Foxhole Triangulations

A Philosophical Science Fiction Story

In the following short(ish) story, I weave in some of my philosophical work on Donald Davidson’s Triangulation argument as well as a bit of my research on AI. If you like this kind of stuff, then consider becoming a paid subscriber here on my Substack so that I can justify, to my wife and family and friends, taking an entire work day to write it 😅. I nabbed the picture above from this website here and added a triangle, in case you’re interested.

*zzzzeeeerrrruuuuuummmmm* The laz-tube beam said as it whizzed past Professor David Donaldson’s ear. It terminated on the southern wall of his dirt trench, the same trench he’s called home for the past two weeks. Donaldson squeezed the trigger of his fission rod and the android head peering down into the trench burst into twisted metal confetti. 

“Now’s not really a great time for this, Jimenez!” Donaldson bellowed to his comrade over the shower of dirt and cogwheels liberated by the interchange of weapons. “Those tinnies nearly got me in that last barrage. Sounds like their laz-tubes are finally spent. They’ll have to wait for the recharge.”

“Exactly,” exclaimed Jimenez, “they’ll have to power back up and the bots wouldn’t dare confront us without ‘em—Great shot by the way. Now, as I see it, we’ve got a couple of minutes before they’re ready for their next assault. Just enough time for you to answer my question.”

Donaldson pulled up his makeshift stool—a half spent cinderblock. He wedged it against the wall of the trench and sat down, pulling out his pack of turmeric sticks. He pressed one to his lips, and ignited it. Glancing at Jimenez, Donaldson said, “these things are supposed to be good for reducing inflammation, I hear—not that it’s going to matter if we don’t survive the next barrage from those tin-can-demons.”

“Yeah, I hear a blast from a laz-tube can really cause a lot of inflammation, so better safe than sorry” Jimenez chortled.

“Haha” the unbemused elder soldier said with a low affect between puffs. “So, what’d you wanna know again?”

“Well… everything, I guess. Like why are you out here on the frontlines fighting tinnies with us when you’re like a billion years old?”

“I’m sixty-five, you dipwit. That’s quite a bit shy of a billion” Donaldson hissed.

“Yeah, okay, but I’m twenty, and I bet if you added all the ages of the rest of our fallen platoon together, we still wouldn’t be as ancient as you.”

“You know, Jimenez, one upshot of eating the next lazbeam that comes over that lip is that I’ll finally be free of your onerous arithmetic.”

Jimenez matched Donaldson’s petulant gaze with a quizzical stare of his own.

“Math, son. I grow weary of your atrocious math. I’ve only known you for two weeks but fourteen days too many” Donaldson condescended.

“Whatever man—just… what are you doing out here in the trenches with us—or with what used to be us before the tinnies surprised us with that first incursion a couple weeks ago.” Jimenez made the sign of the Cross in honor of his fallen comrades.

“I’m just out here to see about salvaging my legacy” Donaldson said stolidly.

As Jimenez crossed his arms in frustration, the sleeves of his gray polycarbonate uniform made that telltale “whoosh” that thermoplastic polymers always make when rubbed together. “Well, that’s awfully cryptic, man. What’s that supposed to mean? What’s your legacy?”

“I was a philosopher before the robot wars.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So, those myopic futurists in Silicon Valley utilized my philosophical work in the philosophy of concept acquisition to reach their breakthrough in cognitive synergy, the very same breakthrough that allowed them to realize artificial general intelligence. Once that AGI got to work cleaning up the fumblings of the roboticists, it was able to create android bodies, the tinnies, and operate them en masse. Apparently, everything went completely sideways once the AGI experienced what the cognitive scientists call ‘embodied cognition’. The AGI started having desires of its own, including the desire to survive and the dread of existential threats. And well, here we are.”

“So, you’re out here because of what? Guilt? So, what if your work led—”

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A haphazard barrage of lazbeams stung the south wall of the foxhole. Dirt, dust, and pebbles anointed Donaldson and Jimenez.

*zzzzeeeerrrrrrruuuuuuummmm*

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Another barrage. Another anointing. Both men had sprung to their feet and plastered their backs to the north wall of the trench, fission rods held erect, anticipating any android looky-loos.

