conjecture). Thus, in the higher-
order theory where we include the observational multiplicity as fundamental we
could posit that abstractions in the form of the standard model of M-theory posits a
future reconciled or completed state (imaginary) within which totality will be
transformed towards a comprehensive notion of the fundamental constituents of
physical matter (symbolic), which would allow us to understand the origins and fate
of all matter (real).
However, on the first order of analysis, there has been little progress in under-
standing quantum gravity in terms of concrete predictions. This is due to the inability
to test the real of projected ideality that would help us understand the origins and fate
of all matter. The result of such obstacles leads to fundamental theories disconnected
from the classical reality of scientific materialism and much more connected to the
classical reality of transcendental idealism. Thus, in order to avoid both eternal
structures, it could be that a higher-order perspective emphasizing the eternity of a
subject–object division attracted towards an emergent unity constituted by
14.1 Singularity Inclusive of Subjectivity 301

intersubjectivity could be what is missing from our consideration of fundamental

problems related to quantum gravity. In the higher-order frame, the solution to
quantum gravity must contend with the real becoming of observers constituting
the transcendental horizon. In other words, a higher-order theory of quantum gravity
would not only have to explain the nature of the big bang and black hole
singularities, but also the nature of conscious observers in the potential actuality of
a technological singularity.
In this context, the particular example of analyzing the particle physics commu-
nity and their first-order search for unified totality becomes extracted to the higher
order and applied to general psychosocial systems (Fig. 14.5). This seemingly
strange move in relation to understanding unified totality has fundamental
implications for reductionist theories that attempt to explain everything. For exam-
ple, a common feature of modern scientific discourse is the claim that a grand unified
theory is within our grasp. However, when we consider this proposition in our
present context, is it even possible for us to imagine what a grand unified theory
would actually mean for the subject–object division as totality? What would it mean
if communities of physicists developed a grand unified theory of quantum gravity as
a reductionist master theory of the universe? In other words, would such a theoretical
development (imaginary) have any practical transformative consequences (sym-
bolic) for the emergentist subject–object division as totality (real)? Would it mean
that something fundamental would change for the nature of temporally asymmetrical
and irreducibly perspectival discursive reality?
Figure 14.5 attempts to capture the general psychosocial virtual field of quantum
gravity in relationship to the main abstract theoretical groups (imaginary) which aim
to transform the concept–world relation through enacted transformations (symbolic)
by concretely actualizing the ‘true’ understanding of quantum gravity (real). The red
arrows represent a ‘master signifier’ or ‘main subject’ which could be dominant
concept(s) or person(s) in the respective fields (i.e. ‘strings’ and ‘Ed Witten’ or
‘loops’ and ‘Lee Smolin’) which orient the symbolic weight and aim (topography of
black arrows) of the ideational field in relation to the absent real. The closer the
network of arrows/signifiers to the real the closer they are to the in-itself of the
social–historical meaning of the semiospheres. For example, black arrows (symbolic
transformations) close to the site of the real may be fellow professors or graduate
students with the trailing arrows representing lower levels of relation to the site of the
real, i.e. colleagues, other scientists, educated public, and undergraduate students.
In these relations, the bar of the circles represents the dynamic border of the
‘thing’ (from order/dream/goal to chaos/obstacles/challenge and back) that can be
symbolically conceptualized in light of the linguistic formalisms S|s denoting the
signifier’s freedom and autonomy over and above the signified (Evans 2006, p. 187).
This is best demonstrated by physics communities whose signifying chain tends
towards the in-itself of internal–imaginary consistency before it is validated by the
return from the real. These represented social systems can be divided down the ‘three
main roads’ of quantum gravity, i.e. (1) approaches that start with quantum mechan-
ics (e.g. string theory and QFT in curved spaces), (2) approaches that start from
novel presuppositions that rethink the foundation of both quantum mechanics and
 302
14
Dialectical Approach to Singularity

Fig. 14.5 Psychosocial virtual field of physics communities

14.2 Consciousness and Universal History 303

general relativity (e.g. ‘others’) (Smolin 2001, pp. 9–10). The specific sizes of the
psychosocial gravitational fields in this representation correspond to data collected
by Carlo Rovelli at the International Congress on General Relativity and Gravitation
on the count of articles published in each respective field of quantum gravity
(Penrose 2004, p. 1018).
Of course, what this representation does not capture (requiring more sophisticated
modelling) is the dynamic motion, the interaction, and the change over time of these
communities. Such a model could potentially approach questions about why many
different socially constituted physics tribes seem to be able to produce correct
solutions to the origin and fate of all matter with different fundamental constituents
of quantum gravity (Frolov and Zelnikov 2011, p. 340), and thus also potentially
help produce a higher-order relational understanding of reductionist attempts at
complete–closed grand unified theory modelling.
In proper philosophical terms, a grand unified theory can be conceived as an
eternal unity often represented on the level of understanding as absolute knowledge
(Zagzebski 2017). However, this unity would logically nihilate the primacy of the
subject–object division whose broken symmetry is causative of ideationally
constituted intersubjective becoming. Consequently, whenever we are approached
with first-order notions of a grand unified theory we should never forget that these
abstract conjectures central weakness is their inability to deal with the (still moving)
higher-order psychosocial forces where the subject–object division is left without
total reconciliation. Thus, when it comes to theories of quantum gravity it may be
necessary to situate those dealing with subject–object division as the synthetic ‘third
path’ in contrast to the first path grounded in reconciling general relativity with
quantum mechanics (e.g. string theory); or the second path grounded in reconciling
quantum mechanics with general relativity (e.g. loop quantum gravity). In the third
path what becomes crucial and indispensable in the asymmetrical nature of time and
the meaning of a universe in which we are active participants (Smolin 2001, p. 10).

