How Artificial Intelligence is both ending by Digital Paradox the Age of Enlightenment and enabling Relay Cognostics as a new kind of thinking.
Phenomena in nature and society have fascinated mankind from the very beginning and sent them on a search for explanations. Observed phenomena gave rise to legends and myths. People developed and incorporated religion as a belief in powers beyond their own immediate control. In addition and directly, the instruments and skills for their own survival were further developed technically and through social rules. Through trial and error. By heuristic coincidences. Through systematic documentation and intellectual creativity. Seemingly wild hypotheses got proven, leading to established laws. These in turn fit into complex systems of theories. Some are connected, others contradict each other and raise new questions. When a door opens, other new doors appear in the cognitive space that still need to be opened. Admittedly, it took a long time for the objective search for truth to prevail over legends, myths and the religions run by humans. The Age of Enlightenment marked the beginning of the primacy of the objective and systematic search for truth. According to Immanuel Kant, it was mankind’s exit from self-inflicted immaturity as the inability to use ones reason without the help of a third party. Don’t just believe what others tell you, but find and form your own opinion. Use your mind, your ratio for new insights.
Since that time, mankind has been busy cognitively systematizing laws, heuristically or through proven statements, multiple interdependencies in different dimensional models. But despite numerous, thoroughly committed and controversial discussions, some remained a bit grumpy and musty, somewhat self-satisfied within its own circle. Many believed, that further knowledge could be gained in an exponentially linear fashion. Again: Systematic findings in individual areas were combined across various disciplines into overarching models: e.g. chemistry, medicine and biology merged in many fields. Everything can be mapped mathematically. It is true that science has long since ceased to be a singular discipline, but rather an interdisciplinary field of excellence on which global teams work 24/7. Excellent mathematical combinations in digitalization have now heralded the end of Enlightenment, first silently and now screaming loudly. The end of the Age of Enlightenment can be given a name: it is the Digital Paradox.
What does Digital Paradox mean? In the digital world we are receiving more and more data and, yes, even information extracted from it. Phenomena from nature and society, which mankind used to be confronted with in singularity and in smaller quantities, are now hitting us on many different ways. On one side we do can form a holistic picture of the most diverse constellations within a very short space of time. But on the other side this information is almost only of a secondary, tertiary or even more Nth kind. Thus, in the digital world, we can hardly live up to Immanuel Kant’s claim of enlightenment that we should take control of our minds without the help of a third party. Recourse to reality is contaminated by all-encompassing digitalization. Nobody can escape this toxicity anymore, as overcoming it would only be possible again with digitalization. So we are limited to build up our estimation on unknown ground. What is true? While until recently we still believed that we could maintain a certain level of assurance by thinking critically in individual cases, weighing things up and focusing on reliable sources. Now phenomena like deep fakes with sophisticated Artificial Intelligence in a complex surrounding will increasingly leave us baffled in the future. The supposedly comprehensive, detailed level of digitalization threatens to become a curse. In this paradox we are caught. Henry Kissinger described “How the Enlightenment ends – A conversation” already in march 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTyIeMuUavo
As children of the Enlightenment, we have nevertheless a fundamentally optimistic attitude. We believe in human reason. And it was Karl Popper who reminded us that there is no rational alternative to optimism. Yes, we can avoid to be trapped in the seemingly inevitable Digital Paradox that phenomenal digitalization has eventually brought us into.
It could be described as „Relay Cognostics“. Relay: Here, a large active force is effectively controlled with a smaller force. Creating a combination of the basic conceptual structures and dynamics of complex thinking operations with recurrent loops of Artificial Intelligence. A multi-layered cognostic approach that controls Artificial Intelligence through structures and the dynamics of complex thought operations will enable us to overcome the Digital Paradox. As humanity incorporates effectiveness. Doing the right things. As Artificial Intelligence incorporates mighty efficiency. Doing things the right way. Hence human reasoning has to act as a relay to create a new setting of thinking, a new setting of systematic search for truth, a new setting of science.
All done in a way that first forms abstract cognitive pattern to represent the world in an abstract model. We systemize this according to qualitative, quantitative, temporal and local/spatial criteria. We no longer think in terms of individual content, but in terms of overarching patterns that can relate to the same constellation of different content worlds. For example, what does the Varus Battle have to do with a towel? It is the significantly enlarged surface area that makes a different approach possible. Due to the long chain of soldiers in the woods, the Roman legion had a very large surface area and could be systematically decimated at individual points by a force, that was ever attacking locally with always a higher headcount than the Romans. This took longer, but after three day Varus’ entire legion was destroyed. Unlike if they had faced opponent Arminius’ army in a single field battle. A towel works in a similar way: the many small threads pick up the moisture and absorb it. A comparable plastic sheet, which would be many times larger than the towel, with exact the same surface area, would not be able to dry off in the same way, for example after a shower. The abstract cognitive pattern of acting in the same place, with the same quantities, with different qualitative characteristics and different time input, can help to solve problems and increase efficiency even without having the specific knowledge in a particular case constellation. So we are opening up a new dimension of science that no longer deals with individual settings, but with abstract patterns under a qualitative, quantitative, temporal and local/spatial view. Only a few years ago, we would have been completely overwhelmed by the task of recording and building this up so that there was a reliable chance of finding a specific solution to a specific challenge. Simply because data volumes and constellations are too diverse.
However, secondly with the means of Artificial Intelligence there is chance to construct these patterns bit by bit getting them into an operational mode. If we set up developing as many patterns as possible and apply them to various phenomena known to us with a probability of their abstract imputability, a completely new form of systematic search for truth and explanation of natural and social phenomena could become possible. This also opens a new dimension that elevates us above the purely factual actions of Artificial Intelligence. Admittedly, we are only at the beginning of a long journey. We have the building blocks and the tools. We have the plans. There is still a long way to go before this new dimension becomes overall operational. But a „Relay Cognostics“ approach can already help to solve problems using abstract patterns from completely different disciplines and constellations. It is a vision of tomorrow – in action today.
PS: And for all who have been brave enough to read this far, there is another wild thought: Perhaps setting up Relay Cognostics pattern is a chance to connect classical Western, modular logical thinking with the conceptual wholeness of the Asian world. As the scheme patterns are holistic, they could carry an individual name, just as landmarks and constellations are widely designed in the Asian mind. Thinking wildly: perhaps this brings us closer on a mind and ratio level, integrating the intellectual achievements of the Western world from the past with the millenia-old wisdom of Asia. For a new social global level of truth, peace and friendship, fairness and benefits for everyone involved.