@ Aaron Professor Murray Gell-Mann postulated effective complexity and intermediate (not balanced) AIC as an optimal means of compressing information. i think this has significant relevance for computability. It does not matter where the information resides and in what symbolic form. His view is a quantum view.
The report on an intermediate zone of critical consciousness (Deric's mindblog) seemingly maps very closely to the sketch presented by Prof Gell-Mann. Here, it does matter what form and locality it inhabits, which is the human brain. So the hypothesis arose of a possible relationship between the two. That was a conscious act on my part and what emerged was the thought I shared. I enhanced the hypothesis from the physical world with the applied theory of Alexander, in living architectures, which presents a biological perspective. However, Alexander is also a mathematician and a physicist (as far as I understood), which provides for a most-interesting perspective in terms of classical and quantum entanglement. Based on my review of his 15 design fundamentals, or principles, his seeming "classical" application in bio-oriented build architectures, correlates very-strongly to quantum principles, and perhaps purposely so. To summarize: Again, the emergence of this information (as "magical" phenomena and/or "unmagical" artifacts of knowledge and thought), logically resembles a conscious process, and thus consciousness itself. Which gave rise (as if by magic or quantum emergence - key word) to the key question then: "Is consciousness perhaps more a state of quantum phenomenon, than mere recall? Such is my theory. So then, in the absence of other evidence to present, it is my theory then, which connects the two ( I need to go look if other theorists hold a similar perspective), but quantum mechanics is rapidly advancing enough to be used as a test of this theory. In my view, a complex, adaptive machine, in any form, even logically, would provide interesting evidence to consider. For me, I want to build the machine to test this, and other theories with. Bohr's entangled instrument, if you wish. Ultimately, to serve as evidence, this form of consciousness (where no time-space constraint and time-space constrained is possible within a multi-state moment in a particular time-space), should exist independently. >>>If you had to design a scientific test, how would you prove consciousness? Rob Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 14:05:10 -0600 Subject: Re: [agi] Couple thoughts From: a...@listbox.com To: a...@listbox.com People keep trying to connect quantum physics with consciousness and AGI. I have yet to see how quantum physics has anything to do with either, except to open the door to mystery and the unknown, a role normally filled by god in a more religious context. It seems to me to be nothing more than a bit of spice thrown into the mix, to allow us to do some hocus pocus hand waving and thereby push out the need to actually understand the phenomenon, projecting it onto some unknown and unknowable phenomenon, much like the humours, homonculi, and vital forces of times past. Could you explain to me what specifically connects quantum physics to the concept of consciousness, at least in your own mind, other than this quasimagical explain-it-later effect? I honestly don't see the connection, nor the need. On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Nanograte Knowledge Technologies via AGI <a...@listbox.com> wrote: @ Aaron The total thought I shared is a holistic, quantum thought. Therefore, unless the bottom-line question is addressed, it would not serve a useful purpose to try and destroy the whole by focusing on one paragraph. That should be clear from the beginning, middle and end of the thought, as our topic. Specifically, my suggestion would be to consider the point on parallel universes - which I maintain is quite relevant for the emergence of a complex, adaptive machine with a sense of consciousness - and entanglement and quantum fabric, as standing apart from its contentious form introduced here, which was adequately dealt with in the last few words of that, particular paragraph. The whole remains independent of personal beliefs. The notion of classical versus quantum science, and its history, was dealt with extensively in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/ Rob Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 11:09:10 -0600 Subject: Re: [agi] Couple thoughts From: a...@listbox.com To: a...@listbox.com Clearly, collective science still cannot prove how two, parallel universes are entangled and by which quantum fabric. For now then, science has to remain a belief system, supported by doctrine and the theoretical acceptance of its own evidence. Sounds similar to a religion, does it not? Perhaps, science merely avoids the religion trap by leaving "God" out of hypotheses, but that is a matter Ben has seemingly dealt with most effectively, in my opinion. Science is fundamentally different from religion not because of what it says, but why it says it. The distinction has nothing to do with god, per se, as science would be equally meaningful whether there is a god or not. They differ instead on how (and how much) certainty is ascertained. Science requires falsifiable hypotheses and uses evidence to test them, and even then does not pronounce them as Truth, but merely as accepted fact for the time being. Religion is a matter of faith, pronouncing untestable hypotheses as Truth without evidence. The interpretation of quantum theory is not the theory itself. The theory is a collection of mathematical equations that, when applied a particular way to reality, have been shown through evidence to effectively predict certain outcomes. There is nothing about that which makes it a "belief system" in the sense you are using it; it is a tool that has been shown to be effective, and nothing more. There is no assumption that we will never find cases where that tool fails, or that there is no better tool waiting to be created. Science is inherently open to growth and change, and it is this refusal to ever call anything the Truth and claim we're all done is what allows science to continually come closer to actually finding the right answers, rather than perpetually holding on to the same errors like religion does. (In machine learning terms, religion converges prematurely, whereas science is an asymptotically convergent algorithm.) The interpretation, on the other hand, is a matter of personal perspective -- an attempt to connect the workings of the well tested tool known as quantum theory to the human intuition in a way that might permit us to engage that intuition to further the theory's use or design. The parallel universes interpretation is just one of many such interpretations -- one that happens to run counter to my own intuition. But no one, at least among the physicists I am aware of, tries to say their particular interpretation is the Truth. They do not "have faith" in their interpretations, but simply treat them as possibilities to be considered. Consequently, this is not a "belief system", but an attempt at understanding which is acknowledged as incomplete and quite possibly not the right answer. On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 4:31 AM, Nanograte Knowledge Technologies via AGI <a...