What I mean by this is that the only thing that really matters is whether something is alive, i.e., whether it exists. Incidentally, this is why any description of evolution theory as the “law of the fittest”, or “the fittest survive” is a total misrepresentation. Depending on the definition of “fit” there are many cases in which the “fit” do not survive. For instance, in modern warfare, those sent off to war to get killed are generally the strongest and healthiest. Of course, one may redefine fittest in such a way as to make it synonymous with survival, in which case the concept of “fitness” becomes useless and one comes back to the same principle: the dead don’t vote.

So then, what is “good” ? That which is not dead, of course, and that which manages to remain not dead for the longest time, is the “best”. Of course, some seemingly bad things often persist for inordinately long periods of time. But in those cases we consider them “bad” because we don’t understand them. For instance, genetic mutations lead to cancer, and so we think mutations are bad. But without mutations nothing living would exist, and that includes us. So what’s better, a world composed of rocks only, or a world with millions of thriving species, of which some might once in a while get cancer? I vote for Life!

So in the context of this short essay, I will take the evolutionary view of judging things.

Now, is there some more detailed way to specify what is likely to last and what is not? Actually there is, it’s called an “Evolutionarily Stable Strategy”, or ESS for short. It’s described by John Maynard Smith in his landmark work, “Evolution and the Theory of Games”. Such a strategy is basically defined for a population of things (organisms, consumers, autonomous agents, etc) such that once all the individuals adopt that strategy, then any mutant strategy is not able to spread and take over in a finite amount of time. See gigapedia.org for the details.

An ESS is a simplifying view, because it assumes the environment remains unchanged, and in particular, that it is not changed by the fact itself that the population has adopted the particular ESS. So it is only an approximation on sufficiently short time scales. But still, it is a useful one.

Now, let us look at a given society, say, human society, with respect to one particular behavior, say, religion. If all (or almost all) individuals in a given country adopt a given religion, then in the language of Maynard Smith, they have adopted a given strategy. “Strategy” is just a word. No need for religious readers to become insulted.

Now, there are very many parameters in play, and a rigorous calculation of what is an evolutionarily stable religion in a given country is impossible. But let us consider what aspects might make it last longer. I will consider three options, and I will advance some speculations. Some readers might find them more compelling than others, so I emphasize they are only that: speculations.

First option, the religion takes over the state, and imposes the religion on all members of the population. Individuals are no longer free. They are persecuted by various means if they “mutate” to a different strategy (i.e. religion). However, in the long term, the religion becomes too comfortable, it is so sure of itself, it loses touch with what its function was in the first place, to be a spiritual guide and support of its subjects. Slowly but surely, the church and its subjects drift apart. Subjects do not fall into heresies (whereby they would be promptly persecuted) but they gradually become uninterested. Eventually, they start to feel that there’s no reason why the church should be getting a free ride on the State, and they decide to separate it from the State. The church, having become used to getting a free ride on the state, basically has the rug pulled from under it, and has no way to deal with this. It slides gradually into that good night of irrelevance. The population has been invaded by the strategy called “indifference”.

Second option, the constitution requires total religious freedom (this, of course, is just another religion, a blind faith in freedom). Individuals are encouraged to explore, be curious, learn. Diversity flourishes. The population fragments into small pieces (i.e. strategies, i.e. religions) But pretty soon, from the fragmentation emerge several major rivals, perhaps two, three or four. One of these rivals is the first religion (the faith in freedom) but others have appeared on the scene. They come into competition, leading to hostility, and the possibility of social breakdown, and civil war. Eventually perhaps one takes over, and excludes the others violently. This may or may not be the “freedom” religion, but it is unlikely that it will be.

