Artificial Intelligence: What it portends

[henry quirk]

For this reason my focus became studying material through which I could define, for myself and for my family, the route to a conservative position. I am not talking of politics so much as life-choices, life activity, those investments in value that offer real returns. Obviously, these are spiritual, philosophical and existential concerns.

I understand and, believe it or not, my agenda generally mirrors yours. We differ in certain particulars, have reached different conclusions in those particulars, of course. But, overall, I don't see us in opposition.

So — tussling will likely not serve us well.

We wouldn’t have enough to develop conflict.

We coulda tussled over the particulars.

[iambiguous]

Of course, all I can hope for is that no future AI objectivist allows itself to be reduced down to, uh, “Bar bar bar!”?

Even pedantry is preferable to embarrassing jibber-jabber like this.

It was a joke, obviously, echoing Gary’s post. I hope you got it!

But then “many a truth is said in jest”. You seem to me a study in mediocrity. Or a mind that runs like a tire in mud in the same ruts, day, week, month & year after year. It’s hard to admire you for this reason.

I'll let our exchanges speak for themselves. Others can make up their own minds regarding who is actually responding substantively to the points we make. And who prefers the pedantic "wall of words"...words defining and defending other words up in the intellectual contraption clouds.

ped·ant (pĕd′nt)
n.
1. One who ostentatiously exhibits academic knowledge or who pays undue attention to minor details or formal rules.
2. Obsolete A schoolmaster.
[French pédant or Italian pedante (French, from Italian), possibly from Vulgar Latin *paedēns, *paedent-, present participle of *paedere, to instruct, probably from Greek paideuein, from pais, paid-, child; see pedo-2.]

My objective is much less to exhibit ‘academic knowledge’ as it is a personal attempt to bring in and include wide-ranging cultural and academic references. So many that I read include references to authors and philosophers, even including Latin and Greek quotes (often untranslated).

It doesn’t bother me. In fact I admire it.

Even in exploring pedantry you have to do so pedantically!

All I can hope for is that the chatbots down the road don't follow suit. And, again, if anyone comes across one that is willing to explore value judgments at the existential intersection of identity, conflicting goods and political economy please bring it to my attention.

[Dubious]

I simply said that for some, perhaps many ultimately, and certainly Ancient Seers, saw or realized, inductively, that behind all manifested stuff is something unexplainable. Maybe the questions are irrelevant to you but they have never been so for mankind on the whole.

Again, this is a complete misrepresentation as if I never once explained anything to which, btw, I never even received a reply. Communicating with you is a useless endeavor but since you keep repeating the same BS as to what I think, let's get something straight...

Questions on the whole are never irrelevant, though of course, there are always some that are. It depends to a large degree on who's asking! It's by questions that we seek to penetrate the unknown without knowing what the outcome will be. Is it possible to proceed in any other way?

It's not just the ancient seers that tried to penetrate or questioned the unexplainable but the modern ones as well who have a new set of unexplainables to contend with. The main question, as I see it, is whether there is something ineffable or metaphysical as you would say, or simply a matter of process including its consequent and contingent emergent properties which is what I mostly subscribe to. I say "mostly" because it's impossible for anyone to know and so refuse to surrender to anyone's imagination regarding it.

What I do notice is that the view you present, about which you are so adamant (and humorless!) seems to determine an attitude within which you live. I don’t judge you for that. It is more that I notice it. Whenever anyone explains what they really feel to be true in irreducible terms, there our “metaphysical dream of the world” is revealed. And you surely have one!

Everyone, I think, has episodes of deep feeling whether you call it "metaphysical" or one of immanence where one's whole being dissolves into some nameless realm, an anonymity where only the experience in its totality prevails.

Despite what Dubious says (he’s not read him!) the book is really good and super-useful — if one desires to strive for higher grounds.

It's true I have not read him, but I read the quotes given very carefully, rereading it a few times before replying. This is what I "specifically" responded to. Not having read in full his magnum opus, I'm not in a position to say whether he's good and super-useful. It may be but likely not for the same reasons as those accepted by you.

For example, I find Nietzsche very useful as a catalyst to thought in establishing reasons not to agree, since I'm forced to determine "why" mine would counter his. His aphoristic style often equates to an "in your face" challenge to negate him. I find that extremely useful though admittedly I agree with a lot of it.

