Epistemology #5

Paradox and Wisdom

                Human intelligence is built around the paradox that Maturana and Fell attribute to our biology.  We are always already connected and autonomous.  What we ‘know’ is never just what we experience as individuals (including the intelligence of our bodies), and it is never simply a cultural reaction.  We are constantly balancing the two.  Epistemology has traditionally focused on the autonomous side of the equation, but intelligence is always a product of both of these realities.  In that sense, paradox is a constant feature of human thought.

                Paradox has played a pivotal role in a lot of traditions.  It was central to early Greek thought, and can be found in both early Daoist teaching and later Zen kaons.  In Christianity the Trinity presents a paradox that most current Christians just skip over.  Even modern physics revolves around the paradox that both quantum mechanics and relativity are both ‘true’ but incompatible.  As Heisenberg famously said about that paradox. “the opposite of a small truth is false, but the opposite of a great truth is also true.”  Some have argued that poetry revolves around the paradox of ambiguity and the vatic implications of that kind of interpretation.  Keats once called that ‘negative capability,’ the ability to hold two opposite and competing ideas at once.  It is obvious that paradox has been a constant in human thought and language.

                The same might not apply to machine intelligence.  The algorithmic view of the world revolves not around paradox but simulation.  Algorithms work because they can run variable simulations of the same conditions to determine what is or is not likely to occur.  Every video game player understands that she has to ‘die’ a few times to reach the next level.  Simulation optimizes some options over others to provide a ‘right’ or ‘best’ option.  One of the great advantages of machine intelligence is that by using simulation it can find patterns that human calculation is too slow to uncover.  Computer programs can roll millions of dice to reveal an intricate pattern that no one roll or limited set of rolls can replicate.  In doing so, however, simulation renders any particular moment, including this one, insignificant.  I can ‘die’ as many times as I need to in a video game to get to the next level, but that’s not an option for me in daily live.  Here, I only get one chance.  One of the axioms of chaos theory is that the next roll of the dice or the shape of the next vortex in a tub of water when the plug is pulled is unpredictable.  That doesn’t mean it’s entirely random – it will fall within a range of limited options, but it’s exact shape is unknowable until you pull the plug.

                The difference between paradox and simulation defines the role of wisdom.  As cyborgs we live with both.  We have greatly benefited from the introduction of super fast simulation made possible by machine intelligence.  At the same time, the biological couplings that sustain us as organisms are continually presenting us with paradox.  We might be able to simulate many actions, but we can only take one.  When we take that one action, it is indeterminable how it will turn out in the moment.  We can know how it will turn out 99 times out of 100, but we can’t know about this time in advance.  I think that paradox is connected to wisdom because we have to make – and feel – the choice in the moment.  Paradox creates a pause – a mindfulness if you will – that deepens and enriches the moment we are in.  An epistemology for cyborgs has to entertain the possibilities of simulation without neglecting the need for wisdom.  That is, cyborgs have to possibility in both terms and develop an intelligence that uses both without confusing them.