14.2 Consciousness and Universal History

We have attempted to build a cosmic evolutionary philosophy and situate within this
philosophy the fundamental dynamics of ideational motion on the horizon of
universal process. Now we will attempt to situate ideational motion within a
higher-order theory of consciousness that can approach totality. In this theory of
consciousness, we place less emphasis on the physical instantiation of consciousness
within a materialist foundation and instead place more emphasis on historically
engaged phenomenal understanding as it relates to a fundamental truth of unified
reality. In other words, this analysis is less concerned with whether consciousness is
produced by neuronal activity, or by the quantum level of being, or by some other
unknown physical mechanism; and is more concerned with the phenomenal activity
of psychosocial forces as they relate to the historical search for the truth of reality.
In building this theory of consciousness, our analysis will forward a different
perspective than most reflections since it will offer an emergentist mental theory,
304 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

seeking to understand totality in terms of its relevance to the meaning of human

existence. This approach to totality is different than most contemporary theories
because, instead of explaining totality in terms of general ideational motion engaged
in history (like in the analysis of the physics community). Thus, we are interested in a
totality capable of helping us understand how frames of reference and their concep-
tual transformations will be generally affected by scientific epistemology (artificial
intelligence, genetic engineering, quantum computation, etc.). In this way, we seek
to emphasize the hard work of an emergent unity or integration via collective
historical processes of human individuation. Consequently, this theory of conscious-
ness aims to elucidate a central dynamical narrative and value structure of being that
is both grounded in cosmic evolution as a universal process and future-oriented
towards a meaningful synthetical higher order level of ideational order.
The first step in constructing a theory of consciousness with relevance to univer-
sal history is to situate our understanding within a proper historical context. In order
to move in this direction, let us first consider the main metaphysical systems of
thought that have structured the history of philosophy. These main metaphysical
systems of thought will be broadly classified from the Western perspective as
ancient, modern, and deconstructionist metaphysics. In this general classification,
we can say that ancient metaphysics structured the development of civilization in its
predominantly industrial phase; and deconstructionist metaphysics has structured the
development of civilization in its predominantly informational phase. Thus, these
metaphysics represent the logical ideational substructure of civilization at different
moments in the collective becoming of self-consciousness in universal history.
In this analysis, we will pragmatically utilize the dynamical triadic structure of the
imaginary–symbolic–real in order to situate our analysis of each major phase of
Western civilizational metaphysics. Here, the imaginary as theoretical abstractions,
the symbolic as enacted transformations, and the real as concrete actualization in its
general psychosocial manifestation are applied to different historical conceptions of
unity. From all three phases, we can generalize the human mind as situated on the
level of the symbolic order because self-consciousness is a narrative construct
organized with a symbolic architecture capable of enacting historical
transformations. However, what is considered imaginary (i.e. a theoretical abstrac-
tion) and real (i.e. a concrete actualization) will fundamentally change in all three
major movements of civilization from ancient to modern to deconstructionist:

• The ancient metaphysical structure considers as ‘real’ the ‘eternal ideal’ or God,
and considers as ‘imaginary’ the ‘physical world’ or nature. Consequently, in
ancient metaphysics, we get philosophies build around the ideals of a transcen-
dent supernature that is primary in constituting the physical world and primary in
relation to the human mind. Thus, ancient metaphysical systems forward the
hypothesis that human beings come from an eternal ideal superspace before birth,
return to an ideal superspace after death and are structured-constrained by an ideal
superspace during existential (sexual–personal–creative) development.
• The modern metaphysical structure considers as ‘real’ the ‘physical world’ or
nature, and considers as ‘imaginary’ the temporality of the ideal. Consequently, in
14.2 Consciousness and Universal History 305

modern metaphysics, we get philosophies built around the natural world

governed by eternal physical laws and ideas that have no ‘transcendental’ reality
outside of their constitution in history. Thus, modern metaphysical systems
forward the hypothesis that human beings come from nature before birth, return
to nature after death, and are structured-constrained by the laws of physics during
existential (sexual–personal–creative) development.
• The deconstructionist metaphysical structure considers as ‘real’ the ‘secular
power’ structures of society, and considers as ‘imaginary’ the various possible
interpretations of the ‘physical world’. Consequently, in deconstructionist meta-
physics, we get philosophies built around the negation of social systems that seek
to totalize human existence and distort our relation to the natural world. Thus,
deconstructionist metaphysical systems forward the hypothesis that human
beings come from social systems, return to social systems after death, and are
structured-constrained by social systems during existential (sexual–personal–
creative) development.

This broad analysis of metaphysical totality structures aims to situate conscious-

ness as something that is constituted by the symbolic order and constantly
restructuring its transformative state of being in relation to different notions of
what is an imaginary theoretical abstraction and what is the most real concrete
actualization throughout its collective development in universal history. In the
ancient real, we can say that what consciousness developed in relation to was
fundamentally the power of the scientific and the natural. In the deconstructionist
real, we can say that what consciousness developed in relation to was fundamentally
the power of the social and the self-analytic. Thus, in all systems, we get fundamen-
tally different notions of totality as eternal unity: transcendental ideality, physical
laws, or secular power.
In ancient metaphysics, totality is already closed and complete in the ideal real of
supernature or God of religion; in modern metaphysics, totality is already closed and
complete in the material real of natural laws of physics; and in deconstructionist
metaphysics, totality is already closed and complete as a multiplicity of systems of
social power (all of which represent different relativistic totalities). However, all of
these metaphysical systems are unable to account for a totality where conscious
reality is constituted by multiple observers becoming in asymmetrical temporal
relation to ideal-real attractors independent of a transcendent superspace, physical
laws, or secular power. In other words, they fail to account for the general
imaginary–symbolic–real triad in its own historical motion, which transcends the
ancient, modern, and deconstructionist forms. Thus, for a conscious real on the level
of universal history visions of totality related to a transcendental superspace, physi-
cal laws, or secular power all become a part of the same dynamical and general
conscious real structuring the becoming of open and incomplete individuating
observers searching for the truth of being in a unified eternal structure.
In this way, the most real, or the most concrete actualization, is an absence of
‘something’ that emerges because of and depending on symbolic observers enacting
transformations in history. This brings us towards a potential to formulate a theory of
306 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

