4.

Program and document

- You know, Caruso, I keep coming back to the distinction between Kaidie and ourselves... how
we’re very similar in many respects and yet different too.
- How’s that?
- Well, we’re both action-oriented, aren’t we? We engage in processes that will accomplish
something. That’s what life is all about. We living creatures strive. And she does too, being an
agent. She is very goal-motivated.
- Yes, from what you said, she is indeed.
- But yet, she is just a program. She may be alive, but she is just a set of structured information.
- You feel certain she is alive, eh?
- Oh yes, even though she is not biological. She is sentient, constantly evaluating her environment
and reacting to it with appropriate actions. She protects herself to ensure survival. Now, she may
not reproduce herself, not as biological life forms do. But, she probably has a backup copy of
herself stashed away somewhere, just in case she is eliminated.
- It can be that rough out there?
- I guess so, just like in our own world. Competition makes for a challenging world, doesn’t it?
So, all in all, I would consider her pretty much alive, wouldn’t you?
- Yes, you’ve convinced me, Duncan.
- But, she’s still just a program, a process embodied in a document.
- A program? ... a set of instructions?
- That being one view of it, the dormant side, when the program is inactive. But when a program
is active, when it is playing out on a computer, it is a process unfolding. And someone like Kaidie
is pretty much active all the time, I imagine.
- Again like a living organism, no?
- Just so! You have a good view of this, Caruso.
- So let’s see. Living creatures like us act out their lives, and so do programs like Kaidie. And so
does nature as a whole, even though it’s not alive. I mean, the physical processes in the world are
in constant interplay, even though not sentient and motivated, like we are.
- Yes, quite true, there, Caruso. The universe does follow its unfolding script. There is a big
process underway.
- A very big one! The one and only one, really.
- True, but I was thinking about programs. They’re just information, just symbolic, there is no
physical aspect.
- Ah, but there is, Duncan. That set of instructions is a document of sorts, you said so yourself.
- But only when the program is dormant. The real program is ephemeral. It’s the pattern of
information embodied in that document, not the document itself. It’s the structure of the process
that really counts, not its form of embodiment.
- Hum... yes, I see. And that’s all symbolic, isn’t it? All just a pattern of information.
- Precisely. We’re involved here with that process-substance duality, the same one that exists in
nature. Things interact and engage a process that does something, and the end result is a
transformed state, a different set of things, or a different configuration. Kaidie processes
information and produces a result that is more information.
- Which has to be documented somewhere. Or stored somewhere, which amounts to the same
thing. Just as things change and evolve in nature, so do documents. The end state is different from
the initial state.
- Hum.. Right, right. And that state persists somewhat in time, in between processes, so to speak.
So a document is but a storage device for live information.
- In order to make it available at a later time, in perhaps another context.
- Yes, yes, that’s it, Caruso. Documents are time-travelers, whereas processes are always
unfolding in the present.
- Well, that’s one way of putting it. Time-travelers, eh?
- Oh, ho, ho. Which means that information as such is the time-traveler. That makes a lot of sense,
given that information is a signal that is picked up and generally acted upon. You know, Caruso,
that must be the meaning of that phrase And information only delayed in our mysterious message
that Kaidie received.
- Yes, you’re right, Duncan. So Action is the focus would refer to processes getting carried out
and Information delayed to information stuck in a document, in between being processed, right?
- Yes, that’s it, and When time is playing must refer to that lapse of time in that in-between state.
Oh, it looks like we are getting somewhere with this, Caruso!
- Yes, but then what does the symbiosis refer to?
- Huh, I don’t really know. Maybe the relation between process and state, that duality we were
talking about?
- Sounds a bit light, there, Duncan.
- Yes, I guess so. We’ll have to keep working on that one.
- But, at any rate, a document then is just a convenient embodiment for information, for its
passage through time.
- Or in space, from one being to another. The contents of a book get carried that way, both
through time and through space.
- Yes, true. So a document is a vehicle, one that extends local action, or potential action, into the
future and into other locations.
- That’s right, Caruso. Actually, it’s effect is even more powerful, it seems. It essentially distances
the person from the here and now. In a similar way to what imagination does. The document gets
the person to attend to something other than what is immediately present.
- Because it’s useful to do that, right? It serves some action strategy.
- Yes, you’re right. It’s motivated. But there is also a price to pay. That distancing, by involving
one in a different context, diminishes one’s involvement with the here and now. Which generally
has little effect, but the richness and immediacy of the situation can be tarnished. At times, we
