tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post5814978528150217843..comments2024-03-18T21:33:35.309-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: The Fetal Attraction of the Unborn SelfGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-22979166646530458482008-05-21T17:54:00.000-07:002008-05-21T17:54:00.000-07:00sorceray, from the opening of your "as easily as a...sorceray, from the opening of your "as easily as anyone else - " link above, I can't tell you how much I reject every bit of this:<BR/><BR/><I>"In the domain of bodies, most of us accept that common sense is wrong. We concede that apparently solid objects are actually mostly empty space, consisting of tiny particles and fields of energy. Perhaps the same sort of reconciliation will happen in the domain of souls, and it will come to be broadly recognized that our dualist belief system, though intuitively appealing, is factually mistaken. Perhaps we will all come to agree with Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and join the side of the "brights": those who reject the supernatural and endorse the world-view established by science."</I><BR/><BR/>In the domain of reality, those who reject common sense, are usually common fools.<BR/><BR/><I>"We concede that apparently solid objects are actually mostly empty space, consisting of tiny particles and fields of energy"</I><BR/>No, I don't accept that in any way shape of form. It is an equivocation on scale, meant to cast doubt where no doubt belongs, for the purposes of advancing skepticism and self doubt as fundamentals. Solid objects, on our level, where we live, operate and think, are solid objects. Please grasp the nearest marble block and slam it into your skull to test this assertion. Deep in at the molecular and atomic level, you'll indeed find relatively great expanses between 'objects', but those expanses are no barrier to, and an intrinsic part of creating the fully solid objects which exist on up the macro level.<BR/><BR/><I>"Perhaps the same sort of reconciliation will happen in the domain of souls, and it will come to be broadly recognized that our dualist belief system, though intuitively appealing, is factually mistaken."</I><BR/><BR/>That dualistic belief system is bought into only by those who were duped by intellectual stunts such as the 'mostly empty space' ploy above, or the rationalism flowing from Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc. Such notions end up viewing your 'soul' as something like a fanny pack which you want to be sure not to misplace or sit upon. Those who don't grasp the tripartite unity of reality in philosophic or religious terms, will end up unable to grasp, hold or defend the Good, the Beautiful and the True.<BR/><BR/><I>"...all come to agree with Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and join the side of the "brights": those who reject the supernatural and endorse the world-view established by science."</I><BR/><BR/>And there you have the stunted minds meant to cash in on these 'ideas', putting forward their superstitious interpretation of science entailed in all of the preceding.<BR/><BR/>Ugh. <BR/><BR/>Well, dinner’s over, back to work. Hope I get to get to today's post.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-83344969914592359202008-05-21T15:15:00.000-07:002008-05-21T15:15:00.000-07:00sorceray said "So... given advanced nanotechnology...sorceray said "So... given advanced nanotechnology, if we assembled a duplicate cell from raw materials, molecularly identical to a living example... it would just sit there, inert, and not function? Is that a prediction of yours, or do I misunderstand?"<BR/><BR/>Sigh. Again venturing into sheer speculation... barely removed from arbitrary... but my suspicion is that it would remain inert and lifeless. My guess would be that the assembly process has quite alot to do with it... sort of like if you were to toss all of the ingredients into a bowl, without mixing and baking, it just sits there icky and inert... or, covering all bets, if it <I>did</I> work, it would be due to more of a situation of, <B>ass</B>uming (seems a necessary emphasis here) all of the correct structure and calibrations having been set, it would then be able to 'receive signal'... again... silly speculation - 'from where' being the least of the next questions....<BR/><BR/>"But I question those who are likewise unsure but nevertheless seem utterly confident about where the answer isn't."<BR/><BR/>When you know the characteristics of the materials others are hunting for answers in, and what answer they are expecting to find in those materials which other's think the answers are to be found in - well then, confidence isn't that difficult to establish. If you're hunting for a full grown elephant in my dresser drawers... I'll feel pretty comfortable in smacking you upside the head. Ditto for the search for intelligence in mechanical processes.