S
smcder
Guest
*sigh*
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2
- Thread starter Tyger
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*sigh*
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smcder
Guest
Have a link?
Can you flesh out that idea? (no wit intended)
Which beings? Fully artificial ones? Virtual beings? Hybrids?
Re the rest of that sentence, it's also possible that pigs might fly. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some group of genetic engineers isn't working on that project as we speak. You expect a brave new world. I expect mental and physical disorders on a scale not yet seen.
? Hmm. I wonder if a subconscious nihilism might be playing a guiding role in the visions of the computer and genetic engineers pushing their brave new posthuman world.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
If Creationism is true then this must certainly be the case... Unless you think God/gods evolved and we were created. But if we *must* have been created, then one can argue that god/gods *must* have been created, ergo we're all AI!
And if we were created simple to please god (according to Modern Christianity) how is that different from artwork?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
No but I knew you guys would want one, d'oh. I'll look for it.
Yes, it will just have to be virtual. A virtual world will need to created with virtual physics, bodies, and brains that processes this virtual world. Is it possible for us now? No. Ever? Who knows. Recall that something our current reality is virtual.
Biocentrism?
I don't expect visitors to be friendly a la American history.
S
smcder
Guest
I don't follow you here or what it's in response to ... ?
I meant *sigh* it's a pretty thought .. Watch the movie "The Painting" if you get a chance.
Tolkien made a distinction between creation which was God's work (Tolkien was Catholic) and sub/ creation ... The work of man and other races.
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smcder
Guest
"If there is a way to recreate the physical body/brain virtually (which there is) that will be the way to do it."
What I was responding to and what I think Constance was responding to was the phrase:
"(which there is)"
So first it seems you are saying there is a way to recreate the physical brain/body virtually. But then you say:
"Yes, it will just have to be virtual. A virtual world will need to created with virtual physics, bodies, and brains that processes this virtual world. Is it possible for us now? No. Ever? Who knows. Recall that something our current reality is virtual."
So there it seems you're not sure ... ?
I read there are billions (trillions?) of bits of information in the environment - I think Jordan Peterson mentions this in a lecture ... so you have to build a computer that can generate as much information as the environment itself? And what about time? Would it be a four billion year simulation? Remember what Gould said about running the tape? Who would write a grant for a four billion year outcome? ;-)
And if you only provide a subset of information ... Well, how would you determine that? You evolved to sort through that information subconsciously if not unconsciously or through reflex or even body design - so which bits do you keep?
And finally then, do you have the responsibility to keep the virtual beings in their box because they would be overwhelmed out here with all this information?
I don't know - there may be good answers - maybe the virtual beings and environment co evolve but then they won't be anything like us.
You might also look up the "noble apes" project:
http://www.nobleape.com
S
smcder
Guest
How does this square with this post:
Consciousness and the Paranormal | The Paracast Community Forums
I hope that link works - I can't seem to copy from Part 1 of the thread because it's locked. In that post you couldn't discuss panentheism because you didn't believe in a god ... So now do you believe in (God/G-d/god)s?
Just trying to follow ...
S
smcder
Guest
A Sense of the Cosmos - Jacob Needleman
Arkana edition 1987
"The fact that we are bedazzled by the pragmatic success of science shows us that when we pursue science our real intentions do not match what we sometimes claim to be searching for. We say we want knowledge about the universe, but we test our knowledge only by its logical consistency, it's power to predict and its production of marvelous feats. Our real intention, therefore, is to satisfy our desires or allay our fears - desire for explanations, a sense of security, or material gain; fear of the unknown, death, pain and loneliness.
We must therefore recognize that there is a great difference between the wish for knowledge and the wish to satisfy desire, which is the basis of pragmatism. And that knowledge in the service of our ordinary desires may produce a very different picture of the universe than knowledge which is connected to other motives."
