Could Deep Blue play a smarter AI ?

[KrikkitTwo]

Or :

3. You can go back in time infinitely, just as you can go forward in time infinitely. This happens to be my view of the universe. It's pretty consistant with the observations and you can't prove it wrong, so i think it's a very likely scenario.
.

Actually Scientifically that is generally not regarded as valid, entropy and so forth preventing an infinite sequence, Logically however its OK.

 

[warpus]

No we don't have to assume anything. It can't be proven either way at the moment. I'll be content with knowing that it cannot be proven. I won't assume either way.

This is where our position differs, I think. You don't assume either way and insist that any positive claim is proven, supernatural or not (correct me if I'm wrong).

I have seen many people in the past attribute the supernatural to events such as volcanos, floods, childbirth, luck, plagues, earthquakes, etc. and each one of those times it was eventually proven that the supernatural has NOTHING to do with any of the things I listed (and many more). In fact, there is no evidence at all that the supernatural even exists, in any sort of way.

So you might say that we don't have any evidence either way. My point is that we have no reason to believe that the supernatural even exists. On top of all that, human history is full of individuals attributing the supernatural to natural events.. sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of .. well, who knows.

So when somebody says "The supernatural gives us free will", I have to lump those people with the same people who said "The supernatural causes earthquakes, volcanos, and floods", ESPECIALLY if they have no proof.

If those people would like to be taken seriously, they should provide some evidence to back up their hypothesis.

 

[jar2574]

This is where our position differs, I think. You don't assume either way and insist that any positive claim is proven, supernatural or not (correct me if I'm wrong).

You are correct, that is my position.

My point is that we have no reason to believe that the supernatural even exists.

You may have no reason to believe that the supernatural exists.

In order that you might understand where I'm coming from, I'll ask you to please place yourself in a believer's shoes. If your personal experience showed you that the supernatural existed, then you might believe in the supernatural even though you could not prove that it existed to others.

Personal beliefs are not all derived from science, and do not all have to be testable to be useful. I may believe that the NY Yankees will win their next baseball game. I may believe that I should move to Europe. Etc... These beliefs may hold value for me, and may guide my lifestyle even though they are not readily testable in a lab. To say that I should assume they are not true, because they haven't been proven, would seem silly to me. Not every true thing can be scientifically proven.

Some people's belief in souls may be similar (albeit probably stronger) than my belief that I should move to Europe. Their belief may be personally relevant to them, just as my belief that I should move to Europe is relevant to me.

Here's the important part: I won't ask them to justify their belief that souls exist unless they make a positive claim that involves souls as a premise. If they make such a positive claim, then I ask them to prove that souls exist, because then souls must exist for the conclusion to be true.

On top of all that, human history is full of individuals attributing the supernatural to natural events.. sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of .. well, who knows.

So when somebody says "The supernatural gives us free will", I have to lump those people with the same people who said "The supernatural causes earthquakes, volcanos, and floods", ESPECIALLY if they have no proof.

I totally understand where you're coming from.

The difference between us may be that I think that science should take care of testable theories, but I don't expect it to bear any relevance in areas that by their definition cannot be tested scientifically. (but as you said, correct me if I'm wrong.)

Science can't prove souls exist. It can't prove that they don't exist either. I'm comfortable with assuming nothing either way. Science will only shed light on certain subjects, and I don't expect it to shed light on everything.

If those people would like to be taken seriously, they should provide some evidence to back up their hypothesis.

I agree that when people make positive claims, they should back up those claims with evidence.

If someone wants to believe in the existence or non-existence of souls, based on their personal experiences, I don't ask them to prove their belief to me. Souls or their abscence are not proveable. Their belief only becomes relevant to me when they make positive claims based on their beliefs.

 

[warpus]

^^ Then we are in perfect agreement.

I used to be a believer - having been brought up in a very religious society (communist Poland), so I can easily put myself in the shoes of one.

