[extropy-chat] Reading "The Singularity is Near"

Marc Geddes m_j_geddes at yahoo.com.au
Fri Sep 23 07:25:11 UTC 2005


>On the contrary, IMHO such a desired AI should instead understand that
>it is a flawed, imperfect being, a unique, freak, and yet happy
>accident that cannot, no matter how intelligent it is, consider itself
>the be-all, end-all. As it is the creation of flawed beings, so too is
>it flawed and must focus on its own improvement with acceptance that
>perfection is likely unattainable, and thus perfect understanding of
>the true nature of mind is similarly unattainable.
>
>Mike Lorrey
>Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
>Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
>http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
>Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com
 
Yeah, I don't disagree with ya Mike.  I didn't mean to imply that an understanding of the true nature of mind required perfect understanding.  Just a grasp of the general principles.
 
Perhaps I shouldn't use the expression 'Theory Of Everything' (TOE).  Too much hubris.  People misinterpret.  Also too much of an association with cranks and crack-pots.  In place of TOE I've started using the expression TOM (Theory Of Metaphysics) instead.
 
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If you start looking at animals and move up the chain in the direction of increasing intelligence , increasing intelligence *is* correlated with increased *awareness* in some sense.  Rocks have no (or almost no) awareness.  Lower animals, a few very complex computer programs and human infants probably have some degree of awareness of the external world but little or no self-awareness.  It's only once you get to the higher animals and humans that you see awareness of the both the world and some degree of self-awareness emerging.  So it seems you can classify minds in general according to their degree of awareness.  
 
Now what sort of awareness would a transhuman have then?  I note that even humans don't have *full* self-awareness and self-knowledge.  So the first idea that occurs is that transhumans are defined by the capacity for full self-awareness and self-knowledge.  But further thought suggests that this is not sufficient.  Even full-self-awareness and self-knowledge is still the same *kind* of awareness of we humans already have - just better developed.  
 
What we need is an idea for a qualitatively *new* kind of awareness, something that goes beyond mere 'self-awareness'.
 
The idea that occurred to me is that the new kind of awareness involves the connection (or relationship) between Mind and Reality. 
 
Mind------*relationship*--------Reality
 
So transhuman awareness might be an awareness of this *relationship*  And an awareness of this relationship constitutes an understanding of the *true* nature of mind.  This understanding doesn't have to be perfect.  Just sufficient. 
 
Now it just so happens that Reality theorists (or people trying to derieve 'Theories of Everything') have in fact been trying to work out the nature of this relationship between Mind and Reality.  So it would seem that to design an FAI we should study Reality Theory to try to get an insight.
 
All this was obvious to me a couple of years ago.  Hence my decision to study Reality Theory.  Now I think I've finally managed to catch an inkling (a mere glimmer only of course) of what the nature of this relationship between Mind and Reality might be.  By doing so, I have caught a *glimmer* of what transhuman awareness might be like.  Of course as a mere human I can never obtain full awareness of the TOE.  But even a *glimmer* is enough.  This is analogous to a monkey perhaps catching a *glimmer* of what human self-awareness might be like, without the monkey ever being able to obtain proper self-awareness.
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 


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http://www.riemannai.org

Science, Sci-Fi and Philosophy

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THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,  
  For, put them side by side,  
The one the other will include  
  With ease, and you beside. 

-Emily Dickinson

'The brain is wider than the sky'
http://www.bartleby.com/113/1126.html
		
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