Transmission and the Third Evolution

In the Second Evolution, the environment selects through the phenotype (Darwin's natural selection), which is coded by a species' genome. However, only the genes are reproduced and transmitted. Gene selection is therefore done indirectly. The concept of transmission does not apply in the First Evolution.

Writing allows the transmission of knowledge

 

How can we identify the parallel forces at work in the Third Evolution? Human beings exert selection on innovation, institutions, and new ideas, but they do not control their spread. What is selected is therefore what is communicated to others, and, more importantly, what has been written for the last ten thousand years. We can think of institutions, businesses, states as entities that implement what is written (in status) and outlive human beings. In this respect, ideals, ideologies, innovations and religions spread easily between humans. They are transmitted by humans, particularly by the human brain. Without brains, what is written is useless. Without the written or spoken word, the human brain, with all its frailties and biases, cannot sustain any development beyond autarky. Many authors emphasise the ability of human groups to accumulate knowledge. This accumulation is done outside human bodies in permanent traces (books, and now digital writings). This accumulation is horizontal and allows much faster transmission than the Second Evolution. Speed is central to the Third Evolution.

Inefficiencies of Evolutions

 What is the Universe made of ? We are now in a position to answer precisely about the proportions. This is the  Cosmic Camembert:

The composition of the Universe, after the analysis of the Planck ESA mission

Using the equivalence of mass and energy, as described by Einstein's famous E=mc² equation, measurements of the cosmic microwave background allow us to indirectly "weigh" the universe. Today, the Universe is mostly made of dark energy, which behaves like a cosmological constant. Next comes cold dark matter, which only interacts with other matter via gravity. Finally, ordinary matter (stars, planets, gas, rocks, life and us) makes up less than 5% of the total. Radiation accounts for just 0.001%. Even in the 5% where all interactions (electroweak and strong) occur (other than gravity), only a small proportion ends up in galaxies. Overall, the universe can be considered almost oblivious to the rocky planet on which life and humanity exist. This is the inefficiency of the First Evolution.

Life is inefficient, too. In order to ensure the survival of its species, a tree must scatter countless seeds every year. And 99% of the species have vanished from the Earth. Less than 2% of the genome codes for proteins. The rest is known as 'junk DNA' or 'dark DNA'. A final example, the eye proceed from an awful design if we listen to engineers. Indeed, the wiring (the optical nerve) is going out from the retina through the vitreous body, i.e. by masking some light, in particular via the blind spot.

The jury is still out on the Third Evolution. We can think of inequalities as a kind of inefficiency. In that case, the Third Evolution is still very inefficient. However, efficiency must be evaluated in terms of cost versus benefit. One dimension could be the information-to-energy ratio. Today, we consume much more energy per capita than a few generations ago, but we also process much more information.

In short, the three evolutions are unguided (see a previous post on the blindness of evolutions). Consequently, they are costly and seemingly inefficient.

The Future

 It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

Predicting hard facts about the coming years, decades, or centuries is generally presumptuous. 

We can project trends, but we know they will fail sooner or later. Misconceptions often lead us to the wrong conclusions as Pinker and Rosling, among others, have shown.

Trends

People are richer and healthier.

There are fewer wars and fewer victims of natural disasters.

Education is more widespread than ever before.

Information has never been more evenly distributed.

People have never been more connected.

Resources have never been more in demand by an energy- and mineral-hungry humanity. 

Religions and ideologies continue to adapt to the modern, changing world, attracting people in need of security. 

Universal values are spreading.

Cooperation and competition remain two of the most important ways of generating new ideas and innovations.

Other trends concern population growth and the climate change.

Projection

The health and economic condition is increasing for the whole world population.

Wars, as a means of solving domination issues, disappear. Instead we have instances of dispute resolutions at various regional and global levels.

The health and economic conditions of the entire world population improve.
Wars as a means of resolving issues of domination are disappearing. Instead, we have instances of dispute resolution at various regional and global levels.
Education is the universal means for young people to climb the (ever-growing) knowledge pyramid.
Access to information is a key issue. New technologies continue to emerge to facilitate our connection with people and the world.
Innovation is proving to be the only way to switch to the noble energy: electricity.
Countries are becoming more secular and religions are being reduced to the private sphere.

Failure

Of course, as this vision of the personal computer in 1954 reminds us, examples of evolution are hard to come by.