IMO there is a huge difference between what is actually true and what you WANT to be true. So yes, people have the right to believe whatever they wish, even if there is no proof that their beliefs are correct. They could have some sort of religious experience, conclude that Allah exists, and therefore souls exist as wel, and must be responsible for sentience.

That's fine, but then for somebody like that to turn around and say "Prove that I'm wrong" is so silly I can't even think of words to describe it.

In any case, on the question of sentience and free-will, IMO random quantum fluctuations give us the impression of free-will. Our brain amplifies those random fluctuations. This is much better explained in the book The Quantum Brain. It's a somewhat hard read, but very interesting.

 

[Zombie69]

Actually Scientifically that is generally not regarded as valid, entropy and so forth preventing an infinite sequence, Logically however its OK.

I don't see why entropy couldn't be infinitely small (going back in time infinitely) or infinitely large (going forward in time infinitely).

 

[jar2574]

^^ Then we are in perfect agreement.

Good deal.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

Yup! With Scanner Darkly comming out, people will see just how accurate some of his ideas were/are.

(/Philip K. Dick)

Personnally "A Scanner Darkly" isn't my favorite, I think it's a bit too grim and a bit too self-conscious. For me, his true 2 masterpieces are "The Man in the High Castle", and most of all "Ubik", which can really get you insane if you delve in it for too long - which I guess some here would say is what it did...

 

[NapoléonPremier]

This is a tricky question, since what constitutes a good book very much depends on the background of the reader. In general, books that discuss the philosphical aspects rarely have much detail, while textbooks tend to focus on how things work rather than what they mean. Also, many books meant to give you an introduction to the topic cut out concepts that become important later on. A textbook that is a little older, but reasonably easy to digest and which covers a very wide range of topics is Quantum Mechanics, 3rd ed. by Leonard I. Schiff from 1968. It starts out with the very first ideas and takes you all the way to 2nd quantization (where particles are created and destroyed). In the beginning you get familiar with how wave functions work, and later the matrix concepts are introduced together with Dirac's bra-ket notation. Then you will see how the time evolution of a state works in both the Schrodinger and Heisenberg pictures. More modern textbooks (like Sakurai) usually put more emphasis on group theory, but I think that is not as important from a philosophical point of view.

You seem to really know what you're talking about regarding quantum physics, probably the most of all of us here, so please state clearly your point of view on one of the crucial questions that has agitated this thread :
can the behavior of a SINGLE particle be regarded as undeterministic, or is it just an effect of measurement or causes we don't know yet ? (In my current understanding, it is truly undeterministic)

And also, since you seem to be a physicist, what is your specific field of research ?

 

[NapoléonPremier]

I don't deny souls. I haven't seen any proof from your end (or from anyone) that they exist, so to me they are a non-issue.

I understand your point of view. Having seen no evidence of "souls", and no need for them in science, the question just seems to you irrelevant. But what I've been hinting to you (and others), is that if one day you decide to investigate the subject, and find out if you are a "soul" or not, you can actually reach conclusions based on evidence, and not only on "belief" or "there's no way to know" attitude.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

But my wife will kill me if I keep posting here. It's taking too much time out of my day.

Another proof of the bad influence of women on thinking...

 

[NapoléonPremier]

Sorry Zombie:

Let us try to keep the conversation focused on what's real, and not "what you're sure will be" someday... because you'll look really stupid "someday" when it's 'proven' that molecular detereroration is truely random.

Why "someday" ?

 

[NapoléonPremier]

>>Think before you type
>>Follow your 'logic' to its conclusion
>>Don't be afraid of "being wrong"

That we can agree is a fear most don't seem to have...

This is, in My Humble Opinion (IMHO) the coolest and most fun thread in the forum! I sincerely congradulate all involved in the wonderful dialogue that has been conducted.

I'm not sure it has really led us anywhere, but yeah, it's been fun. And I'll take some extra credit for starting the thread because come on, if we don't have free will, I don't see why I should pretend to be modest...

