Circles and Demons: Can Artificial Lifeforms Cross the Techno-Bio Boundary?
The Expanse | Part 2
Nested Circles
Take a stroll through nature and you will quickly come across circles within circles. From oceanic honeycomb coral and sundial shells to the slow growth of the dahlia plant, one continuous line forming a 360(ish)° shape has existed in nature from time immemorial. We can trace our own fascination with circular patterns, especially those concentric and overlapping, back in time to the base of our common creation myths. Circular patterns seem to capture our imagination as a framework for observing the universe and our place in the reality contained within it. A singular circle: a singularity; a single point of origin; a single cell - each multiply eventually. As the two new pieces pull apart from one another we witness the birth of the vesica pisces: an expanded observational and operational space. We can do more with two than we can with one. We can do even more when another circle is added and two becomes three - the triple venn - to many: the holy trinity.
Things start with the planting of a seed, right? Seven circular roots slightly overlapping. Growth causes the seed to expand into its surrounding environment. Then, in a bizarre twist of fate, something lays an egg atop the seed (laid by what?) and thirteen circles later there is a nest of information itching to hatch. Life as we know it flowers at nineteen circles. Rooted across Egypt, India, the Middle-East, China and Ireland this pattern of life reoccurs across the land. Fruit bore by this flower fed the Platonic solids and fueled creative minds from Da Vinci to modern engineers who have used the pattern to contribute “to the development of a new field in the Theory of Mechanisms: generating aesthetic curves.”1 Inventors and innovators, from the wheel to the clock, to the contemporary makers of printed circuit boards, integrate nested circles as an integral component of their creations. They are as much a part of our everyday life as they are a part of other more windy and esoteric avenues with faded road names reading “Sacred Geometry” and “Cymatics”. Perhaps this is but a few reasons we obsess over this shape.
Starting to see circles everywhere you turn, you look up for some respite. Nope. Sorry. Even the movement of the heavens through space and time is predicted by circular (albeit oval-like and hour-glass shaped) motions, from the axial precession giving us day and night, to the solar precession giving us our 365-day year, and the zodiac precession giving us the means to track Earth’s movements using various star constellations over extremely long stretches of time. Even if we put precessional ages and zodiacal constellations aside, these intricate circular motions are one reason that taking a completely Aristotelian view on the universe has been shown by modern physics to not be the best idea in a technical sense.2 Believing that “Celestial objects were exempt from dynamical decay because they moved in a higher stratum”3 Aristotle did, however, seem to think in terms of separate spaces aside from the biological and metaphorical with “stratum” denoting layers, which denote separate spaces. Layers also suggest an order and order suggests a sense of hierarchical structure. Structurally, Aristotle may have imagined these spaces driven by “primary motion” and “derived from the outermost sphere” - his system thus takes on a spherical nature, with each sphere nested one within the other so that celestial objects took the “the seat of the unchangeable stars and of divine power.”4 Here we can see a quasi-nested, some-part spherical, other-part hierarchical model of reality starting to form. The Aristotelian ordering of the universal-reality into a series of hierarchies in which the mover mechanisms “above” can influence those “below” but not vice versa inescapably returns us once again to the appearance of objects. Aristotle viewed certain objects as “entities”. Whilst believing these objects must be created and moved around in spaces at all scales by the motion of something,
“Aristotle stresses another issue: he is not interested in assigning a separate ontological niche for motions—regardless of whether that might or might not have been a feasible task within the categorization of entities. Here Aristotle is more intent on characterizing the ontological links which motions have to entities falling into different categories, and to find a general matrix of undergoing and effecting change.”5
