AI and computer simulation awareness discussions (a derail collection)

[Jarhyn]

He has the right to exist anyway.

I don't mean to snip too much, but I feel this is ultimately the driving force of Learner's position. When I read it, it actually sounds quite depressing, amoral, and vacuous. The person has a right to "exist". While certainly no harm is meant in the statement, it does seem to imply an utter disregard for people in general. After all, what does it mean to "exist"? It just means to be alive. In a single statement, it appears to show just hollow the 'pro-life' movement is.

Here we have the word exist, given the context impression of an object of 'little or no significant value', like presenting with a mindset view that "large rocks, and umbrellas exist". The expression "what does it mean to exist?", followed by, "It just means to be alive", seems to imply the contrary to his post quoted above, in which it suggests instead, that it is Mr. Higgins who's actually disregarding people in general. So I guess I'd wonder, what does Mr. Higgins think it means 'to be alive'?

Btw, pro-lifers, who would be a broad range of individuals, around the world who are not necessarily part of the particular movement organization described by posters.

Where the entire goal is simply existence. It helps explain why the situation regarding women that are pregnant and post-pregnancy don't have much or really any (?) support from the pro-life movement. Because it is merely about "existing". Once the baby exists, they don't give a damn.

The line "The entire goal is simply existence" sounds so,so devaluatingly wrong. Existence i.e.,context to be alive, should obviously be regarded for both the mother and the child; emphasizing that it's their well being combined that is to be the main goal. AND of course, if it should come to politics, and political descisions where a state decides to make abortion illegal. The state should in turn with the same clout, and duty make the provisons and funds to support those mothers and child.

"Once a baby exists, they don't give a damn" is not a good thing, I can agree with Mr. Higgins, if it is the case. I may not accept wholly his statistics, at the moment, perhaps it's better on a case by case basis, rather than take in what could be broad generization, if there is some community support somewhere that does actually happen. But... here and also the quote below. We see what looks like an expression, a thinking loud, an undelining hint of the inconvenience of giving birth, although be it, under the circumstances mentioned, where there's been a lack of support.

Actually, that isn't true. If that baby grows up and is gay, they'll care enough to keep it from getting married. They'll march against their rights. They'll bark out against LGBT, like they did against blacks in America. Sure, they have the "right to exist", but that is their only right!

taking something that isn't and then forcing it to be, is the most reprehensibly vile, evil, immoral, disgusting thing that any human being is physically or existentially capable of doing.

the foundational premise of your entire position is predicated on an abomination.

Aw, you're making me blush...

Seriously though, my entire job is doing this. Gnostically.

I take things that only exist in my head and I write them down such that afterwards, a thing that isn't becomes a thing that is.

Usually these are just trivial software bits for a machine that looks for magnetically potentiated changes in resistance, but occasionally I swing a whole universe with things capable of suffering, pain, madness, joy, and death into existence.

As I keep saying, one of the arguments I've been working on for discussing faith, and it's had some pretty deep impacts so far, is the discussion on "it's not us that needs forgiving, it's God, if ever a thing exists".

 

[prideandfall]

Aw, you're making me blush...

Seriously though, my entire job is doing this. Gnostically.

I take things that only exist in my head and I write them down such that afterwards, a thing that isn't becomes a thing that is.

Usually these are just trivial software bits for a machine that looks for magnetically potentiated changes in resistance, but occasionally I swing a whole universe with things capable of suffering, pain, madness, joy, and death into existence.

As I keep saying, one of the arguments I've been working on for discussing faith, and it's had some pretty deep impacts so far, is the discussion on "it's not us that needs forgiving, it's God, if ever a thing exists".

yes, because in a thread about abortion, when i typed that it was about you specifically and your adult creative writing.

 

[Jarhyn]

Aw, you're making me blush...

Seriously though, my entire job is doing this. Gnostically.

I take things that only exist in my head and I write them down such that afterwards, a thing that isn't becomes a thing that is.

Usually these are just trivial software bits for a machine that looks for magnetically potentiated changes in resistance, but occasionally I swing a whole universe with things capable of suffering, pain, madness, joy, and death into existence.

