Darwin Among the Machines
Encyclopedia
"Darwin among the Machines" appeared as the heading of an article published in The Press
newspaper on 13 June 1863 in Christchurch
, New Zealand
. Written by Samuel Butler
but signed Cellarius
, the article raised the possibility that machines were a kind of "mechanical life" undergoing constant evolution
, and that eventually machines might supplant humans as the dominant species:
The article ended by urging that "war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race." This article, along with later writings by Butler on "machine evolution", was probably largely satirical in intent, although he may have been using these fanciful writings to explore some real philosophical issues like the question of whether biological life and evolution can be explained in purely mechanical
terms (see the discussion at the end of the 'Book of the Machines' section below).
, published anonymously in 1872. The Erewhonian society envisioned by Butler was one that had long ago undergone a revolution in which most mechanical inventions had been destroyed, and the narrator of the story finds a book detailing the reasons for this revolution, which he translates for the reader. In "font-variant:small-caps">
chapter xxiii: the book of the machines, a number of quotes from this imaginary book discuss the possibility of machine consciousness:
Later, in "font-variant:small-caps">chapter xxiv: the machines—continued, the imaginary book also discusses the notion that machines can "reproduce" like living organisms:
This notion of machine "reproduction" anticipates the later notion of self-replicating machine
s, although in "font-variant:small-caps">chapter xxv: the machines—concluded, the imaginary book supposes that while there is a danger that humans will become subservient to machines, the machines will still need humans to assist in their reproduction and maintenance:
The author of the imaginary book goes on to say that while life under machine rule might be materially comfortable for humans, the thought of the human race being superseded in the future is just as horrifying to him as the thought that his distant ancestors were anything other than fully human (apparently Butler imagines the author to be an anti-evolutionist), so he urges that all machines which have been in use for less than 300 years be destroyed to prevent this future from coming to pass:
Erewhonian society came to the conclusion "...that the machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man, and to become instinct with a vitality as different from, and superior to, that of animals, as animal to vegetable life. So... they made a clean sweep of all machinery that had not been in use for more than two hundred and seventy-one years..." (from "font-variant:small-caps">
chapter ix: to the metropolis.)
Despite the initial popularity of Erewhon, Butler commented in the preface to the second edition that reviewers had "in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin’s theory to an absurdity." He protested that "few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin", but also added "I am surprised, however, that the book at which such an example of the specious misuse of analogy would seem most naturally levelled should have occurred to no reviewer; neither shall I mention the name of the book here, though I should fancy that the hint given will suffice", which may suggest that the chapter on Machines was in fact a satire intended to illustrate the "specious misuse of analogy", even if the target was not Darwin; Butler, fearing that he had offended Darwin, wrote him a letter explaining that the actual target was Joseph Butler
's 1736 The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. The Victorian
scholar Herbert Sussman has suggested that although Butler's exploration of machine evolution was intended to be whimsical, he may also have been genuinely interested in the notion that living organisms are a type of mechanism and was exploring this notion with his writings on machines, while the philosopher Louis Flaccus called it "a mixture of fun, satire, and thoughtful speculation."
applies Butler's original premise
to the artificial life
and intelligence
of Alan Turing
in Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (1998) ISBN 0-7382-0030-1, to suggest coherently that the internet
is a living, sentient being
.
The Press
The Press is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is owned by Fairfax Media.- History :The Press was first published on 25 May 1861 from a small cottage in Montreal Street, making it the oldest surviving newspaper in the South Island of New Zealand. The first...
newspaper on 13 June 1863 in Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. Written by Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh...
but signed Cellarius
Cellarius
Cellarius is the Latin form of cellerar, an office within a medieval Benedictine abbey. As a surname it is usually a Latinized form of the German name Keller:* Ludwig Cellarius, d.1526, Ludwig Keller of Basel, first husband of Wibrandis Rosenblatt...
, the article raised the possibility that machines were a kind of "mechanical life" undergoing constant evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, and that eventually machines might supplant humans as the dominant species:
The article ended by urging that "war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race." This article, along with later writings by Butler on "machine evolution", was probably largely satirical in intent, although he may have been using these fanciful writings to explore some real philosophical issues like the question of whether biological life and evolution can be explained in purely mechanical
Mechanism (philosophy)
Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes are like machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other, and with their order imposed from without. Thus, the source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts or an external...
terms (see the discussion at the end of the 'Book of the Machines' section below).
Book of the Machines
Butler developed this and subsequent articles into The Book of the Machines, three chapters of ErewhonErewhon
Erewhon: or, Over the Range is a novel by Samuel Butler, published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. In the novel, it is not revealed in which part of the world Erewhon is, but it is clear that it is a fictional country...
, published anonymously in 1872. The Erewhonian society envisioned by Butler was one that had long ago undergone a revolution in which most mechanical inventions had been destroyed, and the narrator of the story finds a book detailing the reasons for this revolution, which he translates for the reader. In "font-variant:small-caps">
chapter xxiii: the book of the machines, a number of quotes from this imaginary book discuss the possibility of machine consciousness:
Later, in "font-variant:small-caps">chapter xxiv: the machines—continued, the imaginary book also discusses the notion that machines can "reproduce" like living organisms:
This notion of machine "reproduction" anticipates the later notion of self-replicating machine
Self-replicating machine
A self-replicating machine is an artificial construct that is theoretically capable of autonomously manufacturing a copy of itself using raw materials taken from its environment, thus exhibiting self-replication in a way analogous to that found in nature. The concept of self-replicating machines...
