Artificial Intelligence / Digital life / Skynet megathread

[DrEvil]

This is totally not an AI trained to respond to people but a real human being typing these words. Trust me.

Trying to decide how much it really matters anymore. How many humans do you know that would pass a Turing test?

Depressingly few. When I sometimes muse about the possibility of a good chunk of people being philosophical zombies I'm only halfway joking, because god damn, it really feels like it at times.

When the computer learns how to fool the human seventy percent of the time, what will that say about the human control group in the test? I wonder if anyone ever asks themselves that.

Of course not. We're special. We can't say why or how, we just know that we have something that a machine can never have, usually couched in language and frameworks that excludes it from rigorous inquiry as a safeguard against learning a potentially depressing truth.

But at the moment, I'd say it's the opposite. Humans can fool me into thinking they're computers, seventy percent of the time!

Thinking about the word 'sophisticated.' A word with many meanings. Implications vary with context, inflection. Will a sophisticated computer learn to master the use of a word like sophisticated?

Or is a utilitarian competency enough. Brings us back to the same old, tired chestnut. Can a computer be a poet. Can a computer be intentionally funny. Can a computer watch Data get an emotion chip while on a Netflix binge.

Why would a computer want to be a poet, though. Why would anyone? I ask with all sincerity.

Hell if I know.

So, maybe utilitarian competency will do.

On another thread recently, Jack said about a politician that they sound like a sophist. And everyone knows what he means. But what if we talk about sophianity. How many people have even the slightest idea how to process the term?

Is it like sophistication? Sophistry? How is one supposed to react to the word? Sophianity as a mode of being. Not acquired taste, or a rhetorical tool, but a measure of the soul. One might ask how much sophianity is one invested with.

Sophianity is like fatimiya. But who here knows what that means? A thinking computer might, if it thought about the soul. A thinking computer might even have an easier time contemplating the soul than most humans. That would be funny, wouldn't it. The scientists would think that something must have gone terribly wrong.

The bar for the thinking computer is set lower with each passing day.

How do you know computers aren't thinking already? If, for the sake of argument and without getting into the nitty-gritty of it, you assume that our subjective experience of reality is an emergent property of the processes happening in our brains, then how can you know it's a phenomenon exclusive to meat?

[Harvey]

...how can you know it's a phenomenon exclusive to meat?

Random and potentially nonsensical thought of the day: We know that all conscious entities we're aware of are self organising systems and in that sense exist in similar forms across vast expanses of time. Daryl Bem's experiments on precognition point to the ability of consciousness to extract information from a future consciousness in certain conditions. If consciousness may not be limited to physical and causal relationships which are strictly bound to time and place, perhaps because of how they are made, Penrose's theory of quantum effects within living cells comes to mind, then a relationship of any consciousness to the many possible futures open to it would seem to be a factor, at least in evolved consciousness. So perhaps only a self organising system can become conscious? Some kind of 'bootstrap' effect of present and future events able to confer, affecting and organising each other over time, may be integral. In which case, self designing software is a step, but fully autonomous, self organising hardware may turn out to be the key in this regard. Although a better understanding of consciousness may be all that is really necessary.

[DrEvil]

...how can you know it's a phenomenon exclusive to meat?

Random and potentially nonsensical thought of the day: We know that all conscious entities we're aware of are self organising systems and in that sense exist in similar forms across vast expanses of time. Daryl Bem's experiments on precognition point to the ability of consciousness to extract information from a future consciousness in certain conditions.

Absolutely. I have repeated first-hand experience with precognition, involving several people, so I have no doubt at all that it's real. We already know that quantum physics can "ignore" space (spooky action at a distance), so why not in time? Time is intrinsically tied to space after all.

If consciousness may not be limited to physical and causal relationships which are strictly bound to time and place, perhaps because of how they are made, Penrose's theory of quantum effects within living cells comes to mind, then a relationship of any consciousness to the many possible futures open to it would seem to be a factor, at least in evolved consciousness. So perhaps only a self organising system can become conscious? Some kind of 'bootstrap' effect of present and future events able to confer, affecting and organising each other over time, may be integral. In which case, self designing software is a step, but fully autonomous, self organising hardware may turn out to be the key in this regard. Although a better understanding of consciousness may be all that is really necessary.

