Trinity and the holy nothingness of 0

[S33k3R]

This comes as a result of a conversation I was having in another thread here… http://www.occultforums.net/laveyan-satanism/359-artificial-human-companions.html

We were chatting about Artificial intelligence and computers which got me to thinking about trying to express the human condition in terms of software and programming logic. This is of course what the whole AI trip is about. By achieving true AI mankind will have had to look at himself and come to grips with what makes him fundamentally different and unique, and then replicate that electronically.

Before I go further, I should probably qualify myself…I don’t know much about computer programming or fuzzy logic or any of that, (I have a basic appreciation and a bit of Python..thats it). But for the purposes of this conversation, I don’t really have to. It’s a more of an abstract thought experiment. If however you feel that you want to show your wizardry of programming in a fashion that could de-rail the thread…please go to Slashdot. I’m sure they will be sympathetic.

In very broad terms, computer programs are made up of 1’s and 0’s…on/off…yes/no…up/down. If something is such and such then the next thing is so and so, very deterministic. As far as the human condition is concerned, at lot of our actions are predictable and pre-determined knee jerk reactions to everyday common events, (it saves time thinking about whether you REALLY want a Coke or a Pepsi...you just take what you got yesterday), or as a result of some environmental influence, (your Sister likes Pepsi…you hate your sister so you take a Coke..whatever). For such situations, binary (1’s and 0’s) is cool, no hassle…if this..then that. Assuming all variables are known and catered to. I’m sure that one day soon some geek will sit down and re-create the character of his dead poodle in binary…and he’ll probably make a fortune doing it.

But what of free will? How do we code free will into an AI entity…can we?…do we want to?
What happens when we stop and really think about getting a Coke or a Pepsi, how do we make a choice?
I suppose only those who are interested in free will, (or believe in the concept of it) will find this of interest.

One of the concepts that came up in the other discussion was “Trinary” programming as opposed to “Binary”. Trinary, (actually called ternary Logic for those that care), uses 3 “places” instead of 2… 1 for “yes”, 2 for “no” and a third place..0 for “unknown, irrelevant or both”. In other words…uncertainty.

The funny thing about uncertainty is its association with choice…you have to be uncertain about something in order to make a choice. I don’t mean choosing between a set of pre-determined outcomes…looking at a menu in a restaurant has an element of choice, but not true free will…if you really feel like lobster Thermador and it aint on the menu…your screwed.

Coming back to creating true humanlike AI, one would probably have to look at employing a non-deterministic architecture, (like Ternary logic), and weave in this “uncertainty” to make any headway in replicating the vagaries of the human condition. This is all groovy, but the question that really bugs me is:

Why?

Why would we need the 0?….From where does this uncertainty arise?…what would precipitate the uncertainty that would necessitate a 0?

I find it fundamentally unsettling to think that the human condition can be expressed as the ability to say “How the hell should I know if I want chicken or beef...” and truly not know what you feel like.

So what do you all recon…binary is all that’s needed to understand the machinations of the human mind…or we require that funny little nothing in the middle to make us complete?

I should probably give credit to Sapiens Vir for getting me to thinking about expressing humanity as 1’s and 0’s. Thanks…I think.

[incubus]

When you stop and think about it, there is no thing as free will. There is just programming, so AI's will have to do the same as us and do the best they can.
lol. good post

[incubus]

Then again was it not my choice to reply ?

[S33k3R]

Well, your going to have to tell us ;)

Just looking at where quantum physics is taking us, and the ramifications implied in its weird workings...uncertainty seems to play a much bigger role in the universe than we might suspect.

What happens if things we take for granted, (like the fact that walls are solid and can't be walked through), are not absolute...they simply exist a very strong field of statistical possibility?

What does this mean to pre-determined cause and effect actions?