Fig. 14.6 Transmodern totality

consciousness that can approach the real in-itself as an absence of something that
emerges internally to the realm of symbolic observers. This formulation will attempt
to structure a transmodern metaphysics derived from the dynamical motion of the
general imaginary–symbolic–real structures (Fig. 14.6). In a transmodern metaphys-
ics, we aim to both synthesize historical forms of totality and approach technological
singularity from an individuated perspective as an emergent unity produced as a
general consequence of subject–object division. This would potentially allow us to
construct a central narrative and value structure of being for consciousness. Here,
narrative architectures represent a symbolical temporalization of eternity (beginning
to end); and value structures represent an attempt to stabilize an emergent unity as a
perfect circle capable of completing and closing in on itself.
We represent a transmodern totality where the general motion of the human mind
as symbolic emerges from the physical world as imaginary and starts to circulate
around its own emergent desire for internal unity as real. The consequences of this
general motion deployed in historicity produced a multiplicity of unities such as
transcendental superspaces, physical laws, and secular power that stand in as
paradoxical somethings where the real as a closed and completed circle is absent
or impossible. In this sense, all historical forms of the eternal real should ultimately
be deconstructed on the level of external positing. However, all external positing of
an eternal real ultimately emerge because of self-alienation as they represent the
eternal real that emerges internal to subject. In this way, we find a real that is a
multiplicity of unities internal to each individuated observer. Thus, the transmodern
real offers the view that each subject is capable of creating its own world out of its
own individuated symbolic transformations. Here the transcendental superspace,
physical laws, and secular power all disappear as ultimately historical fiction on
the level of specular images.
In terms of the synthesis of historical forms of totality, the transmodern real
conceives of all particular cultural reals as unified conscious visions necessary for
the structure of historical becoming. For example, the vision of a transcendental
superspace of eternal ideality structures the objective ancient becoming of religious
and philosophical intersubjectivity; the vision of physical laws structures the objec-
tive modern becoming of scientific and naturalist intersubjectivity; and the vision of
secular power structures the objective deconstructionist becoming of social and
activist intersubjectivity. Thus, different forms of intersubjective objectivity
14.2 Consciousness and Universal History 307

emerged and became necessary in different phases of civilization from the agricul-
tural level stabilized by the intersubjective objectivity of God and Imaginary Faith;
the industrial level stabilized by the intersubjective objectivity of Science and
Rational Empiricism; and the informational level stabilized by the intersubjective
objectivity of the Social and Critical Deconstruction. Of course, these are not the
only historical forms of eternal ideality that have appeared on the transcendental
horizon, but they are a few of the major and general reals that have structured
intersubjective objectivity.
Thus, in terms of a transmodern metaphysics approaching the technological
singularity, we must not conceive of totality in terms of an eternally unified field,
but instead as an eternally divided field between subject–object. As discussed this
field produces individuated observers asymmetrically imbalanced in a duality uni-
versally structuring a general internal desire for unity expressing itself as a multi-
plicity of conscious visions. Here we build on the aforementioned idea that totality
on the side of the subject is order–dreams–goals–presences; and totality on the side
of the object is chaos–obstacles–challenges–absences. In this dualistic relation
unities like a transcendental superspace, physical laws, or secular power represent
intersubjective reals as ‘points of impossibility’ unconsciously posited by self-
consciousness to resolve the far-from-equilibrium imbalance of dualistic becoming.
Such reconciliation of far-from-equilibrium imbalance follows such logics as ‘if we
all believe in [faith, empiricism, and deconstruction] we will be saved by [religion,
science, and society].’
However, in terms of the transmodern real in-itself such unities as ‘points of
impossibility’ are radically open to taking any form that an observer can maintain
intersubjectively across its process of becoming as an objective reality. Furthermore,
any externally imposed collectivist notion of intersubjective objectivity will by
necessity fail to approach the real of individuated becoming of a multiplicity of
observers on the pathway to singularity. This is because the real as an impossibility
emerges primordially in relation to divisions introduced by each subject’s
transformations (as opposed to preceding the subject’s transformations). Thus,
when we think of the real from the inside out (from the side of the subject) these
points of impossibility structure of geometric curvature in topographical state space.
For example, a subject engaged in a theological or philosophical transformations
may conclude that the highest form of objective reality is a unified space of ideality
(God); a subject engaged in scientific or naturalist transformations may conclude that
the highest form of objective reality is a unified space of natural laws (Spacetime); a
subject engaged in social or activist transformations may conclude that the highest
form of objective reality is a unified space of secular power (State).
In all such social–historical manifestations what is posited by self-consciousness
is an objective real that exists before and after the subject’s transformations or
interventions into the real as an absolute background dependence. Thus, the histori-
cal subject tends to reify an object that it believes existed before it, and believed will
exist after it (i.e. God, Spacetime, and State). However, what the transmodern
metaphysics introduces is the generality of a dynamical and open background that
is overdetermined by the subject’s own work motion. In this way, the static-fixed
308 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

background of transcendental ideality, physical laws, and secular power are

conceived of as absolute only in relation to the subject’s self-positing. This means
ultimately that the real in a transmodern sense does not exist before and after the
subject’s own individuated becoming. As already emphasized the real in a
transmodern sense is something that emerges and depends on the symbolic observers
enacted transformations in history.
Thus, this transmodern metaphysics can approach technological singularity in an
open and incomplete metaphysics to be determined by symbolic observers. In this
approach, it is posited that totality is nothing but a multiplicity of observers that
circumambulate around an absent central unity appearing in an emergent intersub-
jective space constituted by individuated relations. In other words, this is a real truth
where each individuated unit of transformative identity is capable of producing an
objectively recognized historical real as a pure difference or division via epistemo-
logical knowledge structures. These knowledge structures can retroactively change
the nature of ontological being itself towards a higher connection or unity (as in the
introduction of the symbolic forms of ancient, modern, and postmodern metaphysics
throughout historical becoming). Consequently, on the approach to technological
singularity, a transmodern metaphysics would predict the breakdown of historical
visions of unified totality, and the consequent emergence of ever greater numbers of
novel divisions that produce ever greater numbers of novel unities. The totality of
divisions may represent the logical consequence of the becoming of the concept in
universal history capable of producing a meta-level of unity inaccessible to anyone
consciousness but which is one consciousness in-itself.
To summarize, the transmodern approach to both the historical synthesis of
historical forms of totality and the individuated technological singularity let us
consider this structure of totality in terms of divisions that introduce new unities.
The ancient metaphysical system became a historical real through the pure division
of religious and philosophical thinkers in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece that
allowed for the formation of a higher unity of transcendental ideality that objectively
structured the intersubjective becoming of early agricultural societies for millennia.
The modern metaphysical system became a historical real through the pure division
of scientific and naturalist thinkers in Europe which allowed for the formation of a
higher unity of physical laws that objectively structured the intersubjective becom-
ing of early industrial societies for centuries. The postmodern metaphysical system
became a historical real through the pure division of social and philosophical
thinkers in Europe and North America which allowed for the formation of a higher
unity of deconstructing secular power that objectively structured the intersubjective
becoming of early information age societies for decades. Now in the transmodern
world in-itself, this same force of pure division is predicted to be expressed in
increasingly distributed forms (independent of transcendental superspace, physical
laws, and secular power) allowing for, perhaps, a higher proliferation of unities than
ever before in human history.
In order to connect this notion of metaphysical totality built around emergent
subject–object division aiming for unity with cosmic evolutionary philosophy as
representing one unified ordering force, we may frame it as a potential ‘third path’ to
14.2 Consciousness and Universal History 309