@listbox.com> wrote: My sincere apologies, I did not mean to imply that Deric was the author of the "criticality proper" result, but inadvertently the context read as such. Please accept the correction. Thank you. Rob From: a...@listbox.com To: a...@listbox.com Subject: RE: [agi] Couple thoughts Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 11:34:38 +0200 Are Gell-Mann's intermediate AIC and Deric's "criticality proper" similar to C. Alexander's "The void"? Could this be the dynamically undecidable zone, which quantum entanglement might be associated with? Is it computable? According to classical logic and classical science, it should not be computable. Would the undecidable zone serve as a potential example of Shroedinger's cat, or vice versa, and if so, does the recent report on a simultaneous, dual-state provide hope for its computability? To my mind it would have, if it were on one machine, and not two. Clearly, collective science still cannot prove how two, parallel universes are entangled and by which quantum fabric. For now then, science has to remain a belief system, supported by doctrine and the theoretical acceptance of its own evidence. Sounds similar to a religion, does it not? Perhaps, science merely avoids the religion trap by leaving "God" out of hypotheses, but that is a matter Ben has seemingly dealt with most effectively, in my opinion. Still, a group of us can sit here, quite casually, and move in and out of the undecidability zone without too much difficulty. That, to me then, is the real hope of computability, of shifting the boundary on "undecidability" to a further point of "undecidability". It lives here with us, in AGI and in similar discussions zones. What if Shroedinger's cat got another life, or many antithesis-induced lives, and there were as many cats as there were dynamics of any order, one instance of which was the zone itself? Would this resemble Hawking's perpendicular dimension of "imagination time"? So then, when our human, critical consciousness could exist in a single, entangled state where imagination becomes reality, and reality becomes imagination, where Gestalt is, and is not, within the same timespace, unequally so, there might yet be hope for our machine about 7 degrees from the boundary of disorder, as an independent reality. This begs the question: "Is optimal consciousness (in the sense of largest-possible effective complexity) a quantum phenomenon, or a product of mere memory?". Rob From: a...@listbox.com To: a...@listbox.com Subject: RE: [agi] Couple thoughts Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 02:08:53 +0200 @ Russ Exciting! Thanks for this contribution. The diagram maps closely to what Gell-Mann (1994) describes as, and diagrammatically represents to be, Large Effective Complexity and Intermediate AIC (Algorithmic Information Content). The state of largest, effective complexity matches very closely to this result. He summarizes his sketch, as a "crude illustration" to mean: "...effective complexity of a system (relative to a properly functioning complex adaptive system as observer) varies with AIC, attaining high values only in the intermediate region between excessive order and excessive disorder." Further, he points out that: "Many important quantities that occur in discussions of simplicity, complexity, and complex adaptive systems [such as the AGI forum] share the property that they can be large only in that intermediate region." (p.60) The above relates to information compressionability. Rob Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 17:51:18 -0600 Subject: Re: [agi] Couple thoughts From: a...@listbox.com To: a...@listbox.com ...and now fo something completely different... http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2015/02/psilocybin-as-key-to-consciousness.html Regardless of the space cowboy nature to the title of this link's blog post that appeared today, there is relevant research behind it that touches on some of the well made points presented in this thread. On Wednesday, February 18, 2015, Mike Archbold via AGI <a...@listbox.com> wrote: On 2/17/15, Matt Mahoney via AGI <a...@listbox.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 12:09 AM, Mike Archbold <jazzbo...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> I think under this approach, it "bans" work on trying to actually >> figure out the answers to these tough questions, and instead places >> emphasis on replicating the means (mechanics of the brain) that >> generates whatever it is we call consciousness. I mean, under this >> school of thought, if we don't know how consciousness solves hard >> problems, so what? As long as it works by copying the >> physics/mechanics/etc of the brain (that being the obviously gigantic >> challenge, of course) that is all that is required. > > Consciousness is the feelings (reinforcement signals, mostly positive) > that you associate with sensory perception and thoughts (recalled > memories) as they are written into episodic memory (memory associated > with a time or place). It only seems mysterious because reinforcement > signals alter your beliefs. Your brain works that way because it > increases your reproductive fitness. Even though you can't objectively > believe what I just stated, you want your consciousness to continue by > not dying. > > You don't need to model consciousness to solve most AI problems like > vision, language, or robotics. You do need to model belief in > consciousness as well as other types of reinforcement learning (such > as beliefs in free will and identity) in order to model or predict > human behavior. It is not hard to do that once you understand where > these illusions come from. > > It is a distraction to think that you have to replicate consciousness > to solve AI. It is like thinking that birds fly by some magic that you > have to replicate in order to build airplanes. > > -- > -- Matt Mahoney, mattmahone...@gmail.com > > I see your point. It contentious. There is still a certain appeal to any approach that tries to skirt completely around the, well, contentious problems. Neural nets, as you know, have always been that way, just a black box for the most part. Whole brain emulation, I think, which to me means a straight copy of the highest fidelity, should be taken into account, even if you don't agree with someone's approach under that flag. If consciousness is or isn't part of it is not as important as whether or not the copy is faithful to the original brain. 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