U.S. Transhumanist Party – Official Website

Editor’s Note: In this guest article, Pedro Villanueva outlines a new concept of pluslectic philosophy, which endeavors to be a method of thinking and forward-looking feedback (feedforward) which would characterize future advanced civilizations of enhanced humans. The U.S. Transhumanist Party publishes this article to motivate thought regarding how philosophical systems would need to evolve in order to recognize, characterize, and provide ethical guidance in a world of enhanced, augmented “plus-humans” – i.e., transhumans. This article was originally written in Spanish. The author’s translation from Spanish to English was edited further in a way that sought to preserve and reflect the author’s intent while restructuring various sentences to reflect the English rules of grammar. 

~ Gennady Stolyarov II, Chairman, United States Transhumanist Party, January 14, 2018

What is the pluslectic? The term stems from the Latin “plus”, signifying “more”, “added”, and “positive”.

A philosophical method that differs from the classical dialectic of Hegel and Marx, pluslectic philosophy values the input of the positive facts of growth throughout the world.

First think what happens with society and history. Our world over time since the beginning of civilization has been almost dystopian, as said Slavoj Zizek, […] “The real thing is a grain of sand that prevents us from a functioning unimpeded; a shock traumatic that disrupts the balance of the symbolic universe of the subject.” [1]

With the development of capitalism, develops also nihilism; it refers to a “belief” or faith that all values are meaningless or useless and that nothing can be really known or communicated, since humans can never know the truth and should leave social deception.

Nihilists believe in these 3 things:

1. There is not reasonable proof of the existence of a “supreme ruler” or a “creator”.

2. The “moral truth” is unknown.

3. The universal ethics is impossible.

Nietzsche says the following: “What matter to me others? Others are only human. Be superior to humanity by the force, by the temple, for contempt… ” [2]

In the 20th century and early 21st century, there has deepened the social disorientation and the existence of a society without sense, with the philosophy of the postmodernism of Lyotard. Lipovetsky examines a “postmodern” society marked, according to him, by a separation of the public sphere, and at the same time a loss of the sense of the large collective institutions (social and political) and “open” culture based on the regulation of human relations. Grace, hedonism, customization of the processes of socialization, permissive education, sexual liberation, focus on mood all characterize such a society.

This vision of society poses a neoindividualism of a narcissistic type and, moreover, what Lipovetsky called “the second individualist revolution”. The Post-Structuralists, with the deconstruction approach of Derrida, and Paul Virilio, with his thought of the aesthetics of disappearance where speed rules in the political, economic and cultural realms of human existence, are examples of this phenomenon.

I’ll explain the evolution of the concept of modern dialectic in the main figures of the philosophers Fitche, Hegel and Marx.

For Johann Gottlieb Fichte, I, the subject, is derived from all and the logical principles logical of identity and denial, to assert oneself begets opposition – “not me” – and both are subordinated to a principle of total unity. As the self comes into contradiction with himself and opposition to the “not me”, it eliminates this opposition by limiting both flows in an endless process, which is formulated in the dialectic triad: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. [3]

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel applies the term “dialectic” to his philosophical system and its logic focused on the future, contradiction, and change, which replaces the principles of identity and non-contradiction, by the incessant transformation of things and the unity of opposites. Hegel thought that the evolution of the Idea occurs through a dialectical process, i.e., a concept confronts its opposite and as a result of this conflict, rises a third synthesis. The synthesis is more loaded with truth than the previous two opposites. The work of Hegel is based on an idealistic conception of a universal mind that, through evolution, aims to reach the highest limit of self-consciousness and freedom. [4]

The German philosopher Karl Marx applied the concept of dialectic to the social and economic processes. The so-called dialectical materialism of Marx is often considered as a revision of the Hegelian system. This proposed a solution to a widespread problem of economic ends through three concepts: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The first was the source of the problem in this property of the  capital concentrated in the bourgeois class. The second, proletarian, class, the creator of the value with their work, was stripped of all means of production. These two, according to Marx, will give as a synthesis communism, the social ownership of the means of production. [5]

Let’s bring to the discussion general systems theory and its importance. The advance of technology exposes the complexity of general systems theory when compared to the modern dialectic.

