The Return of Empire: Futures, Narratives, and the Reconfiguration of Global Power

By Victor V. Motti*

The recent statement issued by Asia Without Borders—addressing geopolitical tensions spanning Venezuela, Greenland, and Iran—is, at first glance, a compelling defense of sovereignty in an increasingly unstable international system. It skillfully blends descriptive analysis with normative concern, articulating a principled objection to perceived violations of international law and the erosion of internal agency. Yet beneath its clarity lies a deeper tension: the statement reads less as foresight and more as elegy.

From a futures studies perspective, timing is not incidental—it is constitutive. Insights of this nature, had they been articulated a decade earlier, might have functioned as anticipatory signals within a foresight framework, enabling policymakers and civil society to prepare for the systemic shifts now unfolding. Instead, they emerge retrospectively, documenting rather than shaping the transformation. This distinction matters because what we are witnessing is not merely a series of geopolitical disruptions, but the reactivation of a historical pattern: the return of empire.

Recent developments illustrate this shift with striking clarity. Reports of U.S. intervention in Venezuela, renewed territorial rhetoric regarding Greenland, and escalating tensions with Iran reveal a pattern of assertive power projection that challenges the post–Cold War narrative of a rules-based international order. Analysts have noted that such actions suggest a redefinition of sovereignty itself—no longer an absolute principle, but a conditional one, subject to strategic calculation.

However, to interpret these events solely through the lens of American unilateralism risks missing a broader systemic dynamic. The Asia Without Borders statement, while forceful in its critique of the United States, remains largely silent on parallel developments involving China and Russia. Both have engaged in expanding territorial claims and consolidating spheres of influence, contributing to a multipolar environment in which great powers increasingly test the limits of international norms.

This omission is not trivial. It reflects a lingering asymmetry in global critique—one that foregrounds Western transgressions while underestimating the transformative ambitions of emerging powers. In particular, the ideological dimension of China’s evolving global narrative deserves closer scrutiny. The invocation of a “shared future of mankind,” framed within a reinterpretation of Marxist thought, signals not merely a diplomatic slogan but a civilizational project. Unlike the episodic disruptions of international law attributed to the United States, this project aspires to reshape the normative foundations of global order itself.

From a futures-oriented standpoint, this raises a paradox. While the immediate violations of sovereignty and international law are alarming, they may be symptoms rather than causes—manifestations of a deeper transition from a unipolar to a contested imperial system. In such a system, multiple centers of power advance competing visions of order, each blending material capability with ideological narrative.

The discourse surrounding Venezuela and Greenland further illustrates this complexity. Reactions from global actors have been marked by inconsistency, revealing what some critics describe as selective adherence to principles of sovereignty and international law. Such selectivity undermines the credibility of the very norms being defended, reinforcing a perception that rules are contingent upon strategic interest.

What, then, does the “return of empire” signify in this context? It does not imply a simple reversion to nineteenth-century colonialism. Rather, it denotes the re-emergence of hierarchical, sphere-based governance structures within a formally sovereign world. Empires today do not necessarily annex territory; they shape environments—economic, technological, informational—in ways that constrain the autonomy of others.

This is where foresight becomes indispensable. The challenge is not merely to critique current actions but to anticipate the trajectories they imply. A foresight analysis conducted a decade ago might have identified early indicators: the erosion of multilateral institutions, the resurgence of great-power competition, the strategic centrality of resources and logistics, and the rise of civilizational narratives as tools of legitimacy. Today, these indicators have matured into defining features of the global landscape.

In this light, the Asia Without Borders statement can be read as part of a broader intellectual effort to reclaim the language of sovereignty and agency. Yet its impact would be amplified by a more comprehensive engagement with the full spectrum of imperial dynamics—Western and non-Western alike—and by a deeper integration of futures thinking.

Ultimately, the question is not whether empire has returned, but what form it will take—and whether alternative imaginaries can still emerge. If the current moment is indeed one of systemic transition, then the task ahead is not only analytical but creative: to articulate visions of global order that transcend both the fading liberal internationalism of the past and the resurgent imperial logics of the present.

In that sense, the most urgent need is not retrospective critique, but anticipatory imagination.