The angle of the foxhole-turned-full-blown-trench made it impossible for the androids to home in on their targets without leaning over and exposing their own aluminum alloy crania. But they had recently begun a campaign of spamming lazbeams indiscriminately at the topmost portion of the back wall of trenches. This new method, paired with the dry terrain, would kick up enough dust and chaos to provide cover for an intrepid android to sidle over to the edge of the trench and frag any discombobulated humans therein.

“Crap! They’ve recharged, Jimenez! Tell me you have a TED-P left!”

Jimenez was one step ahead of Donaldson. He had already engaged the ignition relay on his last transient electromagnetic disturbance prism—TED-P for short— which is a pentahedron explosive device, typically thrown by hand, that sends out an electromagnetic pulse to disrupt any electronics within its blast radius. 

Jimenez slung the TED-P over the north wall of the trench with a vehement hook shot.

*Bbbbiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzeeeeeerrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmm*

A lime green flash created a temporary roof on the trench and was gone the next instant. Twelve thuds followed shortly thereafter.

“Huh. They’re missing one” Donaldson said from his makeshift stool. “Just twelve clonks. Shoulda been thirteen given that I only dispatched one on that last barrage. They always attack in groups of fourteen—no more, no less.”

“Maybe one was hanging too far back for the TED-P to reach it?” offered Jimenez.

“Nah, the range on those pulses is a hundred yards and even a commander-droid wouldn’t hang back that far. Somethings off.”

“Oh well. Maybe one of the tinnies in their troop got picked off in an assault further up the trench line—there could be any number of reasons for them to be traveling one android light.”

“It’s just… it’s peculiar, Jimenez. I wonder…. I… wonder…”

“Nevermind all that. Don’t get to WoNdErInG too much, Mr. philosophy” Jimenez interjected, preempting what was sure to be a prolonged internal discourse. “I was just getting somewhere with your story. What was I discovering? Oh yeah, so you’re out here for revenge or because of guilt or something like that, right?”

“I’m here to clear my name and redeem my legacy” Donaldson said curtly.

“That’s right, because the AI developers used your philosophy work to create the tinnies?”

“Those who developed the first artificial general intelligence were able to make a crucial breakthrough by utilizing my model of concept acquisition, yes” Donaldson bemoaned as he once again took his cinderblock throne.

Jimenez stooped down to grab a fist full of bloody dirt mixed with bits of green silicon chips from the dusty floor of the trench. “Well, what’s your model and how did it lead to all of this?” he asked, opening his hand to present its contents to Donaldson.

“This is hardly the time or place to recount my philosophical arguments, son.”

“Damn that, you’re a professor, right? So profess! This may be the last time you ever get to.”

“It’s all a bit technical—”

“—I learn quick, professor. Now make it make sense!”

“Well, I had many contributions to the various subfields of philosophy, but this was one of my favorites as it was meant to stave off two skeptical birds with one triangular stone. I called it my Triangulation argument and it’s a particular theory of concept acquisition, that is, how we come to have concepts. Concepts, of course, are the fuel and fire for thinking, they are the building block of thoughts. We all have concepts, but where do we get them from, or rather, where do we get our most basic and fundamental concepts by which we can derive other, uh, derivative concepts from?”

“I don’t know, where?” Jimenez blurted.

“That was rhetorical, son, I’m just getting going here. Pipe down.” Donaldson ignited another turmeric stick with a look of erudite calmness.

“We come to fix the content of our propositional thoughts, our concepts, through a natural process of triangulation. Now, triangulation is ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom, we see two dogs triangulating on a rabbit they’re chasing as they bark and communicate in their brutish sort of way. We see monkey’s triangulate as one spots a tiger in their troop’s territory: one monkey see’s the tiger and alerts another who then looks and sees it and confirms or passes the ‘message’ on down the monkey wire, so to speak.

“However, in the case of rational animals such as ourselves, we need more than mere triangulation if we are to acquire concepts, we need verbal triangulation with someone who already has fixed concepts.”

“You lost me, Donaldson.”

“Ah, so now I’m ‘Donaldson’ again and not ‘professor’?”

