Affordance-based Reverse Engineering of Natural Systems with Possible Corruption

About Affordance-based Reverse Engineering of Natural Systems with Possible Corruption

Abstract

The techniques of reverse engineering have been successfully applied for many years, often in spite of a corrupted or damaged specimen. But recently the application of reverse engineering in unforeseen areas has led to new discoveries and a better understanding of what an engineered system offers its potential end users. With affordance-based reverse engineering principles, we aim to analyze the effects of corruption on a specimen. How does corruption alter the perceived affordances of the object? Can lessons learned by reverse engineering man-made artifacts be successfully applied to natural systems? An affordance-based model helps to ascertain the positive and negative effects associated with each part of a system. Discovering the purpose of the individual parts of the system allows for a greater understanding of the purpose for which the entire system was engineered. An affordance-based analysis of manmade artifacts that have experienced corruption may have helpful applications in thinking about natural systems. Hypothesizing that a system may have undergone corruption allows for the possibility that the system may possess a modified set of positive affordances that it would not have otherwise enjoyed. Viewed in this light, corruption and the resulting affordances may be seen as an occasion of the inventive problem-solving technique known as “blessing in disguise” or “making the devil work for you.” Using this method offers new and exciting options for some of the mysteries with which scientists and theologians are currently wrestling. A Christian theodicy based on this approach may be particularly interesting to unbelieving scientists and engineers.