Culture Squared

Our ability to pass non-genetic information, such as culture, to our descendants, is the genetic advancement which sets us apart from other animals. We call all non-genetically inherited human phenomena,  culture.

Our evolution is no longer dependent on random mutations in our DNA. Evolutionary principles also govern our collective ideas, cultures, sciences and faiths. Advancements in science have the potential to make our descendants unrecognisable to our ancestors. Our knowledge and experiences, correct or otherwise are being dictated to the world wide web, a virtual and actual brain of our cyborg collective.

What further advancement in information inheritance would a future species require, to be comparably superior to us?

I believe that ultimately, our descendants will be hard-wired into the knowledge bank that is the collective human experience, soon after birth, maybe even prenatally. If regulated on egalitarian principles then each of our descendants will be bestowed the entire recorded knowledge of humanity. We will access, learn from and in turn enrich this database with our own experiences.  If regulated on current capitalist principles then knowledge will be traded for experience or physical labour.

The evolution of this symbiosis  or "culture squared" has already overtaken our genetic change over time and will continue to do so at a hyperbolic rate.