Winter is a time to read some books. This was a Christmas present a gave to myself. Part 2 of 3. Books.
Why
I met Bogna Konior in Hong Kong some time ago, had her on my radar and was curious about what she is doing. She is in fact still in the region, now affiliated with a university in Shanghai. At the same time I came across the dark forest theory mentioned by other authors, referencing Liu Cixin as the originator.
Form
The perfect bound paperback published by Polity Books is very unspectacular and cheap looking. Already on arrival the cover of the new book was misaligned revealing 1mm of the white pages inside on one edge and the basic lamination of the cover was starting to peel off in the corners. The graphic design of the cover is not bad, but also very generic, with variations of the same style uniting the whole Theory Redux series of which it is a part. The typesetting of the book is also run of the mill, similar to what one gets out of MS Word with a Times New Roman kind of font. Standard readable, but not much more.
Content
The main idea that is being developed is indeed credited to sci-fi writer Liu Cixin: What if a sign of ultimate intelligence is not being talkative, but being quiet, because one does not want to draw attention of other, possibly more powerful entities, to oneself. Using this as a base, the book cross-breeds theories from ufology and cybernetics to expand upon this idea and its implications for information, intelligence and the internet. The information chapter covers the “what” is being communicated, the intelligence chapter covers the “how” the communication takes place and the internet chapter puts this into the context of the internet as a quasi “thinking” entity interacting with individuals.
The whole premise is very speculative, but this is also very clearly stated. Rather than trying to provide a critique or explanation of internet and emerging intelligence, the book provides a conceptual model how to think otherness beyond one´s own limits. This is definitely something to consider. The idea that artificial intelligence (seen in the book as analogous to the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence) would follow the same thought processes and have the same moral as humans developed is indeed very unrealistic. So it is better we are prepared.
Takeaway
This book is really a toolkit how to think the “other” that is not just a human “other” but possibly an completely unthinkable “other”. Mashing artificial intelligence, extraterrestrials and God into one big pot seems crazy at first but not completely unreasonable at second thought. The book is slim and a quick read, but the ideas stick. As there is an array of authors referencing Liu Cixin, this may not be the most original piece of writing, but it is a good summary and introduction of the dark forest concept. That is also what the Theory Redux series, of which this book is one part is aiming at: providing concise introductions of new philosophical concepts.
In terms of “East”, it is interesting that Liu Cixin is Chinese, Bogna Konior is Polish and the idea of better shutting one’s mouth in order to survive can be related to the thought control mechanisms that existed in East European socialism and exist in Chinese communism. At the same time, we can observe that these tendencies are not exclusive to a certain ideology, but thrive equally well with “democracies” as social media internet opinion manipulation and censorship enabled by big tech shows. The idea of a quiet intelligence seems to be a thread running through history of thought for quite some time, not loosing its relevance.