Metaman: The Merging of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism

by Gregory Stock

The author of The Book of Questions claims that humankind and technology have merged into a new global entity, a living extension of humankind acting through a complex system of computers and offering a promise of ever-greater prosperity.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

365 pages, Hardcover

First published May 27, 1993

Reviews

[Mike Barretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This kind of rational optimism and grandeur could be the foundation of a new humanist (or trans-humanist, I suppose) religion.

Written in the early '90s, it has actually done a fairly good job of predicting technologic and societal changes that have come about in the past two decades. While this prediction is not the point, it does help serve as evidence for the hypothesis: human societies and technologies have created a new form of life in the same way that single-celled bacterias combined to form eukaryotic cells.

From the exposition of the hypothesis, the analogues between biological processes and those of modern globalism become fairly obvious. Transportation infrastructure becomes a circulatory system, satellites and sensors of all kinds become the sensory system, all the various forms of repairing organizations (medical, charitable, law-enforcement, etc) become the immune system. Stock does a admirable job in making this analogy not sound forced, hokey, or hyperbolic.

Overall, I'm left with a renewed hope in the future of our species, that we will continue evolving towards greater complexity and unlocking the knowledge and capabilities that it bestows.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

ARE OUR PROBLEMS JUST “RELATIVELY MINOR DISTURBANCES”?

Gregory Stock is a biophysicist who is the former director of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at UCLA’s School of Medicine.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1993 book, “This is a book about the nature of life, the evolutionary significance of human civilization, and most of all, the future of humankind. The book’s … most important conclusion is extremely simple: far from teetering on the brink of cataclysm, humankind is moving toward a bright future… humanity’s many problems … [are] relatively minor disturbances in the overall trajectory of human civilization. In all probability, none of today’s difficulties will be more than a footnote in the story of the end of this millennium and the beginning of the next. This era will likely be remembered not for its problems but for having pioneered computer intelligence, genetic engineering, and the exploration of space.” (Pg. 13)

He explains, “To avoid any confusion, I want to clarify … that the concept of society as a living entity, in which humans play a part analogous to the cells in an animal’s body, is very different from the idea that all life is part of a single living organism---Gaia. The Gaia hypothesis expresses the connectedness of all living things in our planetary ecosystem and provides a poetic image of the earth to stimulate thought about the processes regulating our biosphere. But… the idea can bring little insight about OUR future because it views human civilization as largely irrelevant, certainly not, as proposed here, a momentous step in the evolution of life.” (Pg. 15)

He defines his key term: “the thin planetary patina of humanity and its creations is truly a living entity. It is a ‘superorganism’---a community of organisms so fully tied together that it is a single living being… let’s … simply call it ‘Metaman,’ meaning ‘beyond, and transcending, humans.’ This name both acknowledges humanity’s key role in the entity’s formation and stresses that, though human centered, it is more than just humanity. Metaman is also the crops, livestock, machines, buildings, communications transmissions, and other nonhuman elements and structures that are part of the human enterprise… human activity has organized itself into large functional patterns that join to sustain the entirety of Metaman… Needing nourishment, Metaman extends itself over the planet’s surface, consumes what it finds… using transportations systems akin to the human body’s arteries and veins… it is feeding, moving, growing, and rapidly evolving. Metaman is even likely to reproduce one day---by moving beyond the Earth, out into space.” (Pg. 20-21)

He suggests, “hope for the future need not lie in some miraculous transformation of human nature. As a developing superorganism, human society has begun to regulate itself on the vast scale necessary to ensure its survival and vitality. Individual humans, though still actively pursuing their own immediate self-interests, are doing so within an ever tighter envelope of social controls… this era of Metaman’s birth is not an ending: humanity’s future stretches far ahead and is filled with promise.” (Pg. 36)

He argues, “That our intuition does not tell us that Metaman is a living entity is hardly surprising; after all, intuition alone would tell us the world is flat. Metaman is too diffuse, too dynamic, too discontinuous, and too large to recognize easily… Careful examination reveals that Metaman possesses each of the essential qualities found in all living things.” (Pg. 45)

He observes, “People’s individual roles in Metaman are not rigidly determined by some higher authority and never will be. We each must find our own place, and as Metaman evolves, our choices about what we do and how we live are expanding, not contracting. Because the free flow of information is so critical to Metaman’s continuing development, and thus to humanity’s well-being, we would do well to enhance rather than inhibit.” (Pg. 82)

He speculates, “When Metaman’s global store of information exists largely as electronic patterns as readily manipulated as the volatile patterns in the human mind, Metaman will truly have a ‘mind’ of its own. Indeed, as its ‘metathinking’ becomes ever richer and is coupled with an ever fuller ‘self-awareness’ provided by its evolving sensory system, Metaman may evolve a sort of planetary ‘consciousness.’” (Pg. 88)

