Extralogical Reasoning: Sapience, Sentience, and Their Hypothetical Civilizations

When most people think of advanced alien civilizations and super-sentient species’, they imagine a spacefaring civilization unbound by physical laws. The Sci-Fi writer in me imagines the same, but, especially after writing this post, the philosopher imagines something much less grandiose, even banal.

The impetus for this article was the aliens in the Netflix show Three body Problem, based on the book series by Cixin Liu. The species, supposedly, couldn’t lie and may not have had independent minds with the perception of Free Will. Perhaps they are a hive-like species. Although there’s no way to know, this seemed counterintuitive, but despite this, or perhaps BECAUSE of it, I was intrigued. Then again, it’s possible they’re lying about their ability to lie, which would really thicken the plot. While the aliens are supposedly not more intelligent, just older, they made me wonder what a “superior” species might be like. 

 

The article took longer than expected and ended up focusing on the difference between sentience and sapience, as I define them, and what a civilization of the latter, “more alive,” beings might be like. A being that’s sapient is sentient, but the latter is not necessarily the former. While sentience could arise in a solitary species, there are many well-agreed-upon reasons why a sentient species is more likely to be social. Because of this and because humans and most aliens in Sci-Fi are, as well, this post will center on hypothetical sentient and sapient SOCIETIES.

 

Naturally, much of following is vague, subjective, and speculative, but philosophy is all but defined by its imperviousness to these “deterrents.” However, as I continued my inquiries, I grew progressively disheartened by how speculative, ambiguous, and ineffective my definitions and theses had become. But if nothing else, I hope you’ll find the questions and analysis interesting and enlightening.

 

 

As discussed in the beginning portion of the third part of the ER intro, to engage in qualitative reasoning and comprehend the rules of arithmetic, the human thinking organ must have the capacity  to “cheat” in a way a pure logic machine can’t, but this comes with a cost: the capacity to be WRONG. Programmers can make false assumptions, but a pure logic machine (one without a referential library) can only comprehend a non-answer, or an incomputable input; wrongness is nonexistent. The human thinking organ can cheat to delude itself, and intelligence can be applied to both discovering truths, as well as creating delusions and rationalizations.    

 

In that post, I also defined a SENTIENT species as one that feels pleasure and pain, is aware of its existence, and can imagine and plan for manifold possible futures. This would seem to require the CAPACITY to be logical, even if it weren’t commensurately foundational to the species’ psyche. This is RAW intelligence (note, this isn’t a dismissal of creativity; it’s just not included in the definition). Such a species is likely to have the capacity to have BELIEFS. A non-sentient species would be limited to BIOSAP, an evolutionary precursor to beliefs too intangible to be right or wrong that are used to unconsciously model reality (this comes from Bishko’s life engineering). 

 

The set of these models is what Bish called the puzzle of life, which few wittingly discover. Being primitive for most of its evolutionary history, the human thinking organ remains biosap-dominant with questionable rationality. Though it can’t eliminate the predominance of biosap nor come close to making the thinking organ infallibly rational, an epistemic POL, as I call it, is designed to systematically compensate and manage the weaknesses of the thinking organ. It’s unwise to think the HTO (human thinking organ) is foundationally rational, but it is wise to think a strong POL can make one highly rational in their DEALINGS with their lack of rationality. If the POL is effective enough, one’s beliefs will impact their decisions to a greater extent normally exhibited by humans.

 

A civilization of beings with epistemic POLs could, in theory, make the necessary sacrifices to live in relative harmony with their environment for a substantial period of geologic time. This hypothetical species is approaching what I’ll call SAPIENCE. The POLs of those highly successful at psychological management (e.g., those rehabilitated from mental illness and/or serious substance abuse) tend to have more “sentimental POLs,” which lack logical systemization even if intelligent and effective. A species with the latter POLs would remain unable to achieve ecological responsibility, according to extralogical reasoning. A sapient species would likely be more rational than most, if not all, extralogical reasoners. Extralogical reasoners, or those with effective epistemic POLs, can achieve sapience as far as being wise and becoming what humans pretend to be; they may or may not, however, be sapient as far as being a “higher” form of life than humans, according to the above definition.       

