By guest poet Kari McKern1
Without self-organization,
matter’s march toward abstraction—
you would not be here, nor me.
Neither bootstrapped nor born,
only time’s bitter taste,
but for Ms Complexity.
Not all that could be
where each moment is free
and all beings be.
- This work is collaborative in the sense that first Kari said the following to Catherin J Pascal Dunk in a Messenger chat:
“If there was no magic of self organisation and matter’s long march to higher abstractions, we wouldn’t be here.
They got raised up by the old gods and born without all that bad Karma of snatched meals.”
Wow right? Catherin then asked Kari to write the poem proper. Catherin has edited the punctuation and capitalisation and lightly edited one line of the resulting poem.
Cover image generated by Kari McKern 2024 using Grok 2 Beta AI: https://x.com/i/grok/share/BN3SZlUCuAYKi00qAfrIgwiiX ↩︎
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Kari, I love this poem so much! What do you mean that we wouldn’t be here but for abstraction? I’m inclined to think that whether humans procreate has little to do with our higher information processing cortex…that anyone could still be born, even though society might look quite different?
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My poem seeks to suggest that without the capacity for complex systems to emerge and self-organize, we—conscious beings capable of contemplating our own existence—would never have come into being. Complexity theory shows how from simple beginnings, through time and interaction, entities as abstract and profound as consciousness can emerge. The poem is a simple ode to the unfolding of complexity and the fundamental processes that shaped our exist
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And by bootstrapped, do you mean ‘raised’…the nurture part of the equation?
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the poem uses the phrase “Neither bootstrapped nor born” to draw a parallel between artificial intelligence and the human brain, highlighting a shared reliance on complexity and emergence. I suggest that both are more than just the sum of their parts, and their capabilities arise from the intricate interactions within their complex systems.
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Consciousness could not be born by organic evolution or “bootstrapped” from inanimate matter, without the physical laws of self-organization bestowed by the Goddess “Ms Complexity”.
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Also, what did you mean ‘without all that bad Karma of snatched meals’?? I’m so curious about that
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A hint we carry “bad karma” from our evolutionary past, whereas AI is, potentially, at least, free from it and unlike us “competing for dinner” work to the benefit of all beings.
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