The “artificial” distinction
I’m like, “oh man, people always talk about ‘artificial’ this, ‘artificial’ that, but what’s up with that? I mean aren’t we humans part of nature too? Are fish and monkeys natural in some way that we humans are not? Are our products somehow not natural, whereas termite mounds are natural? This ‘artificial’ thing just feels so wrong, I don’t know what’s being expressed when people use the term. I feel like it doesn’t actually refer to anything I can make sense of. I don’t know, it’s just.. so.. so…. artificial!”
I’m like, “oh man, people always talk about ‘artificial’ this, ‘artificial’ that, but what’s up with that? I mean aren’t we humans part of nature too? Are fish and monkeys natural in some way that we humans are not? Are our products somehow not natural, whereas termite mounds are natural? This ‘artificial’ thing just feels so wrong, I don’t know what’s being expressed when people use the term. I feel like it doesn’t actually refer to anything I can make sense of. I don’t know, it’s just.. so.. so…. artificial!”
The distinction “artificial” succeeds in referring to something: itself. It’s an artificial distinction, and that’s exactly its strength: from my perspective the concept of artificiality is itself the best case of an artificial thing. It’s a human-made distinction, one that—unlike “sun” or “fast”—no other organism would presumably make (“we squirrels have such artificial behavior!”). When we humans start to think of ourselves as separated from nature, that very thought separates us—at least conceptually—from nature.
But in some sense, the fact that the artificial distinction succeeds seems to cause a separation between people and nature that is even more than conceptual. That is, I’d guess that people who operate more from within the perspective that humans are separated from nature will end up doing more things that we’d call “artificial”. My guess is that people who operate more from within the perspective that humans are a part of the natural world will act in a way that fits more harmoniously within the natural world. In other words, it’s possible that the artificial distinction creates the artificiality we see in the world, the “fake plastic trees” and such.
Understanding the role of artificiality has consequences for the sort of math we do. For example, when someone models a human as an observer or actor with a utility function on “world” states, what are they doing? I ask: is the observer/actor, including the place where all its thinking happens, part of the world? If so, their utility function is embedded in the world and so they must have a utility function over their own set of utility functions. So I suppose their utility function includes a value on each element of the sequence of world states that arise as they carry out the steps of their own Bayesian program? The conversation breaks down if we even try to put math to the idea that this observer/actor is part of the world that’s being so-modeled. That is, for the mathematical model to work, the observer’s thinking—and hence the observer—cannot be part of the world, but for some reason the observer cares deeply about the world! This is nonsense: the model of an observer that’s not part of the world but cares about it is motivationally self-contradictory. There’s a disconnect there. And yet when one starts from the artificial distinction, it all apparently makes sense, because one doesn’t ask if the observer is part of the world: of course not; they’re modeling us humans!
In golf or tennis or baseball, a good shot doesn’t end with the stick hitting the ball; it turns out that you need proper follow through. My worry for the artificial distinction is that, by denying our natural status, all the resulting work will lack a sort of follow through. If we are not part of the world, but we want to affect the world, the disconnect will hamper the success of our work. When a baseball player hits a great shot, we say “whoa! You really connected!!” The sensation of connecting with the ball feels great! But when you flub it, the disconnect causes weird vibrations up the stick that hurt. I claim that artificiality is a disconnect, and that it’s hurting us.
Here’s the thing: how did we humans get our intelligence? How did we get our values? Where do our motivations come from? All of this arose from the push and pull and struggle of various sorts of evolution: biological, social, intellectual, personal. We’re embedded in a natural world that selects those actions which fit together coherently; that’s what “fitness” should mean. It’s not a number, it’s a quality. The anthill fits—makes sense within—its surroundings. When you do something people around you appreciate, and when you appreciate the people you’re with, you’re feeling your own fitness there. Fitness is a quality. It is connection with the surrounding world.
One can be fascinated with the artificial distinction: humans really do seem to be different somehow, and we value our unique abilities and experiences. To me, however, it seems there’s much more power in understanding how we fit: how human intelligence, human values, human motivations arise from the same source—properly construed—as the ant colony does. We’re motivated by dopamine and serotonin, but how did those systems get formed in us? How did we come to enjoy the ripe strawberry, the image of a mother and child looking into each others’ eyes? How did we get our ego and our willingness to kill? How did the squirrel learn to hide nuts and the poison ivy learn to export itch?
The ontology of our world may be such that all these abilities arose from a common structure. It seems to me that somewhere in the center of nature, at all scales, there is learning. Learning doesn’t start in kindergarten, it doesn’t start with learning to crawl or understanding object permanence. My guess is that from the moment of conception, the whole development process is a kind of learning. “Need more filtering! Need more coordination! Need more food!” our cells cry out as the liver, brain, and circulatory system form in us and as us. My guess is that from the first life, the continuously developing ability to leave old niches and create new ones arose from a certain sort of learning, a creative pursuit of harmony, which was both specific to the context and also part of a general system. Rather than, or alongside the question of how humans are different, we can be fascinated with the question: what is this learning at the core of life, out of which we humans and our learning abilities emerged?
I propose that our math and science will be more effective and valuable if we focus less on the artificial distinction and more on our fitness within nature. That way, our math will really connect and lead to a stronger, healthier, more integrated world.