RE: mastodon.social/@coreyspowell/1162707605...
This is dangerous and idiotic hubris.
The underlying fallacy is simple: our tech overlords live in their own delusional map of the world, and they are so caught up in their own bullshit "philosophy" that the world is a computer, to […]
Page 1 of our 12 Thesis (chapter 2 of "Beyond the Age of Machines"): Shows a bacterium with machine parts inside. Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Machines 1. The age of machines, modernity, is coming to an end. 2. The world is not a machine; not even like a machine. 3. The world is large, far exceeding anyone’s grasp. 4. We are not machines. No living organism is a machine. 5. The world is not a set: there are strict limits to formalisation. 6. Organisms constantly create meaning by engaging the world. 7. To engage the world is to solve the problem of relevance. 8. To solve the problem of relevance is to formalise the world. 9. Everything that makes sense, makes sense to someone. 10. There is no meaning without life, without self-preservation. 11. There is no meaning without death, without suffering. 12. To be a true realist means to acknowledge all of the above.
Page 2 of our 12 Theses (chapter 2 of "Beyond the Age of Machines"): Instructions: Print out and nail to any university door near you. Plus: an image of a door with a paper pinned to it.
We are now adding PDF versions of the chapters of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines to the website, so you can read them offline:
www.expandingpossibilities.org/an-emerging-book.html
Chapters 0-2 are done already. The others will follow over the next few weeks […]
[Original post on spore.social]
William Wimsatt is the best philosopher of science of recent times. And the most underrated.
I'll be posting more quotes of his in this thread as I'm going through the book for my chapter 13 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines, and a paper that I'm writing.
Our daily Wimsatt quote gives useful advice […]
Quote from Wimsatt (2007), Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings, p.12: "The roots of the views offered here are diverse. The rich backwoods of evolution (Darwin's 'tangled bank') is a heterogeneous, multi-level tropical rainforest, with converging overlapping branches, and patterns of intersecting order, residents, and connections at a variety of levels, but no single stable foundational bedrock that anchors everything else. Yet this multiple rootedness need not lead to 'anything goes' perspectival relativism, or an anti-naturalist worship of common sense, experience, or language. It yields a kind of multi-perspectival realism anchored in the heterogeneity of 'piecewise' complementary approaches common in biology and the study of complex systems."
Bill Wimsatt is the best philosopher of science of recent times. And the most underrated. I'll be posting quotes as I'm going through the book for my ch13 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines, and a paper that I'm writing.
This one is so long that I'm posting it as a […]
[Original post on spore.social]
Bill Wimsatt is the best philosopher of science of recent times. And the most underrated. I'll be posting quotes as I'm going through the book for my ch13 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines, & a paper that I'm writing.
This one simply says: science isn't perfect, but it adapts like nothing else.
"A […]
William Wimsatt is the best philosopher of science of recent times. And the most underrated. I'll be posting more quotes as I'm going through the book for my ch13 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines, and a paper that I'm writing.
And another one that's bleedingly obvious, but apparently not to some […]
William Wimsatt is the best philosopher of science of recent times. And the most underrated. I'll be posting more quotes as I'm going through the book for my ch13 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines, and a paper that I'm writing.
Today's quote is kind of obvious. But most philosophers still ignore it […]
I've argued here that purely formal symbolic frameworks (like "computation" or "inference," which is really the same, if we consider both to be stochastic) *cannot* give you true agency:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.07515
And I explain in the last section of this appendix to my book […]
Re-reading "Re-Engineering" for chapter 13 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines and a paper I'm writing.
"Why is it that academics who claim to seek the truth want to pretend that they have always had it? What are they paid for, anyway?" Wimsatt, 2007, p3.
Fabulous way to start a book!
In search of weekend reading, anyone?
Chapter 12 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines is out!
It's called "The World is Not a Set."
www.expandingpossibilities.org/12-the-world-is-not-a-se...