[zoomare]

there have been a few experiments already to try and predetermine the way humans, especially in groups, will act. a lot of these experiments were inspired by the works of Freud, who had a pretty deterministic view of humanity. the ability to cater to people's "ES", their instinctual desires, to give them the feeling of being completely satisfied without knowing why (these desires remain in the unconscious most of our lives) was seen as the key to controlling a population. at first it was the government who wanted this knowledge to beable to influence people into acting a certain way. then, of course, big business started drooling over the idea of being able to predetermine and maybe even influence people into buying certain things. it got to the point that the U.S. and British government both gave up the responisibility of meeting the peoples needs and left it completely in the hands of the economy. Long story short, emotion plays a much bigger role than people thought, and creates a degree of uncertainty, making it imposible to completely determine how someone will act in a situation. Not only that, but western society as a whole is slowly but surely becoming disillusioned to the fact that material gain leads to happiness, hence the resurgence in interest in occult, mystical ideas.

watch the bbc documentary called "the century of the self" on google video. it gives a very indepth and frightening view of the attempts that have been made to control the masses.

dream freund - Google Video (http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=dream+freund&emb=0&aq=f#q=the%20century%20of%20the%20self&emb=0)

Also look into the writings of Freund, and Edward Bernays.

Edward Bernays ? Wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)

My opinion: there is no such thing as a completely free will as long as we are somehow conditioned. conditioning starts from the first second you are born, and continues unless we become aware of it, and try to reverse it. But, we will always be human, and that is a conditioning in and of itself. So, our action is partly determined, but not completely.

[PerfectCell]

I was thinking about this the other day. I know i can pride myself on saying I have free will but is this in reality correct. Coke or Pepsi, hmmm, being from the south it was always Pepsi, as this was programmed into me by my parents if we are to go this route. When I got older it became coke and my sister jokingly called me a traitor. Did I go to coke out of rebellion or free will, or because all the commercials about Coke were enticing. We are born with free will but it becomes moot when parents society work etc. take over. Do I use free will or is it just the pressures from all of these which controls my decisions. My task is to separate the two and take it from there. I think your post makes one think and this is good.

And this is where the third part of what he was saying comes in, I choose the third option. No soda.

[SWM]

but the third option isn't not choosing, its the fact that you don't know if you want pepsi or coke. You chose option 4?

0 I don't know
1 coke
2 pepsi
3 no soda

[SWM]

Our brain is not structured all that differently from a computer system. We have synapses which are basically biological switches. They are either open or closed, on or off. It is this pattern of on and off that makes up our memories and I suppose the best way to define ourselves would be the sum total of our life experiences via memories.

Actually, that could work in an actual 3D brain + brain stem. The human brain is nothing but synapses being triggered by other synapses. Its complex only by number, seeing as trillions of cells exist in the neural systems, sometimes even more. This on off switch is triggered by electricity and hormones.

So theoretically, if you can get a tiny nano-machine to interpret simple electric jolts and secreted chemicals, you can more than likely create a human brain. The problem with THAT is we have no idea what all of our neurons do to a point. By the time our technology can create robot synapses, we may or may not know what our brain can do to a point, in technical terms.

Its an interesting idea that I have to think of a little more.


P.S. Vir, your posts are walls of text!

[SWM]

I know. I'm really trying to make a concerted effort to tone that back. I'm a naturally verbose person and I like to try to explain my ideas as thoroughly as possible. I really am trying to cut back the sheer volume though. Sorry for the off topic here.

Its nice to know you're so thorough though. I think you can post the same amounts of text with a different paragraph scheem. I always like to be on point when I can, but I feel accomplished when I wall of text.

[S33k3R]

Cool, lot of good points here...lots to cogitate on.

Now let me throw another spanner into the works...

Its fine to say that neurons are like transistors, on or off. By likening the working of the brain to chip, we get the feeling we understand the mechanics of it...we've just got to figure out the how of it.

