Dan J. Bruiger

Lack of coherence in concepts of intelligence has implications for artificial intelligence. ‘Intelligence’ is an abstraction grounded in human experience while supposedly freed from the embodiment that is the basis of that experience. In addition to physical instantiation, embodiment is a condition of dependency, of an autopoietic system upon an environment, which thus matters to the system itself. The autonomy and general capability sought in artificial general intelligence implies artificially re-creating the organism’s natural condition of embodiment. That may not be feasible; and, if feasible, it may not be controllable or advantageous.

The Value Alignment Problem (VAP) presupposes that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is desirable and perhaps inevitable. As usually conceived, it is one side of the more general issue of mutual control between agonistic agents. To be fully autonomous, an AI must be an autopoietic system (an agent), with its own purposiveness. In the case of such systems, Bostrom’s orthogonality thesis is untrue. The VAP reflects the more general problem of interfering in complex systems, entraining the possibility of unforeseen consequences. Instead of consolidating skill in an agent that acts on its own behalf, it would be safer and as effective to create ad hoc task-oriented software tools. What motivates the quest to create a superintelligence with a will of its own? Is a general intelligence even possible that is not an agent? Such questions point to the need to clarify what general intelligence is, what constitutes an agent, whose values and intentionality are to be aligned, and how feasible “friendliness” is.

A solution to the “hard problem” requires taking the point of view of the organism and its sub- agents. The organism constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that are assigned meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history. Phenomenality is a virtual representation, made to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self), which is tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub-agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal and serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least informally bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter.

This book critically examines how mathematical modeling shapes and limits a scientific approach to the natural world and how it affects society’s views of nature. It addresses the limits and historical, psychological, religious, and gendered roots of mechanistic thought. It questions traditional concepts such as determinism, reversibility, equilibrium, and the isolated system and challenges the view of physical reality as passive and inert, arguing that if nature is real it must transcend human representations. In particular, nature can be expected to self-organize in ways that elude a mechanist treatment. Instead of appealing to multiverses, for example, in order to resolve the mysteries of fine-tuning, cosmologists should look toward self-organizing processes on the cosmic scale. Hampered by its external focus, “first-order” science should become more self-reflective. If the scientific worldview can go beyond a stance of prediction and control, it could lead to a relationship with nature more amenable to survival.

Human culture seeks to transcend and replace the uncertainties of nature with a controllable human world. The quest for the Ideal has led to the creation of artificial environments, both material and intellectual—a second nature. New technologies express ancient dreams of immortality, freedom from embodiment and pain, and unlimited control of matter in man-made environments. But nature is not an artifact and may never be fully understood or controlled. While post-humanism may be delusional, its dreams could defeat the reasoned use of technology to improve human life. Globalist economics is the latest expression of the mechanist metaphor. The basal gender imbalance of modern social values must be rectified to guide society sanely into the future.

For diverse reasons, the problem of phenomenal consciousness is persistently challenging. Mental terms are characteristically ambiguous, researchers have philosophical biases, secondary qualities are excluded from objective description, and philosophers love to argue. Adhering to a regime of efficient causes and third-person descriptions, science as it has been defined has no place for subjectivity or teleology. A solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness will require a radical approach: to take the point of view of the cognitive system itself. To facilitate this approach, a concept of agency is introduced along with a different understanding of intentionality. Following this approach reveals that the autopoietic cognitive system constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, which underlie perceptual completion effects and “filling in”—and, by implication, phenomenology in general. It creates phenomenality much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that it assigns meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history that is the source of valuation upon which meaning depends. Phenomenality is a virtual representation to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self) tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub- agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal, but serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from that of unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least psychologically bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter, and perhaps hope for a broader definition of science.

This paper proposes the feasibility of a second-order approach in cosmology. It is intended to encourage cosmologists to rethink standard ideas in their field, leading to a broader concept of self-organization and of science itself. It is argued, from a cognitive epistemology perspective, that a first-order approach is inadequate for cosmology; study of the universe as a whole must include study of the scientific observer and the process of theorizing. Otherwise, concepts of self-organization at the cosmological scale remain constrained by unacknowledged assumptions and biases. Examples of limiting notions are discussed in the context of alternatives. To include the role of the theorist does not mean reducing science to subjective or sociological terms. On the contrary, second-order science would provide a more complete portrait of nature. The work of cosmologist Lee Smolin is discussed as a candidate example of second-order cosmology.

Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to explore the nature and role of art as a human phenomenon from a broadly cognitive perspective. Like science and religion, art serves to mediate the unknown, at once to embrace and to defend against the fundamental mystery of existence. Thus, it may challenge the status quo while generally serving to maintain it. Art tracks the individuation of subjectivity, serving the pleasure principle, yet is appropriated by the collective’s commitment to the reality principle. While science and religion close in on serious answers to fundamental questions, art opens up possibilities toward playfulness, uselessness, imagination, and arbitrary whim. Though art has no unifying definition, meaning, or intent through time and across cultures, it remains important to people, both to do and to enjoy. It serves to counterbalance the naive realism of science, the “rationality” of modern society, and the literalism of text-based religion. While its allegiance is divided, its most worthy intent is to aid us to confront and negotiate the great mystery revealed to us in consciousness.