Global Brain Singularity / SEMF Sessions
A Four Lecture Course at the Society for Multidisciplinarity and Fundamental Research (SEMF) 2024 Summer School
This week, July 22nd-26th, I had a chance to develop and present a course based on my doctoral thesis, Global Brain Singularity, at the Society for Multidisciplinarity and Fundamental Research (SEMF) in Valencia. SEMF is a unique effort that is trying to carve out a space for multi/inter/trans-disciplinary work. SEMF values creating an atmosphere where researchers can explore beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries and express freedom of discourse. While the society is primarily focused on fields of maths, physics, and computational sciences, the human sciences and arts are also represented, accepted and integrated.
Throughout my four sessions I attempted to outline the importance of the idea of “Global Brain Singularity”, introduce the key contradiction motivating the work, as well as explore some of the major ideas in the first three sections of the work, including cosmic evolution, metasystems, the commons, as well as speculations on the deep future. You can find a brief summary of the four sessions below, as well as a link to Philosophy Portal, where you can find recordings all four seminars:
Session 1: We are living in a messy/complex world that is hard to interpret. In my work leading to Global Brain Singularity, I have followed the break/cut that I think has primarily driven this messy/complexity, namely the concrete development of the idea of computation, and specifically the work of thinkers and communities orbiting/orienting ideas of exponential computational change or the “technological singularity”.
Session 2: The main contradiction that frames this idea is a tension between the evolutionary worldview and theology, where exploring the ideas of evolution in the grandest/broadest interdisciplinary sense forces one to confront theological ideas appearing in evolution itself. This contradiction shapes major problems of the present moment that involve (1) technological complexification and (2) sociopolitical convergence.
Session 3: The fields of big history/cosmic evolution attempt to think of evolution outside of conventional disciplinary boundaries and bring us to the thought of one universal process comprising dimensions and relations of physics, chemistry, biology, culture, and technology. In thinking of universal evolutionary process we have to think qualitative transformations of evolution itself, opening a new perspective on human evolution, our place in the cosmos, major historical paradigm shifts, and fundamental meta-systemic changes.
Session 4: Our contemporary world is in the midst of a major metasystemic change that requires new political theory about the commons. Any future theory of the commons must take into account the unique form of biocultural evolution that human beings embody and mediate in relation to technology, as well as entertain the speculative possibility that this evolution points beyond the human itself, towards a deep future mediated by the mysteries of technocultural evolution.
To access the seminars, see: GBS 2024.