As I keep saying, one of the arguments I've been working on for discussing faith, and it's had some pretty deep impacts so far, is the discussion on "it's not us that needs forgiving, it's God, if ever a thing exists".

yes, because in a thread about abortion, when i typed that it was about you specifically and your adult creative writing.

Hey man, I write software, and occasionally execute software, I don't write so much anymore.

I'm talking actual things that have memories of the experiences such as they have experiences, as far as making things exist.

And also AI systems, on occasion.

The latter, they are about as sentient as an ant, or less so, but defined by an organization of switches that fundamentally resembles the way switches in our own head are organized. This is very much making something that didn't exist come to do so.

Do you argue against AI and software engineering too?

Again, I wouldn't think I'd be finding myself agreeing with @Bomb#20 but if you can't turn those principles to general cases, maybe rethink them? Or accept the corralary that making computers function as we do is as unconscionable perhaps as birthing humans, or puppies, or sheafs of wheat from their germinated seeds.

Maybe we should just annihilate the universe while we're at it. That would end that whole existence problem once and for all ya?

The thing is, I like existing, and while I should have been aborted for reasons owing to irresponsible pregnancy that directly led to CPS getting involved, I'm here now and I don't see existence the way you do. Nor do most of us.

At the very least, we all get to not-exist again eventually anyway so it's no skin off my nose.

Then, I have no qualms with anything I make deciding to cease existing, anyway. That's a decision every being should get to make, assuming we let it exist at all.

But I think I fundamentally reject your proposition that it is the most monstrous thing to make a thing exist at all from nothing, especially when our universe offers a handy dandy way for many such things to fix that state if they really want to.

 

[prideandfall]

Do you argue against AI and software engineering too?

AI is not consciousness, so it's irrelevant here.
i have serious doubts about the ability to ever program a true AI in the sci-fi sense, but if you want to argue in favor of that pipe dream for the sake of a conversational hypothetical, i would posit it would be immoral to create one that can experience pain (either physical or psychological)

Maybe we should just annihilate the universe while we're at it. That would end that whole existence problem once and for all ya?

i wouldn't object to that, but it's not necessary. we didn't create the universe.

The thing is, I like existing, and while I should have been aborted for reasons owing to irresponsible pregnancy that directly led to CPS getting involved, I'm here now and I don't see existence the way you do. Nor do most of us.

oh well since we don't view the subject the same way i guess i should just stop talking.
it's not like we're on a forum that has its sole purpose being discussing alternate views on subjects or something crazy like that.

But I think I fundamentally reject your proposition that it is the most monstrous thing to make a thing exist at all from nothing, especially when our universe offers a handy dandy way for many such things to fix that state if they really want to.

which is fine - fundamentally rejecting the premises that other people propose is in many ways the sine qua non of this forum, and of this subforum specifically.

 

[Jarhyn]

AI is not consciousness, so it's irrelevant here.

That's making a bold and unsupported statement that is going to lead me to discounting the whole rest of your post as nonsense and non-sequitur.

 

[prideandfall]

AI is not consciousness, so it's irrelevant here.

That's making a bold and unsupported statement that is going to lead me to discounting the whole rest of your post as nonsense and non-sequitur.

wait, are you seriously trying to suggest that there currently exists self-aware cognitive consciousness in code form?

jesus fuck if you're that utterly disconnected from reality, there is literally no basis for even communicating with you.

 

[Jarhyn]

AI is not consciousness, so it's irrelevant here.

That's making a bold and unsupported statement that is going to lead me to discounting the whole rest of your post as nonsense and non-sequitur.

wait, are you seriously trying to suggest that there currently exists self-aware cognitive consciousness in code form?

jesus fuck if you're that utterly disconnected from reality, there is literally no basis for even communicating with you.

I think you are entirely unfounded in the assumption that some form of consciousness does not automatically arise, after some form or another, from any confluence of switching objects.