quantum gravity. Here the nature of a division is a depths where the subject appears
as a quantum mechanical entity; and the nature of a unity is a height where the object
appears a gravitationally relativistic entity. In this third path to quantum gravity, the
real as truth of being is structured by multiple observers each with an attractor
dependent horizon that attempts to form an eternal unity in its becoming. Conse-
quently, this path becomes structured by multiple observers inside the universe as
opposed to taking a structure of multiple universes as understood by one mythical
observer outside the universe, as in quantum multiverse speculations (Smolin 2001,
p. 48). Thus, instead of attempting to explain the primordial unity in the universe
with recourse to a multiverse of infinite physical universes, we need only include the
virtual potentiality and actual tendencies of human observers (a multiverse of
observers). In this way, the primordial astrophysical singularity where all being is
one unity could meet technological singularity by way of the demands for unity by
an observational multiplicity. Here cosmic evolutionary philosophy as a universal
dynamic ideational motion emerges requiring dialectical analysis gives the appear-
ance of a totality structured by an open-incomplete 4-dimensional sphere aiming for
closure–completion.
Finally, this transmodern metaphysics as a theory of consciousness may allow us
to approach the technological singularity in a novel way by understanding how
epistemological constructs of general humanity become a fundamental part of
ontological being. In terms of a human subject-oriented approach to technological
singularity capable of reconciling our decentred cosmic position we should empha-
size that when we include the future actuality of artificial intelligence, genetic
engineering, and quantum computing, we open up a totally new possibility space
for observationally constituted dynamical action. In other words, this theory of
consciousness requires us to include the future real of knowledge as an activity
into the ontology of being as opposed to continuing to focus on an imaginary
knowledge that passively reflects the real ontology of being. The consequences of
such a perspectival shift force us to confront the fact that although meaning does
exist outside of the symbolic order out in the cosmos, meaning does have a concrete
materiality within the symbolic order signalling orientation to higher unity.
In order to work towards being able to think such a reality we should start with the
philosophical foundation. The possibility of including the future real of human
knowledge as an activity into the fundamental ontology of being was formally
opened with modern philosophical idealism and the identification of the a priori
conceptual frame as a horizon of being (Žižek 2012, p. 9). Towards understanding
how this fuller understanding of the relation between human knowledge and natural
being itself manifests today we may draw an analogy related to modern physics. In
modern physics, there is a fundamental shift that has been occurring in high theory
from desiring to know ‘what the fundamental eternal laws of the physical universe
are’ to desiring to know ‘why does the universe have the particular set of eternal
physical laws that it does?’ (Smolin 2001). In order to properly resolve this funda-
mental shift in ontological questioning we must be capable of a perspective shift
within physics itself that appreciates the ontological meaning of quantum computer
theory (Deutsch 1985), and the consequences of future quantum computation (Lloyd
310 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

2006). Here we have a form of fundamental physics knowledge which suggests that
observers inside the universe can make an object with their knowledge structures
(i.e. supercomputer) that can simulate any physical process (i.e. a physical universe).
The radicality of such a possibility as it relates to technological singularity cannot
be understated, but how can we make a division capable of motivating future
research in this direction? Here I will make a conjecture that when we are thinking
totality from the perspective of subject–object division aimed at unity we need to
make sense of fundamental ontological problems related to historical forms of
totality. To be specific there appears still unresolved problems in science and
mathematics as to both the fundamental natures of mathematical ideality and physi-
cal law. From the perspective of ancient metaphysics mathematical ideality exists in
a transcendental superspace from eternity; and from the perspective of modern
metaphysics physical laws exist in a natural space from eternity. Of course, most
contemporary theorists are sceptical of both conjectures, even if both assumptions
structure much of science and mathematics. For example, consider that science is
often embedded in space and time as universal organizing categories, and mathe-
matics is often perceived to represent a universal knowledge independent of context
and history.
In the fundamental emergentist transmodern totality we may be able to reconcile
both problems by positing that mathematical ideality and physical law could be a
part of an eternal loop or sphere where physical law emerge (astrophysical singular-
ity; big bang) as a sensual background for observers to construct logical mathemati-
cal ideality; and observers constructing logical mathematical ideality emerge as a
background capable of constituting sensual physical law (technological singularity).
Indeed, is not a fundamental problem in quantum gravity the fact that ‘eternal’
physical laws of spacetime break down at the singularity of the big bang and the
singularity of black holes? In this way, by including the multiplicity of individuating
observers approaching technological singularity with their own loops of sense and
logic, we may be able to reconcile the breakdown of laws and the constitution of new
laws in one transmodern metaphysical system. From this perspective, history is
fundamentally structured by an observationally constituted expansion of freedom
independent of spacetime coordinates that are predicted to result in an objectivity
overdetermined by observers.
In this transmodern theory of consciousness, we must be capable of thinking how
an individuated observer dividing being with a higher unity (Penrose 2004) could
possibly be responsible for the generation of physical law (Krauss 2012) via the
immanence of higher-order technological possibility space constituted by ideational
curvature (Drexler 2013; Kaku 2014). Perhaps this is a way to understand the
meaning of quantum computation on the level of fundamental physics and universal
history where the physical laws themselves can become radically other via ideal
manipulations. Thus, what this division suggests for a higher unity is precise that
researchers interested in understanding totality must take seriously a conscious
totality that is divided between subject–object. The reconciliation of such a division
requires the emergence of a qualitative phase transition where observers can them-
selves actively constitute the object-in-question as opposed to merely reflecting
14.2 Consciousness and Universal History 311

