Context: A Gut Bacteria That Improves Memory in Bees The model of intelligence and cognition that is emerging is one in which all component processes, information and/or energy-processing (i.e. computational) sub-procedures and dependencies are contributing factors. The catch is that the sum total of all dependencies is uncountable and as unpalatable as this remains to […]
Truth is a mischievous beast. Everywhere asserted, almost nowhere justified and in those rare instances when it might have been said to have been proven or unambiguously defined, it requires we suspend ourselves on contraptions and hooks of such intricate complexity that it is quite easy to forget what we were initially discussing or seeking […]
Algorithmic complexity is a measure of information. For any non-trivially sophisticated (i.e. interesting) system, there exists no shortest/best programmatic representation – i.e. theory, model, framework or network wiring. This means that in some circumstances we can reduce ad infinitum. There is no best, only better; a lesson in abject humility still to be learned by […]
Ashby had powerful insights. The Good Regulator theorem of Conant and Ashby that every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system is instructive. Further down the Ashby path – the variety (a.k.a. complexity) of a model needs to be at least as sophisticated as that of the system it models. […]
In an era of complex systems, negotiating organisational complexity is front and center. Large, stratified hierarchies have traditionally relied upon the necessary – or at least (and arguably) inevitable – Manichaean historical certainties that both define and constrain growth, innovation and resilience in this context. In some ways, traditional bureaucracy represents a logico-symbolic aspiration for […]
Context: Peter Thiel says, forget the hype: Big Tech is slowing down It may be a necessary property of non-trivially sophisticated dynamical systems to oscillate through periods of acceleration and deceleration. Rising complexity in this context is equivalent to acceleration, logically as much as materially; we may quite sensibly speak of self-gravitation in this context. […]
Context: 94% of the universe’s galaxies are permanently beyond our reach The scale of the cosmos is astonishing. Some estimates infer 2 trillion galaxies and some variations of cosmological hyper-inflation (i.e. early expansion) require an infinite Universe. What is most astonishing of all, though and to anyone who stares into this abyss for longer than […]
Beyond the most broad brushstrokes of inductive intuition, we should never assume anything about others’ thoughts or intentions and yet find ourselves quite naturally predisposed by endemically limited information to do precisely this. A corollary assumption being that not only are the assumptions we make as essentially and irreducibly metaphysical assertions regarding others most likely […]
Context: Watch This Caterpillar Turn Into A Puss Moth Big picture: speciation, differentiation, radiation, change, growth – all instances of an underlying algorithm representing an optimally concise or (computational/logically) compressed method for the reproduction of an algorithm representing an optimally concise or compressed method for the reproduction of itself. The instances are indeed beautiful but […]
The integration of diversity within coherent unity (and as expressed or experienced across multiple technical and functional domains and disciplines) is a core problem of our era. One thing, and context agnostic, that large organisational systems rarely do well is to find effective balance between a need for control (as direction, guidance, intent) and the […]
Context: DeepMind’s AI predicts almost exactly when and where it’s going to rain Question: To what extent the modelling and simulation approximates to the actual systems complexity involved. Probabilistic, predictive within margins of error endemic to deep learning and here provides a 90 minute window of warning in this system. Granted, thermodynamic turbulence and irreducible […]
Context: Attack Mannequins: AI as Propaganda An interesting article but the assertion of ideological counter-propaganda in this context is a bit of stretch. It projects much more structure, aptitude and volition to the behavioural and regulatory (as control/governance) systems than has ever actually existed. The assertion of all ideological positions requires a foil, an antithesis […]
Daedelus Kite 