But if we infer from this that each person is inscrutably unique, then how do we classify them into groups so that we can make laws and even model them generically enough to take demographic statistics? We can't be doomed to the computational complexity of treating each one *as* unsimplifiable foam. We have to choose boundaries according to the task at hand... maybe I extend to my skin for one thing, extend to my social circle for another thing, extend to the entire built environment I bounce around in for another context, etc. But each boundary comes with its own error, encapsulating, pigeon-holing, the person artificially.
Taken this way, it seems that the *only* path to True Justice is to build robots that *can* handle the computational complexity required to treat each individual as the special snowflake it is ... a kind of libertarian paradise. UNLESS we think of the regular laity's "rules of thumb" and cultural tendencies/traditions as algorithms for handling that computation. Then, we have to accept, to some extent, essentialist rhetoric like Cohen arguing that "yes, I've lied, but I'm not a liar" ... or even, perhaps, Rachel Dolezal's claim that she considers herself black. That essence/identity is a computation, if we don't restrict ourselves to Lee's -- and others' -- overly strict requirements for "computation", namely that it be definite. And I'd argue that Steve's identification of the more "open" types of computation like evolutionary algorithms and such, and his suggestion they are akin to a-little-more-generic intelligence boils down to the "openness" of that type of computation. Bastardizing Feferman's terms, a schematic (axiomatic formal) system would be more like generic intelligence and a definite system would be more like specific intelligence. A fully generic intelligence would, perhaps, have a graceful mechanism for filling in variables on the fly ... dynamic definiteness ... the artificial boundary would gradually give way as more specific questions were asked (and more details were filled in). On 3/7/19 11:20 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: >>Or are they a super complicated, high dimensional, unsimplifiable foam? > > Yes. With consciousness which, as far as I can tell, no one can explain. -- ☣ uǝlƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
