[ExI] Why do the language model and the vision model align?

[John Clark]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 5:59 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

* > If we take, for an example, Beauty (or Justice, or Homesickness, etc.,
> etc.), Plato's philosophy regards it as a real thing, that exists
> somewhere, somehow, independently of human minds. My philosophy, and I
> suspect (or at least hope) that of most sensible people, holds that it is
> not.*


*I agree. I too think beauty, justice and homesickness are entirely
subjective, but that's OK because subjectivity is the most important thing
in the universe. Or at least it is in my opinion.  *

>
* > Another category contains things like the number 4. That's an abstract
> concept, but it could be argued that it represents something that 'really'
> exists, as in, it can be said to be an objective property *


*If there is one and only one fundamental layer of underlying reality (and
not an infinite number of layers) then the number 4 would be part of it. I
think a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for being truly
fundamental is that it does not have a unique location in space or of time;
the number 4 doesn't, and neither does consciousness. *


> *> of certain collections of things.*
>

*In the case of consciousness the "collection of things" are bits, and
consciousness is the way bits feel when they are being processed
intelligently. And that's about all one can say about consciousness. And
that's why I'm much more interested in intelligence than consciousness.*

 > *Does Colour 'really' exist, in a Platonic sense?*


*Yes, because if there's one thing that we (or at least I) can be
absolutely certain of its that subjectivity exists, and the experience of
color is part of that. Thus, IF there is a fundamental reality (and not an
infinity of layers) THEN color is part of it.  *

>
* > It's hardly surprising that thinking systems would converge on
> efficient ways of representing what exists in the real world,*


*What's surprising to me is that an AI that was only trained on words can
converge on ANYTHING, let alone to something congruent to the real world.
If we had access to an extra terrestrial's library that was huge but
contained no pictures, just 26 different types of squiggles arranged into
many trillions of words, I don't see how we could ever make any sense out
of it, I don't see how we could ever write a new sentence in ET's language
that was not only grammatically correct but also expressed an idea that was
true and non-trivial; but somehow an AI could. Don't ask me how.*

* John K Clark*
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