R. Albrecht +)
Space Telescope
European Coordinating Facility
European Southern Observatory
*) Invited paper presented at the Workshop "Frontiers and the
Conquest of Space", organized by the European Space Agency and
the European Philosophical University, Paris, France, Jan. 1987.
Published in: Frontiers and Space Conquest, J. Schneider and M. Leger-Orine (Eds.),
pg 221, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988.
+) Affiliated to the Astrophysics Division, Space Science Department, European Space Agency
Assuming evolutionary principles as providing the motivation for human actions, we demonstrate that the development of technology in order to extend habitable space has had positive evolutionary value. Extrapolating the current growth of technology and associated knowledge, and judging from developments in information science, we conclude that technology and knowledge will exceed human capacity to handle them efficiently, and will at the same time become disassociated from humans, rendering current evolutionary goals obsolete. Possible long-term scenarios are examined.
The history of mankind is dominated by the quest for resources in order to improve the chances of survival of the species. This quest for resources also led to the emergence of technology, with spaceflight being the most thorough application. Thus, the present global motivations, goals, and means to achieve them can be explained to a large extent in terms of the theory of evolution. Other authors (Popper and Lorenz 1985) have shown that this extends to mankind's system of values and intellectual processes.
Recently concern has been raised about possible negative impacts of scientific- technological developments on the medium-to-long term evolution of the human race. Modern medicine, for example, is increasingly successful in keeping individuals alive who would have been eliminated from the evolutionary process only a few generations ago (Livingston 1973). Effects range from a proliferation of individuals with impaired eyesight (harmless) to a proliferation of individuals with impaired resistance to infectious deseases (not harmless). It is evident that a global undertaking like the conquest of space, especially including its ramifications and spin-offs, will change the course of human evolution, probably drastically.
It would exceed the scope of this paper to treat the subject of evolution in a comprehensive manner. It is also evident that simplistic concepts of the evolutionary mechanism are not sufficient to completely explain all observable aspects. However, it is useful to summarize those elements which are considered valid for the purpose of this discussion and which will be important for the chain of conclusions.
Evolution (as opposed to development) is not goal- oriented, it has no "direction", except that big jumps in complexity are not possible. Thus, more complex systems have to be preceeded by less complex systems, simulating an "upward" gradient, with the apparent "goal" of achieving perfection.
It is important to note that abilities evolved to cope with certain boundary conditions in general will change those conditions. The ecological niche (or, if we include intellectual abilities, the evolutionary niche) evolves along with its occupants. This means that there are no "right" or "wrong" ways to cope with boundary conditions: what was right in the past might be wrong now. It also means that an unsuccessful evolutionary path cannot be backtraced.
Evolution of a species can continue along an equable path as long as the boundary conditions are steady and as long as the behaviour of the most significant fraction of the individuals is teleonomous, i.e. directed towards passing on to their offspring those abilities which in turn enable them to more successfully reproduce. Clearly, stringent boundary conditions do not tolerate non-teleonomous behaviour. As the evolutionary niche of mankind gets more comfortable, we observe a shift from common goals (at the expense of the individual) to individual goals at possible common expense, which is to say that we became more tolerant towards non- teleonomic behaviour.
A major point is that there is no difference in the principles and mechanisms which govern biological and cultural evolution. In fact, our humanitarian system of moral values is a relatively recent product of evolution, and is only now really taking shape. Evolution itself knows no "good" or "evil", and when war is an appropriate teleonomous behaviour it will arise (Goodall 1985).
It is commonly accepted that mankind acquired the dominant role on this planet through the application of technology. Evolutionary, the ability to produce and use technology is the result of curiosity, which in turn was useful to search for sustenance. Helpful in the evolution of technological abilities was the concurrent evolution of organizational skills, which are the foundations of our scientific/ technological society.
Technology provides a way to acquire information about the environment without having to go through the tedious process of encoding it into the genetic material. The ramification is that this body of information can, and does, grow much faster than if the information had been gained through genetic evolution. This process started only comparatively recently (about 5000 to 10000 years ago), but already it has reached a stage when most of us could not survive for long without technological help (Lorenz 1985).
As can be witnessed in everyday life, mankind is quite happy to utilize technology without proper (or even any) understanding. It is amazing to see, for instance, small children using technological systems like computers, which were not possible to build, or indeed to contemplate, only a few generations ago. And how many adults really know what happens in their cars when they push down on the accelerator? This naive utilization of entities, the pragmatic attitude of taking something at face value, is a mechanism which appearently allowed our ancestors to function in an environment which eluded explanation.
The evolved motivation which causes mankind to conquer space is basically the same one which caused early man to explore and control their environment: the search for resources in order to improve the chances of survival of the species. The conquest of space is an endevour which needs the application of all technological means which have been developed.
There is, however, one major difference between space projects and other technological projects: the lowest limit in size and complexity is considerable for space projects, and it is enormous for manned space projects. In other words, it is not possible to start small, it cannot be done by individuals with resources accessible to and managable by individuals.
The history of the US Space Shuttle program with its wrong assumptions, schedule slippages, cost overruns, and final disaster teaches a dramatic lesson: the project has become too complex, it has outgrown the ability of humans to maintain a proper overview, to assess the ramifications of changes, and to anticipate operational needs. For some time it was possible to compensate for this by introducing management procedures which allowed large organizational entities to collaborate without a thorough understanding of each other's activities. This led to a vicious cycle, however: the management system itself, and, in particular, the associated bureaucratic procedures, became opaque, so they were not being followed correctly, or not applied properly. This, and not the technical problems, was the reason for the Challenger accident (Covault 1986).
