The Positive and Negative Achievements of Computer Scientist Philip Emeagwali: A Focus on his Naturalistic, Visual, Intuitionist and Mathematical Philosophy of Scientific Creativity in the Context of the Facts and Fictions of his Career

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

                                                                                   

                                                             

                           The Positive and Negative Achievements of Computer Scientist  Philip Emeagwali   

                                 A Focus on his Naturalistic, Visual, Intuitionist and Mathematical Philosophy 

                                                                                   of 

                                                                    Scientific Creativity

                                                                  in the Context of the

 

                                                         Facts and Fictions of his Career  

                                                          Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                             Compcros

                                                 Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

                                       Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge

                                                                       Abstract

An exploration of the enduring significance of computer scientist Philip Emeagwali, focusing on his philosophy of scientific creativity, in the context of the intersection of fact and fiction in his career as a strikingly achieved Nigerian-US immigrant scientist and largely fictional self-promoter.

Contents

Fact, Fiction and Philosophies and Sociologies of Science

Maverick Nigerian US Immigrants, Philip Emeagwali and Okwui Enwezor

   Okwui Enwezor
      Image and Text

   Philip Emeagwali

      Image and Text

          Rethinking Emeagwali

              A Pioneer or Early Figure in the Philosophy and Perhaps Practice of Natural Computing 

              Excerpts from Emeagwali Interview with Reuben Abati 

Fact, Fiction and Philosophies and Sociologies of Science

The life of the Nigerian-American scientist Philip Emeagwali ( 1954-)  awaits a thorough analysis, ideally conducted through a biographical exploration of the development of his mind in relation to his life journey,  of the character and implications of his perhaps unique blend of genuine scientific, technological and philosophical creativity and  self promoting ingenuity amplified by false claims of scientific achievement. 

His story provokes questions about the nature of science, of the criteria of scientific assessment, of differing perceptions of science among different groups of people across  the world at different times and of relationships between these issues and race.

The most thorough investigation of the Emeagwali phenomenon known to me was conducted in  debates on the USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group. Ideally, those debates, along with investigative articles on Emeagwali in various news media, such as  Sahara Reporters , and debates inspired by those articles, should all be compiled and published as a book, while another book develops a linear, possibly biographically based analysis of this amazing story of a  remarkable scientist who gained intercontinental  fame through the combination  of his genuine achievements and a fabulously creative strategy of self promotion, building on those factual achievements through dazzling but false amplifications of his scientific exploits.

Maverick Nigerian US Immigrants, Philip Emeagwali and Okwui Enwezor

Emeagwali's story may be better appreciated in comparison with that of another particularly striking Nigerian-American of his generation, the art historian, art critic and art curator Okwui Enwezor ( 1963-2019).

   Okwui Enwezor
Enwezor was a maverick in the global art historical, art critical and curatorial circles in which he was a prominent force. He was a prolific writer in art history and criticism, publishing with some of the most prestigious publishers in the world and was the founder of Nka, a pioneering journal in the field, and eventually a professor of Art History, and one of the most prominent and powerful curators in the world, responsible for iconic epic, multi-continental art shows, yet he seems to have been  largely self taught, his only degree being a BA in Political Science.

Enwezor achieved all this purely as a Nigerian who emigrated alone to the US at 19, his eventual career soaring even without the foundational economic and social capital that may be seen as often strategic for his kind of achievement. His own story also  awaits a full telling, complementing the numerous articles written about him, particularly after his untimely death.

                       

Enwezor was a sharp dresser, stylish yet serious, suggesting sensitivity to the balance of intellect and social awareness crucial to his career as international art scholar and curator.

Photo by Bjorn Iooss at Vyoma Venkataraman's  ''Okwui Enwezor Will Curate the 2015 Venice Biennale'' in Art in America

  

Enwezor, from the little I knew of him  on first learning about him while he was still alive,   seemed to be like a myth, a fabled figure radiant from a far distance. How did a Black man, I puzzled, so totally penetrate the ultra elite circles of the global art world centred in the West, in the constellations of New York, London, Paris  and other historic Western cultural and economic centres, where lofty economic power, refined taste and exquisite depths of knowledge revolved? 

       Philip Emeagwali

Emeagwali was another such lone immigrant with stars in his eyes, a scientifically and technologically oriented African as Elon Musk, a South African immigrant of Caucasian ancestry, another maverick, who, moving from the early years of a first degree at Stanford,  was to strategically shape global technology through his US emigration. 

Emeagwali is a computer scientist on the cusp of greatness  who seems to have gained as much from self development as from formal education, as attested by his achievements in spite of his academic certifications not exceeding an Msc, although he might have put it significant work for a PhD that was eventually not awarded.

Enwezor, however, unlike Emeagwali, pursued his own promise to its fulfillment, an achievement evident even within the abrupt cutting short of his life. Emeagwali, in contrast, moved from early achievement to later false self promotion, substituting creating a web of fictions of achievement for the dedicated work required to become the historically superlative scientist  he later claimed to be.

Emeagwali, much better known in his native Nigeria than Enwezor, whose name resonates little in his native country even as the Western arts community regarded him with something like awe, was a unique hero to many of us in Nigeria and to others outside Nigeria who knew of him before this story unraveled. He may have   inspired a good number of Nigerians who went on to study computer science or who were already studying it. 

                                                                                      

                                       

''Philip Emeagwali with scribbled partial differential equations for petroleum reservoir simulations across an internet powered by a global network of 65,536 processors.''

From InfoATemeagwaliDOTcom at ''Philip Emeagwali'', Wikipedia.

