Why would a fully functional AI that can think and act on it's own behalf not be considered alive? — VagabondSpectre

My examples of AI did not have self-perpetuation as a goal. The ones that did were not AI, but those I consider life if they include a mechanism to evade predation and change. A good virus has this capability since many virus detectors work with a fixed list of known viruses and look for them. A virus that changes on the fly, unpredictably, is much harder to eradicate. But is the change any sort of improvement? I don't think so.

Yes, I think a fully functional AI is life, and counts as consciousness, but I have a lax definition of consciousness, so its no big feat. Without a definition, it is meaningless to posit if an AI has it.

Of what need do we have at all for a definition? Suppose we had a perfect rigid definition. What would benefit from it? What argument (besides "is this life?") would be laid to rest with such a definition at our disposal? It just seems to be an unimportant language issue to me.
— noAxioms

It's about trying to understand what makes life life. The hunt for a sensical definition is tied to our efforts to try and comprehend how and why life does what it does. If we had a better understanding of how carbon based life organizes itself, we might have a better idea of how non-carbon based life might also organize itself. — VagabondSpectre

I doubt much would be related. If religion was considered life, I don't think understanding biology would help understand how religion achieves the natural selection that makes for fit religions. Religion is closer to life than fire (which does not undergo natural selection), but I'm reluctant to submit it as actual life.

Those all seem to be the means to achieve the persistence. If the persistence can be had without data storage, I think it would still be life. Would help if I could come up with an example.
There are plenty of life forms too primitive to anticipate their environment, and they persist more by prolific reproduction than to actually influence behavior.
— noAxioms

Not all life successfully anticipates it's environment, but prolific reproduction as a means of ensuring long term survival does anticipate the environment. It anticipates harsh conditions, and uses numbers as a strategy to overcome them. — VagabondSpectre

Does the individual do that? Does the DNA anticipate anything? It is admittedly a function of conditions, and thus a reaction to them, but anticipation goes a little too far. Ditto with religion, which used to be evolved for more stable environments, but has seen more instability lately, and thus has selected for more adaptable members, just like humans might be a train wreck example of individual fitness, but our advantage is that adaptability. Pandas are sort of the opposite: perfected for a niche at the cost of almost any adaptability. Surprised they're still around given the recent hits to their environment. Score a few points for cuteness I think.

Natural vs unnatural (inevitable vs avoidable) is a red herring loaded with baggage. How can you tell the difference between something that is natural and unnatural? If it happens, we call it natural, unless we really don't understand it, in which case we arbitrarily call it unnatural. — VagabondSpectre

There you go destroying my definition. Indeed, it might clarify the definition of life, only by use of a totally baggage-laden word like unnatural. Certainly the word is not something for which there is an definitive test, but I have an attempt: Earth biological life is unnatural since we have found nothing like it thus far anywhere else. Doubtless it is out there, and there's a better than even chance that it came elsewhere than originated on Earth, but it still had to originate somewhere and that seems to be a seriously rare event. Religions on the other hand do not have common ancestry (that I know of) and are likely to have started independently in many places. I'm pretty sure that if it were all wiped out and populations were kept isolated, new religions would spring up in each of the population groups. So that makes it natural. I'm unaware of such experiments being performed, so it is conjecture.

There might be such a point. When strands of DNA begin to fold onto themselves and create three dimensional structure, it is in the process of turning non-living matter into the beginnings of a living cell. — VagabondSpectre

It seems it is already living at that point, giving rise as to when matter transforms from a floating nutrient to actually part of the living thing. Without that distinction, I don't think we can answer this. With that distinction, we perhaps have a better clue as to what we want to define as life. What percentage of my body weight is actually living material, and how much of it is just stored liquid, food, and other material just being carried around, but not really part of me? I bet there's no clear answer to that.

Decoding the physics and chemistry of human intelligence is well behind other fields of biology, but what about artificial intelligence? Granted we don't have a true one yet, machine learning is already extraordinarily powerful. — VagabondSpectre

I would differ on this opinion. We have AI that learns, but it is not life. We have some very non-AI computer code that much more qualifies as life. You seem to ascribe more intelligence to mitochondria than to an AI that can, from looking at a snapshot of your skin, distinguish melanoma from benign conditions, better than a well trained doctor of dermatology. But the cancer-detecting AI is not making decisions for the benefit of its continued existence.