<BR/><BR/>Not making predictions, only judgments based on the evidence at hand, and that is that jiggering chemicals and 1's and 0's ain't gonna do it, and any artificial intelligence will only contain intelligence in the eye of the beholder.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-63344921921991551022008-05-21T13:16:00.000-07:002008-05-21T13:16:00.000-07:00Julie - sorry, I wasn't explicit in what I wrote b...Julie - sorry, I wasn't explicit in what I wrote before, you're right. I do think 'one-or-more-beings-that-exist-outside-the-universe-we-know-and-experience' is <I>possible</I>. It just doesn't seem <I>likely</I>, based on what I've seen and experienced so far.<BR/><BR/>(And without a more specific idea, I don't think it's possible to narrow down the implications. I mean, <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos" REL="nofollow">this</A> would fit such a description, but I don't think it's what you're getting at. (That strikes me as... unlikely, too, of course.))Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-55411004964668445382008-05-21T12:29:00.000-07:002008-05-21T12:29:00.000-07:00Ray - thanks for the link to your faq, but actuall...Ray - thanks for the link to your faq, but actually I didn't ask what you <I>believe</I>. I asked what you think - is God (by which I mean an as-yet-undefined-because-unknown being existing outside of the universe as we know and experience it) <I>possible</I>? That's all.<BR/><BR/>If no, what are the implications? <BR/><BR/>If yes, what are the implications? <BR/><BR/>And I don't mean heaven and hell, be-good-or-else, etc; rather, the much broader implications about the conditions necessary to create life (or for it to just happen), and the question of why something would want to do that anyway (for the "yes" question). What <I>purpose</I> does life serve? <BR/><BR/>You don't have to answer those last two questions here, they're just something to think about.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89239423171731164012008-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:002008-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:00Van - "DNA is a living mechanism within a living b...Van - "DNA is a living mechanism within a living body. You can't just assemble the correct rna molecules, etc, and have them commence to building..."<BR/><BR/>So... given advanced nanotechnology, if we assembled a duplicate cell from raw materials, molecularly identical to a living example... it would just sit there, inert, and not function? Is that a prediction of yours, or do I misunderstand?<BR/><BR/>I <I>don't</I> claim to have all the answers. I <I>acknowledge</I> that I don't have the answers on consciousness. I didn't even claim to know AI is possible. <BR/><BR/>But I question those who are likewise unsure but nevertheless seem utterly confident about where the answer <I>isn't</I>. And I don't see them make a better case than Haldane's. (That doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means they don't make a good case.)Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-59856006701529355422008-05-21T11:02:00.000-07:002008-05-21T11:02:00.000-07:00sorceray said "It used to be chemical doctrine tha...sorceray said "It used to be chemical doctrine that organic chemicals could not be synthesized from inorganic ones. That prediction proved false. Haldane's prediction was that no 'mechanism' could account for the behaviors of the cell nucleus... and that proved false when DNA was discovered."<BR/><BR/>I think you mistake the material for the actuality. DNA is a living mechanism within a living body. You can't just assemble the correct rna molecules, etc, and have them commence to building (which is not the same thing as retrieving DNA from dead matter, and influencing a living cell).<BR/><BR/>When a doctor applies the shock paddles and restarts a person’s heart, he doesn't say (acts like it perhaps, but doesn't say) that he's created life - he's merely brought about the conditions necessary for it to resume.<BR/><BR/>I take it as a given that the universe contains by its nature, all that is necessary for the creation, and evolution of life. I don't believe that we are yet aware of all of the contents of the universe, and I don't believe that atoms and molecules are all of the necessary constituent parts. I am saying that there is something else present, which we know not what, that is not merely the product of a complex arrangement of atoms and molecules, or 1/s and 0's. And even in the event that we someday discover that ... let’s call them 'puffles', are the stuff of consciousness, and if you add a touch of salt to them, viola! Consciousness! You will still have something that is free and independent of the machinery that gave rise to it. <BR/><BR/>There is a 'You' in you, that is not merely chemical reaction and molecular activity - those are part of the process, but they are not in and of themselves, <I>the process</I>. Is it life working through the mechanism of the brain which makes consciousness possible? Is consciousness something separate or auxiliary to it, which 'seats' in hospitable living things, those with requisite brainish material? Don't know, and as I said before, such speculations shorn of the necessary facts, cannot amount to anything other than sheer speculation, usually silly sounding in the extreme. We. Don't. Know. (Yet...?).