Those were some very helpful links, nicolas, thanks.
loser wrote:I also appreciate the quotes from philosophers, which I have always considered to be some of the best material on this site.
They obviously are. It couldn't possibly be otherwise. In fact they are not merely the best material
on this site: they are the best material
on this planet.
loser wrote:If my reading of this thread is correct, the consensus seems to be that the singularity is possible -- that is, we can't prove that it's impossible. But the questions of Searle's "causal powers", the link between aging and maturity, and AI suicide, remain unanswered to my satisfaction. Can we be quite sure that an AI or an augmented human cannot exhibit "causal powers" or increasing maturity?
Oh, I am sure it can. But it would have to be
simulated causal powers, simulated maturity. Not faked --
simulated. And what is simulation?
Baudrillard wrote:By crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor that of truth, the era of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials -- worse: with their artificial resurrection in the systems of signs, a material more malleable than meaning, in that it lends itself to all systems of equivalences, to all binary oppositions, to all combinatory algebra. It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes. Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself -- such is the vital function in a system of death, or rather of anticipated resurrection, that no longer even gives the event of death a chance. A hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and for the simulated generation of differences.
I realize it is a very difficult passage, but I have bolded the key points for you. It is from Baudrillard's essay "Simulations", the story of which is partly related
here, and which was later included in the collection of essays titled "Simulacra and Simulation", an essential text for anyone wishing to understand what videogames are all about:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9Z9biH ... ry_r&cad=0loser wrote:Wittgenstein's and Baudrillard's writings seem particularly interesting to me, though also the hardest to understand. I'm not confident that I have any grasp of the issues they are trying to explain.
You need to start with Nietzsche, as I have explained
here. There is really no other way. Most of Nietzsche is perfectly comprehensible, and the few parts that aren't turn out -- surprise, surprise -- to be the ones dealt with by Wittgenstein and Baudrillard. But you need to start at the beginning. You may still end up not understanding (like, say, Kurzweil, Hawking, Gates, and most other human beings), but that is beyond your control. I explain why in the first few pages of my book. The idea is that a person's level of intelligence is not just dependent on the capacity of his brain (as Searle more or less says) but also on the capacities
of the rest of his body. To give an example. Both squirrels and hawks have brains that function much like ours, and are therefore intelligent animals. But a squirrel could never understand what it feels like to fly, no matter how many books by Nietzsche or Baudrillard you gave it to read. The hawk, on the other hand, could probably understand the squirrel with a bit of imagination, if it really wanted to.
loser wrote:There is a book out called "Are we spiritual machines" where Searle and Kurzweil debate consciousness. Searle maintains that consciousness can only arise from a biological process, while Kurzweil postulates that it could equally well arise from an electronic process of similar scope. Kurzweil believes that advanced AI will claim that it is conscious in the same way that present-day humans do, but admits that this is not a philosophical argument about consciousness. To the best of my knowledge, the issue has not yet been satisfactorily resolved, and perhaps never will: whether one believes Searle's view or Kurzweil's, a leap of faith is needed.
If you manage to understand the distinction between reality and simulation, you will also understand that this whole issue is a largely unimportant one. Why should anyone really lose any sleep over this? Can consciousness equally well arise from an "electronic" and a "biological" process? It's all the same in the end -- even Philip K. Dick understood this, and he was no philosopher. You won't find Baudrillard wasting his brainpower trying to figure this one little detail out, because he is smart enough to see that -- in the large scheme of things, which is what interests him -- it doesn't matter.
loser wrote:This question is key to the issue of mind uploading: what if you dispose of the original wetware human and the mind copy won't inherit its consciousness?
If you could only see how pathetic these kinds of questions seem to real philosophers. Do you know what lies behind this question? Fear. The fear of geriatric scientists longing for immortality. But we play games. We know that immortality has nothing to offer us. It would degrade the game.
loser wrote:However, even if advanced AI eventually decided to commit suicide, it could still have a profound impact on society by allowing non-augmented humans to utilize its copious inventions in areas such as medicine, transportation and communications.
"Inventions in medicine, transportation and communications", lol. With a view to "improving" mankind's quality of life, no doubt. Here, have some more philosophy:
Nietzsche wrote:To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures.
Nietzsche wrote:You want, if possible - and there is no more insane "if possible" - to abolish suffering. And we? It really seems that we would rather have it higher and worse than ever. Well-being as you understand it - that is no goal, that seems to us an end, a state that soon makes man ridiculous and contemptible - that makes his destruction desirable. The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far?
Nietzsche wrote:I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day become more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.
Nietzsche wrote:If we are philosophers, we Hyperboreans, it seems in any case that we are so differently from how one erstwhile was a philosopher. We are absolutely no moralists... We don't believe our ears when we hear them speak, all these erstwhile ones. "Here is the way to happiness" -- with that every one of them jumps toward us, with a recipe in their hands and with unction in their hieratic mouths. "But what do we care about happiness?" -- we ask, completely astonished. "Here is the way to happiness", they continue, these holy scream-devils: "and this here is virtue, the new way to happiness!"... But we ask you, Sirs! What do we at all care about your virtue! For what do the likes of us then step aside, become philosophers, become rhinos, become cave bears, become ghosts? Is it not in order to be rid of virtue and happiness? -- We are by nature much too happy, much too virtuous, to not find a small temptation in becoming philosophers: that is to say immoralists and adventurers... We have a personal curiosity about the labyrinth, we endeavour to make the acquaintance of Mr. Minotaur, of whom people say that he is dangerous: what does your way up matter to us? And your rope that leads out? that leads to happiness and virtue? that leads to you, I fear... You want to save us with your rope? -- And we, we implore you to hang yourselves with it!...