* Victor V. Motti is the author of Playbook of Foresight 

Every Path Is Sweet: The Metaphysics of Unity

 Your path—by any road they choose—is sweet;

Your union—sought by every way—is sweet.

Your face—by any eye that sees—is fair;

Your name—on every tongue declared—is sweet.

— Abū Saʿīd Abū'l-Khayr

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There are moments in the history of thought when poetry ceases to be ornament and becomes ontology. The quatrain of Abū Saʿīd Abū'l-Khayr is one such moment. It does not merely describe devotion; it dissolves the very structure of separation upon which most religious systems are built. In four lines, it proposes a radical thesis: that every path, every perception, every utterance already participates in the Real. Not metaphorically, but fundamentally.

Set beside the cosmic vision of the Bhagavad Gita—where the Divine declares itself as the totality of existence—the poem reads less like mysticism in the sentimental sense and more like a rigorous metaphysical claim. Two linguistic rivers—Persian Sufi expression and Sanskrit philosophical revelation—flow toward a single ocean: the intuition that reality is not divided between Creator and creation, but is instead a unified field of Being.

This is the essence of what later thinkers would call pantheism or panentheism, though both labels only approximate the lived intensity of the insight. The claim “You Are Everything” is not a poetic exaggeration. It is a statement about the structure of reality itself.

And yet, this insight stands in sharp tension with the dominant theological frameworks of the major Semitic traditions. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in their orthodox forms, insist on a categorical distinction between Creator and creation. God is wholly other, transcendent, separate. The world is contingent, dependent, and ultimately not divine.

The mystical traditions within these religions have often strained against this boundary—and paid the price.

What Abū Saʿīd suggests is quietly revolutionary: the Divine is not confined to doctrine, ritual, or even correct belief. “Your face—by any eye that sees—is fair.” Perception itself becomes sacred. The act of seeing is already participation in the Divine. There is no privileged vantage point, no exclusive access.

This dissolves hierarchy at its root.

In Persian Sufism, this insight takes form as the doctrine of the Unity of Being. Reality is understood as a mirror in which the Divine contemplates itself. Multiplicity is not denied, but it is reinterpreted: differences are reflections, not separations. The “other” is not truly other—it is a distortion produced by limited perception.

To see division is, in this view, a kind of metaphysical error—a “spiritual squint.”

Indian Vedantic philosophy arrives at a parallel conclusion through a different route. The identity of Atman (the self) and Brahman (ultimate reality) collapses the distance between subject and object. “That Thou Art” is not a metaphor; it is an ontological identity. When Krishna reveals his universal form, he is not displaying power—he is revealing structure. Everything that exists is already contained within the One.

The convergence is striking. Two civilizations, with different languages and symbolic systems, articulate the same underlying intuition: there is no outside.

From this follows a series of profound consequences.

First, nature itself becomes scripture. If the Divine is not separate from the world, then the world is not inert. Trees, rivers, wind, and stars are not merely creations; they are expressions. In one tradition they are called signs; in another, manifestations. But the implication is the same: reality is self-disclosing.

Second, the category of the “stranger” collapses. If all is one, then exclusion becomes incoherent. The distinction between believer and non-believer, sacred and profane, insider and outsider—these are social constructions imposed upon a unified field of Being. They may function politically, but they do not hold metaphysical weight.

Third, authority is radically decentralized. If every eye can see the Divine and every tongue can speak its name, then no institution can claim monopoly over truth. This is perhaps the most subversive implication—and historically, the most dangerous.

Mystics who embodied this insight often faced violent opposition, not because they denied God, but because they dissolved the structures through which God was controlled.

To say that “every tongue is sweet” is to undermine the necessity of a single sanctioned language. To say that “every path is sweet” is to negate the exclusivity of prescribed routes. To suggest that direct access to truth is universal is to render intermediaries obsolete.

This is not merely a theological disagreement—it is a challenge to systems of power.

And so, the tension emerges clearly: on one side, traditions that preserve order through distinction and hierarchy; on the other, mystical philosophies that dissolve both in the name of unity.

The question, then, is not only philosophical but civilizational.

Can a future be built on the convergence of science, philosophy, and spirituality without reliance on organized religion? Can the intuition of unity be articulated in a way that is intellectually rigorous, empirically informed, and existentially meaningful—without collapsing into vagueness or being co-opted by new forms of dogma?