The general systems theory was conceived by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1940s, in order to form a practical model for conceptualizing the phenomena that the mechanistic reduction of the classical approach to science could not explain. In particular, general systems theory seems to provide a unifying theoretical framework for the natural sciences and the social sciences, needing in so doing to employ concepts such as “organization”, “whole”, “globalization”, and “dynamic interaction”; the linear is replaced by the circular. None of this was easily understandable by the analytical methods of the pure sciences. The individual lost importance in favor of the interdisciplinary approach. [6]

During the 1930s, Wiener worked with doctors and engineers and examined the parallels between human beings and electrical systems. As a result of such research, important concepts of feedback were developed, with the researchers studying more closely those systems that incorporated them.

These concepts of feedback, by which information was introduced to machines, led to the emergence of Cybernetics as the adaptation different from the mechanistic theory. The circularity and feedback processes are passed to the common elements of entire system, and Wiener called them “anti-entropic local phenomena”.

The behavior of a driver’s car on a road would be a clear example of negative feedback, since the driver would receive information from the limits of the road that could produce correcting deviations with the steering wheel. The thermostat would be another example of negative feedback, to which we referred above.

Any feedback would take into account the information on past actions, and with them would determine further actions to follow, creating a structure more complex than the linear or circular causality.

About Feedback

In this type of chain, each link is modified and changes its interaction, and this modification occurs in a circular process known as feedback loop (feedback loop).

We can find examples of the previously articulated concept. Thus, a spider that paralyzes a fly with its stinger is involved in a process of spending a fixed amount of power from “a” to “b”; a jellyfish stinging a human hand can participate in a feedback loop from “a” to “b” and “b” (hand stung) back to “a” (in the form of circle). In the first model the effect of “a” on “b” is not returned to the system (a + b); in the second, the message part of the affected “b” (production) and returned to the system (a + b) as feed-back (received power). The general systems theory holds that transactions are circular and create spirals of exchange that become progressively more complex.

Feedback can be positive or negative.

Positive feedback: Growth of differences – “snowball” – when left to operate, leads to the destruction of the system.

Negative feedback (e.g., a thermostat): Leads to an adaptive behavior or having a purpose, a purpose.

In both cases, there is an anointing of transfer by means of which the received energy is converted into the result, which, in turn, is reintroduced into the system as information about the result.

In the case of negative feedback, the system uses this information to activate its homeostatic mechanisms and to reduce the deviation of the production system and thus maintain a “steady state”.

In the case of positive feedback, the information is used to activate the mechanisms of growth (morphogenic mechanisms) that lead to a disruption of homeostasis and a movement toward change – i.e., the positive feedback serves to increase the deviation of the production.

Therefore, when a system uses negative feedback, the system is auto-corrects and returns to the initial state (i.e., does not change). When a system uses positive feedback, the system goes to another state (change).

Andréi Korotáyev (Андрей Витальевич Коротаев, born in 1961) is an anthropologist, economist, historian, and sociologist, with important contributions to the world system theory and mathematical models of social and economic macrodynamics.

Andrey Korotayev’s major contributions belong to four areas: mathematical models of the dynamics of social, economic, and historical phenomena (cliodynamics).

In the field of cliodynamics, Korotayev proposed one of the most convincing explanations for the doomsday argument of Heinz von Foerster.

In collaboration with his colleagues Artemi Malkov and Daria Khaltourina, Andrey Korotayev showed that, until the 1970s, the hyperbolic growth of the  world population was accompanied by a hyperbolic growth of the second degree of the world’s GDP, from which developed a series of mathematical models which both described this phenomenon as the theory of world system, the correlation between the hyperbolic growth of the world population and the hyperbolic of second degree of global GDP growth, observed until the early 1970s, corresponds to a  positive feedback. (Positive feedback is one of the mechanisms of  feedback by which outcomes or outputs of a system cause cumulative effects at the entrance, in contrast with the negative feedback, where the output causes subtractive effects at the entrance. Contrary to what you may believe, positive feedback is not always desirable, since the “positive” adjective refers to the mechanism, rather than the result.) The non-linear second-order relationship between demographic growth and technological development can be explained according to the following sequence:

•→Increased technological growth, growing the load capacity of the planet → population growth → more people → more potential inventors → acceleration of technological growth → acceleration of the increase of the carrying capacity of the planet → faster population growth → acceleration of the increase of potential inventors → faster technological growth → increasing the capacity of the Earth to support people… and so on. On the other hand, Korotayev’s research has shown that since 1970 the world system never develops hyperbolically; its development diverges more and more from the “regime of inflation” and currently is moving “away from singularity”, rather than “toward singularity.”