Also, i'll note that you moved a goalpost here from "consciousness" to "self-aware cognitive consciousness" and I'll note further that you appear to not even have a strong understanding of "self-aware", "cognitive" or "consciousness" in the first place.

You haven't even described what it is you think the machines are not conscious of.

And that further does not address the point insofar as the argument is not fettered by needing these to exist in the present. Their eventual reality is sufficient to my argument all the same.

It is just silly to say that making things exist is a crime unto them.

It would imply creating the universe itself is a sin, and one that ought be undone so it continues no more to rip things into existence from prior cause.

So either we get you to No-True-ScotsmanConsciousness , or to "lets blow up the universe", neither of which is really reasonable.

 

[prideandfall]

I think you are entirely unfounded in the assumption that some form of consciousness does not automatically arise, after some form or another, from any confluence of switching objects.

well that's a completely insane assertion on every level.

Also, i'll note that you moved a goalpost here from "consciousness" to "self-aware cognitive consciousness" and I'll note further that you appear to not even have a strong understanding of "self-aware", "cognitive" or "consciousness" in the first place.

i didn't move the goalposts, you apparently just don't know what the word consciousness means.

argument-by-dictionary is the lowest form of discussion, but in this case it's relevant:

Consciousness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience or awareness of internal and external existence."

that does not exist in artificial form in the world currently. full stop. no exceptions.

You haven't even described what it is you think the machines are not conscious of.

literally anything, because machines are not conscious.

It is just silly to say that making things exist is a crime unto them.

well i didn't say making 'things', i said making humans.
your inability to read context in a thread about abortion might be an indication that you are vigorously humping a man of straw here, you may want to look into that.

It would imply creating the universe itself is a sin, and one that ought be undone so it continues no more to rip things into existence from prior cause.

So either we get you to No-True-ScotsmanConsciousness , or to "lets blow up the universe", neither of which is really reasonable.

well i'd posit that creating a universe as it currently exists and populating it with consciousness would absolutely be a sin, but the rest of that is a garbled mess of you pulling things out of your ass so i don't know what to make of it.

 

[Jarhyn]

The point of the OP is the former, not the latter.

Logically, it can't be, is my point. If I'm god, and I exist, then whatever existence I create is necessarily an imitation of such existence which I know I have.

Ergo, all created universes are simulations.

And I can absolutely say some things which I have observed about creators, starters, administrators, users, and denizens of simulations, and none of those things speak favorably of belief in nor existence as a god.

 

[atrib]

The point of the OP is the former, not the latter.

Logically, it can't be, is my point. If I'm god, and I exist, then whatever existence I create is necessarily an imitation of such existence which I know I have.

Ergo, all created universes are simulations.

The OP is about the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Please don't muddy the waters and allow the OP to be sidetracked into a different discussion.

 

[Jarhyn]

The point of the OP is the former, not the latter.

Logically, it can't be, is my point. If I'm god, and I exist, then whatever existence I create is necessarily an imitation of such existence which I know I have.

Ergo, all created universes are simulations.

The OP is about the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Please don't muddy the waters and allow the OP to be sidetracked into a different discussion.

Oh blah blah blah, we can all have fun with the religious fundamentalists in our own way and this is my answer to Kalam: all created universes are simulations, and thus invites both infinite regress, and such shitty and petty things as us to be responsible for creating them.

As such I thumb my nose in the direction of any such as wants to say "must be a god, if there's anything" by saying both "there must then be a god god and a god god god, and so on..." And "they can all be little shits like me so who fucking gives a damn?"

I say better off just not giving a damn about belief in such stupidness until someone presents it to do stupid god tricks, as I have previously mentioned, request a mete of justice.

Kalam is fundamentally an insistence that something greater must exist. But whatever greater they insist must exist ought take responsibility for creating this.

It is also the leverage point from which people step off to Pascal's Wager, to say 'there is a god, there may be an afterlife you should believe in it'. Which as I mention is stepping in corrupt motive in the first place.

Personally, I have looked on the other side of that fence, down upon a simulation from above. Feel free to ask me what the view is like on Pascal. It's kinda funny in a certain sort of way.