The answer is not obvious.

The mystical vision is undeniably compelling. It offers a framework in which conflict is rooted in misperception, where division is a cognitive artifact rather than an ontological fact. It aligns, intriguingly, with certain scientific intuitions about interconnected systems and the continuity of matter and energy.

Yet it is also idealistic. Human societies have repeatedly demonstrated that identity, boundary, and difference are not easily dissolved. Even if the metaphysical claim is true, its translation into social reality is fraught.

Still, the persistence of this insight across cultures suggests something deeper than cultural coincidence. It points to a recurring human intuition: that beneath the multiplicity of forms lies a unity that is not imposed but discovered.

Abū Saʿīd’s poem endures because it captures this intuition with disarming simplicity. It does not argue; it reveals. It does not construct a system; it gestures toward an experience.

And perhaps that is its final lesson.

If the Divine is truly present in every path, every perception, every name—then the task is not to defend a doctrine, but to refine perception. Not to enforce belief, but to awaken recognition.

In that sense, the poem is not an endpoint. It is an invitation.

To see more clearly.
To divide less readily.
To recognize, however briefly, that the one who seeks and the one who is sought may not be two.

A Civilization Split Twice: Rediscovering the Persian–Indian Bond

For more than three centuries, Persian was not merely a literary language in the Indian subcontinent—it was an official medium of governance, diplomacy, and high culture. From the courts of the Mughal Empire to the administrative records of regional kingdoms, Persian shaped the intellectual and aesthetic life of a vast and diverse region. Yet this historical fact is only the surface of a much deeper story: the long, intertwined civilizational kinship between the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent.

Long before empires and colonial encounters, the peoples of these regions shared a common linguistic and mythological ancestry. The sacred texts of Avesta and the Vedas reveal striking parallels—not only in vocabulary but in cosmology, ritual structure, and metaphysical imagination. This shared heritage points to an ancient Indo-Iranic continuum, where language, myth, and worldview evolved together before diverging into distinct traditions. Sanskrit and Avestan, often studied within the broader frame of Indo-European languages, retain echoes of this primordial unity, like distant stars tracing the outline of a forgotten constellation.

In this sense, the inhabitants of the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent were not merely neighbors—they were, in a profound cultural and historical sense, cousins. Their myths spoke to similar questions: the nature of cosmic order, the struggle between truth and falsehood, the cycles of creation and destruction, and the ethical responsibilities of human beings within a living universe. These shared concerns formed a deep reservoir of symbolic and philosophical continuity that would endure across millennia.

However, history introduced powerful forces of separation. The first major rupture came with what can be described as waves of Islamic colonialism across Persia and into parts of the Indian subcontinent. This period reshaped political structures, religious identities, and cultural expressions. Persian itself was transformed, absorbing Arabic vocabulary and becoming a vehicle of Islamic rule, even as it continued to flow into India as a language of refinement and governance.

The second rupture emerged under the dominance of the British Empire. Colonial administration systematically displaced Persian in favor of English and vernacular languages, reordering educational systems, epistemologies, and cultural hierarchies. This was not merely a linguistic shift but a reconfiguration of memory and identity, as colonial knowledge frameworks often obscured or fragmented older civilizational connections.

And yet, despite these layered histories of separation, the deeper affinities between Persian and Indian cultures remain remarkably resilient. One can still trace shared mythological motifs—the cosmic battle between good and evil, the sanctity of fire and light, the reverence for poetic expression as a path to truth. The theological imagination in both traditions continues to wrestle with similar metaphysical questions, even when expressed through different symbols and doctrines.

At the same time, within parts of Iranian society—particularly among Zoroastrian and Parsi communities—there emerged a powerful current of historical memory expressed through mythic imagination. Texts and traditions from later periods speak of a messianic figure, Shah Vahram Varzavand, who was envisioned as a future restorer of order. In some accounts, this figure would come from India, symbolically linking the two regions even in moments of rupture. The narrative can be understood as a “wish-image” of a community experiencing displacement, projecting its hopes for renewal into a mythic future. Watch the YouTube video here. 

