Unification 5.1 Overview 5.2. towards Unifying Artificiality

In this chapter, a unifying framework of emergent artificiality grounded in a computationalist metaphysics is presented. First, an approach to unification based on Simon's concept of artificiality and briefly described in chapter 4 is re-examined. A problem with this approach is reviewed and an appropriate solution strategy outlined. The notion of unification is investigated and a brief survey of various approaches to unification described in the literature is presented. It is argued that the requirement for ontological-monism eliminates most schemes from consideration as the basis of a unifying framework of computationally emergent artificiality. However, a metaphysical framework developed by Samuel Alexander (1920) is presented as providing the foundation upon which a computational framework can be constructed; detailed investigation of Alexander's metaphysics and the establishment of an isomorphism between his Space-Time event ontology and CA-computationalism is shown to support this view. Various issues associated with the emergence of artificialities (that is, artificial analogues of natural phenomena) in a CA substrate are examined in the context of a unifying framework of computationally emergent artificiality. Finally, a number of outstanding problems associated with Alexanderian metaphysics are shown to be capable of resolution under CA-computationalism.