But the brain itself is comprised of many different parts, all doing different things. I would argue that these different parts are inherently at conflict with one other, your brain is constantly at war with itself...logic at war with emotion, instinct at war with morals. The whole setup of the brain is inherently unstable and in a constant state of uncertain flux.

here is another bit of usefull info from Sapiens...shamelessly used by myself...that eloquently fits into this concept and helps explain the 0 bit.


...the reason for the trinary maybe state is to reflect uncertainties in the decision making process and to allow for flexibility in thinking and problem solving as opposed to the actual scripting of AI responses. In other words the 0 comes into play when you get two If Then statements in conflict with one another. In a binary system this causes an unresolvable error within the program unless you write further scripts to deal specificly with the conflicting interaction which is tedious from a programming standpoint in that it is difficult to script for those things because it involves a certain amount of idiot testing as I like to call it. With a trinary system if you get those conflicting statements the program can use the 0 as a place holder until the conflict is resolved within the script for a yes or no response.

So we would need the 0 to help resolve the conflict between the warring parts of the human psyche?

I wonder...are the thought processes of other creatures linear, or fragmented and conflicting like ours, (No wonder my cat looks so damded smug and happy all the time).

If the uncertainty in humanity, (the 0), comes from internal conflict...one is forced to ask "what happened to us?". Is the hallmark of enlightenment conflict and confusion?

Anybody else the irony in that, or is it just me?

[zoomare]

I wonder...are the thought processes of other creatures linear, or fragmented and conflicting like ours, (No wonder my cat looks so damded smug and happy all the time).

In my opinion, what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom is consciousness. We are life being conscious of itself. Certainly there are other animals that have some idea of themselves and of being alive (gorillas, dolphins), but in no way does it come near to a humans abilitly to be aware of his surroundings. Other animals seem much more programmed, and I would call that program instinct. Most of their action is based on instinct, a body of knowledge, a way of behavior that has been created and modified to fit new situations over millions of years. To a certain extent the same goes for humans, but we have the abilitly to be aware of it (and change it?), where as I doubt most other animals do.

[zoomare]

I disagree. I feel you are dividing two aspects of one and the same instinct, which I would call fear, and if you want to get more specific fear of death. There is no animal that I know of that is without it. You may even consider it the most important instinct for an animals survival, because if that wasn't the case all other instincts would be debunked. Hunger, thirst, sexual drive, could all be traced back to a fear of death, or the desire to continue living. The whole of an animals life(including our's) is based on prolonging life as long as possible.

So often do humans react without thinking in situations of life and death.

[zoomare]

Ahh but does not the realization of one's mortality indicate a level of self awareness? In essence it follows this line of questioning; Can I die? Yes I can. Do I want to die? No I do not. If I can die I must therefore be alive and if I am alive I exist. Granted I'm not saying that animals talk to themselves but I think a basic self awareness is necessary for any survival instinct to manifest. The very notion of said instinct indicates a sense of self. If you discount instinct as an indicator of self awareness and only account for concious I think therefore I am thought processes then our self awareness is a result of socialization and not anythig inherent to our make up as human beings. Taking that a step further all that makes us human and unique is not in our DNA or our make up ,but is a learned behavior and if it is a learned behavior it is not by definition unique to us. Taking that one more step further then a new born infant would have to be considered on the same level as a cat which I think most people would have a hard time swallowing.

I agree with you. There is certainly a degree of self-awareness in other animals, and I think I had said so in my initial post. But, I would not go so far as to say that self-awareness came first, and then came the instinct. In my opinion it was the other way around. A prerequisite for the developement of a survival instinct would be a threat to survival. I feel that a degree of self-awareness definately benefits any attempt to survive, and that it was a much later developement based on the evolution of the animal kingdom as a whole into a system structured around a food chain.

And, take plants for example. They demonstrate efforts to protect their livelyhoods(thorns, etc), and as far as we can tell lack any awareness at all.

[zoomare]

Can you get a little more indepth on how self-awareness might develop out of socialization? I am intrigued.

[SWM]

Can you get a little more indepth on how self-awareness might develop out of socialization? I am intrigued.

