Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence by
George Dyson, Addison Wesley, $25, ISBN 0 201 40649 7
GEORGE DYSON, son of the mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson, grew up in
Princeton鈥檚 Institute for Advanced Studies, where it was easier to find an
expert in celestial mechanics than someone to work on a car. One day, playing in
a barn, he stumbled upon the remains of one of John von Neumann鈥檚 experimental
computers. 鈥淪omething about abandoned machines,鈥� he explains, making sense of
this early epiphany, 鈥渢he suspension of life without immediate
decay鈥攅vokes a mix of fear and hope. When the machine stops, we face
whatever it is that separates death from life.鈥� In Dyson鈥檚 vision, machines owe
more debt to life than they do to us, who are merely their catalysts.
Darwin Among the Machines is a very good book about life鈥檚 grand
project after animals: machines. It counterpoints history, science and
autobiography in a way reminiscent of Dyson senior鈥檚 excellent memoir
Disturbing the Universe. At times ironically resigned to the notion of
progress, at others enthused and engaged, it reads as though the poet Robert
Frost had popped Ecstasy in the company of Alan Turing.
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But George Dyson鈥檚 primary, acknowledged influence is Samuel Butler, the man
who in 1872, with the publication of Erewhon, saw more clearly than
most how the Industrial Revolution and Darwin鈥檚 theory of evolution would impact
on each other. Butler鈥檚 major contribution to the evolutionary debate was the
long-discredited notion that species possess a single, supernal intelligence.
The same idea had already been applied to humans 200 years before by Thomas
Hobbes and had proved equally indigestible. In Hobbes鈥檚 case, the idea of an
intelligent Commonwealth鈥攎ore than human but far from divine鈥攕macked
of blasphemy. For evolutionists, Butler鈥檚 鈥渨eak鈥� Darwinism seemed equally
specious, merely a back door into mysticism. But the shade of Butler鈥檚 idea
survives.
Between 1953 and 1956, mathematician Nils Barricelli created a tiny (500
byte) computer 鈥渦niverse鈥� and populated it with self-reproducing numerical
鈥渃reatures鈥�. He observed that sex鈥攖he crossing of
characteristics鈥攑roduced more rapid evolutionary progress than mere random
mutation. Sex, Barricelli realised, is the way in which a species
parallel-processes its gene pool for solutions to survival problems. This is
Butler鈥檚 idea recast: species are intelligent systems and sex their method of
cognition.
Though the idea seems radical, it is no more difficult in its essentials than
Hobbes鈥檚 idea of Commonwealth. So why do we have such difficulty with it? It is
as though, by abandoning God, we are even less able than Hobbes鈥檚 contemporaries
to conceive of any intelligence greater than ours. Not that it has ever been
pleasant to contemplate distributed intelligence, or think oneself a part of it.
That is as much as to imagine oneself an ant, toiling away in some vast human
hill.
But this, uncompromisingly, is Dyson鈥檚 vision. His parallels between social
economy and neural activity are detailed and imaginative. Our human and
mechanical networks鈥攐ur Commonwealth, if you like鈥攑erceive each
economic transaction statistically, elucidating meaning from the flow of data
the way the brain experiences sight by processing the flow of numbers spilling
from the optic nerve.
And here, of course, lies the difficulty. We almost certainly will
create鈥攎ay already have created or we may even, as a species, be鈥攁
distributed consciousness, or over-mind. But 鈥淚t鈥濃�攖his digital network,
species or a mixture of the two鈥攃an no more communicate with us than we
can communicate with the individual ganglia of our own nervous systems. What we
perceive as having quality, to It is mere number. What It perceives as having
quality is beyond our comprehension.
In addition, he has a tremendous historical imagination. The links he makes
between old ideas and modern events are rarely spurious and, if some parallels
seem excessive, his arguments are always conscientiously researched. It is
disarming to see how much Dyson wants to be like his hero Butler. In the event,
he measures up well.