Agency and Complexity

September 1st, 2006 Fred McVittie

It is common practice even (especially) for computer specialists, when talking about the behaviour of systems, to use expressions like ‘handshake’, ‘talks to’, ‘finds’, etc. In other words, the language of intention and agency usually reserved for sentient beings. Two observations follow from this. Firstly, it seems that the greater the level of complexity in an entity, the more likely the language used to describe that entity assumes the existence of such agency; when talking of simple systems there is much less tendency to use this language. For example, we would not describe a broken transmission in a car as ‘an inability for the engine to talk to the wheels’. Secondly, it is tempting to argue that this apparent attribution of agency is simply ’shorthand’ and that more accurate descriptions could be given, but this assumption brings its own implications; if it is the case then the suggestion is that ‘agency’ is a simpler concept than the systems which embody that concept, whether applied to computer systems or to other agents.

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Performance and Mind-Reading

September 2nd, 2006 Fred McVittie

A significant aspect of being human is the ability to ascribe agency to other humans (and occasionally non-humans); a faculty sometimes referred to as ‘mind reading’. This consists of the ascription of various abilities to the agent, including intentions, beliefs, desires etc. These abilities are not part of a mechanistic paradigm and do not figure in most of the nuts and bolts psychology literature. This ability to ‘mind read’ is one element which makes up what Philip Auslander refers to as ‘liveness’, the ontologically distinct (although problematised) phenomena of live performance which distinguishes it from recorded or ‘mediatised’ phenomena. To attribute liveness to an entity requires an attribution of agency (even if the entity is dead, as opposed to simply inert. A corpse possesses more ‘liveness’ than an inert object). Other elements which vary the extent to which an event or entity displays ‘liveness’ include mediation (being present, being telepresent), empathy (the simulated sharing of a biological narrative) etc. The binary that Auslander set up erases the distinction between the various elements which make up liveness.

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Spirituality as a Metaphor

September 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Spirituality - The application of the substance metaphor to feelings of unity, awe, and selflessness. Since feelings are inherently abstract, and can only be conceptualised through the use of concrete metaphor, such application is typical. In this case, these feelings (which Newberg and D’Aquili refer to as absolute unity of being), are conceptualised as a vaporous or liquid substance; one that moves between evansence and flow, much as a chemical spirit might behave. This substance metaphor is often combined with an anthropomorphic sense of agency applied to that substance such that the spirit is given intention and human-like attributes.

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Spirituality (Definition)

October 9th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Spirit - an emotional response corresponding to love, compassion, awe,etc. in which the experience of the emotion is conceptualised as a physical entity. This (metaphorical) entity is usually conceived of as an invisible ether permeating space, or sometimes as space itself, and is often given the attribution of agency or intentionality (God).

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Folk Physics and Agency

October 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie

It is a principle of Folk Physics that heavy objects fall faster than light objects. This principle was widely accepted as true until the time of Galileo, and is still felt as intuitively correct by many people today until they actually carry out relevant experiments. Evidently this principle is incorrect and is easily disproved simply by dropping two object of dissimilar weight and observing what happens, and this finding seems to illustrate the ‘naivite’ of Folk Physics and its inherent weakness. Folk (Naive) Physics seems, with this example, to be prone to substantial factual errors and therefore inferior to other, more rational physics systems such as the Newtonian model (which predicts the result of the falling objects experiment accurately). However, whilst the prediction made by Folk Physics is, in this case, incorrect, this is not due to an error in the physics but rather to a misapplication of the Folk Physics model to a system which lies outside its area of explanation. Folk Physics is, to a large extent, the physics not of inanimate objects, but of intentional agents, and describes the functioning of a world in which matter is animated and motion is purposive. The force of gravity, within Folk Physics, is felt not as the passive attraction of inert masses, but as the active striving of material agents. Like two dogs pulling at their leads with different degrees of force, the two objects of different weights, when attributed with agency and purpose (entelechy), will inevitably move at different speeds when released. Within the limits of its own purview Folk Physics is an accurate description of the world and makes accurate predictions. It is only when it is misapplied (as it commonly is) that its limitations are revealed.

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