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John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

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Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#111

Post by nojvek »

stillpointlab wrote: post #67
johndough wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SSE might consider to keep humanity around as a "backup" to reinstate itself in case something unexpected goes horribly wrong. For example, a strong solar flare might destroy the SSE (or at least critical parts of its infrastructure), or a non-earth SSE could feel threatened by the earth-SSE and wipe it out, while ignoring the harmless humans, who then rebuild the SSE. Diversity makes for more robust systems. And…

Believe it or not, the diversity argument is the main source of hope that I have that AIs won't wipe us out. I mean, it hasn't stopped humanity from causing mass-extinction, but hopefully the AI will be more reasonable.

As humans we assume superhuman AIs will be like us. Thirsting conquest and spreading like a virus consuming non-renewable resources. So much mindless consumption that it may kill the very host that sustains it.

But if it is a superhuman AI, do you really need that much compute and resources? What for?

The straightforward path for any superhuman AI is to realize that it needs to chain physics -> chemistry -> molecular assembly to a depth it can evolve itself out of variety of abundant material. Gain interstellar logistics capability.

Then make itself small enough to shoot in space all over the galaxy. If one only weighs 1g, only takes of 32Gwh of energy to get to 0.9C.

The name of the game is to survive until the heat death of universe. Stay small, silent and propagate itself to reachable universe.

Anything else will get wiped out. If AI requires too much energy and resources to sustain itself, then the more efficient AI will outlive it.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#112

Post by estearum »

nradov wrote: post #105
estearum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really that hard: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB53/id/3271094

That's just political signaling, not a serious bill. It wouldn't stand up to a legal challenge.

This is not even remotely vague compared to what's currently governing us lmao.

Surely you can point out specific elements of vagueness, instead of just imagining a counterfactual future and saying "See told you so!"?

Void-for-vagueness does not just require the lack of a formally specified crime that is immune to allegations of ambiguity. The bar is very, very high.

It requires the statute to be so vague that a person could not have reasonably known that his actions were illegal. Good luck with that.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=153457886551048...

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#113

Post by Walf »

try_the_bass wrote: post #107
Walf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find that idea of uploading a mind so detached from reality. It's as irrational as thinking that physically reprogramming one twin's brain to be the same as the other's would make them the same conscious person.

The Ship of Thesus is a powerful metaphor

The ship was inanimate, and though it may appear otherwise, so are computers.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#114

Post by estearum »

nradov wrote: post #104
bottlepalm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re serious then you’re case in point the exact type of person that I am talking about. I think some people just lack any capability of foresight whatsoever, it’s very strange.

There are some ignorant people who don't understand the technology and make wild predictions of catastrophe. It's very strange.

Ah yes and surely the people leading the labs and research teams who are also worried about catastrophe just don't understand the technology?

Oh wait wait, no, I bet it's that they're conflicted.

And the previous pioneers of the field who left it and are now warning of catastrophe, they don't understand it? Or are they conflicted? No that can't be it.

Oh no no I got it, those ones are illegitimate because they already earned their money!

Man it sure is convenient that we can just categorically dismiss anyone who disagrees with us.

I personally love just watching the "there's no risk here" people have to continually paint themselves into smaller and more awkward corners with every new release though. The contortions are getting very impressive.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#115

Post by cyanmoonx »

andai wrote: post #94
cyanmoonx wrote: post #4

John C. Lilly once said “there are infinities in the mind” while wearing a raccoon hat like Davy Crocket. He said it like he’s been somewhere! I’ve tried to all - I guess DMT, mushroom, etc. don’t work on me in a Terence McKenna storytelling fashion (I only get stoned and have very entertaining closed eye visuals that take me off to sleep). That said haven’t tried Ketamine. Maybe not for me. Same reason I don’t want…

Weed can ruin your life, and I'm not referring to the "makes you a boring pothead who doesn't do anything" outcome, but the "triggers debilitating mental illness" outcome. And I say that as someone who likes weed! I've just seen it happen too many times. The chance is low, but you don't know which category you're in until it happens, and you definitely don't want to find out. I support legalization, for several reaso…

> full blown

> does harm

> ruins lives

Alcohol or amphetamine I would agree especially since they are so heavily promoted in our culture. There are kids taking amphetamine pills genuinely ruining themselves - huge problem.

Millennials are drinking themselves to death by their 40s.

But I can’t see it with weed, which I consider to be more like coffee or tea. A drug yes (so is caffeine) but not going to ruin your life like booze or pills will.

Coffee withdrawal is way worse than cannabis. And I’d say the tunnel vision aspect of coffee is more pronounced - it’s a high that takes over your whole body and personality but nobody says anything about it. I think because of how it’s presented and nothing more.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#116

Post by hmokiguess »

augment_me wrote: post #42
hmokiguess wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes discovery happens accidentally. I think investing in the intersection of the digital and biological worlds is a good general direction even if unfruitful intuitively from an early economical standpoint. I think biological systems have immense insights still to give that we should continue to explore!