 

The implication of “self-awareness,” as human call themselves, is self-UNDERSTANDING. To go from being aware of something to actually understanding it is a rather big jump. But if you understand the nature of evolution, it’s easy to infer there’s virtually no chance that evolution would select for any appreciable level of awareness, self or otherwise, without creating the illusion that far more UNDERSTANDING exists than is the case. Put another way, you can’t have any appreciable degree of self-awareness in a product of evolution without self-DELUSION. All else being close to equal, an intelligent specimen might be better at discovering truths, but, all else being close to equal, they’re also better at creating packages of beliefs to protect themselves from inconvenient truths. A sapient species, as opposed to a mere sentient one, must at least have the capacity to be sufficiently aware of their self-delusionary nature to create an epistemic POL (much support for the weaknesses in human thinking in the third part of the ER intro).  

 

Some of the best scientific research in the past fifty years has shown that humans aren’t designed to make decisions rationally so much as to CONVINCE themselves they make decisions rationally. In other words, their beliefs play a greater role in EXPLAINING their decisions than determining them. A psychology is what emerges from the complex interplay between a specimen’s intellect and emotions. Without an epistemic puzzle of life, the psychology influences decisions too much to allow the species to live in relative harmony with their environment for a prolonged period of geologic time. A sapient species could, in theory, comprehend science and engineering and their potential to parasitize their planet into a mass extinction while managing their thinking and psychologies well enough to make the necessary sacrifices to avoid it. Among other things, if humans were sapient, they wouldn’t be so inclined to measure sentience/sapience so heavily on intelligence, advanced technology, and superhuman abilities, delectable such imaginings may be. It’s one thing to say logicality is an important FUNCTION or CAPACITY of the human thinking organ, but that doesn’t mean it’s as foundational to the human psyche as most think.   

 

The individuals of a sapient species’, in accordance with the word’s definition, would generally become wise by adulthood. This species would be comprised of thinkers endowed with epistemic POLs and a resultant sense of survival that extended to the continuity of the entire species far past their individual and offsprings’ lifetimes. The author would prefer to believe that extralogical reasoning is hypothetically sufficient for sapience, though he’s been a lot more wrong about much more important things (including things that had actual answers). Perhaps ER is sufficient while its creator himself is not. As I write on, I doubt my own sapience more and more. 

 

Some might argue, however, that humans are more “alive” because all specimen, however similar in so many ways, are equally unique. Even if individual aliens’ conformity to ecologically responsibility was due to genuine belief rather than innate conformability, lack of individual personalities could call their sapience into question. A hive species, for example, including one with at least one sentient caste without a hive MENTALITY, may have less individual variation within the sentient caste(s). 

 

Experiencing the perception of Free Will--whether it exists or not--is likely required for sentience. As will be discussed shortly, thinking requires considering different possible answers and outcomes; the process of inferring is presumably often one of CHOOSING.  

 

 

There are other factors inhibiting the evolution of sapience and the realization of an advanced civilization aside from engineering, energy, and other obvious factors required for a high-power thinking organ.

 

A sentient specimen is limited to a SIMULATION of a system for proving right answers. Because most things aren’t quantifiable, evolution can only endow a species with a tendency to CONVINCE themselves and their conspecifics (members of the same species) they’ve acquired right answers, not prove them. The former is required for and would probably figure more prominently than the latter. Convincing is not 

proving, and this fosters opportunity for bias and self-interest in a sentient thinking organ.  

 

It's been my experience that in life, it’s better to have a solution, outlook, understanding, etc. that’s just good enough that you’re comfortable with and feel like you understand than to have one that’s much better in theory but lacks the latter two. This is true on the individual and group levels. Evolution is not unaware of this, and such a proclivity fits well with a path of least resistance process like natural selection, which also selects for products with the same tendency (just as evolution is a competition that selects for competitive products).

