1/6 Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from economics
2/6 Sufficiently institutionalized economics is indistinguishable from religion
3/6 Sufficiently conservative religion is indistinguishable from politics
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4/6 Sufficiently disinterested politics is indistinguishable from philosophy
5/6 Sufficiently thoughtful philosophy is indistinguishable from instrument-making
6/6 Sufficiently clever instrument-making is indistinguishable from science
This is Clarke’s Circle of Life of Mind
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My Friday morning thought*
* took my Saturday yesterday so it’s Friday on my timeline today
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Maybe I’ll call this the Mind Mansion instead of Circle of Life of Mind.
Like the House of Quality
Replying to
Oh look I can superimpose a good 2x2 here. There’s always a 2x2 if you look hard enough.
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Basically trying to tease apart what instruments do from mere iterative refinement of thoughts.
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OODA loops govern the transition between closed-would iteration with REPL (read-eval-print loop) and open-world iteration with POHL (probe-observe hypothesize loop). Basically when to open up your model rather than merely trying to debug it.
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There is a qualitative difference between epistemic and ontological feedback. Achieving ontological expansion while trying to debug a model is rare. Eg: Dirac concluding antiparticles must exist from symmetries in equations being studied in a math REPL.
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Math is interestingly on the edge between closed and open world. You can make random unexpected ontological discoveries (eg Mandelbrot set) while operating within what feels like a closed world.
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POHLs and instruments are “real world” in a way REPLs are not. They embody boundary intelligence as opposed to interior. Cf
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1/ I'd like to make up a theory of intelligence based on a 2-element ontology: boundary and interior intelligence
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Time is the essential dimension separating closed and open worlds. Roughly in open worlds you must pay a price in proportion to the degree you’re not operating in real time. This is especially clear with simulations. Real-time sims race against whatever they are modeling.
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