Globalization of the technosphere: trends, origins, prospects
Vitol Eduard Arnoldovich
International Academy for Futures Studies
active member of the academy,
PhD in Philosophy
Vitol Eduard
International Futures Research Academy
Member of IFRA, PhD
Email: [email protected]
A new approach to the study of the technosphere is proposed - its consideration in the general mainstream of global changes, as a link in planetary evolution. Its uniqueness and transitional character is shown, leading to the future and turning earthly evolution into cosmic one. The conclusion is made about the determinism and vector nature of historical transformations. The source of large-scale transformations is revealed - the main contradiction of modernity, inherent in man and being the key to understanding the future. The composition and qualitative specifics of the noosphere are predicted.
Technosphere globalization: tendencies, sources, prospects
The new approach to technosphere research is offered - its consideration in the general channel of global changes, as a link planet evolution. Its uniqueness and transitive character is shown conducting in the future and transforming earth evolution into space evolution. The conclusion about determinancy of historical transformations becomes. The source of huge transformations comes to light - the basic contradiction of the present which are put in the person and being a key to understanding of the future. The structure and qualitative specificity of a noosphere is predicted.
keywords: planetary evolution, globalization, a technosphere, the future, a noosphere, laws of development, a world picture, the forecast.
Globalization of the technosphere: trends, origins, prospects
1. Understanding the technosphere
Why is the globalization of the technosphere becoming a priority trend of planetary evolution? And why exactly is the technosphere moving to the forefront of world events? What is the deep essence of the appearance and deployment of this fundamentally new phenomenon of earthly reality?
Comprehension of the process of globalization of the technosphere, identification of its foundations, content and consequences are associated with many difficulties. The main one is the lack of development of the very concept of "technosphere", where different authors put different meanings. Today there are no clear and unambiguous definitions of it. The same can be said about technogenesis - the “blurring” of the perception of this phenomenon, the diversity of its theoretical interpretations, which are mainly anthropocentric in nature. There is no comprehensive analysis of the main trends of technogenesis oriented towards the future.
If globalization as a characteristic feature of the current state of the World System is already an object of close attention of the social sciences, then the globalization of the technosphere as a new problem field is only waiting for its researchers. And this topic is very relevant, because it is connected with the image of the future, which is radically different from the proposed models and from those illusions that humanity harbors about its “bright future”.
The idea of the unity of the technosphere, its special role in planetary history and the creation of the future is still amorphous. There is still no understanding of its modern phase due to globalization, the true causes of this phenomenon have not been revealed, and accordingly, there is no holistic doctrine of the technosphere. Science and philosophy, faced with this new world phenomenon, are only beginning to cognize it. And genuine discoveries in this area are still ahead of us. The author, on the other hand, will conceptually present his own vision of this problem, based on planetary evolutionism.
In order to understand the depth and consequences of the growing changes in the study of earth evolution (the stage of implementation of which is the technosphere), in no case should one remain on an anthropocentric position, considering everything that happens only through the prism of humanity's perception - its interests, goals, desires and ideas. And it is necessary to go to a wider scope of phenomena and a higher level of abstraction, and analyze the situation through the "cosmic prism", which was called for by Russian cosmists in their time. Our contemporary L.N. Gumilyov also spoke about this, proposing to look at history not only through a microscope, but also through a telescope.
But the question is not to immerse yourself in history, with an attempt to discover its patterns and carry out detailing (formed theoretical history). Now, more than ever, a completely different approach is urgently needed - the study of the future. Here it is appropriate to quote the well-known saying of Sri Aurobindo: "We do not need a great past, but a great future." Only by outlining and realizing the contours of the future, civilization will be able to take real actions to move towards it. Humanity, just like a ship sailing in the ocean, must have a correct, well-calibrated course. Otherwise - a chaotic wandering with a heroic overcoming of obstacles, with great losses of human, material, energy and financial resources.
So what is the technosphere? Is it just an artificial human habitat or something more - a created new unusual reality? In the course of industrialization, people have formed such a powerful, large-scale and complex technogenic world that today they feel like a simple appendage of it, a kind of application of a system of various equipment and technologies, the laws of operation of which are available only to a certain group of analysts.
