Glen -
Nice! You wax poetic in the latter part, which I'm incapable of
paralleling. But I'll try to mimic the spirit.
Well, I definitely tend to wax, I'm not quite sure how poetic it is :^)
1. Is concept space discrete or continuous (Axiom of Choice vs Landscape)?
I agree that we can safely slip from discrete to continuous (including
tunneling). But I disagree that they're abstractions (either of them).
Sorting this might require pushing the stack of meta-discussion one
deeper which I'm game for but might just blow a fuse on the group as a
whole!
Instead, I think they're either two parts of a paradox or duals of one
another.
I think I can work with "dual" if you mean it roughly in the
mathematical sense.
I prefer to consider them duals and I posit that discrete
paradigm is otherwise known as things, objects, or states whereas the
continuum paradigm is aka actions, behaviors, or processes. It's a
classic Necker Cube type problem, nodes vs. edges, boxes vs. arrows.
They're not different abstractions of the same thing. They _are_ the
same thing.
I'm willing to say that the Axiom of Choice view is a degenerate form of
the continuous ones... steep (but not quite vertical) walls on the basins.
But because any time our attention focuses on some subset
(things) or slice (processes), we have to choose which frame to assume.
Are we speaking/thinking from the perspective that reality is a bunch
of objects? Or are we speaking/thinking from the frame that reality is
a smoothly dynamic goo?
I believe that inside my head, when apprehending things with logic and
language that reality is a bunch of objects. Reality itself (whatever
that means, "what is Really Real?" as Bertrand Russell asked) is a bit
more gooey as you suggest. It might be discrete down at some level like
Fredkins "digital physics" but at the scale we apprehend it it is
continuous and messy. A tree is not a tree is not a tree, even in an
orchard where everything is from the same genome/rootstock and carefully
planted and trimmed to the same scale, trees are names we give these
relatively distinct, roughly separated, generally similar things.
"Dirt" or "Ocean" is a little harder to discrete up in a meaningful way,
yet we do.
2. What is the relationship between humanity and technology?
We both agree to the abstraction of humans having our phenotype
extended via technology. You might say that we *are* this extended
phenotype, I'm softer on that idea than you are I think, but not
unsympathetic (see 4 below). I think of technology in the same
terms as a metabolic network. I claim that since Habilis, we have
co-evolved with an ever growing, evolving network of artifacts and
blueprints for said artifacts which we call "technology"
collectively. "technology" has not yet become "life itself" but as
a network with near autocatalytic subnetworks within it, it has
enough features of life that I will suggest that humans and
"technology" are symbiotes.
The problem I have with this is the extent to which you're using
metaphor. Treat me as if I were autistically literal in my thinking.
I contend that all language is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. I
admit that my own metaphors can be rather dramatic and complex... so if
you *are* autistic you might be unable (unwilling) to apprehend the ones
that are above a certain level of complexity (number of levels of
indirection?).
(I may actually be that way... I don't know and I'm not going to pay
some pipe-smoking couch potato to tell me whether I am. ;-)
Today's psychs are all fitness nuts who don't smoke and bicycle or run
hundreds of miles a week.
I don't
know whether you literally think our surrounding artifacts actually have
inherent _properties_ of life, or whether we can merely focus our
attention so that we perceive _attributes_ of life.
I am not speaking as an animist, though I have been known to adopt that
view for various purposes. I am saying that *literally* by some measure
( I was part of the ALife crowd from inception into the early 90's...
one of my last published papers was in Alife 2002 I think), the
artifacts (or collections of artifacts) will exhibit the *properties* of
life... such as robust coherence over time (crystals, smoke rings and
soliton waves have this), self-coding for one's own reproduction
(viruses, computer programs of a certain type, and robots carrying their
own blueprints in their hatches), perception and interaction with their
environment (nervous net robots, etc..). I don't claim to have the
formulae for which of these properties and how many we need to call
something life... but it might not be that hard to exceed the properties
of a virus or even a rotifer or tardigrade. For the sake of arguement
here I'd be happy to have demonstrated which collections of technology
might form an autocatalytic set.
I am fully in the latter bin, as much as I may play at liking the sci-fi
stories where those artifacts come to life. I've spent too much time
with the Rosenites. I believe that life defines itself through
impredicativity and "technology" does not.
I'll have to study up on Rosen and the implications of impredicativity
in this context to respond usefully.
So, if I take you literally, then you are not being metaphorical. You
truly believe that there exists a way to _slice_ off technology and
consider a technology-free organism. And similarly, you believe there
exists a way to slice off life and consider a life-free technology.
Hmmm... I'm mired in terminology we haven't yet converged on.