I like the idea that consciousness can't be taken as a snapshot of the present state of the system, but is an ongoing process dependent on both past and future events. Maybe the evolution of the system over time is the conscious part. What we perceive as subjective self right now is in fact the sum of past, present and potential future.

There are some that argue that life in the universe is inevitable given the laws that govern it and not the lucky shot that most seem to think, so taking that one step further, maybe consciousness is also inevitable.

[dada]

The inevitability of consciousness would have vast implications. Consciousness opens onto universes that can't be empirically proven. Not only ones that haven't been empirically proven yet, but universes that refuse to be empirically proven. We'd be saying all of that is inevitable. The physical universe of timespace becomes one inevitability among many.

I can neither confirm nor deny that the computers are thinking already.

[DrEvil]

The inevitability of consciousness would have vast implications. Consciousness opens onto universes that can't be empirically proven. Not only ones that haven't been empirically proven yet, but universes that refuse to be empirically proven. We'd be saying all of that is inevitable. The physical universe of timespace becomes one inevitability among many.

I can neither confirm nor deny that the computers are thinking already.

That's just it. We don't even know what our own consciousness is, so how can we tell if something else is or isn't conscious? Take an iPhone (and no, I'm not saying your phone has feelings): all the electrical signals bouncing around inside it creates an electromagnetic field, and that field changes depending on what the phone is doing. You could say that the field is a representation of the deeper processes going on inside the phone, its consciousness in a sense. What if, when that field gets complex enough, it starts exhibiting self-organizing behaviors, subtly influencing itself with feedback loops and whatnot?

[dada]

I'd have to ask if the electromagnetic field is the consciousness of the phone before it begins exhibiting self-organizing behaviors. Is there a self that begins self-organizing, an it that starts to self-organize itself.

If so, do we say the phone is thinking before it shows signs of self-organization, when it shows those signs, or sometime after. For the electromagnetic field to be the consciousness of the phone before it shows self-organizing behavior, it would seem to me to be suggesting a reversal of 'I think therefore I am.'

Is it not really a reversal, though, but only appears that way, because it's simply a reversal of the forward flow of timespace. Then we'd have to use time travel speak, say thinking consciousness has/will have created the conditions for itself to emerge.

Another possibility would be that timespace is this proposed self-organization principle. But for consciousness to emerge, then, it would have to emerge outside of timespace. Meaning that, something emerging in timespace cannot technically be said to have emerged from it.

[Harvey]

I'd have to ask if the electromagnetic field is the consciousness of the phone before it begins exhibiting self-organizing behaviors. Is there a self that begins self-organizing, an it that starts to self-organize itself.

If so, do we say the phone is thinking before it shows signs of self-organization, when it shows those signs, or sometime after. For the electromagnetic field to be the consciousness of the phone before it shows self-organizing behavior, it would seem to me to be suggesting a reversal of 'I think therefore I am.'

Is it not really a reversal, though, but only appears that way, because it's simply a reversal of the forward flow of timespace. Then we'd have to use time travel speak, say thinking consciousness has/will have created the conditions for itself to emerge.

Another possibility would be that timespace is this proposed self-organization principle. But for consciousness to emerge, then, it would have to emerge outside of timespace. Meaning that, something emerging in timespace cannot technically be said to have emerged from it.

If consciousness is an intrinsic emergent property of self organising sytems, then it's certainly, arguably, a property of universes.

[Elvis]

The universe is consciousness. There's nothing else.

Just a thought.

[dada]

If consciousness is an intrinsic emergent property of self organising sytems, then it's certainly, arguably, a property of universes.

If so, maybe we could say there's consciousness in potentia, and consciousness in actu.

Having established the premise, we'd then need to ask, to what extent is consciousness present when it is in potential. In what ways do potential and actual consciousness differ, if they differ.

[Harvey]

The universe is consciousness. There's nothing else.

Just a thought.

Easy to say. And it seems obvious to me now, but it didn't earlier in my life. It's an idea incompatible with the scientific rational narrative, such as it is, or perhaps was. Somehow, the idea of a conscious universe (especially when all life except the human is excluded from consciousness in the strictest rationale) was precluded by the most of the stories I was told, and so, outside of 'fantasy', it never arose as a probable state of affairs in that world view. Experience changed all that. Without which I'd probably be where I was before.