The philosophy that for every thing that knows you, there is a different you. (this includes your mom, a dog on the street, a bird, some group of teenagers at starbucks)

Mathematically it would look something like this, its very linear.

mom = you are my son, I love you
cat = he is a man, he can feed me
teenagers = he is a stranger, his hat looks funny

This is the philosophy that your soul, and every thing that you are, is represented by what others think of you. You hold a view of what "You" are. Your mother holds a view of what "You" are. Your self image is different than another's image of you. In essence, the more people, things and beings that you know and have interacted with via conversation or glancing eye contact on the street, you are a jewel of souls. Each opinion or view is different, some remain the same while others are opposite of your personal view of self.

Its a hard concept to grasp, and its not very pragmatic at all. Its an interesting notion though.

[S33k3R]

Allow me a little quotation here:


I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

D.H Lawrence

I suspect the difference between man and animal lies implicit in this quote. An antelope will go down struggling to a lion...fighting to the last...aware of its situation and whats about to happen, (although I wonder if or how they conceptualize death), but it will never ask itself "why me?"

Thats a human thing

Good point about the wild children though. I could only imagine that they would ask "why me" if they were aware of a better way of living. Once they were re-integrated into normal society, they might well sit down one day and be angry at what happened to them. Animals can't do that...an abused dog will always come back to its abuser master.

However, even the wild children might sit and stare at the stars with a sense of wonder, curiosity in humans is much stronger than animals and I think that this had an important role to play in our development.

It alls comes down to the ability to question the status quo.

[Y Ddraig Goch]

This comes as a result of a conversation I was having in another thread here… http://www.occultforums.net/laveyan-satanism/359-artificial-human-companions.html

We were chatting about Artificial intelligence and computers which got me to thinking about trying to express the human condition in terms of software and programming logic. This is of course what the whole AI trip is about. By achieving true AI mankind will have had to look at himself and come to grips with what makes him fundamentally different and unique, and then replicate that electronically.

Before I go further, I should probably qualify myself…I don’t know much about computer programming or fuzzy logic or any of that, (I have a basic appreciation and a bit of Python..thats it). But for the purposes of this conversation, I don’t really have to. It’s a more of an abstract thought experiment. If however you feel that you want to show your wizardry of programming in a fashion that could de-rail the thread…please go to Slashdot. I’m sure they will be sympathetic.

In very broad terms, computer programs are made up of 1’s and 0’s…on/off…yes/no…up/down. If something is such and such then the next thing is so and so, very deterministic. As far as the human condition is concerned, at lot of our actions are predictable and pre-determined knee jerk reactions to everyday common events, (it saves time thinking about whether you REALLY want a Coke or a Pepsi...you just take what you got yesterday), or as a result of some environmental influence, (your Sister likes Pepsi…you hate your sister so you take a Coke..whatever). For such situations, binary (1’s and 0’s) is cool, no hassle…if this..then that. Assuming all variables are known and catered to. I’m sure that one day soon some geek will sit down and re-create the character of his dead poodle in binary…and he’ll probably make a fortune doing it.

But what of free will? How do we code free will into an AI entity…can we?…do we want to?
What happens when we stop and really think about getting a Coke or a Pepsi, how do we make a choice?
I suppose only those who are interested in free will, (or believe in the concept of it) will find this of interest.

One of the concepts that came up in the other discussion was “Trinary” programming as opposed to “Binary”. Trinary, (actually called ternary Logic for those that care), uses 3 “places” instead of 2… 1 for “yes”, 2 for “no” and a third place..0 for “unknown, irrelevant or both”. In other words…uncertainty.

The funny thing about uncertainty is its association with choice…you have to be uncertain about something in order to make a choice. I don’t mean choosing between a set of pre-determined outcomes…looking at a menu in a restaurant has an element of choice, but not true free will…if you really feel like lobster Thermador and it aint on the menu…your screwed.

