1. 1 Gordana Dodig Crnkovic School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Sweden http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/ Computing and Philosophy Global Course 2008 http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/comphil http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/comphil COMPUTING, PANCOMPUTATIONALISM AND INFO-COMPUTATIONALISM Hand with Reflecting Sphere (Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror), M.C. Escher

2. 2 Eye, Maurits Cornelis Escher PART 3 THE INFO-COMPUTATIONAL HUMAN

3. Info-Computationalism Applied: Epistemology Naturalized Naturalized epistemology (Feldman, Kornblith, Stich) is, in general, an idea that knowledge may be studied as a natural phenomenon -- that the subject matter of epistemology is not our concept of knowledge, but the knowledge itself. “The stimulation of his sensory receptors is all the evidence anybody has had to go on, ultimately, in arriving at his picture of the world. Why not just see how this construction really proceeds? Why not settle for psychology? “ "Epistemology Naturalized", Quine 1969 I will re-phrase the question to be: Why not settle for computing? Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief. 3

4. Cognition in Computing Nature According to Maturana and Varela (1980) even the simplest organisms possess cognition and their meaning-production apparatus is contained in their metabolism. (Of course, there are also non-metabolic interactions with the environment, such as locomotion, that also generates meaning for an organism by changing its environment and providing new input data.) Maturana’s and Varelas’ understanding that all living organisms possess some cognition, in some degree is most suitable as the basis for a computationalist account of the naturalized evolutionary epistemology. 4 Cognition - Processes of knowing, through sensory-motor primitives, perception, awareness, reasoning, and judgment

5. Natural computing as a new paradigm of computing goes beyond the Turing Machine model and applies to all physical processes including those going on in our brains. We can expect the next great change in computing and information technology coming from mimicking the techniques by which biological organisms process information. To do this computer scientists must draw on expertise in subjects not usually associated with their field, including organic chemistry, molecular biology, bioengineering, smart materials and other natural computing. 5 Info-Computational Account of Epistemology: Knowledge Generation

6. At the physical level, living beings are open complex computational systems in a regime on the edge of chaos, characterized by maximal informational content. Complexity is found between orderly systems with high information compressibility and low information content and random systems with low compressibility and high information content. (Flake) The essential feature of cognizing living organisms is their ability to manage complexity, and to handle complicated environmental conditions with a variety of responses which are results of adaptation, variation, selection, learning, and/or reasoning. (Gell-Mann) All mentioned capacities of living organisms are eminently info-computational. 6 Info-Computational Account of Epistemology: Living Organisms as Information-Processing Machines

7. Cognition as Restructuring of an Agent in Interaction with the Environment As a result of evolution, increasingly complex living organisms arise that are able to survive and adapt to their environment. It means they are able to register inputs (data) from the environment, to structure those into information, and in more developed organisms into knowledge. The evolutionary advantage of using structured, component-based approaches is improving response-time and efficiency of cognitive processes of an organism. The Dual network model, suggested by Goertzel for modeling cognition in a living organism describes mind in terms of two superposed networks: a self- organizing associative memory network, and a perceptual-motor process hierarchy, with the multi-level logic of a flexible command structure. 7

8. Naturalized knowledge generation acknowledges the body as the basic cognitive instrument. All cognition is embodied cognition, in both microorganisms and humans (Gärdenfors, Stuart). In more complex cognitive agents, there is not only pre-programmed automatic processing of input information, or even intelligent reasoning about input and memorized information, but also a capability of intentional choices, dependent on preferences and value systems stored and organized in agents memory. It is not surprising that present day interest in knowledge generation places information and computation (communication) in focus, as information and its processing are essential structural and dynamic elements which characterize structuring of input data (data  information  knowledge) by an interactive computational process going on in the agent during the adaptive interplay with the environment. 8

9.  Biological organism is a cognizing machine  Information and computation are in the agent  Interaction with the physical world and other agents is computational and changes agents informational structures  Agents are parts of different cognitive communities with whom the share cognitive structures  Self-organization and adaptation are fundamental capabilities of living organisms  Self-reflection/circularity is central for agents -informational closure Natural Computing in Living Agents 9

10. InfoComputationalism, Fundamental Aims  InfoComputationalism (ICON) is providing a common language and a unified platform for specialist sciences to communicate and create complex holistic multi-disciplinary/inter-disciplinary/ transdisciplinary knowledge networks and so present an integrative tools for existing information and for generation of new information  deepening our understanding of info-computational mechanisms and processes and their relationship to life and cognition  prompting development of new unconventional computational methods 10

