Do the same mechanisms that create complex life also create complex technology?
mattsclancy.substack.com
mattsclancy.substack.com
Were this true, I cannot see why any system wouldn't be a model of any system; ie., alchemy would be possible.
What people forget is that "programming" in the alchemical sense requires a star.
Once you get specific about what properties and processes actually correspond to the allegdeged "complexities" you're talking about, its obvious that no programmable machine will implement them; as obvious as none will turn lead into gold.
Maybe the fractal nature of computing is not in the "are we living in a simulation?" Kind, but is in the "we can imitate what we see at a different scale with fundamental units, logic/math, and visual field". In a sense it is a universe within a universe, but that doesn't imply everything is everything. It implies there are many things at different scales that are self similar. Scale still exists and is relevant.
Unless we learned how to manipulate matter at an atomic level - construct and deconstruct atoms.
The only thing those things have in common is the human mind percieving them.
Helicopters look like dragonfly
Cars look like beetles
Nuclear bombs look like mushrooms
Fireflies look like stars
A ball look like the moon
Dildos look like cucumbers
I lost the point I'm making but the idea is that human ideas take shape from what can be perceived. Humans copy what is effective in nature, so yeah complex life also creates technology with humans as the conduit. We are Gods apparently, or demi-gods if you'd like to be more humble
I'm talking about stuff like:
reality has fractal shapes -- eeehhh... it kind of doesn't
Circuit boards look like cities for electrons -- they look like cities for ants for me. But no, actually they don't look at all like cities, not the most recent smd circuits and there's no living spaces, no suburbia, no parks and so on on circuit boards, nothing like cities. Just roooughly looking like a city for a child, especially all the old stuff with big vacuum tubes and big capacitors.
Rivers look like arteries in a body -- no it doesn't look anything like. Arteries are tubes, rivers just go from high to low elevation and all rivers end up in lakes or seas. There's multiple loops, from your heart to your lungs to clear CO2, from the heart to the rest of the body to give O2 and nutrients; then most of the blood returns via capillary to the veins that make the reverse course and some of the fluids go into the lymphatic system. I mean, nothing like rivers. Sure, if you look at a small picture from high above, it might look similar, but so would be trees and branches, roads or a peace of lint from my belly button.
Lightning looks like offspring lineages -- again, no, it kind of doesn't.
I say this about the universe not because i made it up, but because i see the pattern and i recognize a material cause for it.
Tree branches and arteries try to complete a similar function. They want to cover an area or volume as much as possible.
Circuit boards and cities look alike because they also complete similar functions. Roads/traces serve as a means of transport and buildings/components are places where the transported object undergoes a process, be them electrons or people.
Routers and networks also have a topology similar to information propagation in people or societies too because they serve the same function. People/routers are nodes and the info connection is an edge.
I'm not saying all of human society can be reduced to a CISCO manual, I'm saying they share similar structures.
Offspring lineages and lightning patterns are also similar because of the similarities between evolution and reproduction and finding the path of least resistance.
Not all of these structures have to be branching. There are many other kinds. Like how water forms a vortex and galaxies spiral.
Or, our morals exist because they allowed us to steamroll other less selfish and more altruistic groups because we were able to frame them as outgroup 'others'.
Didn't social media show that not the best ideas win, but the most juicy ones? Technology might not be taking us where you think it takes us.
That is a gross simplification. Monopolies have a perverse incentive to crush superior technology that might otherwise supplant them. The electric car is just one example. Superior technology does not automatically achieve widespread adoption. If it were that easy nobody would need advice or venture capital.
But yes, there is also economic power, politics, fashion and all kinds of external pressures that are completely orthogonal to any quality metric.
All our artifice isn't meaningfully different than termite mounds in this sort of sense.
So, a more prudent/understandable question is: just how alien do you need to be to unsure where to draw the "organism/not-organism" line on a termite mound+termites or as a counterpoint: on a snail or clam vs thier shell.
Does the fact that the shell of animal was chemically changed by it's body give it some specialness? Or would an animal that constructed limb extensions on demand from wood or stone include those bits? What about brain extensions from bits of metal and glass?