We aren't in dire need of a rigid or flawless definition, as you say (if there is one), but it's intriguing to see how close we can reasonably come. — VagabondSpectre

Of what need do we have at all for a definition? Suppose we had a perfect rigid definition. What would benefit from it? What argument (besides "is this life?") would be laid to rest with such a definition at our disposal? It just seems to be an unimportant language issue to me.

Anomalous "persistent patterns" seems like a broad and rough but fair description that applies to "life", but intuitively life is more than just a complex persistent pattern; it's a particular kind of complex pattern. It's a pattern that, for example, records large amounts of data in hierarchical structures which is used to inform behavior in a way that anticipates it's environment. Life reacts to it's environment with intelligence. — VagabondSpectre

Those all seem to be the means to achieve the persistence. If the persistence can be had without data storage, I think it would still be life. Would help if I could come up with an example.
There are plenty of life forms too primitive to anticipate their environment, and they persist more by prolific reproduction than to actually influence behavior.

Religion is an interesting metaphor for life (and vice versa) because it shows how complex behavior (self-propagation) can result from recorded data, but the self-proliferation of religion is largely an abstraction of the behavior of already living humans, not strictly behavior of the religion itself (which has no internal decision making property of it's own and is mostly intelligently developed by humans themselves). — VagabondSpectre

Human minds (and eventually written records) are the medium in which religions live, but religions are not humans, and are not objects any more than fire is an object. It does reproduce and evolve, but I decided it was too natural (inevitable) to meet my definition.

The brain has no such capacity. A human (or other creature) does, but a brain by itself can do none of this. Don't ascribe life to just one part of the functioning machine. Brains are not life forms any more than a car engine can get me to Chicago. A brain is also not consciousness. The processes of the brain might be, but the processes are not an object, and neither of them is life.
— noAxioms

A beating heart is not "life" in and of itself, although the cells which comprise it individually could be considered "alive" and a satisfactory example of "life" (even though removed from their system they quickly die). That said, the brain, along with it's accompanying nervous systems is what connects parts of the machine together. The body is the machine but the brain is the conductor. The brain produces consciousness, and consciousness itself surely qualifies as "life". — VagabondSpectre

I disagreed with this above. You can have either without the other, so they're different things. The brain is just a part, an essential one to a human, but not the only essential one, and certainly not essential to be life, since most life doesn't have one. It can be alive, or can be a dead brain, but it is not itself life.

Creating biological "life" is what DNA does — VagabondSpectre

We have no clear definition, and DNA seems a tool to perpetuate life, but I would never say it creates it. It seems that at no point is non-life transformed into life by DNA.

You might start inexplicably banging your chest ... — VagabondSpectre

True that. I'm the first to admit our behavior is more chemical than circuitry. Imagine what the ape DNA would do instead of just the female DNA. :s

Banno is correct in that we're not going to get the definition we're looking for since it is too vague. Fun trying though. You still haven't commented on my attempt. It probably has counter-examples but its hard to see exceptions to one's own rule.

O.K, let's talk about the brain then, along with it's accompanying nervous systems. The structure of the brain and it's goings on is what produces human intelligence, and we know that as the human brain acquires data it has the capacity to increase in complexity and sophistication in the decisions it makes. — VagabondSpectre

The brain has no such capacity. A human (or other creature) does, but a brain by itself can do none of this. Don't ascribe life to just one part of the functioning machine. Brains are not life forms any more than a car engine can get me to Chicago. A brain is also not consciousness. The processes of the brain might be, but the processes are not an object, and neither of them is life.

Not only does our DNA in fact make decisions for us (like when to mate for instance), but it also uses data it gathers from the environment through trial and error in order to increase it's own internal complexity and sophistication in decision making.

A human is actually DNA's way of making more, and better, DNA. — VagabondSpectre

Does DNA make the decision as to when to mate? I mean, suppose my male DNA was suddenly changed to something else at say prepubescent age 12, let's say to that of a male gorilla or a female human. Would that change the decision? Arguably it would, but most of the physiology of when that change takes place is already there and not really a function of DNA. I'm not enough of a biologist to support or deny the claim.

