Fw: The Facts of Life and Hard AI
> The "Emergence of Life" paper is talking specifically about those sorts
> of life that can emerge
> WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF AN ALREADY SMARTER, MORE-ORGANIZED AGENT.
> That's why that kind of life ("natural" life) is a truly emergent or
> (emergent from less-order) system.
>
Well, I'm an agnostic, but your point is well taken here. That said who was
that talking about a "god program", Hal?
> One way of looking at A.I. is that it may become in some attributes
> life-like (I prefer just to say
> it will become a true cognitive agent i.e. a true thinker (active
> modeler) without NECESSARILY
> also independently being a fully self-sufficient life-form. If WE can be
> considered part of the environment
> of AIs, then they are a life-form that uses US to reproduce (at least
> initially).
>
Paraticism and symbiotic raltioanships are common amoung "natual" life
forms.
> It's traditional to think of the environment of a lifeform as less
> ordered than the lifeform itself, so this
> AI case, where the environment includes extremely ordered self-emergent
> SAS's (ourselves)
> is a little bit strange situation and it's hard to categorize.
>
Well, speaking of symbiosis, is my gut less "ordered" than the critters like
ecoli that make a home there? I'm not sure I buy that generalization. I'm
more of the Starr hierarchal ecology ilk (by way of Koestler) or perhaps
Joslyn's meta-transition model; adaption is as much about feedback between
hiearchal scales as within them...
> With AI, it's probably best just to say that there is another emergent
> system emerging, which is
> (at this stage) a combination of humans (the human-species pattern and
> its behaviours) and the software
> (informational) and computing hardware technological/cultural artifacts
> we produce, acting together
> to form the new emergent system.
>
No issues with this view; I wouldn't be at all surprised if cyborgs inherit
the earth.
> People do talk about AI computers/robots and nano-tech, in combination
> perhaps, becoming self-sufficient
> (self-replicating and self-advancing/adapting independent of their human
> creators.)
>
> I have no trouble believing that this is in-principle possible. I just
> want to point out that
> the properties for true long-term sustainability of pattern-order are
> HARD (difficult, onerous)
> requirements, not easy ones. Natural life (in the admittedly single case
> we know) is highly constrained
> because of the constraints on its long-term survival and incremental
> improvement in a less-ordered
> environment.
>
"Hard" may not be the most useful term here; highly constrained, yes; Once
the conditions were sufficient, I think the rest was inevitable. Here I have
to play the "nano-tech" card; one can imagine some uber termite mound
encompassing the globe (and beyond) custom designed (grown?) from the atomic
scale up to our progeny's specs;
The prototype of just such an ecology may well already be in place (were
leveraging it now); with evermore bandwidth, interconnectivity, agency and
now the advent of "grid" distributed computation it's conceivable that
"something" is already in gestation. But I haven't a clue about that..
> It seems easier (but is it much easier really?) to get AIs to
> self-improve/self-sustain purely as virtual (informational) patterns
> or entities (i.e. as software and data ie. pure-informational
> entities/thinkers/knowledge-bases) rather than as informational/physical
> hybrids as we are. I suppose some of the people on the everything-list,
> myself included, may see the
> distinction between informational and physical as more just a matter of
> degree than of substance,
> so this is a puzzling area. Certainly both human-built computers and
> physical machines (robots eg mars rovers,
> nanobots etc) have a long way to go, not only in their basic FUNCTIONAL
> development, but
> perhaps more significantly and certainly more difficultly in their
> ROBUSTNESS (lack of brittleness)
> AND EVOLVABILITY (& META-EVOLVABILITY?) criteria, and their raw-material
> choice
> (natural life uses primarily the most commonly occurring-in-the-universe
> chemically-bondable elements
> (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen etc) for good reason), before they
> could hope to be very self-sustainable.
>
Lanier's "phenotropics" speaks to that brittleness factor. The promise and
the danger may both lay in unleashing genetic programming type strategies on
the problem; "evolving" our broods towards those goals of robustness and
self sustainability w/o really having a handle on the process. Might be
prudent to review Asimov!
