Strange symmetries beyond the natural/artificial divide
In strong theories of ALife these machines are understood not simply to simulate life but to realize it, by instantiating and actualizing its fundamental principles in another medium or material substrate. Consequently, these machines can be said to inhabit, or "live," in a strange, newly animated realm, where the biosphere and artifacts from the human world touch and pass into each other, in effect constituting a "machinic phylum."' The increasing number and variety of forms of machinic life suggest, moreover, that this new realm is steadily expanding and that we are poised on the brink of a new era in which nature and technology will no longer be distinctly opposed.
John Johnston, The Allure of Machinic Life
I have just been trying to catch up with recent developments in biomimicry applied to robotics and artificial intelligence. I also tried to read some references on biologically inspired computation, biologically inspired robotics and related subjects, such as the use of living cells to perform programmed tasks of computation.
(from stelarc work here)
They made me go back to the classics and unearth and old characterization of “techné”:
Techne, or techné, as distinguished from episteme, is etymologically derived from the Greek word τέχνη (Ancient Greek: [tékʰnɛː]) which is often translated as craftsmanship, craft, or art. It is the rational method involved in producing an object or accomplishing a goal or objective. Techne resembles epistēmē in the implication of knowledge of principles, although techne differs in that its intent is making or doing, as opposed to "disinterested understanding."
(from Wikipedia)
Just let us mention in passing that an intelligent robot may not fit with this definition since it can show a certain level of autonomy from its creator. But just let’s keep the definition to see what is happening now.
On one hand, we are transforming our concept of living matter as well as its reality so that it shares features previously reserved to technical objects. We “program” matter and in its most simple understanding “programming” is just reduce the set of rules of autonomy to the set given by the programmer. On the other hand, we strive to infuse technological objects not only with the procedural, adaptive, strategies of living organisms but also with the autonomy that formerly we observed only in living organisms.
The technical object becomes as autonomous as the living organisms and living matter as programmed as our former technical objects.
Interesting symmetry. What it tells about ourselves, is worth exploring.