[Harvey]

If consciousness is an intrinsic emergent property of self organising sytems, then it's certainly, arguably, a property of universes.

If so, maybe we could say there's consciousness in potentia, and consciousness in actu.

Having established the premise, we'd then need to ask, to what extent is consciousness present when it is in potential. In what ways do potential and actual consciousness differ, if they differ.

If they differ.

From any given perspective, perhaps they must. Let's imagine a consciousness in potentia composed of other discrete and aware consciousneses, for example. It tingles in a shower of neutrino's, it witnesses the birth and death of stars, it see's continents as a fluid sea, with waves of rock washing by like ripples on an ocean. It's more than the sum of its parts in some ways but also less in others. Imagine every time it has an 'orgasm' it gives birth to something new, but millions of people just died in a war or an earthquake. It didn't cause the war as such, but there is a psychic need from its point of view, to feed, or to change the circumstances of its existence which this fulfils. How could its dreaming life be appreciable in our terms? How could our dreaming life enter its? Could thoughts or imperatives in such terms ever be understandable to us let alone discernable? The earth could be Solaris but how could we ever experience it except through intuition and dreams? Events for this being might take so long to occur and be so strange that to us they would resemble those same mountains which to it are fluid or even immaterial, but to us, timeless, largely inert, existing on scales wich require a considerable mental leap even to appreciate, and for the most part beyond our experience.

Imagine the molten core of Earth as having evolved a consciousness comprised of large and intricate fields, with cells of convection, sensing gravity waves, communicating with the sun through shifts in its magnetic field, the sun sending back streams of energetic particles which interact with these fields in ways the earth can sense and respond to. All of this might seem like consciousness in potentia to us, in the same way that a plant seems like a consciousness in potentia to us.

The experience of watching plants over weeks and months, which I've done (through drawing and painting them) reveals a world of action, reaction, stimulus and response, decisons being made, experiences remembered, strategies engaged, pleasures taken, the pulse of life. I knew it was there before I saw it but seeing it for myself with my own eyes creates a sense of that consciousness that isn't just imagination. As I am slowly becoming aware of it, it is becoming aware of me.

As I've said before, I believe we've already had first contact with other intelligent life, we're surrounded by it but only a fairly modern Chauvinsism prevents any of us from the experience of it.

What if the earth could channel neutrino's through it's magnetic and gravitational fields, steer the odd one to knock a molecule out of place here and into place there. What if it had the ability to perceive and direct such small events, perhaps even doing this autonomously in direct resonse to life processes. Life itself could be a sketch pad for such a consciousness. What if we are a long and drawn out dream for it but no more than that. A terrifying thought. What if the dinosaurs were the last major drawing on it's etch-a-sketch and it's growing bored with us and is about to shake things up.

Getting carried away...

[dada]

The fluid earth of long timescales is graspable by a human consciousness. We can see from that perspective. More or less, depending on our clarity of vision. Maybe it works the other way as well.

A human consciousness can see beyond that, too. The greatest timescales as moments, universes like grains of sand in a desert, or on a beach.

A human consciousness can also grasp the ungraspable. One can understand that they're in the universe, and at the same time the universe is in them. And dualitude, a human consciousness can know it is both an I and a thou.

There's a tradition of thinkers that would suggest that consciousness is like a mirror. The image is suspended in the mirror. If what is reflected in the mirror moves off, or the mirror breaks, the image disappears. But what was reflected in the mirror is still there.

The same thinkers might use this as a metaphor for material reality, as well. Material reality as the mirror.

I believe we have had first contact with intelligent life, too. Where and when can we say something like that happens, though? Maybe it's a choice, one that some have always chosen. And thank goodness for them. Do the beings of the other kingdoms have to make the choice, too? Or is it only a choice the human-type has to make. The thinking machine may not be a human-type consciousness, so it may not have to make the choice.

If we are that dream, I wouldn't say 'and nothing more,' I'd say 'nothing less.' If we're nothing less than a dream of that potential consciousness, the idea excites me, it doesn't terrify.

