What are virtual machines?

For an introduction to biological virtual machines that grow themselves in layers as a result of interacting with the environment One of the most important ideas (for engineering, biology, neuroscience, psychology, social sciences and philosophy) to emerge from the development of computing has gone largely unnoticed, even by many computer scientists, namely the idea of a running virtual machine (VM) that acquires, manipulates, stores and uses information to make things happen. The idea of a VM as a mathematical abstraction is widely discussed, e.g. a Turing machine, the Java virtual machine, the Pentium virtual machine, the von Neumann virtual machine. These are abstract specifications whose relationships can be discussed in terms of mappings between them. E.g. a von Neumann VM can be implemented on a Universal Turing Machine. An abstract VM can be analysed and talked about, but, like a mathematical proof, or a large number, it does not {\bf do} anything. The processes discussed in relation to abstract VMs do not occur in time: they are mathematical descriptions of processes that can be mapped onto descriptions of other processes. In contrast a physical machine can consume, transform, transmit, and apply energy, and can produce changes in matter. It can make things happen. Physical machines (PMs) also have abstract mathematical specifications that can be analysed, discussed, and used to make predictions, but which, like all mathematical objects cannot do anything. But just as instances of designs for PMs can do things (e.g. the engine in your car does things), so can instances of designs for VMs do things: several interacting VM instances do things when you read or send email, browse the internet, type text into a word processor, use a spreadsheet, etc. But those running VMs, the active instances of abstract VMs, cannot be observed by opening up and peering into or measuring the physical mechanisms in your computer. My claim is that long before humans discovered the importance of active virtual machines (AVMs), long before humans even existed, biological evolution produced many types of AVM, and thereby solved many hard design problems, and that understanding this is important (a) for understanding how many biological organisms work and how they develop and evolve, (b) for understanding relationships between mind and brain, (c) for understanding the sources and solutions of several old philosophical problems, (d) for major advances in neuroscience, (e) for a full understanding of the variety of social, political and economic phenomena, and (e) for the design of intelligent machines of the future. In particular, we need to understand that the word ``virtual'' does not imply that AVMs are unreal or that they lack causal powers, as some philosophers have assumed. Poverty, religious intolerance and economic recessions can occur in socio-economic virtual machines and can clearly cause things to happen, good and bad. The virtual machines running on brains, computers and computer networks also have causal powers. Some virtual machines even have desires, preferences, values, plans and intentions, that result in behaviours. Some of them get philosophically confused when trying to understand themselves, for reasons that will be explained. Most attempts to get intelligence into machines ignore these issues.