Defined as “the quality or state of things ‘sticking together’” (p. The theory of coherence, from the natural philosophy, avoids naïve empiricism and dogmatism by presenting a plausible assessment of both facts and values. Mapping of the construction tasks in real-time becomes part of the landscape, and scaffolds are implemented to aid in achieving the desired state or move to a more manageable environment (e.g., from complex to complicated).Ĭounterfactuals provide a means of constantly pursuing coherent pathways while also dismissing incoherent ones. Construction tasks may also be mapped in either real-time or post hoc for unordered and complex environments using current sensemaking techniques. Construction tasks can be mapped in advance for ordered and known environments. Constructor theory is used to identify potential construction tasks, the legitimate input and output states that are possible, to map the desired change in the substrate’s attributes. The substrate-independence theory views social systems as complex adaptive systems capable of repurposing their structure to combat external threats by utilizing constructors and substrates. The substrate-independence theory concentrates on the flow of information as the underlying property of the host system. Scaffolds are cognitive abstractions of constraints that relate to information within a system. It is also a warning to avoid blind trust in past credentials.The substrate-independence theory utilizes sensemaking techniques to provide cognitively based scaffolds that guide and structure learning. The fact that tens of thousands of curious people around the world have been duped into thinking that it is on par with ideas that actually have content proves the absolute bankruptcy of science communication. But they keep getting press by making more and more outrageous claims. assume F is a constructor for ma!) It's so content-free I literally can't find anything specific to criticize. Their physics-related stuff is similar: assume the desired conclusion, then pretend you've derived it by adding the vague term 'constructor' everywhere. I was so shocked by this that I reread their paper three times before concluding their argument really was that vacuous. Such a constructor is defined to be an object that can create new life. Their argument is as follows (condensing 20 pages of vague equation-free words into a few sentences): first assume that there exists a constructor for life. Yet it has done very well trading on the past prestige of its proponents, and promoting itself through popular talks where no real scientists are present to question them.įor example, constructor theory 'explains' why life exists. While information theory has had profound impacts in physics, constructor theory has always seemed to me to accomplish nothing but add fancy words.

I'm always ticked off when I hear the hype around constructor theory.