 

I define confusion, inhibition, and the like as dissonance in thought space, a math or engineering-like space where thinking occurs. Cognitive and social resonance, the opposite on the individual and group levels respectively, is extremely important for a specimen’s function. Resonance in thought space requires the FEELING or APPEARANCES of rationality almost as much as ACTUAL rationality. Thus, people are biologically predisposed for what I call The Sham: the widespread con/delusion that rational human agency predominates society--that human thinking and decision-making are more rational than believed; that societal events are directed by individuals, rather than its own natural evolution or the proverbial "invisible hand." Few people truly believe in logic and science. Science is taught in school not despite of the Sham, but BECAUSE of it—in addition to educating and recruiting the next generation of scientists and engineers to feed the species’ ever-growing addiction to technology. Societies “interest” in math and science obscures the existence of the Sham. After all, the human thinking organ is more designed to CONVINCE them they’re rational than to BE SO. 

 

Obliviousness to the Sham makes the discovery of an epistemic puzzle of life nearly impossible. Although a certain minimal level of universal inclination to act upon a trait is probably required for it to evolve, the inclination and capacity to be logical are correlated but remain different, and there might be great variation between conspecifics in their inclinations to be logical relative to their logical capacity. For example, many people with high IQs require more social incentives to ENGAGE in logical reasoning than a less intelligent person. 

 

Put another way, raw intelligence is a requirement for sapience and augmentations in it increase the chances of one becoming so, but this is merely ONE requirement or advantage; it does not mean it’s the ONLY thing that’s importance. MANY things can be important or required for something, and people are too quick to forget that. 

 

A sufficiently advanced civilization will likely curb the culling of natural selection—and, therefore, evolution--and survival rates would be high. Nonetheless, survival instincts would probably remain, regardless of the probability of mortal survival, and would continue to be influential if resources were finite enough to threaten the QUALITY or perceived quality of life. In today’s First World, for example, survival is all but guaranteed, but since there isn’t unlimited resources, PERCEIVED survival has become PROFESSIONAL survival, or making a good living. In the case of humans, their beliefs need to be compatible with their goals, motivates, and circumstances; if not, their happiness and relevant functionality are severely threatened. Thus, nonconformity to some variation of the Sham would jeopardize the achievement of a specimen’s perceived survival, and is anti-evolutionary behavior.    

 

Moreover, understanding the way complex civilizations work requires a different type of cognition than is likely to be produced in an evolutionary environment--i.e., the wild. The Sham persists in large part because people’s thinking is poorly suited to sufficiently understand an advanced society with more relevant variables and information--or at least appreciate it enough for it to have a substantial effect on their general thinking and decisions. Comprehending the influences of the Sham, especially on the societal level, requires the “scientific holistic thinking” inherent to ER and complexity theory, which few humans naturally possess. In fact, it’s possible, or wise to think, that it’s unnatural for ALL humans. Like how it’s wise to think that a human can only be just rational enough to recognize they’re fundamentally non-rational, it’s wise for an extralogical reasoner to believe that scientific holistic thinking was just natural enough for them to learn that’s it’s unnatural. 

 

Being the products of a simpler environment, people suffer from the causation bias: the natural human tendency to be way too quick to assume the relationship between cause and effect will be ascertainable and satisfying. Related to the bias are the causal defects: the underestimation of the number of variables/factors involved in causality, the complexity of the interactions between the variables, and the power of self-organization, or the ability of complex systems like societies to organize themselves without conscious direction. Many lack an appreciation for the magnitude of the Sham because they don’t understand how much the World is self-organized, and how limited individual humans can influence it.  

 

Bishko one said, “People don’t so much want to be successful so much as they want to be more successful than OTHER PEOPLE.” This is called competitiveness. Science and engineering are areas to outcompete other people. 

 

Humans became technologically advanced in a short geologic order in large part due to competition amongst nations, fields, and industries; and competitiveness is augmented by certain types of irrationality, if it’s rational at all. Without fierce inner-species competition, it would have greatly slowed—if not prevented—humanity’s transformation into an advanced civilization. And don’t forget, a high survival rate depends on advanced medicine, which, in turn, relies on other advancements.  

