On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 8:40 PM Lansana Camara <[email protected]> wrote:
> I’m wasting my time doing something unimportant...the feeling that I
> should be on a grander mission.
>
Ah hah!
I also tried “leadership”, defined in two different ways:
>
> 1. Leadership in terms of what I find myself doing from time to time,
> such as helping my family and friends become the best version of themselves
> - somewhat of a life coach, if you will. But that’s more of a natural
> position I’ve found myself in given the people in my life than it is a
> profession or something I deliberately sought after.
> 2. Leadership in terms of being a manager/executive of a company and
> telling people what to do all day long (assuming that's what the job
> entails). I have very little interest in that kind of thing. I prefer to be
> behind the scenes designing systems or something like that, and just
> delegating work in areas I have no expertise in.
>
> OK, so telling people what to do is "management". Telling managers what
to do is "executive management". Making things happen by working with
organizations is "being an executive".
Today, all of the most important problems are systemic problems, -- global
warming, poverty, wealth-inequality, lack of education, lack of social
welfare, ignorance, racism, and 1001 other things that everyone is wildly
complaining about. We are severely lacking in leaders able to address
those problems, and its clear that the current capitalistic+political
system is fairly broken, and no obvious solution is in sight. So if you
really want to do something "important" ... this is the thing. But its
also ... I dunno. Very hard.
>
> For the past year or so, I haven't been able to think of anything more
> exciting than doing some kind of research on the mind/consciousness, as
> that to me seems like one of the final frontiers.
>
It's only a doorway, beyond which lies even more territory. Let's start
with jellyfish. They have neurons. The neurons help them eat .. and to
flee predators. Unfortunately, they can't decide which is more important.
So nature evolved more complex mechanisms. e.g. bilateral symmetry with a
brain. Which has other control problems, and so then a hindbrain, a cortex,
etc. is needed, each layered on top of the last. See for example:
"Forced moves or good tricks in design space? Landmarks in the
evolution of neural mechanisms for action selection", Tony J. Prescott
(2007)
https://www.academia.edu/30717257/Forced_Moves_or_Good_Tricks_in_Design_Space_Landmarks_in_the_Evolution_of_Neural_Mechanisms_for_Action_Selection
However, things don't stop with the human brain. John Vervaeke has 60
hours of youtube college lectures entitled "waking up from the meaning
crisis" and in episode 2 or 3 he explains the invention of the alphabet as
a "psycho-technology" -- instead of being taught hieroglyphics from the age
of 6, all you had to do was to learn 20-30 shapes and the corresponding
sounds (if you are ethiopian, you are NOT so lucky...) and ordinary people
could do that .. sailors, traders... and so this psycho-technology spread,
virus-like, from human brain to human brain...
"Above" us, as individuals, are memes, temes, corporations, political and
social structures. So, "temes", for example: I quote:
"temes are the technological equivalent of genes or memes, a kind of
replicator that can have a life of its own."
"Most manufactured goods enter in this category, like the cigarette being a
kind of replicator that uses smokers to replicate; once they start
replicating, they can't be stopped so easily. Temes tend to grow as much as
they can to fill the market, regardless of "people's intentions". Seen like
that, those kind of problems appear much more complex to manage..."
Above from a book I have not read: Nicolas M. Kirchberger "The Evolving
Self"
The cigarette is a good example, because it couples biochemistry,
neurotransmitters, reinforcement feed-back loops in the brain, (half a
dozen of these have been mapped out in the brain, acting on various
different timescales, from seconds to minutes to weeks/years, which is why
quitting smoking is so hard -- all these feedback/reinforcement loops
interlock.) (all involving complex interplay between neural circuits,
neurotransmitters, DNA expression up/down-regulation...) It's a good
example, because the feedback loops don't stop with just one single brain
addicted to cigarettes, but extend upwards into society and economic
commerce. Our political/capitalistic systems interact with these neurons
and neurotransmitters... this is why political reform is so hard. If you
are an executive or a politician, you are trying to manipulate these blobby
messes of people and organizations and their instinctual reactions and
learned behaviors.
> I think I'll find a path back into university to study Cognitive Science
> and see where that takes me. Thanks for thought juice. I hope to repay you
> some day.
>
Spending 24 hours/day surrounded by other very smart people is ... a very
interesting experience. Do it.
--linas
>
> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 3:37 PM Linas Vepstas <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Lansana,
>>
>> You are smart, and can obviously learn things on your own. The real
>> question is -- what do you want to do? Business? Engineering? Science
>> research? Leadership?
