ozy

So I have to switch away from cursor? Any recommendations?

I really like the idea of openscad, or this, or the many alternatives. But when I say a shape with these and these dimensions, the next shape should attach to it somewhere. And then I want to say: chamfer all outside edges. But in all these programs, it's me redoing the math in my code, computing where the shape goes. As for chamfers, I just give up ...

Useless unless the logical operators receive their rhs unevaluated. And that is generalized as a language feature.

That is why you cannot ask the room for semantic changes. Like “if I call an umbrella a monkey, and it will rain today, what do I need to bring?”

Unless we suppose those books describe how to implement a memory of sorts, and how to reason, etc. But then how sure are we it’s not conscious?

Maybe consciousness is exactly like simulated fire. It does a lot inside the simulation, but is nothing on the outside.

Most of those are abstractions, but not a runtime overhead. NonNull even enables an optimization not available to most other languages.

And you can wonder, is this accidental complexity? Or is this necessary complexity?

Why do statistics like GDP in absolute numbers?

The only thing that graph shows is that China was dirt poor in 1995, and is now still only at 25-35% of USA levels.

Why would AGI be bound to human made models? Why can it no develop its own?

I think a discussion on induction is best done by splitting the resulting models in two: models based on statistics, and models based on (abstract/iconic) simulation. (Eg all swans are white vs all swans lay eggs.)

Since our reality is "atoms and void", and since the sun and earth are huge configurations of atoms locked together in a stable pattern, the sun coming up tomorrow has nothing to do with statistics. And bayesian reasoning plays no role in our predictions or certainty. At least not directly. It does indirectly, by asking what perturbation, what intervention, can stop this from happening? And how likely are such events?

What we know by experience, by abstraction, or empirically, are three distinct modes of knowing. Experiences are directly known and always true. (Experiences might reference other potentially false things, and might be false indirectly.)

That resolves the whole Mary knowledge problem. Books cannot inject that kind of direct knowledge. Thus the claim "mary knows everything" is either false, or only true for a smaller domain.

One can think of analogies, like tamper resistant logs, or unique CPU states while doing static analysis vs running a program.

All in all, the non-physicalist conclusions are widely overdrawn. More over, for what it is worth, Jackson himself no longer thinks this argument is a good one.

It is a virtual time machine. You can run time forwards, explore various possible futures, then pick the future aligned most with your preferences, capabilities, and taste for risk.

Analogizing with software engineering, this stuff becomes funny:

- software is all about adding numbers, new study finds

- software is all about calling functions, says new theory

- software is all about objects, say scientists

- software is all about virtual machines, according to new discovery

But in this world, consciousness is, at root, a physical phenomenon, not a purely computational phenomenon.

That is entirely unknown. If it were a purely computational phenomenon, it would explain a lot, and nothing in this article argues against it. Except, perhaps, the iron bar mapping. But it seems to miss that a computer program basically defines a causal network. And recognizing and comparing causal networks is much more objective then the thought experiment acknowledges.

FYI: Little kids unpair ikea lamps with ease if there is still a physical switch.

This might be a good thing. There are a few responses possible:

1. Do nothing, public gets angry.

2. Make bitcoin, or its mining, illegal. However, what is the criteria? All blockchains? Should google be illegal too? Both are just a digital product that the public wants.

3. Tax CO2 production by data centers, that might have a chance it can be coordinated broadly between nations, there is enough money there to tax, and bitcoin adds some urgency.

While doubtful CO2 can be taxed globally, without coordination, big companies play governments against each other.

Space is enormous! While our capacity to search it for signs of intelligence is miniscule.

Bending your spacetime frame of reference costs energy because you have to leverage something and change its frame. And you can use your bend spacetime frame to extract energy by bringing it in contact with another frame. But the bending itself, or maintaining it, or changing it, doesn't cost or yield energy.

A cell is a regulator, something that selectively responds to internal and external signals. It doesn't require new math, it requires modeling the signals and responses accurately. But it is a huge, parallel, continuous "state machine".

The problem with an empirical approach is that, when in one state it might respond to an intervention differently than when in another state. Especially if the interventions are at the same level as the signals it normally responds to. (Eg not drowning it in a chemical that inhibits a certain reaction, that will likely always yield the same outcome. But a regulatory hormone might not always yield the same outcome.)

http://onnlucky.com

My musings on consciousness, materialism, information, knowledge, life, the universe. Might not all be correct ;) But I think must will find it quite different from the "normal" views.

It isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_codes

On the other hand, once a certain layer of functionality exists, and starts being used to build on top of, that layer will resist change, because any variation will throw off so many higher level processes it's unlikely to be viable.

Now do the same for the devil:

"The devil, by definition, is that for which no greater evil can be conceived. The devil exists in the understanding. If the devil exists in the understanding, we could imagine him to be greater by existing in reality. Therefore, the devil must exist."

From which it also follows that:

"If the devil doesn't destroy god, we could imagine him to be a greater evil by destroying god. Therefore, the devil must have destroyed god."

At which point we must conclude that it is a shame that theology has captured the minds of so many brilliant people.

The fact that all known life shares a common genetic structure implies a common ancestor.

Or a (local) optimum.

1. rarely does that come up in practical problems 2. for many reasons (and completeness is one) the machine cannot prove the next version is better, thus must discard it

Imagine a database that stores strings using a common prefix method, one could make the same claim: this database does not store or retrieve strings. And yet it does.

The model of what something does is implemented by an underlying mechanism. But for many reasons the mechanism doesn't have to be, and often isn't, a naive translation of the model.

I would want a study that focuses on the opposite: what is the lowest bar a person trying to deliberaty foil such a system can reach. My bet: around 50-150ms.

If you have a theory of consciousness, but it doesn't include something about learning, the theory is incomplete, most likely wrong.

Exactly, one ontology of knowledge is: pointers (names), categories (matchers/recognizers), models (descriptions of systems).

The first two have all the problems philosophers talk about. But the last one does not. Not even underdeterminism, unless the system of the model is fundamental or fades into history or is a "wicked" problem.

Note most gettier cases are plays on our intuitions:

What feels like a pointer is actually a category. That is, it feels like it points to one, but it points to many. Like both examples given here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem .

In either scenario, there can be knowledge about the future, which, paradoxically, might cause that future never to materialize.

I think compute power is what matters, not amount of simulations. Compute power available in simulated realities vs base reality will always be significantly in favor or root reality.

And parsimonious simulation won't work, or would be even easier to detect than what this paper was talking about.