Third option, religion is a public service. The health service is subsidized by the State to maintain the physical health of the population. The military is financed by the State to maintain the territorial health of the population. The education is subsidized by the State to maintain the intellectual/economic health of the population. And finally, religion is subsidized by the State to maintain the spiritual health of the population. To avoid conflict and social breakdown, only one religion is subsidized. So this works only in populations which start out being sufficiently homogeneous. The fact that this religion is subsidized makes it hard for other religions to make a dent in the population, being at a significant disadvantage. Moreover, it is only subsidized partially, so that it does not get a free ride. It must reach out to the individuals in the population, so it keeps constantly in touch with their needs. The religion thereby evolves along with the population (i.e. the society). Alternative faiths are not forbidden, so individuals do not feel persecuted, and hence do not feel compelled to rebel. On the contrary, individuals, even those who, privately, hold a different faith than the one espoused by the leading religion (for instance, the faith in freedom), feel they have a non-negligible stake in social harmony and stability, and are therefore willing to continue subsidizing the leading religion.

Note that as long as the leading religion is forced to remain in touch with its constituents, the third option does not suffer from the weaknesses of the first two. It seems, to me, the most likely candidate to an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy.

To give these general speculations a more specific flavor, an example of what I call a “free ride” above, is if, for instance, the State is persuaded by the Church to impose the new religion on all young children via the public education system. This is a bad idea for two different reasons. First, to the individuals it is perceived as a loss of freedom, making them more likely to rebel against the religion as they grow up. Second, the Church is most likely to become complacent, and no longer feel that it needs to attract people. The Church runs the risk of growing passive, and eventually decay.

Thus, it is essential for the success of the third option that the children not feel controlled, and that the Church not feel like it has a right to their hearts and minds. It must learn to win those hearts and minds, every single day.

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As the various thinkers, philosophers, scientists, have investigated the various phenomena, another remarkable fact has come to light. Change requires interaction. When some simple object undergoes a change, it is because it has come into interaction with some other object. When some isolated composite object undergoes a change, it is because its components are interacting with each other. No object has been observed that may change without some interaction being involved. And conversely, no object is observed that may interact without changing. Change and interaction seem to be inseparable.

This holds elegantly together. It is consistent, for observing something requires interacting with it, which leads to change, so we can never observe something that does not change, which explains why time is a universal feature of our world. Here, “world” is defined as everything that is observed.

So far so good. Let us summarize. We have here a trio of ideas which seem to be so closely related as to be completely interdependent, dare I say symbiotic? Change, interaction, and observation. Obtaining knowledge requires interaction, which inevitably leads to change. Thus everything we know changes.

But we can add more concepts to this dance. For instance reciprocity. It has been observed not only that change and interaction go together, but that both participants in an interaction are changed. No interaction has been observed where one of the participants is changed, while the other is not. Thus change, interaction, and therefore also observation, are reciprocal. We now have a quartet of ideas in symbiosis. Moreover, observation is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, and just as the state of the observer is changed by the observation, so the state of the observed is changed, in a reciprocal fashion. So, strictly speaking, which of the two is designated the “observer” and which the “observed” is quite arbitrary, and basically comes down to a convention.

This is an example of a memeplex, a set of ideas which rely on each other, which shed light on each other, and which evolve together. Once our understanding of one of them changes, the others must change immediately as well. Once again, this is consistent, and goes to show that these ideas are so general as to be illustrations of themselves! “Interaction”, “change”, “observation”, are memes which are themselves subject to change, interaction, and so forth. This is meant as a heads-up to GEB fans (Gödel-Escher-Bach).

The importance of the memeplex idea comes from the fact that the correct view of any given concept hinges fundamentally on the memeplex in which it operates, and the role it plays therein. Analyzing a concept in itself, outside of its conceptual “environment”, so to speak, is like trying to understand the anatomy, physiology, and biology of a fish independently of the fact that it lives in water. It is an utterly meaningless exercise.

In the following entry, I will consider the concept of change through the lens of the successive memeplexes in which it played a role, or rather, the successive memeplexes that humans have built around it. This will lead to a more coherent and clearer view of other related concepts: predictability, uncertainty, information processing and finally computation (the most recent memeplex we have built around change). The fact that our modern understanding of change is becoming increasingly interwoven with the concept of information processing, or computation, is what lies behind terms such as “computational universe”, “the physics of information” or “emergence”. Shedding light on these ideas is the main motivation of this series of posts.