<BR/><BR/>You want to investigate that further? Fine. But don't posture as if you have enough of the facts to make pronouncements about it. It is still silly, and usually in the extreme. Artificial Intelligence will be directed calculation only, which to us intelligent creatures, will have a possibility of being put to use for intelligent purposes, no different than a pocket calculator, just on a massively inflated scale.<BR/><BR/>But on the basis of 1's and 0's alone... there will be no "I" in that artificial intelligence - and you don't know why, and due in large part to your insistence on ignoring the obvious, <I>you</I>, the dennett's and the rest, like the cardinal refusing to look through Galileo's telescope, will <I>not</I> be the ones to get any closer to an answer.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-18415067214778838112008-05-21T10:55:00.000-07:002008-05-21T10:55:00.000-07:00No habla ingles.No habla ingles.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-51627423532827594162008-05-21T10:40:00.000-07:002008-05-21T10:40:00.000-07:00Sorcray said:"One of the characters used magic to ...Sorcray said:<BR/>"One of the characters used magic to change things so that "2+2=fish". If the laws of logic come from God, could God do the same thing? If not, why not? If God's prior to logic..."<BR/><BR/>hmmm, this seems to imply that you're thinking the Logos unfolds in a capricious manner, on a whim or a fancy: the Logos 'does' whatever it feels-like at the moment, Consistency be damned.<BR/><BR/>Not so. <BR/><BR/>Quick definitions (consistency)<BR/><BR/># noun: a harmonious uniformity or agreement among things or parts<BR/># noun: (logic) an attribute of a logical system that is so constituted that none of the propositions deducible from the axioms contradict one another<BR/># noun: the property of holding together and retaining its shape <BR/># noun: logical coherence and accordance with the facts<BR/><BR/>Logos=Absolute=Truth=Consistency=Logical Coherence. <BR/><BR/>Part of the Great Mystery of the Logos is how all the 'parts' that we can 'see' & those we can't, are seamlessly consistent & coherent, feeding both into & out of 'themselves'. Think Mobius Strip. That's the Cosmic Order were addressing here at OC. Congruously, we labeled this 'O'.<BR/><BR/>Could God make 2+2=fish? Would God? Only if 2+2 already = fish, and is already True, even tho possibly WE don't yet comprehend why or how, or have an incomplete understanding on OUR part, of what WE call 'fish'.<BR/><BR/>Logos=God=Absolute=Truth=Consistency=<BR/>Logical Coherence. All of a package.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89974006225784340472008-05-21T10:02:00.000-07:002008-05-21T10:02:00.000-07:00Julie - I haven't exactly hidden the executive sum...Julie - I haven't exactly hidden the <A HREF="http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/" REL="nofollow">executive summary</A>. Like Laplace, I've had no need of that hypothesis yet. I'm most sympathetic to the Deist conception - I'd imagine if anything did design the universe, it'd probably not need to tinker with it afterwards.<BR/><BR/>(That's why, even if we did prove that abiogenesis happened without any intelligent help, it wouldn't disprove God(s). It'd undermine an argument <I>for</I> God(s), but that's not the same thing.)Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71286226617737388032008-05-21T09:46:00.000-07:002008-05-21T09:46:00.000-07:00wizard said... "What about artificial free will?"S...wizard said... "What about artificial free will?"<BR/><BR/>See democrat party usage of 'super delegates'Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-79616901379707248882008-05-21T09:45:00.000-07:002008-05-21T09:45:00.000-07:00Van - I've been accused of missing points here, bu...Van - I've been accused of missing points here, but I'm afraid I have to bring that up with you.<BR/><BR/>It used to be considered 'obvious' that living things - even at the level of a cell - were so different in <I>kind</I>, not merely degree, from other types of matter that the standard laws of chemistry just couldn't be applied to life. That is <I>exactly</I> what Haldane was saying. Not consciousness - life itself.<BR/><BR/>Except for some oddballs like the Christian Scientists, nobody really takes that seriously anymore. In just a few decades, it became utterly clear that, yeah, the things that make biology special - and biology <I>is</I> special, I'm <I>not</I> denying that - are still, at root, 'just' atoms banging into each other. On Earth, self-reproducing systems only happen with carbon-based chemicals. But we there's no barrier to imagining us making such systems out of silicon and metal, or even <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Egg" REL="nofollow">more exotic materials</A>.