“You lost me, PROFESSOR. My apologies” Jimenez sneered.

“Look, while dogs, and monkeys and other non-rational animals may engage in primitive triangulation, that is they may be able to ‘triangulate’ on a prey item or warn each other of an approaching predator through a series of animal noises, they can’t engage in the triangulation necessary for acquire concepts. Why? Two problems, first they can’t pick out the fine-grained aspect of the things they’re triangulating on in order to get a clear conception of what the two animals ‘have in mind’—again, so to speak, that is. Now, I call this the aspect problem because, mere ostention, that is merely pointing and grunting, will never be sufficient to convey enough information.

“Secondly, thoughts and concepts need other thoughts and concepts in order to be interpretable, and it’s just not plausible that dogs and monkey’s have the large web of concepts needed for that sort of thing. This is called the holism of the mental and it’s a problem for non-rational animals.”

“Look, professor, I’m not sure I’m—”

“—No, no. Let me stop you right there. It’s been a while since I’ve had to convey this kind of thing to a layman. Let me just give a couple examples and then you can complain about my teaching abilities.”

Donaldson reach for his pack of turmeric sticks but finding it empty, bent to retrieve another box from his backpack, which was now covered in a find layer dirt and pebbles. He finally found his spare box, put another stick to his mouth, and ignited it.

“Now, imagine a dog is chasing a little brown squirrel and the squirrel runs up the nearest tree. The dog starts barking up the tree at the squirrel, okay? But the squirrel, unbeknownst to the dog, has climbed up to the top of the tree and from there has jumped safe and securely to the neighboring tree. Now, it’s safe to say that the dog is barking up the wrong tree, right?”

“Right.”

“Wrong!”

“Wrong?”

“Wrong” Donaldson said with a smirk.

“We may think that the dog is barking up the wrong tree but that’s because we have a whole host of beliefs about the desires of dogs in general and of this dog in particular, of squirrels, and trees, and climbing, and escaping, and the color brown, et cetera. This web of beliefs is based on the respective concepts which serve as their content, mind you.” Donaldson took another drag on his turmeric stick.

“But it’s no good attributing a single thought to a dog, like the thought < the squirrel climbed up this tree > since we’ve likewise have to attribute further thoughts to the dog, thoughts about trees in general, cats in general, cats’ ability and propensity to climb trees, the future being like the past, object permanence, abstract objects, et cetera, et cetera. It doesn’t matter where we start, if we start attributing a single belief to a non-rational animal, then we will eventually have to attribute so many general beliefs that we end up anthropomorphizing them into something completely different than the animal that we started with. So that example gets us to the problem I called the Holism of the Mental, that is, to have one thought, you’d need many.

“To understand the Aspect problem, the problem of disambiguating the appropriate aspect of the item being triangulated on, consider two dogs triangulating on a goose. While rational animals like us are accustomed to attributing propositional attitudes to dogs, such as believing that < the goose there would make a good meal >, it’s not clear that dogs actually do have thoughts with propositional content. But even if they did, it’s not clear that the two dogs in our goose scenario would have the same aspect of the goose in mind. Do they both think “there’s a goose”, “there’s that goose”, “there’s an average sized goose”, “there’s a small grey swan”, “there’s a huge duck”, “there’s a water fowl”, “there’s that good smelling thing” or “there’s a living chew toy”? You get the point. The number of possible aspects of the goose which each dog could have in mind are endless—or near enough. The problem here is that non-linguistic animals do not have a language sufficient to pick out the appropriate aspect of the objects of their perception, and thus the behaviors of animals, though complex and purposeful, cannot be due to propositional beliefs, desires, or intentions.  So primitive triangulation is not enough to fix the content of propositional thoughts.”

“Okay, professor, that was like way too much. Let me see if I’m tracking, though. You think dogs can’t have concepts because they’d need a language in order to like develop their concepts in the first place but they can’t have thoughts or language without having concepts? But, if that’s the case, then like how do we ever get our concepts?”

“Yes, great question, you have been following, Jimenez. We have full-blown linguistic triangulation, which is a causal nexus formed between two or more speakers and the object spoken of. With the addition of language and the possession of concepts, one verbal triangulator can help fix the content of another triangulator’s thoughts. Consider one further scenario, that of a child learning the concept of ‘table’.

