In recent years language has changed probably more than in its
entire history. Still, these changes are not of the depth and
breadth of scientific and technological praxis. Computer
science, as Dijkstra pointed out, deserves a better name, more in
line with the fundamental change this practical experience
brings about. ("Would anyone call surgery knife science"? he
asked.) We don't have better names for many other fields of new
human experience: artificial life, artificial intelligence,
genetics, qualitative reasoning, and memetics. But we do have
powerful new notation systems, new ways of reasoning (combining
qualitative and quantitative aspects), and fresh methods of
expression (interactive). Consequently, a new human condition
resulting from the practice of science will probably emerge.
This condition will reflect the changed premises of scientific
experiment.
Experimentation joined logical analysis over 350 years ago.
Simulation, the experiment of the civilization of illiteracy, is
becoming the dominant scientific form of expression of the
systematic search for the multitude of elements involved in new
scientific theories and in their applications. A variety of
simulators embody knowledge and doubt. This can be seen in a
broader context. Through simulation, variability is accounted
for, relations are scrutinized, functional dependencies are
tested over a wide array of data critical to the performance of
new systems, or over a wide array of the people involved with
them. After heroically, and necessarily, separating from
philosophy and establishing its own methods, science is
rediscovering the need for the dimension covered by human
reasoning. This is, after all, what the subject matter of
artificial intelligence is and what it ultimately produces:
simulations of our capability to reason. In the same vein,
scientists are concerned with the metaphysics of the beginning of
the universe, and the language of the mind (lingua mentis),
evidently assumed to be different from language as we use it in
the framework of community, cultural, and national existence.
To reflect upon the beginning of the universe or upon the mind
means to constitute oneself, together with the appropriate
language, in a pragmatic context different from community
interaction, cultural values, or national characteristics. The
focus is changed from obsession with quantity to preoccupation
with quality. Qualities are pursued in the attempt to build a
science of artificial reality. As a scientific artifact, this
reality is endowed with characteristics of life, such as change
and evolution over time, selection of the fittest, the best
adapted to that world, and acquisition of knowledge, common
sense, and eventually language. Focused on the model of life as a
property of organization, artificial reality is intent on
generating lifelike behavior: iterative optimization, learning,
growth, adaptability, reproduction, and even self-identification.
Whereas science followed strategies of standardization,
artificial life is focused on generating conditions for
diversity, which eventually foster adaptability. Allocation of
resources within a system and strategies of co-evolution are seen
as resources of incremental performance. Research starts from a
premise that belongs to the realm of reasoning, not rationality:
humans and the problem being solved are continuously changing.