<BR/><BR/>We can call this "Haldane's Error" - thinking that completely different laws <I>must</I> apply to some phenomena not yet understood. People committed it with <A HREF="http://www.tektonics.org/lp/norods.html" REL="nofollow">lightning</A>, comets, earthquakes, etc. They committed it with <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism" REL="nofollow">life</A>.<BR/><BR/>Life is a very different phenomena than non-life, true - just as chaotic motion is quite different from the non-chaotic variety. But they're made from the same building blocks.<BR/><BR/>You predict that consciousness can't arise - or at least, can't find root - in anything but living things. It used to be chemical doctrine that organic chemicals could not be synthesized from inorganic ones. That prediction proved false. Haldane's prediction was that no 'mechanism' could account for the behaviors of the cell nucleus... and that proved false when DNA was discovered.<BR/><BR/>I'm just asking... what if yours does, too? Haldane couldn't imagine a way for cells to 'work', but one was found. What if we just haven't had the right insight or discovery yet? I'm being beseeched to "imagine it possible [I] may be mistaken." Why can't I ask if you're committing Haldane's Error?<BR/><BR/>We can't <I>build</I> consciousness yet, but destruction is easier than creation. We can see that there's no sharp dividing line, no single moment where we can say "this wasn't conscious, but now it is," or vice versa. I hope you haven't had to witness the late stages of Alzheimer's. Perhaps it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I have a hard time seeing what's left when the brain is destroyed as the original person in any meaningful sense. When evidence contradicts intuition - and I think dualistically <A HREF="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom04/bloom04_index.html" REL="nofollow">as easily as anyone else</A> - I tend to go with the evidence.Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-77565411613281048452008-05-21T09:26:00.000-07:002008-05-21T09:26:00.000-07:00What about artificial free will?What about artificial free will?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-9707724761284927962008-05-21T08:44:00.000-07:002008-05-21T08:44:00.000-07:00Ray - Only the Perfect Infinite Being can create o...Ray - Only the Perfect Infinite Being can create other beings "in His image". On their own, those created beings, willfully imperfect, can only attempt copies - and feeble ones at best.<BR/><BR/>Are you Real or are you memorex?NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-52815582737545289752008-05-21T08:17:00.000-07:002008-05-21T08:17:00.000-07:00"So's genetics and molecular biology. It's just ch..."So's genetics and molecular biology. It's just chemistry, atoms banging into each other."<BR/><BR/>(blink)<BR/><BR/>I believe I've been trying to make that point as well for some time. Consciousness isn't reducible to chemical reactions anymore than it is to 1's and 0's. That can create the necessary machinery, but it is empty without <I>us</I> - somehow <I>we</I> get into the equation and we have no earthly idea of how, but however that happens, it's not due to algorithms.<BR/><BR/>A point I've made before and elsewhere, try this as a thought experiment: anything that can be programmed into a computer, could, given an elaborate enough wood workers workshop, could be built as an elaborate set of wooden contraptions of levers and dominoes, as was Babbage’s original idea for computers (think the Professor on Gilligan’s Island). Now with that in mind, is there any amount of detailed programming, any additional redundant and self referencing, restacking, sets of dominoes and levers, gears & cranes that could be rigged up, which if you gave it a question, and it returned the appropriate Turing type answer, is there any way that you could imagine that set of wooden levers and gears as being consciousness and alive? As thinking?<BR/><BR/>Adding electricity and silicon chips to the scenario really changes nothing, only the space you need to accomplish it in, and no matter how intricate the program, and I do foresee computers being able to simulate human like feats of analysis, recognition, even in a limited fashion, creative acts, even ‘communicate’ with us - but it will be a simulation only, it will remain an 'It" not an "I", machine not awareness. There is nothing a computer does, that is not preprogrammed; no matter the fuzziness of the logic, it is set up as an instruction, hardcoded by a programmer. And a computer never, ever, EVER makes an error - only living humans do. <BR/><BR/>Computers produce results exactly in accordance with the laws of physics, and though the results are often NOT