Discovering the ‘Discovering’
7 min read
Barış Onur Örs
The Lookout called out in panic: "Captaain, we're lost!" The captain laughed, rejoiced in the news, and said: "Then we are very close."
Such a dialogue can only be possible while searching for lost lands, or perhaps a treasure. No, they cannot be reached by going through the conventional paths, then why call them lost? The conventional paths lead to common places and take us to people we already know. We can’t find what we are looking for while navigating the safe paths of knowing; we look for what we expect to find, and instead of observing what we can find, we find what we seek.
So where is the hidden? Maybe it’s right there, at our feet, at our fingertips. Or it could be within 180 degrees behind us, and it will follow us around as long as we don't spread our arms to go backward and corner it by the wall.
There are moments that drive us crazy to keep looking for something that we’ve lost. For example a hair clip. Where do those clips go, and on which abstract plane do they reside? Whenever we stop looking for it, it suddenly comes out of nowhere and lands on the palm of our hands. Because what is lost is not found in the places that we know, but it’s right where it should be. Somewhere we can't discover without getting lost.
Ursula Le Guin says that Shelley dug Frankenstein out of that hidden place. According to Le Guin, Shelley did not create the character of Frankenstein out of thin air but revealed that which was already there, hidden in our collective imaginations. By only giving him a form and a name, she has unleashed the beast. Since then, no one has been able to get the beast back into its hideaway. Similarly, Tolkien found a ring. More precisely, he discovered that which we have been finding and losing over and over again since ancient times is a ring. Ursula also finds and unearths a dragon in her Tehanu, releasing it to roam freely in our imagination. "I did not deliberately invent Earthsea," says Ursula, "I'm not an engineer, but an explorer. I discovered Earthsea (...) The place is there, the person is there. I did not invent that man, I did not create those people: the man or the woman was there. And it’s my job to go there."
Similarly, Roger Penrose describes finding the Mandelbrot set in mathematics. According to him, this set is not an invention of the human mind, but a discovery. Just as Mount Everest is standing right there, so is the Mandelbrot set. Penrose questions the reality of the objects in the world of mathematicians. Although these objects are rational idealizations, they nevertheless exhibit a profound reality that goes far beyond the rational judgments of a mathematician. Benoit Mandelbrot, who was the first to discover the Mandelbrot set, realized that he was onto something interesting, but at first thought that the obscure but wonderful shapes he encountered were due to computer miscalculation. Just like a lookout, who thinks he is lost in the fog, panics and calls out to the captain of the ship.
While the invention is limited by the inventor's capacity, discovery extends far beyond the explorer's potential. With our limited equipment, not knowing exactly what we are looking for, maybe we set out to test our capacity or to feel alive again, and we lose our way to reach those lands where we get lost once again. Because reaching it doesn't mean that we’ve found it. Because the discovery exceeds us. We’re now in virgin realms, vast and pregnant with new possibilities. In this virgin land, like lovers on a first date, we are clueless about what to do; passionate, jumpy, and a little scared.
Many technological developments today let us feel emotions similar to those of an explorer who discovers a brand new continent, planet, star system, or a completely different life form. When artificial intelligence (AI) technology was "discovered", it was also tested with the world's oldest and most complex strategy game of Far Eastern origin, Go, both the creators of the technology and the Go players felt feelings similar to those of an adventurous captain searching for lost lands. These modern technologies, which have reached a brand new understanding by extending beyond the classical scientific approach such as "deep learning" or "self-learning", correspond to a process of discovery that exceeds the horizons of even its creators who are unsure as to how they reach their destinations. Moreover, the discovery phenomenon is placed at the center of these new technologies, and now software that learns by discovery is produced. In other words, algorithms are being developed that find their way by getting lost, so to speak, in an area where everything is not defined, by learning from what they find, better equipping their ship, and preparing for new disappearances and discoveries. These software are our new exploration ships; our new drilling tools that collect samples from unknown possibilities and the future. Today, we are sitting in front of a screen that can give us an answer to anything we ask, that can produce better answers when we ask better, that can go on journeys for us and sail through dangerous unknowns. Seven years ago, professional Go players experienced the same emotions we are experiencing now. We can just now comprehend those feelings.
Yes, artificial intelligence is a discovery. Humans did not create anything that wasn’t already there. We grasped the basic mechanism of the learning processes of intelligence, which is dispersed in nature and perhaps distributed to all beings, that took millions of years and managed to reduce the time of millions of years to microseconds by shrinking the space infinitely on the virtual plane. In other words, by copying biological life, we created a digital life that is much lighter, and whose evolution can be observed within a limited human lifespan.
Could it be possible to be inspired by our new technologies, which we have developed by imitating the "discovering" mechanisms in nature, especially in the climate crisis conditions where our new generations are deeply concerned about the future? Today, instead of innovations and inventions that reflect an anthropocentric, arrogant economic system and technology, there is a need to discover what is already there, right under our noses. Rather than searching for the salvation of the planet in the distance, via impossible progress and technological development, we need to see what is right in front of us and better understand the mechanisms that go on in natural processes. By asking "Where was the mind before there were bodies that carried it," Hoimar von Ditfurth implies that mind, intelligence, and memory are inherent properties of nature. Artificial intelligence technologies are renewing our hopes for the seemingly impossible to happen, by finding and processing what is already there. Considering that the first computer evolved from an algorithm written on paper, why shouldn't it be possible for the new models we develop by emulating nature to open the doors that lock us between the past and the future? Moreover, now that we have reconnaissance ships, and artificial intelligence technologies that can do this for us, all that remains is to ask the right questions so that we can say "Eureka".
Coming back to Ursula Le Guin, “It is only when science asks why, instead of simply describing how that it becomes more than technology. When it asks why, it discovers Relativity. When it only shows how it invents the atomic bomb, and then puts its hands over its eye and says, ‘My God what have I done?’ When art shows only how and what, it is trivial entertainment, whether optimistic or despairing. When it asks why, it rises from a mere emotional response to a real statement and intelligent ethical choice. It becomes, not a passive reflection, but an act.”
References:
Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction, 1976, U. K. Le Guin
Dreams Must Explain Themselves, 1973, U. K. Le Guin
The Stalin in the Soul, 1973, U. K. Le Guin
The Emperor's New Mind, 1989, Roger Penrose
Im Anfang war der Wasserstoff, 1972, Hoimar v Ditfurth