Coming back to creating true humanlike AI, one would probably have to look at employing a non-deterministic architecture, (like Ternary logic), and weave in this “uncertainty” to make any headway in replicating the vagaries of the human condition. This is all groovy, but the question that really bugs me is:

Why?

Why would we need the 0?….From where does this uncertainty arise?…what would precipitate the uncertainty that would necessitate a 0?

I find it fundamentally unsettling to think that the human condition can be expressed as the ability to say “How the hell should I know if I want chicken or beef...” and truly not know what you feel like.

So what do you all recon…binary is all that’s needed to understand the machinations of the human mind…or we require that funny little nothing in the middle to make us complete?

I should probably give credit to Sapiens Vir for getting me to thinking about expressing humanity as 1’s and 0’s. Thanks…I think.


so how do you program an AI to have a free will ???? progam it so it can learn on its own... make it able to understand and comprehend and there you go u have an AI with free will... the difficult part is that no one succeded to make an AI like that.

[zoomare]

Well I base it more on the "wild children" phenomenon. There have been a few rare cases where children, in their formative years, have been socialized by animals. Not necessarily that the animals actually took care of them , but more that they didn't eat them and the children more or less tagged along after them learning by watching and taking whatever scraps of food they could find. In the end the children were more akin to animals than humans mentally speaking, so taking your original assertion that animals do not posess the same level of self awareness as humans and applying it to this then any human being that is mentally an animal will not have the same level of self awareness. That being said then the only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that our level of self awareness is a result of our socialization, the process for that having been explained above by SWM rather neatly I think.

But, isn't there the oportunity to "re-socialize" the "wild-child", and have him adapt to human society, and become a human as we know them? Where as, with a wolf for example, you can never expect it to learn how to function as an active member of a human society.

So, there seems to be a difference, and although socialization plays a major role in the development of human consciousness, humans have the inborn potential to develop it. Therefor it is not socialization alone.

[Y Ddraig Goch]

zoomare acording to my opinion you are wrong. animals can be part of human society. the problem is lack of understanding. meaning we cant understand their language as they cant understand ours. and yes animals are less evolved when it comes so self-awareness. you know how animal trainers train animals ? with gesticulations, and after that they teach the animals to obey the vocal commands. meaning that animals have the potential to learn as good as humans. and like i said. there is a lack of vocal comunication between humans and animals. the problem is that we prefer vocal comunication (languages). if one is to try to teach an animal something one is to teach it via gesticulations.

[S33k3R]

I might further point out that wolves themselves are incredibly social creatures, with rather a complicated social hierarchy.

I'm no expert, but I would imagine the factors in determining the hierarchy are things like brute strength, big teeth and fertility.

Suffice to say that the more evolved human social structures are a bit more complex...but success and fertility still play a massive role.

[SWM]

Its a poor argument to sate that wolves can't function in a human society. They aren't human! You are comparing two different systems of social structure.


But, isn't there the oportunity to "re-socialize" the "wild-child", and have him adapt to human society, and become a human as we know them? Where as, with a wolf for example, you can never expect it to learn how to function as an active member of a human society.

I'll answer your question with another. Why can't wolves type on a computer? No thumbs. Its the same premis. I can't function properly or fully in an Indian village because I don't know their customs or speak their language. We still hunger, love and hate, traits all humans share. I can't convey that through language, maybe hand gestures.

Anyway, my point is that a rock is a rock is a rock. Wolves are as self aware as a human, because it recognizes its hunger, and feeds itself. Its much more simple than human self awareness, because I'm sure that wolves don't spend nights wondering about philosophy.

I know that I am self aware because I'm afraid of other possibilities. Does that make me less aware than "I think therefor I am"? I doubt it. I'm aware through my method of self awareness, as those wolves who are self aware through their own. It doesn't matter what method of awareness you use, its still self awareness. You can't measure that.