If you mean organisms in general ( say viruses, tardigrades, tapeworms,
horseflies, snails, frogs, dogs, hogs) then my definition of technology
is pretty much out of their scope. I don't include the protein coats
or lipid sheaths of viruses, or the shells of snails or the hogs and
dogs teeth. I give the dog's collar and the hog's nosering the quality
of technology but attribute it to the humans who conceived, designed,
manufactured and affixed it to the dogs and hogs?
If you mean can we slice off humans from technology? Well, fictionally
Tarzan and Mowgli, raised by apes and wolves were pretty close to being
cut off from technology (Is the vine tarzan swings on technology? Only
if he fabricated it with intent)... The Australian Aborigines had
(deliberately?) very limited technology.. eschewing the building or
creation of shelter, creating only the most basic of stone tools...
using only a dilly bag to carry their minimal possessions. They came
pretty close to this. If you or I or anyone we know were removed
from our technosphere, we would probably perish quickly and certainly
suffer mightily...
LIfe free technology... hmmm... only very figuratively would I suggest
that. A chip designed by a computer program created by another program
from a specification is a couple of levels of indirection away from
"life". I'm not ready to go all Kurzweil on you, and even if I did, I
don't think we'd get away from the fact that all the technology he
conceives is derived from living designers/fabricators, even if through
a few levels of indirection.
If so, I fundamentally disagree. My usual example is life in space. In
order to send a human to space, we have to build a "closure" around the
human. That closure is a kind of simulation harness where we plug
functional equivalents into every orifice of the organism so that they
can continue to "live" out there in the vacuum. We have to do that
because there is no _actual_ separation between humans and their
technology. There does not exist a way to separate them.
I can't think of any obvious way to allow humans to live in the cold
hard vacuum of space without technology. The Tardigrades
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade> have been shown to survive it
without extending their phenotype. Being Eutelic, and having a very few
cells (up to tens of thousands), very simple mechanisms (appendages
without joints, no lungs, trivial nervous system, etc.) By one measure
they are so simple yet functional as to be though of as pure technology.
Hence, co-evolution is an inaccurate or metaphorical term.
It is definitely being used metaphorically. The technological side of
the co-evolution game is evolving *only* through the interaction with
the human side. I'm not sure that remains true (or has to much longer).
Singularians seem to believe that technology already has or very
soon will become fully "alive" and run off and leave us (except for
Ray Kurzwiel and an astute other few who might manage to hitch a
ride on it's tail like fleas on a runaway dog).
My understanding of our contemporary situation is that the complex
network we are co-evolving with called "technology" has been growing
qualitatively and quantitatively in a super-linear (not necessarily
geometric or exponential as postulated by singularians) since it
emerged. This is problematic for us as a self-determining species
and as self-determining individuals.
Here in the discussion, I face a dilemma. I can either "tunnel" over to
the perspective you framed (i.e. adopt that one can _actually_ separate
organisms from their artifacts) or I can maintain my own. I usually
maintain my own when discussing things over electronic media. That's
lead one guy to call me a "digital autistic", because I never express
any empathy or consideration of the other person's perspective, much
less their feelings or humanity. >8^)
I'm not clear on why you would do this (only) in electronic media. I
myself can't really co-municate with others unless I deliberately
"tunnel" long enough to understand my ideas in their language or
vice-versa... it is part of the convergence into mutual understanding
process I have.
Sorry about that.
I'm quite happy for you to re-iterate your perspective and happy to
tunnel myself to try to understand it.
But sticking to my guns, I have to say that the only
way machines could outpace us is to simply change the bias a slight bit.
ok..
I.e. instead of humans driving the whole ecosystem as they did or do
now, the machines would drive the ecosystem. In other words, even if
the machines do "run away", they still need us as much as a neolithic
man needed his spear.
Our automobiles need us to drive them to the gas pump and to change
their oil to give them a useful lifetime beyond a few hundred or a few
thousand miles. If we add autopilots (as already exist), they can even
go from factory to junkyard without a human touching them (though
current designs of autos and gas stations would limit their range to a
tankful). This is about as interesting as noticing that once launched,
the spear takes on a "life of it's own" through it's trajectory...
On the other hand, we shape our lives around our motor vehicles, around
our homes, around our television sets, around our computers. We aren't
just *constrained* by their needs and natures, we are oftentimes
*defined* by them. This is not in our genome, it is in our individual
ontogeny as a social being and in our social context (memespace?). The
child of an astronaut could as easily grow up in the jungle raised by
apes or wolves and return from depending on extremely complex technology
to essentially no more technology than the ape-family or wolf family.
It may be a fantasy that a human child can be raised by apes or wolves,
but not by much i don't think.
And if that's the case, some of us can be all buddhistic about it and
remain happy in that state of slavery just as my smartphone might be
very happy having me choose where we have lunch.
