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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/16/22 12:44 PM, Marcus Daniels
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:820FAF02-04AB-43DE-A3BC-A6C1F4617E2A@snoutfarm.com">
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Given the how normal extreme inequality is, probably the they/us
distinction is already happening. Technology could accelerate it,
though. <br>
</blockquote>
I think we are in agreement. Technology *has* increased it...
technology *IS* the basis of the increase. It is not that homo
sapiens is evolving, but rather our extended phenotype is.
Whatever evolutionary event(s) equipped us to significantly extend
our phenotype... (all toolmaking/using) and then to do it
*collectively* (readin', 'ritin, 'rithmatik) started this. <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:820FAF02-04AB-43DE-A3BC-A6C1F4617E2A@snoutfarm.com">Some
people will have direct and indirect cognitive assists, some will
have designer babies and some won’t, etc.</blockquote>
And of course, the relatively new ability to modify the genome
*directly* is yet another significant qualitative change in this.
Selective breeding is probably at least as old in humans as it is in
domestic animals. I believe Sarbajit has spoken to this from his
own personal heritage.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:820FAF02-04AB-43DE-A3BC-A6C1F4617E2A@snoutfarm.com">
Over a few generations we might not really recognize one another.</blockquote>
We already have a hard time "recognizing one another" *without* any
more technological enhancement than shared language, basic literacy,
advanced education, access to advanced materials and tooling,
economics as our "differences". A great deal of our inability to
"recognize one another", however seems to be a form of willful
ignorance/ignorant willfulness... and that I believe is something
of a choice... not a simple one... but a choice... a personal one
and a (sub)cultural one. In principle, I think this is the
fundamental feature that distinguishes the "conservative" from the
"liberal" in the US... maybe throughout the West (or across all
"advanced civilizations")? <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:820FAF02-04AB-43DE-A3BC-A6C1F4617E2A@snoutfarm.com">
Whether that is utopian or dystopian or neither is subjective.<br>
</blockquote>
<p>To "nationalists" and other stylizations of "chauvanists" it
(inability to recognize one another) is likely utopian, to those
seeking/celebrating diversity and inclusion it seems more
complex. The Nazis seemed to believe that the only way for
humanity to move forward was to dominate and then exterminate
everyone who didn't fit their narrow definition of "the
ubermenchen".</p>
<p>In the spirit of "might makes right", I am highly mistrustful of
the "might" of technological leverage. While I often present as
a full-on luddite, those of you who know me well, also recognize
that I've got a strong substrate of techno-utopian as the backdrop
for that. I can hardly hear of a new technology without getting
excited at "all the ways this could make lives more better, or at
least undermine the arbitrarily large suite of insults that we
currently endure. Unfortunately many of these are the unintended
consequence of a previous turn of this very same crank and to turn
the crank another time is to risk the Red Queen paradox, turning
the crank faster and faster, just to keep ahead of the unintended
consequences nipping at our heels (dragging us down and eating
us).</p>
<p>So the (a) question is if it is "inevitable", how do we exercise
our own agency to find our way through this rapidly changing
landscape? Do I defer to the Kurzweils/Diamandis/Musks to "lead
me" into that landscape (and more to the point, push my
grand/children forward into it)? Who might I seek out who has a
better vantage than I in such navigations? </p>
<p>My latest candidates for hints in this direction include Dietrich
Bonhoeffer (anti-nazi theologian) and <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bridle#cite_note-5">James
Bridle</a> (contemporary artist/writer)</p>
<p>- Steve</p>
<p>PS. Or is the landscape metaphor flawed? I only see a
"hellride" in the Zelazny-Amber sense... riding across a
multiverse manifold stretched roughly between the poles of Logos
and Chaos? probably an image only DaveW and Glen have references
for?<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:820FAF02-04AB-43DE-A3BC-A6C1F4617E2A@snoutfarm.com">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<blockquote type="cite">On Sep 16, 2022, at 10:31 AM, Steve
Smith <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"><sasmyth@swcp.com></a> wrote:<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<p>Responding first to Marcus point:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I think there will be a transition toward a more
advanced form of life, but I don’t think there will be a
clear connection between how they think and how humans
think. Human culture won’t be important to how they
scale, but may be relevant to a bootstrap."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I believe we are "in transition" toward a more advanced
form of life, though it is hard to demarcate any particular
beginning of that transition. The post/trans-humanists
among us often seem to have a utopian/dystopian urge about
all this that I am resistant to. <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10960.Steven_Kotler">
Kotler's</a> works (Abundance, Rise of the Superman,
Tomorrowland, Art of the impossible, etc.) are
representative of this genre, but since I know him also to
be a grounded, thoughtful, compassionate person, I try hard
to listen between the lines of what normally reads to me as
egoist utopian fantasy. His works are always well
researched and he's fairly good at being clear what is
speculation and what is fact in his writing/reporting, even
though his bias is still a very techno-utopian optimism.</p>
<p>I really liked <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)">
Spike Jonze movie "Her"</a> as a compassionate-utopian
story of a fairly abrupt AI transition/emergence ... a
fantasy by any measure of course, but an interesting twist
on compassionate abandonment by our "children".</p>
<p>With Glen's re-statements, I found specifically the
following:</p>
<p>Simulation in place of Symbols - I don't know all that
Marcus intended or Glen imputes with this but I think it
might be very important in some fundamental way. I wonder
at the possibility that this fits into Glen's stuck-bit
about "episodic" vs "diachronic" identity (and experience?)