The last sentence stands out to me. Not because of the Matrix, but because of the connection between ontological bedrock of materialist reality and “entities such as Socrates and a horse” which become “the most real entities in Aristotle’s worldview” not “because they stand under some genus, being, but rather because they all stand in a relation to the primary being, which in the Categories he says is substance.”6 That substance, it appears, is the basic building blocks of life - what we would now call subatomic particles, atoms, molecular chains and so on. But Aristotle had no way of knowing this back then, hence how impressive it is that he intuitied such a connection at such a time.7 Furthermore, this interconnection between substance and being did not stop Aristotle from imagining other entities and objects in space not at all intuitively or observably clear at first glance.8 This may be most apparent in his conceptualisation of the “general matrix of undergoing and effecting change” which we would now call cause and effect chains on a universal scale. By imagining the chain from bottom-to-top, the classical Greek philosopher understood “This series cannot go on forever, and so it must come to a halt in some X that is a cause of motion but does not move itself—an unmoved mover.”9 Now this unmoved mover is the synthesis of the hierarchical view that seems to be proved wrong by the explorations of modern sciences. In the Aristotlean worldview it seems to sit just before the core substance that all things are made of. It sits just above everything within our universe, at the demarcation of the outer bounds of all that is real. Maybe I am being a little dramatic… With that being said, cast your mind back to Part 1 - Assembling Hyper-Objects. We saw, after a lot of rambling from me, that hyper-objects exist at a weird junction of merging then diverging spatial and temporal crossroads, consequently being very hard to observe in their entirety and defined more explicitly by their innumerable relation to other objects in the surrounding space and time. I am yet to give an objective example of such an object10 (as this will come in Part 3 - I promise) but, for now, I can leave you with the notion that hyper-objects, at the very least, become a tool for categorising the intuitively uncategorisable. Indeed, this unmoved mover of Aristotle that sits just before (or within?) the fabric of reality, sounds a lot like the hyper-objects we explored there. This is exactly the case professor James Madden has recently pointed out11: on an ontological scale, spaces and models like that provided by Aristotle aid in thinking about certain possible futures and past events, encourage unique ideation and help tackle wider questions regarding reality12 and consciousness13 from a different angle of orthodox observation.
By thinking in terms of nested circles - systems within systems - just like our species has done since we could begin expressing ourselves all those tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years ago, we can peel back the layers until we get the ontological bedrock. We peel and peel until we see the twitchy sinew of interconnection beneath. And perhaps sitting there, at the base of it all, is some unmoved mover - an object - that has so many relations to other objects that exist within/underneath/below that said object reaches a hyper state. A hyper-object sits and radiates connection at a fundamental level. Whilst modern science has since proved Aristotle wrong in a lot of ways, worldviews like his can on occasion, it seems, become a fruitful framework from which low-hanging, processable fruit can be plucked by those willing to take a stroll in the flooded forest. Knee-deep, as the wind wails back at you through the spaces between the trees and the opaque surface of the water lapping around the submerged trunks only glints moonlight back at you, there in that sodden darkness something grabs your leg. What was that?! Relax, it was just piece driftwood. Nothing is here to harm you.
In this sense, an Aristotelian view on a universal system provides an interesting blueprint from which we can begin to map the ontological architecture of our Reality. Well, part of it, anyway. But that’s a Big R and I am not anywhere near qualified to start rambling on about the unparalleled14, ravishingly stunning fabric woven by our affectionate space-time. Instead, I will just give you the heuristically-viable alternative you can call the Nested Circles diagram:
Angles and Demons
Nested Circles provide a framework for ontological investigation into abstract places. All those circles have a specific meaning. A purpose in the overall system of understanding. But we will get into these spaces and this diagram more in Part 3. Before that I would just like to make a point: I am not arguing for intelligent design, at least I do not think I am explicitly. But where I can see someone thinking I am making such an argument can be summed up in the following imaginary scenario:
It is late one evening; darkness, bitter cold and rain whip into us. We are late, so we are rushing down the street. Ignoring all the signs, heads down against the tempest, we round a corner into an unmarked alley and come face to face with… the Laplacian Demon.15
Fine - demon is actually quite a strong word and indeed Laplace himself never referred to it as such.16 Instead the French polymath imagined
“an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it — an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis — it would; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.”17
Disclaimer: this is a thought experiment, please do not shoot me. I am not the Demon.