The originality of technology, its impact on humans, the biosphere and nature need not only applied, but also deep theoretical understanding. For technology is turning from an auxiliary into an independent force, the importance of which is growing not only for earthly processes, but also for the surrounding cosmos. Only recently, technology, technical systems, technogenesis began to be considered as a peculiar phenomenon, even a whole direction arose, which received the name "philosophy of technology".
Throughout history, the term "technology" has been filled with different content, which was associated with the changing importance of the functions of man and technology in the labor process. Today, the evolutionary aspect is becoming paramount - revealing the laws of development of technology itself, the features of the formation of an integral technosphere and determining its place in the picture of the future. The comprehension of technology as a new stage in the entire planetary evolution is beginning to acquire greater significance.
It is important to understand that by locking ourselves in the knowledge of the essence of the technosphere on the technology itself, we will never understand the true sources of its appearance and trends of further development. That is why its analysis is due to the need to include in the research field not only large-scale systems genetically related to it, such as the biosphere, anthroposphere and noosphere, but also consideration of the entire planetary evolution in the unity of its spatio-temporal characteristics.
Let us conceptually designate the zone of reality under study. Under the technosphere we mean a set of objects, systems, substances, fields (radiations) of inorganic nature, of artificial origin, all parts of which are connected by structural interactions with the exchange of matter, energy and information. Such a generalized interpretation is closest to the definition of the subject of research; it reveals the essence of the technosphere itself and the range of its various manifestations. This will make it possible to include this phenomenon in the system of theoretical scientific views and, ultimately, in a new picture of the world.
If in the early stages of its formation the technosphere did not have a structural unity, acting as local centers tied to human communities. Then, starting from the 20th century, its range began to expand rapidly, capturing the entire globe, and the interactions between its individual parts become systemic.
The term "technogenesis" was first proposed by A.E. Fersman, who used it to denote a set of transformations produced by human activities and leading to a redistribution of the chemical masses of the earth's crust. Since this term basically contains the concept of technology, it is advisable to link it specifically with technology (artificial objects and systems of inorganic nature) - its appearance and historical improvement, which is actually reflected by the second term present here - genesis.
The problem of cognition of technogenesis is very complex, it is interdisciplinary in nature and is not limited to the framework of any particular science or group of sciences. This is due to the fact that technogenesis itself has historically changed, acquiring new features and properties that did not exist before. Therefore, its study and comprehension is associated with objective difficulties, the main of which is the variability of the studied object itself and the complex of its external (intersystem) interactions.
Technogenesis is the process of emergence and improvement of the elements of technogenic reality in all their diversity. Therefore, technogenesis should be understood, firstly, as the birth (emergence) of technology, more and more of its types and forms; secondly, certain laws of the evolution of technology itself, reflecting the logic of its directed internal change (for example, the replacement of technical systems with technologies, the emergence of intelligent systems in the first place).
The external aspects of technogenesis are manifested: 1) through a system of interactions of technology, organized into an integral technosphere, with other planetary systems - the geosphere, biosphere, anthroposphere and outer space; 2) through the transformation of the world of inanimate nature (inorganic planetary and cosmic matter), the world of living nature (living matter organized into the biosphere), the world of the person himself (including its biological and intellectual components) and the world of society in its planetary expression (anthroposphere).
Developing technology is a powerful force that shapes the history of mankind, radically changing the nature of society (the formation of a technogenic type of civilization), as well as planetary matter in general. Technogenesis, like any natural process, involves masses of matter, flows of energy and information in its cycles. Here their transformation and the creation of new objects and systems that have an artificial (technogenic) basis take place. Especially important for technogenesis is the intellectual (mental) energy of a person. Therefore, information flows initiated by intellectual activity come to the fore in technogenesis, ensuring the creation and development of new types and forms of technology. Scientists are talking more and more about the upcoming entry of civilization into the information age.
It is necessary to state the continuously increasing pace of technogenesis, which has been especially clearly manifested in the last century. If in nature all changes are self-regulating over very long periods of time, then the exponential growth and the extraordinary aggressiveness of technogenesis do not allow us to hope for the mechanisms of natural regulation. The adaptive capabilities of living systems and inorganic matter are adequate only for geological time scales. And the power of technogenesis is increasing very rapidly. Compared to natural transformations, it goes with the speed of an explosion, dramatically and comprehensively changing the existing reality.
