146 Environments of intelligence
world affair will, first, occur in indirect fashion, in terms of the internal mappings
within the simulations being mappable onto world affairs. Second, it will occur
on the level of types of affairs on the target’s side rather than concrete individual
instances, unless the purpose of the simulation is to re-create a concrete event in
silico – which normally is not the purpose of demonstrative but of a certain subclass of investigative simulations.
Returning to the flight simulator example, I will typically not be flying through a
digital re-creation of that thunderstorm over the Drava valley last Wednesday afternoon but through a general-level analogue of a thunderstorm such as that one and
numerous others. The analogous mapping is warranted by the overall appearance
of the flying-through-a-thunderstorm simulation, as matched against conditions
pertaining to any typical thunderstorm, rather than by any direct mappings between
elements of the simulation and some event in that concrete thunderstorm. Any such
concrete mapping (that gust of wind coming in from 330˚ Northwest by north at
42 knots at 14:17:53 and lasting for 7 seconds) would be coincidental, as it would
not preserve the mappings between transformations of source conditions and signal
required for convergence. Antecedent conditions may vary indefinitely. Nor can the
regularities governing the respective transformations be expected to correspond.
The rendering of a thunderstorm in a flight simulator does not necessarily comprise
a model of the physics of thunderstorm but only will have to partially re-create its
perceivable effects. What counts for isomorphism is that the perceivable properties
of the simulations reliably map onto kinds of real-world conditions as the receiver
usually experiences them, and that they do so in a well-integrated fashion.
The isomorphism condition will apply not only to the paradigm of simulational
environments, being its richest and most complex incarnation to date, but also
to all kinds of pictorial forms that appear to iconically refer to their subject but
where, unlike in a photograph or portrait painting, that subject is not a real-world
object or natural scene. That subject might be of either of two kinds: first, it might
be an idealised or generalised world affair exemplified by the picture – a typical
alpine landscape but not the Alps, or an average male human being but not any
concrete individual. Second, the subject might be a fictitious object or scene that
both retains some core characteristics of real-world objects or scenes and purports
to depict them naturalistically – like that band of unicorns roaming the grassy hills
on some distant planet. There will be some informational mapping detectable for
the receiver, but that mapping will not meet the condition of convergence, which
is reserved to an artefactual structure’s mapping onto concrete, clearly individuated sources. Instead, it will provide a partial analogue of what one would or could
detect in concrete instances of picking up information from concrete sources, as
they are, partly or wholly, exemplified by that pictorial form. Pictorial forms of
either kind, by their very nature as being delimited, cannot meet the criterion of
being artificially created informational environments in their own right, as it can
be applied to simulational environments. Pictorial forms can only be constituents
and modifiers of a pre-existing informational environment.
Given the conceptual distinction between convergence and isomorphism that
I have introduced, one might believe them to be mutually exclusive relations.
world affair will, first, occur in indirect fashion, in terms of the internal mappings
within the simulations being mappable onto world affairs. Second, it will occur
on the level of types of affairs on the target’s side rather than concrete individual
instances, unless the purpose of the simulation is to re-create a concrete event in
silico – which normally is not the purpose of demonstrative but of a certain subclass of investigative simulations.
Returning to the flight simulator example, I will typically not be flying through a
digital re-creation of that thunderstorm over the Drava valley last Wednesday afternoon but through a general-level analogue of a thunderstorm such as that one and
numerous others. The analogous mapping is warranted by the overall appearance
of the flying-through-a-thunderstorm simulation, as matched against conditions
pertaining to any typical thunderstorm, rather than by any direct mappings between
elements of the simulation and some event in that concrete thunderstorm. Any such
concrete mapping (that gust of wind coming in from 330˚ Northwest by north at
42 knots at 14:17:53 and lasting for 7 seconds) would be coincidental, as it would
not preserve the mappings between transformations of source conditions and signal
required for convergence. Antecedent conditions may vary indefinitely. Nor can the
regularities governing the respective transformations be expected to correspond.
The rendering of a thunderstorm in a flight simulator does not necessarily comprise
a model of the physics of thunderstorm but only will have to partially re-create its
perceivable effects. What counts for isomorphism is that the perceivable properties
of the simulations reliably map onto kinds of real-world conditions as the receiver
usually experiences them, and that they do so in a well-integrated fashion.
The isomorphism condition will apply not only to the paradigm of simulational
environments, being its richest and most complex incarnation to date, but also
to all kinds of pictorial forms that appear to iconically refer to their subject but
where, unlike in a photograph or portrait painting, that subject is not a real-world
object or natural scene. That subject might be of either of two kinds: first, it might
be an idealised or generalised world affair exemplified by the picture – a typical
alpine landscape but not the Alps, or an average male human being but not any
concrete individual. Second, the subject might be a fictitious object or scene that
both retains some core characteristics of real-world objects or scenes and purports
to depict them naturalistically – like that band of unicorns roaming the grassy hills
on some distant planet. There will be some informational mapping detectable for
the receiver, but that mapping will not meet the condition of convergence, which
is reserved to an artefactual structure’s mapping onto concrete, clearly individuated sources. Instead, it will provide a partial analogue of what one would or could
detect in concrete instances of picking up information from concrete sources, as
they are, partly or wholly, exemplified by that pictorial form. Pictorial forms of
either kind, by their very nature as being delimited, cannot meet the criterion of
being artificially created informational environments in their own right, as it can
be applied to simulational environments. Pictorial forms can only be constituents
and modifiers of a pre-existing informational environment.
Given the conceptual distinction between convergence and isomorphism that
I have introduced, one might believe them to be mutually exclusive relations.