RE: [agi] A theorem of change and persistence????

[Ben Goertzel]

OK, let me put my point in a different way.

 

I would say that if the universe remains configured roughly as it is now, then your statement (that long-term persistence requires goal-directed effort) is true.

 

However, the universe could in the future find itself in a configuration in which your statement was FALSE, either

 

-- via self-organization, or

 

-- via the goal-directed activity of an intelligent system, which then stopped being goal-directed after it had set the universe in a configuration where its persistence could continue without goal-directed effort

 

-- Ben G

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Philip Sutton
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 10:18 AM
To: agi@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [agi] A theorem of change and persistence????

Hi Ben, 

> I like your line of thinking

Why?  :)

> but I'm pretty reluctant to extend human logic into the wildly

> transhuman future...

You don't have to.  If the idea I put forward makes sense to a human, it

might also make sense to an early stage, but clever, AGI. If the clever

AGI thinks about this issue and finds it of value it will translate it

over time in whatever way makes sense to it and/or its peers..... into the

wildly transhuman future.  You don't need to make the projection, the

wild-transhuman can do it.

> The very idea of separating persistence from change is an instance of

> human-culture thinking that may not apply to the reasoning of a

> transhuman being.

I don't think the ideas of change and persistence need be hermetically

separated from each other.  I don't think such a separation is essential

to the argument I was trying to make.

> Consider for instance that quantum logic handles disjunctions ("A or B")

> quite differently than ordinary Boolean logic.  What kind of "logic"

> might a massively transhuman mind apply?

Sorry, the practical import of this has gone right over my head. Can you

express your point in a way that is accessible to a non-mathematician/non-

quantum physicist?  :)

All I'm trying to say is that, in the face of ongoing change in the

system, if something (anything) is to persist through deep time (other

than by a most extraordinary [and probably very boring] and unpredictable

accident) then some conscious goal-directed effort will need to be

directed toward this outcome.

More simply, persistence through deep time, of anything, is unlikely

without some conscious effort somewhere.

Cheers, Philip

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