The deployment of technogenesis takes place, albeit at an accelerated rate, but extremely unevenly, by way of ascents to higher energy and information levels. Accordingly, there is an increase in its organization and structuring of the technosphere itself. Technogenesis is turning not only into a planetary force that determines the nature of its interaction with the environment. It also becomes a social force that influences human integration and participates in the formation of personality, in the formation of a knowledge system, in the biological life of mankind (nanotechnology, genetic engineering, cloning).
But, as noted earlier, the multifaceted phenomenon of the technosphere will not receive an objective explanation with a fragmented approach, when it is taken out of the context of world history. A comprehensive analysis of the planetary development is required to reveal its essential content and identify the regularities operating in it. Therefore, here we will deliberately expand the theoretical field and come to a broader and more capacious concept - "planetary evolution". At the same time, it comes into contact with various branches of knowledge, which are taking shape in a direction called planetary evolutionism. By planetary evolution we will understand the collectively developing terrestrial matter, consistently passing through certain historical stages associated with its qualitative transformations, ensuring the rise to higher levels of organization.
A person is forced to adapt to a new reality that surrounds him from all sides, filled with man-made objects. In order to exist and develop further, it needs to include more and more artificial systems of the most diverse purpose in the area of its active action. If earlier mankind felt its helplessness before the natural elements and cataclysms of an earthly and cosmic nature, then at the present time it feels helpless before the power of the technosphere, which is increasingly involving it in its material-energy and information cycles.
It is necessary to recognize the fact that in the earth's history a large-scale phenomenon arose and is taking shape, the name of which is the "technosphere". For this system, there are no state, national or other boundaries that isolate its individual structural formations - production, energy, transport, information. Therefore, speaking of globalization, we must definitely note the spatial expansion of the technosphere, its avalanche-like penetration into all shells (subsystems) of the planet - the geosphere, hydro- and atmosphere, biosphere and anthroposphere (man as an individual and as a social organism). It draws in not only civilization, but also various planetary processes, dramatically modifying them, in fact, changing the entire earthly world and the surrounding near space.
The technosphere, on the one hand, frees a person from his primitive functions (for example, movement due to transport equipment), to very complex ones: solving research, inventive, economic and other creative tasks provided by information and computer technology. Giving him freedom and the embodiment of a diverse range of the most secret desires: from cognitive to erotic. On the other hand, it generates powerful unfamiliar and unpredictable forces, the essence of which is not yet fully understood by man.
The technogenic world is steadily moving towards the state of its systemic integrity. Growing and quickly filling all ecological niches on the planet, moving further - into the surrounding space. The technosphere is turning into a new locomotive of history, rapidly receding beyond the horizon of existing being - into the future. The increase in the volume and influence of technogenic reality in planetary evolutionary transformations just indicates the entry into the phase of globalization - the exit of the technosphere to a fundamentally different level, where it acquires autonomy and begins to play a dominant role in terrestrial evolution, taking it beyond the orbital space into the expanses of the Universe . It is thanks to rocket and space technology that we have the opportunity to observe an epoch-making event - the transformation of planetary evolution into cosmic evolution. Awareness of this will lead to the breaking of many existing stereotypes.
Today, one can still find statements that it is necessary to change the course and direction of technogenesis, putting it under the control of mankind. But is it possible? By developing and producing new man-made objects in all their diversity, a person begins to feel like a Creator. Although this is far from true. In fact, in all areas of his life, he is increasingly becoming dependent on the technosphere. And this dependence is growing inexorably.
The further the technosphere develops, the smaller the share of people's participation in this development. Design, production, operation of man-made objects are gradually moving to the technosphere itself due to robotization and automation (automatic production lines, automatic plants), as well as all-round computerization - equipping technical and technological complexes, transport systems, etc. intelligent machines.
Thus, the technosphere is autonomized, and man is forced out of its structure. This means the transformation of the technosphere into a self-governing system, where human mediation is replaced by direct interaction "technology - the world around." Here, man-made objects acquire the property of autotrophy - the ability to directly assimilate energy from external space (for example, the energy of the Sun through photocells). And the coordination and direction of development is provided by intelligent devices - at first computers, and in the future artificial intelligence.
