Where to for a science whose practice embodies an assumption

that science fails to validate?

Tony SmithMelbourne Emergence Meetup

10 March 2016

Colin Hales asked just that about the science/technology of Artificial General Intelligence

and found no sensible answers, but this is unrelated …

ETHOLOGY

“the scientific and objective study of animal

behaviour especially under natural conditions”

Isn’t that at least a step in the right direction?

Genesis 1-28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion

over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Descartes Meditation 4: “I have a clear and distinct

idea of myself as a thinking, non-extended thing, and a clear and distinct idea of body as an extended and

non-thinking thing.”

B. F. Skinner saw conditioning he could demonstrate in animals underpinning human learning,

adding that “a sequence of verbal stimuli can evoke an almost unlimited variety of

complex responses” in humans. (quoting Wikipedia wording.)

So what is wrong?

Ethology, and related science, operates on an assumption that individual

animal behaviour must be measured against individual human behaviour.

This depends on a cultural assumption of human/verbal superiority which may be self-evident at the collective level but consistently fails as a null

hypothesis at the level of individuals.

Tonight• Isolating the problematic (done)

• Hopeful heresies that guide me

• How common is our deep heritage?

• Challenges flooding in

• Communicating with aliens right here

• Footnote about robots and businesses

Life’s TracksConverge

Late in 2008, motivated by Great Cormorants nesting on ledge above

summer campsite, acquired HD camera, chosen for its 14x telephoto zoom more than its movie function.

Observing, photographing and videoing bird behaviour grabbed

increasing time, initially including backyard tree, accelerated late 2013 by sub-$500 50x telephoto zoom.

This investigation is motivated in part by my horrified reaction to loud proposals for imposing

momentarily fashionable human ethics on the natural world,

confusing death and suffering.

Mature-age MScHistory and Philosophy of Science

Evolutionary Theory (John Collier)‘Metaselection for Innovation’ &‘Prosperity of the Sexiest’ (1993)

Variation is less and less Random.

Those Heresies• Evidence trumps theory

• Death is not a kind of suffering

• Humans as means not ends

• Varela et al: Embodied Mind• All power is in collective effects

• We only get one shot at this

While there remain uncertainties and controversies, there is enough consensus of the broad sweep of

evolutionary history to look further.

This investigation focuses between the first mobile animals and homo sapiens sapiens breaking out, but

remains informed by wider context.

Life ➔ Eukaryota ➔ AnimaliaFeeding on biologicals, zygote reproductionThe bipolar neurons of Ctenophora may be ancestral

to the axon-dendrite neurons of other animals.

Us-them scale of “animal”For way too many, animal infers other than humanSome cultures struggle to even count all mammalsMany comfortable extending to birds and even to fishBigger challenge to be inclusive of insects and snails

plus all their relativesConceptual barrier beyond those obviously mobileVersus scientific boundary at sperm + egg ➔ zygoteMany are sessile, most of those & more filter feedersThis investigation focuses on those that are mobile

and at least somewhat familiar

The basic set of animal developmental biology goes back at

least to an Ediacaran common ancestor with a network of neurons.

Many ancestral capabilities are lost in some lines as they find a niche where they don’t use it so lose it, leaving early trees contentious.

Tools for making an

animalMolecular shape fittingSoft cell membranes

Fed by other life formsMid-blastula transitionPluripotent stem cells

Homeobox genesStructural plan integrityMotile at least sometimeSessile or spatially aware

Neural feedbackReward mechanismsLearned behaviourDigestive tract et al

Tools for making an

animalMolecular shape fittingSoft cell membranes

Fed by other life formsMid-blastula transitionPluripotent stem cells

Homeobox genesStructural plan integrityMotile at least sometimeSessile or spatially aware

Neural feedbackReward mechanismsLearned behaviourDigestive tract et al

Reid sees• Basic animal grounded very deep

• Structural integrity

• Phenotype plasticity

• Behavioural change preceding

• Historicity of saltations

• Selection acting against innovation

Porifera

Cnidaria

Life ➔ Eukaryota ➔ AnimaliaCtenophora (comb jellies)Poriphera (sponges)Cnidaria (jelly fish, corals, anemones)