 

Counterintuitive though it may seem to most, scientific advancement also relies upon irrationality INTELLECTUALLY. The combination of cooperation and competition makes fields more self-corrective--proving things wrong is, after all, an essential part of proving things right. As I’ve said in other posts, ninety-nine percent of the true history of science is the story of geniuses who spent their entire careers developing scientific theories that ultimately proved to be ninety-nine percent wrong. And they weren’t just wrong in hindsight or in light of future information—even at the time they were questionable. But for the right, or closer to right, theories to get the necessary competition and catalysts, you need smart people believing in questionable ideas. 

 

People want to believe and understand things for reasons other than correctness and straightforward utility. One reason is simply because they WANT to have opinions on certain topics, especially in their areas of interest. It would seem odd to be obsessively devoted to something without having opinions about it. In other words, if scientists didn’t want to have opinions about science, they wouldn’t be scientists, and lacking information about the relevant facets of nature, which was arguably the norm throughout history, never stopped them. 

 

Humans have great similarities but still have unique personalities; they have a tendency to conform and want to “fit in” but still have a desire to be unique. This led to different biases, inclinations, and different schools of thought—but not so many that it prevented them from eventually uniting under the same paradigms. In short, science has an adequate mix of cooperation, competition, and unity because there isn’t too little or too much variation in individual psychologies. In addition, scientific discovery requires a myopic doggedness that requires at least a temporary deviation from what otherwise be considered wise and rational thinking. 

 

While the ability to think about things from different points of view speaks well of the wisdom of an individual, it turns out that for the field in the long run, it may be better to have each point of view delegated to groups myopically fixated on them, as opposed to having individuals appreciating them all. It’s commonly believed that lack of national competition and the less individualistic thinking inherent to collectivist societies in the East is responsible for their lack of scientific advancement following the Middle Ages.  

 

Finally, the advancement of technology on Earth has been heavily motivated by people’s addiction to it—a result of irrationality. Technology and science depend on other science and technology, and without a scientific-industrial complex driven by a society desperately seeking technology, progress is limited.  

 

It should be remembered, however, that a million years is not a long amount of geologic time, nor a long lifetime for a species in the WILD. A catalyst is mechanism that offers a process already prone to occur a context, path, or means of occurring—it is not a true CAUSE. An enzyme, for instance, never makes otherwise impossible chemical reactions occur; it just interacts with reactants (and/or surrounding molecules) in a way that lowers the energy required for reactions to happen in sufficient time. They are essential to life—biology--but not to a given reaction—chemistry—nor do they change the energy of the relevant products and reactants. Similarly, the competitions above were probably not truly required for the achievements they influenced. Plus, there are other incentives for creating technology: Environmental disasters and wars and other competitions with another sentient species, for instance.   

 

 

An Excursion into Free Will and Lying 

 

As mentioned, by all appearances, a naturally-selected thinking organ must be able to imagine different possible answers to a question and must be capable of being wrong. For every correct answer, there can be any number of possible ones. However attached fields can become to certain ideas, the scientific process has rejected far more ideas than it’s accepted. The two most famous philosophers of science, TS Kuhn and Karl Popper, both posited that scientific progress should center around proving things wrong: Popper thought it should be done INTENTIONALLY through falsification; Kuhn UNINTENTIONALLY through the cataclysmic failure of field to prove a paradigm correct, and, in doing so, give rise to a new one. 

 

Counterfactual thinking along with the need for animals to practice other forms of deception would seem to give rise to the comprehension of lying, and competition within the pack should provide the incentive to lie as well as an impetus for the natural selection of intelligence. The ability to deceive your peers is a type of social intelligence, which, in turn, could have desirable cognitive byproducts. Obviously, a culture could suppress the tendency to lie, but it's doubtful to disappear completely—though it’d be awfully interesting if the “skill” was “lost.” 

