(This post will accrue in installations)
Install 1
Years ago, it became obvious to me that humanity is about to flip a bit. Meaning, in this context, our genetic code is about to advance into a new state.
For three years I vaguely dabbled in theories, but my imagination failed me in developing a clear picture of our new version. I was stuck with the model of going from ape to monkey. I was trying to bang my head into conjuring up a vision of a smarter, much more advanced human.
Finally, what was until recently a sub-audible whisper has built very quickly to a deafening crescendo telling me what we will be. I will try to describe this new version of us now.
If we look at evolution, developing from single celled organisms to our current complex state required stages of increasing complexity. This is on one hand.
On the other hand think, if you will, about what it took to progress from amino acids to forming a single celled organism, and from single celled organism to confederations of single-celled organisms coming together to function as a single whole, to multi-celled single organisms.
This is the metaphor that helps me describe the new version of us.
We are the single celled confederation and our next version is the single organism that we will become. There you have it, folks, the next version of us is the new version of I/we. The stages toward this state are already in play...
Install 2
There is a discernible trajectory from the simple to the increasingly complex. There are also changes in DNA from mechanisms like short toe to longer toe. It took a quantum leap, however, for man to become self-aware, establish and continuously enhance tools. Perhaps it was the development of an opposing thumb, necessary for climbing without prehensile tails, or any other reason for its original development. It was like a little boost proffered to the species to reach the next rung up the ladder of complexity.
As the opposing thumb allowed for the advancement of technology from rudimentary blunt assists to finer tools, and the refinement of those tools, the development of a global, two way communication and information manipulation and storage and mechanism has elevated the potentiality of the species toward another quantum leap.
Globalism, while providing fertile fields for these advancements has, however, cost us our habitat, and we no longer have the 4 million years to evolve as our prior versions did. The evolutionary process is also getting an assist through our own ability to manipulate our genes, epi-genes, and create hybrid species, and hybrid man-machines. So a little syllogism is: we don’t have time to evolve to a new state (that enables us to continue on in our degenerated biosphere)
We must create our new selves (like ART-assisted reproductive technology, AET-assisted evolutionary technology). Therefore our new version will, in a sense, be man-made. What the basis for the man-made new man will be is anyone’s guess, and will serve a purpose most likely distant from the intentions of the “designers.”
Install 3 ...