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Marshall Goldsmith (born March 20, 1949) is an American leadership coach and author of management-related literature. He pioneered the personalized use of the FeedForward as a leadership development tool. The FeedForward assessment tool was created by Marshall Goldsmith with the intention of providing to individuals, teams, and organizations suggestions that help them, in the future, to make a positive change in their behavior. There is a fundamental problem with all types and forms of feedback: focus on the past, on what has already happened, not on the infinite variety of opportunities that could happen in the future. As such, the feedback can be limited and static, rather than dynamic and expansive. The FeedForward of Marshall Goldsmith helps you to predict and to focus on a positive future, not on a frustrated past. In training athletes using ‘feedforward’ (future feedback), the basketball players are taught to see the ball going into the ring and imagine the perfect shot. To give you ideas on how you can be even more successful, the FeedForward evaluative tool from Marshall Goldsmith can increase your chances of success in the future.

Marshall Goldsmith Library:http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/

The pluslectic method is converted input, based on the theory of the system and concepts such as positive feedback, the feedforward, and Korotayev front-loading. The dialectical process evolves through concepts, hypotheses, ideas, and where the initial step is always positive (feedforward), accompanied with growth within a system of positive feedback, where the outcome of a positive feedback is one greater amplification which makes a small signal into a major change in the status of the system. Amplification generally grows in exponential systems in a first-order or second-order hyperbolic way.So evolution creates breaks in a positive and fast way, leading to shifts from one system to another system. Such systems are open to differences and are not controlled by negative feedback (which characterizes closed systems), where is the entropy of the system common.

The pluslectic is a philosophical view of how to operate a model of thinking of high civilizations of aliens or humans in the future, which would tell you as plus-humans, if this condition occurs with huge advances in engineering biogenetics, to reduce all the emotions and negative thoughts, where even before any negative events occur, humans would be capable of pre-feeding positively, with a vision of feedforward.

The pluslectic is a concept that is defined as the paradigm for highly developed post-humans, as opposed to the concept of dialecic from the 19th century, and the ideas of the 20th century, still in the generation of the great tales of humankind. Post-modernism and late modernity during the early 21st century are in crisis of change, setting the stage for the birth of new concepts oriented toward the future.

Images by Pedro Villanueva: Image #1 is his symbol for the Pluslectric; Image #2 is his artistic visionary representation of the concept.

NOTES

[1]  The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989). Slavoj Zizek.

[2]  The Antichrist. Friedrich Nietzsche.

[3]. Basement of all the Doctrine of Science (1784). Johann Gottlieb Fitche.

[4] The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). G. W. Friedrich Hegel.

[5] Capital (1867). Karl Marx.

[6] General System Theory: Foundations,  Development, Applications (1968). George Braziller.

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References

Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics. Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends. Moscú, Russia Publishers, 2006

Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth. Moscow: Russia Publishers, 2006;

Korotayev A. V. A Compact Macromodel of World System Evolution // Journal of 
World-Systems Research 11/1 (2005): 79–93.

Markov A., Korotayev A.Phanerozoic marine biodiversity follows a hyperbolic trend // Palaeoworld. Volume 16, Issue 4, December 2007, Pages 311-318;

Markov A., Korotayev A. Hyperbolic growth of marine and continental biodiversity through the Phanerozoic and community evolution // Journal of General Biology. Volume 69, 2008. N 3, pp. 175–194

Pedro Villanueva wasborn in Havana, 1974. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in San Alejandro. He writes in an approach to thought known as Pluslectic, which is in line with today’s world and the vision towards the future.