Arkana edition 1987
"The fact that we are bedazzled by the pragmatic success of science shows us that when we pursue science our real intentions do not match what we sometimes claim to be searching for. We say we want knowledge about the universe, but we test our knowledge only by its logical consistency, it's power to predict and its production of marvelous feats. Our real intention, therefore, is to satisfy our desires or allay our fears - desire for explanations, a sense of security, or material gain; fear of the unknown, death, pain and loneliness.
We must therefore recognize that there is a great difference between the wish for knowledge and the wish to satisfy desire, which is the basis of pragmatism. And that knowledge in the service of our ordinary desires may produce a very different picture of the universe than knowledge which is connected to other motives."
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Theoretically I think it's possible. Maybe humans in the future could do it with quantum computing or some such technology or some other intelligent species that may currently be occupying this universe as well.
Whether or not humans will actually accomplish this feat some day, I don't know. I'm also open to the "vitalist" idea in that artificial living systems may lack some mystical spark that organic life has, but I doubt it as I don't see why this would be the case.
If the goal is an artificial clone of a human, then I'd say the virtual environment, body, and brain would need to be essentially 100% isomorphic to our environment, body, and brain or no more difference than between humans and environments today.
However if the goal is, eh, simply an artificial living system/intelligence, then the virtual world and organism need not be perfectly isomorphic.
If we want a physically, non-virtually embodied AI though, it will need to navigate our physical world. But there would be a trade off with its human-likeness.
If we want a human-like AI, then we must go virtual; if we want an embodied AI, then it/they will be very primitive emotionally and socially — which coupled with immense raw processing speed and access to knowledge will be scary.
Kind of like how humans have been kept confined to Earth...
No, I think you're right. Again, imagine a super intelligent lizard with the ability to augment it's body - nano swarms? - or even move/expand it's mind into the internet/electric grid and/or the quantum foam itself.
I've always thought if it can happen it has happened. That's why I often say there may be entities around us right now constituted of pure energy.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
I didn't read the link but my thinking goes like this:
This is my experience of reality, and based on this experience, I believe a God or gods may exist.
This is opposed to:
I know God exists, therefore reality must be thus...
Does that make sense?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Here's the article about social, emotional, and general intelligence and brain structures/regions.
Medical Xpress: Team studies the social origins of intelligence in the brain
Medical Xpress: Team studies the social origins of intelligence in the brain
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Hm, so you're going with dogs as having a consciousness most like us and dolphins and cities least like us?
How about cats, worms, and bowling balls? And also, importantly, why? (If you care to share.)
And this question was for anyone, not directed at you per se. Constance? Tyger? Michael?
Burnt State posted a link to this paper in another thread. It's also highly relevant to the questions we've been pursuing here:
"This is an excellent 2003 article: Incommensurability, Orthodoxy
and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena
by Jacques F. Vallee and Eric W. Davis (*)
http://www.jacquesvallee.net/bookdocs/Vallee-Davis-model.pdf
Abstract: The main argument presented in this paper is that the continuing study of unidentified aerial phenomena (“UAP”) may offer an existence theorem for new models of physical reality. The current SETI paradigm and its “assumption of mediocrity” place restrictions on forms of non-human intelligence that may be researched. A similar bias exists in the ufologists’ often-stated hypothesis that UAP, if real, must represent space visitors. Observing that both models are biased by anthropomorphism, the authors attempt to clarify the issues surrounding “high strangeness” observations by distinguishing six layers of information that can be derived from UAP events, namely (1) physical manifestations, (2) anti-physical effects, (3) psychological factors, (4) physiological factors, (5) psychic effects and (6) cultural effects. In a further step they propose a framework for scientific analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena that takes into account the incommensurability problem.
Not only does he tackle this six angled phenomena but he explores some of the anthropocentric, abduction and absurdist features of UAP's."
