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Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

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Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#61

Post by eternalban »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #58
goatlover wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of it. It has no idea that it's playing a board game, or even what a board game is. That it's even playing Go is a human interpretation of what the machine is doing. Granted, we gave it that interpretation in the form of software instructions. But to the machine, it makes no difference.

Within the context of Go there is no board game, its just sets of possible states and transitions between valid states. Any feature of the game Go is encoded within this state space. The "meaning" of pieces, moves, captures, win, loss, etc are all encoded here. The go playing machine may not capture these concepts explicitly at a high level, but I'm not sure that's an important distinction. Concepts like board games,…

Well, actually the human context of Go includes something entirely unavailable to our mechanical constructs, yet very much an aspect of the human conscious experience: pleasure.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#62

Post by simonh »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #41
XorNot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already run simulators of our universe with vastly lower resolution then reality, and they do tell us useful things about it.

Sure, but that isn't simonh's point. Those simulations aren't very good. There's nobody living in those simulations that thinks that they're alive, let alone that is capable of creating a working computer out of the material in that simulation.

Right, and the Billiard Ball Example shows what you need to do to even just simulate a game of billiards. To do so accurately you have to simulate every elementary particle in the observable universe. That's how complex and interconnected the universe is.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#63

Post by metafunctor »

simonh wrote: post #31

My main problem with the simulated world argument is complexity. Take the Billiard Ball example[0]. This means to accurately simulate the universe you can't really get away with approximations. Under close enough scrutiny discrepancies in the simulation are discernible, and we can scrutinize it at the subatomic level. But to simulate the observable universe, how big would your computer need to be? How slowly would th…

Here's a thought that ends up with exactly the opposite view...

Does someone really need to build a computer that carries out the simulation for a universe to be “real”? If there is a set of rules defining a universe, one can say that the universe already exists without having to simulate it.

The same goes for universes that are capable of life that can simulate other universes nested inside them. And, indeed, universes nested three times, four times, all the way to infinity.

There number of nested universes is a much larger infinity that the number of non-nested "root" level universes. Thus, picking a universe at random (ours), the probability that it is a simulation is 1.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#64

Post by goatlover »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #58
goatlover wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of it. It has no idea that it's playing a board game, or even what a board game is. That it's even playing Go is a human interpretation of what the machine is doing. Granted, we gave it that interpretation in the form of software instructions. But to the machine, it makes no difference.

Within the context of Go there is no board game, its just sets of possible states and transitions between valid states. Any feature of the game Go is encoded within this state space. The "meaning" of pieces, moves, captures, win, loss, etc are all encoded here. The go playing machine may not capture these concepts explicitly at a high level, but I'm not sure that's an important distinction. Concepts like board games,…

Yeah, but the encoding of the possible states, etc are all based on the actual board game. We made an abstract version of the game and fed it to a learning algorithm.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#65

Post by hackinthebochs »

goatlover wrote: post #64
hackinthebochs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the context of Go there is no board game, its just sets of possible states and transitions between valid states. Any feature of the game Go is encoded within this state space. The "meaning" of pieces, moves, captures, win, loss, etc are all encoded here. The go playing machine may not capture these concepts explicitly at a high level, but I'm not sure that's an important distinction. Concepts like board games,…

Yeah, but the encoding of the possible states, etc are all based on the actual board game. We made an abstract version of the game and fed it to a learning algorithm.

At least with regards to the original question, your point isn't a rebuttal. That we can make an abstraction of the game and then operate on that abstraction just means the meaningful/informative portions of the game (within the context of playing the game) are contained in the abstraction. In fact, that just is what an abstraction is: taking only the necessary features for some particular context.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#66

Post by drostie »

psyc wrote: post #30
drostie wrote: post #14

I am very happy to see this at least bring up one of the most strange parts of Everett's many-worlds (and others' "many-minds") theories: that in them, you are immortal; for there always exists a possible world which you didn't lose consciousness in, and your final consciousness will only propagate into those worlds. Searle's objection still seems to hold some water, though. Consciousness does not seem to be a comput…

The premise about computation being observer-relative overestimates how much meaning we read into a system, and underestimates how much we read out of it. When two 1kg bags of sand land on a lever and counterbalance the one 2kg bag at the other end, that has an objective, logical, correspondence-based meaning that transcends observers. When a domino computer "executes" - same. When a silicon computer computes - same.…

Sorry, what is the "objective, logical, correspondence-based meaning" that you're referring to? Moreover, you've already laden a lot of interpretation in there, "1kg" vs "2kg", "counterbalance".

