Consider this. Just as you have an infinite tape for 'memory' in a Turing machine for recording states, Architecture exists in infinite states. Just as you change the states on the tape of a Turing machine with program instructions, you change the states of Architecture with design interventions. A Turing machine halts when a solution is found that has been specified, or the program instructions call for the process to be halted. In architectural evolution the process is 'halted' perceptually at the end of each design intervention, or when a design solution has been found. The process of architectural evolution progresses as a Turing machine computation, with its constant transformation of architectural states. The crucial part of the evolution is the 'instruction set' that is embedded in the design interventions that specify how to change the architectural states and the intersubjective consensus for when the evolution has to be 'halted' perceptually to achieve the closure of a solution.
Saturday, December 12, 2020
A Common World
One of the most amazing things about OUR existence is the distributed sentience of billions of sentient beings that regulate OUR world...how do these different loci of distributed sentience keep together a coordinated COMMON world...loci of physical vantage points, loci of mental worlds, loci of agency, all need to hold everything together...even that we have a COMMON world is a miracle every moment!
A beautiful book that ponders the billions of sentient vantage points and their reconciliation into an 'objective' world is Thomas Nagel's The View From Nowhere. The diagram that Nagel comes up with is a series of concentric circles, that provide more and more inclusive 'viewpoints' as you move away from a center. The real challenge is to model both the interpenetration of the worlds of sentient beings as well as their inclusivity in each other's perceptions.