----------------------------

Another interesting quote from The Revolt of the Masses, certainly relevant to all of us here, taking notice of a mass-dictated ideational culture from which, out of which, we speak (either carefully and introspectively, or as noisy jibber-jabber).

Is it not a sign of immense progress that the masses should have “ideas,” that is to say, should be cultured? By no means. The “ideas” of the average man are not genuine ideas, nor is their possession culture. An idea is a putting truth in checkmate. Whoever wishes to have ideas must first prepare himself to desire truth and to accept the rules of the game imposed by it. It is no use speaking of ideas when there is no acceptance of a higher authority to regulate them, a series of standards to which it is possible to appeal in a discussion. These standards are the principles on which culture rests. I am not concerned with the form they take. What I affirm is that there is no culture where there are no standards to which our fellow-men can have recourse. There is no culture where there are no prin-ciples of legality to which to appeal.

There is no culture where there is no acceptance of certain final intellectual positions to which a dispute may be referred. There is no culture where economic relations are not subject to a regulating principle to protect interests involved. There is no culture where aesthetic controversy does not recognise the necessity of justifying the work of art.

When all these things are lacking there is no culture; there is in the strictest sense of the word, barbarism. And let us not deceive ourselves, this is what is beginning to appear in Europe under the progressive rebellion of the masses. The traveller who arrives in a barbarous country knows that in that territory there are no ruling principles to which it is possible to appeal. Properly speaking, there are no barbarian standards. Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.

The varying degrees of culture are measured by the greater or less precision of the standards. Where there is little such precision, these standards rule existence only grosso modo; where there is much they penetrate in detail into the exercise of all the activities.

Regarding this quote I'd be more prone to agree if the word "culture" were supplanted by "civilization" which is usually a fixed product subject to gradual erosion and decay.

Culture, as I understand it is a process, however long or short, in fermentation, denoting an epoch in the manufacture of perspectives, one which invariably ends in a more frozen civilized form ruled by the standards mentioned in this quote. Culture is the indispensable prequel to what gets established as much more defined, certain and fixed in a Civilization.

However, I don't know whether "culture" or "civilization" in Spanish have the same connotations in English (I doubt it), in which certain acute differences of interpretation can make ALL the difference depending on context.

...and that's all I got say regarding this.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I'll let our exchanges speak for themselves. Others can make up their own minds regarding who is actually responding substantively to the points we make. And who prefers the pedantic "wall of words"...words defining and defending other words up in the intellectual contraption clouds.

Note: not long after first engaging with you I learned it was futile. So from that point on I respond, at times, but through irony. I am not closed to the possibility that some or at least one of your issues or topics could be responsibly discussed — but in my view the larger blocking issue lies in your own person and style.

The accusation, used now constantly, of being pedantic is underhanded argumentation. My advice? Disregard style and focus only on ideas and opinions. “Walls of words” is something more than silly since the forum is a place of words. When you read a book does it frustrate you that you face a Wall of Words?

Though I ‘made points’ here they are not the sort of points that pertain to the issues important to me. This sort of pseudo-conversation goes on often very frustratingly here.

Isolate what is your most important issue or concern that has arisen when you read my thought and fairly create a thread. Ask fair questions and I’ll answer your concerns.

These grandstanding posts (the one I’m responding to) just don’t excite interest.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Again, this is a complete misrepresentation as if I never once explained anything to which, btw, I never even received a reply. Communicating with you is a useless endeavor but since you keep repeating the same BS as to what I think, let's get something straight...

Becoming clear, and making sure that your ideas are carefully stated, and really more importantly that "where you are coming from" and what you set out to achieve is explained, may result in your failure to make yourself understood rather than to an incapacity for me to grasp it.

It is a common fact that, here, in these spaces, we do not really understand where others are coming from. Sometimes because they (others) are not enough aware of their own determining predicates they are unaware why their positions are unintelligible.

We have, obviously, very different purposes. I state my purposes regularly so there is no confusion. Frankly, I do not understand your purposes -- perhaps because you have not revealed them directly.

I do not mean to twist or rephrase (a criticism I make of others who do it outrageously) so chalk it up to not understanding enough about where you come from. Predicates, established bases.

