Mind's Ratchet: Ecologies of the Artificial: Transverging Cognition and Creativity

Abstract

How can we, in the 21st century, understand creativity and cognition is a way that is at once consonant with both the "sciences of the artificial" and with the "ecology of mind"? Given our accelerating advances in the understanding of mind as mechanism, and given our evident aim to imbue autonomous machines with artificial life, artificial intelligence, and artificial consciousness, and, given that the built world is always and necessarily the mirror of our choices and values, by what ethics can we guide our technics, and by what means, and to what ends? Transvergence is an evolving framework for research, pedagogy, and creative production. Among its aims is "transformation the leads to speciation" of works, ideas, disciplines, and everything else that might be brought together to combine into new formations. Motives and mechanisms drawn from nature and culture are extended through technology into means by which to explore a broader spectrum of the possible than might otherwise be attainable. As with natural systems, this effort must convert noise into life, thought, and beauty.