what we expected, that is due to programmer error or oversight, or mechanical limitation or breakdown - never an error; error, in our sense of the word, is impossible to it. <BR/><BR/>There is something that is 'created' with life, perhaps is life, that is analogous to a (warning: scary word coming) 'Soul', awareness, which, although given a hospitable environment or fertile area to develop from by genetics, is not reducible to it. Is it analogous to a magnetic field? A force? A building set of vibrations given off by each cell, which cumulatively build into a shared vibrational intensity which results in an ability to react to and push and pull the biological levers of the body? Any such speculations are just unavoidably reduced to such silly speculations, but it, soul, consciousness, "I", is there, and I think the biologists, and A.I. people need to get over their superstitious fears of consciousness, soul, whatever they want to refer to it as - independent self aware and activating feedback loop?... Ayn Rand, as thorough going an atheist as there ever has been, had no problem using and saying the word 'soul', in a completely secular meaning, as referring to something that arises from biology, but is not reducible to it, and whose actions are not determined by the physical stuff of genetics, and which ends with the body that gave rise to it. <BR/><BR/>Obviously the body is interacted with by consciousness, and vice versa, and body and brain gives consciousness the ability to gain more depth & ability, and damaged or failing 'components' can send the whole thing out of whack, but IT isn't Us. And IT, though influencing to us, doesn't control whatever it is that is US, we ultimately do, control (if we choose to), IT.<BR/><BR/>That was a long hard conclusion for me to come to grips with, but it is logically inescapable; to me, imagining the genetic equivalent of wooden gears and levers magically gaining conscious awareness via more and more complexity, together with the self evident awareness of 'me', leaves me no choice. The idea that elaborate tinker toys and lincoln logs could ever Wonder, or even make a simple error - let alone an error as massive as 'I think therefore I am', is, I think, far more superstitious than the alternative. There is something else involved in consciousness and awareness, which we haven’t yet isolated or identified, but it darn sure isn’t purely material. <BR/><BR/>Fortunately you do have the ability to examine it first hand, and you can discover proof of yourself, you may even find in your furthest explorations, an inwardly outwards path towards something that seems… well… you’ll have to fill in the blank – and for the most part, your discoveries remain under lock and inner key. You can talk about what you find, but since you can’t pass the evidence around to be examined, the talk is never quite able to describe the experience… the poetic is about as rigidly descriptive as you can get… I suppose you could start off with “In the beginning…”Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-29366083099947646142008-05-21T08:05:00.000-07:002008-05-21T08:05:00.000-07:00You're pretty funny, Ray. We basically agree on ma...You're pretty funny, Ray. We basically agree on many of the same facts and fundamentals, but there is a conclusion which you are completely unWilling to reach, even though all the evidence practically shouts its name. You seem more willing to believe that life on this planet was seeded from somewhere else than from someOne else, even though you acknowledge how unlikely the alien seeding theory is. But even if that were the case, how would you explain the existence of the aliens?<BR/><BR/>You've given tons of links to other peoples' thoughts on God.<BR/><BR/>What are <I>your</I> thoughts? Do you think God is possible? Because ultimately that's the only question that matters.juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15975754287030568726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27843830551249822572008-05-21T07:55:00.000-07:002008-05-21T07:55:00.000-07:00sorceray, I wouldn't be surprised if we got along ...sorceray, I wouldn't be surprised if we got along quite well, but I've no doubt that, as with my dear friend from band days, it would be very <I>loudly</I>.<BR/><BR/>I also suspect, that your aside about Intellectual Property would be the center of one of the loudest exchanges. While it is certainly easier to give away copies of manuscripts, music or software than it is to do so with iPods, that ease is completely irrelevant to the issue.<I>Everything</I> is intellectual property... an iPod, no less than "I, Robot", or an operating system - the ease of conveying the creations of the intellect, or the amount or lack of material objects used to embody and convey them, makes no fundamental change in regards to the application of Property Rights.