Re: Infinitely Unlikely Coincidences [WAS Re: [singularity] AI critique by Jaron Lanier]
On 2/20/08, Stan Nilsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It seems that when philosophy is implemented it becomes like nuclear physics e.g. break down all the things we essentially understand until we come up with pieces, which we give names to, and then admit we don't know what the names identify - other than broken pieces of something we used to understand when it was whole. My limited experience with those who practice philosophy is that they love to go to the absurd - I suspect this is meant as a means of proof, but often comes across as macho philosophoso. Kind of I can prove anything you say is absurd. I welcome the thoughts of Philosophers. I think most or at least many philosophers, myself included, would actually agree that most of what (usually other) philosophers produce is garbage. Of course, they won't agree about *which* philosophical views and methods are garbage. I would propose that the primary explanation for this is simply that philosophy is really, really hard. It is almost by definition those areas of intellectual inquiry in which there is little established methodology. (I think that is a little overstated since at least in analytic philosophy, there is broad agreement on the logical structure of arguments and rather less broad but growing agreement on the nature of conceptual analysis.) Notice that it is not just philosophers who say stupid stuff in philosophy. Evolutionary biologists, computer scientists, economists, scientists, and just people in general can all be found saying stupid things when they try to venture into ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, etc. In fact, I would say that professional philosophers have a significantly better track record in philosophy than people in general or the scientific community when they venture into philosophy (which may not say very much about their track record on an absolute scale). By the way, I think this whole tangent was actually started by Richard misinterpreting Lanier's argument (though quite understandably given Lanier's vagueness and unclarity). Lanier was not imagining the amazing coincidence of a genuine computer being implemented in a rainstorm, i.e. one that is robustly implementing all the right causal laws and the strong conditionals Chalmers talks about. Rather, he was imagining the more ordinary and really not very amazing coincidence of a rainstorm bearing a certain superficial isomorphism to just a trace of the right kind of computation. He rightly notes that if functionalism were committed to such a rainstorm being conscious, it should be rejected. I think this is true whether or not such rainstorms actually exist or are likely since a correct theory of our concepts should deliver the right results as the concept is applied to any genuine possibility. For instance, if someone's ethical theory delivers the result that it is perfectly permissible to press a button that would cause all conscious beings to suffer for all eternity, then it is no legitimate defense to claim that's okay because it's really unlikely. As I tried to explain, I think Lanier's argument fails because he doesn't establish that functionalism is committed to the absurd result that the rainstorms he discusses are conscious or genuinely implementing computation. If, on the other hand, Lanier were imagining a rainstorm miraculously implementing real computation (in the way Chalmers discusses) and somehow thought that was a problem for functionalism, then of course Richard's reply would roughly be the correct one. --- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: Infinitely Unlikely Coincidences [WAS Re: [singularity] AI critique by Jaron Lanier]
On 2/20/08, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 21/02/2008, John Ku [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the way, I think this whole tangent was actually started by Richard misinterpreting Lanier's argument (though quite understandably given Lanier's vagueness and unclarity). Lanier was not imagining the amazing coincidence of a genuine computer being implemented in a rainstorm, i.e. one that is robustly implementing all the right causal laws and the strong conditionals Chalmers talks about. Rather, he was imagining the more ordinary and really not very amazing coincidence of a rainstorm bearing a certain superficial isomorphism to just a trace of the right kind of computation. He rightly notes that if functionalism were committed to such a rainstorm being conscious, it should be rejected. Only if it is incompatible with the world we observe. I think that's the wrong way to think about philosophical issues. It seems you are trying to import a scientific method to a philosophical domain where it does not belong. Functionalism is a view about how our concepts work. It is not tested by whether it is falisified by observations about the world. Or if you prefer, conceptual analysis does produce scientific hypotheses about the world, but the part of the world in question is within our own heads, something that we ourselves don't have transparent access to. If we had transparent access to the way our concepts work, the task of cognitive science and philosophy and along with it much of AI would be considerably easier. Our best way of testing these hypotheses at the moment is to see whether a proposed analysis would best explain our uses of the concept and our conceptual intuitions. Sometimes, especially with people who have been in the grip of a theory, people can (often only partially) switch what concept is linked to a lexical item and not realize they are (sometimes) using the word differently from others (including their past selves). Then the debate gets much more complicated and may among other things, have to get into the normative issue of which concept(s) we ought to use. Chances are, though, unless the revision was carefully thought out and defended rather than accidentally slipped into, it will not serve the presumably important functions for which we had the original concept. --- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: Infinitely Unlikely Coincidences [WAS Re: [singularity] AI critique by Jaron Lanier]