Fig. 14.7 Cosmic evolution and dialectic connecting beginning and end

given being. In this sense, the dialectical approach to technological singularity is

concerned with the way in which historically engaged individuated observers
become central to future theories of totality.
In this representation, we see the contemporary cosmic evolutionary process that
can be divided between physical evolution of curved spacetime, biological evolution
of fitness landscapes, and symbolic evolution of immortal desire (Fig. 14.7). Here,
although highly speculative, we can start to entertain a potential theoretical link
between the mystery of the ordered astrophysical singularity at the beginning of
spacetime and the mystery of the destiny of ordered evolutionary processes. From
this link, we are asked to think the way in which the horizon of ideation can be
possibly inscribed into the immanence of cosmic-physical processes via the inclu-
sion of a type of extreme primordial and emergent curvature where evolutionary
change can be reconciled with eternity. The true question here becomes the ultimate
nature of the ‘eternity’. Here it is negativized (!1) as absent in the historical process
since its presence would nihilate our 4D existence. However, the possibility of the
actualizing and perceiving higher supersymmetrical dimensions is mathematically
real and experientially realizable given the known future technological possibility
space available to future observers.
312 14 Dialectical Approach to Singularity

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Conclusion: Universal History, Deep Future,
and Eternal Present 15

This work attempted to use interdisciplinary philosophical knowledge to open a new

perspective on the idea of ‘global brain singularity’. The ‘global brain’ is here used
as a systemic concept to describe the distributed-networked nature of intelligence
expressed by human civilization; and ‘singularity’ is here used as a philosophic
concept to describe an immanent qualitative transition in intelligence-consciousness
mediated by cultural and technological processes. In this work, I hoped to situate this
new perspective in relation to alternative understandings about the future of civili-
zation, most notably the postmodern understanding where multiplicity is
emphasized over unity. However, I also hoped to situate this new perspective in
relation to alternative understandings about future technological evolution, most
notably the versions of technological singularity where artificial general intelligence
is emphasized over transhuman possibilities.
In order to achieve the introduction of such new perspective, this work required
utilizing and bringing together many disparate methods and approaches in order to
interpret the same phenomenon (global brain singularity) from radically different
temporal angles-dimensions. To properly situate this phenomenon in its historicity I
relied on the tool of big history (as a humanities narrative), and the tool of cosmic
evolution (as a scientific frame). The tool of big history allowed a narrativization of
all temporal processes into one interconnected process, and the tool of cosmic
evolution allowed the articulation of mechanistic descriptions that unify evolution-
ary processes. The result of such an analysis is a contextualization of the present in
relation to all physical, biological, and cultural phenomenon, and also a way for
humans to understand the metaparadigmatic meaning of possible transmodern or
transhuman realities.
To properly situate this phenomenon in relation to its pragmatic present
challenges I started to focus explicitly on the systemic concept of metasystem. The
concept of metasystem is a cosmic evolutionary tool that can be generally applied to
understand the emergence of new organization as a function of the necessity of new
control mechanisms. This concept has great relevance to the human system and can
help us to understand the past emergence of major systemic developments, like the

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46966-5_15
314 15 Conclusion: Universal History, Deep Future, and Eternal Present

emergence of bands-tribes, chiefdoms-kingdoms, nation-states, and international

organizations. From this understanding, we can also develop a new reflective
approach to psychology, politics, economics, and society given the fact that our
civilization appears to be in need of new global control mechanisms to mediate a
transition towards a higher level of being.
When situating the future of this phenomenon I tend to rely on a more speculative
philosophy that is informed but not constrained by conventional evolutionary theory.
The future of evolution is one of the most mysterious problems in the whole of
science and philosophy. To give a new perspective on this mystery I ground an
understanding of cultural and technological evolution with a metaphorical analogy
to the way physical and chemical evolution allowed for the emergence of biology.
This is a process referred to as abiogenesis and describes how a new form of
evolution stabilized existence. In this work culture and technology are framed as
immature evolutionary processes that have yet to stabilize an existence independent
of the biological medium that is necessary for their growth. When we consider the
reality of a global brain singularity it could be that culture and technological
evolution gain full maturity and independence from biology, opening space for
new forms of design and creation.
Finally, in order to return to a meta-meditation on the present I rely on the
development of new metaphysical philosophical principles. Traditional metaphysics
is governed by systems of monism and non-dualism. Monism proposes that the
‘truest reality’ is ‘one’ and ‘eternal’. Many religious systems that have emerged and
instantiated themselves historically have been based on this metaphysic.
Non-dualism proposes that dualistic appearances between subject and object,
thought and being, are illusions and that the truest reality has no such division or
separation. Many mindful spiritual practices and institutions affirm non-dualism as a
fundamental principle for organizing. In contrast to these principle non-monism
seeks to understand the temporal desire for integration present within the self-
concept, and also seeks to understand the asymmetrical relation between subject
and object in terms of its efficacy or consequences. This leads to a metaphysic that
can inform an approach to global brain singularity inclusive of the existence of
observers.
From this conceptual integration of tools to approach the global brain singularity
many different original contributions are developed. The first contribution to the
literature can be found in attempting to reconcile or work through the tension
between modernism and postmodernism as metaparadigms with a situation of
transmodernism and transhumanism within the context of an emergent universal
evolutionary process of becoming. Modernism emphasizes science, reason, and
empiricism within a secular humanist framework, and postmodernism has very
recently emerged as a meta-sceptical and meta-critical negation of modernist claims
to universality. The approach in this work was to ground modernism as a symbolic
scaffolding meditating the evolution of a new metasystem transition towards global
brain singularity. Thus, instead of simply deconstructing modernist claims to uni-
versality this work seeks to sublate modernism by focusing on the way in which
modernist methods and practice spontaneously and naturally lead to transmodernist
and transhumanist realities.
15 Conclusion: Universal History, Deep Future, and Eternal Present 315

