Robert Wright: belief

Transcript context

…... probably kind of myself included, are like, maybe you would've reacted that way years ago, but now it's feeling a little more intuitive. So yeah, how do you kind of, what's the sort of center for you in terms of your relationship to these ideas of purpose culmination? Yeah. So first of all, noosphere, noosphere, I've heard it pronounced both ways, N-O-O-S, the Greek word for mind. It was coined in 1923 by Pe- Pi... I- I- in conscious reference to the biosphere. So, you know, over evolutionary time, there was the geosphere before life, then the biosphere, and now the noosphere. Uh, you know, Teilhard saw, I think pretty presciently given when he was writing, that there was this technology was kind of creating this something that looked kind of like a global brain. You know? K- hooking people up in larger and larger networks of, of collaboration, international networks, so the human brain was, were, uh, the br- our brains are like neurons in, in this. In fact, he called it a brain of brains. So, so there's that, and, and one argument I make in the book is that we need... Well, I think it, it can be illuminating to think of the AI revolution happening at the same time that this global brain thing is taking shape. And pondering, for starters, the prospect that, oh, I guess the neurons could be made of silicon, couldn't they? And if some are made of silicon and some are carbon-based, what'll the relationship between the two be, and so on. But I also think we need to ponder kind of the impetus behind the development of a global brain, whether you mean... Like for example, there's a global market. That's kind of a global brain, right it, it do- it does stuff. It moves resources around to where they're needed. It makes allocation decisions. And then there was, in principle, global governance, right? Some degree of international governance, which, which I think AI calls for. So, I, I'll get back to all that, or at least lead up to it by answering, uh, the second part of your question about directionality of evolution or, or really of two evolutions in a, in a sense, both biological evolution and, uh, what anthropologists call cultural evolution. In other words, the, the evolution of the bodies of information that are transmitted among humans that are not genetic in nature. Like all non-genetically transmitted information is part of cultural evolution, so religions, uh, ideologies, and certainly technologies. So i- if you look at where those two evolutions together have taken us, I think you see undeniably directionality. Now, that's doesn't mean there's a purpose, but let's just, to quickly review the directionality, you know, you get, you, you have these bare strands of self-replicating information, presumably at some point. They build cells and then more complex cells, then, then the cells form multi-celled organisms. And by the way, multicellularity has evolved a number of times independently, so that suggests that there was a strong evolutionary impetus behind it. I mean, evolution, it, it's like exploring inventive space, right? And, and finding things. So many things have been multiply invented: wings, eyes, and so on. And, uh, then anyway, uh, you get societies of multi-celled organisms. ke exploring inventive space, right? And, and finding things. So many things have been multiply invented: wings, eyes, and so on. And, uh, then anyway, uh, you get societies of multi-celled organisms. In the case of our society, you know, once you reach our level of intelligence, this other kind of evolution kicks in, and our social organization starts growing, too. Hunter-gatherer band, you know, chiefdom, et cetera. Now we're on the verge of, I would say we're on the verge of a global community, and we need to form one if we're gonna handle the technological challenges we face wisely, especially AI. Now, if you want...…

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