 

[NapoléonPremier]

yep, fine. Anything for the sake of clarity.

The best thing for clarity is probably not to talk at all...

Sentience=is capable of feeling (OED). Different from intelligence=faculty of understanding.

I don't think we will have much trouble creating intelligent machines (we're already doing it to some extent). But that doesn't require a soul, even if souls exist. But sentience is an entirely different story.

A bacterium is not intelligent. It has no capability of understanding. You're getting muddled now.

It's not superiorly intelligent like a dolphin (yes 5cats, and a cat too, ok...) or a human being but it clearly has come form of instinctive "understanding" of its environment and what it should do to survive, so I guess this qualifies as some form of intelligence.

Nothing personal. You're a very amiable lot. Particularly Napoleon.

Thanks We don't know if you're intelligent (), but at least we can tell you're sentient...

 

[5cats]

However, many forms of intelligence do not possess self-awareness. And self-awareness could exist in something that has no effect on the physical world, which would mean that it was not defined as "intelligent" for the purposes of this thread (because we were talking about creating AI within the physical world). I didn't see anyone saying that intelligence and self-awareness were the same thing.

If you mean that self-awareness is not a form of intelligence, and that the two are mutually exclusive, then I'd have to disagree with you. I think self-awareness plays a role in human intelligence, (in human decision-making).

Well, I understand Brighteye as saying they're the exact same thing. Which is my 'bone of contention' since I defined them as seperate.

It's like sub-sets. You can have intelligence without self-awareness, but you cannot have self-awareness without intelligence. That's has (hopefully) been my consistant standard. Self-awareness would be a "higher" form of intelligence. Able to do things that "simple" intillegence cannot.

 

[5cats]

Or :
3. You can go back in time infinitely, just as you can go forward in time infinitely. This happens to be my view of the universe. It's pretty consistant with the observations and you can't prove it wrong, so i think it's a very likely scenario.

I can prove it wrong. The 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics:
1) heat is work and work is heat
2) you cannot take heat from the cooler to the hotter

SO: If you go infinitely forewards in time, eventually all motion, even on a sub-atomic level, will cease. Entropy theory.
Thus if one were to go infinitely BACK in time, there would be a point of infinite motion Reverse Entropy theory.
Since infinite motion can never be lower than infinite, the universe could not exist, since in OUR universe motion is FINITE.
Period.

 

[5cats]

First of all, I suggested that quantum fluctuations are a background noise level caused by the first cause, if there was one, and therefore their distribution has a cause.

So your "proof" is based on "if". Hummm, mighty suspect. Also, you have some proof of this amazing statement?

Our system applies until proven wrong. Under it's own rules (and that's an important part of the point)

Yet this is a point you refuse to grant to my theory!

Quantum is a necessary exception to causality in order for it to be consistent

I'm sorry, but making ONE exception allows ALL exceptions. By simply allowing an "exception" you're demonstrating that it isn't a "law" in any way. Say both A=B and A does not =B is not "consistant". YOU say causality governs all things. THEN you say causality governs all things except...
Which is it? There is no room for "except" in "all things".

Souls causing intelligence requires you to doubt causality

I doubt the universality of causality, not it's individual applications. Get that straight.

you have no evidence for this specific proposition

Except, of course, for the evidence I've presented, which you have ingored and therefor can pretend does not exist...

so your method of reasoning is based on doubt. If you doubt, your doubt applies equally, and you doubt the whole of causality, not just the part regarding intelligence.

Repeating yourself does seem like a cognative statement...

I have previously shown:
My view of the world as involving causality is the logically justified view (though not proven, because it cannot be).
If causality is taken to be true, then souls are irrelevant to making AI
If causality is not taken to be true, then nothing is certain, because all our knowledge of the world requires it.