 

If a species couldn’t or had a limited ability to lie, I think it’s likely they would be telepathic (see article on "relativistic subquantum kinetics" for discussion on telepathy and other super-human abilities). This is by no means impossible in a species with much higher electrical nerve conduction. One should remember, though, that having a sensory perception doesn’t necessarily make it especially powerful (think of humans’ olfaction); applicable to all animals (perhaps limited to conspecifics, competitors, prey, or predator); or capable, or equally capable, of both transmitting and receiving (think of reading thoughts passively vs. sending thoughts or extracting them to or from another thinking organ). That said, if the telepathy were sufficiently high amongst conspecifics and lacked the ability to “block” another’s telepathy, it would make lying difficult. If a pack doesn’t lie amongst themselves, it would markedly reduce the chances they’d lie to other packs, clans, or related species, at least in the wild.   

 

Remember that the perception and belief in something, like Free Will, can vary in magnitude and nature just as telepathy could. The ability to lie increases agency and requires counterfactual thinking. A species with a lesser ability to lie, especially a highly telepathic one, might have a lower perception of Free Will. But as said, since they should be able to imagine different answers, this seems to lead to the notion of CHOICE.

 

The effects of precognition, which seems more improbable and likely impossible, would depend on unknown elements of physics. Is the Universe deterministic? Would a precog see possible futures or futures from different but very similar universes (or would the distinction matter)? Could they change possible futures? Is there even such a thing as time? Even if it didn’t exist, the PERCEPTION of time, like the perception of Free Will, could be a requirement for sentience. 

 

It would be interesting if a eusocial, or hive, species had castes with different superhuman senses. Perhaps they would be reserved for the queen or upper caste. In The Three Body Problem, it would be even more interesting if the upper caste were lying to humans about their inability to lie in order to deceive their OWN species.  

 

 

But the questions remain: What would a sapient society look like? Would a sapient species be more or less advanced? Even if the average person were smarter, if the top percentage weren’t markedly smarter, I think it’s less likely they would have advanced as quickly, if at all. While I don’t think the correlation between intelligence and wisdom and the capacity to be logical and the inclination to be so are as high as most people think (especially smart people), there remains correlations, nonetheless. Less irrationality would limit competition and addiction to technology and the otherwise resulting scientific-industrial complex. I imagine a sapient species with a more agrarian society comprised of collectivist communities and population control, if necessary. This would not be compulsory collectivism like you see in communist and socialist societies, but VOLITIONAL. And when I think about a society of these beings, I and everyone I know with epistemic POLs become a lot more human. As James Madison said, “if men were angels, no government would be necessary.” No one with an epistemic POL is an angel. Before I wrote this, I imagined a sapient species mostly cutting off scientific advancement and becoming ecologically responsible a little after WW2. After a few days of writing, however, I recognized the silliness of this scenario: If humans were sapient, the species’ prior history would have been completely different.       

 

Such a people might be less inclined to discover an epistemic POL because they wouldn’t be as exposed to their own weaknesses, especially if society weren’t as scientifically advanced. A highly populated, industrialized, and technologically advanced society is not something people are well-suited to understand--but this is largely why I understand it. Having lived in one, I came to better understand myself and human beings, and more appreciate the need for a POL. Although few people take sufficient advantage of the research that’s verified humankind’s universal cognitive and psychological weaknesses and similar phenomena, those inclined to develop epistemic POL’s do. In fact, this species might not ever become advanced enough to realize they have the HYPOTHETICAL potential to parasitize the Planet into a mass extinction, not without the development of complexity theory and other sciences. This would also depend on whether the laws of physics are simpler than they seem. This is a possibility, and if it be the case, much of the analysis above could change. 

 

Then the question becomes, how do you define sapience, if such a species may not get the catalysts and knowledge to discover an epistemic POL? Thus, while I’m not entirely abandoning my definition yet, I’m forced to concede that it’s much better at disqualifying species, which, of course, calls its utility into question.   

 

But that’s my analysis, nonetheless. While I might not have been terribly successful at answering the primary questions, hopefully the secondary questions and answers were edifying. Naturally, feedback is greatly needed.