Questions on the whole are never irrelevant, though of course, there are always some that are. It depends to a large degree on who's asking! It's by questions that we seek to penetrate the unknown without knowing what the outcome will be. Is it possible to proceed in any other way?

Some are not interested in the larger questions, and many are not interested in the largest. In my view the largest and most important questions have to do with the *soul* (our own psyche) which is the entity that most obviously acts in our world. I do not think you share the same concern. Or perhaps you will now say *You are totally misrepresenting me!*

But if you (now) clearly explain what most motivates and moves you, then perhaps I'll know.

It's not just the ancient seers that tried to penetrate or questioned the unexplainable but the modern ones as well who have a new set of unexplainables to contend with. The main question, as I see it, is whether there is something ineffable or metaphysical as you would say, or simply a matter of process including its consequent and contingent emergent properties which is what I mostly subscribe to. I say "mostly" because it's impossible for anyone to know and so refuse to surrender to anyone's imagination regarding it.

Two extremely different sets of people, with incommensurate objectives and methods. While I do grasp what the moderns are doing, I find it of very little use within the *most important* epistemological and ontological categories. How about you?

The main question, as I see it, is whether there is something ineffable or metaphysical as you would say, or simply a matter of process including its consequent and contingent emergent properties which is what I mostly subscribe to.

Beyond any doubt there is something 'metaphysical' (I have no idea why ineffable must be included here) that is intensely linked to and bound up in all that human beings do.

Do you think that true as well? If not, what would you then say?

a matter of process including its consequent and contingent emergent properties

I believe I understand what you are referring to, and perhaps *where you are going with it*, but I think that what will best explain your orientation here is what you have a priori concluded. I.e. the position that you have and have developed for yourself.

Am I right or am I wrong in this?

Everyone, I think, has episodes of deep feeling whether you call it "metaphysical" or one of immanence where one's whole being dissolves into some nameless realm, an anonymity where only the experience in its totality prevails.

When I speak of 'metaphysics' I am not speaking of mystic transports. I am speaking of idea-solidities that derive from principles defined through intellectual processes. Or, the intellectual capacity of man that, through training and focus, locates what is metaphysical to this world, but which yet *stands over* and determines (or should determine) human actions and activity.

My view is that what we discover (there, in that *realm*) is as real as anything else. More real, more determining in fact, than anything in the natural world. And what is discovered there is 'eternal' in the sense of pre-existing the manifest world.

[iambiguous]

I'll let our exchanges speak for themselves. Others can make up their own minds regarding who is actually responding substantively to the points we make. And who prefers the pedantic "wall of words"...words defining and defending other words up in the intellectual contraption clouds.

Note: not long after first engaging with you I learned it was futile. So from that point on I respond, at times, but through irony. I am not closed to the possibility that some or at least one of your issues or topics could be responsibly discussed — but in my view the larger blocking issue lies in your own person and style.

The accusation, used now constantly, of being pedantic is underhanded argumentation. My advice? Disregard style and focus only on ideas and opinions. “Walls of words” is something more than silly since the forum is a place of words. When you read a book does it frustrate you that you face a Wall of Words?

Though I ‘made points’ here they are not the sort of points that pertain to the issues important to me. This sort of pseudo-conversation goes on often very frustratingly here.

Isolate what is your most important issue or concern that has arisen when you read my thought and fairly create a thread. Ask fair questions and I’ll answer your concerns.

These grandstanding posts (the one I’m responding to) just don’t excite interest.

We'll need a context, of course.

Oh, yeah, I forgot: I'm the context.

But, even then, only up in the pedantic clouds.

If I do say so myself.


Really, you should sign up here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/

You can be the irresistible force to Satyr's immovable object. Well, when it's not the other way around.

That is, if you can find anything to disagree about.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That is, if you can find anything to disagree about.

It would be over trifles. A) To have you simply stuffed and hung on a wall plaque in the den — or B) bottled in formaldehyde for future generations to study (in keeping with the etymology of pedant).

We'll need a context, of course.

You keep bringing up what I gather is your primary concern. It revolves around European categories (eurocentrism, chauvinism) and how black brown and red people feel about it (something like that, I paraphrase from memory).

What other context concerns you in respect to my contributions here?

