[FRIAM] Optimizing for maximal serendipity or how Alan Turing misdirected ALife

[Marcus Daniels]

But go deeper again, and electrons have half spins.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2020 at 3:52 PM
To: "friam at redfish.com" <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Optimizing for maximal serendipity or how Alan Turing misdirected ALife

In another post, Glen mentions an application of the parallelism theorem to 2nd
order privacy. I wish here to express caution wrt application of this theorem to
questions of consciousness, private or otherwise. Because conscious experience
(say in the sense of Tononi) may in fact be or contain fully-integrated and
irreducible complexes, parallel-experience should be handled as a potentially
very different thing than its serial cousin.

In some ways, what gives material life a foot up on simulated life is a sense
of maximal serendipity. To a large extent, I feel that this is the central
argument of analog-high-fidelity loving nerds. There is a recognition that
functions (plural) may in-fact follow from form. In those fiery digital vs. analog
debates, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that transistors are by their very
nature, analog devices. They are chunks of matter influenced by the world at
large. The function space for how such matter is influenced is likely non-
enumerable, much less what can be done with such influence. The imposition
that a transistor behaves digitally is an imposition demanding that the device
act as a unit for symbolic manipulation, to act within clearly delimited bounds.
Consider, by analogy, the tails of aquatic mammals. Before they were tails,
these appendages were evolved for walking. Later, they would be improved upon
for swimming. Nature appears to work with what is readily at hand, and the space
of possible functions is not likely to be concretely specifiable. To my mind,
this is where the hypnotizing concept of a Turing test led the program to develop
artificial life, astray. Here we set up a useless paradox. We demand that whatever
system we design forcibly participate in our investigation. We demand that it
behave like a good and servile device, and then we complain that we have failed.
Perhaps, my chair is conscious in-part because it, like the sadists, says no. I am not
necessarily committed to this position about my chair, but I do think it points
to the self-defeating nature of Turing tests. In another post, Merle emphasizes
the importance of identifying transdisciplinary research. In particular, she
mentions its connection to the adjacent possible. Whatever will one day be called
ALife, will only be interesting if it is capable of exploring such a domain.
In an effort to contribute to this program, I advocate for taking seriously ideas
like embodiment and potential for serendipity. Given consciousness, the question
of How do we know? maybe the least interesting path of investigation.

I suspect that I am preaching to the pulpit, but I thought it fruitful to write
down these ideas. Thank you for the space to do so.

Jon
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