I just discovered the field of Evolutionary Epistemology and found that
it's very similar to my idea that culture evolves towards pragmatic truth.
I'll show below how I think it relates to Gregg's Tree of Knowledge.

"One of the hallmarks of evolutionary epistemology is the notion that
empirical testing alone does not justify the pragmatic value of scientific
theories, but rather that social and methodological processes select those
theories with the closest "fit" to a given problem. "

So, I think that the fitness landscape for culture is the domain of all
problems to be solved. Meaning in life comes from solving problems.
Cultural evolution is thus meaningful.

Here are some consequences of cultural evolution:

1) Culture evolves towards increasingly large-scale cooperation because
memes that coordinate larger populations are justified by the increasing
size of people of shared interest to cooperate around.
2) Transparency is selected because it solves problems of cooperation.
3) Epistemology progresses out of it's utility, and fiction is selected by
the degree it reveals deep truths of human experience. Art is selected by
how it reveals knowledge about abstract reality, the human psyche, and
human nature.
4) We become more pacified because nobody wants to suffer or die.
5) Commerce and Commodification expand because they facilitate cooperation
and increase wealth and growth.
6) Justice progresses because it solves problems, increases cooperation,
self control and dignity..
7) Neoteny increases because it improves learnability, pacification,
transparency, and creativity.

The question is whether or not there will continue to be problems to solve
so life will continue to be meaningful. Maybe we'll slowly fizzle out from
lack of problems. Many worry that automation will take away meaning, and
this could be accompanied by an "end of inquiry" whereby there is no more
growing to be done. The cultural superorganism selects for "those who bear
good fruit". And maybe for efficiency, the superorganism will expel those
who don't bear good fruit in a kind of cultural apoptosis.

In Gregg's Justification Hypothesis humans became self-aware because of the
need to justify our actions to others. In the Global Village, the others
are the rest of the world. So everyone will have to provide value to the
world in some way. It might not be so bad in that the world might value all
sorts of people.

"*A right is what's good for the group for the individual to have"*

*"Morals are the rules by which a society exhorts its members to its order,
security and growth"*

- Will Durant, The Lessons of History

I think Gregg's theory predicts that we as individuals must eventually make
ourselves justified by the standards of the justification system the world
converges on. This certainly isn't good news for lots of people. But the
group must serve the individual as much as the individual must serve the
group.

Will Durant also states that "States will only unite when threatened from
without"

And the current threat from without is immigration.

Also, this would imply that the world can never unite in peace. Or perhaps
states will even lose justification for their existence as the world
approaches sufficient peace and prosperity because cooperation at the state
level might be justified by threats from without. Maybe the world can unite
in peace to solve problems bigger than state ego battles, such as problems
humans have thus far not dared to imagine, such as death and suffering
themselves.

I have an idea about how the Singleton could emerge from the collective and
the world won't be ruled by an individuated singleton.

The people draw information out of the web while the web draws information
out of the people, along with a convergent justification system and body of
knowledge. Of course, it already does this but this will only increase, and
maybe indefinitely. This is part of the process of integration into a
collective singleton.  Basically, the web becomes integrated and pruned
such that it becomes a kind of an emergent meta-ego that everyone
participates in.

Jamie

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