Ar’ti-f’cial, a. 1. made by man; not natural. 2. not genuine; affected.
ar’ti-fi’ci-al’ity, n.
E-merge’, v. Come out; appear. - e-mer’gence, n
Whenever I’m given something that I should react to, one very big concern for me is to know how certain words are defined in the dictionary. It’s not because I don’t know exactly what they mean, but I wanna be able to just figure out which of the people’s perceptions regarding a certain statement or regarding certain words have basis or are just results of their own process of figuring out the appropriate meanings. In this particular situation, the two essential words are artificiality and emergence, the meanings of the words in the dictionary are stated above. With respect to emergence, I didn’t think there was something problematic with the meaning because it’s simple as it can be. I only had certain issues with artificiality.
My dilemma with definition lies in the part where artificiality is defined as “not genuine”. It is problematic because I feel that what is real is something which exists, and to say that something artificial is something unreal would have no logical reason to back it up. I really think that this topic is very relevant because in a world where everything’s changing due to certain innovations, artificiality has become a part of life. The process of finding meanings for artificiality and emergence is a process which will be ongoing until life itself exists. My reasons for such a claim will be discussed later in the essay. I will thoroughly look into the claims and insights expressed in the essay by Ghasempour and try to analyze how it led to such conclusions.
I do agree with Ghasempour that debates on issues regarding artificiality and emergence have always been present in every single generation. These debates, I think, are attempts to decipher the unexplainable through possible exchange of insights and formulation of certain conventions regarding which explanations are to be accepted or not. After reading the essay, it made me think of some opinions or insights expressed in the essay which I disagree with and some areas which I think have become problematic. I will also be looking at all these inconsistencies, critique them and make the most of whatever I found out in the process of my research.
In the first paragraph of the essay, the concept of emergents as results of some organic evolution introduced the author’s idea of how we are baffled about the reality that we have always held true. This statement reminded me of something a representative from La Rouche told us about how all these economic theories we’ve been studying are all mere manipulations of the “more influential” part of the group of economists. He pointed out that the reality that we have grown to accept are just manifestations of who won in the battle for truth in the centuries. I get the point of how we all become confused with certain “alleged truths” which we’ve been taught right from the start everytime we would encounter something which opposes the things we believe in. it maybe attributed to the fact that the things we believe in serve as foundations for the more complicated tings that we encounter which are also vital for our growth or development. What bothered me in the statement given by the author of the essay was her question on spiritual realms which science cannot permeate. I don’t think that spirituality or the spiritual realm per se should be compared parallel to science because they are of different levels. The context in which the spiritual realm was used, for me, was foul because it exudes the message that scientists always have the easier way out by attributing the unexplainable (as of the moment) as spiritual stuff from the spiritual realms. The long standing conflict between the side which looks at emergence as a spiritual thing and the side wherein emergence is explained as a result of evolution or any natural process is in a way useless because I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. Physical laws can give explanations and so can non-scientific theories but the point will be not of making them totally opposite each other.
I also believe that there are a number of things that we can learn from the past and that these backward linkages may not directly point out such answers but they sure will serve as guides to trace what humanity has achieved so far. Still, I don’t agree with the statement that “..the future is geared towards artificiality” because I don’t wanna see artificiality as a destination but a means or an instrument that can lead us to our ultimate goal to seek the betterment of everyone and everything which exist. I believe that artificiality should not rule over our lives but we can use it to make our ways of living better than it is as of the moment.
In the next paragraph, it said something about the claim of science that everything has a logical reason behind them. Looking at the meaning of logical in the dictionary, it just means “ something used in LOGIC” and logic is defined as the “art of reasoning”. So in a way, what maybe justified by mere manipulation of reason could be considered logical. Furthermore, if one believes that our existence is just superficial or that we are just imagining this world that we are living in (think of Matrix) and he can back it up with something really convincing like, we don’t even know what happens if we die, therefore we cant grasp the whole truth about our existence and anything that we see today may just be a part of the whole play which is only revealed after our “supposed lives”. And that if the game is over, we can choose whether we wanna try again or just rest. It’s logical, but all we can do is speculate. I say, it’s not in our limitations of our cognition but in the limitations of our means of using our cognition. I agree that artificiality should become instruments for the improvement of life as a whole and that the process in which we understand is subjective and personal. Trying to explain and find out things through mere biological processes would be, in my opinion, atrocious. It is because we all vary, and we cant hold everything constant not only in our ways of thinking but in our biological processes as well. However, regarding the author’s statement on the Emergent Theory of Mind’s being useless because it merely explains the process is unacceptable because the key to being able to analyze something and to arrive into a breakthrough starts with the understanding of the basic processes and the basic events which happened along the way.
I also agree with the claim that there still are a lot of things which remains as mysteries to us, but to call the actions of modern empiricists as attempts to “RECREATE NATURE THROUGH ARTIFICING” would be dangerous and in a way, problematic. Artificing shouldn’t aim to recreate nature because recreation is a process which should happen without interference from us, but instead artificing should aim to IMPROVE and ACHIEVE the betterment if not of everyone but of at least the majority of the population.
It was in a way hard for me to grasp this idea of reality being “…independent of any possible knowledge and any actual encounter with it”. I’m afraid that through this definition, reality has become something merely imagined. If there is such a thing as accessible and inaccessible reality, then how do we verify it? What is real? Genuine? Who verifies it? I think it’s once again a matter of convention and influence. Just like the old times. The politics of reality will be at work.
Fear should never paralyze us into inaction. Every decision that we make has its intended and unintended consequences. Like what I learned in Economics, everything has its trade offs, its opportunity cost, and the knowledge on being able to imitate reality and understand emergence may cause some bad consequences. But I believe that though there are risks, it shouldn’t hinder us from wanting to know more and to discover things which in the end will offset whatever negative effects it may have. Even the cleanest of all intentions can result to serious negative effects but it shouldn’t stop us from trying to achieve more and from learning. Life is a process of learning, it’s a continued pursuit of improvement of being better. Yes, we do evolve, and learning more about reality, artificiality and emergence is a positive evolution regardless of what repercussions it may bring with it.
I like the concept in which we see our own lives to be artificial. Artificiality introduced as a way of life is a positive way to look at it. It drives me to a very important issue I wanna raise, why do people have this idea that anything artificial is not as good as the original and that it’s not gonna be good enough to satisfy something which is natural? Should there really be conflict between what is artificial and what is natural? Shouldn’t there be like a mutually beneficial relationship between them? Shouldn’t the artificial and the natural just complement each other? Are they supposed to be separate entities? I believe there shouldn’t be a clash between them.
There shouldn’t be a mere pursuit of artificiality, but instead, there should be a pursuit to improvement. Artificiality should only be one of the means to achieve improvement and to know more about the natural / real world. In STS, I learned to see the irony in defining science as something exact and systematic. It is because just like this issue addressed in the essay, science need not be uncompromising. In fact, Science is overly compromising that it welcomes even the most deviant of the deviant hypotheses. Just like the innovations we studied, artificiality shouldn’t be seen as a threat which will make life miserable for humanity but instead look at artificiality as a wagon that will bring us to a better world. A world where the artificial and the “real” live harmoniously with each other. A world where there will be not gap between people.
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