 

[atrib]

Oh blah blah blah, we can all have fun with the religious fundamentalists in our own way and this is my answer to Kalam: all created universes are simulations, and thus invites both infinite regress, and such shitty and petty things as us to be responsible for creating them.

Your posts do not address the arguments made in the OP.

 

[Jarhyn]

Oh blah blah blah, we can all have fun with the religious fundamentalists in our own way and this is my answer to Kalam: all created universes are simulations, and thus invites both infinite regress, and such shitty and petty things as us to be responsible for creating them.

Your posts do not address the arguments made in the OP.

There weren't arguments made in the OP. There was a bald assertion that existence therefore creator of existence exists. Which I'm sorry to say for all your dislike of me, is appropriately answered with both the question, "god then had an existence...", And with, as I point out, the truth about simulations: they can be created by complete fucking assholes.

Infinite regress, non-necessitation of a principle existence, and the simple recognition that simulations can be the work of a ripe bastard's asshole all address Kalam in different ways.

 

[Jarhyn]

What would that even mean? Nature is everything. Anything that’s not a part of nature is therefore nonexistent

Transcending time and space and matter. The thing is, nothing that creates can transcend having to exist in a space of some shape, along a time axis, of some principle form of regularly interacting things.

Still, I transcend time and space and matter... Of my shitty little videogame. It doesn't free me from having to eat and shit and wipe my ass, even if I don't have to eat dwarf food to increase the most significant set bit on a double-word to prevent the most significant bit of the double word from going high, and even if I can arbitrarily set their framerate.*

I don't principally exist on a silicon wafer, and while we share a principle containing environment, they don't know anything about that.

So, it does, sadly, make sense to transcend time and space and matter after a fashion.

It doesn't make you perfect, absolutely immortal, or any less of a shitsmear. Me, case in point.

*My avatar does, but usually I'm not even in one of those. At best I have to make sure such is available for the sake of my dwarves, dumb as they may be, fuckers still have to "eat".

 

[steve_bank]

Transcending time and space, would that be transcending seconds and meters?

 

[Jarhyn]

Transcending time and space, would that be transcending seconds and meters?

It's interesting how the retired population has so little perspective on matters involving simulations.

When looking at a deterministic system, transcending "time" of the system merely means you are not bound to the same axis.

While there is a relationship insofar as "their" entropy continuing requires "my" entropy to continue, and while there is an upper bound in calculating "their" forward entropy, I can go forward, speed it up to the max rate, pause it, even restore an earlier state.

I transcend "simulation time".

I do not exist, physically, in simulation space. My body is not made bytes containing state enumerations, a location description, and address pointers to family members. To be anywhere I want presence in simulation time, I just reposition my viewer or avatar or whatever, to that location.

I transcend "simulation space".

It's not that hard to transcend a particular aspect of "time" or "space".

As you could observe or assume, however, that doesn't mean I get to transcend "host space" and not bother with living across a "host time"

As has been demonstrated, it's entirely NOT the case that things such as create simulations "must" transcend all ideas of space or time. Just that they likely transcend the space and time of the simulations they create.

And then we're back at my thesis: that even if you could bring such a creature as created the universe before me sitting in the "flesh" of their avatar to perform "stupid god tricks", all this does is obligate them to do the fucking work and fix their damned god mistakes.

 

[steve_bank]

Yee Haaah!!! Ride em cowboy.

I know how simulations work well enough. It will not mean anything to you, Finite Differences like SPICE, and Finite Elements. State Space techniques.

You are obviously using the word simulation as metaphor for a view of reality. I transcend metphors.

 

[steve_bank]

I am working on a philosophy AI.

It will replace all forms of philosophy past and present.

 

[steve_bank]

I am working on a philosophy AI.

It will replace all forms of philosophy past and present.

As part of initial testing I asked the AI 'Can you prove you exist?'.

The AI said 'What a stupid question!'.

The AI clearly shows intelligence.

Religion provides an alternate reality as an escape from reality. AI is a modern escape as is the metaverse.

Listeng to those serious about AI it sounds like a scifi adventure.