Montes, Gabriel Axel. Causal biomimesis: self-replication as evolutionary consequence © 2017 Gabriel Axel Montes. All rights reserved. 1 Causal biomimesis: self-replication as evolutionary consequence Gabriel Axel Montes 1,2 * (0000-0002-0087-5101) 1 University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia 2 Hunter Medical Research Institute, Newcastle, Australia gabriel@neuralaxis.com Abstract. For millions of years, hominins have been engaged in tool-making and concomitant experimentation. This cognitive enterprise has eventually led to the creation of synthetic intelligence in the form of complex computing and artificial agents, whose purported purpose is to elucidate the workings of human biology and consciousness, automate tasks, and develop interventions for disease. However, much of the expensive research efforts invested in understanding complex natural systems has resulted in limited rewards for treatment of disease. This paper proposes the novel ‘causal biomimesis’ hypothesis: with respect to the relationship between humans and artificial life, the virtually inevitable intrinsic evolutionary consequence of tool-making and biomimetic efforts—and the capacity for objective thought and the scientific method itself—is the full-scale replication of human cognitive functionality, agency, and potentially consciousness in silico. This self-replication transpires through a cycle of anthropogenic biomimetic auto-catalysis driven by instrumental cognition—from objective reasoning in hominin tool-maker through to post-biological reproduction by synthetic agents— and is self-organized and co-enacted between agent and the produced artefactual aggregates. In light of this radical hypothesis, existential and ethical implications are considered for further exploration. Keywords: Artificial intelligence · Cognition · Biomimetics · Neuroscience · Neurophenomenology · Consciousness · Complexity · Philosophy · Robotics · Evolution · Psychology · Medicine · Anthropology · Mind-body 1 Introduction At present, rational human intelligence has reached a major milestone in its ability to create artificial intelligence (AI). The proliferation of AI has led to promises regarding its capabilities, which across the spectrum of opinion, appear to incite equal parts optimism and apprehension. There is an increasing interest in and adoption of artificial agents, such as robotic nurses and assistants for humans, meaning that the future holds a more ubiquitous presence of AI in rather plain sight that is in more intimate relationship with humans. The implications of AI for humanity implore more careful examinations of the motivations behind the development of AI. The field of biomimetics, developing technologies based the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems, invites a broader and deeper understanding of biology and cognition in order to more fully inform the technological development of synthetic agents. Scrutiny into the origins and workings of cognition in conscious agents, particularly Homo sapiens, can not only inform the construction of synthetic architectures, but may also reveal the inchoate origins of ‘artificiality’ within biological life itself. This paper will excavate the evolutionary development of cognition that precedes and underpins the observed drive in humans to develop artificial intelligence and agents. This examination will be juxtaposed with the commonly cited rational justifications for the development of synthetic life, and the evolutionary consequence of human cognitive capacities will be offered. The terms AI, artificial life, synthetic life, synthetic agents, and so forth will be used relatively interchangeably; the focus herein is the broader picture of human-AI evolution rather than the technical differences between those terms. This paper makes a case for Homo sapiens as an intermediate step in the evolution of life, based on a novel hypothesis about the evolutionary process itself, and serves as a theoretico- philosophical touchstone for further inquiry, research, and debate. 2 Instrumental Cognition: From Hand to Synthetic Agents “The hand supplies all instruments, and by its correspondence with the intellect gives [humankind] universal dominion.” ~ Sir C. Bell 2.1 Prehension