User:Mark Peatfield/sandbox/Ego Machine

Ego Machine

Plate 2 from the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius Exhibition.

History

The Ego machine is the plan for a mechanism designed to models man’s relation to consciousness and human awareness. Specifically, its design determines that the mind and ego intervene and determine the perception of reality.

It is foremost a descriptive symbol but the mechanism's apparent simplicity has also inspired its material construction with various media through the years. The first recognisable plans for an Ego Machine are found in the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius manuscript which uncovered in a ruined basement of an Algerian coffee shop in the 1890s. Most of the manuscript was destroyed by fire and no further copies are extant. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is also the name of a short story by the 20th-century Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges though it is not clear whether he was inspired by the manuscript or whether the naming of the manuscript predates his story. It was written in southern Italy somewhere in the late 16th century no later than fifty years after the death of Leonardo Da Vinci. Little is known of its provenance. The manuscript, now stored in the British Museum, consist of pen and ink cartoons of a mechanism, later dubbed the Ego Machine. Scholars initially found the designs intriguing because the mechanisms did not serve an obvious function. They were dismissed as the product of a creative but mechanically naive apprentice. Nonetheless, contemporary accounts suggest that several such mechanisms were assembled which could move independently and mimic speech. The earliest report of a working mechanism was in Florence, southern Italy. A chemical analysis of the ink and parchment used in the manuscript also points to the same region. The eye-witness account describes a rotating plate of metal held in a wooden frame. The mechanism did nothing noteworthy. However, the duration of the plate's spin was an impressive three months. Another contemporary account describes a similar mechanism attached to a network of leather hoses which produced a 'mournful wail interspersed with speech', from a set of leather bellows whose sound could be evidently interpreted as speech.

An examination of the many of the designs drawn in the manuscript show a disc intended to rotate at speed, probably to exploit the stability conferred by the preservation of angular momentum, otherwise known as the gyroscopic principle. This principle, which has been exploited widely in children's toys and navigational instruments would confer a short lived stability on the mechanism but would be quickly compromised by the force of friction. The draftsman solved this problem in a surprisingly modern way. The disc appears to be enclosed in a gimbal arrangement and a detail of the point of rotation that the pole which is the axis of rotation, terminates in a fine point so as little surface area as possible is susceptible to friction. However, there is no explanation of the motive force necessary to keep the disc spinning. No clue as to what motive force was used to start and maintain the disc's motion is given in written accounts and non may be inferred from the cartoons. A child's top is given an initial impulse with a sudden tug on a length of twine coiled tightly around the top's central axis. The author has witnessed a top's spin period extended with the skillful application of a lash on the rim of the spinning disc. Neither can be an adequate explanation for eye-witness accounts which describe the mechanism maintaining spin durations lasting in terms of months and even, in one case, years. Artistic license might have been exercised and the mechanism's engine of propulsion might have been ignored by the draftsman. However, eye-witness accounts make no mention of such an engine and the absence of any obvious motive power combined with general wonderment at how the mechanism stay upright, caused comment.

If we assume that, somehow, the technological problems associated with keeping a gyroscopic mechanism spinning were overcome then we are at liberty to believe that many such mechanisms were kept actively spinning for extended periods of time - certainly months and maybe longer. Further, if we are to believe contemporary accounts, some of these mechanisms achieved a degree of notoriety. For example, one famous example in Florence was not only active for two years but was able to discuss philosophy with the Duke of Milan. One transcript of its conversation suggests that a 'benign and baffled intelligence was communicated', by the mechanism. The report, made without a trace of irony, was one of many more mundane news items intended for consumption by some high up official. It described the meeting between mechanism and Duke in a matter of fact way. The reporter was more astonished at the mechanism's active life-span than the observation that is was able to reason in a philosophical manner. The argument used by the mechanism was, in the reporter's opinion, poorly formed and lacking in conviction.

These mechanisms were probably constructed as toys for rich noblemen. The counter intuitive stability conferred by gyroscopic properties of a spinning disc made them objects of wonder and it is human nature to attribute wonderous things to complex mechanisms. The attribution of intelligence and speech is almost certainty an expression of this tendency. The accounts of speech and movement were examples of frivolous reporting.

These accounts received fresh attention when plates of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius manuscript were published. Though the written accounts accurately described the mechanism plans found in the manuscripts there was more in the drawings that had not been described. The funnel and the pipe were both apparently connected to the spinning disc. The large sphere attached to the mechanism's frame served no apparent purpose. There were many other details which made no engineering sense. The annotations described details of the mechanism but did not elaborate on the functions of its parts. The manuscripts were a mystery but no more mysterious than other works of art or literature. The Codex of ???? is a fine example. The manuscripts came to be seem as an expression of a particulary creative time in the annals of human intellect and artistic endeavour. Lacking the artistic merit of Renaissence finest cartoons and lacking the intellectual rigour of Da Vinci, the Ego Machine drawings were relagated to the status of curio.

