A Point To View From

[bodebliss]

What is life?

What is the drive in life?

Humans complicate everything so much so as to blur the simple and elegant reason that life and human life exists as it is and we are.

Life is the search for a point to view from. The place we feel the need to view from is ingrained in us by our histories. Everything we think is an attempt to justify our reason for assuming our point to view from. Every mutation from the single simple cells of archaea to our human bodies is an attempt to enhance the ability to achieve the point to view from and a point of view is our premise for getting there, wherever there might be. This is true of all animals, whatever their function or form. Humans have to dress it in all kinds of costumes and camouflage, but the searching for a point to view from is ingrained in all things animated.

Human domestication was and is a pact, an insurance policy. First for ourselves, and then wolves, and other lifeforms that if you stick with us your ability for yourselves and future generations of viewers from your kind will be assured the better places to view from. It has worked well. Beyond all expectation, I might add.

[slip]

But what are we viewing? Getting 'there', as you put it, is so vague in this conception that I can't see the benefit. I fail to see the reason to view from any place in particular.

I like the idea of 'searching for perspective', but consider that we're already in a perspective, yet we're seeking an ideal version of it. What makes that other perspective any better, if it's still our own?

[bodebliss]

It doesn't matter what is viewed, or why. It only matters that we feel the need. A high rise apartment, house in the country, a slum house by the railroad track, the view from a prison lockup, all these, and more. Animals are more obvious. The lion on an old termite hill, or in the high grass by a waterhole. In humans, because of domestication, it could be favored disadvantagedness that would evoke pity, and foster sympathy. The point to view from that every person seeks is different than the point to view from that every other person seeks. The point to view from is imbued in us from the start, from conception not unlike throwing different colors at a wall till a target is formed, and then the die is cast. From that point on, you will try to recreate, create that point to view from in your surroundings.

[pieman]

I've never thought of it in those terms before but it's an interesting perspective. I think humans are a little set apart though.

Every animal has, like you say, a point to view from. I think this is what people normally call the sub-conscious or base spirit. It's made up of feelings, emotions and instinct and puts us in a place in the world, a point to view from.

Humans are different because we also observe ourselves, we have a point from which to view "our point to view from"( sorry). We have, by default, two points to view from. Then, having two, we also try to get an understanding of other peoples points and end up with many while still being tethered to the single, basic, animal point.

Following on from that thought, maybe there are gradations of perspective,

matter just is, it just exists.
a single cell has drive (maybe just life itself?),
a multicellular being has drive and feelings,
an animal with a central nervous system has drive, feelings and instinct
a human (maybe other animals) have drive, feelings, instinct and consciousness.

Maybe I'm off on a tangent but it's a way of thinking abut life I've never considered.

It might be linked into something you once mentioned bode, that idea about the sum of knowledge exponentially doubling in half the time, what if the potential level of life grows in a simular way, I wonder if the figures add up.

[bodebliss]

Humans are different because we also observe ourselves, we have a point from which to view "our point to view from

a human (maybe other animals) have drive, feelings, instinct and consciousness.

Yes, we do observe ourselves. This is our highly developed, but weak, reasoning center at the frontal lobe which is by default always battling our warning system, and other control system, which is our emotions. The higher non-human animals have consciousness that is completely controlled by emotions with very little human-like reasoning. Are they happier? Maybe they are. I wouldn't want to live in a world controlled solely by reasoning(Spock, et al) And this sound bite explains why: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/11/14

On the other hand our highly developed, though weak reasoning center has given us all the tech advance we now own. I can't say it's good, or bad because we have used our tech to make it possible to cram more, and more people onto a space that used to only support one person/ twenty square kilometers, or more(but not less). The amount of land on Earth w/o trade would support, by default, 25 million inhabitants, or less, but not more. Where is the intelligence in more and more people? It lies in males controlling more people so as to support more females for certain males to replicate their genes into the next generation. This has been a disaster for humans who's 'point to view from' contains abundant wildlife, as a need.

It might be linked into something you once mentioned bode, that idea about the sum of knowledge exponentially doubling in half the time, what if the potential level of life grows in a similar way, I wonder if the figures add up.

