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support our further discussions. A more complete presentation would include considerations of the neuron and the role played by evolutionary mechanisms in the construction of the brain (Gerald Edelman’s Neural Darwinism). We will bravely assume that we’ve transmitted enough of the message that we can now turn to looking at computer systems, weaving their description with that of biological systems, even at the risk of touching material that we have not properly introduced.

Technological Design and Development

Evolutionary processes for organic life can derive from mutational events coupled to a form of feedback process control effected through the modulation of genetic adaptation by natural selection; in essence, a crap shoot coupled to a positive feedback loop. Note that we mention a positive feedback loop. Such a feedback mechanism has the tendency to reinforce the change that caused it. Within an electrical circuit, such a feedback mechanism will tend to force a circuit into unstable saturation; within living organisms, it will tend to enhance the propagation of newly developed traits.

Certainly all of this discussion has an a-religious ring to it; but again, the devil is in the details. As was observed in the previous section, the vast majority of mutations prove to be either innocuous or fatal to the resulting individual organism. Certainly, the probability of a chance mutation becoming a contributing facet of the evolutionary design of a species is very low indeed. On the other hand, low probabilities applied over a sufficiently long time period can yield non-zero results. So, perhaps it is useful to consider our epigraph for this chapter. If an event of exceedingly low probably actually does occur, it is difficult to name its true origin; was it chance, or was it due to very subtle design selections? Or more radically, is chance simply an abdication of design? For example, Stephen Wolfram in A New Science has shown that a sequence of numbers fulfilling all known tests for randomness could be generated from a deterministic automaton. The concept of causality arises as a point of interest because of its subsequent impact on the mechanics of policy. From a policy consideration standpoint, causality is important because it can be related to trust; and trust, we will contend, is the basis of all policy mechanisms, including social organizations.

So, now let us consider the progression of computer systems. Does a change mechanism similar to the mutation of DNA structure exist for computer systems? In fact it does. It can be characterized as directed or serendipitous basic research. Subsequent fine tuning of new characteristics first introduced through such mutational change occur through an analogue to genetic selection that is generally termed applied research. As with organic design and feedback loops through the DNA molecule, research based mutation and refinement are completely grounded in physical law. These two forms of fundamental change show characteristics more like a roulette wheel than of the pair of dice in a crap game. That is, they may result in a profound, beneficial development along the lines of hitting en plein (a straight bet on the ball landing on a specific number which pays 35 to 1 odds); but, a more modest enhancement may result, corresponding perhaps to hitting a dozen bet (a wager that the ball will land on one of twelve selected numbers which pays 2 to 1 odds).

Basic research is best characterized as an undirected search for answers to previously unknown questions, while applied research is aimed at finding new approaches (e.g. new technologies) to solve known problems in more effective ways. As we said, one might at least qualitatively compare basic research to a mutation and applied research to genetic adaptation. Indeed, just as the typical organic mutation results in either a benign variant or in a catastrophe, so is the result of basic research most often a dead-end, if not a catastrophe in its own right when evaluated by the actions or reactions of the market. The useful discoveries of basic research tend to be

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