(Note that I did create a thread in the hope of discussing the American scene.)

[seeds]

_______

Picture that scene in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" when the ape-like hominid discovered that a bone could be used as a tool (or a weapon) and then tossed it into the air where it is suddenly transformed into a space vehicle, thousands of years into the future...



Well, that kind of loosely represents how far we've come with AI.

Yes, but this progress still only revolves around the extraordinary accomplishments made over the years in regard to science and the either/or world.

Can AI intelligence bring about another entirely more extraordinary level of accomplishment here?

Yeah, almost certainly.

Agreed.

In the past, genius innovations have usually been the result of a flash of inspiration emerging from the accumulated information held within a singular human mind.

However, regardless of how brilliant one may be, or how much one studies the multifarious subjects and features of the world, there has been (and will always be) a limit to how much information one human can take in, store, and then access for the purpose of coming up with new and innovative ideas.

On the other hand, AI pretty much has the potential of instantly accessing every bit of (digitally stored) information that humans have ever produced throughout all of time.

For example, I just now Googled the word "Science," and in a mere 0.67 seconds, it allegedly accessed 9,780,000,000 sources where (I assume) the word Science is mentioned.

Anyway, the point is that because AI could instantly see and make connections between different areas of information that would be impossible for a single human mind to notice,...

...then, in principle, there would be no limit to the new and innovative ideas that could potentially emerge from this vast pool of amalgamated knowledge.

And that, as you so aptly stated, "...will bring about another entirely more extraordinary level of accomplishments...".

But what about the part I am most intrigued by...AI and conflicting goods. AI and all the moral conflagrations that still beset us. After all, where's the equivalent of scientific progress among the ethicists?

Well, it's not much, but most humans no longer get their kicks watching people being crucified or drawn and quartered in the town square. So, we've at least come that far.

Oh, wait...



...Nah, never mind, there is no equivalent of scientific progress when it comes to human ethics.
_______

[Dubious]

Becoming clear, and making sure that your ideas are carefully stated, and really more importantly that "where you are coming from" and what you set out to achieve is explained, may result in your failure to make yourself understood rather than to an incapacity for me to grasp it.

Sorry, but the ways I attempt to mentally metabolize or understand the world as it presents itself is more complicated than trying to denote it as a fixed point to some question. Existence doesn't resolve itself to equations of intent which requires all the parameters to be included.

We have, obviously, very different purposes. I state my purposes regularly so there is no confusion. Frankly, I do not understand your purposes -- perhaps because you have not revealed them directly.

One of the purposes of thinking is not to presuppose that such purposes exist unless they are "directly" encountered. I'm not aware of any throughout all of history therefore I cannot underscore my thinking by any ostensible purpose in mind, which in any case, I regard as a limitation.

Some are not interested in the larger questions, and many are not interested in the largest. In my view the largest and most important questions have to do with the *soul* (our own psyche) which is the entity that most obviously acts in our world. I do not think you share the same concern. Or perhaps you will now say *You are totally misrepresenting me!*

You are! I already indicated my views on that subject a few times in prior posts but there was never a response and not willing to explain again...except to say, soul and psyche do not require metaphysical predicates to operate in this world; both merely serving as connotations to the advanced functions of the brain.

It's not just the ancient seers that tried to penetrate or questioned the unexplainable but the modern ones as well who have a new set of unexplainables to contend with. The main question, as I see it, is whether there is something ineffable or metaphysical as you would say, or simply a matter of process including its consequent and contingent emergent properties which is what I mostly subscribe to. I say "mostly" because it's impossible for anyone to know and so refuse to surrender to anyone's imagination regarding it.

Two extremely different sets of people, with incommensurate objectives and methods. While I do grasp what the moderns are doing, I find it of very little use within the *most important* epistemological and ontological categories. How about you?

That's interesting as it appears to me that within the metaphysical realm it's so often the epistemological which forges the path toward the ontological in an attempt to make it more accessible, definable and reified. It makes psychological sense considering that the human search for meaning finds itself derelict when exposed to reality.

In effect, if we can't find it, let's improvise beginning with a trite Diabelli theme and develop it into a kaleidoscope of meaningful variations. In effect, using epistemology as a method to expound an ontological status gathering into a full complex of augmented psychic realities.

