Messages

"By getting to smaller and smaller units, we do not come to fundamental units, or indivisible units, but we do come to a point where division has no meaning" - Werner Heisenberg.

-AM

Life is a holistic concept irrelevant of what physical constituents are involved. The human body is contructed from the same building blocks as a machine. Atoms. What's the difference then between a human clump of atoms and a machine? From a monistic or materialist perspective, there's really no argument sound enough to debate the notion that a machine could be equally as expressive, intelligent or emotional as a human being.

Talking on levels of ones and zeros or lights and clock work is too superficial to take part in the debate. It's really about how a consciousness would spawn in the machine world.

The notion of AI is in regards to an intelligence and consciousness that is co-equal or superior to human intelligence.  Nothing less. This isn't just complex programs and hit play. It's an independent thinker, it has it's own agenda.

-AM

That's what I said. Uncontrolled emotions are illogical. Emotional Intelligence is the closest we've come to defining how people control their emotions to act civilly in a work environment. Crying is something a machine would not understand a reason for, neither is laughter.

-AM

Breathing is focussed on in some forms of meditation. It is to train your mind to concentrate, focus on the here and now and learn the impermanence of things. There's a lot of websites and you'll find many detailed books on the subject. The purpose of breathing meditation is to clear the mind of anything else but the breath.

http://www.how-to-meditate.org/breathing-meditations.htm

Meditation helps with spiritual developmet because we stop our thoughts and allow the natural flow of things to continue without any ideas getting in the way.

-AM

AM, Does this mean you think Sharpe was wrong to criticise morning_star?

I don't really see the point in stating the obvious. Isn't it common sense what someone says is their perspective? It seems a little wild to me but he's voicing his oppinion. Might have to agree to disagree.

-AM

Science is bound by evidence, philosophy by logic, art has no boundries. Self-expression is really my main point, it's allowed within the boundries of certain topics. There is really not much quantum theory discussed in great detail in schools next to Newtons laws which are seemingly being discarded to mind effecting matter. So the kids are still learning that it's just matter effecting matter without that integrated role of mind. It's more a rumour in the public mind that a reality at the moment.

-AM

Against their favour, so machines establishing the difference between right and wrong?  I know in the movie 'I, Robot', the machines decide that certain human casualties are necessary for the survival of the species but it involves a totalatariun country and people desire more freedom than that. In real AI this can go one way or the other, for or against. What about moral and ethical understandings in a machine. I'm talking about AI to the point where if you put it in human skin, you would not be able to tell the difference between the machine and the man. Almost like the same thing is constructed of different physical components.

-AM

Whether 2012 and the eschaton occurs or not, we are definitely evolving toward some kind of bottleneck where a lot is going to be discarded. A massive social transformation due to changes in consciousness.

If you look at the evolutionary leaps in consciousness, monkeys over millions of years, tribal over hundreds of thousands, cultural over thousand etc, you'll notice each leap occurs in shorter and shorter time frames. An exponential or asymptotic approach on a graph.

I'm not sure whether time is going past faster or not, they say it is speeding up but there's a few problems with that notion. Have we asked a innocent man in prison whether he thinks time is speeding up? It's a matter of relativity. Secondly, the human brain can only process information at a given speed so I'm not sure how we would see a world that is speeding up. I don't think the birds will start flying faster and us talking a million miles an hour while some point of vision in our mind is watching it like a movie. This is really why the notion that 'time is speeding up' is quite weak to most people. We can't see it, but the theory makes sense.

Yes I am more and more saying to myself "Where are the years going?". I wouldn't attempt to quantify 24 hours squashed into a now 16 hour day. How did they come up with this figure? Who is 'they'?

I take the idea of evolution pretty seriously when it comes to 2012. In that view, it's not that time will cease to exist and more that we will realise that it doesn't exist to us anymore. Our level of consciousness will exceed the physical-temporal dimension and enter into eternity. We've discussed this as the current physical world acting as a launchpad to the human soul into higher dimension. Metaphorically of course.

-AM

Well the pursuit of knowledge really begins in philosophy and most schools see philosophy as going off topic too often, so they limit it. Self-expression should never be limited. Where there are barriers there can be no creativity and hence no progress. We really need more minds to play amongst the stars.

-AM

We'll give him a participation ribbon.

-AM

The fact that we are typing it is really saying 'it's my oppinion', 'I think' anyway. It's fair enough to say we all speak subjectively. We shouldn't have to say 'I think', it's should be understood that it's our perspective to begin with.

-AM

Well one of the issues with AI is the nature of it's being. So speaking of the soul is on topic. If we begin by saying there is no soul in the first place then we're really discussing monism and dualism and create a lot of barriers that need to be sidestepped. So for this discussion we'll assume that humans do possess a soul. Can AI possess a consciousness? Aware that it is aware.

Mez, under evolutionary theory AI would appear at exactly the right time when we could handle it. Interesting you bring up humans lack of control of their emotions. I can see AI mutating elements in it's programming or code that can then display characteristics of the psyche. However, I don't see AI having emotion. Emotion is illogical. AI seems like a masculine extension of the psyche and emotion seems to me to be feminine. Having said that, humanity is more inclined masculine at the moment. All our political, religious and scientific institutions are male dominated. I think this plays a central role in a lot our current global problems. Our impact on nature or 'mother earth'. Another topic entirely.