The coming dominance of the technosphere with its main component - artificial intelligence in the framework of traditional ideas is perceived mainly in a negative light. Even naive hypotheses are put forward of a rebellion of thinking machines, as a result of which they will subjugate human civilization. The authors of such apocalyptic scenarios are in captivity of common anthropocentric views, subconsciously projecting the features inherent in living systems and humans onto the technogenic world. This does not take into account the important circumstance that the technosphere is fundamentally different from the biosphere and anthroposphere not only in terms of substrate composition, but also in terms of the logic of its development. For with the advent of the electronic mind, its functioning will steadily shift to the area of virtual reality, having fewer and fewer intersections with humans and society.
The widespread introduction of information and computer systems leads to the widespread virtualization of the technosphere, when information reality structured in a certain way becomes predominant. This is the reason for the large-scale transition of the material (material) state of the technogenic world into the ideal (energy-informational) state. One of the theorists of technogenesis, G.S. Altshuller, even proposed the law of an ideal technical system, when its weight and spatial parameters tend to zero, while its functionality is preserved. In this process, there is a tendency to miniaturization (compactification) of technical objects and systems, which is clearly manifested in microelectronics and nanotechnologies. The directed historical transition of technology from the macro to the micro level is one of the main features of the present stage of planetary evolution.
With the creation of polymeric materials with high physical and chemical characteristics (carbon-, boroplastics, artificial ceramics), metal-intensive artificial systems are rapidly being replaced. As a result, the entire technosphere as a planetary structure becomes easier with each stage of its improvement. This trend is quite paradoxical, because with the phase of globalization, i.e. with the increasing influence of the technosphere in earthly transformations, its own share is rapidly decreasing. Science-intensive technologies are becoming predominant in technogenesis.
All these important points testify to amazing properties: with the advent of a qualitatively different entity (artificial), which was not previously on Earth, planetary evolution also acquires new patterns - the evolution of evolution takes place. And it turns out that anthropomorphic criteria are no longer applicable to its new stage (posthuman).
As a result, we single out the following components (components) of the globalization of the technosphere:
Differentiation, steady growth in the diversity of technical systems and technologies;
Integration of elements of the technosphere, formation of its architectonics as a single planetary structure;
Spatial expansion to all areas of the earthly world, including man and humanity as a whole;
Cosmic orientation of technogenesis, the exit of the technosphere beyond the Earth and the transformation of planetary evolution into space;
Individualization of the technogenic world, expressed in the allocation of the main branch of technogenesis - intellectual, due to the widespread use of information and computer tools and technologies;
Autonomization of the technosphere, access to the level of relations "technology - the world around" without human mediation;
Autotrophic technology - the ability to absorb energy directly from the surrounding space;
The evolutionary transition of technology to the micro level, a sharp decrease in the proportion of the technosphere compared to other planetary shells;
Virtualization of the technosphere (massive transition of the material into the ideal).
2. Origins and causes of technology
So, what is the true reason for the emergence of technology? The answer, it would seem, lies on the surface, it is simple and unequivocal: the reason lies in the imperfection of man, in his physical limitations and inability to resist the elements of nature. It is technology that allows not only to expand the functional range of human capabilities, but also to protect it from the adverse effects of the external environment, creating an artificial environment and opening up prospects for the progressive development of civilization.
In fact, the reason lies much deeper, it lies in the person himself, in his dual essence, in the unity and confrontation of his two main subsystems - biological (body) (qualitative state "bio") and intellectual (consciousness) (qualitative state "noo" ). It is from here that all those large-scale changes that we observe today, but what is more paradoxical, also those that will occur in the future, determining the shape of the distant future, come.
The contradiction "bio-noo" permeates the entire earthly civilization, acting as the main contradiction of modernity. By giving birth to the technosphere, humanity thereby opens the way for the formation of a qualitatively different entity, which marks the turn of planetary evolution into a different direction and testifies to a radical change in its direction.
In the scientific community, the opinion still prevails that the development of technology is entirely determined by the various needs of man - scientific, economic, social, military, political, etc. Undoubtedly, these trends are present, having a local character, but they do not determine the strategy of planetary transformations, which have their own internal logic.