On 2/18/08, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the way, Lanier's idea is not original. Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Tim Maudlin, Greg Egan, Hans Moravec, David Chalmers (see the paper cited by Kaj Sotola in the original thread - http://consc.net/papers/rock.html) have all considered variations on the theme. At the very least, this should indicate that the idea cannot be dismissed as just obviously ridiculous and unworthy of careful thought. Yes, you've shown either that, or that even some occasionally intelligent and competent philosophers sometimes take seriously ideas that really can be dismissed as obviously ridiculous -- ideas which really are unworthy of careful thought were it not for the fact that pinpointing exactly why such ridiculous ideas are wrong is so often fruitful (as in the Chalmers article). --- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: Infinitely Unlikely Coincidences [WAS Re: [singularity] AI critique by Jaron Lanier]
On 2/17/08, Stathis Papaioannou [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If computation is multiply realizable, it could be seen as being implemented by an endless variety of physical systems, with the right mapping or interpretation, since anything at all could be arbitrarily chosen to represent a tape, a one, a zero, or whatever. Sure, pretty much anything could be used as a symbol to represent anything else, but the representing would consist in the network of causal interactions that constitute the symbol manipulation, not in the symbols themselves. (And certainly not in anyone having to be around to understand the machinery of symbol manipulation going on.) --- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [singularity] AI critique by Jaron Lanier
On 2/17/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nevertheless we can make similar reductions to absurdity with respect to qualia, that which distinguishes you from a philosophical zombie. There is no experiment to distinguish whether you actually experience redness when you see a red object, or simply behave as if you do. Nor is there any aspect of this behavior that could not (at least in theory) be simulated by a machine. You are relying on a partial conceptual analysis of qualia or consciousness by Chalmers that maintains that there could be an exact physical duplicate of you that is not conscious (a philosophical zombie). While he is in general a great philosopher, I suspect his arguments here ultimately rely too much on moving from, I can create a mental image of a physical duplicate and subtract my image of consciousness from it, to therefore, such things are possible. At any rate, a functionalist would not accept that analysis. On a functionalist account, consciousness would reduce to something like certain representational activities which could be understood in information processing terms. A physical duplicate of you would have the same information processing properties, hence the same consciousness properties. Once we understand the relevant properties it would be possible to test whether something is conscious or not by seeing what information it is or is not capable of processing. It is hard to test right now because we have at the moment only very incomplete conceptual analyses. --- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [singularity] AI critique by Jaron Lanier
On 2/16/08, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would prefer to leave behind these counterfactuals altogether and try to use information theory and control theory to achieve a precise understanding of what it is for something to be the standard(s) in terms of which we are able to deliberate. Since our normative concepts (e.g. should, reason, ought, etc) are fundamentally about guiding our attitudes through deliberation, I think they can then be analyzed in terms of what those deliberative standards prescribe. I agree. I prefer the approach of predicting what we *will* do as opposed to what we *ought* to do. It makes no sense to talk about a right or wrong approach when our concepts of right and wrong are programmable. I don't quite follow. I was arguing for a particular way of analyzing our talk of right and wrong, not abandoning such talk. Although our concepts are programmable, what matters is what follows from our current concepts as they are. There are two main ways in which my analysis would differ from simply predicting what we will do. First, we might make an error in applying our deliberative standards or tracking what actually follows from them. Second, even once we reach some conclusion about what is prescribed by our deliberative standards, we may not act in accordance with that conclusion out of weakness of will. Allowing for the possibility of genuine error is one of the big tasks to be accomplished by a theory of intentionality. Take an example from our more ordinary concepts, though the same types of problems will arise for our deliberative standards. If I see a cow in the night and my concept of horse fires, what makes it the case that this particular firing of 'horse' is an error? Why does my concept horse really only correctly refer to horses rather than the disjunction horses-or-cows-in-the-night? (Although I earlier mentioned that I think Dretske's information theoretic semantics is probably the most promising theory of intentionality, it is at the moment unable to deliver the right semantics in the face of these types of errors.) I actually think the second difference poses a very similar type of problem. What makes it the case that we sometimes really do act out of weakness of will rather than it being the case that our will really endorsed that apparent exception in this particular case while presumably endorsing something different the rest of the time? --- singularity Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/11983/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/11983/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604id_secret=96140713-a54b2b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Re: [singularity] Friendly question...