You believe in the verity of metaphysics as much as IC believes in the verity of the bible which is the reason you find him so fascinating whereas I consider him a thorough dead-end impossible to move beyond...unlike an open-ended metaphysic.

...a matter of process including its consequent and contingent emergent properties.

I believe I understand what you are referring to, and perhaps *where you are going with it*, but I think that what will best explain your orientation here is what you have a priori concluded. I.e. the position that you have and have developed for yourself.

Not at all! In fact, it's metaphysics which can be claimed as an a priori instinct of the psyche which is the reason it remains in power unlike religion. I'm more prone to analysis, examining ideas rather than accepting anything on an a priori bases exempting observation and experience.

When I speak of 'metaphysics' I am not speaking of mystic transports. I am speaking of idea-solidities that derive from principles defined through intellectual processes. Or, the intellectual capacity of man that, through training and focus, locates what is metaphysical to this world, but which yet *stands over* and determines (or should determine) human actions and activity.

Have you ever actually "located" anything within the domain of metaphysics beyond its location in the brain from which all intellectual endeavors proceed? It's possible to "train" oneself to accept any system one imagines and be ruled accordingly.

My view is that what we discover (there, in that *realm*) is as real as anything else. More real, more determining in fact, than anything in the natural world. And what is discovered there is 'eternal' in the sense of pre-existing the manifest world.

Not for me since that requires a formalization of intent within the cosmos or prior to it as if the entire universe were an a priori consequence of it. To be as you say, requires a god pedestal together with a highly theistic mind set to make it viable.

[Age]

_______

Picture that scene in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" when the ape-like hominid discovered that a bone could be used as a tool (or a weapon) and then tossed it into the air where it is suddenly transformed into a space vehicle, thousands of years into the future...



Well, that kind of loosely represents how far we've come with AI.

Yes, but this progress still only revolves around the extraordinary accomplishments made over the years in regard to science and the either/or world.

Can AI intelligence bring about another entirely more extraordinary level of accomplishment here?

Yeah, almost certainly.

Agreed.

In the past, genius innovations have usually been the result of a flash of inspiration emerging from the accumulated information held within a singular human mind.

However, regardless of how brilliant one may be, or how much one studies the multifarious subjects and features of the world, there has been (and will always be) a limit to how much information one human can take in, store, and then access for the purpose of coming up with new and innovative ideas.

On the other hand, AI pretty much has the potential of instantly accessing every bit of (digitally stored) information that humans have ever produced throughout all of time.

For example, I just now Googled the word "Science," and in a mere 0.67 seconds, it allegedly accessed 9,780,000,000 sources where (I assume) the word Science is mentioned.

Anyway, the point is that because AI could instantly see and make connections between different areas of information that would be impossible for a single human mind to notice,...

...then, in principle, there would be no limit to the new and innovative ideas that could potentially emerge from this vast pool of amalgamated knowledge.

And that, as you so aptly stated, "...will bring about another entirely more extraordinary level of accomplishments...".

But what about the part I am most intrigued by...AI and conflicting goods. AI and all the moral conflagrations that still beset us. After all, where's the equivalent of scientific progress among the ethicists?

Well, it's not much, but most humans no longer get their kicks watching people being crucified or drawn and quartered in the town square.

Maybe so physically. But a LOT of adult human beings STILL get 'their kicks' watching people being humiliated, ridiculed, and/or shown to be 'less than', IN the days when this is being written.

Which, to some, could feel WORSE than being crucified or drawn and quartered.

So, we've at least come that far.

So, you lot have NOT come that far AT ALL, REALLY.

Oh, wait...



...Nah, never mind, there is no equivalent of scientific progress when it comes to human ethics.
_______

[Iwannaplato]

Not at all! In fact, it's metaphysics which can be claimed as an a priori instinct of the psyche which is the reason it remains in power unlike religion. I'm more prone to analysis, examining ideas rather than accepting anything on an a priori bases exempting observation and experience.

Those two bases are, or at least could be, given how they are defined, potentially big things to assume. IOW you've got some big apriori. You mention analysis. Analyses take place, or at least, so it seems, over time. So, do you also make an assumptions about memory ? Not just it's fallibility, but say that it is memory of previous events, that there is time, and that memory reflects in some way what went before in the process of analysis. So, assumptions like processes occur over time. Within current states one can look back on earlier stages of the process of analysis.

