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Profound Thoughts

#1
Zinjanthropos Offline
The world's worst philosopher once again treads aimlessly into another thread. The idea of this one is, if brilliant insight should befall you then by all means share it  with everyone. Perhaps it's a sudden realization or something you've been brooding over for some time. Don't worry if Google reveals that you weren't the first to ever contemplate such an idea. Remember, great minds think alike, or so they say. This morning upon awakening, I had one of those moments.

Artificial Intelligence(AI), Intelligent Design(ID), fairly recent buzz words contained within modern day human lexicon. If a highly skilled, highly educated technician, is able to design and build a machine that possesses a consciousness and is aware then there's no problem stating the machine is AI. That should also translate to mean the human behind it all is the IDer. Sounds alright to me, but is it?

Let's say that over time humans disappear and the machines take over. The once AI, should they design machines as intelligent or more than themselves would then become the ID, makes sense to me. This leads into my morning thought. Two ways of looking at it, one scientific and the other religious. 

If intelligence is a product of the universe itself then it may be possible that were are AI. The universe could be the ID, a wonderful machine of amazing proportions. Without any divinities or ET's to lean on, what else could have designed and built us? If I believe humans are the product of a creator god then the same is true, a god is the ID and mankind the AI. 

So perhaps there's another AI out there that just became an ID. See where I'm going with this. Intelligence, artificial and designed, may be part of a never ending chain. Whenever a new link is added, ID becomes AI becomes ID and so forth. Secondary thought: Does god status belong to the IDer that we have no proof of being or coming into being?

That's it. Seemed profound enough for me to print it here.  I eventually Googled and saw very little regarding my thoughts. Must mean I'm out there somewhere.  Rolleyes
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#3
Zinjanthropos Offline
(Mar 28, 2017 03:26 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: Whether or not we’re living in a simulation, created by hyper-intelligent aliens, or AI, no matter how you spin it, it’s turtles all the way down.

The sun is out.  I'm going to enjoy the day.

Ciao!

Nice, another cloudy, dreary day in Niagara. Anxious to get golfing season underway. 

I forgot all about the simulation hype, which would place us in the AI category. The turtles however, what can be further from the truth?  Big Grin Could those terrapins have been hyper-intelligent? Were they designed? Are they artificial?

SS, you're probably harboring a few gems of cogitative contemplation, why not share them?
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#4
C C Offline
(Mar 28, 2017 02:29 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [...] If intelligence is a product of the universe itself then it may be possible that were are AI. The universe could be the ID, a wonderful machine of amazing proportions. Without any divinities or ET's to lean on, what else could have designed and built us? If I believe humans are the product of a creator god then the same is true, a god is the ID and mankind the AI. 

So perhaps there's another AI out there that just became an ID. See where I'm going with this. Intelligence, artificial and designed, may be part of a never ending chain. Whenever a new link is added, ID becomes AI becomes ID and so forth. Secondary thought: Does god status belong to the IDer that we have no proof of being or coming into being? [...]


It's already taken for granted that an archailect which either engendered a new reality or came to dominate a portion of this one would qualify for some manner of godhood. ("A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") With a resulting theogony behind it that could be traced back to either humans or an ET species.

Since empirically we have an origin via "competence without comprehension" (non-sapient evolutionary processes) -- which is an origin that is "different" from either biological or artificial intelligence being our inventor -- then one would indeed have to go the route of "a transcendent cause that is prior to the whole system of this mechanistic world and its internal network of phenomena serving as inter-dependent reasons for each other". So as to posit our having an origin that is higher in hierarchy than the appearances which science deals with.

But eventually something "completely different" is needed to end the potential infinite regress (i.e., the provenance of _X-Y-Z_ being yet another variable repeat of _X-Y-Z_). Old school metaphysics descended from Plato (etc) ironically understood that better than, say, the contemporary "computational simulation" trend which fills the "transcendent slot" with yet another repeat of the spatiotemporal natural / physical system that is supposed to be subordinate to the upper level. (The homunculus argument entertains a similar nested Russian doll syndrome.)