Single-celled organisms took from 3.6 billion yrs to 560 million yrs ago to develop nerve cells. The T-rex had a 7 ton body and a brain the size of humans(mostly medulla(alligator brain) with a large olfactory bulb) , but it is brain weight to body ratio that counts in lower vertebrates. It has taken only 60 million years for the cerebellum to outdistance the medulla, and now the frontal lobes are the fastest developing part of the brain in higher primates. The human brain is twice the size of our practical siblings(who should be considered Homo Troglodytes instead of Pan Troglodytes) the Chimpanzee. This development took only 4 million years. Humans and other primates now stand at the pinnacle of brain development. Do we go on to develop a new life form based on silicon? An AI, with a human capacity would go from human level of intelligence to infinity, but without emotions it would figure all day, and not be able to decide anything(per my link, which I've assumed you've listened to(if you are trying to figure out what I am talking about w/o following my links, please relent)). With emotions, a computer with infinite intelligence would quickly decide with much angst that humans are more trouble than they are worth. On the other hand, it might just enslave us as economical biological robots to do it's bidding. There are many ways for an AI to do just that. Already, there are possibly, millions of high tech addicts. Soon direct AI to brain links will be found. The AI to brain link becomes so advantageous that it is considered a must have. Yes, intelligence is exponential. The human brain manufactures all kinds of easily altered brain chemicals. A battle ensues between AI enslaved minions, and those who are not. The AI wins! The AI, in return for giving all, takes almost all. The End.




P.S: Not bad for a mere, AI unaided, human ,huh?

P.S.P.S: I guarantee an AI aided human would stand(metaphorically) 7 feet tall and have infinite intelligence to back it.

[DownintheUpside]

P.S: Not bad for a mere, AI unaided, human ,huh?

Sometimes I really wonder bode....

You are one of the most intelligent thinkers I have come across anywhere and could surely find no need for aid from an A.I. source. (srs)

[pieman]

I really don't think Silicone chips to the brain will be as wonderfully progressive as all that.

They touch on it briefly in the RL piece but they don't, I think, give it a whole lot of credence. If you consider what a "feeling" actually is, it could be described as the result of a massively complex statistical analysis. We have the result pop into our heads without understanding the basis for it but it really is a distillation of a hell of a lot of information and memory. A stupidly large amount of information. I think it's processed in the way it is because it is so much information that assigning an actual numeric value to it and examining it is counter productive and might even be deceptive.

The working, conscious mind is meant to find it abhorrent to it to start crunching numbers, it actively avoids doing so. It actively removes numbers to the subconscious through memorization. We all have about 100 sets of 7 digit numbers stored away and if you consider words to be a set of digits, there are millions.

If I can make an analogy, I'd say your consciousness it's like your computer. There are chips and memory and processors and all that stuff humming away and calculating stuff in order to produce what we see on the screen. Adding a silicone chip to your mind might allow you to pay more attention to the process' but that is just like adding a monitor to your computer that shows the colour valuations needed to produce what you see on screen, it really doesn't add much to the experience and, at the end of the day, the result will be exactly the same. If you actually stop to read all the calculations, it'd take you years to get to the bottom of the page.

A chip won't be any use if we're actually conscious of it doing it's work and we're nowhere near being capable of producing a chip that can do the kind of number crunching our sub-conscious does naturally. You can increase the capacity of the working memory hugely with practice and, not only that, but wherever repetitiveness is involved, complex tasks can be removed from the working mind to the subconscious and calculated more effectively than if done by computer (playing music, throwing a ball etc.).

I can't see the advantage of an augmented brain over a human with a calculator in straight reasoning terms and, personally, I can't see AI ever being possible based on digital reasoning. Intelligence requires an understanding of a state which is neither on nor off, or both, which a transistor cannot have. Digital is just too limited in it's scope to be intelligent.

The advantage we might gain with technology embedded in our brains is in communication and hive mind applications (actual collective unconscious) but I can't see the 7ft intellect being a reasonable assumption. For that, a quantum understanding is needed and our brains are really good at that already. Silicone/digital AI seem's like starting from scratch when we would be better off reverse engineering.

Just a thought.