A natural question arises: after all, the technosphere is not at all the final result of resolving this contradiction? Indeed, it is only a forerunner of truly phenomenal metamorphoses of terrestrial matter, a kind of intermediate link. Evolution, realizing comprehensive material-energy transformations, cannot pass into new forms, bypassing intermediate phases. It is the technosphere that is the transitional structure through which a large-scale breakthrough into the future is carried out. The ultimate goal is the acquisition by the quality of "noo" of systemic integrity and an independent essence, separate from the quality of "bio" being.
In essence, this is the world-historical process of the transition of the biosphere into the noosphere, the idea of which was once proposed by the outstanding Russian scientist V.I. Vernadsky. Naturally, at that period there was still no knowledge about technology and the laws of its development, since the technosphere itself was only approaching the phase of globalization and did not reveal its features, such as, for example, the intellectualization of technogenesis.
At the present stage, we are already beginning to clearly realize the need to improve and concretize the Vernadsky model, making certain additions to it. Then the reformed picture of planetary development will have the following form, reflecting the vector nature of transformations and the gradual change in the leading qualities of earthly matter: biosphere - anthroposphere - technosphere - noosphere. A holistic space-time continuum of the earth's evolution, from the moment of the formation of our planet as a localized space object to the formation of the noosphere, can be reflected in the form of a graphical model (Fig. 1).
Fig.1. Space-time continuum of planetary evolution
Three main stages are distinguished here: 1) inanimate matter (natural), 2) living matter, which includes the biosphere and anthroposphere (human civilization), 3) inanimate matter (artificial), represented by the technosphere and noosphere. The technosphere, however, like all the planetary structures that preceded it, has a cross-cutting, transit character, opening up the possibility for the emergence of a qualitatively new, even more complex formation, previously absent in earth's history.
Let us point out the relativity of our ideas about evolution, which, depending on the angle of consideration, will exhibit different properties. This is due to the relativity of the reference systems themselves, chosen as the base ones, and, accordingly, to the relative nature of different models of evolution. One and the same planetary evolutionary process can have completely different interpretations - linear (Fig. 1) and non-linear or cyclic (Fig. 2). Earth evolution in the totality of its stages reflects the global historical cyclical transformations: inanimate matter (natural) - living matter - inanimate matter (artificial). And if we expand the range of space-time perception, we will see a more global cycle: space - planetary evolution - space.
Fig.2. Nonlinear model of planetary evolution
Such conclusions can lead to the realization of the transitivity of the entire earthly evolution, its final, transitional nature. And the extrapolation of the revealed property to the large-scale structure of the Universe allows us to put forward the hypothesis of the transitivity of any space civilizations, which inevitably, bypassing the planetary phase of their existence and having experienced deep qualitative transformations, spread further into the boundless space.
It should be noted that an important cognitive point is that the transfer of the phase transition of inorganic matter into primitive organics (the so-called birth of life) from the surface of the planet to the surrounding outer space (panspermia hypothesis) does not fundamentally change the overall picture. The biosphere itself and its organisms, including higher animals and humans, are the product of precisely earthly evolution, of the totality of endogenous and exogenous conditions operating in it.
Naturally, the world is still fraught with many unknowns. There are various factors, both planetary and cosmic in nature, that can lead to non-linear outcomes of the future. For example, an asteroid impact or a sharp increase in seismic activity, volcanic activity. Similar “shakes” have already happened more than once in the earth's history, but did they turn evolution off the high road? Not at all. Some branches of evolution, indeed, came to a standstill and faded away. In others, development was conserved and the species remained unchanged for a long time. In the third, on the contrary, they received an impulse, which led to qualitative restructuring and the emergence of new structures. Consideration of evolution in the totality of its branches, reflected by the dendroid model (Fig. 3), can give rise to the illusion of a plurality of paths to the future. In fact, the general direction is being implemented. This situation is reminiscent of a river delta, where, despite the variety of channels, a single flow vector is preserved.
Rice. 3. Co-evolution of large-scale planetary systems
In line with the relativity of evolutionary models, the chronotope also receives a new understanding - the topology of time and its dimensions. Time appears both as one-dimensional (linear, vector), and as multidimensional (branching, canalization), and as cyclic. Moreover, new technologies (genetic engineering, nanotechnologies) open up the possibility of implementing even more complex topological forms, such as mesh. When the evolutionary branches begin to merge with each other, both within the framework of technogenesis or anthropogenesis itself, and between them.
