The second natural law discerned from the workings of the Earth System is the process – response law. This law strongly affected past phylogenies; and, it will be applicable to the future phylogeny of humankind. This is the Law of Actualism based upon James Hutton’s [1726-1797] Principle of Uniformity as follows.
“The record of the past could be interpreted on the assumption that processes at work today operated in the same way and at similar rates.” [Stern et al., 1979]. From this the Law of Actualism is developed i.e. “Physical processes at work today operate consistently in the same way whether in past, present or future, if all environmental conditions remain equal. Moreover, under such conditions they will produce the same responses”.
Scientists are well aware that the mega-processes, such as erosion transportation and deposition, do not occur at constant rates because they are affected by so many variables, however, the micro-processes such as hydrogen and oxygen combing to produce water under specific fixed conditions are invariant in the past, present or future. There is a question of resolution that needs to be established when applying this law because it does not mean that a particular observed phenomenon, or end-product, can only be produced in one way. In the real world a process takes place and results in a response, but unless the system is micro-monitored there is an information loss pertaining to the cause(s): this is the resolution problem and is responsible for difficulties that occur when using a process - response model in natural science. It may not be clear that a particular phenomenon is the consequence of a particular cause or series of causes. For example, an organism may die in a real environment such as a lake but it is the depositional environment i.e. the mud on the floor of the lake where that organism is entombed, preserved and later becomes part of the rock record that is studied by the paleobiologist to elucidate the original environment in which the organism lived. Unfortunately, there is a loss of information from that original environment to the preserved environment in that the rocks do not contain all of the information that was in the original environment. Thus when it comes to interpreting a particular response [the presence of a particular type of fossil] deductive reasoning using the available information [diminished by loss] may not allow a single conclusion, and thus opens the way to an interpretive choice from amongst more than one processes. A typical example would be the presence in sediment of fossilized remains of an organism known to be indicative of saline water depths of say 50 to 150 feet [e. g. a particular species of coral]. The normal conclusion using the Law of Actualism is that the sediment containing the fossil was deposited in water depth of around 100 feet. However, there are at least two other possible processes that could give the same response [i. e. the presence of the fossil in the sediment]. In one case the fossil could be weathered out of a rock deposited during an earlier time and recycled into the sediment in which it is found. In a second case the organism could have lived in one environment [approximately 100 foot water depth] but, before consolidation into a rock, moved by currents into another environment by the process of reworking. If sufficient information is preserved along with the fossil it is possible to decide which of these conclusions is correct. Numerous logical reasoning methods are used by scientists to reduce the risk of error in interpretations of this sort.
Actualism is not only applicable to understanding the physical universe but can be applied to examining changes in social conditions to extract those aspects of society that are persistent or ubiquitous characteristics. The prime limiting factor when trying to understand the essence of society through a historical approach also is information loss. Consistently it can be observed that evolution of the social condition is intimately associated with the environment influencing the population at the time, but, history is as blind as are the rocks when it comes to understanding the details of how most social conditions are formed and how they developed. We rarely know with certainty the real stresses that provided the selection pressure on the ideas evolving in a particular population of individuals in the past. In his popular book ‘1066’, David Howarth [1977] provides an example of this. Despite a desire to define the daily social condition during the single year of 1066 in England the result is largely conjecture – even though it is excellent detective work [and a good read]. Large segments of history provide only an outline of social evolution, and the information loss is larger the further back in time one attempts to extract details. Detailed expositions in history generally are written by the future. Again this has relevance to our future phylogeny.
If it is important that the consciousness of our robotic descendents be imbued with the essence of humanity, how do we determine that essence when we know that history is biased and skews the definition of a previous social condition towards a present interpretation? Must science simply take humanity to be something defined in the ‘here and now’ by the standards of this age. If we are to confine ourselves to what we can presently discern, how do we encompass the ideas of the earlier philosophers other than statements simply to ponder: not knowing enough details to know whether or not they are true? The past is generally fuzzy and uncertain and perhaps these factors of uncertainty must be built into Robotico earthensis’ consciousness in the hope that this will provide flexibility for self-development.