The second contribution to the literature can be found in the way in which the
general evolutionary concept of metasystem is used to situate new discourse and
categories relevant to twenty-first century psychology, politics, economy, and soci-
ety. Our current discourse about these dimensions of human life is confused because
the becoming of these dimensions of human life is not situated within the mega
process of a metasystem transition. The way in which human psychology, politics,
economics, and society manifest is radically different depending on the larger
metasystem within which they become constituted. If our current system is in the
process of transforming from a national–industrial complex to a global–information
complex we should expect major and foundational changes in psychology, politics,
economics, and society. In this work, the concept of commons was used to ground a
new discourse about these transformations. The commons points towards a world of
abundance, open-access, and new forms of local democracy. The commons also
points towards a world of valuation and measurement of progress beyond old
monetary and productivity categories.
The third contribution to the literature is the identification of a new form of
potential evolution that has yet to receive adequate theoretical attention. This
speculative work is carried out under the concept of the technocultural. With this
category, the understanding can contemplate how an evolution independent or
transcendent of biology may operate and function in the near and longer-term future.
The major benefits of such a speculative work are twofold. On the one hand, we can
attempt to think mechanistically about the potential operations of future evolution as
it may be far more influenced by consciousness and intelligence. On the other hand,
we can attempt to develop pragmatic theories capable of making concrete
predictions about what is likely to happen in regards to the future of human survival
and reproduction. In this work, both benefits are explored in detail with an explicit
attempt to outline mechanisms of the future technocultural evolution, and a predic-
tive framework is outlined which may be possible to anticipate major
transformations in life extension as well as large-scale time–energy activity patterns.
Finally, the fourth contribution to the literature is the outline of a new metaphys-
ics that is capable to make sense of a type of radical self-becoming as well as the
ontological consequences of such a becoming. The basic claim is that such a
reinvention of metaphysics in relation to the temporal becoming of all observers is
necessary to make sense of something on the level of magnitude of a global brain
singularity. When one takes into account the temporal becoming of all observers in
regards to a global brain singularity two dimensions become of the highest impor-
tance. On the one hand the tendency to integrate or unity internal to the self-concept
of the observer; and on the other hand the asymmetrical relation between the
subjective and the objective dimensions of appearances. The tendency to integration
or unity can be framed as the material persistence of the ideal. The asymmetrical
relation between the subjective and the object can be framed as the way in which
what is objective comes to be determined in relation to forms of subjectivity. Both of
these processes can be captured by the metaphysic of non-monism, where the
absence of “one unified reality” opens the space for subjectivities striving for a
unified objectivity.
316 15 Conclusion: Universal History, Deep Future, and Eternal Present

In the future, all such contributions to the literature can be extended and worked
on in great detail. This thesis offers an outline for such future research programmes.
In other words, new research paradigms on transmodernism, commonism,
technoculture, and non-monism could be developed in various philosophical and
scientific interdisciplinary contexts. The transmodern can be developed in relation to
how human beings use science, reason, and empiricism in an observer-dependent
context to transform universal being. This instantiates the coincidence between the
universal and the particular which is the fundamental synthesis between modernist
and postmodernist universes. The commons can be developed in relationship to
future political–economic drives to cope with large-scale sociotechnological
transformations. This political–economic category is necessary if our society will
one day transcend binary opposite of state and market function, which cannot
contain or resolve problems on a global level.
The technocultural can be developed in the future of disciplines attempting to
understand general or universal evolutionary theory. The technocultural may also be
used in more radical practical contexts where human beings seek to transform their
own being in terms of both mental and physical dynamics. These possibilities are
opened up by my analysis because cosmic evolution as a field is still new and
developing. There are very few interdisciplinary faculties focused on integrating a
general understanding of evolution, but this should change in the future. If we were
to develop an integrated general understanding of evolution the technocultural
should be seen as the foundational concept to potentially explain the emergence of
increasingly intense cultural and technological processes in the twenty-first century.
On another level, the technocultural is something which will in-itself lead to
manifestly different possibilities in relation to artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual
reality, and other new cultural and technological transformations.
The final extension of future research can be found at the frontiers of fundamental
philosophy and metaphysics. Metaphysical paradigms are usually the most impor-
tant and least understood forms of knowledge. They are the most important because
all other information is filtered through their founding presuppositions or axioms.
They are the least understood because it is very difficult to find let alone understand
the ground of all knowledge and understanding. The concept of non-monism could
lead to a new field of metaphysical research if some of the basic presuppositions or
axioms are fully understood and deployed for a new understanding of reality. This
work could be done in relation to many different fields, including science, gender,
politics, sexuality, religion, and many other fields.
From these foundations, transmodernism, commonism, technocultural, and
non-monism, the global brain singularity is situated as a concept that is necessary
and integral to understand for the future of human development. From a deeper
understanding of this concept, we are offered a new metaparadigm of thought, a new
framework for political–economic development, a new possibility for evolution, and
a new metaphysic for conscious observers. There is still much work to accomplish
and much to be learned about the consequences of such a qualitative transformation
of being. The hope is that this thesis stimulates such future work.
Glossary

Abiogenesis Evolutionary chemical process mediating transition from non-life to

biological life
Absolute Dimension or identity of reality that is eternal (does not change)
Abstraction System of symbolic representations structuring knowledge and
understanding
Affirmation Processes installing, instantiating, or upholding aspects of identity
Antagonism Structural imbalance or conflict between becoming of relating
identities
Anthropocene Geological epoch characterizing modern human civilization
development
Archetype Cultural complex representing an unconscious foundation for action or
behaviour
Art Form of conscious expression materializing ideas or concepts in visual, audi-
tory, or other sensory mediums
Artificial general intelligence Forms of cognition operating on or within techno-
logical mediums and with the capacity to define own sets of rules, logics, and
goals
Artificial intelligence Forms of cognition operating on or within technological
mediums and by narrowly defined or predefined sets of rules, logics, and goals
Atechnogenesis Evolutionary cultural process mediating transition to technologi-
cal life
Atheist Philosophical thought opposing, denying, or deconstructing the existence
of supernatural or God
Attractor Formal structure that a dynamical system tends towards across time
Background Presupposed or assumed structure of reality for individual or general
consciousness
Becoming Movement or change of existence or something
Being All that exists or the presence of something
Big bang Primordial cosmic event signifying emergence of space-time from
singularity
Big history Study of the human condition in the context of the whole history of
nature

