A brief intermission, and a bit of a manifesto. I like manifestos

[eyeharvester]

Growing Pains

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I saw this video on Anders Sandberg's blog a couple weeks ago. I still don't know what my response to it is. Part of me wants to pump my fist in the air in a vigorous "Hell yeah!" gesture of solidarity with the maker of the video; and part of me wants to go off and mumble ludditely to myself while moping about Hemlocks, Chestnuts, Elms, and Megatherium. Now, I would say that "Obviously the correct response lies somewhere in between these two extremes," but there really doesn't seem to be much of an emotional middle ground. It's a propaganda piece, and the only middle ground with a propaganda piece is to sit back and try to analyze how effective it is at its job of persuasion.

See, in theory the reason that I am interested in biology is because of the inherent complexity of biological systems. This complexity means that there is, both in principal and in practice, always something new to learn, to know. It means that biology is a priori more interesting than physics or chemistry. Now, if complexity is the ultimate criteria for value (yes, I know that this doesn't strictly follow from my previous claims, but it's a related claim I usually make anyway, so grant me it for now) then surely the post-singularity technology and society envisioned in the above video must be considered "better", or at least more interesting, than our poor little friend the nameless suburban tree. To reiterate the David Zindell quote I have on my (Gasp!) Facebook page:

"I am not interested in things getting better; what I want is more: more human beings, more dreams, more history, more consciousness, more suffering, more joy, more disease, more agony, more rapture, more evolution, more life."

Or, to paraphrase: More (meaningful) complexity is more better.

But while this might be true in theory, in practice my field has been chosen for more complex reasons than that. True that the complexity inherent in the system is in my top 5 reasons, but also present is my lifelong love of the aesthetics of plants, and of trees in particular; my love of the outdoors; my misanthropic bent; my desire to participate in what I'm studying; my love of history and Deep Time and their effect on the present; and a host of other reasons, too many to name here. And so, even while granting the original principle of "more (meaningful) complexity is more better", the hypothetical sidelining of trees strikes me deeply.

I suppose, though, that there is a middle ground. Let me enunciate it, because it is my ground, and I declare it to be the high ground:

1. The Earth's ecosystem and super-high tech are not incompatible; indeed, proper management of the ecosystem can remain of lasting benefit to our species even after we have conquered space, our minds, and our bodies.
   
2. It will be a long time indeed before someone invents something that can really replace good ol' wood as a material, and a longer time still before someone replaces the woods as a nice place to be.
   
3. The value of Earth's ecosystems is not infinite; there are possible circumstances, not all of them of purely academic interest, in which the complete destruction of our planet's biosphere might be desirable.
   
4. But that value, though not infinite, is still really dang high, higher than even many environmentalists realize, and certainly much higher than the makers of the video which started this meditation realize.
   
5. This is in large part because living things are really cool.
   
6. It is also because, if we are going to use "complexity" as one of our main criteria for value, then there are definitely certain biological systems that are, in fact, more valuable than certain people.
   
7. And if we include "usefulness" and "esthetic value" as criteria as well, than the number of people who are of less intrinsic value than certain biological systems skyrockets.
   
8. Which isn't meant as an insult to humanity, because I believe it is both intuitively obvious and rationally well-proven that even the least valuable human is of considerable value according to all three criteria used above. All living things are awesome, but humans are especially awesome. Really, we are.
   
9. So when I say that there are circumstances in which the elimination of the Earth's biosphere might be desirable, I am talking about circumstances extreme enough that the elimination of significant chunks of the human species might also be desirable.
   
10. Said circumstances are pretty goddamn few and far between, though it is important that their existence be remembered, as their likelihood of occurring increases (possibly exponentially) along with Life's (and Human Life's, in particular) ever-increasing power to manipulate the non-living universe.
    

And I believe that about sums it up.

Possessing an ever-increasing power to manipulate the non-living universe since 1986,
--mark.