We can see how 'experience' and 'observation' are defined. I would guess we will find other things that could well be called metaphysical. Some people define metaphysics as, well, woo. But generally it means fundamental ideas about being. Which, for example, scientists also have. Perhaps you might even share with scientists the idea of natural laws.

Let's see.

How many apriori is it problematic to have? It seems two is alright (if they really are just two, since they are potentially complex bases and not single assumptions even if they can be expressed in single words), but what is the boundary where more apriori becomes wrong or too many?
How do we know this?

[Alexis Jacobi]

You believe in the verity of metaphysics as much as IC believes in the verity of the bible which is the reason you find him so fascinating whereas I consider him a thorough dead-end impossible to move beyond...unlike an open-ended metaphysic.

To believe, or understand, or propose that the metaphysical (a tremendously potent agent in our world and what makes the human human) must have ‘existed’ and did ‘exist’ prior to the emergence of everything (the manifestation) is an idea I link myself to — yes, certainly. If everything was once unmanifest, potential, but unrealized, and then did ‘flow into its forms’, similarly what I refer to as metaphysical did as well.

Arose with the manifestation.

How I define IC is not through a simple reduction. I’ve written lots about that in other places.

If it helps you to apply simile to my view and IC’s who’s to stop you working those angles? Get those rhetorical engines revving!

I believe that what I do say about metaphysics is an inevitable proposition. It seems conclusive.

We respond to higher things, things invisible and non-locatable, when we call forth the idea of the metaphysical.

Is my proposed view ‘the same’ as IC’s undeviating belief in that Ur-Christian picture he professes?

Not quite. Yet I do refer to an (obviously) totally invisible non-material thing: an idea essentially: the most relevant, the most transformative ‘thing’ in the human world.

Find IC “fascinating”? No, rather I find him disconcerting as well as puzzling (and frustrating).

whereas I consider him a thorough dead-end impossible to move beyond...unlike an open-ended metaphysic.

Yes, of course. I got all that on the first go-round. A sort of applied-negation as your central predicate.

My position — strategically — has much more nuance. By choice.

Your views seem to me to lock you down.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑
My view is that what we discover (there, in that *realm*) is as real as anything else. More real, more determining in fact, than anything in the natural world. And what is discovered there is 'eternal' in the sense of pre-existing the manifest world.

Not for me since that requires a formalization of intent within the cosmos or prior to it as if the entire universe were an a priori consequence of it. To be as you say, requires a god pedestal together with a highly theistic mind set to make it viable.

Of course! Did you think I missed this? This is one of your ‘core predicates’. It determines you!

What I said (about the atom) is that how one sees what must ‘stand behind’ the atom’s existence, is what is determined by ones core predicates.

To amend Hamlet brutally:

Existence is the thing /
Wherein I’ll trap the conscience of the King

Existence, that things exist.

To be as you say, requires a god pedestal together with a highly theistic mind set to make it viable.

What I can go so far as to say is that it requires a different sense of things than the one you operate with.

[Dubious]

My position — strategically — has much more nuance. By choice.

I don't disagree but it's a nuance replete with baroque flourishes and elaborations which most probability factors discount.

Your views seem to me to lock you down.

Actually that's how I perceive your and IC's views to be, locked down by human conceptions where revisions are rarely possible.

Needless to say, probability calculations forming an index of credibilities are a far greater and open-ended mental adventure...at least for me. The abiding realities of what allows existence to manifest far exceed the metaphysical mysticisms we create and succumb to.

The way I conceptualise it, metaphysics emerges more as a human necessity, a psychological one not unlike many where Christmas isn't Christmas without a christmas tree to be decorated in any way they wish.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The way I conceptualise it, metaphysics emerges more as a human necessity, a psychological one not unlike many where Christmas isn't Christmas without a christmas tree to be decorated in any way they wish.

It’s a facile observation, Dubious, completely in accord with your core predicates. It follows and will always follow.

But it’s superficial. It doesn’t really address the fundamental questions. And these you wave away with your glib declarations.

There, that is where your will shows itself. Should someone poke you about this — Mr Irate shows up, cranky & intolerant.