[FRIAM] Digital Monism — was (re: constructive explanations which (was Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?))
Prof David West
profwest at fastmail.fm
Wed Dec 18 10:20:40 EST 2019
re: creation
"Design," is associated, in contemporary times, with novelty, creation, and innovation — something that "springs forth in the mind of the designer, appearing from nowhere and grounded only in the genius of the designer." [West & Rikner, Design Thinking, 2018]
This is antithetical to roots of the term in ancient Greek (according to Kostas Terzdis, Harvard Graduate School of Design) - 'de' in the constructive sense of derivation, deduction, or inference + schedio from the root schedon which means nearly, almost, about, or approximately. Schedon derives from eschein (past tense of eho) which means have, ho9ld, or possess. Design, for the Greeks was about something we once had, but have no longer.
Design, now, is about stepping into the future; for the Greeks it meant recovering something lost in the past. The word "sketch" has similar ancient roots and when you sketch you are not creating, you are recalling something from, often primordial, memory.
This makes sense, philosophically, since the earliest uses of these terms was in the age of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno who held the position that nothing could come from nothing, nor return to it. No 'creation" as we understand it, no "destruction."
Programmers, (with their patent and copyright attorneys at their elbow) like to think they are "creating" in the modern sense of the term. Really great programmers — Dykstra (with the first Algol compiler), Parnas, Cray and Chen (Cray I operating system), Ward Cunningham (Wiki), and others I have known or read about — are less quick to take credit for the product of their activity. Like novelists, the often use the metaphor of "channeling" the novel or the program as it expresses itself via their brain and fingers. Object programs that I would consider to be excellent in every way were written by programmers letting the objects express themselves the same way that a novelist allows characters to express themselves.
These ideas were recalled to mind as I thought about the "digital monism" inherent in the Turing Machine metaphor discussed earlier.
There is but one "stuff" — bits (albeit with two values).
"Data," "Programs," and "Virtual Machines" are but ordered bits.
Sensible expressions (sound, images, even matter) are directly reducible to ordered bits.
Neat and clean, BUT, from whence the "ordering?" Plato might suggest the realm of ideals; Descartes, the mind of God, the quantum scientist, the collectivity of observers. [The last explanation gets circular real fast.]
Earlier I suggested that there might be but one Turing Machine and one Infinite Tape, each and both of which are co-extensive with the Universe. If that were so ...
... is The Universe "creating itself," modern sense; or "remembering itself," ancient Greek roots sense?
No, this posting is not the result of evening with Molly and Lucy. (MDMA and LSD)
davew
On Thu, Dec 12, 2019, at 6:24 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi, Glen,
>
> I like what you wrote below .... a lot.
>
> It is redolent with Pragmatism ... a concern with the "practicial", as
> Eric insists that I say. But there is something else lurking here
> which blind sided me and which I need to think hard about. It's the
> word "creation". Now, you computer folks are truly Gods to me; to me,
> you create stuff all the time. To me, perhaps in my naivety, one of
> those crazy-mad cellular automata, that's life and somebody has created
> it. Did Schelling create segregation. By god, I think he did. Did
> Steve Guerin create ants. Yup, by god, he did. So when a computer
> scientist, programmer, software engineer, ai person, whatever you guys
> prefer to call yourselves, starts talking about "creation", my ears
> perk up.
>
> What the hell is the meaning of 'creation" in those sentences above?
> Here's a proposal: One has "created", when one has written a recipe
> for emergence. One collects stamps; one creates a cake.
>
> Is it possible that my model of monism is based on my understanding of
> a line of code. It would not be the first time that a theory in once
> discipline was based on an imperfect understanding of another.
>
> How you drive my thinking on!
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nick 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 glen?C
> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2019 7:47 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] constructive explanations (was Re: A pluralistic model
> of the mind?)
>
> OK. I'm going to focus on this distinction. When you explain some thing
> to someone, you have a choice between 2 styles. You can tell them how
> to make it happen or you can tell them how that thing fits in with
> everything else. So, in your eraser behind the book setup, you focus on
> the latter. Erasers are this, books are that, eyeballs are this,
> gravity is that. But you *could* explain what's happening by providing
> the setup recipe and then saying "go do it... I'll wait." I.e. tell
> them to get a friend who sits some distance away, get a book, get an
> eraser, hold the eraser above and behind the book, drop the eraser.
>
> That's the explanation. That is the "methods section". There is no more
> that we need to say. Anything you say after that is speculation and
> *should* be ignored.
>
> So, if you're trying to "explain" killdeer behavior, you lay out a
> recipe for *creating* a killdeer ... maybe with a wrench and some
> pliers in your garage. If you cannot create a killdeer, then you cannot
> understand killdeer.
>
> That's it. That's all I meant.
>
> Now, you might think I'm throwing in the towel. But there are things we
> can do to remedy the impasse presented by not being able to create
> killdeer. We can make our descriptions of killdeer more constructive.
> For example, we can snatch one, put it into an aviary and *manipulate*
> it. Manipulation is the next best thing to creation. But, again, you
> don't need to skip to the end and "explain" why this, why that, how it
> fits in with the universe. All you need do to provide an explanation is
> to say *how* to make the killdeer *do* some behavior. A detailed recipe
> for how some other person can snatch their own killdeer and make it do
> things.
>
> If you can reproducibly *generate* the behavior, then your recipe for
> doing so, is a constructive explanation.
>
> On 12/11/19 9:01 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2019 1:17 PM
> > To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
> >
> > The thing being left out of this still seems, to me, to be constructive vs ... what? ... analytical explanation.
> >
> > Your larger document beats around that bush quite a bit, I think. But I don't think it ever names/tackles the point explicitly.
> >
> > */[NST===>] I am not sure I quite understand that distinction. Can
> > you say more? /*
>
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