Let me put it to you a different way: suppose that I put two bags of some substance on one side of a beam attached to a fulcrum, and one bigger bag containing a substance that looks similar, on the other side of the beam. Suppose that the beam continues to tilt such that the bigger bag is resting on the ground. There are definitely some observer-relative ways to read this situation; but is there an observer-independent way to read it, which goes beyond what I have already said about it in this paragraph?

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#67

Post by [deleted] »

psyc wrote: post #30
drostie wrote: post #14

I am very happy to see this at least bring up one of the most strange parts of Everett's many-worlds (and others' "many-minds") theories: that in them, you are immortal; for there always exists a possible world which you didn't lose consciousness in, and your final consciousness will only propagate into those worlds. Searle's objection still seems to hold some water, though. Consciousness does not seem to be a comput…

The premise about computation being observer-relative overestimates how much meaning we read into a system, and underestimates how much we read out of it. When two 1kg bags of sand land on a lever and counterbalance the one 2kg bag at the other end, that has an objective, logical, correspondence-based meaning that transcends observers. When a domino computer "executes" - same. When a silicon computer computes - same.…

[deleted]

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#68

Post by goatlover »

goatlover wrote: post #64
hackinthebochs wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the context of Go there is no board game, its just sets of possible states and transitions between valid states. Any feature of the game Go is encoded within this state space. The "meaning" of pieces, moves, captures, win, loss, etc are all encoded here. The go playing machine may not capture these concepts explicitly at a high level, but I'm not sure that's an important distinction. Concepts like board games,…

Yeah, but the encoding of the possible states, etc are all based on the actual board game. We made an abstract version of the game and fed it to a learning algorithm.

hackinthebochs:

Right, but the parts of the abstraction only have meaning because they are given meaning by us from the reality we abstract from.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#69

Post by erikpukinskis »

monadai wrote: post #34
erikpukinskis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how many people speak about AGI as if it's even a theoretically plausible thing. It's about as plausible and well substantiated as the Christian God. Which isn't to say it's impossible, but just that it's almost entirely an article of faith. There are a few anecdotes which maybe hint at its possibility. But nothing even approaching a rational explanation of how it might be built. Also, the model of cogni…

At this point, it seems there is no manner of detailing that will convince people that it's plausible. I'm honestly unaware as to why people can't fathom it. It's a systems issue. If you want to resolve a systems issue, you need people who have worked on complex systems. Having done the research myself, having the computational models in front of me, and currently developing iterative capability levels, I can assure…

I just want to say: I wholeheartedly support you and any and all research in this direction. I think AI is and will be hugely important.

You think I will be surprised how "general" the AIs are. I think you will be surprised how similar to human bodies you have to make them for them to approach a human definition of "general".

This is the only sense in which I think AGIs are impossible... not that they couldn't be fabricated, but that they would be functionally indistinguishable from a human with access to some good subroutines.

> Seeing will eventually be believing. Once made manifest, you won't be able to deny its plausibility.

I look forward to it. I say the same thing about my own work all the time, of which many people are incredulous. But still, you must admit that doomsday prophets say the same kind of thing. Again, please don't take that as disbelief, just not-yet-belief.

Regarding the specifics of the models, I would humbly submit this (as old as I am) paper on Ecological Psychology as a good, usable alternative to the information processing model of cognition: http://www.trincoll.edu/~wmace/publications/realism.pdf. If you don't want to wade through the high philosophy stuff, pages 194-209 get into more concrete specifics of the model they are proposing.

To me it seems fundamentally different than the I/O based picture my OP proposed. I would be interested to hear your perspective. And hit me up if you ever feel like coming out to Oakland to chat with a fellow crazy person with a passing knowledge of cognitive science and quantum mechanics. I would love to buy you a coffee.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#70

Post by hackinthebochs »

goatlover wrote: post #68
goatlover wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the encoding of the possible states, etc are all based on the actual board game. We made an abstract version of the game and fed it to a learning algorithm.

hackinthebochs: Right, but the parts of the abstraction only have meaning because they are given meaning by us from the reality we abstract from.

You seem to be defining meaning just as what conscious entities endow something with, and so our abstract notion of Go necessarily receives its meaning from us. I don't agree with this.

At its most basic, meaning just is the set of concepts and behaviors that allow correct manipulation as judged by some standard. So in this case the rules of the game have meaning within the context of a game of Go as they allow for correct manipulation of the game state. That what constitutes valid board states was derived from conscious entities isn't relevant here. The rules of Go have meaning (allow for proper manipulation) within the context of the system of valid board states and transitions between them.

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