> It is interesting to speculate that the mechanisms available to a future
> AI robot/nanotech-conglomerate/web-dweller
> for self-adaptation might be far more flexible and wide-ranging than
> those available to early natural life on Earth,
> because we are building AI's partly in our image, and
> we, after all, by becoming general thinker/planners (information
> maestros if you will)
Re: The Facts of Life and Hard AI
CMR wrote:
I think it's useful here to note that from the "strong" AI point of view
"life as it could be" is empahasized as opposed to "life as we know it".
It's also worth pointing out that the latter is based upon a single data
point sample of all possible life, that sample consisting of life that
(apparently) evolved on our planet. Given that, defining life in the
universe, and certainly in all universes, based only upon that sample is
speculative at best. (Unless, as some claim, our biosphere is truly unique;
I doubt this is the case).
Just to be clear I'm not at all attempting to "dis" the possibilities of
"hard" artificial intelligence.
I studied it to postgrad-level in the past, and would hope to be able to
work in that field for real some
day.
The "Emergence of Life" paper is talking specifically about those sorts
of life that can emerge
WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF AN ALREADY SMARTER, MORE-ORGANIZED AGENT.
That's why that kind of life ("natural" life) is a truly emergent or
(emergent from less-order) system.
One way of looking at A.I. is that it may become in some attributes
life-like (I prefer just to say
it will become a true cognitive agent i.e. a true thinker (active
modeler) without NECESSARILY
also independently being a fully self-sufficient life-form. If WE can be
considered part of the environment
of AIs, then they are a life-form that uses US to reproduce (at least
initially).
It's traditional to think of the environment of a lifeform as less
ordered than the lifeform itself, so this
AI case, where the environment includes extremely ordered self-emergent
SAS's (ourselves)
is a little bit strange situation and it's hard to categorize.
With AI, it's probably best just to say that there is another emergent
system emerging, which is
(at this stage) a combination of humans (the human-species pattern and
its behaviours) and the software
(informational) and computing hardware technological/cultural artifacts
we produce, acting together
to form the new emergent system.
People do talk about AI computers/robots and nano-tech, in combination
perhaps, becoming self-sufficient
(self-replicating and self-advancing/adapting independent of their human
creators.)
I have no trouble believing that this is in-principle possible. I just
want to point out that
the properties for true long-term sustainability of pattern-order are
HARD (difficult, onerous)
requirements, not easy ones. Natural life (in the admittedly single case
we know) is highly constrained
because of the constraints on its long-term survival and incremental
improvement in a less-ordered
environment.
It seems easier (but is it much easier really?) to get AIs to
self-improve/self-sustain purely as virtual (informational) patterns
or entities (i.e. as software and data ie. pure-informational
entities/thinkers/knowledge-bases) rather than as informational/physical
hybrids as we are. I suppose some of the people on the everything-list,
myself included, may see the
distinction between informational and physical as more just a matter of
degree than of substance,
so this is a puzzling area. Certainly both human-built computers and
physical machines (robots eg mars rovers,
nanobots etc) have a long way to go, not only in their basic FUNCTIONAL
development, but
perhaps more significantly and certainly more difficultly in their
ROBUSTNESS (lack of brittleness)
AND EVOLVABILITY (& META-EVOLVABILITY?) criteria, and their raw-material
choice
(natural life uses primarily the most commonly occurring-in-the-universe
chemically-bondable elements
(hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen etc) for good reason), before they
could hope to be very self-sustainable.
It is interesting to speculate that the mechanisms available to a future
AI robot/nanotech-conglomerate/web-dweller
for self-adaptation might be far more flexible and wide-ranging than
those available to early natural life on Earth,
because we are building AI's partly in our image, and
we, after all, by becoming general thinker/planners (information
maestros if you will) have managed
to increase enormously the range of ways we can adapt the environment to
our needs. (Caveat: As an eco-aware
person however I can tell you the jury's out on whether we're doing this
to system-survival-levels of sophistication,
and the jury's leaning toward "guilty" of eco-cide - or more precisely
guilty of severe eco-impoverishment and disordering).