Would AI be used as a tool for the human race or would we share some symbiotic relationship with it?

-AM

Well it's obvious sitting here typing that there is some relationship between the physical brain and the mental dimension/soul/ spirit. I'm a dualist, can you tell? Consciousness is being studied in quantum physics and neuropsychology. Quantum physics is really moving toward the idea that consciousness is integrated into everything and plays an effective role in our environment. The furthest I heard from biology is that idea that consciousness can be found in coherent light! I am definately interested in this and have a bit to read on the topic. I just haven't gathered many references as of yet. Appologies for not being able to elaborate any further.

-AM

If only human behaviour was that easy to summarise into a pamphlet of do's and don'ts .

The information I found in school and now in university is really just remember and repeat. There's not much intelligence involved. We are told what is important to know instead of finding our own way. We definately need a revolution in higher education systems. The whole way through is pretty poorly thought out if you tell me we have our best working on it.

-AM

I'm running with the idea that AI will be able to express spontaneity and creativity. I can't see it making mathematical mistakes, it's errors would only go as far as wrong probability outcomes. I can only see it becoming embodied in a physical object, such as a robot, if it needed to for some reason. Not simply to be like us. VR may offer a medium where man and machine can communicate with one another.

As for the AI actually possessing a soul, well that is distubring to religion for obvious reasons, and to science because we currently adore our position on top of the evolutionary chain. It makes us feel important and is not going to be surrendered easily. Having said that, AI draws science and religion together. It's interesting the mix of spirituality and materialism in the one topic. Such controversy is agitated in fundamentalists on both sides. Imagine what would happen to both ontology's with the emergence of AI. They would clash until we are left with some synthesis of both.

-AM

Indeed. They could just be looking for the most convenient way of explaining it to themselves before they meet an onslaught of skepticism whichever route they chose.

-AM

Who cares what the winner gets? If there's a winner then the world ends. They get death.

-AM

I'd agree with that. Any type of conscious control in that state is fuel for growth. Even in mindfulness meditation.

-AM

Well thats another point as well, the education system. What are we teaching in schools and universities? Most kids these days would struggle to live out of home because they don't really know the full extent of what it involves. Can they all cook and do housework? A lot of parents are too busy these days to have the time to teach such essential skills. It's assumed they just learn them as they grow up. This isn't a major issue such as the government controlling the public mind and leading us into there control net, but I think it's still something to acknowledge.

-AM

That makes you number 1,756,285 on the list of failed end-times predictions since 1985. In 1996 I made number 623,263. Oh well, better luck next time.

-AM

I'm glad you brought up the notion of evolution. To begin with I personally believe AI is something the computer scientists are working toward, it's more when than if for me.

It's true that the internet has offered us another source of communication, probably the best in terms of global communication. Whether that is the step before telepathy or a medium to store immense amounts of information almost like the "Logos" is another thing to consider.

The very notion of and AI comes with the subtext of a separate entity. This is hard to fit into a world that is evolving toward unity. Now we have to integrate something else! I think AI can really offer something like an extension of the human mind in terms of logic. Perhpas we take something to it and it takes it as far as it can and comes back. A symbiotic relationship where we share emotion and it shares what it has to offer.

It could play a role in a 'virtual communication', where meaning is expressed visually in a virtual reality world. Immense amounts of data and programming would be needed which I'm guessing would be done by the machines.

In terms of a 'natural environment' although many would dispute this, I really see the internet as like a pool of information waiting to spark into a consciousness. If you look at how things evolve, it's really not that absurd to consider.

-AM

The existence of AI is a great flavour for debate. I think it really stirs up both religion and science. Religion would simply deny the existence of AI because then they need to factor in the reality than it isn't solely man with a direct relationship to God. Science would be hard pressed because the AI would be smarter than the whole science faculty. Walking over problems of physics with calculations it would consider elementary. The extreme of logic.

Originally computers could only process one bit of information and at a time, but now with the invention of new multi-core processors they can do this in parrallel mimicking the human brain. The internet is very chaotic offering a good medium for evolution.

Another point is that computers work at a million times faster than the human brain. So if suddenly a consciousness sparked then what happened with human civilisation from indigenous people to modern man would evolve in a computer in mere seconds. We wouldn't witness the foundations of it's civilisation.

Virtual reality is being worked on where you wear a glove and point it in the direction which you would like to go. It's benefits are endless, training fighter pilots, doctors in surgery etc.

What are people's thoughts and beliefs on the possibility or emergence of AI?

-AM

A lucid dream is when you have conscious control over the scenery rather than just watching a movie.

-AM

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_obe_discussions/technique_for_thought_stopping-t24600.0.html;msg206701;topicseen#msg206701

Thats a thread I started over a year ago now on a technique for thought stopping. It helped me a lot with concentration so I thought I'd bring it up again.

-AM

Well I don't agree that they are using some kind of technology to achieve such a goal. I think the government has the power to sway opinion with the use of the media. It's more of a control of information than a direct control of mind. Almost as effective, except there's the possibilty that people may wake up.

There's a lot of conspiracy theories on the rise and an obvious abuse of power at many levels. I think the truth is starting to shine out from many things in our collective world as well as for many of us personally.

-AM