There's also a side issue branching off from this. Most if not all affairs in the conditioned world (of our experiences) are expected to have relationships to others that can serve as "origins" for them (in our asymmetrical time framework). Seek and ye shall find them or they'll eventually be provided. But "cause" and related concepts can't perversely be treated as more fundamental than existence, or prior in rank to the status of be-ing itself. Which is to say, the demand for a "cause, origin, etc" doesn't have universal applicability (existence is the supreme concept). Another potential reason why "becoming" is a suspect commonsense illusion, apart from these subjective or inter-subjective visitations of a particular part of an only partially observed ontic landscape. (The division of one's cognition that receives the specious title of now, present, etc -- seemingly quickly replaced by yet another division or temporal part.)
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#5
Zinjanthropos Offline
If our universe is a computer simulation then doesn't it stand to reason that a machine of some sort is making it happen. Not a person, or a who, but a machine designed by either an intelligent entity or another machine. My feeling is that if the universe is designed then it is a machine of some kind. 

Casually speaking......I don't know how we could ever know for sure but is there something that would give the answer away? We cannot detect neither of the potential universe designers/builders, entity or machine. Remember the first TV's, when you turned them on a small dot appeared out of nowhere in the center of the screen as the picture tube warmed up and when turned off the TV screen reverted slowly back to a small dot again as picture tube cooled off, before disappearing altogether. I often imagined the universe is like those early TV screens.
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#6
C C Offline
(Mar 29, 2017 06:47 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: If our universe is a computer simulation then doesn't it stand to reason that a machine of some sort is making it happen. Not a person, or a who, but a machine designed by either an intelligent entity or another machine. My feeling is that if the universe is designed then it is a machine of some kind. 


Yes, but the "machine" would be the result of the principles and characteristics of yet another space / time domain or natural world (IOW, it would be abiding within such). Thus a repeat of roughly the same general set of affairs (our own) at that superordinate level, which itself would beg yet another repeat of similar as its own prior in rank "cause" or explanation.

OTOH, there's nothing that should prevent a limited sequence of nested repeats. That virtual realities are possible invites the scenario as inevitable (somewhere). It's just that an infinity of nested repeats should be avoided so that an "ultimate provenance" is finally introduced which isn't vulnerable to "cause" / origin. Due to its manner of existence (again) being "completely different" from the others.

Another way to put it is that corporeal appearances by virtue of their very nature require a network of origins (they're subservient to causation, origins, etc). They exist as objects / events "outside themselves" in contrast to "things in themselves". They're composite arrangements which change over time and fall out of extrinsic relationships (variable perspectives and mechanistic connections).

Quote:Casually speaking......I don't know how we could ever know for sure but is there something that would give the answer away? We cannot detect neither of the potential universe designers/builders, entity or machine. Remember the first TV's, when you turned them on a small dot appeared out of nowhere in the center of the screen as the picture tube warmed up and when turned off the TV screen reverted slowly back to a small dot again as picture tube cooled off, before disappearing altogether. I often imagined the universe is like those early TV screens.


A transcendent level that truly "wrapped things up once and for all" is an empty object of intellect or reasoning. It's not an appearance or representation provided by mental faculties and thereby lacks the empirical properties which could make it sensibly "shown" to us as and treated as real (of having a spatiotemporal location and presence).

Since there is no way to validate the superstratum, it is posited purely out of argued need; and whatever is projected upon it by this or that philosophical group or movement is also grounded in arguments of necessity. The pursuit of it can also be considered speculative recreation or an intellectual game, in which submitted proposals are examined for internal consistency and the legitimacy of their "need". Rather than everyday / provincial concern with such proposals being ontologically the case or not (a fruitless quest of proving or disproving existentially).
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#7
Zinjanthropos Offline
Purely recreational. I'm not really serious about this topic but I get tired of the ID/AI arguments. I understand that in any repetitive chain of events, the first link is forged a little differently. No matter how we try, the ID/AI argument always begins with who designed the designer. I'm just stirring the stew, not concerned with the first link, only those that might follow.
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#8
C C Offline
(Mar 29, 2017 11:58 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Purely recreational. I'm not really serious about this topic but I get tired of the ID/AI arguments. I understand that in any repetitive chain of events, the first link is forged a little differently. No matter how we try, the ID/AI argument always begins with who designed the designer. I'm just stirring the stew, not concerned with the first link, only those that might follow.


Or the "Why is there something rather than nothing?" stuff. Another indirect offspring of placing causation and temporal characteristics prior in rank to be-ing. Inquiring about any "reason" for _X_ is to posit the reason existing and thus already instantiating existence or a member for it.
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