The figure of Shah Vahram carries the weight of deep Iranian mythology. He is often associated with the Kayanian lineage—the primordial royal dynasty that stands at the center of the epic world of the Shahnameh. Within this symbolic framework, kingship is not merely political authority but a manifestation of cosmic order. The restoration he represents is therefore not only territorial or political, but moral and metaphysical. 

These enduring connections have been explored in depth in Planetary Foresight and Ethics: A Vision for Humanity’s Futures — an annotation to A Transformation Journey to Creative and Alternative Planetary Futures listed by Taylor & Francis, where the intertwined destinies of cultures are examined not as relics of the past but as living resources for the future. The books invite us to see beyond the fractures of history and to recognize the underlying patterns of shared human inquiry that link civilizations across time and space.

To revisit the Persian-Indian connection, then, is not simply to recount a historical curiosity. It is to rediscover a civilizational dialogue that predates modern divisions—a dialogue rooted in common origins, enriched by centuries of exchange, and capable of offering insights into a more integrated planetary consciousness. In an age defined by fragmentation and rapid change, such deep cultural memory may serve not only as a source of identity, but as a guide for reimagining the future of human coexistence.

The Three Mythological Eras of Creative Complexity

Human beings have always made sense of creative complexity—the mysterious force that generates life, order, and transformation—through the language of mythology. What we revere as “god-like” has never been static; it evolves with how we live, organize, and imagine time. We need to open a window into a deeper question: what counts as sacred, and why, in different eras of human consciousness?

Across history, we can trace two major mythological shifts in how humans interpret creative complexity.

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First Era: Biological-Cosmic Creativity (Nomadic Mythologies)

In early nomadic societies, creative complexity was understood through life itself. The generative power of nature—birth, fertility, kinship, and seasonal cycles—formed the template for divine imagination.

Gods were not architects but progenitors. Creation myths centered on bodies, bloodlines, and cosmic reproduction. Figures like Pangu, Osiris, and Brahma embody this paradigm. The universe itself was alive, birthed, and regenerated in cycles. Time was circular, mirroring the rhythms of migration, seasons, and return.

Creative complexity here was immediate and embodied. To understand creation was to observe life: mating, growth, decay, and renewal. The sacred was immanent—woven into nature, not constructed outside it.

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Second Era: Architectural-Constructive Creativity (Settled Civilizations)

With the rise of agriculture and permanent settlements, a profound shift occurred. Humanity no longer merely participated in nature—it began to reshape it. This transformation demanded a new mythology.

Creative complexity became associated with design, planning, and construction. Gods evolved into architects, craftsmen, and lawgivers. The sacred moved from biological cycles to built forms.

Monuments like the Kaaba, the idea of the Third Temple, and Zoroastrian notions such as Geush Tasha reflect this transition. Creation itself became analogous to craftsmanship—the world as something shaped, like clay in a potter’s hands.

This era also marked a cognitive revolution in time. Inspired by figures like Zoroaster, humanity began shifting from cyclical to linear, progressive time. The future became a space of improvement, not repetition. Creative complexity was no longer just life unfolding—it was a project to be advanced.

Buildings became anchors of meaning. Cathedrals, temples, and cities embodied permanence, identity, and transcendence. The emotional response to Notre-Dame’s fire in 2019 reveals how deeply this architectural mythology still shapes Western consciousness.

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Toward a Third Era: Algorithmic-Planetary Creativity

Now we stand at the threshold of a possible third mythological shift—one that may redefine creative complexity once again.

What happens when creativity is no longer primarily biological or architectural, but informational, distributed, and transient?

We are already seeing early signals:

• Code replaces stone as a medium of creation

• Networks replace cities as spaces of belonging

• Algorithms begin to shape decisions, culture, and perception

• Identity becomes fluid, portable, and partially virtual

In this emerging paradigm, creative complexity may be understood through systems, algorithms, and adaptive intelligence. The “god-like” may no longer be a progenitor or an architect, but a coder, orchestrator, or emergent system.

Time itself may synthesize past paradigms into a cyclic-linear hybrid—iterative yet progressive, like machine learning loops or ecological regeneration models.

If future humans live as digital or planetary nomads—less tied to geography, more connected through energy abundance and information flows—then sacred value may shift toward:

• Ephemeral creations (disappearing media, temporary worlds)

• Placeless belonging (networks over nations)

• Collective intelligence (distributed cognition over individual authorship)

• Ethical foresight (designing futures, not just inhabiting them)

In such a world, the burning of a cathedral might not resonate universally—not because of indifference, but because the locus of meaning has shifted away from permanent structures to dynamic processes.