With two appendices:
Limitations of Mathematical Modeling […]
Quote from the appendix: "But this is not the main insight we gain from our survey of methods. Its central message, instead, is this: we do not have any modelling formalism able to capture the full behavioural and evolutionary potential of any living system. Life always goes beyond formalisation. This is not to say that we cannot model aspects of living systems and their evolution. In fact, the above modelling formalisms give us a powerful toolkit to do just that. Rather, we are saying that none of these formalisms are able to capture the future behaviour and evolution of a living system completely. We said it before: life, and the large world it exists in, will always surprise us! Every once in a while, at least. And this fact really matters: a machine world can be formalised in its entirety. There is no surprise, but also no relevance or meaning in such a world. The machine kills life. That is why we must move beyond it. This does not mean that we should no longer be using the tools we’ve introduced above. Quite the contrary: we use them more wisely, and more effectively, if we are aware of their nature and limitations as tools. Our models are means to a better understanding. But they are not our world. The world, after all, is not a set."
Giving a little boost to this appendix to #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines:
"Limitations of Mathematical Modeling"
expandingpossibilities.org/a4-limitations-of-mathem...
It starts with static network models, then shows how to include dynamics […]
[Original post on spore.social]
*** UPDATE: #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
I'll be getting back to writing book chapters more regularly this fall and into the spring of 2026, with the aim of finishing the book by next summer.
Also: we've finally added links to the shorts & full lecture videos on the book website […]
Diagram showing two processes co-constructing each other's states S by the output Y of one entering as input X into the other.
Chapter 12 of #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines is out!
"Was lange währt, wird endlich gut"
we'd say in German.
It's called "The World is Not a Set."
www.expandingpossibilities.org/12-the-world-is-not-a-se...
"The art of modeling is to match formalism and target system such that the model is congruent for our given purposes and captures all the possible system behaviors that are relevant in our specific situation."
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
Some news on the book! At least a teaser:
We added artwork to ch11: "The Art of Modelling."
www.expandingpossibilities.org/11-the-art-of-modelling....
And the new chapter 12 will drop in the next few days, with two massive appendices on modeling […]
[Original post on spore.social]
Für jene von euch, die im Sommer in Österreich unterwegs sind: #THE_ZoNE eröffnet bereits ihre nächste Ausstellung
#REWILDING
im schloss lind (das andere heimatmuseum), Neumarkt, Steiermark,
am 10. Mai 2025.
Die Ausstellung läuft bis im Herbst.
Mehr Info […]
[Original post on spore.social]
EINLADUNG: art SALON science Sa 26. April 2025 | um 16:00 Uhr Galerie rauminhalt Schleifmihlgasse 13 | 1040 Wien »KAIne Intelligenz“ | Kénnen wir Menschen das Monopol auf Kreativitat halten? es diskutieren Johannes Jager Evolutionsbiologe und Wissenschaftsphilosoph, erforscht die Grenzen mechanistischer Weltbilder Tom Fürstner Mathematiker & Technologie-Philosoph, Experte fir Kryptografie und digitale Transformation IS www.artandscience.at art+science
Tom and the ZoNE in discussion.
𝗮𝗿𝘁∘𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗢𝗡∘𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
Sa. 26.4.2025, 16:00
Gallerie rauminhalt
Schleifmühlengasse 13, 1040 Wien
„𝗸𝗔𝗜𝗻𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘇?“ – 𝗞ö𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝗿 𝗠𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗮𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗽𝗼𝗹 𝗮𝘂𝗳 𝗞𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁ä𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗻?
mit Tom Fürstner,
und Johannes Jäger.
#TheZoNE #PushingTheBoundaries […]
[Original post on spore.social]
Hurrah! Mein erster Podcast auf Deutsch:
KI, Metakrise und die Wissenschaft des 21. Jahrhunderts, alles in nur 2 Stunden!
https://youtu.be/3bGSadwU3gc
Eine ausführlichere Erklärung gibt es hier:
mailchi.mp/1a725fd8abfa/mein-interv... […]
The opening of our #ArtScience exhibition "Intangible" at Gallerie rauminhalt in Vienna (on Thu), & the walkabout (yesterday) were a great success!
Here is a beautiful picture gallery of the show, by our curator Basak Senova: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjC74jE
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
Title / image of the author: Johannes Jaeger Toward a Metamodern Science The Machine View is Blocking our Vision
Quote: "Metamodern science promises a way forward and out: an awe-inspiring and never-ending journey of discovery through experience that leads us into harmony with what is real and what is truly valuable to us. What are we waiting for? There are new windmills to be chased. Let’s be on our way!"
Boosting my essay on #metamodern #science once more on here: how to reconstruct after postmodern deconstruction
www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/toward-a-metamo...