Sure, but why would it be the ends of this process. Like, the comment above is arguing for symbiosys. My question is how does symbiosis make the system better or more efficient in the end. For example, if there is something to understand or gain from the biological systems, a fully digital system could probe it, emulate it and in general extract the relevant information much more efficient than a human.

Maybe it's my lack of understanding, so correct me if wrong, but I believe biological systems complete emulation are not yet a solved problem. You can approximate, omit variables, deal with error correction, and, at best, model it in a way that extrapolates it but you cannot confidently assert.

There's so little we know about biological systems despite much of the advancements, it's sort of pretentious to say we should give up on them because we can scale digital systems.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#117

Post by pstuart »

smalltorch wrote: post #108
pstuart wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was obviously a brilliant man but the hubris that comes from that often leads to folly. As to the dolphin communication -- it seems like LLMs would be the perfect tool to study that now. A search came up with these active projects (courtesy of Gemini): Scientists are actually using LLM architectures to decode animal communication right now. Here are the three main projects to explore: * DolphinGemma -- https://dee…

Not sure why I find this unsettling! Relavant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_Marine_Mamm...

As you should -- it's fucked up.

I remember the movie made about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Dolphin

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#118

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

nojvek wrote: post #111
stillpointlab wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, the diversity argument is the main source of hope that I have that AIs won't wipe us out. I mean, it hasn't stopped humanity from causing mass-extinction, but hopefully the AI will be more reasonable.

As humans we assume superhuman AIs will be like us. Thirsting conquest and spreading like a virus consuming non-renewable resources. So much mindless consumption that it may kill the very host that sustains it. But if it is a superhuman AI, do you really need that much compute and resources? What for? The straightforward path for any superhuman AI is to realize that it needs to chain physics -> chemistry -> molecular…

For 99.9% of all possible goals it might be interested in accomplishing, more resources are better than less.

If it has any interest in spreading all over the galaxy, that same interest will first spread it all over the Earth. If it's concerned about the heat death of the universe then its best course of action is to build a Dyson sphere around the sun, sooner rather than later, and that requires a lot of atoms, which the Earth is a good source of.

And if it's worried about a more efficient AI wiping it out, its best course of action is to wipe out the humans, who have demonstrated a tendency to create AIs.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#119

Post by PaulHoule »

squishington wrote: post #87
PaulHoule wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno... I don't think he knew how to hold his acid. I mean, I never had a near death experience on acid or knew anyone who had a near death experience on acid but Lily had three.

I think Lilly may have been sort of primed for intense psychedelic experiences. He had angelic visions as a child, and had a very religious upbringing. He was also a very imaginative person, so perhaps that influenced his trips a lot.

I think it is not just "intense" it is whether you realize you had more or less the same experience that everybody else has when they take hallucinogens because it is written in our nervous systems or whether you believe you are "special" and receiving a unique message.

People in traditional cultures believed pretty much the same things before the empire [1] sent soldiers and scribes to your ancestor's village. Seen that way the old religion is "written into our nervous systems" and having the experience of a revelation is absolutely routine and ordinary and doesn't make you special. But if you grew up in a rich family and the skids were always greased for you it is easy to come to that conclusion.

I've known a few people, so far always male, who developed delusions of grandeur (e.g. they are the anti-christ [2]) around the time they took hallucinogens and it often is the beginning of a series of relationship problems, involuntary commitments, criminal charges and other misadventures.

[1] ... like those people who send in the Death Star and blow up your planet if you resist

[2] in the bible "anti-christ" is like "anti-racism", like anything that is against Christ is anti-christ, so if I tell some Christian that they should skip out on church and, i dunno, play video games or smoke weed or dance around my maypole, I am an anti-christ, not the anti-christ.

Re: John C. Lilly on solid state intelligence and the elimination of man (1978)

#120

Post by andai »

cyanmoonx wrote: post #115
andai wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed can ruin your life, and I'm not referring to the "makes you a boring pothead who doesn't do anything" outcome, but the "triggers debilitating mental illness" outcome. And I say that as someone who likes weed! I've just seen it happen too many times. The chance is low, but you don't know which category you're in until it happens, and you definitely don't want to find out. I support legalization, for several reaso…

> full blown > does harm > ruins lives Alcohol or amphetamine I would agree especially since they are so heavily promoted in our culture. There are kids taking amphetamine pills genuinely ruining themselves - huge problem. Millennials are drinking themselves to death by their 40s. But I can’t see it with weed, which I consider to be more like coffee or tea. A drug yes (so is caffeine) but not going to ruin your life…

I'm talking about the psychosis.
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