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Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

frc.ri.cmu.edu

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Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#71

Post by araes »

An analogous way of saying this argument is, this world is a dream. It is a reflective dream that builds content based on the observations of the observers within that content. If I look over here, it tells me about here, if I look there, info about there. As I build understanding and knowledge about the things I'm looking at, about the act of looking itself, I gain the ability to ask deeper questions against what is effectively a lookup table of information about existing truths of the dream that I have already observed. As I observe those events more closely, and build a better reference or lookup of the information related to them, they in a sense become more stable and more solid.

In the current state, all of the aspects of what me might consider a standard "dream" are present, they just exist within the wrapper of technology. The standard sufficiently advanced technology is magic argument. Truly, all technology is magic, just accomplishing magical goals with a symbolic wrapper of tech.

Another way to look at it, is we all live within a light hologram. All of existence is a light hologram. It is like a bright point of light that we are continually looking closer at, and as we do, we discover the complexities of color and form within what was originally just a wash of light. All/No Colors -> White/Black -> RGB, ect... Researchers have already demonstrated the capacity to create subatomic particles using nothing but the confluence of light. It isn't a huge leap to then surmise that all "matter" is actually condensed or bound light.

We are effectively consciousness objects sharing the delusion that we all possess "physical" bodies and interact with a material world, but its a reflective argument, because the material objects we interact with are only material to things within the simulation of materialism. Its like we're all on the Star Trek holodeck, but the joke is that we're all actually the Doctor, and all the meat things which think they exist within the "real" world, are fundamentally just as immaterial as the Doctor - sharing only the one thing they all possess, which is consciousness, and the ability to observe, interact with, and build knowledge about their external world.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#72

Post by naasking »

goatlover wrote: post #44
naasking wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't feel like there's ultimately any way out of this line of reasoning. What would it take to prove to you that you are indeed not in a simulation of some kind? as the only methods of providing proof are also parts of the simulation. Simulations are just as real. Why wouldn't they be? What makes "natural laws enforced by reality" really any more "real" than "natural laws enforced by a simulation"?

Are simulations just as real? Or are they only culturally real? A simulation of the weather only makes sense when you have humans around to interpret the output from displays. Inside the machine, it's just a lot of 1s and 0s. It's not even really that. It's a lot of electrons moving about. A bunch of electrons aren't a simplification of the weather. It's only because human culture has computing devices that simulatio…

> Inside the machine, it's just a lot of 1s and 0s.

And inside reality, we're just a lot of vibrating strings. I don't see any meaningful difference what the fundamental constituents of reality are.

"Real" is simply a relation between perceived and perceiver.

> Physical systems aren't about anything, and don't represent anything on their own. It's the entire problem of intentionality.

By your own argument, 1s and 0s aren't "about anything" either, they're just as devoid of intentionality anything "truly real".

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#73

Post by goatlover »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #70
goatlover wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Concepts are something minds create to make sense of the world. Correct manipulation as judged by standard is also a mental judgement. The rules of Go are rules because human beings defined them. That there is a context for valid board states is because we created a game that had a context.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#74

Post by psyc »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #69
monadai wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fab…

I read 194-209. I think their approach is fantastic, and it's rare to see such careful thought on this subject. However... nothing struck me as being incompatible with an information IO model?

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#75

Post by harshreality »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #28
monadai wrote: post #11

My alma mater ^_^. The basic loop is : http://monad.ai/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dev_framework.png You can alter the environmental context easily by re-directing the wire in/out : http://monad.ai/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dev_context.png . An individual would be none the wiser. Sure we could be in a simulation. It's interesting to ponder on it. You'll begin forming answers when you dissect the different components,…

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…

I fail to see what bearing paragraphs 3-6 have on the possibility or probability of AGI.

AGI beliefs don't compare to religious beliefs just because you say so. You simply don't have the same knowledge background as people who think AGI is realistic or even likely. Maybe you have more or better knowledge, or maybe they do... but just saying they're wrong is pointless.

The boundary for systems-level consideration of intelligence is often placed around the brain because that's most convenient, not because nothing interesting happens at larger (sociology, ecology) or smaller (Drosophila, Portia) scales.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#76

Post by bbctol »

goatlover wrote: post #57
bbctol wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on your definition of "outside the physical world," it's at best untestable. You can explain consciousness by saying it comes from a massless, noninteracting, odorless, tasteless... etc. but that explanation doesn't really help. So far, lots of other things that were previously explained by non-physical whims of God have had at least partially reductive explanations in science; a lot of people hope that con…

The modern philosophical argument against a scientific explanation of consciousness is that science is an objective, third person pursuit, abstracting away from subjective, first person. If so, you can't hope to explain the subjective in terms of the objective. There is no need to invoke the spiritual or supernatural to see that consciousness is a problem for science.

It honestly depends on who you ask. A lot of people think consciousness is inherently unsolvable by normal science (Chalmers' "hard problem of consciousness"), but there are plenty (Dennett etc.) who will deny that such a hard problem exists, and make reasonable arguments that the scientific method can make headway in reductively explaining consciousness.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#77

Post by tim333 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #28
monadai wrote: post #11

My alma mater ^_^. The basic loop is : http://monad.ai/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dev_framework.png You can alter the environmental context easily by re-directing the wire in/out : http://monad.ai/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/dev_context.png . An individual would be none the wiser. Sure we could be in a simulation. It's interesting to ponder on it. You'll begin forming answers when you dissect the different components,…

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…

If you figure humans have general intelligence and are built out of regular matter it would seem theoretically plausible for us to build something else that has general intelligence out of regular matter. I think you may be overcomplicating things.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#78

Post by hackinthebochs »

goatlover wrote: post #73
hackinthebochs wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Concepts are something minds create to make sense of the world. Correct manipulation as judged by standard is also a mental judgement. The rules of Go are rules because human beings defined them. That there is a context for valid board states is because we created a game that had a context.

>The rules of Go are rules because human beings defined them.

But this says nothing about meaning within this framework. "Concepts"/entities/units within the framework have meaning precisely because of the relations inherent between the entities and states within the framework. The ultimate source of the framework is not relevant.

The entities in the system do not "get" meaning because of a conscious observer, they get meaning because of the relational properties between the entities. If every person in the universe suddenly died, those meaningful relationships would still be valid. After all, the relationships entailed by math is true regardless if anyone is there to recognize them.

Re: Simulation, Consciousness, Existence (1998)

#79

Post by tim333 »

fiatjaf wrote: post #21

> The prescientific suggestion that humans derive their experience of existence from spiritual mechanisms outside the physical world has had notable social consequences, but no success as a scientific hypothesis. Why?

Not sure what you mean by 'why' here but scientists have done a lot of experimenting with psychological experiments, neurology and the like and there hasn't been much sign of spiritual mechanisms outside the physical world. Now if seances worked better or reality was like Ghostbusters that might be counter evidence.
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