Introduction
This article explores why a good “grand theory of everything” is equivalent to a “cosmology”, and attempts to define a grand theory of technological progress. I posit that universe-scale understandings are the necessary level of thoroughness required for theorizing complex technological or socio-political progress.
Using perspectives from different disciplines and the long-tail of history, helps deal with scale and complexity in a grounded way. Cosmologies exist as coherent models of the universe, bringing meaning to a complex world.
Defining Cosmology
Here’s some definitions of Cosmology in different contexts:
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as “an account/theory of the nature of the universe”
In Greek, “cosmeo” is “order”, and “logos” is “word” or “account” – an account of the ordered world
Wikipedia’s Cosmology page has sections on “Physical Cosmology” (scientific descriptions of cosmic origin), “Religious/Mythological Cosmology” and “Philosophical Cosmology”
Evidently, the notion of cosmology circumscribes understanding the world through multiple disciplines, spanning the gamut of:
The physical sciences, in how the universe formed and is composed of organic and inorganic matter
The nature of humanity and societies, with small group and individual dynamics as a microcosm thereof
The soft and hard technologies of linguistics, markets, the built environment, computer networks e.t.c., which encode structures of society
This multi-disciplinary nature of cosmological thinking should qualify any grand theory.
Different eras and peoples form cosmologies that describe the “grand theory” or ethos of their age. For example: hellenistic cosmology involved early democracy, a culture of debate, as well as pantheistic mythology; the later enlightenment cosmology encompassed heliocentric, empiricism, rationalism and capitalism. These two examples also point to how worldviews influence one another, as Hellenism informed the enlightenment through the Renaissance.
Cosmologies are suited to their time and place, consistent with understandings in that context; they then serve as the shoulders of giants on which new models of the world are built. Cosmologies are meaning making; people develop or adapt cosmologies in response to and as a way to shape their conditions.
Cosmological grand theories may/may not redefine the universe from the “ground up”, but they inevitably rely on assumptions about the nature of the universe or human society and how it is rightly ordered. Indeed, the strength of a grand theory is in how coherently it circumscribes multiple disciplines, how conscientiously it describes the past, and how accurately predicts the future.
Cosmological Theories of Progress
In any complex context with curious individuals, there’s a natural pull towards “grand theories of everything”. Let’s explore some grand theories of technological progress, and reflect on how cosmological thinking can strengthen them.
“Progress theory” came through contemplative voices in Silicon Valley theorizing the nature of technological progress. They chart 19th century, post-WW2 or early-internet organizations through the relationships and figures who birthed the space race or the modern tech industry – describing cycles of innovation and layers of the techno-industrial “stack”: from the roots of digital computation in the Industrial Revolution, through Turing-complete machines, distributed systems, networked computing and then to artificial intelligence, pointing towards a “singularity” of man-machine symbiosis and economic abundance.
This worldview ultimately follows the enlightenment. But one could argue that the psycho-social aspects of this theory are incomplete in that, for e.g. universal basic income is likely an insufficient solution to AI’s threat to human work and sense of meaning. The philosophical frame of humans recreating themselves in AI as an analogue to God creating humans in his own image, insists a greater ethical responsibility over this technology and implies empowerment in AI being an extension of our will – one which nonetheless has negative and positive implications, much like promethean fire.
In Nigeria’s tech and entrepreneurship context, the “grand theory” of progress focused on startups as a microcosm for social and technological innovation that could unlock lasting progress. The core assumptions were influenced by Silicon Valley, proffering technology services-based industry that’d allow a “leapfrogging” of traditional industrial development. This conviction was commonplace in the past decade, when well-funded companies in payments and logistics had notable impact in streamlining commerce, and Lagos’ startup scene attracted visits from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg.
This theory performed yet faltered — financial technology and services hasn’t quite weathered the stress of geopolitics, poor governance and a weakly industrialized economy. Along with these, narrow industrial development and poor social cohesion has formed a vicious cycle – the nation’s economy spirals, the citizen’s quality of life severely worsens, and corruption is ubiquitous – so people don’t trust existing systems, and are more focused on survival than earnest engagement and rebuilding. Clearly there’s a need for more structural solutions at both grand and granular scales.
Conclusion
A multi-disciplinary approach to Nigeria’s innovation challenge is the particular “grand theory” we seek to build at surulere.dev. We’re preaching and (eventually) practicing a cosmology that enables “world-building and repair” – creating new technology and industry as well as societal identity and cultural relationships, while working around deep problems.
Some key tenets of our developing theory are alternative outlooks to a capital-heavy technology industry, the inefficient representative democratic cycle, and un-grounded public education/orientation — all of which render a sense of lack of power or options in intervening in the world.
Our approaches include regenerative sustainability or permaculture, comparative anthropology, and integrative psychoanalysis, as promising solution spaces alongside information technology — respectively in: organizing people to leverage abundant organic resources, orienting distinct cultural identities around common humanity, and considering psychological archetypes to heal conflict and maximize generativity.
Combining these approaches resolves some potential pitfalls in a purely technological approach, using a multi-discplinary approach, with an ecological and historical basis that grounds these in reality.
Our next articles will focus more on examples of these approaches, and how they fit together to de-risk and provide structural solutions to progress in Nigeria.