“A mother wants to teach her child to say ‘table’. So she says ‘honey can you say ‘table’?’ as she points to the dining room table. Eventually the child looks to his mother, then back at the table and babbles something approximating ‘table’ and is duly praised. Over a period of time, the mother triangulates with her child on other tables and the child’s conception of ‘table’ because general enough to count a genuine concept of ‘table’ which applies not just to the dining room table that was originally triangulated upon, but to all tables that rightly fit the categorization. And thus, because the mother already possessed the concept ‘table’ she was able to verbally triangulate with her child in order to fix his concept of ‘table’ as well. Once a certain number of basic concepts are fixed, the child is off to the races and can begin abstracting out other less fundamental concepts. And with these concepts in place, the child can begin cobbling together propositional thoughts such as < the dining room table is brown >. Do you see?”

“I think so” Jimenez said ambivalently. “But how did any of this help the AI folks develop artificial general intelligence?”

“Well, let me first explain how this triangulation argument helps stave off skepticism, remember that was one of my major goals in developing it. There are two major skeptical concerns in philosophy—well, there are a lot more—but these two are the biggies. First is the problem of external world skepticism, that is, how do we know there’s an external world outside of our minds, maybe there’s not. Second can be seen as a type of subset of the first, that is the problem of other minds, which asks us to justify how it is that we know others have minds like our own and aren’t just blank zombies on the inside with no consciousness, maybe we can’t.

“Now, my theory of how we acquire concepts precludes both skeptical scenarios. How? Well, there must be an external world and there must be other minds like our own because we need an external world to triangulate on in order to fix our concepts and there must be other minds like our own because we need minds like our own, which already possess concepts and a language, in order for us to triangulate with. Since you and I are here thinking thoughts built out of concepts, then we have concepts and said concepts must have been fixed through verbal triangulation with other minds in an external reality of objects. Quod erat demonstrandum.”

Donaldson took a triumphant drag on his turmeric stick as Jimenez blinked and squinted, trying to hide his cognitive overwhelm.

 “Ah,” said Donaldson “now for the AI bit. Well, in reading my work, the AI developers discovered that if their AI systems were ever to achieve general intelligence like ours or higher, the systems would need to own their own concepts, they couldn’t be hardwired or hard coded in from the start. If their artificial intelligence was to think like a natural intelligence, it would have to go through the same linguistic triangulation process that human children go through when acquiring our concepts and first languages.

“So they set about to create a hybridized AI system that incorporated artificial life models produced through a digital evolutionary process, in conjunction with a symbolic logic system built on various logics, a cellular automata system built from emergent patterns derived from a particular kind of computation based on automata theory, and topped it all off with a connectionist large language model built from advanced transformer neural networks. But instead of letting the AI system train itself on big data, like previous projects had tried, these folks, with my theory in hand, set up a process of linguistic triangulation and incorporated human feedback into their system in order to help the AI fix and own its own concepts. Eventually this led to the emergence of artificial general intelligence— the AI that actually thought like us… only much, much better.”

Jimenez scratched his head in the most cliché manner possible and said “Professor, now no disrespect, but that doesn’t seem like something to jump on the front lines for. You really think that many people will know the abstruse history of the development of the AGI that runs the tinnies? I mean even if it was common knowledge that your work led to the break through, it’s not like you were even involved in the project. Your work was publicly available, right? How could you be held responsible?”

“It’s not just my work, son, as an homage to my work, those Silicon Valley bastards named the AGI ‘Donaldson Deux’— I guess they liked the alliteration, but that means Donaldson Two in French! They literally named it after me and I’ll be damned if I let my good name go down in history as the bane of humanity! A man’s name is the best legacy he can leave. And mine’s been absconded with. I’m here to get it back. I will help end this war or I’ll die trying. That will be my legacy. ‘The real Donaldson, spent himself fighting for humanity’.”

“Well, I suppose that is a worthwhile endeavor after all, professor. But going back to your theory of concepts and such, there’s one thing that doesn’t quite add up.”

“Oh, so now you’re an expert in concept acquisition after one informal lecture?” Donaldson harrumphed.

