All analogies rely on isomorphisms. They simply refer to shared patterns. A good analogy captures many structural regularities that are shared between two different things while a bad one captures only a few.
The field of complex adaptive systems (CADs) is dedicated to the study of structural regularities between various systems operating under similar constraints. Ant colony optimization and simulated annealing can be used to solve an extremely wide range of problems because there are many structural regularities to CADs.
I worry that a myopic focus will result in a lot of time wasted on lines of inquiry that have parallels in a number of different fields. If we accept that the problem of inner alignment can be formalized, it would be very surprising to find that the problem is unique in the sense that it has no parallels in nature. Especially considering the obvious general analogy to the problem of cancer which may or may not provide insight to the alignment problem.
All analogies rely on isomorphisms. They simply refer to shared patterns. A good analogy captures many structural regularities that are shared between two different things while a bad one captures only a few.
The field of complex adaptive systems (CADs) is dedicated to the study of structural regularities between various systems operating under similar constraints. Ant colony optimization and simulated annealing can be used to solve an extremely wide range of problems because there are many structural regularities to CADs.
I worry that a myopic focus will result in a lot of time wasted on lines of inquiry that have parallels in a number of different fields. If we accept that the problem of inner alignment can be formalized, it would be very surprising to find that the problem is unique in the sense that it has no parallels in nature. Especially considering the obvious general analogy to the problem of cancer which may or may not provide insight to the alignment problem.