Its been long since I've meditated on the metaphorical significance of the metropolis in the heavens,as mentioned in the Northern Lights by Pullman.He might not have assumed such a connotation at the time of its inscription into the papyrus.However, I believe its this desire to know the other world, a belief that what we perceive as our reality is just the view from a window, and what we don't , lies well out there.
The concept of matter and energy being the dualities of physical existence, was a brilliant insight into our elemental nature.And if it were said, the Trinity would rather be a reference to Matter, Energy and Spirit.The three constituents that comprise the physical world, and life itself. However, what has intrigued man over the ages is not his own constituency nor that of the world around, but its been Life, its purpose and its genesis.To a large extent the two question have not been answered satisfactorily, however, what emerges from life has in itself engaged more scholarly thought anything else.
Now, a characteristic of life is thought and reason. We may have our doubts about Intelligence being the gift of the Gods to man, of Intelligence having found the apex of its expression in man- the reason being observations proving Intelligence is a trait,a characteristic,an ability thats emerged in spite of divergence in organismic evolutionary trees.There is something in nature, that encourages Intelligence to be the offspring of natural selection, in lifeforms as varied as Man, the Raven, Dolphins and even Bees.
Intelligence at its core is driven by Reasoning and Logic. To date I fail to discriminate between the two, for my limited exposure to discourses on the same. However, I would like to believe that the differences generally lie in the adoption of causality,and the differences in the languages used for their expression.Anyways, what's brought us to this point is that we have now for contemplation, as sculptors of our world, two realms to deal with, that would enhance our ability to effect change in our Reality -
Platter 1 : Matter - n - Energy
Platter 2 : Logic+Language
(I could do with some clarification on interdependence between language,reasoning and logic)
The Spirit lies largely within us , manifesting its will in the real world, through the organic bodies action and the nurturing thought/reasoning.
Looking back at man's evolution(considering man as the specimen under observation) we see that his ability to use tools,manipulate matter to his intentions has been a great force in determining the evolution of the species, and in realising the complex social institutions that integrate whole populations.Since, our genesis to the present day what we have been doing is utilizing matter abundant around us, to either manipulate its characteristic, develop new matter, to capture energy or convert it into energy.
Until the discovery of electricity and magnetism, we were concerned with manipulation of matter with matter.This breakthrough was our gateway into utilizing energy with matter.A leap that can best be honoured by what we have achieved to date.Matter and Energy were the enablers and the limiters.If you could harvest material then you could reap the benefits of your conception.We were rather dependent on resources,the props we needed were expensive.
And all through this journey, there have been others,Philosophers of a certain kind who dealt with Reasoning.Mathematics became man's language of understanding the world and its expression. Logic became his language of understanding himself.What I refer to logic doesn't confine itself to the mathematical concept or the general idea that we have. I refer to a realm of abstraction, where only thought and ideas have its say. Each one interacting with another to give form to a structure, a system that has as its dependency nothing but this .. the energy of the Idea.
Electronics was our caring Matron, who prodded us along newer paths to unravel the field of Computer science.Herein lay our inception into the Soft-World(the realm of abstraction) in contrast to the Hard-World(of matter and energy).And as the Subtle Knife, we have Electronics/Optics,cutting through the two realms, and letting us travess its intricate alleyways.
The beauty that we behold with the gift of computer science is the ability to imagine a world, and to craft it entire in the abstract plane.If we desired, we could even let those semblances to influence our present life.. bcoz, our observation of the other world,is essentially the influence (through understanding) of the other world on our universe(i.e the observer). We no longer are limited by the constraints of matter,and this is an oppurtunity to imagine what would existence be in a world of no matter. Its true all that computation, would need the material of this world(hardware/circuitry) to run, but that apart it might as well be a different entity.
I wonder, about creating digital-organisms, ones programmable to forage for their existence. Their food being hardware space to store data/information, and also processing capabilities.The internet is the biosphere, with differnt geographic domains being ecosystems harbourings species endemic to its set of tehnological advancement. If we have a non-standardization of technology, differnent hardware schemes, or different approaches like electronics and photonics being integrated into the network, probably that would lead to competition between the programs. The question now is.. what exactly would determine a species of program? And if intelligence and reproduction is the essence of life in this world, what would life in the digital biosphere be like? duplication of code.. well that would be just replication/cloning. Dynamic generation of Programs through Crossover/Mutation of the Genetic makeup(OOP structures that constitute the program) may well be analog of sexual reproduction.
I guess its something to think about, apart from utilizing the Internet for developement of applications to influence the social networking, improve interactivity and connectivity among people in this world. Why not let a species and digital-life evolve within a confined world of hardware?From what evolves, shall we realise what are the constraints that guide the origin of life, not as we know it, but as something that Nature demands of the coexistence of Matter/Energy , Spirit and maybe Dust. ;)
