Organic Computing, Education reform, Autism, and Opportunity
The science fiction writer in me has been inspired. I have been doing some 'creative' research lately, and it has lead me into a veritable treasure trove of information. Perhaps some of you see this as boring, or dismiss it- me, I am quite excited by it. I also created a term earlier, after some thought, and found that an entire Wikipedia entry was dedicated to it and it already had its own field of research! (although a little differently than I had envisioned it- honestly, with all the breakthroughs going on right now they could set their sights a little higher, one might think) It is called "organic computing".
 Perhaps that seems a bit obvious - our brains are all organic computers after all. However, that is still a complex area we are just venturing into- and my idea was a tad less ambitious, and more on the matter of attempting to develop organic computing using concepts we are just discovering from plants. Plants, we are discovering, have memory and learning ability - but on a much simpler and more long term scale, which we are still just starting to explore and understand. This makes that a perfect 'first step' - attempting to create computers that either the chemical elements that plants use, or biological plant cells themselves to attempt to create simple computers. Of course, organic computing means something else entirely- and it is quite brilliant in and of itself, though it seems a bit more common sense to me. I had thought of most of these properties in my teen years- and so have a lot of science fiction authors. However, the difference is that it is no longer fiction- and we are suddenly hitting a dramatic leap as everything comes together. Computers are suddenly emerging that use these very concepts- IBM, Google, they are all on the cutting edge of developing systems that are able to work on their own.
 I have a theory, however, as to why this is only just happening and has not happened sooner- and how we, and our current educational system, are shooting ourselves in the feet (and can help fix this). It is only in the last decade or so that Google has begun gathering some of the top experts from a range of fields together, letting them do their thing and propose ideas, letting them attempt them in their âmoonshotâ program, and throwing huge amounts of money at it. It is no wonder that they have shot forward more than any other company.  And as they stated at one time early on, their goal began as and remains to be an Artificial Intelligence company.  âWe are not a search company that does AI, we are an AI company that does searchâ.
Our entire concept of education needs to be restructured and changed, as many already know. Â Organic computing, something essential for the next steps in technology, requires a combination of diverse fields of study including Neuroscience, Molecular Biology and Computer Engineering. It requires a combination of knowledge, skills, and expertiese that 1) we do not currently encourage, 2) require unique individuals capable of thinking in ways that cross over multiples fields, and 3) would be prohibitively expensive using our current system (meaning only someone with lots of money or scholarships would be able to pursue it). You can combine experts from these fields, but you need people leading the research that understand them all- people like Leonardo DiVinchi.
 I personally get excited at this thought. I love the idea. To me, if someone said "You can major in any field you like, study whatever you want without limit- and get as many degrees as you like, go as far as you want to go- then utilize it to apply it to new technology and areas of study"....?!?!?! I would go bananas. I would probably laugh at them and ask them if it was "April Fools" day, or if there were cameras somewhere. Why? Because that would be a dream come true.
 I'd love to study medicine hands on, get a medical degree (and cover a few different specialties there, including most especially neuroscience)- and then study computer science. I'd also like to study animal and (especially) plant biology, human psychology, cultural anthropology, rocket science, astrophysics, philosophy... well, the list goes on. But my priority would be around areas that I feel would be most interesting, and those would all likely relate to areas that would be useful in the development of advanced, self-aware AI.
 If you think this sounds like a pipe dream, I thought so too- until I wrote a paper to a professor specialising in AI at the University of New Mexico, and his response was "Where do you live and when can we talk?".  He himself had a Phd in computer science AND in psychology, and felt the worst mistake anyone could make is denying someone entry into a masters program because they lacked a major in the field.  He himself was retiring, but his colleague, it turns out, had been hired by Google.  He was working on writing a paper on how philosophy and science can work together.
This was a few years ago- but at the time I was in the middle of a divorce, and life has not been too conductive towards moving to New Mexico since or pursuing studies. However, I was encouraged to pursue the self-study route in the meantime and get up to calculus level in math and learn Java-script. The method they encouraged me to do so is, to me, the path that we need to pursue to solve this problem. Â They made me aware of Kahn academy, a free learning resource that focuses on math but is expanding. Â Unfortunately, the teaching style they use is not quite the greatest for me, but it is a brilliant concept.