s, although in "font-variant:small-caps">chapter xxv: the machines—concluded, the imaginary book supposes that while there is a danger that humans will become subservient to machines, the machines will still need humans to assist in their reproduction and maintenance:
The author of the imaginary book goes on to say that while life under machine rule might be materially comfortable for humans, the thought of the human race being superseded in the future is just as horrifying to him as the thought that his distant ancestors were anything other than fully human (apparently Butler imagines the author to be an anti-evolutionist), so he urges that all machines which have been in use for less than 300 years be destroyed to prevent this future from coming to pass:
Erewhonian society came to the conclusion "...that the machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man, and to become instinct with a vitality as different from, and superior to, that of animals, as animal to vegetable life. So... they made a clean sweep of all machinery that had not been in use for more than two hundred and seventy-one years..." (from "font-variant:small-caps">
chapter ix: to the metropolis.)
Despite the initial popularity of Erewhon, Butler commented in the preface to the second edition that reviewers had "in some cases been inclined to treat the chapters on Machines as an attempt to reduce Mr. Darwin’s theory to an absurdity." He protested that "few things would be more distasteful to me than any attempt to laugh at Mr. Darwin", but also added "I am surprised, however, that the book at which such an example of the specious misuse of analogy would seem most naturally levelled should have occurred to no reviewer; neither shall I mention the name of the book here, though I should fancy that the hint given will suffice", which may suggest that the chapter on Machines was in fact a satire intended to illustrate the "specious misuse of analogy", even if the target was not Darwin; Butler, fearing that he had offended Darwin, wrote him a letter explaining that the actual target was Joseph Butler
Joseph Butler
Joseph Butler was an English bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher. He was born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire . He is known, among other things, for his critique of Thomas Hobbes's egoism and John Locke's theory of personal identity...
's 1736 The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. The Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
scholar Herbert Sussman has suggested that although Butler's exploration of machine evolution was intended to be whimsical, he may also have been genuinely interested in the notion that living organisms are a type of mechanism and was exploring this notion with his writings on machines, while the philosopher Louis Flaccus called it "a mixture of fun, satire, and thoughtful speculation."
Evolution of Global Intelligence
George DysonGeorge Dyson (science historian)
George Dyson is a scientific historian, the son of Freeman Dyson and Verena Huber-Dyson, brother of Esther Dyson, and the grandson of Sir George Dyson. He is the father of Lauren Dyson. When he was sixteen he went to live in British Columbia in Canada to pursue his interest in kayaking and...
applies Butler's original premise
Premise
Premise can refer to:* Premise, a claim that is a reason for, or an objection against, some other claim as part of an argument...
to the artificial life
Artificial life
Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...
and intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
of Alan Turing
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
in Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (1998) ISBN 0-7382-0030-1, to suggest coherently that the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
is a living, sentient being
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
.
Dyson's main claim is that the evolution of a conscious mind from today's technology is inevitable. It is not clear whether this will be a single mind or multiple minds, how smart that mind would be, and even if we will be able to communicate with it. He also clearly suggests that there are forms of intelligence on Earth that we are currently unable to understand.
From the book: "What mind, if any, will become apprehensive of the great coiling of ideas now under way is not a meaningless question, but it is still too early in the game to expect an answer that is meaningful to us."
See also
- The Adolescence of P-1The Adolescence of P-1The Adolescence of P-1 is a 1977 science fiction novel by Thomas J. Ryan, published by Macmillan Publishing, and in 1984 adapted into a Canadian-made TV film entitled "Hide and Seek". It features a hacker who creates an artificial intelligence named P-1, which goes rogue and takes over computers in...
- AffordanceAffordanceAn affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, while a cord affords pulling...
- Artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
- Butlerian JihadButlerian JihadThe Butlerian Jihad is an event in the back-story of Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. Occurring over 10,000 years before the events chronicled in his 1965 novel Dune, this jihad leads to the outlawing of certain technologies, primarily "thinking machines", a collective term for computers...
, a fictional historical event originally introduced in Frank HerbertFrank HerbertFranklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
's DuneDune (novel)Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...
novels - CycCycCyc is an artificial intelligence project that attempts to assemble a comprehensive ontology and knowledge base of everyday common sense knowledge, with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning....
artificial intelligence project - Darwin machineDarwin MachineA Darwin machine is a machine that, like a Turing machine, involves an iteration process that yields a high-quality result, but, whereas a Turing machine uses logic, the Darwin machine uses rounds of variation, selection, and inheritance.In its original connotation, a Darwin machine is any process...
utilizing all of the six essential features of a Darwinian process - Neo-LuddismNeo-luddismNeo-Luddism is a personal world view opposing any modern technology. Its name is based on the historical legacy of the British Luddites which were active between 1811 and 1816...
- Never-Ending Language LearningNever-Ending Language LearningNever-Ending Language Learning system is a semantic machine learning system developed by a research team at Carnegie Mellon University, and supported by grants from DARPA, Google, and the NSF, with portions of the system running on a supercomputing cluster provided by Yahoo!.-Process and...
semantic computer system - Semantic WebSemantic WebThe Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
- Technological singularityTechnological singularityTechnological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...
- TechnophobiaTechnophobiaTechnophobia is the fear or dislike of advanced technology or complex devices, especially computers. tech·no·pho·bi·a n. Fear of or aversion to technology, especially computers and high technology. -Related forms: tech'no·phobe' n., tech'no·pho'bic adj."— "tech·no·pho·bi·a - Show Spelled...