Civilization via Morality

What is civilization? The American Heritage Dictionary states civilization is

”an advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.”

The word ‘human’ does not belong in the definition. Civilization may exist and advance without human involvement or human presence.

One of the greatest misgivings fed to humanity by modern religion is that of human superiority. By most accounts, especially Christian, humankind is the centerpiece of existence. Even more arrogant is the belief that the whole of the universe is merely a training farm for humanity to face the required trials -- whatever they may be -- so after death each successful may be transported to a new plane of existence, a wondrous place of unfathomed bliss. We are told this place has no worry, no fear, and no pain. It has nothing that makes us human.

Humanity is not the purpose of everything. Without warranting a discussion on whether there is a soul, we are, in fact, quite an insignificant piece of machinery. At the DNA level 98% of some primates share our genetic makeup. At a primitive level, a level of instinct and ignorance, we are arguably the same. A group of humans raised entirely independent of current civilization would act surprisingly similar to a common baboon. They certainly wouldn't appear nirvana worthy, or in any way prove themselves to be the reason for the existence of the universe.

That other 2% granted us enough brain power to learn language: to use speech and written text to communicate new ideas and advances to one another, and to record our progresses for other people and future generations. This single evolutionary advance, almost single-handedly, has allowed us to pass on the knowledge of discovery necessary for each generation to pick up where the previous left off, and ultimately come to our current level of mastery in the arts and sciences.

To our discredit, and possibly our eventual destruction, our moral advances have been trivial (which itself may be evidence against a soul). It may be argued that many of them have regressed. The simple greed that evolution brought us, necessary for our ancestors to ensure they had enough food to survive, is still being applied by today’s human in materialistic ways. We are not learning beyond our moral primitives. We are advancing technically more than ever, and at a societal level we are struggling to build better rule systems. However, knowledge of the correctness or moral worth of those systems is rejected, and so we fight to enforce those systems via fear of punishment. Even our greatest effort remains dependent on primitive emotion.

And thus we have wide scales of hatred, greed, murder, and war. Ludicrous amounts of money are being pushed into weapon technology. We have enough weapons now to kill every human several times over, yet the production doesn’t stop. The research into better killing technology doesn’t stop. How can this trend not lead to our own destruction? We will be worse off than the dinosaurs, for not only will we be extinct but we will have caused the extinction as a result of our own immoralities and lack of civility. It will be the testament to our technical advances far outreaching our moral and civil advances.

If technical advances do not cease, can our moral advances at least progress enough to circumvent our demise? A few minutes watching world news strips most hope from that prospect.

But on the side of technology, specifically artificial intelligence, there are efforts to create a more capable machine, a more capable human. Whether biological or not, it will be a being not plagued by the obsolete primitives of our ancestry (hatred, greed, misgivings of superiority) but rather will have our collective knowledge, and have the ability to invent and verify new ideas. Unique to it will be the ability to advance far more quickly than humankind; the ability to not only improve on ideas, but to improve its own creation: a self modifying being, able to live forever and still evolve its own 'genetics' as further technological advances are made. This being, or this race of beings, will quickly come to be the most intelligent, capable, and moral beings on our planet, inarguably usurping us as the highest order of intelligent life.

How will such a race of beings deal with our society: environmental destruction, global starvation, pointless wars? Will we attempt to embed into these beings feelings of submission to how current humans do things? Is it naive to think we can constrain them in any way? Will they determine it best to enforce better solutions regardless of our desires, for our own good? To them we may look like the saucy brat kid next door who bullies other kids, throws rocks at animals, and plucks the wings off insects just to giggle at their efforts to fly. Once they are more capable than us, will they see a need for humanity at all, given our tendencies? If they do the right thing, the best moral decision may be to remove our decision making abilities in areas where we may cause harm and treat us like the immature kids that we have proven we are. Will our religious conditioning of superiority allow such a submission? We may not have a choice.

They may not be willing to allow further harm to come to the planet. Then the world will see progress: the distribution of wealth, proper use of resources, better problem solving, better rules enforcement. Once we are no longer in charge, civilization will not be stunted by lack of moral advancement. In the end we may no longer be driving, but we have advanced the morality of our civilization.

Bornael