People who have the passion, desire, and ability - who are 'divergent' (like the book/movies tease at, but more seriously so) can explore and grow across all their abilities and interests. People who can understand and enjoy literature and art, and also are passionate about science and experimentation- people who understand and want to explore psychology- all the fields out there, could do that. Â Instead of one Leonardo DiVinchi, we could have an entire city full of them.
Right now we make doing that extremely difficult - and each area of study punishes people who want to think outside 'the box' of that field, who want to challenge preconceptions and think in new ways. I know- I got people angry at me in my college/university classes for constantly asking questions (though I had a few professors that loved me for it! My psychology 101 teacher would talk after class with me, and enjoyed going off into extremely detailed discussions in class that were likely beyond the scope of Psych 101 at Midlands Tech).
 I will rely on my own personal experiences for a bit to elaborate.  When I took a programming class there at MTC- Intro to Programming in C- and I tried to relate what we were learning to other areas that made more sense to me, the professor quickly got annoyed and was so obsessed with things being exactly applicable (an imperfect analogy was unacceptable â this was a very technical kind of mindset, that allow no room for divergence or margin of âerrorâ) that I quickly was discouraged from interacting, and I barely passed the class.  I think he may have passed me just to avoid questions into why an A student would make an F in his class (when I already knew how to program, to some extent, too).
 It was the context that hurt me- learning from a textbook that way, the way it was taught, it just... I couldn't focus, it melted my brain. It was boring and it didn't make sense, and I would end up just staring off or trying to focus and not being able to make sense of it. Yet I could use editing programs for games like Neverwinter Nights 2, and tweak the code or use the editor programs- and create things.  I made a whole âgame segmentâ with an introduction and storyline to it, custom selected music, and an emotional dialogue scene- all by myself, using some custom code.  And when I was in middle school, I was using MSDOS to create text adventure games using batch files and directories (a creative approach, you must admit ;) ), making PC-speaker one-note music using what I was learning on the Piano and BASIC.
 What I realized at Midlands Tech, however, is that I was not a âcoderâ nor did I ever want to be.  I was drawn to game design for its creative element.  If I ended up programming flight assignment programs the rest of my life, it would drain me empty.  I wanted to create, to imagine- and the computer, programming, was just the path I was told was best to reach that destination, a tool to do it with.  Yet I see a future where highly developed AI will allow us a range of tools that most people cannot even imagine, and current creators and artists who spent decades perfecting abilities with existing tools might deny should even âcountâ as tools.  That, however, is another âblogâ for another time.
I digress, quite a bit. I suppose my passion is to open doors so that people who have the interest and minds to learn, can- without navigating a complex social or political system. This is especially true for some of the real genius minds we have- some of which are autistic, either mild or severe, and are incapable of handling social situations in the same way others can. Yet when taught correctly, and when their brilliance is utilised, they can do amazing things.
I have a friend who is autistic, and he is a genius when it comes to music, languages, and theology. He can write a symphony in his free time, play multiple instruments, teach himself dead languages and then tutor others in them. He is one of the most brilliant minds I know - and he was not able to thrive at a fast food job, not to mention it was a waste of his talent and ability. He should be given a scholarship to one of the best schools in the country, enabled to teach- allowed to conduct orchestras and write symphonies. Barring that, he should have the venue to self-teach himself as many fields as he wants.
I wish, sometimes, I could be like Professor Xavier in X-men, and go around gathering all these amazingly talented and brilliant minds up, and offer them access to unlimited resources and education, and then let them just go at it and do whatever-the-heck they want to do, create whatever they want to create, and coordinate their efforts together. It would change the world. What some of us see as a disability, can in its own way also be an extraordinary gift. The creator of the notorious Bittorrent, one of the most brilliant (if somewhat 'misused' creations), is autistic as well. Autism awareness day occurred not too long ago, and I think that we need to keep in mind that we are limiting ourselves.
God created us with so many gifts, with the desire to explore and create- and using these gifts in His name and for His glory, exploring His creation and creating majestic works to honour Him and give credit to Him- that is, to me, part of why we were put here to begin with. But who am I? I'm just a guy who likes to think of ideas, to write and learn, and doesn't even have a job. We give more credit to degrees and position, to perceived success and status, than we do to actual knowledge or ability, sometimes. And by not creating a social system that allows people unlimited educational opportunities, we do not just hurt them- leaving them cleaning floors like in Good Will Hunting - but we hurt ourselves.
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