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A meme is any concept which may be communicated between human beings. Since communication is never perfect, and since the thought processes of each human often modify received concepts before recommunicating them, memes mutate and evolve with time. The rate of evolution may change from extremely  fast (bad ideas – they quickly disappear, this is the fastest kind of evolution) to moderate (ideas that seem good at first, but eventually change, or are abandoned) to slow or very slow (ideas that change little over long periods of time – such as the numbers).

Other authors have tried to define memes in various ways, in order to distinguish them from other ideas. However, I believe that any such distinction is artificial. All abstract concepts may be communicated, to some degree. Those that are hard to communicate simply have higher mutation rates than those that are easy to communicate, and which mutate slower. Any concept that may not be communicated at all is not really a concept, but a state of mind. A state of mind is a concept only to the extent that it can be communicated. Biological evidence suggests that abstract thought and language co-evolved in the human brain. Consequently, any distinction between memes and other concepts is artificial.

But memes are not moving through intellectual space independently of each other. They interact. When two or more ideas “collide” in a single mind, they are modified, or sometimes one may disappear (be abandoned), or they may give birth to new ideas. Rereading the previous sentence it also becomes clear that memes interact in ways exactly analogous to physical objects. This is not accidental. Abstract thought evolved, in part, because it enabled humans to put together and take apart physical objects according to their needs. Stone+rope+stick=hammer. Thus, it makes sense that mental objects may at first have been designed by evolution to mimic physical objects. In modern science there is a technical term for such mimickry: modeling. Mental objects (i.e. memes) originally evolved as models of the external world.

And just as physical objects, memes form aggregates, which may, under the right conditions, evolve together. In the physical world these are known as natural cycles (the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the gas and dust cycle which sustains star formation). In the biological world, these are known as metabolisms, or as symbiotic, or interdependent cycles. In the mental world these are known as memeplexes (the differential calculus, Tibetan Buddhism, the natural languages, etc.).

But in most presentations of memetics, one aspect is overlooked. Memes interact not only with each other (via conscious thought) but also with physical objects (via action and perception). Consequently, the notion of memeplex must be enlarged to allow aggregates or cycles containing both mental components (memes) and physical components (objects). This enlarged notion I will call a “plex”. Technologies are typical examples of plexes, since they involve mental objects (physics, math, design concepts, fabrication techniques) as well as physical objects (the physical realization of the respective technologies). The design concepts may be said to co-evolve with the physical realizations because each imposes constraints on the other. They are interdependent via processes such as fabrication (mental > physical) or reverse engineering (physical > mental). Other examples of plexes are political systems, religions, scientific theories, and clothing fashions. Their respective physical components are guns and voting ballots, icons and other objects of worship, experimental apparatus, and billboards and TV ads.

In the following posts, I look closer at change and related memes in the context of their plexes.

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Let us start from the beginning: explanation is a form of communication between intelligent beings and therefore makes use of mental tools available to them. What are these tools?

In an article available on this site (but well hidden, because it requires cleanup…) I suggest, in the context of a discussion of memetics, that intelligence basically consists of building internal, mental models of the external world. First, mental objects are created (instinctively and automatically) in correspondence with certain perception dataset features, or patterns. Non-intelligent beings are capable of this as well. Then, secondary mental objects are created (consciously), by either composing or decomposing objects from the first (primary, or instinctive) group. This is something specific to intelligent beings.

When an object is decomposed, what is needed is a capacity for abstraction, while when objects are combined to create composite objects, what is needed is a capacity for imagination. From this perspective one may say that intelligence is the mental equivalent of opposable thumbs: allowing their owner to easily take apart and put together objects in arbitrary new ways.

Let me give some examples to make it clear what I mean.