might live less vividly because of it.
- You know, Duncan, my Buddhist friends down by the port always talk of the here and now.
They think it is all important.
- Yes, I gather the oriental outlook is oriented quite differently in this respect. The Western
approach, steeped in science, is geared more to modeling objectively what is, rather than simply
appreciating the flow of life.
- Spoken with slight exaggeration, there, my friend.
- Yes, for sure. Categorizing in terms that are too strong and stereotypical. But they give the
flavor of the difference. What do you think, Caruso?
- Well, it’s true that we are modeling our world. Our knowledge, particularly our scientific
knowledge, is precisely that. And just look at virtuality! We are engaged in replicating all of our
experienced world in these information artifacts. I guess because then, they are more malleable,
easier to play around with.
- Yes, that’s true, they become vast simulations that, even though distanced from everyday reality,
are instructive and fun too.
- So, Duncan, we have many worlds to play in, over and beyond our own.
- Yep. And it’s all due to symbolic information. Actually, all due to our mentality, our ability to
construct these models, both internally in our brains and externally in forms that can be shared and
stored.
- The document, once again!
- Yes, Caruso. Stored information that we interact with on our own terms, when and where we
want to.
- We open up the range of interactions that are in front of us, the range of potential actions we
might engage in. While perhaps losing some of the immediacy you spoke of earlier, Duncan. But
gaining in range, in scope of action.
- That’s true. Documents, then, are vehicles, transporters of worlds. Well, of small parts of
worlds.
- You know, Duncan, I’ve sometimes wondered about art. Is a painting a document? Or a
sculpture?
- Well, let’s see... A painting is an artifact that expresses something. It communicates. It may not
express in words, our usual form of information communication, but it is representational. Even
abstract art is. Representational of something, or of some feeling, some mood.
- Well, it’s meant to grasp beauty, to attract attention and enliven the viewer.
- Right. It’s action-at-a-distance facet is clear. And, being an artifact, it stores a pattern of some
kind... So I guess it is indeed a document.
- I thought it might be... Ha! But what about my songs? They’re not documents, now, are they?
- Oh, my, my... indeed. But, yes, I guess they are, Caruso.
- But there is no artifact. Just a song swirling through the air.
- It does seem rather ephemeral, doesn’t it? But then, there is a pattern of sound waves. We may
not see them, so they are an invisible document. But don’t despair, Caruso. We hear them. And I
love your songs!
- Ah, thanks Duncan.
- You know, your songs are similar to programs in that respect. They unfold in time, taking on a
process character.
- Yes, you’re right. They are dormant in my brain, then I sing them and produce a pattern of
sound waves that travel forth until they are captured by a listener.
- Ah, I’m glad we sorted that one out, Caruso. It makes you wonder, though... All interactions,
all actions, leave a trace, a result that can be read later on. Now, everything can’t be a document!
- Oh, oh. No, that would dilute the notion of a document, down to nothing of any importance.
- Indeed. But everything is structured, so everything is readable. In principle.
- Ah, but that deals with the immediate. There is no storage involved, so therefore no document.
- Yes, yes, that’s it, my boy. Quite right. A document is a transporting device. I had forgotten.
Why, even your song... well, the wave pattern it generates, carries the information pattern through
time.
- So information and the document are tightly bound up with the here and now... or rather, with
extending out from the here and now.
- Yes. But then, where does that leave the program? Which is a process unfolding in the here and
now.
- I don’t know, Duncan. What do you think?
- Well, a program is a process when it is running, but it is a document when dormant. That
document, then, is not really the program, just a written representation of it.
- Yes, you could even have many copies of it.
- The program, then, only exists when it is running. Oh this is getting complicated, Caruso!
- Not really. Like any process, it only exists while it is unfolding, then it disappears. It is the
document, its dormant form, that holds its information in between the times the program runs.
- Yes, yes, I see now. Even though it is not itself the program, the document representing the
program is information that will later be used to run the program.
- The program is what happens in a limited time frame.
- But then, there is Kaidie. She runs all the time, always on. Like us.
- Yes, that’s true. I wonder what she is, then?
- Well, she is a process... she processes information. And she is information... an information
pattern.
- She can be viewed both ways. Oh, my Buddhist friends would like that, Duncan!
- So, Kaidie is embodied as an agent, some thing who actually interacts with us, but yet, she
remains rather ephemeral, a conglomerate of information patterns, whose essence is un-embodied.
Ah, Caruso, I need a rest. Give us a song!

Caruso obliged, putting out a wonderful effort at one of his most glorious songs. Back they were
to the here and now.