BTW I'm most excited today in the AI field by the possibilities that the
combination of the WWWeb's
information as accessed via google (and similar) and AI
insights/technologies will have. The web is
not a big distributed brain yet, but it could get there.
Eric
Re: The Facts of Life
> Just to be mischievous, I'll here pronounce "the facts of life" or more > precisely > "a sketch of a theory of the emergence of life" which will serve the > purpose of partially constraining/ > defining what is meant by life. This is a hobby project. Wow! A Rather exhaustive and admittedly impressive sketch, that. I'll concede that given those requirements, "life" may indeed be rare in this and other universes. I think it's useful here to note that from the "strong" AI point of view "life as it could be" is empahasized as opposed to "life as we know it". It's also worth pointing out that the latter is based upon a single data point sample of all possible life, that sample consisting of life that (apparently) evolved on our planet. Given that, defining life in the universe, and certainly in all universes, based only upon that sample is speculative at best. (Unless, as some claim, our biosphere is truly unique; I doubt this is the case). Here, I think that I tend to agree with Kory that patterns in a simulation need only meet some set of basic recognized criteria (perhaps Dawkins replicators?) within the contraints of the self consistent "physics" of the "simulation" in order to be considered life. Ilachkinski suggests that as AI extends the exploration of possible life, the associated self-consistent artificial physics might well point to "physics as it could be" as opposed to the physics we know(?). CMR
Re: The Facts of Life
Eric, I love your 'project'. Do not despair by my liking it, it does make sense to me even outside of the orthodox physicalistic thinking. I don't copy the long text, everybody got it, only some little parts of it, to which I paste some comments (marked - [JM]:) John Mikes - Original Message - From: "Eric Hawthorne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 3:27 AM Subject: The Facts of Life > > CMR wrote: > > >Indeed. The constraints to, and requirements for, terrestrial life have had > >to be revised and extended of late, given thermophiles and the like. Though > >they obviously share our dimensional requisites, they do serve to highlight > >the risk of prematurely pronouncing the "facts of life". > > > Just to be mischievous, I'll here pronounce "the facts of life" or more > precisely "a sketch of a theory of the emergence of life" which will serve the > purpose of partially constraining/defining what is meant by life. This is a > hobby project. > > The Emergence of Life Via Weak (Stochastic) Physical Pattern Replication == > Definitions: > > "pattern" a form of order or regularity, which can be described by a > finite and usually simple set of constraints.(...) [JM]: I'd add: ...,a 'model', chosen from a finite set of observed cases. SNIP... > Abstract: > - > The natural selection process that results in the evolution of lifeforms > as we know them can be extended > backwards in time further than is traditionally assumed, to fully > explain the emergence of life from chance-occurring patterns of >matter and energy ... that lifeforms exhibit. ([JM]: I know: on this list of physicists one can not escape from the word 'energy'. Could anybody DEFINE its meaning - not identifying what it does or how it compares to other concepts (measurements) or why we have to think of it, just the term, in a classically identified meaning) SNIP > Characteristics of a living organism: > --- > 1. It self-replicates (aka reproduces). [JM]: since the prokaryotes nothing reproduces. Nothing replicates 'self'. Especially since the invention of sexes: two organisms activate a process in which a third one is produced as a result, not matching either of the instigating parents. It is the 'species' that may said to reproduce, even this only superficially meant, because the ever changing environmental circumstances result in variations (mutations?) of the reaction-product. The variant can be applicable to the (changed, new) environment, or not, when it does not proliferate. The first case - as observed after some time (many generations, in science) are called "adaptation and natural selection". The 'bad' product died out and are not even observed. (Concurring ideas in Appendix B). SNIP > 3. It is an autonomous agent (within some environmental constraints.) [JM]: perfect with the parenthesis, viewed WITHIN the set boundaries of our modelled observation. (Similarly expressed further on). SNIP > Thesis ... [JM]: I might have (similar?) ideas - expressed in a less physiclistic mode, which, by some, may sound 'just less precise'. Exactly, since I think in not-so-restricted boundary-enclosed modelling and so the equations of identical values are more fuzzy (influenced by the 'neglected' data outside the circle of the actual observational model). This was also an 'unprecise' statement. I concur with the par (in a sense that 'environment is beyond boundaries): > Definition-weakening 3: ENVIRONMENT-DRIVEN METABOLISM< extended to more than just metabolism. The Appendices require more time to my readings. Appendix A is formulated in a rather 'physicalistic' language.A short remark concerning App. B is included above. So I skip the rest. I thank Eric for a great idea and its excellent exposition. [JM] > SNIP