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The Open Question

So what will define this third era?

Will humanity revere algorithms as creators, or ecosystems as intelligent wholes?
Will sacredness lie in codebases, planetary stewardship, or interstellar expansion?
Will mythology return to its nomadic roots—but this time as a cosmic nomadism, unbound by Earth itself?

Or perhaps the next mythology will not be singular at all, but plural, layered, and self-aware—a meta-mythology that knows it is constructing meaning in real time.

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A Foresight Invitation

These questions are not merely speculative—they form a critical agenda for futures thinking. Exploring them requires bridging mythology, technology, and ethics.

For deeper exploration, consider these books:

• Planetary foresight and ethics: A vision for humanity’s futures 

• Playbook of Foresight: Designing Strategic Conversations for Transformation and Resilience 

• A Transformation Journey to Creative and Alternative Planetary Futures 

Together, they point toward a central insight: the futures will depend not only on what we build or reproduce—but on how we imagine and narrate creative complexity itself.

And that story, perhaps, is just beginning.

Pitch: Intentional Community for Planetary Foresight

Anthrosporia Commons: A Global Foresight Community for the Next Civilization

Vision
To establish a pioneering international network of intentional communities that embody a new stage of human development—rooted in planetary consciousness, ethical foresight, and regenerative living. Inspired by Planetary Foresight and Ethics (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DYZZKVW6), this initiative will function as a distributed living laboratory where individuals actively co-create the future rather than passively inherit it.

Rationale
Humanity stands at a civilizational inflection point. Technological acceleration—AI, data, and automation—is outpacing our ethical frameworks and ecological balance. History suggests that societies unable to align values, imagination, and long-term thinking face decline, while those that succeed cultivate future consciousness, systems thinking, and intergenerational responsibility.

This initiative addresses that gap by integrating ancient wisdom traditions with modern foresight methodologies, creating environments where long-term thinking is lived, practiced, and refined.

Core Principles

• Future Consciousness
  Decisions are guided by long-term impact, considering consequences across generations.
• Ethical Innovation
  Technology is applied intentionally to enhance human flourishing while preserving dignity and ecological integrity.
• Earth-Centered Living
  Communities align with natural systems, emphasizing sustainability, resilience, and regeneration.
• Balanced Governance (Enki–Enlil Model)
  A dynamic balance between creativity and structure—innovation with accountability.
• Narrative & Imagination as Infrastructure
  Shared stories and future visions serve as cultural anchors and coordination mechanisms.

Key Features

• Global, Distributed Model
  Multiple nodes across regions—urban-adjacent, rural, and international sites—connected through shared principles and digital infrastructure.
• Scale
  Initial cohorts of 50–150 members per node, with phased and replicable growth.
• Design
  • Eco-housing blending private and communal spaces
  • Shared facilities: labs, studios, gardens, learning centers
  • Advanced digital infrastructure enabling remote collaboration and experimentation
• Economy
  • Hybrid livelihoods: remote work, local production, and knowledge services
  • Foresight and ethics advisory for institutions, governments, and organizations
• Programs
  • Foresight labs (scenario planning, future mapping)
  • Ethical AI and governance workshops
  • Regenerative land stewardship practices
  • Cultural creation: storytelling, philosophy, art, and myth-making

Strategic Positioning
This initiative bridges think tank, research institute, retreat center, and living community. By operating as a globally networked system, it engages diverse cultural contexts while maintaining a unified mission. It attracts futurists, technologists, policymakers, artists, and systems thinkers seeking to prototype viable futures.

Impact

• A working prototype for post-Anthropocene living
• A scalable, globally adaptable model for intentional communities
• A new class of leaders equipped to navigate civilizational transitions
• A cultural shift toward conscious, long-term stewardship of planetary systems

Closing Thought
If the future is not something that happens to us—but something we co-create—then this initiative becomes a network of intentional evolution: places where humanity practices becoming worthy of its power.