modes.</p>
<p>I haven't been able to parse the following very completely
and look forward to more discussion?<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>- percolation from concrete, participative, perceptual
intuition and imagination (or perhaps the inverse, a
wandering from abstract/formal *toward* embodiment as we
see with the rise of GANs, zero-shot, and online learning
AI)
<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and in fact, all of these as well... good stuff.<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><br>
- a more heterarchical, high-dimensional, or high-order
understanding of "fitness costs" - fitness of fitnesses
<br>
- holes or dense regions in a taxonomy of SAMs - including
my favorite: cross-species mind-reading
<br>
- game-theoretic (infinite and meta-gaming) logics of
cognition (including simulation of simulation and fitness
of fitnesses)
<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I introduced "deictec error" because I think it is maybe
core to *my* struggles with this whole topic, so I'm glad
Glen referenced it, and also look forward to possibly more
discussion of that in regard to the rest.</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/16/22 10:25 AM, glen∉ℂ
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:d7a369e9-0377-8edc-cf10-40d23b3c030e@gmail.com">
I do see us trying to identify the distinguishing markers of
... "cognition we can't imagine". That's fantastic. I'll try
to collate some of them going backwards from Marcus':
<br>
<br>
- novelty - dissimilarity from "cognition as we know it" <br>
- graded separation from human culture/sociality <br>
- simulation in place of symbols (I failed to come up with a
better phrase) <br>
- accelerated look-ahead <br>
- percolation from concrete, participative, perceptual
intuition and imagination (or perhaps the inverse, a
wandering from abstract/formal *toward* embodiment as we see
with the rise of GANs, zero-shot, and online learning AI)
<br>
- a more heterarchical, high-dimensional, or high-order
understanding of "fitness costs" - fitness of fitnesses
<br>
- holes or dense regions in a taxonomy of SAMs - including
my favorite: cross-species mind-reading
<br>
- game-theoretic (infinite and meta-gaming) logics of
cognition (including simulation of simulation and fitness of
fitnesses)
<br>
<br>
It seems like all these are attempts to at least
circumscribe what we can know about what we can imagine. And
if so, it's like a convex hull beyond which is what we can't
imagine. I wanted to place "deictic error" in there. But it
seems to apply to several of the other categories. In
particular, part of Dave and SteveS' irritation with the
arrogance of abstraction is that symbols only ever *hook* to
their groundings. Logics over those symbols may or may not
preserve the grounding. Like the rather obvious idiocy of
classical logic suggesting that anything can be concluded
from inconsistent premises. When/if an entity can fully
replace all shunted/truncated symbols with (perhaps
participatory) simulations, it might reach the tight
coupling with the simulated (possible) worlds in the same
way Dave implies we couple tightly (concretely) with our
(actual) world.
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 9/15/22 21:16, Marcus Daniels wrote: <br>
<blockquote type="cite">I think there will be a transition
toward a more advanced form of life, but I don’t think
there will be a clear connection between how they think
and how humans think. Human culture won’t be important to
how they scale, but may be relevant to a bootstrap. I
would be surprised if compression, deconstruction, and
reductionism went unused by this species. I would be
surprised if such a species would struggle with
quantification. I would also be surprised if they did
not use simulation in place of symbols. I think they
will have dreams of entire human lives, of the rise and
fall of nations, and regard our aspirations like I regard
my dog dreaming of her encounters at the park.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">On Sep 15, 2022, at 4:11 PM, Prof
David West <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm"
moz-do-not-send="true">
<profwest@fastmail.fm></a> wrote: <br>
<br>
<br>
Just to be clear, I have zero antipathy towards Wolpert
or his efforts at steelmanning. I think Wolpert does an
excellent job of phrasing as questions what I perceive
"Scientists" and "Computationalists" to merely assert as
Truth. I have long tilted at that particular windmill
and I applaud Wolpert, and glen for bringing him to our
attention, for exposing the assertions such that counter
arguments might be made.
<br>
<br>
And when it comes to "computationalism" and AI; I know
it is not the 1970s and things have "advanced"
significantly. And although I do not comprehend the
details as well as most of you, I do understand
sufficiently, I believe, to advance the claim that they
are suffering from the exact same blind spot (with
variable details) as Simon and Newell, et. al. who
championed GOFAI. Plus you all have heard of Simon and
Newell but most of you are unfamiliar with McGilchrist
and similar contemporary critics.
<br>
<br>
My antipathy toward "Scientists" and "Computationalists"
arises from what I perceive as an absolute refusal to
credit any science, math, or ways/means of
acquiring/expressing knowledge and understanding other
than theirs. Dismissing neolithic and pre-modern science
is one example. Failing to acknowledge the intelligence
(and probably SAM) of other species—especially
octopi—simply because they do not build atomic bombs or
computers, is another.
<br>
<br>
A really good book that would inform a discussion of
Wolpert's questions, #4 in particular, is: /Other Minds:
The Octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of
consciousness/, by Peter Godfrey-Smith. A blurb
follows.
<br>
<br>
/Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the
smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear
that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also
sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods,
consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all
the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to
identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring
tanks for food, turn off light bulbs by spouting jets of
water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it
that a creature with such gifts evolved through an
evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own?
What does it mean that evolution built minds not once
but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will
come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn
from the encounter? / <br>
<br>
davew <br>
<br>
<br>
On Thu, Sep 15, 2022, at 12:22 PM, Steve Smith wrote: <br>
>>There is some kind of diectic error in our
response. <br>
> <br>
> Korrekshun - "deictic" <br>
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