We are faced with a phenomenon unusual not only for ordinary, but also for scientific thinking. We are talking about the presence of objectively existing algorithms for planetary evolution. Their discovery is of epochal significance for humanity (comparable to the scientific revolution caused by Charles Darwin's theory), as it will allow us to understand the logic of large-scale historical transformations and see the contours of the future.
Man has been admiring his uniqueness and greatness for so long (the position of anthropocentrism) that he has almost lost his objectivity in assessing planetary evolutionary changes. Considering himself a key link and the highest phase of the earth's evolution, he did not take into account the important fact that matter has the ability to produce other forms of life and other forms of intelligence (artificial intelligence).
Today we need to understand the main thing: it is thanks to technology that various dimensions of globalization are revealed - environmental, economic, industrial, energy, cultural, socio-political, and so on. If there were no technogenic world, then all these dimensions would remain only in potency, in a collapsed form. Therefore, technology should be recognized as the fundamental principle of the planetary processes of globalization. Mentally assuming the instantaneous disappearance of the technosphere, we will see that civilization will simply be paralyzed, a severe all-embracing crisis will come for it. Humanity will be thrown back into the depths of millennia, when a primitive subsistence economy existed.
But until now, many researchers do not want to notice a new player who has already shown his effectiveness and activity, proving his planetary power and significance. It is the technosphere that is such a player, behind whom the future is. The noosphere, in reality, turns out to be even more remote beyond the horizon of the historical perspective.
3. Prospects for the distant future
Let's take a closer look at this aspect of earthly evolution. Until now, planetary matter had only one source material for moving into the future - thinking living matter, characterized by the dual unity of entities of different qualities - "bio" and "noo". The contradiction between them is, in fact, the core and driving force of those transformations that are already gaining momentum, and the true essence of which will be revealed in the coming historical epochs. An analysis of this contradiction opens up a picture of the future for us, allowing us to determine its specifics, a guideline for further global events. Thus, the code of the future is in the person himself, it is in him that the scenario of transformation into another reality is programmed.
What serves as the basis for the statement about the determinism and unidirectionality of the entire course of the earth's history, and the designation of the vector of planetary evolutionary changes: "bio" - "bio-noo" - "noo". Knowing the mechanism for resolving the main contradiction, we will be able to predict the strategic future by creating its model. But in order to imagine the real future of civilization, one must think not in decades and centuries, but in other time categories - at least millennia. Only at super-large intervals (colossal from the point of view of human existence) will those processes that are today only in their infancy be fully revealed. Therefore, here we are faced with a paradox: the greater the depth of the forecast, the clearer the picture of planetary evolutionary transformations. This is reminiscent of the situation of visual perception of a mosaic canvas: only at a certain distance from it, individual fragments begin to merge together, forming an integral image.
With the advent of artificial objects, planetary matter acquires a different dimension. We will observe the disclosure of the potential of its fundamentally new incarnation at the next stages of earth's history. The incompleteness of the transition to a different state makes it difficult to understand the scale and direction of this truly global process. The creation of a holistic picture of the future is hampered by the multi-layered nature of planetary evolutionary transformations: in addition to the main direction, earthly evolution has many secondary branches (Fig. 3). Moreover, some of these branches, such as anthroposociogenesis and technogenesis, can merge (a mesh model is implemented here), giving rise to synthetic forms - a symbiosis of a person with technical objects and technologies, expressed in the so-called cyborgs (cybernetic organisms). Their researchers mistakenly perceive them as the main ones, although in fact they are dead ends, because they do not carry high-quality innovations, which is the main criterion for epochal evolutionary changes.
Through these branchings, developing matter, having no initial goal-setting, sort of “probes” the surrounding reality, trying to determine where it is best to make the next evolutionary breakthrough. This is explained not only by the mobility and plasticity of the terrestrial matter itself, which reveals its essence in forms (structures) of different quality. But also the openness and variability of the surrounding world, the individual hierarchical levels of which are also subject to evolutionary transformations.
