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comment by Vladimir_Nesov · 2023-05-31T06:03:40.120Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think the use of the frame is in replacing agents by membranes and environments. The only way of interacting with an agent is via their membrane. An agent could be enclosed in multiple nested membranes, and you need to know which membrane you are interacting through, so really you are interacting with a certain membrane, not with a certain agent.
The you that interacts with that membrane lives on one of the sides of it, within an environment bordering the membrane. This you is also presented by a membrane that fits the environment it lives in and borders. So there is no need for agents at a basic level of description in this frame, it's membranes and environments all the way down.
The electrician example illustrates how environments are not just areas of the physical world, but abstractions, interfaces, affordances, commitments, distributions of possible events, and so on that hold within and are exposed through a particular environment. An environment establishes rules of the game that a membrane bordering it is adapted to. And multiple environments can overlap in the same area of the physical world, exposing different aspects of what's going on there.
Replies from: Chipmonk↑ comment by Chipmonk · 2023-05-31T10:39:55.268Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
oooo, that's interesting! maximal abstraction… *membranes all the way down...*
I do like this, I'll have to think about it more. Another thing this makes me realize that I like about this is that it requires no privileged perspective: you don't actually know that anything is an agent (just like reality— solipism— etc.)— all you know is that there are membranes and things you can't control…
I already think that trying to control fate is a membrane/boundary violation just as trying to control another sovereign agent is a membrane/boundary violation, and this would naturally make those the same.
Though, I think if the frame 'agent' were to be abandoned, we'd need a sort of meta-membrane that also accounts for the membrane's ability to leak, break, and get stronger/weaker ? (Eg "If you stab this membrane, it will pop" would be part of the interface of the meta-membrane, not the object-level membrane ?)
Thank you!
Random thoughts/clarification-to-myself about nested membranes:
- I agree that, as seen from the outside, agents can overlap in in nested membranes. I exist as a person exist within (I am) my physical and informational membrane, and 'I' also reside (in some ways, though perhaps not all of the same ways) in the membrane of my country as one of its citizens. To the outside, I am nested within the country. One thing I do want to clarify though, is that from my perspective everything is also nested. There's still a membrane that mediates how I interact with my country, for example— even though in some ways I exist within my country.