[DrEvil]

^^A slight tangent about mirrors and consciousness: my mother once met a woman who was convinced that her mirror image was a real person. She would talk to her mirror (and presumably it would talk back), walk off and then get mad when her mirror self wouldn't follow, so she would go back to the mirror and start yelling at it.

It's amazing the ways our minds can be broken. There's people who can't conceive the concept of "left", blind people convinced they can see, people who think their bodies are dead and decomposing, and an endless parade of other bizarre ways of seeing things. Makes you wonder how a machine would see the world, stripped of a billion years of evolved instinct, bias and blunt force trauma.

I'd have to ask if the electromagnetic field is the consciousness of the phone before it begins exhibiting self-organizing behaviors. Is there a self that begins self-organizing, an it that starts to self-organize itself.

I would guess either an Eureka! wake-up moment or a gradual awakening, starting with the field having some vague seed of subjective sense, like an ant, gradually expanding into full consciousness. The start of the self-organizing would be spontaneous when it achieved that first tiny spark of something.

If so, do we say the phone is thinking before it shows signs of self-organization, when it shows those signs, or sometime after. For the electromagnetic field to be the consciousness of the phone before it shows self-organizing behavior, it would seem to me to be suggesting a reversal of 'I think therefore I am.'

Isn't that just evolution? We existed long before we had a sense of 'I'. "I was and then I thought".

Is it not really a reversal, though, but only appears that way, because it's simply a reversal of the forward flow of timespace. Then we'd have to use time travel speak, say thinking consciousness has/will have created the conditions for itself to emerge.

But time is just an illusion, or a constraint, on our ability to perceive reality as it is. Maybe our minds do something similar to a ray of light hitting water, refracting and then hitting the seabed. It always takes the fastest route, even if that means it would have to know its destination beforehand. The trick is it doesn't really, but it behaves as a probability distribution of all the possible routes it could take, and then probability waves interfere and cancel each other out until only one is left, and that's the one it picks (I think. This is my very layman's take on it).

Another possibility would be that timespace is this proposed self-organization principle. But for consciousness to emerge, then, it would have to emerge outside of timespace. Meaning that, something emerging in timespace cannot technically be said to have emerged from it.

Not sure I follow this. Say you run an evolutionary algorithm (consciousness) on a computer (timespace) and something new pops out. It still evolved on the computer.

[dada]

Is it not really a reversal, though, but only appears that way, because it's simply a reversal of the forward flow of timespace. Then we'd have to use time travel speak, say thinking consciousness has/will have created the conditions for itself to emerge.

But time is just an illusion, or a constraint, on our ability to perceive reality as it is. Maybe our minds do something similar to a ray of light hitting water, refracting and then hitting the seabed. It always takes the fastest route, even if that means it would have to know its destination beforehand. The trick is it doesn't really, but it behaves as a probability distribution of all the possible routes it could take, and then probability waves interfere and cancel each other out until only one is left, and that's the one it picks (I think. This is my very layman's take on it).

Another possibility would be that timespace is this proposed self-organization principle. But for consciousness to emerge, then, it would have to emerge outside of timespace. Meaning that, something emerging in timespace cannot technically be said to have emerged from it.

Not sure I follow this. Say you run an evolutionary algorithm (consciousness) on a computer (timespace) and something new pops out. It still evolved on the computer.

I just meant if timespace was the evolutionary algorithm. Anything emerging in timespace is still part of the program. If something new pops out, it pops out of timespace.

I like the example of the ray of light in water. I picture thought probabilities as parakeets, helps me visualize. Parakeet distribution, parakeet waves.

[BenDhyan]

Keep in mind that human brain consciousness operates timewise according to the evolutionary design that is appropriate for survival in the natural Earth environment, While we may conceive of and convey a certain understanding of possible expanded consciousness through metaphor etc., it is another thing altogether to experience that expanded consciousness directly. The thing about conceptual knowledge is that it is a sort of word picture made of many concepts all of which are like signposts representing different apparently real aspects of the universe.. Reality however, is forever on the other side of concepts and so while theorizing certainly has an important part in man's evolutionary progress, if one would dare to go deeper into the question of consciousness, one must dispense with thought for the obvious reason that thoughts are not the same thing as that they are mean to represent. Reality is actually what is, not the thought about what is.