11.  helping understanding and improvement of learning processes providing broader, more general context and agendas  contributing to argument for evolution of biological life, cognition and intelligence  encouraging learning from nature about optimizing solutions with of finite resources constraints .. 11

12. Answering Criticism Info-Computationalist views may be interpreted as claims that the whole world is ”nothing but a machine” and that we humans are essentially robots with no free will or real feelings. That is certainly not the case. The view that the universe is an info- computational network means that the universe as it is may be understood and modeled as an info-computational network. In the introduction to this lecture we mentioned paradigm shift from mytho-poetic to mechanistic to computationalist universe. So we can ask the same question about mechanist universe. Was that understanding of the universe true? Was it real? Or merely metaphoric? Even though mechanicism was primarily the outlook at the inanimate matter, and mechanistic approaches to robotics did not work for any other purpose but the entertainment, mechanistic worldview nevertheless helped us learn a lot about the universe. 12

13. The parallel development goes on in the course of computationalism now again. We will learn in interaction with the universe much more about its informational and computational resources and capabilities, and we will develop even more powerful ways of learning, probably via intelligent systems. Knowing that biological organisms (including humans) are information- processing “machines” does not make them less fascinating. In the same way as knowing that all of us are made of atoms does not mean that we do not have free will and real feelings. Understanding fundamental level processes does not make music, arts and philosophy obsolete. Info-computationalism helps us both by supplying the tools for knowledge and artifact production and even tools for understanding of the phenomena of natural origin and artifacts on many different levels. That is also why philosophy is coming back to sciences based on info-computational knowledge – holistic, high level of abstraction view is necessary as a sort of self-reflective process of knowledge itself. 13

14. An Ongoing Paradigm Shift in Sciences (Object Level) and Philosophy (Meta Level)  InfoComputationalism is a variety of Physicalism with Information/Computation as basic building blocks  Discrete/Continuum - two complementary levels of description (also relevant for Connectionism vs. computationalism argument)  Natural interactive computing beyond Turing limit – not only computing as is but also computing as it may be  With new info-computational tools we are equipped to address complex dynamic systems including information and knowledge generating systems (grounds for future communication across cultural gaps of research fields) 14

15.  We are starting to understand the importance of emergency (emergent properties/behaviors which are qualities possessed by the whole but not by its parts)  Logical pluralism (contemporary development in the field of logic, closely related to computing, brings about necessity of addressing logical pluralism)  Philosophy (“Everything must go” approach, philosophy informed by sciences)  Human-centric (agent-centric) models with circularity and self-reflection (computing, cybernetics)  Ethics returns to researchers agenda (Science as a constructivist project – what is it we construct and why?) 15

16. A New Kind of Science (2002) http://www.wolframscience.com http://www.wolframscience.com (free online access to the book) 16 Contents Chapter 1 The Foundations for a New Kind of Science 1 Chapter 2 The Crucial Experiment 23 Chapter 3 The World of Simple Programs 51 Chapter 4 Systems Based on Numbers 115 Chapter 5 Two Dimensions and Beyond 169 Chapter 6 Starting from Randomness 223 Chapter 7 Mechanisms in Programs and Nature 297 Chapter 8 Implications for Everyday Systems 363 Chapter 9 Fundamental Physics 433 Chapter 10 Processes of Perception and Analysis 547 Chapter 11 The Notion of Computation 637 Chapter 12 The Principle of Computational Equivalence 715 A SELECTION OF BOOKS THAT SUPPORT INFOCOMPUTATIONAL VIEWS

17. A New Paradigm of Computing, Interactive Computing (2006) See also: Dina Goldin, Peter Wegner The Interactive Nature of Computing: Refuting the Strong Church - Turing Thesis Minds and Machines Volume 18, Issue 1 (March 2008) p 17 - 38 http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/strong-cct.pdf 17 Computing agents that interact with an environment are more expressive than Turing machines according to a notion of expressiveness that measures problem-solving ability and is specified by observation equivalence. Distributed models of coordination, collaboration, and true concurrency are shown to be more expressive than sequential models.

