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I started referring to a concept I've made up called Universal Infrastruture
modelled on the concept of Universal Machine. I am eploring an alternative name for it
omni-emulative infrastructure or whatever will emerge from this attempt at articulation
intial formulation
an infrastructure capable of emulating any conceivable infrastructure in principle
with different non-functional requirements, constellations and architecture
The bet here is that if you develop an infrastructure that is people centred relying on asynchronous communcation infrastructure it could be used to support any capabilities realized in any other infrastructure in its own ways
It may not be what you want, It may be that a centralized model is what you want to have
but looking from the point of view of individual human beings, who may value autonomy privace, they can indeed have the same apps and networks of affordances and capabilities recreated in this one omni-emulative infrastructure
The immediate goal is to prove this for the web and demonstrate that any capability that exists in the centralized legacy web can have a new version of it that respects human's need for autonomy and privacy.
At a later stage it may well be the case that if you have that kind of infrastructure to start with one can create "emulate" and satisfy non-functional requirements of centralized system
The bet is that that itself could actually radically better then what exists as long as low latency is not essential to the operation of the system.
there for decoupling the application domain concepts and affordances from the infrastructural concerns
reonceptualize
let's face it I am groping for a new concept here, something needed to be named
consider the concept of "Universal Machine" as our initial name for the Elephant in the Room
(the focus of our intent laden attention)
“The Blind Men and the Elephant” written by the poet John Godfrey Saxe.
blind men and the elephant
acknowledge that the concept of "Universal Machine" arose from a specific context as people were touching the first part of the "Elephant in the Room" perhaps its's tail
I want to explore another part of the Elephant let's assume that it may be its trunk
in many ways this metaphor captures the many similar features that are shared
first step is to shift the focus to an eisting feature of what we call Universal Machines which brings in the concept of emulation
in thse terms one can say that a Universal Mahine is one that can emulate any other machine given its description
If we focus our attention on how these description can be obtained and aiming from the start to discover a better way of creating drscription that are available. this aim implies what we may call augmenting articulation with the restriction that articulation should be systematic, within a suitable computer support that helps us manage the complexity of the task, and in fact is designed around the concept of the Universsl Hyper document idea, which we may subsequently rename with the new name we are groping for
the current proposal is omni-progenative descriptions that is to say decription that are amenable to be interpreted to ehibit desired system behavious affordances Human Computer Interactions that are capable of supporting ertain tasks or the creation of digital artifacts that can act as effective models for a given domain
Let call that "domain" the "application domain" it is a misnomer or even a miscocneption to itself, one of the root causes behind what is referred to since 1969? as The Software Crisis
a self-contained autopoietic infrastructure that satisfies a constellations of values serving human autonomy as a moral commitment embodied in the systems we create
In the discussion the use of the word universal lead to misunderstanding
echoing my own unease regarding the concept of Universal Machine or Universal Function itself
it really should be called "omni-emulative machine" in view of the fact that given a suitable description any machine using this omni-emulative machine it is capable of emulating the behaviour of the machine we have a description of
This is really the great PUN of Symbolic Progenitation that Sussman referred to in the context of explicating the Universal Function the evel/apply of LISP, the Great progenitor of all LISP functions/programs as John Allen calls it in The Anatomy of LISP
the eval/apply mutually recursive definition of LISP ite
as a self referential, homo-iconic meta-circular description of an "universal" (omni-emulative) machine/function when that is implemented in a computer it can interpret/exectue any function/program described by it
alternative account - emulation
I've seen alternative trails curated by others that explores this very same on the face of it totally different formulation using the concept of emulation in digital systems to articulate these ides
Now this is a really deep and take a long time to appreciate concept
one that Sussman 30 years later referred to it as the greatest most impactful idea that got formulated in the 20th century
see snarf.telegram - Great Progenitor
