Introduction

[jeremy]

Brian, Matthew, Kaufman, and others,

...surely not a "collective" of drones; perhaps an open confederation of liberated individuals...

Matthew wrote-- Metaphysical computer systems and programming is a new thing to me: computers are quite firmly in the realm of the logical.  Perhaps you would care to elaborate?

Sure.

First off, I don't want to give any undue emphasis to metaphysics. I don't consider myself a metaphysician, and I don't think an understanding of eastern or western metaphysics is necessary for creative system design, obviously. The links that exist between the two in my own mind are personal and not necessarily general in nature.

Metaphysics proper attempts to arrive at a formulation of the fundamental principles of existence. Whether these are taken to be Gods, Forces or Ideas, (or Objects or Procedures) it amounts to pretty much the same thing. Cybernetics (which seems to inform Tunes somewhat) attempts to arrive at a formulation of the fundamental principles of intelligent systems. My own perspective is that since existence *is* an intelligent system, metaphysical knowledge can be an asset in the manifestation of new and innovative computing systems. And, as far as I am concerned, logic and mathematics are metaphysical systems but perhaps I am using the term too loosely.

I guess my approach is to view computer systems not as universe unto themselves but as an aspect of all-existence, and as such an expression of all-existence, and as such understandable only in relation to all-existence. Cybernetics comes close, but falls short of my view. Ken Wilber's philosophy comes closer but is not articulated in the language of computer systems and has its own pitfalls. My "philosophical and metaphysical understanding of computer systems" could basically be described as Integral Cybernetics.

I am not familiar with Kurzweil, Moravec, "GEB" or Knuth, although I will keep an eye out for them. I also plan on looking more into Common Lisp, Smalltalk and the Arrow system, which makes the most sense out of the stuff I've read so far off the website.

Thanks for your replies!

-jeremy.

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