          Rethinking Emeagwali

Having assimilated the exhilaration and later disappointment of the Emeagwali  story,  one may sit back to make a more measured and comprehensive analysis of the Emeagwali phenomenon in relation to several issues and questions at the intersection of epistemologies and sociologies  of forms of knowledge.

              A Pioneer or Early Figure in the Philosophy and Perhaps Practice of Natural Computing 

One of such assessments, for me, is the recognition of the fact that Emeagwali  was a pioneer or early figure in the philosophy and perhaps the practice of a particular form of computation, Natural Computing. Computation uses electronic devices in manipulating information through storage, retrieval and processing of data. Natural Computing,  according to a  journal of that name,  ''refers to computational processes observed in nature, and human-designed computing inspired by nature''.

                   Excerpts from Interview with Reuben Abati

The excerpts below from Emeagwali's  Guardian, Nigeria, interview with Reuben Abati, demonstrates this. The link leads to the  very rich interview as presented on Emeagwali's website, an interview vital for both its facts and its fictions.

The interview evidences the clarity and forcefulness of his presentation of a philosophy of scientific creativity informed by nature, particularly an animistic view of nature prominent in Africa.

I dont know how factual are Emeagwali's claims, in the interview, of particular scientific achievements, or even the validity of the geometric forms presented in these excerpts, but, in spite of that qualification,  the ideas presented remain lucid, realistic and compelling, the visualizations strikingly complementing the verbal explanations:

Question: When you talk of mother nature, there is something ritualistic and animistic about the notion. Are you a Christian?

Response: My scientific vision is influenced by Christianity, animism and mysticism. I attended Catholic schools, sang in the church choir and was an altar boy while in the 7th and 8th grades.

At the same time, animistic beliefs permeated our everyday life. A dibia (spiritual healer) once determined that I am under the influence of mami-wata (mermaid) goddess and that I am an ogbanje (child spirit) who will reincarnate many times. 

My scientific vision is also influenced by my earlier readings of my father's Rosicrucian Digest, an AMORC (Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) quarterly publication that covers topics ranging from the mysteries of ancient Egypt to metaphysics and mysticism. Metaphysics teaches intuition and visualization techniques --- attributes that I use in making scientific discoveries.

Since animism attributes conscious life to nature or natural objects, scientists that have animist beliefs tend to have enormous respect for nature and Mother Earth and are therefore more likely to borrow from it.

There are parallels between animist worship of trees, stones, and rivers and my design of the first computer networks that mimic the branching patterns of trees; my formulation of the new theory of tessellation which was inspired by the structure of crystal stones; and my mathematics thesis on river flows. Therefore, the animist religion of my Igbo tribe subconsciously influenced my scientific discoveries.

                                                                              

                                                        

                                             

 "Full-scale Hyperball nature-inspired computer network invented by Emeagwali''

  

Africans in the Diaspora are increasingly acknowledging the influence of animism in their lives. In Part of Each Other, Part Of the Earth, Aneb Kgositsile wrote:

 

"We, Africans in America, come from people tied to the Earth, people of the drums which echo the Earth's heartbeat ...

People tied to soil and wind and rain as to each other ..."

After many years of spiritual malaise and environmental catastrophe, animism is being suggested as the salvation of western society. Best-selling books such as Bill Moyers' Healing and the Mind, and block-buster movies such as Dancing with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans advocated or romanticized animism. My scientific writings are interspersed with quotations from animist religious leaders.

          

                                                                          

''I use various geometrical figures such as this compound of the small hexagonal hexecontahedron and its dual small snub icosicosidodecahedron to design algorithms and computers such as the hyperball.''

Question : You said you are particularly interested in given patterns in nature and that your work has been influenced by the honeycomb etc. How have you used nature?

Response: Inventing things requires that we seek new solutions to old problems or accomplish a lot with limited resources.

I boost my creativity by observing how nature has solved problems similar to the ones that I am attempting to solve.

The new problem-solving approach of designing computer networks by observing and emulating patterns in nature is one that I pioneered. Being born and raised in a low-tech African environment enabled me to have a greater appreciation of the usefulness of drawing design inspirations and ideas from natural analogies. Other scientists use a rational and mechanistic approach to problem solving but I use a logistic[al] and inspirational one.

I believe that Mother Nature is a wizard problem-solver which has used trial-and-error approaches, over hundreds of millions of years of evolution, to derive the most optimal solutions.

Furthermore, the trial-and-error approach of nature yields more solutions than the logical approach used by humans. As a result, drawing inspirations from nature has enabled me to discover several computer networks. However, after designing from nature, I use advanced mathematical methods to analyze my inventions.

                                                                         
                                                                      

                                                                
                                                         

''Philip Emeagwali discovered that sphere packing and fast computing are related fields''.

''My theory of tessellated models demonstrated that sphere packing and fast calculations needed to recover and discover more oil are related subjects.''

I observe and use the spatial interactions from other cultures to change my perspective and frame of reference for designing supercomputers. For example, I examine the weaving of baskets and textiles; the construction of bridges, terraces and houses; and the layout of fields and gardens.

Question: You talk of a relationship between the construction of bridges, terraces and houses and fields and gardens, and computers. It is still not clear. What is the connection?

Response: My discoveries and inventions are made largely by geometrical intuition and visualization. Discoveries made by intuition are a mystery to others and half understood by the discoverer.

The subject of geometry was invented by black Africans living in the River Nile Valley as a means for measuring and dividing the flooded fertile farm fields and gardens. The word geometry is derived from geo (Earth) and metria (measurement).

Since bridges, terraces and houses are geometrical objects, I use them to sharpen by intuition.