Of course this is not to say that we will not go into space. We will turn to technology for the rescue. We will use computers, in particular we will use the software techniques known as artificial intelligence (AI), or, better, cognitive processing to remedy the problem.
Much has been written about the staggering growth of computer technology during the last three decades. This growth, however, has so far been mainly confined to improvements of the hardware. In fact, most software improvements can be traced to improved hardware capabilities (Albrecht 1985).
This situation is about to change dramatically. Already in the near future developments in computer science will render computer programming as we know it today obsolete (Bibel 1985). AI based S/W technology is about to provide computers with natural language understanding, image recognition, and reasoning capability. Expert systems already allow us to de-individualize bodies of knowledge and make it available to the non-expert, or to another computer, on a 24-hour a day basis. Knowledge bases can be stored, merged, experimented with and checked for consisteny. It will be possible to perform "what-if" operations, the usual hypothesis building tool used in science, in an automatic manner, on knowledge bases which are much larger than can be retained in the human brain. This will make true interdisciplinary research possible.
Along with these S/W developments we will see the advent of new hardware which will provide revolutionary man-machine interfaces, including direct links between the computer and the human nervous system. These concepts were first developed for the rehabilitation of accident victims through the use of electro- mechanic artificial limbs; impressive progress has been made. They are now being investigated for possible applications in military aircraft technology (Simons, 1985; Pounds 1985).
Even very careful extrapolation shows that we are right now witnessing the beginning of a development which will have enormous impacts on the further evolution of mankind. The original motivation to generate and use technology has caused mankind to create technological systems which will very soon outperform humans in many areas of intellectual activities: computers will be the better chess players, conversationalists, decision makers, and conquerers of space. To achieve all this, we do not even have to find out how the human brain works, it is just necessary to produce the same results.
Thus, computers, through AI systems, will help us to successfully conquer space. However, in the process of doing this, man will have become a passenger.
Evolution's answer to drastic changes of the boundary conditions has been the elimination of the species concerned. For the further discussion we will assume that this will not be the case; in particular we assume that there will be no catastrophic changes of the boundary conditions through the ecological impacts of the application of technology, or by war.
Looking back at the history of mankind, the reproductive advantage within a socially interacting group (clan, tribe, people) has always been with those members of that group who had the most resources (in terms of stength, food, territory, money, power). Since resources can effectively be gained with the aid of technology, evolution produced the technology oriented society which we are now.
There is a high probability that this will change as soon as technology becomes too complex for most people to understand, yet is easily accessible to everybody; when technological systems will be able to answer human questions, not necessarily correctly, but either to the satisfaction or beyond the understanding of humans.
As we do now, people will continue the naive use of technology, even if they do not understand it. However, as humans are no more needed to produce and master technological systems, the sociological status of technology-oriented individuals and thus their reproductive advantages will decrease. Within a few generations the desire of mankind to conquer space may have vanished.
Assuming the non-destructive development outlined in the previous section we may conclude that technology will ensure human physical survival as individuals by providing food, shelter, and other services. The question arises how the dis-association of knowledge and technical skills from humans will impact the fate of the species.
One problem in this extrapolation is that evolutionary paths in complex systems are quite unpredictable; another problem is that the "strategies" employed by evolution are not defined: the same goal can be achieved in a variety of different ways. Extrapolation is thus reduced to little more than speculation.
Given the fact that the decreased selection pressure in a comfortable evolutionary niche increases tolerance towards non-teleonomous behaviour, there will initially be a wider variety of human types, physically, psychically and culturally. Which one of those will usurp reproductive dominance is not predictable. By way of exclusion we can state that those who have lost the urge to engage in heterosexual contact will not. Neither will those that are being kept alive by extreme medical measures. Yet, not even this is certain, given the advances of genetic engineering and in-vitro fertilization (Walgate 1986).
For the sake of discussion let us assume that we evolve towards a society without the need to compete for resources, in which therefore the need for technical knowledge and skill vanishes because they are not required for the individual, if not discouraged because of the evident impossibility to compete with technological systems, or not obtainable for reasons of cost- effectiveness. At the same time it should be possible to experience all varieties of sensory peceptions by means of advanced man- machine interfaces (artificaial reality). Will mankind use this for widening the intellectual horizon, or will this capability rather be used for eternal entertainement? And which group will pass their preference on to their offspring?
As already mentioned in previous sections, mankind will most likely continue to use technology naively, i.e. without feeling the need to understand how it works. It is interesting to note, however, that in the past there has been a tendency to populate the incomprehensible parts of the environment with supernatural beings (spirits, gods), a technique which seems to provide a working hypothesis and a degree of control through worship and sacrifice.
There can be no definite conclusions from these considerations, except that straight forward extrapolation from the present situation is certainly not possible. The conquest of space will not be a re-play of the expeditions of the conquistadores, or of the exploration of the American west. From these exercises men emerged with their individual intellectual superiority intact and with the basic evolutionary boundary conditions unchanged. The conquest of space, through its implied technological advances, will challenge the very motivation of our civilization to continue the present course of development.
My wife Katalin Albrecht-Nagy contributed to this paper through many challenging discussions. P. Boyce (American Astronomical Society) provided help by forcing me to substantiate the consistency of the reasoning.
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