DeuterostomiaOriginally defined by anus-first development

but membership increasingly determined by DNAEchinodermata (starfish, sea urchins, bilateral larvae)Chordata (fish, birds, mammals)

Bila

teri

a

Mouth-first development

LophotrochozoaBryozoa (Adeona cellulosa)Mollusca (snails, cephalopods: squid, octopus)

EcdysozoaIncludes all that shed chitinous exoskeletonArthropoda (crustaceans, spiders, insects)P

roto

som

ia

That was a gross oversimplification of the last 600 million years of evolutionary history

Adeona cellulosa and unknown sea spider species on View Point reef face, Wye River

Echinodermata

Chordata

Curiosity

Network of neurons

World changes

Sensory change

Muscle acts on world

Basic Animal Mind

Common heritage of at least Bilateria clade, lost by many in

transition from larval to sessile.

Network of neurons

World changes

Sensory change

Muscle acts on world

Reflective curiosity

Builds associations

Basic Animal Mind

Common heritage of at least Bilateria clade, lost by many in

transition from larval to sessile.

• Life awakens with curiosity• curiosity that often means quick death

• Sense of place, movement, territory

• Identification of own kind, others• reproduction, nurture, fledging, grooming

• Active feeding involves learned skills

• Nest building, environmental manipulation

• Selective attention & learning• sleep, dreams, (un)consciousness

Us and Them

Bulk Emergence

Basic Form & FunctionHighly Conserved

Adaptability

East Gondwana

Territorial

Safina demolishes anthropocentric framing of interspecies studies, the

Mirror Test and Theory of Mind.

Safina and Kaplan, like Reid before them, observe academic restraint.

Kaplan justifies preferential interest in Australian birds on recent origins analysis, allowing local confirmation.

Fast Lane

Water Birds

Gisela Kaplan wrote an article that appeared in The Conversation on

March 1 exploring the same subject.

The comments section quickly filled with readers’ anecdotal observations.

While my camera and a technique it elicited provide a rich window, often it is better put aside to just observe.

Parenting

Life ➔ Eukaryota ➔ AnimaliaCtenophora (comb jellies)Poriphera (sponges)Cnidaria (jelly fish, corals, anemones)

DeuterostomiaOriginally defined by anus-first development

but membership increasingly determined by DNAEchinodermata (starfish, sea urchins, bilateral larvae)Chordata (fish, birds, mammals)

Bila

teri

a

Mouth-first development

LophotrochozoaBryozoa (Adeona cellulosa)Mollusca (snails, cephalopods: squid, octopus)

EcdysozoaIncludes all that shed chitinous exoskeletonArthropoda (crustaceans, spiders, insects)P

roto

som

ia

Mollusca

Snail Art

Fossilisation

Arthropoda

Insects provoke misassumptions that behavioural possibility must be fully

specified in the DNA, with little room for adaptability, nor clear parental

influence beyond eusocial chemistry.

“Random” mutation of DNA producing viable behaviour change is absurd,

more so seeing web-weaving spiders’ spatial competence. Reid’s view of

selection as narrowing escapes this.

What to conclude & do about Ethology’s foundational error?

Prioritise commonality

not difference!

Alien Minds• Song & ritual performance c.f. conversation

• Magpie song record six hours straight

• Construction for living and for show

• Infrasound reveals earthquakes & elephants

• Dolphin sonar sees right through you

• Verbal blindness makes humans the aliens

We worry about the distant prospect of Artificial General Intelligence and its embodied form: Autonomous Robots,

as prospective aliens in our midst.

Yet we sanctify a more alien kind of equally artificial creation: Business, granting it privileges of personhood

without corresponding responsibility.

Where from here?• Biomimicry inspires architecture, materials

• Time in bush & ocean with eyes wide open

• Educate in nature & systems, less confined

• 50%+ productive capacity to natural systems

• Pay The Rent (2) for ecosystem services

• Experimental animal interfaces to cyberspace

Questions?