Today we need to leave the biological sciences to zoom upwards and take a much higher perspective. Or oddly enough in this case zoom down to a much lower perspective. All will be revealed.
The book title A Digital Human already eludes to this way of thinking. It looks at the biological human as a digital device. In fact consilience means a unity of knowledge. In truth this is an old word that has gone out of fashion in the 21st Century belonging more to the 19th Century when the sciences were racing ahead establishing their credibility. But it turns out that the book A Digital Human is really about consilience. Maybe a more relevant term maybe consolidation. It is the consolidation of everything to the digital foundation. Put simply the consolidation of everything to the on- off switches that are the building blocks of all things electronic. So why the shift towards the digital?
It is necessary for me as the author of this book, currently a work in progress, to stop and remind myself of the book’s objectives. To me the clear objective of a book is to take you as the reader and lead you through a number mental change processes so by the end of the book you think differently on the subject covered. To do this here I want to briefly consider three authors who cemented in my mind the subject of consilience. They changed my thought processes let us see if they change yours.
Firstly Edward O. Wilson an American biologist born 1929. He published a book called “Consilience” (1998). He quotes from William Whewell in his 1840 synthesis “The Philosophy of Inductive Sciences” as the first to speak of consilience.
To quote:-
“The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an Induction, obtained from a class of facts, coincides with an Induction, obtained from another different class. This Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs.” Replace the word “induction” with “experiment” to appreciate a 21st Century interpretation.
Then to quote from Wilson’s book:-
“Disciplinary boundaries within the natural sciences are disappearing, to be replaced by shifting hybrid domains in which consilience is implicit. These domains reach across many levels of complexity, from chemical physics and physical chemistry to molecular genetics, chemical ecology and ecological genetics.”
Secondly Bruce F.Katz with his book “Neuroengineering The Future” (2008) in which he quotes William of Occam in the 11th Century where “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”. He also quotes Einstein’s famous dictum that a theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Then to quote fromKatz’s book:-
“…the simpler the theory, the greater its ability to generalise to new phenomena. Complex theories arise because they tend to have many special cases, each encompassing a disparate set of results. Each aspect of the theory covers one and only one such set. However, if a commonality can be found that ranges over these results, it will often be the case that it also explains as yet unseen empirical data.”
This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to be able to take us once everything is successfully transformed into their digital foundations.
Thirdly William Sims Bainbridge with his book “Nanoconvergence” (2007) brings it all together with the quote in the book taken from his 2000 report “Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology” edited by Mike Roco and himself :-
“A revolution is occurring in science and technology, based on the recently developed ability to measure, manipulate and organise matter on a nanoscale – 1 to 100 billionths of a meter. At the nanoscale, physics, chemistry, biology, materials science and engineering converge toward the same principles and tools. As a result progress in nanoscience will have a very far reaching impact.”
Followed by a more comprehensive statement in a 2003 Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance Report:-
“We stand at the threshold of a new renaissance in science and technology, based on a comprehensive understanding of the structure and behaviour of matter from the nanoscale up to the most complex system yet discovered, the human brain. Unification of science based unity in nature and its holistic investigation will lead to technological convergence and a more efficient societal structure for reaching human goals. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, concentrated effort can bring together nano-technology, biotechnology, information technology and the new technologies based upon cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, the result can be a tremendous improvement in human abilities, new industries and products, societal outcomes, and quality of life.”
So as an author have I started to change your thinking processes towards everything moving towards a digitally based foundation where artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to seek out many of the unknowns spanning the different scientific disciplines? Will it all dissolve down to some simple rules as Einstein predicted. Or not?
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