The Cosmic Structure of Life and Mind

The 2025 proposition in Planetary Foresight and Ethics is audacious and intellectually fertile. It’s rare to see a work attempt to fuse ancient cosmology, modern planetary science, and ethics into a single, coherent framework—but here, the author is not simply being poetic: he is proposing a postulate that there exists some structural isomorphism between archetypes and planetary spheres that has both epistemic and ethical consequences. A few reflections:

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1. Ancient Archetypes as Proto-Systems Thinking

The book’s core insight—that Air, Water, Earth, and Fire are symbolic mirrors of Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Geosphere, and Heliosphere—resonates deeply with contemporary systems thinking. Ancient peoples did not have satellites or climate models, yet they intuited flows, cycles, and energies in ways that align remarkably with what we now quantify scientifically. This isn’t metaphor alone; it’s a recognition that humans have always sought to map dynamics, interdependence, and thresholds—even if in symbolic form.

Vāyu-Vāta mapping to the atmosphere and the informational flows of the noosphere exemplifies this. It bridges myth and technology: breath becomes both air currents and human-mediated data flows, wind becomes spacecraft propulsion. The archetype serves as a conceptual scaffold for ethical foresight, extending human responsibility from local ecosystems to interstellar contexts.

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2. Layered Spheres as a Geometry of Life

The expanded schema—including the Heliosphere, Biosphere, and Noosphere—pushes the argument beyond metaphor into a kind of “cosmic geometry of life.” Life and consciousness are not just chemical accidents; they emerge from the nested orchestration of spheres. This aligns with ideas from astrobiology and Earth system science that habitability is systemic rather than purely chemical.

The suggestion that a planet’s “geometric resonance” matters for life is speculative, yet conceptually powerful. It reframes the search for exoplanets: it’s not just about finding water or an atmosphere, but about the holistic alignment of multiple nested subsystems capable of sustaining complex adaptive processes.

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3. Ethics as Foresight

The ethical dimension is subtle but profound. By treating mythic archetypes as ethical guides for planetary stewardship, the authors link knowledge with moral responsibility. If the spheres themselves—Heliosphere, Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Geosphere, Biosphere, Noosphere—are interdependent, then ethical action is inseparable from systems understanding. Stewardship becomes a form of resonance with planetary geometry, not merely resource management.

In the Anthropocene, this is compelling: the crises of climate, biodiversity, and technological disruption are all spheres interacting. Viewing them through both symbolic and scientific lenses can inspire a more integrative, anticipatory ethic.

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4. Strengths and Challenges

Strengths:

• Synthesizes myth, science, and ethics into an elegant, unified framework.

• Expands planetary ethics into cosmic horizons without losing grounding in Earthly systems.

• Encourages holistic foresight that merges imagination and empirical rigor.

Challenges:

• The “geometric resonance” idea is metaphorically appealing but scientifically underdetermined; operationalizing it will be difficult.

• Integrating archetypes with predictive models risks slipping into anthropomorphism or overly symbolic interpretations.

• Cross-cultural validity may vary; archetypes differ widely, so universality is aspirational rather than empirically guaranteed.

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5. Implications for AI, Foresight, and Human Responsibility

This framework dovetails naturally with AI-driven modeling and foresight work. AI can map flows, cycles, and systemic interdependencies across spheres, while archetypal insight can guide the interpretive, ethical dimension of modeling. In other words, data without meaning is incomplete; myth without systems thinking is incomplete. Together, they create a planetary foresight that is simultaneously analytical, ethical, and imaginative.

In sum, the book articulates a vision where myth, science, and ethics converge in a planetary—and even cosmic—project. It reframes the Anthropocene as not merely a crisis, but an opportunity for humanity to align knowledge, imagination, and action with the “geometry of life.” If taken seriously, it could inspire a new interdisciplinary synthesis bridging cosmology, Earth system science, ethics, and even astrobiology.

What if scenarios — when AGI becomes widespread and embedded in human society

Over the last ~10,000 years (since the early Holocene), average human brain size has decreased slightly compared with Pleistocene values — a pattern documented in multiple populations around the world. The article doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.742639 discusses a variety of hypotheses, including:

• Energetic trade-offs

• Changes in body size scaling

• Social/collective cognition

• Cultural outsourcing of memory and thinking

• Reduced need for sensory/locomotor demands in settled societies

And one idea the authors highlighted is that once externalized collective intelligence — via writing, culture, and technology — became stable, individual brains didn’t need to carry as much raw computational/representational capacity internally.

