Related papers: Against the Empire
Cooperation is a widespread natural phenomenon yet current evolutionary thinking is dominated by the paradigm of selfish competition. Recent advanced in many fronts of Biology and Non-linear Physics are helping to bring cooperation to its…
We examine the feasibility of predicting and subsequently managing the future evolution of a Complex Adaptive System. Our archetypal system mimics a competitive population of mechanical, biological, informational or human objects. We show…
Artificial intelligence is humanity's most promising technology because of the remarkable capabilities offered by foundation models. Yet, the same technology brings confusion and consternation: foundation models are poorly understood and…
"Traditional SETI is not part of astrobiology" declares the NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015 document. This is incorrect. In this white paper, I argue that SETI$-$seen as the search for technosignatures characteristic of the future of life…
For humanity to maintain and expand its agency into the future, the most powerful systems we create must be those which act to align the future with the will of humanity. The most powerful systems today are massive institutions like…
The quest for historically impactful science and technology provides invaluable insight into the innovation dynamics of human society, yet many studies are limited to qualitative and small-scale approaches. Here, we investigate scientific…
Evolutionary game theory assumes that individuals maximize their benefits when choosing strategies. However, an alternative perspective proposes that individuals seek to maximize the benefits of others. To explore the relationship between…
Transmission of the information into the Cosmos is treated as one of the pressing needs of an advanced civilization. The inability to meet this need, the forced withdrawal into self-imposed isolation can lead to the extinction of…
There is a widely held view in the astronomical community that unmanned robotic space vehicles are, and will always be, more efficient explorers of planetary surfaces than astronauts (e.g. Coates, 2001; Clements 2009; Rees 2011). Partly…
The contradiction between physical and economical sciences concerning the growth of the production/consumption mechanism is analyzed. It is then shown that if one wishes to keep the security level stable or to enhance it in a growing…
The ease of interstellar rocket travel is an issue with implications for the long term fate of our own and other civilizations and for the much-debated number of technological civilizations in the Galaxy. We show that the physical barrier…
Population expansions trigger many biomedical and ecological transitions, from tumor growth to invasions of non-native species. Although population spreading often selects for more invasive phenotypes, we show that this outcome is far from…
We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering…
Social evolutionary theory seeks to explain increases in the scale and complexity of human societies, from origins to present. Over the course of the twentieth century, social evolutionary theory largely fell out of favor as a way of…
This article critically examines the foundational principles of contemporary AI methods, exploring the limitations that hinder its potential. We draw parallels between the modern AI landscape and the 20th-century Modern Synthesis in…
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence by looking for signals from advanced technological civilizations has been ongoing for some decades. We suggest that it could possibly be made more efficient by focusing on stars from which the…
A traditional approach to assessing emerging intelligence in the theory of intelligent systems is based on the similarity, "imitation" of human-like actions and behaviors, benchmarking the performance of intelligent systems on the scale of…
Evolutionary processes proved very useful for solving optimization problems. In this work, we build a formalization of the notion of cooperation and competition of multiple systems working toward a common optimization goal of the population…
Evolutionary games provide the theoretical backbone for many aspects of our social life: from cooperation to crime, from climate inaction to imperfect vaccination and epidemic spreading, from antibiotics overuse to biodiversity…
Cosmology seems extremely remote from everyday human practice and experience. It is usually taken for granted that cosmological data cannot rationally influence our beliefs about the fate of humanity -- and possible other intelligent…