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Human

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Re: Human

#191

Post by datameta »

bradly wrote: post #185
mr_toad wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what if everything from mind, physics, value, selfhood, is simply a recursive pattern Most matter in the universe is various forms of plasma that have no pattern. You generally find patterns in condensed matter. And yes patterns, including life, repeat themselves. That’s just a tautology.

> Most matter in the universe is various forms of plasma that have no pattern. You generally find patterns in condensed matter. I don't know anything about plasma or science, so do take this as an accusation, but does science have a way to identify something of having no pattern vs having no pattern found?

Off the top of my head: Kolmogorov complexity, Shannon entropy? I suppose also it depends on how faithfully or to what granularity one has extracted information from a natural phenomena

Re: Human

#192

Post by echelon »

irjustin wrote: post #58
jb1991 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The universe tends to produce self-replicating intelligence. Which intelligence are you referring to? Other lifeforms in the universe?

The parent comment has the end bit in a nut shell. For the "energy gradients" part: Anthropic principal says we find ourselves in a universe that is just right for life (self observing) because of the right universal constants. Combine this with the very slight differences but general uniformity (Cosmic Microwave Background) of the "big bang" this leads to localized differences in energy (on a universe scale). Energy…

You have to steal energy and channel it to do work. In order to build your own moments of order and flux, you must typically create entropy in another ordered system.

Intelligence arises from the deliberate navigation of entropic gradients. Systems get increasingly good at harnessing these gradients. What was once just chemistry is now self-replicating, thinking chemistry. And now it's turning into purely intentional physics.

Infinite energy density becomes expansion into cooling galaxies which becomes stellar birthing grounds which becomes the periodic table that becomes planets with geochemical flux which becomes biogeochemical flux that becomes biochemistry which becomes self-replicating machines (life) that becomes animals that becomes humans that becomes intelligently designed self-replicating machines ... that becomes computronium ... becomes entities that harness the energy of black holes and that create new gravitational singularities ... ??? ... that creates new universes and new big bangs and new dimensions ... ???

Re: Human

#193

Post by goatlover »

mr_toad wrote: post #186
dan-robertson wrote: post #170

Perhaps I am unimaginative about whatever AGI might be, but it so often feels to me like predictions are more based on sci-fi than observation. The theorized AI is some anthropomorphization of a 1960s mainframe: you tell it what to do and it executes that exactly with precise logic and no understanding of nuance or ambiguity. Maybe it is evil. The SOTA in AI at the moment is very good at nuance and ambiguity but some…

Sci Fi is quite ridiculous when it describes a cold logically machine, and then on the next page describes its malign intentions. Pick a lane.

Asimov's 3 laws of robotics worked well to tell stories of how those laws were inadequate logic, and the need for a zeroeth law. Humans came up with the 3 inadequate laws that seemed logical on the surface, but a machine developed the zeroeth in response to those inadequacies.

Re: Human

#194

Post by blablablerg »

neom wrote: post #51

What this thread keeps surfacing, and so much discussion around this stuff generally right now, from speculation about the next phase of intelligence, the role of pattern, emotion, logic, debates over consciousness, the anthropocentrism of our meaning-making...is that we are the source of reality (and ourselves). Instead of a “final authority” or a simple march from animal to machine, what if everything from mind, ph…

Instead of an anthropocentric vision, you present here a "compucentric" vision, reminiscent of the works of Douglas Hofstadter, where the universe renders code, awareness reprograms, and everything is a recursive pattern. (This is Hacker News after all.)

The final authority in this story is then the universal computer (for lack of an operator or programmer of the computer) which executes this recursive function, creating these evolving forms of awareness and such.

The anthropocentric vision, in that we are the source of or own reality, is then for me instead much more believable, since the "compucentric" vision is after all thought up by a human without any evidence pointing toward the existence of such an universal computer.

Re: Human

#196

Post by Jedd »

amelius wrote: post #139

Nice try but the story has a plot hole that shows early: there is no reason for machines to create humans.

Ha.

Next you'll be asserting there's no good reason for an all-powerful entity to create humans to rule over the fish and the birds etc.

All good fiction starts with a conceit, and then plays out some hypotheticals.

Re: Human

#197

Post by goatlover »

bix6 wrote: post #166
neom wrote: post #51

What this thread keeps surfacing, and so much discussion around this stuff generally right now, from speculation about the next phase of intelligence, the role of pattern, emotion, logic, debates over consciousness, the anthropocentrism of our meaning-making...is that we are the source of reality (and ourselves). Instead of a “final authority” or a simple march from animal to machine, what if everything from mind, ph…

“If the universe is information at play” I’ve thought of it more as energy at play but I like this perspective as well. What can I dream up next is also fascinating as this current science / tech worldview feels like it will persist forever but surely it will be overshadowed at some point just as other paradigms before it have been.

Energy comes from field excitation. Fields and their interactions are more fundamental, but then again it's all a physics abstraction of whatever the fundamental stuff actually is.

Re: Human

#198

Post by echelon »

dan-robertson wrote: post #170

Perhaps I am unimaginative about whatever AGI might be, but it so often feels to me like predictions are more based on sci-fi than observation. The theorized AI is some anthropomorphization of a 1960s mainframe: you tell it what to do and it executes that exactly with precise logic and no understanding of nuance or ambiguity. Maybe it is evil. The SOTA in AI at the moment is very good at nuance and ambiguity but some…

Some of us posted several comments here [1] and here [2] about where this could all be going if we lean into sci-fi imagining.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43992151

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43991997

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