John, For a reply of its short length, given the subject, it was quite helpful in letting me know the type of things you were talking about.
Thank you. Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: John G. Rose [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:41 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [agi] AGI and Deity Ed, It's a very complicated subject and requires a certain theoretical mental background and somewhat unbiased mindset. Though a biased mindset, for example a person, who is religious, could use the theory to propel their religion into post humanity - maybe a good idea to help preserve humanity - or should that be left up to atheists, who knows. What I mean by conquering cognitive engineering issues I'm just looking for parallels in the development and evolution of human intelligence and its "symbiotic" relationship with religion and deities. You have to understand what cognitive functions deities contribute and facilitate in the human mind and the civilized set of minds (and perhaps proto and pre human as well as non-human cognition - which is highly speculative and relatively unknown). What are the deitical and religious contributions to cognition and knowledge and how do they facilitate and enable intelligence? Are they actually REQUIRED in some form or another? Again - Are they required for the evolution of human intelligence and for engineering general artificial intelligence? Wouldn't demonstrating that make a guy like Dawkins do some SERIOUS backpedaling :-) The viewpoint of gods representing unknowns is just one aspect of the thing. Keep in mind that there are other aspects. But from the informational perspective a god function as a concept and system of concepts aggregated and representing a highly adaptive and communal entity, incorporated within a knowledge and perceptual framework, with inference weighting spread across informational density, adding open endedness as a crutch, functioning as an altruistic confidence assistor, blah blah, a god(s) function modeled from its loosly isomorphic systems representation in human deities might be used to accomplish the same cognitive things(as well as others), especially representing unknown in a systematic, controllable and actually in its own distributed and intelligent way. There are benefits. Also a major benefit is that it would be a common channel of unknown operative substrate that hooks into human belief networks. John _____________________________________________ From: Ed Porter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 11:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [agi] AGI and Deity John, You implied there "might be a very extremely efficient way of conquering certain cognitive engineering issues" by using religion in AGIs. Obviously any powerful AGI that deals with a complex and uncertain world like ours would have to have belief systems, but it is not clear to me their would be any benefit in them being "religious" in any sense that Dawkins is not. So, since you are a smart guy, perhaps you are seeing something I do not. Could you please fill me in? Ed Porter -----Original Message----- From: John G. Rose [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [agi] AGI and Deity > From: Charles D Hixson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > The evidence in favor of an external god of any traditional form is, > frankly, a bit worse than unimpressive. It's lots worse. This doesn't > mean that gods don't exist, merely that they (probably) don't exist in > the hardware of the universe. I see them as a function of the software > of the entities that use language. Possibly they exist in a muted form > in most pack animals, or most animals that have protective adults when > they are infants. > > To me it appears that people believe in gods for the same reasons that > they believe in telepathy. I.e., evidence back before they could speak > clearly indicated that the adults could transfer thoughts from one to > another. This shaped a basic layer of beliefs that was later buried > under later additions, but never refuted. When one learned language, one > learned how to transfer thoughts ... but it was never tied back into the > original belief, because what was learned didn't match closely enough to > the original model of what was happening. Analogously, when one is an > infant the adult that cares for one is seen as the all powerful > protector. Pieces of this image become detached memories within the > mind, and are not refuted when a more accurate and developed model of > the actual parents is created. These hidden memories are the basis > around which the idea of a god is created. > > Naturally, this is just my model of what is happening. Other > possibilities exist. But if I am to consider them seriously, they need > to match the way the world operates as I understand it. They don't need > to predict the same mechanism, but they need to predict the same events. > > E.g., I consider Big Bang cosmology a failed explanation. It's got too > many ad hoc pieces. But it successfully explains most things that are > observed, and is consistent with relativity and quantum theory. > (Naturally, as they were used in developing it...but nevertheless > important.) And relativity and quantum theory themselves are failures, > because both are needed to explain that which is observable, but they > contradict each other in certain details. But they are successful > failures! Similar commentary applies to string theory, but with > differences. (Too many ad hoc parameters!) > > Any god that is proposed must be shown to be consistent with the > observed phenomena. The Deists managed to come up with one that would do > the job, but he never became very popular. Few others have even tried, > except with absurdly evident special pleading. Generally I'd be more > willing to accept "Chariots of the Gods" as a true account. > > And as for moral principles... I've READ the Bible. The basic moral > principle that it pushes is "We are the chosen people. Kill the > stranger, steal his property, and enslave his servants!" It requires > selective reading to come up with anything else, though I admit that > other messages are also in there, if you read selectively. Especially > during the periods when the Jews were in one captivity or another. > (I.e., if you are weak, preach mercy, but if you are strong show none.) > During the later times the Jews were generally under the thumb of one > foreign power or another, so they started preaching mercy. > One of the things about gods is that they are representations for what the believers don't know and understand. Gods change over time as our knowledge changes over time. That is ONE of the properties of them. The move from polytheistic to monotheistic beliefs is a way to centralize these unknowns for efficiency. You could build AGI and label the unknowns with gods. You honestly could. Magic happens here and combinatorial explosion regions could be labeled as gods. Most people on this email list would frown at doing that but I say it is totally possible and might be a very extremely efficient way of conquering certain cognitive engineering issues. And I'm sure some on this list have already thought about doing that. John ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=74907034-dbcbc4