An anonymous letter submmitted to the Editorial section of 'The Transactions of the Royal Philosophical Society' [ref] in 1895 reawakened interest in the Ego Machine manuscripts. The writer's letter contributed to long standing debate on sentience and intelligence. The writer suggested that the experience of the self was largely a process of successfully matching existing patterns with new patterns. The concept of awareness or consciousness was 'an illusion maintained by the pattern matching process which filtered out every sensorium bar those concerned with the sentient being's single viewpoint'. It was the awareness of the continuous stream of 'me' impressions which create the sense of self. The writer sought to strengthen his argument by stating that the sense of 'self' was an unremarkable illusion which could be and has been simulated in mechanisms as long ago as Da Vinci's time. The writer cited an article published in the Proceedings of the Italian Antiquarian Society earlier that year. [ref] which gave a short account of the discovery of some 16th Century manuscripts in an Algerian coffee shop in 1890. The account did not attempt to interpret the text or illustrations but did provide facsimiles of both in the the article. The author of the anonymous later had evidently interpreted the drawings as plans to simulate human consciousness. The accompanying text, which the writer had translated and reproduced in his letter, supported this supposition.

Has been compared to a Turing machine on steriods.

8888888888888

The importance of non determinism or random events in the aetiology of consciousness. Remember the Ozobot moving along a patterned floor. It looked confused but carried on moving. What is the floor was the surface of an ego machine?

The Ego Mechanism could therefore simulate, in a very modest fashion, human awareness and the sense of self or ego. What was surprising to investigators into individual mechanisms was the complexity of responses derived from such a simple arrangement. The Ego Machine became greater than the sum of its parts.

8888888888888

The Victorian era saw a brief but passionate interest in the Ego Machine. The re-discovery of the Ego Machine manuscript prompted both a flowering on interest in the engineering problems proposed by the cartoons and of the metaphysical implications of such a device if it could be proved to house sentience. Many of the major intellects of the day dabbled in musings and speculations but the calls of more concrete challenges provided by steam, bridge design, Babbages's analytical engine and events leading up to the First World War succeeded in eclipsing interest in the Ego machine.

More recently, the fundamentals of the mechanism have been adopted by the Steampunk movement with the components shown in the early drawings being instantiated with iron and brass. Gimbal friction is a trivial problem thanks to modern materials; assembly of an Ego Machine is not a difficult task and can be done by any enterprising individual in possession of a lathe and metal work tools. The problem of maintaining a frictionless environment has found several ingenious solutions. Notably, the use of magnets and synthetic lubricants. Though were unlikely to have been employed in Renaissance times, the solutions have nonetheless, conferred an element of respectability on the Ego Machine enterprise. At least one mechanism based on the essential features of the Ego Machine was powered by steam. Its moblity was severely constrained by a loop of leather rotated by a small steam engine which wound around the spinning disc's axis of rotation. The mechanism apparently bucked and heaved as it attempted to become free of the assembly and tore the restraining straps so that the loop fell away and the mechanism fell silent. The tendency to anthropomorphise the movements of a machine, particularly a machine in distress, became particularly pronounced at this time. No doubt the heaving and bucking movements were caused by an ecentricity in the design of the rotating components.

The machine aspect dominates the Ego Machine design though many drawings and accounts strongly suggest an inherent organic composition. Many drawings of the Ego Machine were intended as plans for the construction of mechanisms but there is something also in them that suggests the observational critique of a naturalist. It is as if some of the drawings were made from life. I refer specifically to the strange organic quality in some of the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius cartoons and other sources which suggest that Ego Machine might possess a life cycle. This intriguing possibility has been explored in art and literature, and motifs from the Ego Machine corpus may be found often in the work of the early surrealists. Literature also references, the Ego Machine and the questions its existence raises. The 'Descent into Hell' by an anonymous writer is the most overt admission to the Ego Machine's thought provoking legacy.

Plate 4 from the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius Exhibition.

The construction of Ego Machines is no longer regarded as a fashionable and worthwhile pursuit. The descendants of the analytical engine are in the ascendent though, I would argue, we have lost much by abandoning the Ego Machine entirely. The calculating machine is the direct descendent of modern computers but even now, after several centuries of endeavour, we struggle to simulate human consciousness.

The mechanism for sentience

Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience). ... In Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that require respect and care.

The Victorian era saw a flowering in the interest of modelling sentience or at least a useful and employable intelligence using Ego Machines. We know now that useful intelligence needs another paradigm. Ego Machines are not good calculators and rarely follow instruction. Mechanisms pioneered by Babbage and Lovelace succeeded in their stead. The recent resurgence in interest is less to do with modelling sentience and more to do with the Steampunk aesthetic.

SO, how does an EGO MACHINE emulate sentience?

Computers have nothing resembling a personality, unless they are programmed to simulate one. Whereas, as anyone who has spent more than a hour in the company of an Ego Machine knows, lack of personality is not a deficiency they possess. Rather, they err by having too much personality.