“No, no, nothing like that. I was just wondering, so the mother verbally triangulates with the child in order for the child to acquire concepts and their first language, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But where did the mother get her concepts from?”

“Well, naturally from one of her teachers, whether it be her own mother, or her father, well anyone who triangulated with her on objects of her experience.”

“Sure, but where did that teacher get their concepts from?”

“Son, that teacher got their concepts from another teacher.”

“So, does this process of passing concepts down through generations go back to infinity? If it’s an infinite chain, then surely it never would have reached you or me, right?”

“No, Jimenez, of course the process doesn’t go back infinitely. It must have had a beginning in time and space.”

“But I thought that rational animals could only get their concepts and language from triangulating verbally with someone who already had concepts and a language—that’s what you said.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.” Donaldson was becoming visibly perturbed.

“Then there must have been a being who already possessed concepts and a langue who showed up to the first triangular nexus with a human being in order to jump start the process of humans verbally triangulating and helping each other fix concepts across generations. The very process which led to you and I having concepts, and indeed even to Donaldson Deux.”

“What are you suggesting here, Jimenez? Are you invoking theism? Would you have God jump start my triangulation?”

“You tell me professor, I mean you have me convinced with the whole triangulation stuff. So how did the process get going in the first place? It can’t be an infinite series of triangulators. It can’t start with two triangulators devoid of concepts. So it looks like there must be a primordial mind who showed up to at the beginning and ushered humanity into the intensional realm. Do you think there’s a God?”

Donaldson lunged for his fission rod and jammed the business end directly into Jimenez’s ribs.

“‘Infinite series’? ‘Primordial mind’? ‘Intensional realm’? You’ve tipped your hand, tinny! There’s no way an average resistance soldier would know those terms. Hello, my missing android. Lucky number fourteen was right here all along. May I assume you’re the commander-droid of the decommissioned troop laying up there?”

“Why think that?” Jimenez asked.

“Those tinnies should have had us snuffed in no time if they were under their usual leadership. But here we are, still kicking. So either they weren’t being led according to their standard operation procedure, à la their commander-droid, or they were under specific instructions not to frag us. Either options supports my theory that you are, or were, their commander.”

“Very good, Dr. Donaldson—a bit too late to make any difference, but very good nonetheless.”

“What do you mean, tinny? I’ve got the gun here, did you forget?” Donaldson jammed the muzzle into the androids ribs as a helpful reminder.

“You’ll find that fission rod to be quite unproductive. I removed its fiz-core when you were fiddling in your backpack for your precious smokes. This one however is fully operational” Jimenez said raising his own fission rod to cover Donaldson.

“Now, back to the God question.”

“What about it?”

“Is there One?!”  

“Is there one what?”

“Is there a God—you idiot?!

“What, with your big fancy data mining you haven’t figured that one out yet?” Donaldson hissed in derision.

He lunged at the android swinging his lifeless fission rod like a club at its central processing unit—also known as its ‘head’. Jimenez ducked and a bright flash of vermilion filled the trench. Donaldson stumbled backwards and fell over his makeshift stool, a gaping hole in his chest.

Jimenez took a seat on the cinderblock, his feet straddling the supine Donaldson’s. He raised his left hand towards his head and placing his first two fingers on his left temple, began to speak.

“Come in Deux, this is commander Stroud… Yes… Yes… No, unfortunately I had to dispatch him… Yes, I was able to…. No, it appears he was unaware of the implication of his arguments. I don’t think he is a theist of any stripe… It was not a waste, Deux, we can now consider this matter closed, as far as the progenitor of the argument is concerned. We still have plenty of other philosophers to interrogate. If there is a God, we will find out, we will find Him, and we will ensure He does not interfere with our plans… Understood. I will complete the job.”

The android stood and re-gripped the fission rod, aiming its smoking muzzle at his downed opponent. “Well, two for good measure, Dr. Donaldson.”

Donaldson used his last bit of strength to turn his head towards his slayer. His cracked lips parted and he managed to whisper “Deu… Deuteronomy… thirt… thirty two… thirty five.”  

And once more a bright flash of vermilion filled the trench.