18. Consciousness Computationalist Way (2007) "for beings evolved to engage in symbolic thought, recognize patterns, create categories, reason via analogies and wonder about the self. consciousness is "the upper end of a continuous spectrum of self- perception levels that brains automatically possess as a result of their design." “Hofstadter points to a level at which self might exist, up among the symbols and patterns -- or rather, to various levels on which self exists simultaneously. His conclusions mesh well with those of psychotherapy. We are not selves first and social creatures later. It's through empathy that we develop a rich sense of self. Nor is the self neatly demarcated. We contain multitudes.” The Washington Post 18

19. A new kind of Phenomena Nonlinear Dynamics and Complexity As it becomes ever more apparent that Newtonian mechanics is inadequate for modeling nonlinear systems, or systems that have too many degrees of freedom to handle easily, researchers in all fields are turning toward nonlinear dynamics as a refreshing alternative. This is a paradigm shift à la Kuhn, and Klaus Mainzer guides us through it with an astounding range of historical and scientific knowledge. From quantum physics to consciousness to economics, Mainzer shows us how thinking complexly can solve problems over which standard, linear thinking continually stumbles. Amazon.com Review 19

20. Randomness, and Complexity, From Leibniz to Chaitin, 2007 20 Contents: On Random and Hard-to-Describe Numbers (C H Bennett) The Implications of a Cosmological Information Bound for Complexity, Quantum Information and the Nature of Physical Law (P C W Davies) What is a Computation? (M Davis) A Berry-Type Paradox (G Lolli) The Secret Number. An Exposition of Chaitin’s Theory (G Rozenberg & A Salomaa) Omega and the Time Evolution of the n-Body Problem (K Svozil) God's Number: Where Can We Find the Secret of the Universe? In a Single Number! (M Chown) Omega Numbers (J-P Delahaye) Some Modern Perspectives on the Quest for Ultimate Knowledge (S Wolfram) An Enquiry Concerning Human (and Computer!) [Mathematical] Understanding (D Zeilberger) and other papers

21. A New Kind of Philosophy Metaphysics Naturalized (2007) Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with serious scholarly inquiry, they demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics ("ontic structural realism"). 21

22. Computation, Information, Cognition Editor(s): Gordana Dodig Crnkovic and Susan Stuart, 2007 Written by world-leading experts, this book draws together a number of important strands in contemporary approaches to the philosophical and scientific questions that emerge when dealing with the issues of computing, information, cognition and the conceptual issues that arise at their intersections. It discovers and develops the connections at the borders and in the interstices of disciplines and debates. 22 http://www.amazon.ca/Computation-Information-Cognition-Gordana-Dodig-Crnkovic/dp/1847180906

23. References Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Semantics of Information as Interactive Computation in Manuel Moeller, Wolfgang Neuser, and Thomas Roth-Berghofer (eds.), Fifth International Workshop on Philosophy and Informatics, Kaiserslautern 2008 (DFKI Technical Reports; Berlin: Springer) http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-332/ Semantics of Information as Interactive Computation http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-332/ Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Where do New Ideas Come From? How do They Emerge? Epistemology as Computation (Information Processing) Chapter for a book celebrating the work of Gregory Chaitin, Randomness & Complexity, from Leibniz to Chaitin, C. Calude ed., World Scientific, Singapore, 2007 Book Cover Where do New Ideas Come From? How do They Emerge? http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/work/NewIdeas.pdf Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Epistemology Naturalized: The Info-Computationalist Approach APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, Spring 2007 Volume 06, No 2 Epistemology Naturalized: The Info-Computationalist Approach http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/work/APA-Newsletter-Spring07.pdf 23

24. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Knowledge Generation as Natural Computation, Proceedings of International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management (KGCM 2007), Orlando, Florida, USA, 2007 http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/work/KGCM-KnowledgeGeneration.pdf Knowledge Generation as Natural Computation http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/work/KGCM-KnowledgeGeneration.pdf Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Investigations into Information Semantics and Ethics of Computing PhD Thesis, Mälardalen University Press, September 2006 Investigations into Information Semantics and Ethics of Computing http://www.diva-portal.org/mdh/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=153 Dodig-Crnkovic G. and Stuart S., eds. Computation, Information, Cognition – The Nexus and The Liminal Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge 2007 Computation, Information, Cognition – The Nexus and The Liminal http://www.idt.mdh.se/ECAP-2005/Intro-Preface-ComputationInformationCognition.pdf Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic Shifting the Paradigm of the Philosophy of Science: the Philosophy of Information and a New Renaissance Minds and Machines: Special Issue on the Philosophy of Information,November 2003, Volume 13, Issue 4 http://www.springerlink.com/content/g14t483510156726/ Shifting the Paradigm of the Philosophy of Science: the Philosophy of Information and a New Renaissance http://www.springerlink.com/content/g14t483510156726/ 24