Steampunk Consciousness

The legible texts from the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius manuscript were written in simple code and have been translated many times. They amount to little more than an engineer's annotations giving advice here and there though many have given them a more metaphysical slant. For a short time, the assembly of Ego Machines was the occupation of the rich Victorian man of leisure. The devices were publicly displayed and, apparently, enjoyed the public exposure. Aside from a particularly fine specimen assembled by the Royal Institute in 1895, the devices tended to have mean and impoverished intellects which never progressed by a state of amazement; they did not cease to marvel at their existence. The Royal Institute mechanism answered to the name,'Dorian' and was known to recite poetry which it apparently composed on the spot. The ingenious harnessing of the power of steam became the next public obsession and Ego Machines were, once again, relegated to the amateur hobbyist who would also tinker with watches.

The recent advent of the Steampunk movement celebrates aesthetics of Victorian engineering. The Ego Mechanism was quickly adopted and the Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius manuscript annotations translated and elaborated to suit the Western European zeitgeist. It is reproduced in full here.

The Steampunk Consciousness Manifesto

The Ego Machine portrays what it is like to be human to an enlightened but non-human alien intelligence. The alien does not see appearances. It is blind to make-up, snappy suits, painted nails, flat stomachs and bulging biceps. It cannot distinguish young from old, success from failure. It sees a mechanism akin to a child’s gyroscope darting across a flat featureless landscape until the disc stops spinning.

The mechanism’s form is governed by its function which is the collection and storage of 'me' thoughts. Its constituted of a recording component and a reading component. Sight and sound enters through a large funnel apparatus which transcribes, with vibrational energy, what is seen and heard onto an impressionable and rapidly spinning disc. The visual component of what has been recorded is then conveyed to the seat of awareness (the seat of awareness or consciousness inhabits a metal sphere) via an ocular mechanism. A needle transmits via vibrational energy auditory impressions via an amplifying funnel which feeds into the metal sphere. Direct awareness of the other in the environment is therefore possible only by seeing and hearing what has been engraved into the spinning disc. The contents of the spinning disc which I can now label 'ego' is a mandatory intermediary processing step in understanding the mechanism's environment. Everything, then, is understood via the ego. The disc continually spins and the ocular mechanism and auditory needle are, for the most part, fixed onto the surface of the disc though both the ocular and needle can be thought to randomly jump the grooves on the surface of the disc. Imagine the maddening cacophony of a phonograph on a yacht in a storm tossed ocean for three score and ten years and you have an inkling of what it is like to be human.

The disc stops spinning periodically, an event which coincides with a regular absence of light. Normally, the spinning starts again when the light has been reinstated. The mechanism ‘boots-up’ or initialises to use data processing metaphors. Sometimes the spinning does not ever restart. This always coincides with a critical stage of mechanism damage whether by a gradual time related erosion or by sudden trauma. Sleep and death, in terms of awareness or consciousness are therefore identical. Normally the universe cannot be understood in a manner in which does not involve the ego. However, a constitutional flexibility in the ocular mechanism can, in rare cases, allow for the perception and awareness of the silent spaces beyond the rim of the disc. The flexing of the ocular mechanism is difficult and effortful. Some manage to momentarily look over the rim of the spinning disc. Others contemplate the serene darkness and are forever changed. Most never achieve more than a reflexive twitching of the ocular mechanism and are condemned to understand existence through the ego until the disc ceases spinning.

Contemporary relevance

It is an enduring mystery as to why some Ego Machines work faultlessly and others do not. A group of students at Stanford University in the United States recently constructed a device which, in spirit, closely duplicated the functions of parts of the classic Ego Machine design but which used contemporary materials and a contemporary design. The Ocular apparatus was a video camera as was the Visual funnel. The Sphere of Awareness was a combination of buffer and a sophisticated pattern matching algorithm. The assembly was put put on an electric cart whose direction was determined by the orientation of the Ocular apparatus. The assembly had a non-deterministic quality about it to be sure but, beyond learning to negotiate a maze, there was little it could do that could not be done by a relatively unsophisticated computer program. As a simulation of human cognitive activity, it left much to be desired.

The inactive 'Dorian' mechanism was on display on display in the British Museum up until 1910. Its period of activity lasted no more than two years yet several important papers on human awareness and consciousness are said to have been inspired by it. The debt was unacknowledged because Ego Machine experimentation fell into disrepute after a series of published papers exploring Ego Machine sentience were shown to use fabricated data. Yet the Ego Machine still has much to teach us about the cognitive structure we call the ego and its relation to human awareness and consciousness. We should not forget that the perception of reality is rigidly constrained by the mind and the mind's most powerful construct, the ego, determines what sense we make of our world. We should also remember that we are what we are aware of. The Sphere of Awareness is empty until filled with sensoriums from the Ego disc. We are nothing but the Ego construct but the Ego Machine promises that, with a slight effort, we can adjust our perception to encompass the rim of the Ego disc to see the serenity of the Universe beyond, a Universe untainted by Ego and that we may finally apprehend its beauty.

References

1. John Eccles (1990). "A unitary hypothesis of mind-brain interaction in the cerebral cortex". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 240: 433–451. doi:10.1098/rspb.1990.0047.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius - you need to reference this. It was written in 1940

External links

• www.egomachine.net
• [[1]]