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-70892021385143557532008-05-21T06:55:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:55:00.000-07:00Van, as you say, "Complexity in computers is nothi...Van, as you say, "Complexity in computers is nothing but the very simple – and unalive - repeated in elaborate patterns."<BR/><BR/>So's genetics and molecular biology. It's just chemistry, atoms banging into each other. It's called 'organic chemistry' because it was once the study of the chemistry of living things, and was considered to an entirely different discipline from regular chemistry. Now it just means 'the chemistry of carbon compounds'.<BR/><BR/>Turns out the same chemical rules that govern soda fizz also govern "a delicate and complex mechanism which is capable... of reproducing itself indefinitely often." You just need a <I>lot</I> of chemicals in a relatively specific configuration.<BR/><BR/>You can reject the notion of AI <I>a priori</I>, but aside from vigorous handwaving to what's "obvious", a la Haldane, I've not seen a good, solid case for that.Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-17903885920554793302008-05-21T06:46:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:46:00.000-07:00"Once we get closer to AI, we probably will need e..."Once we get closer to AI, we probably will need ethics committees to vet AI experiments..."<BR/><BR/><I>Bwahahhaha...ahhhHHHBwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!</I><BR/><BR/>PCCCCCCCCCCC nuttery!!! I look forwards to the three laws!!!!Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-89343416119163676142008-05-21T06:44:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:44:00.000-07:00"The fundamental rules of logic arise from definit..."The fundamental rules of logic arise from definition... "<BR/><BR/><I>Eh!</I> Sorry, no, logic precedes definition - you can't arrive at a definition using without logic.<BR/><BR/>Fundamentals...<BR/><BR/>;-)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71874823144195993782008-05-21T06:42:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:42:00.000-07:00Van - If I thought the minevian programs were sent...Van - <I>If</I> I thought the <A HREF="http://ingles.homeunix.net/software/minev/" REL="nofollow">minevian</A> programs were sentient, then yes, I'd be a lot more worried about how they are handled. Since I don't think they have anywhere near that many degrees of freedom, morals don't enter into it... yet.<BR/><BR/>Once we get closer to AI, we probably <I>will</I> need ethics committees to vet AI experiments. Potential advantages <I>can</I> outweigh risks, but care should be taken.Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-10344336463014130012008-05-21T06:40:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:40:00.000-07:00(It goes without saying that I had not read Van's ...(It goes without saying that I had not read Van's latest reply while writing my own.)Magnus Itlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18445902788427523461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1151032183069627092008-05-21T06:38:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:38:00.000-07:00One must fervently hope that artificial intelligen...One must fervently hope that artificial intelligence is impossible by the rules of the universe. But just in case, it should be outlawed.<BR/><BR/>The hubris of wanting to create a consciousness, when one does not even understand one's own, is comparable to very few things in human history. It is more on the mythic scale of the Tower of Babel.Magnus Itlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18445902788427523461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-68323303167358645512008-05-21T06:36:00.001-07:002008-05-21T06:36:00.001-07:00mushroom - Yup, with paranoids, everything happens...mushroom - Yup, with paranoids, everything happens because of the Conspiracy. Then there's nomo, where everything, even logic, comes down to God... :->Ray Ingleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16290483120987779339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-87665718998144888522008-05-21T06:36:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:36:00.000-07:00And sorceray, if your ideas of artificial intellig...And sorceray, if your ideas of artificial intelligence are true, don't you risk becoming the negligent and narcistic god to your minevian programs? Or will you excuse yourself from "...substantial duties and responsibilities toward those beings."... you know, allowing mutations, one program destroying another for your amusement, 'struggling' to adapt, etc, since they'll be lessor 'creatures' operating in a different plane - afterall, you just want to create artificial intelligence to see how it turns out, right?Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-68280307871292792162008-05-21T06:31:00.000-07:002008-05-21T06:31:00.000-07:00It was more fun when he was "sorceror".It was more fun when he was "sorceror".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com