>>
>> Science is hard/impossible without a formal education (at the PhD level).
>> Getting a license to practice engineering requires passing formal tests,
>> which means college. In business there is a large (huge) financial
>> advantage to getting an MBA (but only while young; business execs do not
>> like old MBA's) and leadership - I dunno. Being in a society of peers helps
>> you figure out how to lead.
>>
>> So, a few comments about college and grad school, specific to your
>> situation.
>>
>> -- Schooling is best done while young, and achieves little once you are
>> past the age of 30 or so.
>> -- Smart, self-taught people (like you) tend to fall into one major trap
>> when it comes to "hard science" -- they avoid the hard stuff. Not on
>> purpose, but because it feels uninteresting. Unimportant gibberish. Most
>> likely, you don't even know it exists. Couldn't recognize it even if it
>> punched you in the nose.
>>
>> This lack is fatal for science research. It's like .. I dunno .. trying
>> to do biochemistry, and never having heard of atoms before. it's
>> impossible. But there are legions of these people. Usually technical
>> people, science fans, but they .. don't know what a complex number is ...
>> don't know what temperature is ... and then they argue... the software
>> programmers are the worst. They don't know, they don't know that they don't
>> know, and because they are programmers, they think they are smart. Terrible
>> combination.
>>
>> College courses force you into studying the hard stuff. And even if you
>> fail, you at least will find out it exists. You will have been punched in
>> the nose a few times. More than a few.
>>
>> -- Having a PhD attached to your name earns you some fair bit of social
>> respect. The reality is that most PhD's are just ordinary people, and most
>> of them are not even that smart; just above-average intelligence. But the
>> title confers respect, which can be useful.
>> -- Only 1 out of seven PhD's end up in academia (and even then, they are
>> often not the smartest ones) Only 1 out of 4 law students practice law ...
>> and so on. The schools generate more than they can employ. Industry jobs
>> aren't always much fun. Depends on what you want from life.
>> -- Many common employers don't want, don't like PhD's. They are
>> over-educated, and become very picky about the kind of work they want to
>> do. They won't just do anything. Employers know this.
>> -- Science is about discovering the secrets of reality. Not everyone is
>> interested in that. Some people say they are, but then do not actually
>> behave that way. You might be one of them. If you never stopped completely,
>> ignored everything else, to spend a few hours getting totally confused
>> about the difference between .. say for example, infrared-heat and thermal
>> heat, or square roots vs cube roots, .. the length of a diagonal .. then
>> you are not a scientist. This starts early, before the age of 10. If you
>> haven't done this by now, you never will. If you do this all the time, then
>> get thyself to a top-tier university as fast as possible. It will save your
>> life.
>>
>> -- Linas
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 11:47 AM Lansana Camara <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry to hijack this conversation, and double sorry for the
>>> pompous-sounding nature of my question and/or self-description; I just felt
>>> like this would be a fitting place to ask it, and I don't know any other
>>> way to phrase the question or describe myself.
>>>
>>> I wanted to reiterate some things that were previously stated because
>>> they are causing me some cognitive dissonance. There seem to be some
>>> conflicting statements in this email thread, or maybe I'm just
>>> misinterpreting them.
>>>
>>> I think having one or preferably more people w/ that sort of
>>>
>>> integrative knowledge is highly valuable for any AGI project
>>>
>>> +
>>>
>>>> MS in Cog Sci is a great idea if you want to work seriously on AGI
>>>
>>> +
>>>
>>>> *Universities were invented 800 years ago as a social structure to
>>>> allow old smart people to have the freedom to do research without worrying
>>>> where their next meal is coming from, to recruit and train young geniuses
>>>> to carry on, and to create walls to keep out the liars, cheats, morons and
>>>> other destructive elements. It is the only social structure that I can
>>>> think of to have survived for so long. The only other thing I can think of
>>>> is the legal theory of evidence, which was invented around the same time.*
>>>> *That said, there are problems. Being an academic requires you to take
>>>> a vow of poverty. If you are lucky, you can pay your bills, but just
>>>> barely. Modern capitalistic thinking has helped damage the university;
>>>> assistant and associate professors are abused. Tenure and publish-or-perish
>>>> has created the crisis of replication, with no cure in sight.*
>>>
>>>
>>> *Questions:*
>>>
>>> - Is university recommended or not?
>>> - If so, and based on my background (below), would a masters/PhD in
>>> Cognitive Science be a good path forward, or would another field be more
>>> ideal for someone like me?