I would feel relieved if there was miscommunication between us. I was mostly concerned with the issue of what we *should* care about and what cares we *should* be acting upon. If you are simply talking about some cognitive biases we have that you concede ought to be overcome (or that we ought to try to overcome to whatever extent possible), then great, it sounds like we don't really have much of a disagreement, except perhaps on some details. John Ku On 5/27/07, Samantha Atkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It was not perhaps so simple as you are portraying it. There is deep EP programming behind caring about human beings that puts it partially beyond conscious choice changeable by new information. However, our EP also includes quite a bit of xenophobia against those perceived as not us. EP xenophobic tendencies that haven't been sufficiently overcome do a good job of explaining racism. I think you may be overly focusing on the roles of conscious thought and individual history. While conscious thought and work is required to overcome suboptimal responses and attitudes it is important to acknowledge the less conscious and more ingrained aspects of the problem. . That part of what I wrote would seem to require the least clarification. What are you asking? I was referring to the occassional intellectual dissociation as if we were already uploads or otherwise disembodied or no longer human. From this false Olympian perspective we reason about what we should care about. We think we are being intellectually and ethically cleaner when we do so. Yet from a more humble perspective we are literally sawing away at the branch we are sitting on. Actually, at this point in our technological development their well-being obviously does depend on the continuation of biological humanity.Even with not yet available uber-tech their well-being will depend on some means of perserving the matrix within which such beings can exist, whatever that matrix may come to be. . I am not confused at all. Perhaps you are as to what I was writing about. My apologies if I did not communicate with sufficient clarity. . Genes per se are just mechanism. Continued existence of humanity is important regardless of what the mechanism is or becomes. By evolutionary dead end I meant something that could perhaps be less confusing to you if I had wrote developmental dead end of this particular species of intelligent being. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604user_secret=7d7fb4d8
[singularity] Why We are Almost Certainly not in a Simulation
Hi everyone! I just joined this discussion list, which looks great by the way. I'm a philosopher by trade (mostly working on what we mean by things like 'reasons', 'ought's and 'values'), but I read a lot of science, including singularity stuff, in my spare time. I actually think there is reason to think we are not living in a computer simulation. From what I've read, inflationary cosmology seems to be very well supported. (Early exponential expansion of the universe explains things like observed flatness, homogeneity across distances, rarity of magnetic monopoles, and scale invariance of primordial density fluctuations.) Mathematical models of inflation point towards the process being eternal. There is some energy in space-time itself, which when dense enough causes expansion of space-time. But since that space-time will also have that vacuum energy, it fuels the expansion even more making it an exponential process. (Total energy is conserved because it is counterbalanced by gravity.) The upshot is that you have this multiverse expanding exponentially. Certain regions of it will, through quantum fluctuations, decay into a lower vacuum energy state that slows down the expansion and turns that energy into ordinary matter and energy. Thus, we get a universe like our's. Any spacetime regions that undergo decay, however, is more than made up for by the exponential expansion. Every second, there are 10^37 *more* universes being born than there were before. Thus, at any given time, the vast majority of the universes that exist are very young. So, I grant that it is *possible* that we are in a universe in which some other civilization has evolved enough to run simulations and we are just living in that simulation. But it will take a *lot* of seconds for that civilization to evolve. And each second, it will be vastly outnumbered by younger universes. The anthropic principle says to place an equal probability on being an observer with the same evidence set as you. Since there are so many more observers with these observations who are living in the real world rather than a simulation (given that young universes predominate), we have most reason to believe we are not in a simulation. I think this could also explain why we have not seen alien civilizations. Among all the universes in which there are observers who share our evidence set about our history, evolution, etc., there will be many more universes in which we were the first civilization to evolve than in which we came significantly after some other civilization. John Ku Philosophy Graduate Student University of Michigan http://www.umich.edu/~jsku On 3/1/07, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Jef Allbright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 3/1/07, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- Jef Allbright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 3/1/07, Matt Mahoney [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What I argue is this: the fact that Occam's Razor holds suggests that the universe is a computation. Matt - Would you please clarify how/why you think B follows from A in your preceding statement? Hutter's proof requires that the environment have a computable distribution. http://www.hutter1.net/ai/aixigentle.htm So in any universe of this type, Occam's Razor should hold. If Occam's Razor did not hold, then we could conclude that the universe is not computable. The fact that Occam's Razor does hold means we cannot rule out the possibility that the universe is simulated. Matt - I think this answers my question to you, at least I think I see where you're coming from. I would say that you have justification for saying that interaction with the universe demonstrates mathematically modelable regularities (in keeping with the principle of parsimony), rather than saying that it's a simulation (which involves additional assumptions.) Do you think you have information to warrant taking it further? - Jef There is no way to know if the universe is real or simulated. From our point of view, there is no difference. If the simulation is realistic then there is no experiment we could do to make the distinction. I am just saying that our universe is consistent with a simulation in that it appears to be computable. One disturbing implication is that the simulation might be suddenly turned off or changed in some radical way you can't anticipate. You really don't know anything about the world in which the simulation is being run. (The movie The Matrix is based on this idea). Maybe the Singularity has already happened and what you observe as the universe is part of the resulting computation. My argument is that if the universe is simulated then these possibilities are unlikely. My reasoning is that if we know nothing about this computation then we should assume a universal Solomonoff prior, i.e. a universal Turing machine programmed by random coin flips. This is what Hutter did to solve the problem of rational agents
