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p.MsoNormal,p.MsoNoSpacing{margin:0}</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Nick,<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">People write software that self-modifies, learns to shape current actions based on the results of prior actions, clones itself in order to maximize its share of some limited resource (memory or processor cycles) vis-a-vis competing software.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">This kind of software, once created and deployed, is entirely autonomous. Creators might send messages asking the software to execute a particular behavior, but such messages have no special status, they are just another part of the context to which the software responds. The field is called "evolutionary software."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">To me, this is an example of a system, that once deployed, is autonomous and acting on its own behalf. It is not aware of any "goals of the whole" only its own will to "thrive."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">Not sure if this satisfied your request.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Fri, Jul 3, 2020, at 1:06 PM, <a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a> wrote:<br></div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div class="qt-WordSection1"><p class="qt-MsoNormal">I tried to post this on the vFRIAM chat, but wouldn’t “take”, so I am posting it here:<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-quotation">“Don't do this now, but …. as a favor to me, could you-guys devote some of your shaving time this week to the proposition: "No system ever acts on its own behalf." My intuition is that whenever we investigate a system that appears to act in its own behalf, we will find that it is pursuing a goal that is short of the interest of the whole, but which will produce benefits to the whole because of some property of the world in which it acts. I would love to hear a discussion among people trying to design <u>a system that acts on its own behalf</u>. Can someone come up with a simple example of such a system.” <span style=""><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif;"></span></span><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">I grant you that the question is not clear.<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Thanks,<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Nick<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Nicholas Thompson<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Clark University<br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"> <br></p></div><div>- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .<br></div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br></div><div>Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 <a href="http://bit.ly/virtualfriam">bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br></div><div>un/subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br></div><div>archives: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a><br></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> <br></div><div><br></div></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>