An adorable black kitten is sitting on a bookshelf, eyes fixed on an insect. It sits, paws perfectly aligned. Then, out of nowhere, it pounces — leaping off the shelf and into the air, wild and frantic.

by Nick Briz

2009 - 2011(redux)

In proposing the imitation game as a stand-in for another definition of thought or intelligence, Turing does more than deliver a clever logical flourish that helps him creatively answer a very old question about what makes someone (or something) capable of thought. In fact, he really skirts the question of intelligence entirely, replacing it with the outcomes of thought--in this case, the ability to perform "being human" as convincingly and interestingly as a real human. To be intelligent is to act like a human rather than to have a mind that operates like one. Or, even better, intelligence--whatever it is, the thing that goes on inside a human or a machine--is less interesting and productive a topic of conversation than the effects of such a process, the experience it creates in observers and interlocutors.

This is a kind of pretense most readily found on stage and on screen. An actor's craft is best described in terms of its effect, the way he or she portrays a part, elicits emotion

What is the relationship between the ritual and the algorithm? Are all rituals algorithmic? I'm interested in any papers or books/chapters written about this. I'm writing about Google's search algorithm at the moment, and I can't help get this ritual thing out of my head. It feels like an important meeting point between humans and machines.

When I say 'ritual' I mean the enactment of a set of actions with traditional and symbolic value.

When I say 'algorithm' I am talking about computers of course (a step-by-step procedure for calculation), but I am also interested in an algorithm as a list of well-defined instructions passed on to another entity in order to execute a specific procedure in precise detail. That entity might be a human.

Are all rituals algorithmic?

The best conflation I can think of is the Japanese Tea Ceremony. To generalise, I see this as a highly specific algorithm taken to the absolute limits of human cultural perfection.

Many thanks in advance!

“Nothing new under the reign of the same and under the same reign, preserved. Nothing new and nothing to be born, no nature. This is death, eternally. Nature put to death, its birth unwanted. The science of this is nothing. It is calculably nothing. Stable, immutable, redundant. It recopies the same writings, with the same atom-letters. The law is the plague. Reason is the fall. The reiterated cause is death. Repetition is redundancy. And identity is death. Every­thing falls to zero: the nullity of information, the emptiness of knowledge, non-existence. The same is Non-Being.” - The Birth of Physics by Michel Serres

A cargo cult is a type of religious practice that may appear in traditional tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults are focused on obtaining the material wealth (the "cargo") of the advanced culture through magical thinking and religious rituals and practices, believing that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors. Cargo cults developed primarily in remote parts of New Guinea and other Melanesian and Micronesian societies in the southwest Pacific Ocean, beginning with the first significant arrivals of Westerners in the 19th century. Similar behaviors have, however, also appeared elsewhere in the world.

Cargo cult activity in the Pacific region increased significantly during and immediately after World War II, when large amounts of manpower and materials were brought in by the Japanese and American combatants, and this was observed by the residents of these regions. When the war ended, the military bases were