“Imagine, for a moment, a beautiful flower. That flower might be an orchid or a rose, or even a simple little daisy growing beside a path. Looking into a flower, we can see that it is full of life. It contains soil, rain, and sunshine. It is also full of clouds, oceans, and minerals. It is even full of space and time. In fact, the whole cosmos is present in this one little flower. If we took out just one of these “non-flower” elements, the flower would not be there. Without the soil’s nutrients, the flower could not grow. Without rain and sunshine, the flower would die. And if we removed all the non-flower elements, there would be nothing substantive left that we could call a “flower.” So our observation tells us that the flower is full of the whole cosmos, while at the same time it is empty of a separate self-existence. The flower cannot exist by itself alone.“
Faced with a field of flowers the technology to examine them in detail and without existing schema to bias, it is unlikely a flower in isolation could be considered a single organism, thier roots meld and many organisms require each other for metabolic and reproductive processes to succeed, it seem most likely to consider the he entire field a single organism in the sense you are reaching for.
Why?
The logic that would lead to thier classification as a "community" if applied evenly would force us to consider every multicellular organism a "community".
In persuit of this mystery, we looked closely at the flower, found all the petals, stamen, and roots were in fact made of little plants themselves. Often these "cells" are of different shape shape and function in the flower, but chemical stimulation seems all it takes to coerce most to take on a different role.
The truth perhaps, is that there isn't a flower, only a civilization of these "cells" but thier behavior, cooperation, and the structures of sugars that build around themselves are what makes up the "flower" and that it's current form was borne of millions of years of iteration and experimentation in form and function made it what it is today.
From the outside, the termite mound (and all the termites inside) are reasonably all the body of one organism. Just as reasonably they are not functionality different than a human body or a human civilization. The only difference between an i9 and your bones is the story you tell yourself about it.
Simply put, both birds and planes have wings but one if a flexible membrane that flaps and the other is a fixed structure with a jet engine.
Otherwise, what makes building a flying machine with a fixed structure and a jet engine fundamentally different than incorporating environmental iron into a shell? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-foot_gastropod
I've heard of the worm with a fool's gold shoe before (or iron sulfide of some kind). There are also Antarctic fish that make antifreeze proteins that bind to ice crystals to stop them grow. Also trees make themselves by extracting smoke from the air using light and water.
Ok, so maybe I have to work on the analogies. However, my point is that organic systems (biological organisms) are embedded in physical systems. They can manipulate the environment to collect energy and use bits of it to repair themselves.
Talking of iron-sulfide, there are tiny cubes of Fe-S in many enzymes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron%E2%80%93sulfur_protein). I remember talking with my supervisor at Glasgow about the possibility of these being fragments of ancient catalytic machinery from when biology was much closer to the metal (as it were) and these parts have gradually been enveloped in protein.
I liked Alexander Cairns-Smith's book that describes a 'rope' of systems, starting with a thread of replicating clay that templates replicating RNA that leads to DNA and so on. It makes sense to me that the origin of life would have to involve the rocks and minerals. Nick Lane has some theory about serpentinite as well.
Summing up, biological systems can absolutely have metal parts. They even have rotational engines (of a sort) in flagella. However, biological and non-biological designs are often very different because of the different scales and levels of organisation. A human is organised across at least 7 levels (atoms, molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, whole) where a tractor is really just (atoms, parts, whole). A fruit fly swims through the air due to its tiny scale, while a plan e forces its way through.
Apologies, bit of a ramble - I'm a little tired today.
This is our disconnect. I'm arguing for definitions that are scale invariant. In the long run and the wide (universal) scale I would expect any developing system to just increase in "layers of scale" over time so basing our labels on them doesn't seem useful.
In that view "technology" is just another natural specialist organelle produced by the biosphere.
As a fun aside, In the context of viewing the entire biosphere as an organism implies we are it's (still maturing) reproductive organs and that space colonization and terriforming will just be the organisms calfing season.
Ahhh, now I see!
There is no forest, only trees.Defenders of Complex Justice.
Technology is also a self replicator in the space of ideas and artefacts, and it also has limited resources available.
No it wouldn’t, if it didn’t want to.
Have we conquered our own solar system yet?
Or even our own planet? (You’d be surprised how much space is still unpopulated)
Unless you meant a perfectly automated replicator, but even then, like viruses, they would have limitations and face resistance from natural forces and distance, logistics etc.
Congratulations! You just realized why the Fermi Paradox is self-assuming tripe, or the concept of “Von Neumann probes”