"This is an excellent 2003 article: Incommensurability, Orthodoxy
and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena
by Jacques F. Vallee and Eric W. Davis (*)
http://www.jacquesvallee.net/bookdocs/Vallee-Davis-model.pdf
Abstract: The main argument presented in this paper is that the continuing study of unidentified aerial phenomena (“UAP”) may offer an existence theorem for new models of physical reality. The current SETI paradigm and its “assumption of mediocrity” place restrictions on forms of non-human intelligence that may be researched. A similar bias exists in the ufologists’ often-stated hypothesis that UAP, if real, must represent space visitors. Observing that both models are biased by anthropomorphism, the authors attempt to clarify the issues surrounding “high strangeness” observations by distinguishing six layers of information that can be derived from UAP events, namely (1) physical manifestations, (2) anti-physical effects, (3) psychological factors, (4) physiological factors, (5) psychic effects and (6) cultural effects. In a further step they propose a framework for scientific analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena that takes into account the incommensurability problem.
Not only does he tackle this six angled phenomena but he explores some of the anthropocentric, abduction and absurdist features of UAP's."
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Off Topic:
Transhumanism and the future of our species has been mentioned. Here's an article about what some futurists have in mind for the entire global ecosystem. Scary.
The Radical Plan To Phase Out Earth's Predatory Species
Transhumanism and the future of our species has been mentioned. Here's an article about what some futurists have in mind for the entire global ecosystem. Scary.
The Radical Plan To Phase Out Earth's Predatory Species
The choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta can split itself into small colonies (“rosettes”) when the right bacteria are around. The first multicellular animals may have done something similar. In the lab, King has seen colonies with as many as 50 cells.
". . .
What intrigued King about choanoflagellates was their lifestyle flexibility. While many live as single cells, some can also form small multicellular colonies. In the species Salpingoeca rosetta, which lives in coastal estuaries, the cell prepares to divide but stops short of splitting apart, leaving two daughter cells connected by a thin filament. The process repeats, creating rosettes or spheres containing as many as 50 cells in the lab. If this all sounds familiar, there’s a reason for it — animal embryos develop from zygotes in much the same way, and spherical choanoflagellate colonies look uncannily like early-stage animal embryos.
When King began studying S. rosetta, she couldn’t get the cells to consistently form colonies in the lab. But in 2006, a student stumbled on a solution. In preparation for genome sequencing, he doused a culture with antibiotics, and it suddenly bloomed into copious rosettes. When bacteria that had been collected along with the original specimen were added back into a lab culture of single choanoflagellates, they too formed colonies. The likely explanation for this phenomenon is that the student’s antibiotic treatment inadvertently killed off one species of bacteria, allowing another that competes with it to rebound. The trigger for colony formation was a compound produced by a previously unknown species of Algoriphagus bacteria that S. rosetta eats.
S. rosetta seems to interpret the compound as an indication that conditions are favorable for group living. King hypothesizes that something similar could have happened more than 600 million years ago, when the last common ancestor of all animals started its fateful journey toward multicellularity. “My suspicion is that the progenitors of animals were able to become multicellular, but could switch back and forth based on environmental conditions,” King said. Later, multicellularity became fixed in the genes as a developmental program."
The missing first half of the above ^ post:
"Where Animals Come From"
By: Kat McGowan
July 29, 2014
"For billions of years, single-celled creatures had the planet to themselves, floating through the oceans in solitary bliss. Some microorganisms attempted multicellular arrangements, forming small sheets or filaments of cells. But these ventures hit dead ends. The single cell ruled the earth.
Then, more than 3 billion years after the appearance of microbes, life got more complicated. Cells organized themselves into new three-dimensional structures. They began to divide up the labor of life, so that some tissues were in charge of moving around, while others managed eating and digesting. They developed new ways for cells to communicate and share resources. These complex multicellular creatures were the first animals, and they were a major success. Soon afterward, roughly 540 million years ago, animal life erupted, diversifying into a kaleidoscope of forms in what’s known as the Cambrian explosion. Prototypes for every animal body plan rapidly emerged, from sea snails to starfish, from insects to crustaceans. Every animal that has lived since then has been a variation on one of the themes that emerged during this time.