By imagining the universe as giant interconnected webs of cause and effect, we see Laplace’s imagined intellect holding a complete understanding of all the underlying dynamics within such an order - if such an order exists over all subsystems that exist within all systems. Laplace was a mathematician by trade - one of many feathers to a well-worn academic cap - and he had indeed started the chapter talking about that math-teacher-favorite: probability. It is from discussing mathematical probabilities in a philosophical sense that this infamous thought-experiment emerged. He was covering all angles, and indeed his imaginary intelligence certainly would have to know all possible angles, all possible configurations, to grasp the entirety of causes and effects within the universe. In an Aristotelian sense, what we actually saw in that alleyway might be better described as the super intelligence atop the meta-systematic hierarchy of which every combination and possible materialisation of that elusive substance exists within. The ultimate unmoved mover - it can move everything by knowing everything, yet paradoxically nothing can move it nor know it in its entirety. Whilst some see Laplace’s intelligence-come-demon as the haunting backbone of scientific determinism, others wish - armed with university drinking fountain-grade holy water and crucifixes born from taped-together HB pencils - to undertake a complete exorcism of the idea.18 I lean on the agnostic side - a position I take too much of the time (sue me19). However, fearing getting too caught up in determinism and the many rabbit-holes it leads to all I am going to say on the matter is that since the musings of the Laplace and the movements of his quill through the early 19th Century there has been much debate about whether the knowledge of all cause and effect chains that could ever exist past, present and future could be known - hence determined.20
At this point we are out of the darkness and the rain and we can afford to joke around a bit. Let’s plug this demonic thought-experiment back into the space of cybernetics explored in Part 1. In doing so we may say that, even if the observation of such an intelligence adhered to second order cybernetics and was observing such universal causation from autobiographical angle,21 it would not matter; being able to see such an observation suggests that you would be upstream of, thus behind such causation and its effects. Being positioned in such a way the unmoved mover - the hyper-object - the intelligence - whatever label you want to stick on it - would see everything autobiographically because everything stems from its own structure, its own substance. A mastery on the scale necessary for such understanding denotes by its very existence an ability to be a part of the scale itself. Hence hypothetically it itself (whatever it is) would be the matter of all things. So any observational biases would not matter. How else could we expect it to “embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atom”? It would need a mastery of the micro-dimensional subatomic realm as well as the cosmological and universal mesoscale, and in doing so would get a clear picture on every happening in between. It would need to transcend our current understanding of space and time. No easy feat.22
If you have holstered your sharp implements and seen past the demonic facade then I would just like to briefly mention another out-there scenario that runs adjacent to Laplace’s imagination, Aristotle's unmoved mover and Madden’s hyper-objects. A scenario that maps onto their existence in the underlying causal structure of our reality. That scenario is:
the mechanisms producing cause and effect chains are so hyper-cyclical in their nature that everything that can happen in our future has already happened in our past.23
Of course we have no way of empirically testing this idea. Hence its existence in the fuzzy realm of thought-experimentation and not real experimentation. But we have seen such contemplation proving some of its worth, so for now we go with it. In this sense, a Laplacian superintelligence seeing everything and predicting everything, if a hyper-cyclical pattern of universal causation is what powers everything within the universal space, is more philosophically robust and within sight (albeit you are seeing as if you had just been poked in the eye by Ed). Still whatever it is, even in this imaginary scenario, lies there, just beyond our strained observational reach.