A blue sweater is a textile object, which is blue, and which is used to keep warm. From the real, physical object one obtains a mental object, the idea of a blue sweater, which can be broken down into a series of other mental objects among which are the ideas of “textile material”, “blueness” and “warmth”. All three of these ideas are clearly abstract ideas, derived from the real, physical object, the sweater on my shelf (actually, and strictly speaking, derived from the sensory dataset pattern corresponding to the sweater).

An example of imagination is putting together the ideas of pigs and of wings to create the mental object “flying pigs”. The resulting object does not correspond to something in the real world, but other objects which were imagined at one time, later became realities. Very roughly bus+wings=airplane, internal combustion engine+wheels=car, etc. Clearly much (but not all) imaginative activity goes on independently of the real world.

These two basic intellectual processes are in close correspondence with the two types of explanation mentioned above. When an intelligent being communicates an act of abstraction to another intelligent being, that is a top down explanation, because the agent explains how to take apart a composite object. When it communicates an act of imagination, that is a bottom up explanation, because the agent explains how a given object fits into a larger composite object. The argument of the Virtus Dormitiva post relies on the latter conception of explanation. The conclusion, however, remains the same: : explanation is a relational enterprise, and only makes logical sense in a process centered mental universe (as opposed to a substance centered mental universe). A substance centered ontology only makes sense to the extent that time, or the inevitability of change, is ignored. In physics language, it is an approximation valid on sufficiently short time scales.

Note: interestingly, the etymology of the word “explanation” belongs to the abstract tradition: it refers to unfolding something, laying flat a convoluted object. Thanks to Catherine Nicolas for pointing this out to me, and motivating this post.

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“Virtus dormitiva” is a notion which appears in the play “The imaginary invalid” by Molière.

In the play, a character is asked to explain why opium causes sleep. He answers that opium contains a “dormitive principle” which is at the origin of its ability to cause sleep. In the original text the phrase is in latin: “virtus dormitiva”.

It is evident that the explanation does not explain anything, but only replaces one poorly understood phenomenon with another. The interlocutor is in no way wiser after the explanation than before it.

In fact, I would like to go further, and put forward the idea that all explanation suffers from the “virtus dormitiva” syndrome. There is no real distinction between real and fake explanations. All explanations are fake, in the sense of “virtus dormitiva”. The value of an explanation never resides in the fact of replacing a poorly understood idea with a better understood one, because the second is never better understood than the first. It always needs, in its turn, to be explained in terms of a third, a fourth, and so forth. The only things which we believe not to require explanation are the ones that we have agreed, that we have accepted, collectively, and at least for the time being, to not understand.

Where, then, is the value of an explanation?

It certainly is not in replacing one idea with another (an “explanatory” one, presumably), but in establishing a relation between the two (or perhaps more) ideas. The value of an explanation is not to help us “understand” an idea or phenomenon as an object in itself, but to draw our attention to a relation or interaction of the given idea or phenomenon to some others. The notion of understanding is therefore, a fundamentally relational notion: we can never understand things, but only relationships between them. When we say we have completely understood a phenomenon or idea, that is equivalent to providing a complete set of relationships in which the said phenomenon or idea participates. The difference may seem cosmetic at first: “so explanation is relational, so what?” Well, the relational conception differs from the object centered conception in that it is a process-centered view: it incorporates time/change from the start.

This is also why the notion of “definition” is fundamentally misleading. A definition claims to be an explanation which is definitive, total and exhaustive, and which fixes once and for all the description and meaning of an object. It is misleading in its finality; it creates an illusory impression of immutability, of something being impervious to change. When a definition requires an update, or modification, that does not mean the old version was “wrong”; instead what is wrong is our expectation that a final, “correct” version exists at all. There are no “correct” definitions, only definitions that may be more or less useful, in a given context. The attraction of western thought for this approach (of “defining” things) is clearly very closely related to its ontological, substance oriented approach since Parmenides (see also the Ontology, truth and politics post and the Philosophy page).

Among other things, this supports a view of science (and abstract thought in general) as a set of useful fictions.

