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

Thu May 28 11:46:29 EDT 2020

Hi, Dave, 

What you wrote below is great.  

Would you care to explore the relation between story and metaphor?

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2020 7:56 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Optimizing for maximal serendipity or how Alan Turing misdirected ALife

re: "informal systems" Is story such an informal system?

from an article targeting towards business and software development professionals

"Although all four models described above are essential, the power of Thick Description derives primarily from the Story. For several reasons:

1.	The human brain is ‘hardwired’ for story. Humans easily absorb knowledge that is communicated to them via story while having a difficult time dealing with information presented in abstract form. One of the reasons that mathematics is difficult for so many people.
2.	Humans have shared knowledge via story since the invention of language. The visualizations of “cave art” preceded any form of written language but still communicate stories.
3.	Ninety-five percent of what a person knows was acquired via story.
4.	Most of what is known about your business exists “within the heads” of your employees. It is tacit knowledge that is lost if the employee is lost (via retirement or turnover).
5.	New hires acquire the knowledge essential to doing their work by listening to stories.
6.	Stories provide a compact and efficient way of communication, mostly because each story carries with it a significant amount of implicit context — connections to all the other stories we have heard and have in our repertoire of knowledge.
7.	Stories are “easy to think with.”

Story provides a powerful tool for software development by preserving ambiguity, deferring design and implementation decisions until “the last responsible moment.”

just curious
davew

On Thu, May 28, 2020, at 7:19 AM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> For my part, I think both the "adjacent possible" and any distinction 
> between inter- and trans-disciplinary are confused concepts. The 
> clearer conception surrounding serendipity lies in the distinction 
> between formal and informal (not formal vs. intuitive, but related). 
> An equivalent (I think) conception is "flex and slop", which I think 
> is attributed to Dennett, and (again [sigh]) Feferman's schematic 
> axiomatic systems. I've been struggling to find a good way to express 
> my contrary perspective to your post (On 5/26/20 7:20 PM, Jon Zingale) 
> where you *seem* to go completely formal. My intention was to imply 
> something *informal* ... sloppy, badly formulated, etc.
> 
> The inherent problem with the inter-/trans-discipline, Dave's 
> polymath, and Jochen's fools outside one's house, concept [†] is that 
> there does not exist a complete and consistent formalism capable of 
> informal generation/construction. Only informal systems can do the constructing.
> 
> Of course, "informal" is ambiguous. Does it mean "only broken in one 
> spot" ... "a slightly incongruous composition of formal systems" ...
> "integrationist Rube Goldberg assemblages of formal systems" ... "a 
> radical resistance to all formalization" ... "a mishmash of confused 
> nonsense"? Etc. The primary task of AI and ALife is to find out just 
> how informal we *must* be to sit back and call something "intelligent"
> or "alive". And this lands squarely in the long, practical, tradition 
> of finding out just how informal we *must* be to, say, build a good 
> bridge, fly to the moon, or bake a tasty loaf of bread.
> 
> 
> [†] Concept, singular. The implicit assertion being that all those are 
> the same thing, the same mistake. I can reword my complaint as "There 
> are no 'disciplines.'" "There are no houses." The concept of polymath
> *might* escape the category if Dave chooses to consider 
> "learned"/"knowledge" as a massive noun ... where one can increase 
> their learning by ε even as ε→0. But if there are disjoint domains, 
> then polymath is in the same category.
> 
> On 5/27/20 3:51 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
> 
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