But a breakthrough into something else is possible only through the forms of matter, which have a fundamentally different, qualitatively new originality, which have no direct analogues in the existing surrounding reality. It is this form that is artificial (technogenic) matter of inorganic origin, which forms the technosphere.
At the same time, there is also continuity in planetary evolutionary transformations, which is realized in cyclicity (rhythm or functional repetition). In technogenesis, the principle of intellectualization also operates, which is characteristic of the evolution of living matter (in relation to which this phenomenon is also called cephalization). Therefore, we can state the presence of evolutionary loops at different historical stages: /living matter → intellectualization → human intelligence/ → /artificial matter (technology) → intellectualization → artificial intelligence/. Consequently, artificial (electronic) intelligence will become not only a natural result of the development of technology, but also a kind of result (final product) of the entire planetary evolution. Describing the resolution of the main contradiction of modernity and the separation of the quality "noo" into an independent entity (the exit of consciousness to external non-biological carriers).
By integrating into network structures, artificial intelligence will provide the basis for the formation in the distant future of a fundamentally new system, autonomizing from the technosphere. What is this system? Let's make an assumption - this will be that sphere of the mind, called the noosphere (see Fig. 1), which is talked about so much today, erroneously linking it directly with human existence.
Having reached the peak of its development in man (natural intellect), living matter has exhausted its reserves for self-improvement. This was the reason for the rapid advancement to the forefront of historical events of a fundamentally new form, which has a different qualitative specificity - an inanimate artificial (technogenic) substrate. But its leadership is also limited in both spatial and temporal aspects, because the limit of its development is artificial intelligence. The evolution of the electronic mind itself will be associated with the change of its carrier, the transition from a material basis to a field one. Here it is appropriate to cite the prophecy of the famous thinker-cosmist K.E. Such an interpretation can also be correlated with the Omega point of P. Teilhard de Chardin, where the noosphere finally loses its material basis, turning into a kind of unusual substance for us - a thinking layer.
Man is accustomed to thinking about the future, believing in the objectivity of the laws of evolution, which unambiguously determine its trajectory. The discovery of such factors of the universe as complex organization, non-linearity, instability, bifurcations transformed our views and led to the fact that the future began to appear unpredictable and multivariate. Does planetary matter as a complex system really have a multiplicity and ambiguity of ways of future development? Should a synergetic worldview, which has a great heuristic value for the theory of knowledge, lead to worldview chaos, to the uncertainty of a perspective picture of the world?
Not at all. The paths of earthly evolution are nevertheless predetermined, they are determined by the sequence of emerging planetary structures. And with each new large-scale terrestrial structure, the field of possibilities for evolution narrows. There is its mainline - concentration in a certain direction. Therefore, vectority, as the most important characteristic of the earth's evolution, does not disappear anywhere. On the contrary, by expanding and deepening interdisciplinary studies of developing planetary systems, we will receive more and more factual evidence that a single and unique megatrend oriented to the future is being implemented.
Amorphousness, fuzziness of the boundaries of the long-term future are not real features of the picture of a promising world order, but features that characterize the current state of our knowledge (we can also say the opposite - ignorance) about it. But knowledge is rapidly accelerating and expanding. As a result, the future emerges more and more clearly.
The expansion of the scope of theoretical research predetermines, firstly, the establishment of features, structure, phases of evolution and regularities of the object under study (planetary matter), the identification of its connections with other objects of reality (surrounding space systems). Secondly, the evolving planetary matter appears as a nonlinear macroquantum system of the total type. Thirdly, the assessment of open regularities allows reaching a completely new level of understanding the complexity of the universe, comprehending others in a completely different way - extraterrestrial evolutions, realizing their universality and transitivity - inclusion in the global transformations of the Universe.
Planetary evolutionism forms a theoretical and ideological platform, relying on which we can not only understand the essence of ongoing large-scale changes, but also highlight the contours of the future among the chaos of significant events; to designate the horizon of vision of future innovations, quite distant from us in time, and their specifics. The future is not only open, but in a certain sense it already exists - exists in the present in the form of objective prerequisites. The seeds of the future are already embedded in the surrounding reality. But they will "sprout" only in the next historical epoch. Consequently, the deeper we cognize the laws of earthly evolution, the clearer the picture of the future becomes.