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În acest eseu încerc să atrag atenția asupra unei complementarități extrem de interesante, și potențial extrem de utile și constructive, între ideologia și principiile care ghidează cele două personalități. Unul vizibil, celălalt în umbră, unul libertarian, celălalt étatist, unul pragmatic, celălalt moralist.

Dacă în acest mandat, domnul Băsescu și grupul din jurul domnului Patriciu vor ști să transforme războiul palatelor într-un dans al palatelor, toți românii vor avea numai de câștigat. Mai precis, domnul Patriciu ar trebui să accepte importanța și utilitatea Statului, iar domnul Băsescu ar trebui să preia o parte din pragmatismul non-moralizant al omului de afaceri. Cum spunea Deng Xiao Ping, nu contează dacă pisica e albă sau neagră, atâta timp cât prinde șoareci.

I argue that tautology is nothing to be ashamed of, the best illustration being the fact that mathematics has gotten by just fine for millenia. In the context of empirical science, however, tautology has remained beyond the pale, except for a relatively recent development: the emergence approach.

In the article available here, I argue that the radical emergent view, which holds that all phenomena are emergent, is equivalent to the statement that a TOE exists.

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I argue that computation and prediction have always been the engine behind scientific progress. The computational tools available in various epochs have therefore played a central role in shaping our view of reality. Since we are currently witnessing a shift from the pen/paper/calculus computational toolbox to the computer-aided computational toolbox, I argue that it is an appropriate time to reevaluate the received wisdom about scientific reality. It is time to shift away from the differential equation mind-set which has prevailed since Newton, and towards a numerical computation mind-set, for reasons of both pragmatism and principle.

The complete post is available in pdf format by clicking here.

In the spirit of “a picture is worth a thousand words”, the whole pdf linked above may be considered as nothing more than an extensive caption for Fig. 1 of the following article by Enzo Tonti:

E. Tonti, Finite formulation of the electromagnetic field, PIER vol. 32, pp. 1-44.

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]]> http://interiordialogue.eu/2009/09/09/on-science-and-computation/feed/ 0 alexcabuz Creative Commons License http://interiordialogue.eu/2009/03/18/america-the-eternally-blessed/ http://interiordialogue.eu/2009/03/18/america-the-eternally-blessed/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:44:11 +0000 alexcabuz http://interiordialogue.eu/?p=183 ]]> David Brooks’s March 16 column in the New York Times is titled “The commercial republic” and it is a classic piece of American mythology. To be fair, however, it is not just Americans who indulge in it, but also a far from negiligible portion of the educated people of the world.

David Brooks made the classic argument of the intrinsic, fundamental and enduring vitality of Americans. He explains it by the fact that the quest for wealth through commerce is an intrinsic feature of American history and culture. He has a point, since, indeed, not many nations on Earth have the phrase “pursuit of happiness” in their founding document.

But this view is superficial because it relies on another intrinsic, fundamental and enduring feature, this time of human nature in general: its nearsightedness. Change always seems to take us humans by surprise. But perhaps that is not fair, since that is more or less the definition of change.  If it wasn’t surprising it wouldn’t be called change.

Still, even the most cursory glance through human history will bring up countless examples of powerful leaders, cultures and civilizations that eventually either collapsed, disappeared, or otherwise changed into something less prosperous. Moreover, some of the ones that burned brightest, burned shortest, for instance the Macedonian empire, the Mongol empire and the French empire. In 1985 few in the West or in the East would have dared dream that communism in Europe would be dead and buried in less than 5 years.

When it is the powerful who are doing the “not dreaming” there is a name for it. It’s called hubris.

There are many things that could change in a heartbeat, and that could severely change the rules of the game. A simple example is the flow of immigration. Immigrants (whether voluntary or involuntary – slaves) have been the steroids of the American economy for centuries, and the majority of them have been European. That flow has slowed down in recent years however, with the exception of the Mexican inflow. Is the addiction to immigration strong enough to cause serious withdrawal? Maybe so, maybe not.