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
Quote: “Too few people remember this today, but the idea that the world is a machine, that our bodies are machines, comes straight from Descartes’ piety. It is a religious credo, not a rationalist’s evidence-based insight. And that is what it remains today: nothing but an unsupported metaphysical dogma. Tell that to a contemporary mechanicist: their worldview is based on nothing but magic! They’ll be outraged, incredulous. They’ll hate you for it. But it’s true.”
Quote-mining my own book for an arts exhibition: our mechanistic worldview comes straight down from Descartes' belief in God. That's it. That's the entire evidence for it.
The world is not a machine! Never was. Never will be […]
[Original post on spore.social]
Quote from chapter 4 ("Death to the Demon") of "Beyond the Age of Machines": This is the simple crux of the matter: if you want certain knowledge, then science is not your best choice. Instead, go to church! Join a cult. Have a revelation. Although much less obviously murderous than your average religious fanatic, believers in absolute scientific truth and technological solutions for everything may ultimately be as bad for the future of humanity as any fundamentalist reactionary. It will likely be an overestimation of our own capacities that brings about humanity’s downfall.
A little quote from #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
(ch4: "Death to the Demon")
www.expandingpossibilities.org/4-death-to-the-demon.htm...
Hubris will be our downfall.
It should be plain and simple: we won’t be able to continue at this level of reckless consumption for much longer. That’s not a political opinion. It’s physics. Don’t be fooled by any overly optimistic narrative. Technology won’t save us. There is no miracle breakthrough in sight that will allow us to replace the sources of cheap and effective materials and energy that we are currently depleting. Even if we did somehow manage to overcome this obstacle, we would likely continue on our path of planetary (self-)destruction. We are burning through our local entropy gradient like there is no tomorrow. This means that extracting more materials and energy will take an increasing amount of effort in the coming years (both in terms of work and energy invested).
The age of machines is coming to an end.
It's not politics, its physics.
Animated short: https://youtu.be/j8KlhAMtJ4A
Full-length video lecture: https://youtu.be/Bznl9e9uftU
Full-text chapter:
www.expandingpossibilities.org/3-the-age-of-machines.ht...
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
If you learn only one thing from our book, let it be this: our large world is not formalisable. More precisely, it is not formalisable in its entirety. If you take this on board, then it is evident that the aim of science cannot be to generate some kind of ultimate theory of everything. Not only is it unlikely that this is possible, but it is also not what we want. A completely formalised world is small and thus hostile to life and freedom. As an alternative, our kind of science is concerned with making maps of the territory: more maps, more trustworthy maps, and also more useful maps. The ultimate aim of science is not to unify all of these maps into one big super-map. That would not be useful. Instead, it is to provide us limited beings with robust tools for an actionable understanding of our large world: allowing us to find our way around, to act in coherent and meaningful ways, to recognise our situation, to be truly at home in the universe.
A little teaser from the new book chapter: "The World is Not a Set."
Working hard to get it published before the end of the month...
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
or those interested in our research on the "Pushing the Boundaries" grant, and progress on the #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines book, check out the "Quick Thoughts" section of our project website. It gives you a nice timeline of what's going on: https://www.expandingpossibilities.org/quick-thoughts
A new short video is out: "Church-Turing-Deutsch," an examination of the strange view that the universe *is* literally (like) a computer.
https://youtu.be/KqlXfLpmHgs?si=7uge5scP-K9yT-QO
This is the contemporary version of the view of the world as a machine.
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
Double whammy today! Marcus is on a roll, and we have uploaded *TWO* short films today:
1. The Large World: https://youtu.be/6Voxb9XzBH8
2. Mechanistic Maps: https://youtu.be/CM1NAiX7Fo8
Check them out!
Art: Marcus Neustetter
Text: Johannes Jaeger
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
"Für Pessimismus, ist es leider etwas zu spät." https://vimeo.com/583309947
Philipp Blom (dessen "Unterwerfung" ich gerade lese) bringt die Probleme unserer Zeit auf den Punkt.
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
Formula for a set that contains all sets that do not contain themselves.
#BeyondTheAgeOfMachines: 11 chapters, 3 appendices into the book, and we've come to this:
Also check out our new video lecture: "The Age of Machines." #BeyondTheAgeOfMachines
https://youtu.be/Bznl9e9uftU
It sets up the stage for our argument, explaining what we mean by the machine view & why we need to move beyond it at this point in history.
Author: @yoginho
Art: Marcus Neustetter
