Why Conspiracy Theories?

[constant escape]

Something like that, obviously more fine tuned. But the point is that the design doesn't necessarily need to mansplain the entirety of the system, just a few basic protocols of the components/units of the system. Hell, the design doesn't even need to foresee the complexity, past some point.

 

[vimothy]

I think you can design components that can interact in ways, forming aggregates and relations that supercede the complexity of your design.

but never the extent of their programming - ultimately, whatever arises from their interaction, whatever equilibria they arrive at, will always be completely circumscribed by the instructions you give them

 

[vimothy]

Like tat example of an ant colony. You'd only need to program a few basic protocols into the ant, and the ant serves as a component/part of a much more complex system.

I think the specific protocols were

1 - wander around for food within some radius of the anthill
2 - when food is found, exude some kind of hormonal substance in your tracks as you return to the hill
3 - if a hormone trail is found, follow it away from the anthill, toward where the food is found

so we're just going back to the initial idea of a more complicated function, but still a function. ppl are not functions, they have volition, and you cant programme that

 

[constant escape]

I think people are the higher order ramifications of functions - but your point about the initial instructions needing to circumscribe the ramifications, I'm still tossing that around, trying to understand it.

I think the only thing that would need to be circumscribed by the initial instructions is some kind of general reflexivity, rather than the particular manifestation of some reflexive process. Some kind of taking-prior-output-as-next-input, but perhaps the discreteness of that algorithmic concept can be taken too far. Not sure.

I think you can get it just right, or right enough, so as to have some base unit operate in such a way that leads, if even rarely, to drastically higher order complex systems. And I don't think the particular complexity of the ramified - and ramifying - system needs to be accounted for in advance. I think what needs to be accounted for is the general dynamic/mechanism of reflexivity.

And then if that is accounted for, there may well be no discernible limit to the arabesque and fanciful things that emerge.

 

[catalog]

sorry, this was a bit snarky. not sure why, it's actually an interesting point to consider. I think it's ironic however, that this idea of super intelligence often seems to rest on the idea of humans becoming machine-like, in losing their autonomy and becoming tools for some other entitys purpose. accelerationism is a bit like cattle campaigning for the development of industrial farming

Sorry I've not read all this thread, but do you mean that out evolution might not befvtowsrds some kind of terrifying AI singularity and could go another way?

 

[constant escape]

I think you can program the thing that ramifies into volition.

 

[vimothy]

Sorry I've not read all this thread, but do you mean that out evolution might not befvtowsrds some kind of terrifying AI singularity and could go another way?

precisely

 

[constant escape]

I think the way to avoid any dystopic AI future would involve foreseeing how humans would be viewed from that height, and then preemptively adapting societal/sociotechnical systems to better insulate the human from the superhuman. It would involve trying to imagine the ontology of the superhuman, and work out the teleology.

 

[catalog]

I can see thd sense in that, in that the future never works out in the way people who think about the future think it will, at least not in a long term sense. And some of the evolution we have had 'proven', makes total batshit sense backwards

 

[vimothy]

I think people are the higher order ramifications of functions - but your point about the initial instructions needing to circumscribe the ramifications, I'm still tossing that around, trying to understand it.

I think the only thing that would need to be circumscribed by the initial instructions is some kind of general reflexivity, rather than the particular manifestation of some reflexive process. Some kind of taking-prior-output-as-next-input, but perhaps the discreteness of that algorithmic concept can be taken too far. Not sure.

I think you can get it just right, or right enough, so as to have some base unit operate in such a way that leads, if even rarely, to drastically higher order complex systems. And I don't think the particular complexity of the ramified - and ramifying - system needs to be accounted for in advance. I think what needs to be accounted for is the general dynamic/mechanism of reflexivity.

And then if that is accounted for, there may well be no discernible limit to the arabesque and fanciful things that emerge.

it doesnt matter how complex the initial conditions are, or how complex the effects, it's all much and the same. what you are proposing is that at a certain level, something will pop out and free will will emerge

 

[vimothy]

I think you can program the thing that ramifies into volition.

thats not what volition means

 

[vimothy]

or, that's not what programme means

 

[constant escape]

it doesnt matter how complex the initial conditions are, or how complex the effects, it's all much and the same. what you are proposing is that at a certain level, something will pop out and free will will emerge

What if we consider free will as a collection cerebral functions? Not a collection per se, but something that can only work if enough conditions are met, and that these conditions may develop over time. Rather than saying free will spontaneously emerges, we can imagine that perhaps it is a sort of concatenation or harmony of abilities that gradually evolved into being, and that the proper emergence would just be the alignment/cooperation of these abilities.

And I pretty much think of volition as will/intention, but perhaps there is some nuance I'm not picking up. What do you think?

 

[constant escape]

I'm asking what if we consider volition as such? As some kind of harmonious interplay between various other biological/neurological mechanisms that, each on their own, wouldn't allow for something like free will. Or perhaps it is just a matter of quantity. The more of a certain unit, neuron perhaps, the more robust their interplay becomes.

 

[constant escape]

The more room for circuits to form, the more complex the circuits can get. Which doesn't have to be the only parameter, but perhaps one of them.

 

[vimothy]

it's another sort of category error, in my view. if you get a bunch of predetermined functions, and bundle them together, you get something predetermined, you dont get something which aggregates to free will

 

[vimothy]

basically theres a notion here which presupposes a kind of magic, like theres a set of levels where you can stack complexity together and at a certain point it transforms itself into something completely different

 

[catalog]

There's the thing Alan Moore talks about, how one very simple sequence, like left, left, right, cdown, ends up becoming a beautiful mandlebrotty type thing with infinite complexity. But you're on aboutv something that isn't a pattern in the first place

 

[vimothy]

yes - it doesnt matter how complex the pattern appears as it gets bigger, it's still the same pattern

 

[catalog]

we had a spate of talking about this a while ago, can't remember which thread, but yeah, the new, by definition, is unknown.