History, networks and evolution

Abstract. This group aims develop a coherent mapping from cognition to niche construction that governs process in all these domains. It tries to develop an abstraction that is a superset of them both. To organizing framework tales off from Turing’s question “Can computers think?” The interesting answer to that question is not yes or no. The interesting version of that question is how does our thinking about thinking expand to contemplate a yes answer. With our organizing trope of “how does x think?”—as in “how do chemicals think?”, “how do ecologies think?”, “how do cities think?”, etc.—clearly we are following, for good or bad, in Turing’s footsteps. Indeed abstracting “computation” far beyond computers, of which Turing himself may or may not have approved. The following is a first attempt of operationalizing Turing’s question in form of a preliminary structure of the book.