Canalization

Canalization in hydraulic engineering is the practice of straightening a river to optimize it for a single function — the conveyance of water from one point to another. A canalized river moves water efficiently. It also supports almost nothing. The velocity is too high for sediment to settle; without sediment deposits there are no substrate habitats for invertebrates; without invertebrates there are no fish; without fish there are no herons or otters or kingfishers. The canalized river is optimized for throughput, and the optimization has eliminated every other function the river performed. Næss used the canalized river as an image for what industrial civilization does to living systems when it optimizes them for a single variable. This book extends the image to cognition: AI workflows canalize the river of thought, eliminating the meanders in which understanding grows and leaving a fast-moving but biologically impoverished channel.