Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Sat, 12 Sep 1998 05:53:31 +0100
Hi Magnus, Bo and Squad
This post continues on from my last Level 5 post. Before I go any
further I want to say that I am not 100% absolutely certain that the
5th Level exists. This is an exploratory discussion which may
throw some new light on the other levels and their interaction in
addition to helping me organize my thoughts about a possible L5.
MAGNUS WROTE:
> I agree with everything you say unless the level 5 part. Why do you
> want to make another level of it. You say that there's virtually no
> difference between a computer virus and a biological virus. It's just
> the environment, it's just the inorganic building blocks that are
> different. What forces you to make a new level? What's wrong about
> the old biological? Don't you see the domino effect here? If we have a
> level 5, we'll get a level 6 which would be the computer equivalence of
> our social level. Then there will be level 7, the computer intellectual
> level. Then? Another turn, right?
>
> In my essay, I mention my merry-go-round idea which says that each turn
> consists of four levels. They are the same levels, just built on different
> inorganic foundations.
I've read through your essay and can see that many of our thoughts
regarding AI and computing overlap. There are, however, some
differences. The new breed of computer code uses highly adaptive
constructions in order to become free of the older confined and
restricted code. I'm referring to adaptive neural networks, genetic
algorithms, fuzzy logic and the new ALife constructions.
Combinations of these are producing complex dynamic systems
which have evolved away from the original creations of the code
writers. I can see where you're coming from when you relate these
systems to the current and accepted four levels of the MoQ. As
you've said in previous posts, you are stretching the limits of the
definitions of the four levels. Where I think you have made a
mistake is in your view of the relationship of the Inorganic level and
the one's and zero's of computers etc. The Machine Language
Insruction Repertoire (MLIR) and the ones and zero's are
constructions of Intellect.
To start with the virus example:
The virus is not the digital values nor the MLIR which orders and
supports the execution of the program in the same way that a
person is not the carbon based structures or the laws of physics
that appear to order InorgPoV's. Nor is a person the society of cells
which construct the body. What emerges from the relationship of
these lower PoV's are Intellectual PoV's. The relationship and
interplay between the four layers gives rise to what we describe as
a person - which I believe is different to subject and is certainly not
an object. The person is not the sum of the PoV's of the four levels
but is the interactions AND relationships between those PoV's and
(recursively) the interaction between persons - the whole is greater
than the sum of the parts. I'll use the term persons as shorthand for
the above.
The computer is, I believe, a different sort of machine. It is
endlessly reconfigurable in a way that most, if not all, other
machines are not. It can imitate itself or another machine. It can be
one sort of system whilst pretending to be a completely different
system (or number of systems) at the same time. It is no
coincidence that this is where new forms of life (or if I'm right a
completely new level of PoV's) arise. These things are special.
(Where's that anorak?)
As I see it computers are the new playground of the Intellect and
here is the reason for my assertion that a new level is emerging,
not just an analogue of other patterns or a parallel
structure/hierarchy.
If it was the case that the virus was 'just' a bunch of code that
resides on a floppy disk or in the ones and zeroes and MLIR then
my machines would be toast. I've got 600 of the things sitting on
my hard disk. They are neither alive nor dead in this form but in a
state somewhere in between. If I ran them through a compiler or
assembler then the result would be a dormant pattern of ones and
zeroes. On execution (!!!)) they would be active. The code itself is
an intellectual pattern of values.
The one big difference here is that their environment is a product of
the persons that I mentioned earlier. Persons would exist without
this environment, the virus wouldn't. The ones and zeroes and the
MLIR are an ANALOGUE of the inorganic level and the 'laws' of
physics. But unlike the 'true' (original?) inorganic level they are a
construction dependent on the existence of the 4 levels The virus
code exists as a configuration of inorganic material (floppy disks,
hard disks, magnetic tape, silicon memory etc. The inorganic
material is in this configuration due to the prior activity of the 4
levels. The MLIR is also a construction of the 4 levels. The
existence of the virus code and the MLIR are dependent on the
existence of the 4 levels. The 'biological' patterns of the virus are
created when the virus' environment is operational - the computer is
switched on and running. The Organic level, for the virus, is (I think)
in the dormant and active state within the host environment (the
computer). But this is still not the virus itself. The real equivalent of
the inorganic level for the virus is not just the ones and zeroes and
the MLIR and electricity etc. but includes all the 4 levels and their
interactions and the products and 'things' produced which support
and execute the virus code and the code with which it interacts.
The virus itself is (are?) the patterns of value created by the
interaction of all these other patterns of value and is emergent from
them. It is the emergent PoV's that are the L5 entities.
By the same reasoning there is no more need to create further
levels beyond L5 for L5PoV's to exist, than there was to recreate
extra levels for the emergence of intellect. L5 is a complete (though
nascent) level in its own right. This also applies to the Internet and
to ALifes and AI's. It's the emergent L5 PoV's that exist at L5 not
the subjects, objects and values which support and sustain them.
The analogue for the Inorganic, Organic and Social patterns for L5
already exist in the form of Hardware, Software, Firmware,
Wetware etc. They are part and parcel of L5's lower levels.
Massively parallel computers, neural networks, genetic algorithms,
connectionism and complex adaptive systems are but the start of
the patterns of value which enable the emergence of a new level.
They are not part of L5 any more than social patterns of value are
part of the Intellectual level. Each of the levels is distinct although
where one starts and the other finishes is questionable.
This is where the SO platypus exists. SO thinking (SOTAQI)
excludes PoV's that are not within the 4 levels. How can it be
otherwise? SO thinking is old in our terms (at least 30,000 years
old, probably more). SO thinking has trouble enough coming to
terms with Quality as Reality.
We're so used to thinking in terms of Intellect being the crowning
glory of creation that it is virtually impossible for many people to
accept that the coming AI's and ALife's are any more than science
fantasy - personally I blame religion :).
I'll stop for the moment as I'm sure there will be further discussion
about L5.
Having read through this again I can't really see that it is properly
part of the SOM Platypi and MoQ Solutions Program so I've gone
back to the original subject title - sorry Diana!!
Horse
"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.
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