[FRIAM] The epiphenomenality relation

[Steve Smith]

On 11/29/21 10:05 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote:
> Yes, that's the point. Thanks for stating it in yet another way.
>
> The word "epiphenomenon" is loaded with expectation/intention. It works quite well in artificial systems where we can simply assume it was designed for a purpose. But in "natural" systems (like the hyena case), if we use that concept, we've imputed a *model* onto the system.
>
> I would go even further (encroaching on Marcus' example) and argue that even if someone *else* designed a system, you cannot reverse engineer that designer's intention from the system they built. The agnostic approach is to treat every system you did not build yourself, with your own hands, as a naturally occurring system. (This is the essence of hacking, including benign forms like circuit bending.) I would ... I want to ... but I can't take that further step without a preliminary understanding that "wild type" systems don't exhibit epiphenomena at all. They can't, by definition. If some effect *looks* like an epiphenomenon to you, it's because *you* imputed your model onto it. It's a clear cut case of reification.

Not to be argumentative (though it seems hard to have any conversation 
on this list that doesn't end up feeling like an argument) but Isn't the 
*point* of hacking to discover ways to use "bugs" of an intentionally 
designed system *as* "features", often in combination with other 
bugs/features?   Maybe *I* impute too much into the idea of "hacking"?  
(does one impute *into* or *onto* BTW?)

I admit, when I follow clickbait with "hack" in the title sometimes the 
target of the hack is a system *not* designed/built by humans with 
intentions which the "hack" is overcoming/circumventing/re-tasking... 
but I don't think of that as a "hack" as much as "thoughtful 
understanding".  The vernacular use of "hack" seems overly broad to me.

I suppose the character of Sherlock Holmes is characterized by the 
overlap of these two abilities (encyclopedic knowledge of human-built 
and natural systems, along with an acute analytic ability to deduce and 
infer and and a similar acute ability to synthesize disparate elements 
of those systems to achieve a specific purpose)?   Though I suppose the 
latter is more in the domain of the Archetype "McGuyver", leaving 
Sherlock more to the domain of engineering *humans* to admit to or 
demonstrate their culpability in something or another.   McGuyver seems 
to be intent on breaking or remaking things to fulfill his own current 
desire.

>
>
> On 11/29/21 8:49 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> glen wrote:
>>> ... Purposefully designed systems have bugs (i.e. epiphenomena, unintended, side-, additional, secondary, effects). Biological evolution does not. There is no bug-feature distinction there.
>> In trying to normalize your terms/conceptions to my own, am I right that you are implying that intentionality is required for epiphenomena (reduces to tautology if "unintended" is key to "epi")?
>>
>> This leads us back to the teleological debate I suppose.   The common (vulgar?)  "evolution" talk is laced with teleological implications...  but I think what Glen is saying here that outside the domain of human/sentient will/intentionality (which he might also call an illusion), everything simply *is what it is* so anything *we* might identify as epiphenomena is simply a natural consequence *we* failed to predict and/or which does not fit *our* intention/expectation.
>>
>> We watch a rock balanced at the edge of a cliff begin to shift after a rain and before our very eyes, we see it tumble off the cliff edge and roll/slide/skid toward the bottom of the gradient but being humans, with intentions and preferences and ideas, *we* notice there is a human made structure (say a cabin) at the bottom of the cliff and we begin to take odds on how likely that rock is to slip/slide/roll into the cabin.   *we* give that event meaning that it does not have outside of our mind/system-of-values.   The rock doesn't care that it came to final rest (or not) because the cabin structure in it's (final) path was robust enough to absorb/reflect the remaining kinetic energy in the rock-system and the cabin doesn't care either!   We (because we are in the cabin, because we built the cabin, because we are paying a mortgage to the bank on the cabin, because we intend to inhabit the cabin, because we can imagine inhabiting the cabin before/during/after the collisions) put
>> a lot of meaning and import into that rock coming to rest against/on-top-of/beyond the cabin, but the rock and the cabin *don't care*.   If instead of crushing the cabin, the rock grazes it on the side where there was a dilapidated porch you intended to demolish, carrying it away and crumbling it's bits to compostable splinters in the ravine *below* the cabin out of your site, you might want to refer to the epiphenomenal nature of rolling stones as clever demolition and removal crews?
>>
>> I'm probably just muddying the water (at the bottom of the ravine, now filled with cabin-deck bits).