The Facts of Life
CMR wrote: Indeed. The constraints to, and requirements for, terrestrial life have had to be revised and extended of late, given thermophiles and the like. Though they obviously share our dimensional requisites, they do serve to highlight the risk of prematurely pronouncing the "facts of life". Just to be mischievous, I'll here pronounce "the facts of life" or more precisely "a sketch of a theory of the emergence of life" which will serve the purpose of partially constraining/ defining what is meant by life. This is a hobby project. The Emergence of Life Via Weak (Stochastic) Physical Pattern Replication == Definitions: "pattern" a form of order or regularity, which can be described by a finite and usually simple set of constraints. "living organism" is a subtype of "spatially organized pattern of matter and energy with some distribution for a time period in some spatial region" in otherwords, of "physical pattern in space-time". "ecosystem" or "supporting environment of an organism" is also a subtype of "physical pattern in space-time". "species" is also a subtype of "physical pattern in space-time", ranging over a larger span of time than an organism pattern, and which includes instances over time of the subpatterns of the "species" pattern that constitute the individual organisms of the species. Abstract: - The natural selection process that results in the evolution of lifeforms as we know them can be extended backwards in time further than is traditionally assumed, to fully explain the emergence of life from chance-occurring patterns of matter and energy. A model of the form of this earliest natural selection process is presented, in terms of three specific weakenings of the self-replication and metabolism processes that lifeforms exhibit. Characteristics of a living organism: --- 1. It self-replicates (aka reproduces). Part of what this means is that the organism assimilates surrounding matter and energy so that they become part of its species pattern, if not necessarily of its own "individual organism" pattern. 2. It metabolizes. It ingests matter and energy and converts them to a form more directly usable for the maintenance of the form and function of the organism pattern and for its reproduction. 3. It is an autonomous agent (within some environmental constraints.) The matter and energy that is "inside" the organism pattern can replicate the pattern, and metabolize pattern-external matter and energy, in a relatively diverse set of surroundings, compared to its own form and function constraints anyway, and it can do these things substantially "by itself" so long as an appropriate supporting environment (which may not itself qualify as an organism but has some form and function constraints itself) is maintained near it. In a sense, this "autonomous replicating and metabolizing" criterion just helps us define a boundary around what matter and energy is "the organism" to and what is "its environment". Thesis --- 1. Before there was "strong" "individual-organism" self-replication, there was "weak" (stochastic) replication of "weakly constrained" (and possibly physically dispersed) "pre-organism" patterns of matter and energy. The only property (constraint on form and function) that these patterns had to exhibit was just enough probability and frequency of just as roughly accurate pattern reproduction so as to maintain the order (i.e. the pattern constraints) of the "pre-species" pattern against the various forms of pattern-dissolution attacks that occurred in its environment. These attacks don't need to be explained much. They are comprised just of a.. the natural tendency of any physical system to increasing entropy (disorder) and b. active processes of dissolution of the pattern or its resources in its supporting environment where those active processes are the result of the actions of competing weakly-replicating, weakly-metabolising physical patterns in the vicinity. 2. Before there was "strong" "organism-internalized" metabolism process, there was "weak" (stochastic) pseudo-metabolism. That is there were processes of energy conversion (and temperature regimes and matter mobility regimes (e.g. liquid phases) ) IN THE VICINITY OF A WEAKLY REPLICATING PATTERN which were such as to support the (at least probabilistic) carrying on of the weak replication process of the pattern. That is, early metabolism could be defined as happening both within and in the environment of the pattern. Since the weakly replicating pattern initially may have been somewhat spatially di
