yeah, it's coming back to me now .. I remember holons and holarchies and all that stuff ;-)
However, Koestler was writing before complex dynamics and attractors and such were well-understood and well-known ... and all this gives a quite different flavor to the web of ideas he was exploring, I think... ben On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:44 AM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ben, > > Yeah, I'd heavily recommend it. I don't know anything like Koestler for > setting out the general importance of the hierarchical principle. And I > didn't do it justice, because it *is* two-way. It's not just about triggers > (or your keys) acting downwards, through a whole "holarchy" of "holons" - > each level being more complex. It's also about "filters" - how, working > upwards, the system filters and strips down the information that is sent to > the top. This works both in terms of the conscious self within the > individual, and the CEO within the organization - each is "briefed" on the > very complex scenes that have been represented and/or dealt with at the much > more complex sensory and/or motor level (or level of organizational > subordinates). So the hierarchy is both concretising (downwards) and > abstracting (upwards). > > It is central to this idea, that each level is at once command-driven, > subject to its own canon of rules, but has a certain freedom. > > The idea applies v. well to the relation of conscious self/mind and > unconscious mind,(which, AFAIK, most AI thinking doesn't). At first, in > acquiring new skills, the whole hierarchy, incl. the conscious self, is > involved in mastering new movements. Gradually, repetitive actions and > associations become automatic and are sloughed off to lower levels. Whenever > the routines are incapable of dealing with material/situations, the > conscious self (or the CEO) is brought in. > > There's a lot more... > > > Ben: > >> You know, I read that book 25 years ago ... maybe I should look at it >> again... >> >> However, my point was definitely not "the hierarchical principle as >> the organizing principle of life"... that is a rather different point. >> >> If any example conveys my point clearly, it would be the "glocal >> Hopfield net", which is a toy computational model illustrating the >> glocality principle (and which I'll have a whole paper on, sometime). >> >> The fact that a symbolic command can trigger a large set of actions >> isn't *quite* the point. But a military example might work better >> than the one I gave. The way to give a military example might be to >> refer to War and Peace, where General Kutuzov proposes to just let the >> army self-organize into its own battle patterns, rather than providing >> top-down control. This is sorta large-scale guerilla warfare, right? >> The opposite would be something like Operation Desert Storm, which was >> carefully orchestrated and planned (in spite of some errors e.g. >> deaths by friendly fire), so that the individual actors were largely >> doing what the software told them to do. In Kutuzov's battle, the >> knowledge of the military plan was contained in the army as a whole; >> in Desert Storm, the knowledge was contained in the central planning >> software and the minds of the relevant generalized (hence localized >> from the view of the whole army). In a glocal approach there would be >> central planning *and* distributed, self-organized activity, and they >> would be coordinated together dynamically and effectively, which is >> what the military realizes it needs to achieve in future in order to >> combine rapid, flexible adaptivity with global coordination. >> >> ben >> >> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> wrote: >>> >>> Ben, >>> >>> Have you read Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine? You seem to be >>> reaching >>> in your post for what he sets out there - albeit v. loosely - namely the >>> hierarchical principle as the organizing principle of life, both of >>> organisms and of societies (and perhaps one can add machines). You talk >>> of >>> representation being organized in terms of a key linking to - or you >>> could >>> say, "opening" - a map - a very simple unit opening up a complex set of >>> units; he talks in terms of triggers.- simple commands or signals >>> releasing >>> complex action patterns. This underlies not just knowledge representation >>> and movement and all goal-directed action but also socially organized >>> action. Your social example confused me. It seems easier to me to think >>> in >>> terms of how, in social units, the simple, typically symbolic commands of >>> one individual set off extremely complex action patterns by the whole >>> social >>> unit or organization. A president says "invade Iraq" and a little later a >>> vast army of 150,000 with all its machinery is elaborating his command. >>> >>> Our machines also are designed in terms of simple switches, or key >>> mechanisms, setting off whole elaborate complexes of action. >>> >>> . >>> Ben: >>>> >>>> A semi-technical essay on the global/local (aka glocal) nature of >>>> memory is linked to from here >>>> >>>> http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/ >>>> >>>> I wrote this a long while ago but just got around to posting it now... >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------- >>> agi >>> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >>> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ >>> Modify Your Subscription: >>> https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >>> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Ben Goertzel, PhD >> CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC >> Director of Research, SIAI >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >> "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." >> -- Sir Winston Churchill >> >> >> ------------------------------------------- >> agi >> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ >> Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com >> > > > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." -- Sir Winston Churchill ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
