Re: [agi] Mindlessness.

[Stanley Nilsen]

I've thought about the Godlike computer and decided it's beyond my pay grade to figure it out.  There are a couple of differences when you "believe" in a God entity. 1. your view of yourself     It is humbling to think that we created with a purpose and hope.  That we may be simple creatures meant to engage this world and find deeper meaning - that enriches us.  We should realize that "greatness" in men (and women) is far from great in the overall scheme of things. 2. your relationship with the Godlike  computer.     Seeing ourselves as simple elements given life, we can be thankful and grateful when things turn out well.  And when they aren't so well, we realize our view and understanding are not adequate to get the full picture. About "free will" -    Arguments about free will are mostly about words - what is it to be free and what is it to have a will - I don't intend to address that - leave it to the philosophers - unless it becomes a design issue with AGI. But along those lines, what if the human brain is so simple that even a child can understand it?  What if the words we have used for hundreds of years are adequate to talk about the brain and allow people to "program" their brain?  It slightly shifts the responsibility for our life outcomes from "chance" to self. As a final thought - I like the saying that our lives are God's gift to us, and what we do with them is our gift to Him (or Her -  for the benefit of the easily offended.) (per google:  "Hans Urs von Balthasar quotes Showing 1-30 of 87. “What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.” On 5/23/20 6:02 AM, Matt Mahoney wrote: On Thu, May 21, 2020, 5:25 PM Stanley Nilsen <senil...@ghvalley.net> wrote: I don't see how belief in the possibility AI is reason to reject the "Creator" vision of existence.   Let's not confuse gods with religion. It is perfectly plausible that a godlike computer solves a set of simple physics equations with 10^120 terms to create the universe you observe. Or maybe a smaller computer with a more complex program simulates your mind and all your sensory experiences. There is no experiment you can perform that could prove or disprove either hypothesis. The best you can do is philosophise that if Occam's Razor is true then the former is more likely, and if not true then you can't know anything. You can't test for being in a simulation because no computer can model the computer that models it, because only one can contain all of the information about the other. But we can experimentally test for belief in consciousness, qualia, and free will. The beliefs require no new physics beyond ordinary computation with neurons. Since that is all we can test for, I am satisfied with that explanation. Artificial General Intelligence List / AGI / see discussions + participants + delivery options Permalink