Another example is a sudden drop in Chinese and Arab confidence in the American economy. It is Chinese and Arab dollars that are financing American deficits and debt. A point may come (for a whole variety of possible reasons) where the mind boggling debt that America has and will continue to accumulate will make them reluctant to throw even more money into what they will perceive as a black hole. Besides, why should some of the poorest people of the world endlessly subsidize some of the richest? Because the question has not occurred to them yet, but it will…

Yet another example is that a major environmental disaster on a global scale (only a matter of time now) may turn the cultural and economic assets to which David Brooks sings praises into liabilities.

To put it shortly, America has become addicted not only to cheap oil, but to a whole slew of other economic candy: immigration, blank-check financing of its debt, a currency used as a world currency, non-existent environmental regulation, the willingness of a billion and a half people to work for “iou”s instead of money.

Like any addiction, you feel like the king of the world for a while, and then you suddenly feel like the rug has been pulled out from under you.  It’s called being a victim of one’s own success.

Mr. Brooks, there is nothing intrinsic, fundamental or enduring about being the king of the world.

The original idea was picked up and taken further, among other people, by Susan Blackmore in her book “The Meme Machine.” In a more recent talk given at TED she contributed a new term: “temes,” i.e. physical objects, in particular technological objects that can also “go viral.” Instances of viral gadgets are the iPod or the internal combustion engine.

It would be interesting to try extending this view to all objects with which humans interact, especially the man-made ones. In this case one may see humans living in symbiosis with the various ideas, technologies and gadgets they make; the world economy would then correspond to the subset of the biosphere directly dependent on human activity.

Admittedly, many might at first feel uncomfortable with a conception of “living thing” so radically general as to include, in addition to humans, chickens and cows, microchips, oil refineries, books and every other object humans produce for their own use. They may object that this definition is so broad as to be useless.

I believe the analogy goes sufficiently deep to warrant further consideration, and that the relationship between humans and their houses, for instance, is very similar to the relationship between trees and the monkeys feeding on their fruit, particularly when the monkeys are totally dependent on the trees for their existence (in the same way that houses are totally dependent on humans for theirs). In both cases the relationship is one of symbiosis (a biological term). Living things replicate, and none is completely independent from the rest; some feed on other replicators directly, some depend on other replicators only indirectly. Many plants, for instance, depend indirectly on the fungi, and various microorganisms and worms without whom there would be no soil. In the same way, we need clothes and houses to survive, to replicate ourselves, while clothes and houses need us to replicate themselves.

There is no suitable term to describe this situation. “Reproduction” is already used in the life sciences and has a relatively precise, and narrow definition. The same is true for “symbiosis”. “Interdependence” is too broad. So I propose “reciproduction“. In my view, there is no fundamental distinction between the natural, the artificial and the memetic replicators. They all reciproduce, or reproduce interdependently.

The biosphere  includes natural replicators such as trees and cats, as well as artificial replicators such as clothes, cars and houses. However, the amount of energy and other resources is limited, so some replicators spread at the expense of others.

When memetic replicators disappear we call that a paradigm shift. When artificial replicators disappear, we call that an economic crisis. When they spread at the expense of “natural” replicators we call that an environmental disaster. When natural replicators disappear we call that an extinction. In general, when the equilibrium between natural and artificial replicators shifts, we call that an environmental disaster.

I am not saying that environmental disasters are in some sense “natural” and that we should therefore not worry about them. On the contrary. We should worry about them very much, because we humans, our memes, our food, clothes, and homes are all part of the same ecosystem, and if we keep upsetting the equilibrium, the next thing that goes extinct may be us.

From a more academic point of view, an interesting consequence of this view is that an economic crisis may be understood by analogy to waves of extinctions in biology, except it’s not species that disappear, but temes: goods, factories or even industries. This analogy may  open the way to a synergy between our understanding of evolutionary biology on one hand and economic theory on the other (largely, I suspect, to the benefit of the latter).

I believe that this is only one of the many benefits and insights that may be gained by adopting the unified “reciproductive” ontology described above.

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