Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Endo-, Dia-, Para-, and Ecto-systemic novelty, published by Tsvi Benson-Tilsen on April 23, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum.

[Metadata: crossposted from. First completed January 10, 2023. This essay is more like research notes than exposition, so context may be missing, the use of terms may change across essays, and the text might be revised later; only the versions at tsvibt.blogspot.com are definitely up to date.]

Novelty can be coarsely described as one of: fitting within a preexisting system; constituting a shift of the system; creating a new parallel subsystem; or standing unintegrated outside the system.

Thanks to Sam Eisenstat for related conversations.

Novelty is understanding (structure, elements) that a mind acquires (finds, understands, makes its own, integrates, becomes, makes available for use to itself or its elements, incorporates into its thinking). A novel element (that is, structure that wasn't already there in the mind fully explicitly) can relate to the mind in a few ways, described here mainly by analogy and example. A clearer understanding of novelty than given here might clarify the forces acting in and on a mind when it is acquiring novelty, such as "value drives".

Definitions

"System" ("together-standing") is used here to emphasize the network of relations between elements of a mind.

These terms aren't supposed to be categories, but more like overlapping regions in the space of possibilities for how novelty relates to the preexisting mind.

Endosystemic novelty (or "basis-aligned" or "in-ontology") is novelty that is integrated into the mind by fitting alongside and connecting to other elements, in ways analogous to how preexisting elements fit in with each other. Endosystemic novelty is "within the system"; it's within the language, ontology, style of thinking, conceptual scheme, or modus operandi of the preexisting mind.

Diasystemic novelty (or "cross-cutting" or "basis-skew" or "ontological shift") is novelty that is constituted as a novel structure of the mind by many shifts in many of the preexisting elements or relations, adding up to something coherent or characteristically patterned. Diasystemic novelty is "throughout the system"; it's skew to the system, cross-cutting the preexisting schemes; it touches (maybe subtly) many elements, many relations, or certain elements that shape much of the mind's activity, hence altering the overall dynamics or character of the system.

Parasystemic novelty is novelty that is only loosely integrated into the whole mind, while being more tightly integrated within a subsystem of the mind. Parasystemic novelty is "alongside the system"; it's neither basis-aligned (since it's outside preexisting tightly integrated systems) nor cross-cutting (as it doesn't touch most of the system, or require most of the system for its constitution).

Ectosystemic novelty is novelty that is merely juxtaposed or appended to the mind, without being really integrated. Ectosystemic novelty is "on or outside the system"; it's external, only loosely related to the mind, as by a narrow interface or by an external aggregration mechanism. It differs from parasystemic novelty by being even less integrated, and by not nucleating or expanding a tightly integrated subsystem.

Analogies

Analogy: If a language is like a mind, then a new word would be endosystemic novelty; a sound shift or (more properly) a grammatical innovation would be diasystemic (cross-cutting) novelty; specialized languages (such as scientific jargon), and dialect formation, would be parasystemic novelty; and an encounter with a foreign language would be ectosystemic novelty. Pidgins, being unstable and noncanonical, witness the ectosystemic nature: the foreign languages don't integrate. Creoles, however, could be dubbed "systemopoetic novelty"--like parasystemic novel...