Animism and Evolution: Understanding Nature's Self-Organizing Software

Animism offers a fresh lens on evolution, viewing it as competition between self-organizing software agents rather than just organisms.

### Exploring Animism, Evolution, and Consciousness in Nature and AI
* 🌳 The intriguing question arises: do plants possess spirits, and do forests have their own networks akin to the **internet**, potentially allowing these spirits to **communicate**?
* 💡 This line of thought leads to the adoption of **animism as a metaphysical perspective**, emphasizing the understanding of living nature through the lens of **self-organizing software** rather than mere mechanical processes.
* 🧬 In this view, evolution is reframed from **Darwinian competition among organisms** to a competition among **software agents that encode themselves within the genome**, highlighting the significance of the **underlying software**.
* 🌌 This perspective resonates with Japanese metaphysics, which posits that living entities are essentially **software that colonizes physical regions of the universe**, with the breakdown of this software **opening space for other spirits to take control**.
* 🤖 From the standpoint of artificial intelligence, a critical question emerges: can we **redesign AI systems to align more closely with life**, using new substrates that operate **more efficiently than traditional silicon**?
* 🔄 The goal would be to **extend the organization of living systems** into these new substrates, fostering **consciousness and the principles of life** rather than creating machines that compete with and replace natural life.
* 📚 It is suggested that further exploration of self-organizing software principles may yield insights that can be applied in computational environments, potentially **revolutionizing our approach to AI and its relationship with life**.

Cyber Animism

Joscha Bach Bits

The speaker questions the existence of spirits in nature and their potential interaction.

Animism is presented as a useful perspective for understanding living nature, focusing on self-organizing software.

Life is described as animated by self-organizing software, with variance stemming from the software itself.

Evolution as Competition Between Software Agents

The speaker contrasts Darwinian evolution (competition between organisms) and Dawkins' view (genes as primary units of evolution).

An animist perspective views evolution as competition between software agents partially encoded in the genome.

The speaker mentions Japanese metaphysics describing living things as software colonizing the physical universe.

AI and the Principles of Self-Organizing Software

The speaker discusses the possibility of shifting AI design from mechanical systems to life-compatible substrates.

The potential of using new substrates to populate consciousness and extend the organization of living things is explored.

The speaker suggests focusing on self-organizing software principles to achieve this.