I contend most of us are just so. Our alarm clock drags us from slumber
while our automated coffee pot demands that we fill it's top with coffee
grounds and water and remove it's excrement from the bottom. Our house
demands that we pay it's mortgage and keep it's utilities turned on.
Our vehicle demands that we fill it with gasoline and replace it's oil
now and again, and whines that we don't wash it often or well enough.
Our jobs (those who have conventional ones) expect us to flip the office
light switch on at 8 am and back off at 5pm and to hold the chair in
place and keep it warm through the day. Is this not a slavery?
3. What are the implications of co-mmunication within a system (e.g.
biome, animal group, human population) on this discussion?
From hymenoptera to homo, individuals of various species aggregate
through multi-channel feedback loops of communication. Hives,
swarms, flocks, schools, herds, pods, packs, tribes all extend the
individual's survival through extended perceptions, buffering of
resources, specialization, etc. Yet within this spectrum there are
often examples of rogue individuals or family subgroups who manage
to exist outside this complex milieu, at least for brief periods of
time.
I am in strong agreement with your sentiment that our population
densities and the logical proximity created (aggravated?) by modern
communication and transportation technology is a threat to us. In
fact, I have argued that these factors are leading us from our
organizational instincts inspired by our tribal primate anscestors,
our packing familiars (canines) and our herding familiars
(ungulates) toward organizational patterns of hives in particular.
I hope it is not racist to observe that the solutions to crowding
in Japan have lead them as a culture closer to this than say, the
herdsmen of the stans and the steppes in central eurasia. Our own
(USA) urban dwellers, especially at densities such as Manhattan or
San Francisco or Chicago are at the same risk, despite being coupled
to a slightly different monoculture spread across Urban, suburban
and rural coupled by the common grid of popular mass media (formerly
newspaper, radio, tv).
I don't think we disagree at all about that part of this implication of
commun-ication. (I prefer to cut the word there to emphasize
"commonality" ... aka similarity.) But the other implication, which
goes back to Marcus' original post, is that different technologies
(guns, 3D printers) define different predicates, which define different
sets of humans. This also occurs in communication in that the way we
speak and the different thoughts that appeal (or don't) also serves to
establish in- and out-group distinctions.
I'm still catching up on this. To the extent I understand you, I
understand that guns and 3D printers (currently) appeal to relatively
distinct groups, though both are usually technophiles which gives them a
basic commonality.
My point is that our tools like language don't unify what was previously
disparate. (E.g. guns combined with 3D printers do _not_ unify gun nuts
with tech-dorks. It distinguishes the intersection of gun nuts with
tech-dorks. The new tool, 3D printed clips, helps highlight those of us
who are _already_ gun and 3D printer fans.)
But more to the point, the 3D printed clips (or guns or ...) now mean
that controlling access to these devices is no longer possible through
regulation of the manufacture, distribution and sale of the phenotype
(clip) but rather requires the regulation of the distribution of the
genotype (shapefile).
The diversity is in the biology and our tools don't bring us together.
The tools allow for a more varied toolbox of ways to separate us.
Now, to some extent, having a fine-grained toolbox of tools for
discretizing the goo in different ways allows the craftsman more
flexibility to detect coarser or finer patterns in the goo. And that
can lead to a kind of unifying effect. The polymath is going to be more
open-minded than the specialist. But it doesn't mean that the _tools_
themselves are unifying. The unifying power remains in the organism.
I'll puzzle on this some more. It sounds coherent, even eloquent, but
I'm not parsing it down well enough yet to respond.
4. What is the extent of self-will/identity/choice in this context?
Nick and others have reminded us how much our choice and
self-determinism may be an illusion. I don't like it, but I accept
that there is a strong element of this even in my own life, and in
the implications of arguments such as those I am trying to make here.
The various feedback loops and resonances of our groups and the
landscapes of our popular culture(s) and the memes that inhabit them
further constrain as well as inform us.
Following the implications of my co-evolution-with-technology story,
we are also constrained and informed by our toolsets. This ranges
from physical artifacts to linguistic artifacts.
Yes, I agree more fully with this. The deep point, here, is the extent
to which the universe is open. I.e. given the constraints and
opportunities reified by our surroundings, are those constraints and
opportunities sensitive to whatever wiggle we do have control over? Or
are they enslaving, robust to the full range of whatever effectors we
can control?
Again I'm not following as closely as I would like... maybe it is the
late hour... In my world view, the universe is always open, but is a
filed of basins that we can get caught in. We can get caught by our
circumstances (not enough cash to buy a plane ticket to another
continent or hemisphere) or by our thinking (too stubborn or ignorant to
recognize that we can travel to another continent or hemisphere other
ways, albeit more slowly and with less convenience).
Remainder to be responded to under separate cover.... thanks again for
the patient, elaborate and erudite discussion.
- Steve
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