[zoomare]

SWM, I don't think it is a poor argument because in the case of a wild child, a human is functioning in a social structure that is not human. To get my point across I wanted to make clear that the oposite was not possible, and that that displays the fundamental difference between humans and other animals.

Ok, it seems we all agree. Humans have a heightend awareness of self compared to other animals, the potential for which we are born with. This differentiates us from other animals.

Where we disagree is upon the degree of self-awareness in other animals. This is a very difficult subject to talk about, seeing as we can't really put ourselves into their paws, hoofs, etc. But, something I feel a lot of people do is project human characteristic onto other animals, and highly overestimate their ability to think/feel. In my opinion, instinct plays the dominant role in the way they act. Even behavior that may seem like love, or empathy, are in my opinion instinctual. For example, no one can deny the importance of love in humans. It takes around 16-18 years for a human child to be fully grown, in which time it is dependent on the protection and care of it's parents.

I am not trying to reduce love to that level. It certainly goes beyond that for us as a species, but I doubt whether it is so for most other animals. I am simply trying to explain the possible origin of an emotion like love.

To SWM, yes, you can function fully in an Indian village despite language barriers. A smile is a smile, laughter is laughter, tears are tears. The basics you are still able to express. I spent one month on a farm in Rajastan, India where no one spoke a word of english, and after a fews days we could at least communicate on a very baisc level with gestures, as you said.

Also, I feel you are reducing the impact something like a thumb has had on the development of our species. Some say it is the mutation that brought us to this point. You are right, of wolf would have troubly typing on a keyboard because it has no thumbs, but I say a wolf can never grasp the concept of what a keyboard is. And that is not only because we can't communicate properly, but because a wolf doesn't have the capacity to understand things of that nature.

[zoomare]

I guess we have missunderstood eachother because I was certainly not trying to make it seem like humans were vastly different, I was just trying to get at what is actually different.

I agree with you on the topic of love, and on the fact that awareness must be cultivated. I feel like I said both of these in my previous posts, but I guess it didn't get through. I'll have to rephrase things next time.

[SWM]

I guess we have missunderstood eachother because I was certainly not trying to make it seem like humans were vastly different, I was just trying to get at what is actually different.


Wasn't it though? I think you misunderstood my point. I was referencing to the meaningless trait of being able to type for communication. Its a trait. The basic function is still the same, we communicate. The method is meaningless. I can communicate in an Indian village because of hand gestures and general human body language. Communication doesn't promote self awareness. It promotes awareness of others.

My point is in short, that humans aren't very different from our less evolved brothers, or different at all in terms of self awareness. A wolf can't type just as much as I can't bark. This doesn't detract that the wolf knows that he exists, or that I know I exist. The wolf having a "lesser" self awareness, is nullified by the fact that it has an inkling of self awareness.

You can't 'sort of realize' that you exist. You either exist or you don't, and you are aware or you are not. There is no middle ground, whatever method you are using to justify said existence.

[zoomare]

Again, I still think you are simplifying the ability for humans to communicate compared to other animals. There have been experiments made in this field, and it has been show that humans alone have a complex grammatical structure and syntax. And certainly the complexity of communication makes it possible to express more complex ideas. This doesn't mean we are more self-aware, but we again have the capability to express awareness with more depth. This may give us the ability to behave in ways that go against our biology, our instict. For exaple, suicide seems to contradict everything we know about evolution and instinct.

[zoomare]

If your comments regarding suicide were true, then I would assume that mental illnesses such as depression are genetic. They are in some cases, but not all. It would be interesting to see what percent of those who commit suicide have inheritted their depression genetically.

[SWM]

If your comments regarding suicide were true, then I would assume that mental illnesses such as depression are genetic. They are in some cases, but not all. It would be interesting to see what percent of those who commit suicide have inheritted their depression genetically.

again, you are looking for too much. Just because "some" depression is genetic doesn't discredit that virs theory is true. The shoe fits so to speak.

[zoomare]

I didn't negate anything vir said with my post.