When we extend that idea into the future — especially with the hypothetical arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — there are a few plausible evolutionary/biocultural scenarios. None are certain, but they can be framed in terms of how evolutionary selection pressures might change:

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 1. Brain Size as an Evolved Trait Responds to Selection Pressures

Brain size (and its internal organization) didn’t evolve for abstraction or technology for its own sake — it evolved because, on average, individuals with certain brain phenotypes had higher reproductive success given their ecological and cultural environments.

Key point: Evolutionary change in brain size is not driven by technology itself, but by how technology changes the fitness landscape for humans.

So the question is: if AGI becomes widespread and embedded in human society, how might the fitness landscape for neural investment change?

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 Scenario A — Brain Size Continues to Decrease

If AGI becomes a fundamental part of human life (for thinking, problem-solving, memory, navigation, planning, etc.), then:

• Much of what the brain currently does might be outsourced to external intelligence systems

• Social and economic success may depend less on internal memory/analytical capacity and more on how effectively one collaborates with AI

• Energetic costs of maintaining large brains (≈20% of basal metabolic rate) might become a disadvantage if not paired with higher reproductive success

If those pressures persist, natural selection might favor smaller, more efficient brains optimized for interacting with collective intelligence rather than raw individual computation.

This is not “progress toward a goal,” but a shift in what capacities carry reproductive advantage.

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 Scenario B — Brain Size Plateaus (S-curve Saturation)

We may already be near a plateau where further reduction just doesn’t give a fitness advantage because:

• Cognitive outsourcing already exists widely (education, technology, networks)

• Selection pressures that drove the Holocene decrease have stabilized

• Human social and emotional intelligence remains essential in ways AGI can support but not fully replace

Under this scenario, brain size won’t shrink much more simply because it’s not strongly selected for or against — it hovers near an equilibrium matching current cultural-ecological demands.

This fits a classic S-shaped (sigmoidal) pattern where:

• Phase 1 — growth (Pleistocene increase)

• Phase 2 — shrinkage or adjustment (Holocene decrease)

• Phase 3 — stabilization

AGI could reinforce the plateau by making additional shrinkage neutral or near-neutral in fitness terms.

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 Scenario C — Brain Structure Changes Rather Than Size

Even if overall volume doesn’t change much, the functional architecture might shift:

• enhanced connectivity for social cognition

• language/communication modules

• integration with external systems (neuro-AI interfaces)

• specialization in understanding/using systems rather than raw internal reasoning

In other words: the same size but different wiring.

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 Scenario D — Brain Size Could Increase Again

If AGI creates new cognitive niches where humans need:

• more creative abstraction

• deeper emotional/social intelligence

• entirely new kinds of thought previously not selected for

then — in principle — selection pressure could favor increased complexity, even if different in nature from earlier expansions.

This is speculative but not impossible if cultural evolution consistently rewards new internal capacities.

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 What Drives These Outcomes?

Here’s a simplified view of the key factors:

Factor	Can Reduce Size?	Can Increase Complexity?
Cultural/Tech Outsourcing
Energetic Cost Pressures
Social/Emotional Complexity
New Cognitive Niches
Cooperation with AGI

So the answer is not simply “AGI → shrink” or “AGI → no change.” It depends on how AGI changes:

• what brains need to do internally

• how humans survive and succeed reproductively

• how culture mediates the value of internal vs. external cognition

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 Beyond Evolutionary Time

One other point: biological evolution is slow. Over the next centuries or millennia, cultural and technological evolution will outrun genetic evolution by orders of magnitude. So in the timeframe where AGI would be impactful culturally (decades to centuries), the brain will be shaped more by culture and individual learning than by genetic selection.

In that sense, we might see phenotypic plasticity and neural specialization without major genotypic brain size change.

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 In Summary

There are three broad possibilities after AGI becomes embedded in human life:

1. Continued shrinkage, driven by outsourcing of cognition and reduced internal demand

2. Plateau/S-curve stabilization, where brain size stays near current values

3. Structural reconfiguration, where how the brain is organized matters more than how big

None of these outcomes are inevitable — they depend on how culture, technology, and human goals co-evolve.