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Taking Stock

we need to be aware of the potential pitfalls of the assumptions of the previous chapters. The ultimate goal of these chapters has been to ask how we fit into the scheme of things.

Pitfalls of the assumptions

Many assumptions have been implicitly made in these pages.

Is Assumption-4 correct (that artificial consciousness as the next revolution waiting in the wings)? This point must be addressed.

Is Assumption-3 correct (that the properties of later members of the sequence of machine-classes can be inferred from those of earlier ones)? Even if it is, we will be extrapolating new members from "a thimbleful of base cases". Plus, an over eager search for patterns might only throw up Ley lines anyway. Furthermore, chaotic systems have periodicity but no predictability (Gle97); new inventions, and their emergent properties, are, by definition, difficult to predict.

Is Assumption-2 correct (that there is a sequence of machine-classes common to the industrial revolutions)? Even if it is, there are exceptions, as this book observes, to the properties shared by computers, heat-engines and wheels. Like tin from silicon, exponentiation from multiplication, later members of the sequence might not inherit every property. And, like zinc from calcium, a pattern thrown up by a first analysis can belie a more complicated mechanism.

Is Assumption-1 correct (that there is another industrial revolution, and accompanying invention of a new machine-class, yet to come)? Even if it is, it has a second side:

Assumption-1a
there remains at least one invention after the computer
Assumption-1b
the invention has not been already made
Society, used to ever-faster change, might have become blasé, desensitised, to new revolutions when they occur, and to have taken the new invention already for granted. These chapters could at least, then, be instrumental in awarding it its deserved recognition.

Indeed, semantics-handling, theorem-proving beliefs machines already do exist for working through the 'what-ifs' of initial axiom beliefs, searching for implications and inconsistencies. To generate new theories, by dropping or inverting Euclid's fifth axiom (Bod91, Hof80), the expert system might be the new MC waiting for a new von Neumann / Watt to make it many times more efficient and practical by one simple structural change.

There is plenty of scope for scepticism, even so. But the aim of these chapters is just to be an interesting exercise, to see what it might turn up. Any interesting new ideas would then be worth following up by more rigorous investigation.

How do we fit into the scheme of things?

Science needs to keep visiting what are presently metaphysical questions, to see if new progress can be made, in the light of new knowledge (NS, 03-Sep-2016, p28), including those of consciousness (p31), why there is something rather than nothing (p32), free-will (p35), what reality is made of (p36), whether time is just an illusion (p37), and whether God exists (p39). With a steadfast guide, and a universe that is started well away from equilibrium providing the regular flow of low-entropy nutrients, and undesirable trespassing on each other's extended phenotypes, or being drawn into other local minima.

From a bottom-up, engineering perspective, can new insights lead us to the design of revolutionary new machines to help us feed the ever growing population? These chapters have explored a number of different models for identifying such a new type of machine.

Each cultural revolution and its enabling technology (wheel, steam engine, computer) can be viewed as just another layer of convection current driven on by the second law of thermodynamics.

  1. The next machine-class as a sequence
  2. Two models of the next machine-class built on computing technology
  3. Inevitable emergence of structure
  4. Symbiotic subservience to another organism
  5. Dennett-like self-writing documents

If what we seek is a new machine class, to be the enabling technology of the next industrial revolution, the perhaps it is one that manifests artificial consciousness. If so, we need first to investigate what we mean by natural consciousness, along with will and free-will.

Back to the first chapter or back to the table of contents.

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