>>>
>>> *Background:*
>>>
>>> While I don't have an undergraduate degree (dropped out of university to
>>> start my tech career when I was 19), I am very broadly learned. That is to
>>> say that:
>>>
>>> - I'm a Software Engineer with five years of professional experience
>>> and around a decade of overall IT experience. I have a decent
>>> understanding
>>> of CS fundamentals because I've studied them on my own outside of
>>> school. I
>>> have tested this knowledge by recently interviewing with FAANG companies
>>> and doing well, though that may not be a great measure.
>>> - In an intent to understand myself and the world around me, I have
>>> also built a good foundation on topics like Psychology, Neuroscience,
>>> Biology, Philosophy, Sociology, etc. These are topics that really
>>> interest
>>> me. I actively read books and study them through various mediums.
>>> - I am well-travelled and feel like I have a lot of perspective; I
>>> was born in a third-world African country, I was raised in North America
>>> and live the privileged life of a 1%er, I've travelled through Europe
>>> and I
>>> have also lived in Asia for two years.
>>> - I am quadrilingual (some better than others).
>>> - I have been deep in religion (through my upbringing), so I have an
>>> understanding of how the mind works in those sorts of contexts, but I
>>> also
>>> left religion so I can grasp the thinking process behind agnosticism,
>>> atheism, etc. as well.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure if all of that personal background is relevant to AGI, but
>>> I figured it may be worth mentioning in case it changes the answer to my
>>> question at all.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 7:55 AM Murilo Saraiva de Queiroz <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Linas and Ben! Long time no see! :-)
>>>>
>>>> Linas, I simply *loved* this part, I want to use it everytime someone
>>>> asks me if going to college is " worth the effort":
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Universities were invented 800 years ago as a social structure to
>>>> allow old smart people to have the freedom to do research without worrying
>>>> where their next meal is coming from, to recruit and train young geniuses
>>>> to carry on, and to create walls to keep out the liars, cheats, morons and
>>>> other destructive elements. It is the only social structure that I can
>>>> think of to have survived for so long. The only other thing I can think of
>>>> is the legal theory of evidence, which was invented around the same time.*
>>>>
>>>> *That said, there are problems. Being an academic requires you to take
>>>> a vow of poverty. If you are lucky, you can pay your bills, but just
>>>> barely. Modern capitalistic thinking has helped damage the university;
>>>> assistant and associate professors are abused. Tenure and publish-or-perish
>>>> has created the crisis of replication, with no cure in sight. *
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Murilo
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 11:12 PM Linas Vepstas <[email protected]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm with Ben, on this.
>>>>>
>>>>> To amplify a few points: Universities were invented 800 years ago as a
>>>>> social structure to allow old smart people to have the freedom to do
>>>>> research without worrying where their next meal is coming from, to recruit
>>>>> and train young geniuses to carry on, and to create walls to keep out the
>>>>> liars, cheats, morons and other destructive elements. It is the only
>>>>> social
>>>>> structure that I can think of to have survived for so long. The only
>>>>> other
>>>>> thing I can think of is the legal theory of evidence, which was invented
>>>>> around the same time.
>>>>>
>>>>> That said, there are problems. Being an academic requires you to take
>>>>> a vow of poverty. If you are lucky, you can pay your bills, but just
>>>>> barely. Modern capitalistic thinking has helped damage the university;
>>>>> assistant and associate professors are abused. Tenure and
>>>>> publish-or-perish
>>>>> has created the crisis of replication, with no cure in sight.
>>>>>
>>>>> As to being a jack-of-all-trades, that takes time and patience. Grad
>>>>> school is designed to be a forced march to the top of the mountain-peak;
>>>>> there is no time to stop and smell the roses. Yet reading a bit of
>>>>> everything takes a very long time - a decade, or two or more. It is
>>>>> essential to obtain a strong foundation. Without that foundation, you
>>>>> become one of those people on facebook (or wikipedia) who ... I dunno...
>>>>> post smart-sounding drivel and nonsense about QM or general relativity or
>>>>> whatever. And then get into endless silly arguments about it. These people
>>>>> are jacks-of-no-trades, and anti-masters of all.