But is there really no alternative, or is it simply not taken into account in the study of the future? An alternative is certainly possible. For example, the impact of a large-scale space object on the Earth, as a result of which the planet will turn into a pile of space debris, and civilization will be destroyed. This is a catastrophic scenario of earth development. We are talking about trends that are objectively embedded in planetary evolution, which lead to the future and which do not have other, more preferable options for implementation.
The postulate about the unpredictability of future events must be rejected. It turns out that the future of both the Earth as a local cosmic body and our star named the Sun is predictable. The trajectories of development of various types of galactic formations, including the Milky Way galaxy, in which we are now, are already well known. The next step is to refine the scenario of the evolution of the universe (Metagalaxy) in the structure of the Multiworld. Planetary matter, with its subsystems (anthroposphere, technosphere, etc.), also has a quite predictable future.
A powerful obstacle to the knowledge of this future is the stereotypes of human consciousness, the archetypes of thinking that have developed over the centuries. They dominated even the greatest thinkers who changed the picture of the world with their discoveries. Many of them doubted the correctness of their own paradoxical scientific conclusions, correlating the results of their research with the knowledge existing at that historical moment.
The fact that global structures have a rather clear, although rather remote in time perspective, poses a very interesting question for the scientific community (and civilization as a whole). It consists in how to evaluate the designated perspective: in a negative or positive light? After all, a person cannot accept any picture without “writing” it into his own system of worldview values.
The most important point is that awareness of the perspective fills the human being with meaningfulness, both personally and socially. Perspective changes our worldview. It is like the light of a beacon that illuminates the path to the future for us, prompting us to move in this direction. But it can highlight such facets of the new world (give such images of the universe) that are not at all consistent with existing knowledge about the surrounding reality. Moreover, they even come into conflict with them. The future, even being at the stage of conceptual implementation, transforms the picture of the world familiar to us today, simultaneously changing the realities of being. Thus, the future has the property of influencing the present, allowing it to focus its transformation. In the terminology of synergetics, such predeterminism is called a strange attractor that attracts all evolutionary lines to itself and makes other development options practically impossible.
Another important point: a huge effect for philosophical reflection is the denial of the limitations of evolution on man. The planetary evolution has not ended, it continues, and humanity is a key, but not the final link in the chain of significant events linking the past, present and future.
Identification of development trajectories that go into the distant future makes it possible to minimize the effect of two negative factors: 1) fear of the future, psycho-emotional tension - a sense of danger in front of an unknown world; 2) a future shock, when the world enters the zone of technological singularity and changes reach such a colossal speed and volume that the human consciousness simply will not have time to comprehend and adapt to the new reality.
The development of a strategy for solving the global problems of our time and the search for ways out of the global crisis are impossible without taking into account the objective laws of the technosphere itself. Forecast, ideas about upcoming large-scale changes that directly affect human civilization, constitute the main goal of scientific research. Therefore, the fundamental conclusion about the existence of the forecast horizon concerns the very foundations of modern science, and also sets the direction for the formation of a new picture of the world. And having started our research from the technosphere, we will inevitably reach the planetary, and then the cosmic level of the universe. Having undertaken at the same time an attempt to link them together through universal evolutionary laws.
Today humanity faces a challenge thrown to it by evolution. This is a challenge that has not yet been in planetary history: Where and how will further development go? And the answer to it is to be sought not only by the scientific community, but by all intellectuals, including philosophers and futurologists.
At the present stage of strategic research, thinkers are faced with the need to look into the future, and, moreover, very remote in time, in order to assess the prospects of civilization itself. And although some science scholars believe that the era of great discoveries in the knowledge of the secrets of the universe has already ended, we will not be disappointed with them. Indeed, in reality, such grandiose discoveries await humanity ahead that will turn the entire system of our ideas, radically changing the existing views on the world and its multi-level evolutionary processes.
The concept outlined above can be perceived as primitivization - a significantly simplified model of development. But let us remember the famous physicist L.D. Landau, who jokingly called himself a brilliant trivializer and convinced his colleagues that the simpler the theory, the better it is. There is a certain grace in simplicity, reflecting the aesthetics of the world order, its inner harmony.