"logically justified" in your own mind, at least.
"if...then" yes so far this is correct.
Did you not say that nothing can be "proven"? Therefore nothing IS "certain". All the knowledge in YOUR world requires it. ('it' being causality)

The internally consistent version of causality is the logically sensible option. Everything else is subjectivity/universal doubt. Nothing can be proven against these positions, and therefore, for everyday use, my statement that my point is proven is true, because we usually define true as 'true notwithstanding universal doubt'.

Internally consistant, except for those little inconsistant parts...
Funny, I define true as "fits all available data as best as is possible"... but you go ahead and define it however it fits your own little world-view...

 

[5cats]

If a soul is supernatural and it doesn't come from God, where does it come from?

Evolution? Random chance? What part of "irrelivent" do you fail to understand?

Either way, wherever you might think souls come from, Occam's Razor would favour a natural explanation for sentience.

So you agree with me, since I allow natural causes for "sentience" too.

The only force outside of causality that I'm aware of are quantum fluctuations.

So a=b except when a does not =b, therefor 'a always =b'. I see.

I haven't seen any post in this thread suggesting that self-awareness arises from quantum fluctuations.. although I might have missed that post. That is an interesting hypothesis, and one that is shared by some.. but I don't see where souls fit in here?

Since that's not what I'm saying at all. Although others try to make it sound like I'm saying it... I'm saying that is ONE thing can exist outside the laws of causality, then it is possible for other things to exist as well. If you're hung up on the word "soul" (because of the association with religion perhaps) use another term, like "life essence" or "spirit force" since I've stated they all refer to the same thing (within MY definitions)

That doesn't arise logically from #1 and #2, unless you're thinking of a different force that is "outisde of causality". Do you mind defining it and showing some evidence of its existence (ie. any sort of research done by competent scientsts regarding it) ?

Yes, outside causality.
Also, no one has demonstrated that self-awareness is physically based either.
Research? There's tons of it @! But competent is another matter. Your competent might be my wack-job, eh?

Sure, it would. Much in the same way, if you could show any sort of evidence that the Christian God exists, that'd be a good start to proving that souls exist.

IF and only if, one assumes the only source of "soul" is God. I don't.

Self-awareness and intelligence are two entirely different concepts, imo.

Well, I'm gald we agree!

 

[5cats]

No you haven't.

The only thing demonstrated here on this specific subject was that the people demonstrating it used an unjustifiable premise. You may wish to take it for granted, but science sure doesn't.

Quantum theory does NOT by necessity break causality.

Did I make myself clear?

Perfectly!
Of course when an experiment is done, and it's results do NOT conform with "causality" it therefor MUST be based on an "unjustifiable premise"! Hang the results if they don't match YOUR theory!
Not "necessarily", but by our current understanding, YES!

 

[5cats]

(/Philip K. Dick)

Personnally "A Scanner Darkly" isn't my favorite, I think it's a bit too grim and a bit too self-conscious. For me, his true 2 masterpieces are "The Man in the High Castle", and most of all "Ubik", which can really get you insane if you delve in it for too long - which I guess some here would say is what it did...

Oh totally! It is very dark, and a touch too autobiographical...
Ubik is probably my favorite too, MitHC is really good as well. Others like Valis, Clans of the Alphane Moon, The World the Jones Made, Do Andriods Dream... (Bladerunner) and Martian Time-slip have plenty going for them as well. Of course he wrote some BAD stuff too! Dr Futurity! Omg!

I'm hoping (cross my fingers) that Scanner will prove worthy of the novel.

 

[NapoléonPremier]

I had similar reservations about quantum physics when I first started reading books on the subject. Then I did some further research and discovered that a lot of physicists had the very same reservations - and so tests were set up to determine whether there are hidden variables that we currently do not have access to.. or whether certain things are truly random. The tests that were carried out indicate that some things are indeed random.

I'm on the "undeterministic" side here, but for information, what were these tests that indicated true undeterminism ? How can you positively rule out hidden variables ?