How a Home Computer was Imagined in 1954

Who could have forecast the downfall of Kodak paper photography?

The Third Evolution

The Third Evolution is the new evolution that is happening now: the DNA-based evolution was too slow and has been replaced by the human-based fast evolution. Humanity is not the center of this evolution, but it is the engine of it, just as DNA genes are the engine of the Second Evolution. Institutions are the new emerging appearance of how this new evolution is organized. The characteristics of this new evolution are exactly the same as those previously described in this blog: inheritance (things do not arise spontaneously), digital characteristics, diversity of the environment, unicity (human-driven evolution), blindness, and randomness.

Ref: 

Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018)

Hans Rosling Factfulness (2018)

Collective Intelligence

 There is a long list of fascinating cognitive biases in humans, including confirmation bias, conservatism bias, clustering illusion, selection bias, cognitive dissonance, egocentric bias, agent-detection bias, and anthropomorphism, among many others. Individuals exhibit a range of behaviors, driven by both emotional and rational motivations, in response to varying environmental stimuli. From an individual perspective, it is possible to identify numerous instances of failure and error that can be attributed to specific behaviours. 

Although psychological vulnerability is a factor, it would be a mistake to underestimate the achievements made at the sociological level. This is not to discuss crowd erratic behaviours, for example, but rather sophisticated social constructs such as institutions (school, town-halls, states, sports, cultures, religions, businesses, scientific corpus, and so on).

Institutions usually survive their founders. They can have a finite lifespan but some are so persistent, beyond the people who have created them, that we must conceptualise them as "new organisms" in the Third Evolution model. This is Collective Intelligence from human beings with a firm longlasting influence.

 The United Nation General Assembly Photo ONU/ Manuel Elias

No Purpose

We would like to dispel the intent bias once and for all. As human beings, we have always looked at our surroundings in awe. Finding a cause for observed events has usually led to positive action. Noise in the bush: act like it is a tiger: run! We assume (perhaps too much) the intent of other people in their actions. This behaviour clouds our view of the three Evolutions.

No purpose in the first evolution

The Big Bang scenario makes no mention of a superior intelligence leading to the Universe as we know it. Nor does the evolution of the Universe necessarily imply the appearance of life anywhere. At least, the conditions in the universe are just compatible with life. But they do not imply it. After the Big Bang and the physical Universe, chemistry is working towards the complexification of some open systems in very localised parts of the Universe. For example, in molecular clouds there are many unexpected reactions leading to complex molecules (i.e. containing at least a dozen atoms). Terrestrial planets with liquid water are likely to be sites of even more complex chemical reactions. But we do not observe anything in the Universe that cannot be attributed to spontaneous physical interactions and chemistry. We see no intent! The Universe just is, and evolves.

 No purpose in the Second Evolution

It is one of Darwin's (many) great discoveries. There is no reason why a particular species arose. Only natural selection which is the main mechanism available to sift through random mutations in the DNA of species. There is no purpose in the evolution of life. For a long time people were misled into looking at how well species are adapted to their environment and concluding that something is guiding the manipulation, that there is a clear intention to adapt each species to its environment. We now know, thanks to neo-Darwinism, that this was a mistake. A blind mechanism (natural selection) is a much more sophisticated and powerful means by which we have seen complex organisms emerge that are well adapted to their environment. For example, the eyes of bats are very sensitive, adapted to night life, but they do not provide sharp or colourful vision.

The tree of life is not reproducible.

No purpose in the third evolution

For a long time, it was clear to mankind that everything was organised around human beings. A cast soon invented gods to explain what we could not understand. For example, Nordic gods like Odin were there to explain the Northern Lights. The god's territory has since shrunk with the advance of science and technology. Nowadays, human beings cannot reasonably use gods as an explanation of every mystery.

 The third evolution is about human social organisations. They are not controlled by genes. These organisations (for example money, countries, a football club) have a purpose on their own. But this is limited in scope, and not a single human being or organisation has a control over all organisations. 

For a long time it was clear to mankind that everything was organised around man. Soon gods were invented to explain what we could not understand. For example, Norse gods like Odin were there to explain the northern lights. The territory of the gods has shrunk with the advance of science and technology. Nowadays people cannot reasonably use gods to explain every mystery.