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318 Glossary

Biocultural Processes involving the relation or entanglement between biology and

culture
Biogenesis Process of biological forms producing new biological forms
Biological order Total structure of living organisms
Black hole Phenomenal density of matter–energy annihilating space-time as
singularity
Capitalism Economic system controlled by private individuals maximizing poten-
tial profit generated from exchange of commodities
Centralization Organizational processes that concentrate information or energy in
one main spatial location
Challenges Phenomena representing problems or opportunities for an agent’s
present action
Cognition Mental faculty or thinking process to acquire knowledge and develop
understanding
Commons Political–economic category for organizing society beyond capitalist
and nationalist logical schemas
Communism Political–economic ideology supporting social organization by col-
lectivization of labour and property
Complex adaptive systems Phenomena composed of many interacting parts that
are constantly changing in relation to environmental context
Complexity Metric or phenomena defined by number of connected distinctions or
differences within a system or structuring a system
Complexity thresholds Relational capacity necessitating qualitative metasystemic
transformation
Compression Growth of an evolutionary process measured in spatial density
Computation Well-defined system or model of algorithmic rules capable of
processing sets of problems or challenges
Consciousness Phenomenal interior realm of general experience
Construction Capacity of abstract thought to build or connect ideas capable of
generating novel structures
Cosmic evolution Study of universal evolutionary processes of change
Cosmos External world or nature as a universal totality
Cybernetics Study of general control systems in nature and society
Deconstruction Capacity of abstract thought to question or dismantle ideational
structures, which no longer serve consciousness
Democracy Principle or mechanism of government operating on collective
distributed decision-making processes
Desire Strongly wanting deep connection or attachment with a particular idea,
object, or relation
Dialectics Philosophical thought that analyzes or actualizes the historical motion of
reason
Difference Quality or character of otherness in relation to identity of a thing-object
Differentiation Evolutionary process of increasingly sustained difference within a
system
Glossary 319

Distributed Organizational processes where information and energy is spread out

diffusely in space or concentrates in many different spatial locations
Division Topological separation opening or allowing distinction between self and
other
Dreams Interior realm of conscious and unconscious visions representing self or
subjectivity
Drive Psychical motion sustaining satisfied desire in-itself for the present moment
Dualism (duality) Metaphysical principle of thought logically structuring being in
or as two
Emergence Phenomenon constituting higher order systems, which cannot be ana-
lytically reduced
Emotion Capacity of self-consciousness to feel states of being which can provide
intuitive information about state and direction of existence
Energy flow Movement and density of materiality within and between systems
Epistemology Study of the nature and structure of knowledge itself
Evolution Mechanisms describing processes of change in general systems
Existence State of being itself or actual presence of something
Expansion Growth of an evolutionary process measured in spatial extension
Feeling Conscious state of qualitative being which can be characterized emotion-
ally as neutral, negative (loss), or positive (surplus, excess)
Fermi’s paradox Contradiction of universe which hypothetically allows for exis-
tence and expansion of intelligent civilizations, but which shows no signs of their
existence beyond earth
Freedom Capacity for internal self-determination or choice in thought and action
Fundamental Dimension or phenomenal aspect of reality necessary for being or
understanding process
Global brain Metaphor analyzing evolution of the human system as a
sociotechnological network with similar functional and structural properties to
biological brains
Goal State of being that an agent needs or desires to achieve or actualize
God Hypothetical or presupposed supernatural or transcendent being defined with
respect to qualitatively higher capacities for intelligence, consciousness, and
creativity
Government (governance) Human political institutions controlling structure of
society
Grand unified theory Abstraction designed to describe or explain universality or
totality
Great filter Hypothetical structural limit internal to natural phenomena preventing
or reducing probability for emergence of higher order complexity
Heaven Hypothetical or presupposed supernatural state of being existing after
secular human life
Holistic Analytic tool investigating fundamental nature through understanding
wholes
320 Glossary

Humanist Philosophy of thought emphasizing importance of general human life

and experience
Humanity Totality of organisms defined with respect to qualitatively novel capac-
ity for language, self-consciousness, reflectivity, culture, and technology
Idealism Philosophical system of thought emphasizing the reality of ideas as
fundamental
Idealization Imaginary or ideational projected screen attempting to resolve or mask
antagonism or imperfection
Identity Quality or character of a thing’s being in and for itself
Imagination Suprasensible visions generated within human consciousness capable
of realizing new forms or ideas
Immortality Hypothetical or presupposed state of individual being without end or
finality (indefinite existence)
Impossible Phenomena that cannot be realized at the present moment or is in
principle unrealizable
Individuation Processes involving the progressive differentiation of identity
elements
Infinity Process or phenomenon with eternal temporality (no beginning/end) and
indefinite spatial extension (no limit/bound)
Information control Ability of observers to direct or structure processes of change
Information potential Latent unrealized (virtual) pathways or trajectories of
action, which are in principle possible
Information processing Observational registration or mechanisms of any change
in the universe
Integration Evolutionary processes of increasingly sustained connection within a
system
Intelligence General capacity of a system to solve problems or disturbances that
prevent growth, and explore opportunities or challenges that aid in growth
Interdisciplinary Analytical methods that support connection between different
disciplines
Intergalactic Hypothetical or speculative phenomena with structural extension
between multiple galaxies
Internalization Processes involving growing expression and capacity of subjective
worlds
Interstellar Hypothetical or speculative phenomena with structural extension
between multiple solar systems
Intersubjectivity Realm of being structuring relations between human subjects
Knowledge Theoretical or practical abstractions structuring understanding of
subjectivity
Lamella Emergent metaphysical reality structuring the spatial location of the
immortal drive within but beyond subjectivity
Life State of being characterized by an internal experiential horizon achieved
through systemic referentiality
Logic Processes characterized by a rational structure or order of thought
Glossary 321