How did life make this spectacular leap from unicellular simplicity to multicellular complexity? Nicole King has been fascinated by this question since she began her career in biology. Fossils don’t offer a clear answer: Molecular data indicate that the “Urmetazoan,” the ancestor of all animals, first emerged somewhere between 600 and 800 million years ago, but the first unambiguous fossils of animal bodies don’t show up until 580 million years ago. So King turned to choanoflagellates, microscopic aquatic creatures whose body type and genes place them right next to the base of the animal family tree. “Choanoflagellates are to my mind clearly the organism to look at if you’re looking at animal origins,” King said. In these organisms, which can live either as single cells or as multicellular colonies, she has found much of the molecular toolkit necessary to launch animal life. And to her surprise, she found that bacteria may have played a crucial role in ushering in this new era. . . ."
Did Bacteria Drive the Origins of Animals? | Simons Foundation
"Where Animals Come From"
By: Kat McGowan
July 29, 2014
"For billions of years, single-celled creatures had the planet to themselves, floating through the oceans in solitary bliss. Some microorganisms attempted multicellular arrangements, forming small sheets or filaments of cells. But these ventures hit dead ends. The single cell ruled the earth.
Then, more than 3 billion years after the appearance of microbes, life got more complicated. Cells organized themselves into new three-dimensional structures. They began to divide up the labor of life, so that some tissues were in charge of moving around, while others managed eating and digesting. They developed new ways for cells to communicate and share resources. These complex multicellular creatures were the first animals, and they were a major success. Soon afterward, roughly 540 million years ago, animal life erupted, diversifying into a kaleidoscope of forms in what’s known as the Cambrian explosion. Prototypes for every animal body plan rapidly emerged, from sea snails to starfish, from insects to crustaceans. Every animal that has lived since then has been a variation on one of the themes that emerged during this time.
How did life make this spectacular leap from unicellular simplicity to multicellular complexity? Nicole King has been fascinated by this question since she began her career in biology. Fossils don’t offer a clear answer: Molecular data indicate that the “Urmetazoan,” the ancestor of all animals, first emerged somewhere between 600 and 800 million years ago, but the first unambiguous fossils of animal bodies don’t show up until 580 million years ago. So King turned to choanoflagellates, microscopic aquatic creatures whose body type and genes place them right next to the base of the animal family tree. “Choanoflagellates are to my mind clearly the organism to look at if you’re looking at animal origins,” King said. In these organisms, which can live either as single cells or as multicellular colonies, she has found much of the molecular toolkit necessary to launch animal life. And to her surprise, she found that bacteria may have played a crucial role in ushering in this new era. . . ."
Did Bacteria Drive the Origins of Animals? | Simons Foundation
S
smcder
Guest
"Hm, so you're going with dogs as having a consciousness most like us and dolphins and cities least like us?"
No ... I said Daniel Dennett noted that dogs could be emotionally similar to us ... living with 4-6 dogs at any given time, it seems they maintain two social structures - one involving us (humans) and their own pack mentality - some things they don't get at all, they seem to know we are different creatures, they treat their alpha differently than us and they get confused, so I think they have a sense of how humans feel and think, but have their own view of the world.
I think dolphins are intelligent - but they have a very different environment (they move constantly in three dimensions in a "low gravity" environment) and no hands, and they are naked all the time ... and they use echolocation which is specifically why Nagel picked bats, if I remember, because it was an alien sense (although I have heard of blind people learning to us this) - cities I can play it both ways, people seem to shape and be shaped by the cities they live in - there are prosaic explanations for that of course, but there is a kind of personality there and maybe cities in some way determine their own growth - this made me think of ant colonies. I don't even speculate about cats - as they may be the most alien of all.