He notes, “Global communications and culture are two more of Metaman’s ‘mechanisms’ for deterring military conflict… Television is one of the most powerful influences on world opinion. It has figured prominently in transforming our experience of distant war from an abstract exercise in patriotism to a visceral barrage of images of carnage and grief. This vicarious involvement makes it harder for domestic audiences to be manipulated into tolerating heavy casualties or feeling blind hostility for an ‘enemy’ population. Thus television makes it difficult to sustain support for an extended war, even one that could eventually be won.” (Pg. 115-116)

He asserts, “Climate changes occurring over many decades would be taken in stride by Metaman, because the continual turnover of its constituent parts enables it to transform and adapt… unfortunately, any major agricultural disruption lasting a few seasons might cause famine. Such a tragedy, however, would be more appropriately attributed to overpopulation than to ‘global warming’ per se. As long as human numbers keep agriculture pushed to its very limits, humanity will remain vulnerable to intermittent famine. The most feasible solution is to control human reproduction, not the Earth’s climate…” (Pg. 126-127)

He contends, “Metaman… will almost certainly have MORE, not less, energy at its disposal in the future, so humanity is not approaching an age of scarcity. This rosy outlook is warranted by two factors. First, the availability of fossil fuels and other existing energy sources is likely to be adequate for at least the next century; second, dramatic progress in the development of new sources of energy makes it clear that the move beyond fossil fuels is imminent.” (Pg. 129)

He acknowledges, “While the birth pangs of Metaman may well devastate certain cultures and populations in parts of Africa, Asia and South America, the long-term prospects of the vast periphery of Metaman are hopeful. Metaman’s rapid pace of technological advance is creating the tools to enable these lands to make the difficult transition.” (Pg. 142) Later, he adds, “Such changes will not be painless. Like all major developments, they will cause great stresses within society. But asking whether such changes are ‘wise’ … misses the essential point that they are … the unavoidable product of the technological advance intrinsic to Metaman.” (Pg. 168) He also states, “Immense numbers of species in tropical jungles are being… lost, but most are … insects with very narrow distributions. This process may be painful to contemplate, but it is hard to see how the disappearance of such insect populations, or even… island floras and faunas, could have significant global repercussions for humankind. Metaman is not that frail.” (Pg. 178)

More controversially, he proposes, “We may not be comfortable ‘playing God,’ but whether the issues are medical, environmental, or social, humanity will increasingly find itself in just that role… To best expand the quality of human life …we will have to revise the beliefs and public policies that no longer serve us… There are limited resources for ANY endeavor, and our individual lives … are not of unlimited importance to society. Individual loss if intrinsic to life, so our challenge is… to mitigate it where we can…” (Pg. 215)

He predicts, “There is overwhelming evidence that this faith [in the future] is fully warranted. From the perspective of centuries rather than decades, the current turbulence---inherent in the transformation of human society and the globalization of Metaman---will soon fade. Future humans will remember the twenty-first century not as a troubled, unfortunate period, but as the time when humankind burst forth from ancient patterns and made the fundamental transitions that redefined life as it had hitherto been. They will see our era as a … glorious epoch that spawned … solar power, computer intelligence, space exploration, and genetic engineering---the foundations of THEIR civilization.” (Pg. 145) Later, he adds, “One important consequence of Metaman’s formation will almost certainly be life’s expansion into space…. Metaman will certainly extend itself… into the solar system in force…. Early analysis suggest that Mars might conceivably be ‘terraformed’ to give it an Earthlike climate… [But] the only way for humans to move beyond the Earth in the foreseeable future will likely be by establishing self-contained, enclosed colonies.” (Pg. 233-235)

He summarizes, “Religious teachings have always given humans a resonant sense of who they are… While our place at the feet of God may have been only the product of our own hopes, now laid to rest by an understanding of natural selection and evolution, the placement closely fits our sense of our unique cosmological importance.” (Pg. 241-242) He continues, “we---through Metaman---have in a sense become as gods. And yet we are ‘gods’ only in … limited terms… because Metaman’s emergence is giving us an awareness of the true enormity and power of the universe.” (Pg. 244)

Nearly thirty years after this book was written, I find it hard to accept Stock’s “rosy outlook” on the future in an era of Climate Change, religious wars, political impotence, and vast income inequality. But those wanting such a “positive” view of the 21st may well feel differently.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little breathless, hyperbolic and fantastical, but even at the time, I remember thinking, not a particularly original theory, in that these ideas were being discussed all around.
However I learned one revelatory fact from the book, to do with human brain size. To wit, brains grow only during youth. Humans have an elongated period of youth compared to chimpanzees and therefore have larger brains as adults.