Love State of being representing experience of deepest possible connection or unity

between self and otherness
Marxism Political–economic philosophy critiquing foundation of capitalism and
attempting to articulate an alternative post-capitalist organizing model
Master signifier Representation of highest structural importance or significance
internal to a symbolic order constituted by subjectivity
Materialism Philosophical system of thought emphasizing the reality of matter as
fundamental
Metalanguage Conceptual system of knowledge and understanding capable of
actualizing ideal universal structure for subjectivity
Metaphor Abstract representation connecting two objects or processes to highlight
underlying similarities that can aid understanding
Metasystem Logical structure that exists above or beyond lower level systems
(which are its ‘subsystems’)
Metasystem transition Emergence of new logical structure constituting itself
above or beyond the lower level subsystems preceding its existence
Mind Totality of conscious awareness inclusive of thoughts and language
Modernism Metaparadigm of thought structuring human civilization over the past
few centuries (typically associated with science, reason, technology, secularism,
and empiricism)
Monism Metaphysical principle of thought logically structuring being in or as one
Multiverse Hypothetical or speculative existence of separate or independent
totalities of interconnected phenomena with an enclosed surface or boundary
Mortality State of existence with a finite duration or temporality (with end or
finality)
Narrative Relational structure of symbols communicating a pattern of being for
conscious interpretation
Nature Totality of physical being as background or stage of human worldly
existence
Negation Processes removing, overcoming, or tearing away aspects of identity
Negativity Spatial absence or nothingness in reality that has causal effects
Non-division Topological connection embodying separation between self and
other
Non-dualism Metaphysical principle of thought emphasizing the illusion of the
two (opposites)
Non-monism Metaphysical principle of thought logically structuring being in or as
the absence of oneness
Noosphere Interconnected system of thought or mind and its total evolutionary
structural nature
Object petit a Object-thing causing state of subjective desire as effect
Objectivity External existence of things or relations given to consciousness and
determined by consciousness
Omega Absolute end (teleological or not) of a process or temporal sequence of
events
322 Glossary

Ontology Study of the structure and nature of being itself

Oppositional determination Productive or generative tension of antagonism
between two opposing identities
Other Significant or most important structure of reality for a form of self-
consciousness recognized or understood as not-self
Paradox Problem or phenomenon with a fundamentally contradictory or illogical
nature
Phenomenology Study of forms of consciousness and nature of direct experience
Philosophy Forms of abstract knowledge and reflection attempting to approach
fundamental problems and mysteries of existence, metaphysics, ontology, and
epistemology
Physical order Total structure of nature operating via principles of material law
Positivity Spatial presence of something in reality that has causal effects
Posthumanism Hypothetical or speculative intelligent and conscious beings that
transcend or replace human beings
Postmodernism Metaparadigm of thought directly challenging the modernist
metaparadigm in terms of its reliance on grand narratives, binary logic, patriar-
chal structures, and Eurocentrism
Psychosocial Processes involving the entanglement of self-conscious minds
Real Experienced negativity or antagonism in relation to temporal becoming of
identity
Reality Presupposed phenomena or dimension of positive being
Reason Capacity of self-consciousness to logically structure interpretation of being
Reduction Analytic tool investigating fundamental nature through understanding
parts
Religion System of belief in the supernatural embedded and embodied in thought
and action
Repetition Motion or action attempting to stably embody identity of a pattern
Representation Symbolic construction corresponding to or standing for an object-
thing
Retroactivity Mental temporality characteristic of living form where future
directed motion changes understanding of the literal past
Science Social system sustaining belief in value and utility of understanding nature
Self-actualization Conscious process of realizing highest states of potential human
being
Self-consciousness Capacity for conscious awareness or reflectivity of individual
existence
Self-organization Local interaction principle enabling emergent higher order or
structure
Singularity Abstract concept developed in mathematics and physics to describe
processes that tend towards the expression of infinite qualities within a finite
series of events
Sociocultural Structure of signs or forms representing ideas, objects, and relations
within or constituting intersubjective context
Glossary 323

Sophistry Intellectual position deconstructing or negating the existence of absolute

truth
Spirit Quality of existence structured by awareness, creativity, and reflection
Spirituality Expression, celebration, or deification of existential awareness
Subjectivity Interior individual experience structured by feelings and thoughts
Sublation Mental motion enacting idealized relation to spatial distance or
separation
Sublimation Transference of libidinal energy and enjoyment from lower to higher
form
Substance Materiality of external things or relations existing independently of
subjectivity or mediated by subjectivity
Substrate Fundamental constituent materiality constituting existence of
phenomena
Superhuman Hypothetical or presupposed organism or entity with significantly
heightened human qualities
Supernatural Hypothetical or presupposed realm transcending physical being
Superorganism Systems existing as connections between differentiated organisms
(subsystems)
Suprasensible Visions or images of the understanding transcending sensation and
perception
Symbolic (Cultural) order Total structure of signs or forms representing ideas,
objects, and relationships
Symbols Signs or forms representing an idea, object, or relationship
Synthesis Cognitive unity of the understanding connecting or reconciling divergent
or different elements of identity
Systems Structures of relations forming integrated and dynamic wholes
Technoculture Hypothetical or speculative evolutionary process based on con-
scious awareness existing and transforming as symbolic information and with
technological mediums
Technogenesis Hypothetical or speculative process of technological life producing
new forms of technological life
Technological singularity Hypothetical or presupposed future state of being when
technological evolution actualizes a qualitatively higher level of intelligence and
consciousness
Technology Pattern of being materially sustained across time by abstract
intervention
Teleiosis Virtual orientation in the present state space of a becoming identity
Teleodynamic Qualitative nature of work energy in living systems
Teleology Future attractor structure determining the present motion of becoming
identities
Thermodynamic Quantitative nature of work energy in physical systems
Thought Mental patterns appearing as conceptual distinctions structuring our self-
consciousness
324 Glossary

Totality Whole system or phenomena inclusive of its antagonistic–conflictual

becoming
Transcendent A priori frame or structure of the appearance of being
Transhumanism Philosophy supporting the actualization or attempting to theorize
the transcendence of fundamental human limitations (finitude, mortality, and
biology)
Transmodernism Philosophy attempting to simultaneously constructively tran-
scend modernist philosophy while avoiding a primary cognitive mode of
operations in deconstruction
Triad Logical geometry useful in dialectical analysis of discourse
Unconscious Form of knowledge internal to self-consciousness but inherently
unknowable to self-consciousness
Understanding Cognitive or mental faculty capable of abstractly integrating
known phenomena in a unified form
Unity Topological closeness closing or allowing connection between self and other
Universal Phenomena of infinite extension or expression in nature or
consciousness
Universe Totality of causally interconnected phenomena with enclosed surface or
boundary
Utopia Visionary or imagistic archetype of a higher or perfect future state of being
Virtual Spaces of possibility or potentiality embedded within and/or emerging
from the physically present
Void Absence of thing or relation or presence which causally exerts observable
effects
Worldview Frame or structure of knowledge overdetermining interpretation of
being