Consciousness may be the same throughout, different minds adapt it to different kinds of existence - this can easily be imagined ... I can imagine myself with tentacles, no specific way to detect exactly what position they are in, because there are no joints, but I can imagine developing a kind of new kinesthesia - it would be agonizing at first, but you could learn to control it - like when you first learn a new skill - try this, look down at your toes and try to move each one individually, try to sense them individually, you might not be able to, but in time, I bet you could. Going without shoes for a month could help.
I can imagine being a bee in a colony, a ceaseless hum that rises and falls and is complex, I get information from it, pheromones signaling various things - the heat of the colony, the freedom of flight - the ruthless politics ... consciously we process 4 bits of information at a time (if I remember Jordan Peterson correctly) in an environment with a billion bits of information (a trillion? more?) pressing on us at any time - a bigger question for the MBT is how big of a role the complex consciousness of modern man plays anyway in his everyday behavior? Psychologists say maybe not so much as we'd like to think ... that we are playing out ancient scripts that don't differ much from the Babylonians - (see his "Maps of Meaning" series) - I suspect the Babylonians had a lot of complex things going on in their heads, and with or without the kind of awareness of "self" we'd recognize, they carried on a complex culture. Our four bit consciousness may have a very limited sort of role, useful to focus in on relatively simply tasks like carrying on this dialogue on this thread, very complex tasks like creation of new mathematics, musical composition, etc - don't seem to be fully conscious, in the case of genius, it seems to be almost wholly out of their consciousness and this is true with mathematical genius too - this kind of creation is like a concert pianist in flow, jazz improvisation - but maybe we can expand consciousness and self consciousness - maybe that's the future of humanity, or maybe we put too much emphasis on it - the Greeks certainly had very complex ideas about the structure of the mind and intellect, also the neo-Platonists, qualities and capacities beyond what we call thinking or self consciousness, and qualities we mostly overlook or lump entirely together - this is one reason why Western philosophy returns over and over to Plato and Aristotle.
I suspect dolphins, dogs and even ants have complex things in their heads too - but it seems much more complex things are going on beneath that conscious surface and in the bodies of all creatures and in the environment.
S
smcder
Guest
"And now you, being the father of written letters, have on account of good will said the opposite of what they will do. For this will provide forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it, through the neglect of memory, seeing that, through trust in writing,
they recollect from outside with alien markings, not reminding themselves from inside, by themselves. You have therefore found a drug not for memory, but for reminding. You are supplying the opinion of wisdom to students, not truth. For you’ll see that, having become hearers of much without teaching, they will seem to be sensible judges in much, while being for the most part senseless, and hard to be with, since they’ve become wise in their opinion instead of wise. (274e-275b)"
That's from the Phaedrus - but it's discussing the invention of writing in Egypt - this seems to reflect a sense of self that existed before literacy:
they recollect from outside with alien markings, not reminding themselves from inside, by themselves
I'll see if I can find the original story ...
What dates, references do you have for the MBT? Or key words for search?
I think I've heard it in the Bicameral Mind book and I've heard it referenced here and there and also in paintings from the Middle Ages - the way individuals are portrayed, but I've never seen the argument made in detail.
The above is from an interesting article here:
Convenience, Thought and Technology | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog
they recollect from outside with alien markings, not reminding themselves from inside, by themselves. You have therefore found a drug not for memory, but for reminding. You are supplying the opinion of wisdom to students, not truth. For you’ll see that, having become hearers of much without teaching, they will seem to be sensible judges in much, while being for the most part senseless, and hard to be with, since they’ve become wise in their opinion instead of wise. (274e-275b)"
That's from the Phaedrus - but it's discussing the invention of writing in Egypt - this seems to reflect a sense of self that existed before literacy:
they recollect from outside with alien markings, not reminding themselves from inside, by themselves
I'll see if I can find the original story ...
What dates, references do you have for the MBT? Or key words for search?
I think I've heard it in the Bicameral Mind book and I've heard it referenced here and there and also in paintings from the Middle Ages - the way individuals are portrayed, but I've never seen the argument made in detail.
The above is from an interesting article here:
Convenience, Thought and Technology | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog
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