[This is just a holding post prompted by a long series of Twitter exchanges with Chris Papavasiliou on his film plot, using Kolmogorov-Chaitin (as opposed to Shannon) ideas on “Digital Physics” – metaphysics as “information realism” or “res informatica” in my recent writings. Will summarise and link more but just wanted to capture this fleeting thought.]
In the same way “Intelligent Design” can be reclaimed by evolutionary philosophers from the supernatural idea of “An Intelligent Design-er”
It is possible to accept we live in a world of information and computation without the need to posit a “programmer” outside the Matrix-like system. The computation (and intelligence) evolves algorithmically, within the system, just like everything else.
Algorithmic doesn’t mean the program is fixed and dumb. Obviously repeating the process on the same starting material always produces the same result, but the point (eg Hofstadter or universal Turing) is that the algorithm can be repeatedly applied to the results, and to the algorithm (program) itself. Complexity and intelligence both evolve from simple code and simple beginnings. That’s what evolution is.
[Also feel a synergy with Dan Brown’s “Origin”
which I always said read like a screen-play anyway ;-)]