On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 2:30 AM justcamel <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ram Dass ... and to transcend the narrow subset of reality one has been > navigating within. > Oh shoot, I completely forgot to mention: regarding the "universe waking up and becoming aware of itself" It is commonly argued that (capitalist) corporations and (national) governments are "weak superhuman AGI" (running a biological substrate, rather than on silicon). They are awake 24x7, the spy agencies can kill you if they want to and you can do nothing about it, the "APT"s (advanced persistent threats) can zap your computer, etc. They have more money and power than you etc. They are smarter than you (they have more scientists, etc. working for them) You name it: on any scale, a corporation is bigger-better-faster-stronger than you. Or anyone. So are corporations self-aware? Welllll ... are you aware of them? In what sense can you "transcend the narrow subset of reality" you've been navigating in, and instead, join the reality that the corporation is navigating in? Well, you can't. You will never feel much more than some limbs, a head, sleepy and hungry time to time. Why is that? Well, there is not enough "integrated information" between you and the corporation. Or rather, there is a Tonini's Phi for a corporation, and you're just very very weakly attached to it. When you're fired from a job, the employer is making a cut, but not the "cruelest cut" (to the corporation). Like when you wash off some dead skin cells in the shower: those skin cells are not participating in your own self-awareness. To amend Ram Dass: you are just some cells - OK -- some neurons - that are only weakly coupled to the external world. The limits of your self-awareness are strictly defined by this exponentially-decaying boundary between you and everything else. You are trapped in your body. You can't get out. You will never "transcend the narrow subset of reality" you've been navigating in; at most, you will add more and more things to it. (With a whole lot of luck, you will add things to it, until you encompass the entire universe. And then what? I dunno. Seriously, what's it feel like, after you've converted all 10^80 atoms in the universe into a supercomputer, hosting your body/brain?) -- cassette tapes - analog TV - film cameras - you ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T2bfbfce3f854b951-Mc9cc12ee12e0d5da5a35cb6e Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