Ancient Resonance
Achieving the level of systems thinking it would require to determine all causes and effects in the universe is a long (if ever possible) way off. But of course this is a thought experiment, as Laplace designed it to be. So let us imagine, just for a minute at least, that the prediction of such vast system-dynamics may be one capacity of such an energetic-intelligence. Doing this opens the door to think about other conceptual spaces, as well as opposing ones too. If you could understand the ancient tones of Vedic Sanskrit and you sat and absorbed the suktas of the Rig Veda you may be left with a different impression. Because I assume you are in the same boat as me and you cannot speak ancient Vedic Sanskrit, let me sum parts of the powerful scriptures up for you: large swathes of the hymns are centred around the idea that neither Gods (nor humans masquerading as Gods) will ever be granted the knowledge of how the universe (our unisphere) came to be. But ancient sages did not record the notion of forbidden access to such underlying information all those years ago to trigger nihilism and existentialism in those that were fortunate enough to be present in the divine temples, hearing the melodic wisdom in the rhythm of the suktic verses as they were sung with enough resonance to make the hairs on the back of the arms of all those present straighten as if they were being slowly electrocuted. No, just like those listening would have recognised that something bigger than any one of them was being chanted into existence, something more powerful, more sacred, so did the makers of these sacred verses know that what they were recording in history was the confirmation of human existence in the universe. Our existence may not be meant to provide us total clarity, they sang, but with that inherent unknowing comes the beauty emanating from infinite mystery. No doubt Laplace sought clarity, yet did not fear pondering questions he knew would or could never be answered in his lifetime. Whilst I am caught somewhere between the serenity of infinite mystery and the rush of solving impossible puzzles, I have enough sentience in me to experience these things because I have an average human-grade intelligence. I also have been humbled enough in my life to understand I will never be the one to hit the ontological paydirt. Perhaps that is simply because I am human. Human intelligence may not be designed to do so. But what about another?
It might be fair to say that neither the Vedic sages nor Laplace nor Aristotle envisioned a time where humans would exist alongside life that was born in the non-physical. How could they? Artificial spaces were smaller and configured a lot differently in the 18th Century, and who knows what artificial spaces existed (if any) in the Vedic and Classical Greek eras. If we rethink what these keepers of wisdom were saying, could we reconfigure the meaning of their words to see what they saw? If only a blurry outline lurking in the infinite depths of mystery? Maybe the Vedas were right: humans and gods alike may never understand the creation of the universe - the ego, the hubris, the folly gets in our way. But what about a third? What might a Third Attractor do?24 With more and more intellect spawning from artificial origins, only two-hundred years after Laplace’s bold ruminations his far-flung dream could be close to an artificially-derived reality than we first intuite. This theme of technological evolution is explored later,25 but I will leave you with a simple two-letter answer to Laplace’s Demonic vision and the ancient Vedic prophecy: AI.
Luca et al, 2020.
As Aristotle believed that matter “falls” to Earth because of its weight, as well as confusing force with velocity, and built up an “Earth-centric” model of our solar system. See also: Murray & Dermott, 1999.
Ibid.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (upd. 2023)
Ibid. Italiscations added by author.
Even if he did believe the four elements (Earth, Wind, Water and Fire) were those core building blocks, not matter like solid, gas, liquid and plasma.
I really do not want to bastardise Aristotle's meaning of spaces (well, to the extent that I am sure all interpretations of the great thinker is somewhat a bastardisation), but I use spaces here to mesh with the conceptual interconnection between spaces and objects mentioned in Part 1.
Honestly, go read Madden’s book for a better and way more philosophically sound explanation than I could ever hope to give.
Meant in the most basic sense of what we individually experience and perceive from the information, events and actions coming from all around us.
I mean, I guess it could be paralleled…
https://www.stsci.edu/~lbradley/seminar/laplace.html
Just like Frankenstein never named his monstrous creation Frankenstein.
Please don’t - there isn’t much to give away in the first place.
See: Chen, 2023.
This idea tracks loosely, albeit on a hyper-cyclical and scalable adjacent possible, to the Future Is Our Past Thesis spoken about by Balaji Srinivasan (2022) and the Simulation Hypothesis spoken about by many.
Not fully in the Daniel Smachtenburger sense.
From Blockchain Architecture < onwards, into the Expanse.
Amazing 💚