>>>>>
>>>>> Re: cog-sci -- do not confuse it with software engineering. They are
>>>>> very different things. Cog-sci is theoretical, mathematical. Software
>>>>> engineering teaches you how to build things in a safe, functional,
>>>>> dependable fashion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Re: AGI -- it requires research, not engineering. You can't assemble a
>>>>> team of engineers and say "build me an AGI". That said, let me contrast to
>>>>> "big science physics", and to "tabletop biochemistry". So in "big-science
>>>>> physics", e.g. telescopes, colliders, you have 10-100 million dollar
>>>>> budgets, teams of 20-500 people working for a decade to construct a
>>>>> scientific instrument. An army of grad students function as engineers,
>>>>> building the thing, with professional engineers providing guidance. In
>>>>> "table-top biochemistry", you mail-order some reagents and some bacteria,
>>>>> and a week later, you are crispr-cas-ing some genes in your kitchen.
>>>>>
>>>>> AGI research is mostly in the middle between these two. It's hard to
>>>>> do anything in AGI without "lab equipment", it's hard (impossible) to
>>>>> procure that "lab equipment", so you have to build it yourself. And it's
>>>>> almost impossible to convince someone else to build it for you (e.g. an
>>>>> "engineer") because they tend to mis-understand the problem, and build the
>>>>> thing they know how to build, instead of building what needs to be built.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps Microsoft or maybe google has good "lab equipment" lying
>>>>> around for you to use, but its ... proprietary, and it might take a decade
>>>>> before they let you lay your fingers on it. Or something. The goings-on in
>>>>> those companies are opaque to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> --linas
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 8:48 PM Ben Goertzel <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> > - Can an AGI be made without there existing a single person knowing
>>>>>> the relevant parts from Neuroscience, Psychology, Machine Learning,
>>>>>> Philosophy - and perhaps some more relevant parts from Computer Science?
>>>>>> I'd guess this question is impossible to answer, since we don't have an
>>>>>> AGI
>>>>>> yet; but from the perspective of how teams work - does it become
>>>>>> necessary
>>>>>> for at least one person to know the relevant parts from the various
>>>>>> fields,
>>>>>> so as to be able to coordinate the team's efforts? I myself don't have
>>>>>> much
>>>>>> (any perhaps) experience with leading teams; and hence, I wanted to seek
>>>>>> experienced opinions. In essence, is the "broad yet deep" background too
>>>>>> much to aim for?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think having one or preferably more people w/ that sort of
>>>>>> integrative knowledge is highly valuable for any AGI project
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > - Are there any opinions about whether a Masters in Cognitive
>>>>>> Science is worthwhile, or would I be better off pursuing the Masters in
>>>>>> something more specific?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> MS in Cog Sci is a great idea if you want to work seriously on AGI
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > - In case I'm better off pursuing the Masters in something else, is
>>>>>> it feasible to just do it from online courses? I've a strong bias towards
>>>>>> online self-directed learning - and I want to learn things without being
>>>>>> much involved in the research itself. For instance, I am learning machine
>>>>>> learning, but I do not want to invest myself in ML research. I'm also not
>>>>>> very convinced by the way academia exists today in the age of internet,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> think it can be improved. This goes off on a tangent though. For
>>>>>> self-learning AGI itself, there exist a ton of resources at
>>>>>> agi-society.org (the links seem broken in recent days though;
>>>>>> internet-archive helps); but I'd be very dubious if studying that would
>>>>>> help me pay my bills.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Universities suck badly in many ways, yet they are the most reliably
>>>>>> OK institution humanity has yet found for systematically fostering
>>>>>> research and education. Online learning is fantastic, but does not
>>>>>> quite substitute for the complex implicit learning that comes from
>>>>>> being part of a social group focused on learning and advancing a
>>>>>> particular area of knowledge (such as one gets from good old F2F grad
>>>>>> school, as least in non-shitty cases...)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -- Ben
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
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>>>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
>>>>>> send an email to [email protected].
>>>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>>>>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/opencog/CACYTDBdnxU%2BSBDdY-5daWiKHdQuZgr752cGRjL6N7yGPv1C4tw%40mail.gmail.com
>>>>>> .
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes of a creatific thinkerizer.
>>>>> --Peter da Silva
>>>>>
>>>>> --
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>>>>> To view this discussion on the web visit
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>>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/opencog/CAHrUA35pwC%2Be%3D8Vcc-fgwe851MDHn795paaERs3y_0vM4AfwpA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>>>>> .
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> *Murilo Saraiva de Queiroz, MSc*
>>>> *Hardware Engineer at NVIDIA*
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/opencog/CAJ1aRoEbM8aPTYAkhKm4V6h2ia-%2B3JBajvNrHTc8SXxQyxRprA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
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>>>>
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>>> .
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes of a creatific thinkerizer.
>> --Peter da Silva
>>
>> --
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>
--
Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes of a creatific thinkerizer.
--Peter da Silva
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