 The third evolution concerns human social organisations. These are not controlled by genes. These organisations (e.g. money, countries, a football club) have their own purpose. But this purpose is limited, and no single person or organisation has control over all organisations.

In short, there is no overall purpose in the Third Evolution. This conclusion is at odds with the major ideologies (Marxism, Socialism, Capitalism) and the powers of dictators/monarchs. There are many people who still believe that higher powers (be it a god or big capitalist corporations) control the world. I think this is again the intent bias showing up. In practice, the Third Evolution with complex organisations has no purpose. The gradual change we see around us is still very pregnant for all of us. But it is not written down anywhere.

Perhaps this is what really struck Albert Camus when he wrote about the absurdity of life. Life simply has no meaning.

 

L'étranger de Camus

Multicellular organisms and Division of labour

 Multicellular Organisms

According to Wikipedia, multicellular organisms probably appeared in large numbers about 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion. So, in terms of time, most of the Second Evolution has been dealing with single-celled organisms (prokaryotes, then eukaryotes). But suddenly, as soon as multicellular organisms appeared (the jury is still out on how), they flourished on Earth. We cannot speak of an advantage over unicellular organisms (because unicellular organisms still dominate the biomass), but rather of a new feature that allowed diversification and new adaptive traits. All animals, plants and fungi are multicellular organisms. Cells can specialise (liver, lung, brain, muscle...) and they all work together as a single individual.

Division of labour

It is only an analogy, but we see the general trend of human organisations becoming more specialised as similar. The division of labour has a powerful effect on the way people interact. Small groups of people living in autarchy are disappearing. On the contrary, human interdependence is increasing. A steelworker has no idea how to treat a cavity in his tooth. A real estate agent has no idea how transistors are used by engineers.

The Third Evolution is the emergence of organisms that bring a large group of people together to achieve some goals. These organisms/institutions can be as simple as a family or as complex as India, the Coca-Cola Company or the Christian religion.

People can gather in a stadium. They meet peacefully towards a common goal (enjoying some sport event). Harari mentioned that with monkeys it would be pandemonium.

Speed is key to the Third Evolution

On 14 May 1610, at 16h, Ravaillac assassinated Henri IV, King of France, in the rue de la Ferronerie in Paris.  The historian Michel Cassan studied the town archives of 240 French towns. He found that the towns along the postal network set up by Sully received this important piece of information on the same day. By 21 May, all the towns in France had received the news (7 days later).  On Wednesday 8 September, the news of the King's death reached Mexico via Spain, more than 3 months later.

 

Ravaillac killing King Henry IV. Painting by Gustave Charles Housez

Compare the speed of information transmission in 1610 with the instantaneous coverage of Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon on 20 July 1969. Billions of people around the world saw the event at the same time.

In the 21st century, most information takes less than 150 milliseconds to travel around the world.

This is what Buskes calls a fundamental difference/advantage of the Third Evolution over the Second Evolution: : 

"Apart from the different trajectories, there might also be significant differences in speed by which cultural information is transmitted. In small prehistoric populations of hunter–gatherers the mode of transmission was probably mainly vertical and one to-few, resulting in a relatively slow stream of information and a corresponding sluggish pace of evolution. In our modern world, however, the situation has dramatically changed. With the advent of writing, printing, the internet and the social media, the mode has changed from predominantly vertical and one-to-few to horizontal and one-to-many, resulting in an ever-increasing flow of information
racing around the globe with lightning speed."

This difference is not better intrinsically, but it means the Third Evolution takes over, as speed has become a key adaptation feature.

See another example of the speed of information transmission in the 19th century:

The Trafalgar Way, on a wall behind the Guildhall in Salisbury (UK), explains how the news of the English victory at Trafalgar (October 21, 1805) was rushed to London on November 6! The speed was less than 12 km/h.

 

 

Ref: 

Michel Cassan, La grande peur de 1610. Les Français et l’assassinat d’Henri IV, 2010

Patrick Boucheron, L’histoire Mondiale de la France, sous la direction de, Seuil 2017, Stéphane Van Damme, p. 292

Darwinizing Culture: Pitfalls and Promises, by Chris Buskes, about Peter J. Richerson and Morten H. Christiansen (eds): Cultural Evolution: Society, Technology, Language, and Religion. The MIT
Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013, 485 pp, ISBN: 978-0-262-01975-0