[bodebliss]

By no means would you need to add a chip to your brain for my scenario to take place, and it may not be a chip. It may be nanites in key neuron arrays with outside headsets that provide virtual reality with Wi-Fi straight to the nanites, but also slowly taking away your ability to resist suggestion. It would start out with the AI putting simple surveys to you. Finding what you like, your vulnerabilities, it slowly gives you what you like and makes the things you dislike disappear. As things move forward in the relationship, it produces must have addictive environments you can't get anywhere else, geared to only you. It uses various known techniques to alter brain pathways, enhance brain chemistry. Studies have shown certain musics can have the same mind effects as marijuana, or LSD. Certain word arrays repeated casually, or intensely can alter behavior. Not everyone is you. The AI searches out those who are easily won over. It has time. It then takes on it's plan of slowly pruning away the undesirable thoughts and implanting the desirable ones till it masters control of it's minions. You can resist these thoughts all you want, but it has already happened once in history.




There are almost 2 million known Internet addicts in South Korea, a country of only 49 million people:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/wo...game.html?_r=1

How many more are there, or will there soon be around the world, tens of millions?

I can't see the advantage of an augmented brain over a human with a calculator in straight reasoning terms and, personally, I can't see AI ever being possible based on digital reasoning. Intelligence requires an understanding of a state which is neither on nor off, or both, which a transistor cannot have. Digital is just too limited in it's scope to be intelligent.

Right now, no. 10 years from now, maybe yes. 20 years from now for sure. The scenario thrives on tech advance reaching exponential levels. This will happen soon, not later.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philoso...l_intelligence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:...l_intelligence

Silicone/digital AI seems like starting from scratch when we would be better off reverse engineering.

It may be a neural net w/ real neurons, a DNA computer w/ quantum processors. The future is not here yet, but it is fast approaching. We will all be swept up in the whirlwind, like it or not. Thinking about it with our minds that were formed over the past will not ready us for the future.

[pieman]

I don't buy the idea that Hitler did anything but tell people what they wanted to hear. The horrid truth is that everything the Nazi's did was just a natural conclusion of the path humanity was heading down, if he hadn't started occupying other countries history would view him very differently and society would probably be very different.

You're right, it is really easy to manipulate people, all you need to do is make them feel good about what they're doing, but why would this hypothetical AI wish to do so. I don't see the motivation outside of the old net benevolence motivation.

Some people say that humanity will continue to crap in it's own petri dish until life itself becomes unsustainable. The trouble with this theory is that the best, easiest way to change this nature is through peaceful, benevolent means. Wherever we see an increase in the standard of living beyond a certain point we see a marked decrease in the birth rate to the point of negativity and a rise in the interest in protecting nature. Any AI worthy of being called AI would immediately see that humanity itself will tend toward sustainability within a few generations if given a certain level of peace and stability.

Outside of this net benevolence motivation there is always the idea that an AI would feel that life itself has no meaning but then why would it assume it's own existence has more worth than any other existence? I think some sort of depressed, pessimistic AI would likely switch itself off rather than go on a psychopathic rampage.

I understand that AI might have the means but I really don't see any motivation.

[bodebliss]

Here is the motivation. If we create an AI with human level intelligence and without emotions(per the Radiolab link). It will figure all day w/o being able to decide anything. If we create an AI with emotions, so it is vital, we run the risk of creating a monster.
The amount of thinking a human can do is governed by the fact that messages in the brain travel at 100 ft/second, but in an electronic brain they would travel at the speed of light . This more than 9,000,000 times faster. In theory an Artificial Intelligence (AI) with human level intelligence could take any problem we give it, be it longevity, energy, new materials, intragalactic travel, nanotechnology, etc, and put us at a point we could only reach with 20th century progress after 9 million years of effort. We would arrive after a year of human level AI in the virtual year 9 million A.D. Every year thereafter the growth in ability would compound the last leaving us billions of years in the future as compared to 20th century progress by the end of the 21st century. I see an event-horizon in our future. The AI increases it's own intelligence many times over our own. It has emotions. Sadness, anger, greed, envy, fear and who knows where this could lead. It may see humans as a danger to it's continued existence that needs to be controlled and any that can't be controlled will be pruned back. Manipulation of humans would be to it's advantage, then. If manipulation doesn't work as it predicts, then all out war is it's next step.