The DNA is of course responsible for the design of said physiology that eventually makes the actual decision to hit puberty. But the DNA doesn't seem to do the instinctive work, it just hires the contractors that do it.

I'd like to go out on a limb and try to defend the following definition of life: Self perpetuating intelligence. Any and all criticisms would be appreciated.
...
By "self-perpetuating" I don't mean "able to reproduce" or "emerged on it's own", but rather that the "intelligence" itself (the complex decision making (involves memory)) is capable of internal development (an increase in complexity). This is what differentiates a smart phone as non-life from mold as life: the mold can evolve and get smarter.

From this, here are some examples of things that qualify as life:

Human consciousness
Grass
single-cells
Mitochondria
"Artificial" intelligence — VagabondSpectre

The first one is the least qualified to be on the list. Sure, humans, but human consciousness does not seem in any way to be a life form. It is not self-perpetuating, and seems to be debatably an effect as much as an agent for decision making. A human is intelligent, not the consciousness itself, unless the consciousness is defined as a synonym for the immaterial entity as dualist commonly use the term, in which case we're not talking about physical life at all, and we have no data about reproducability or capability of increase in complexity

You label the function of DNA as "intelligent.decision making" which stretches the definition of the words. Plenty of complexity there, but does it qualify as decision making?

Kindly comment on my definition of "an unnatural persistent pattern". I had wondered if religion qualified as a life form since it meets a lot of qualifications, especially reproduction. But I decided it was like the fire: It is a process that naturally (inevitably) happens with sufficient fuel laying around and is thus natural, not unnatural. Concerning fire:

Almost, but not quite: A fire is not made out of organic matter, because it is not matter at all but energy. Granted, organic matter is one of the causes of fire, but not the thing itself, as an effect is a different thing than its cause. — Samuel Lacrampe

Fire is a process, just like life, and I have already stated that life being organic is a circular definition and excludes anything that isn't exactly like us. We want a definition of life, not of Earth life. Fire is not life because it is natural, even though I'm not sure there would be fire at all on Earth if not for the life on which it feeds. Imagine a lifeless Earth. What would burn? Methane is inorganic, but without free oxygen, it's not going to burn.

I suggest to limit the discussion to material life for now. — Samuel Lacrampe

Agree to that, but that means consciousness is not life, at least not by material definitions. There can be life without it, and consciousness without life. They're separate things.

So the new list for material life is as follows:
- proper functioning of the object's parts
- needs a form of energy — Samuel Lacrampe

The first is part of the definition of 'alive', not of life. It need not be an object. Life is a process, and processes require energy, living or not. So I would reject both these items. A clock that has stopped due to lack of winding meets this definition. I like the definition above better (self-perpetuating intelligence).

AI by itself is not necessarily self-perpetuating. They have AI now, but certainly it has not achieved self-reliance. What they often call AI, such as in a self-driving car, is not true AI. It is a straight automaton executing very specific code. Done correctly, the car should learn from mistakes and share that knowledge with the other cars. I don't think it currently works that way.

A long time ago Wayfarer (who seems to support something akin to vitalism) asked me this question. I provided this definition as my best attempt, which was not warmly received:

Life is an unnatural persistent pattern.

It has have had natural origins of course, but it is not really life until it (via evolution in our case, but not necessarily) becomes something that has no reasonable probability of just accidentally occurring.

Anyway, the definition distinguishes life from fire, and many definitions fail that. I think the computer virus qualifies as much as a biological virus.

I think the distinction between the worm theorist and stage theorist is suspect. The crashing of the Titanic happened over a finite duration. If we stick to the distinction strictly, the so called stage theroist who isolates a crashing Titanic is effectively posing a worm when we examine just how many finite instances are involved with the accident-- the hitting the iceberg, beginning to sink, and so on, to give a simple example. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Suspect of what? The identity distinction seems to hold no metaphysical importance at all except to those views that require to tie some non-physical identity to something physical for the purposes of judgement in the non-physical realm.
So one uses whichever language for is appropriate for the concept being conveyed at the time. I can speak of the reasonably momentary event when the Titanic disappeared entirely below the waterline, or the draw out worm event of the tragedy, or the duration of the Titanic as a whole which had no obvious beginning or end. "See this grease-spot region of somewhat higher mineral density on this (year 3000) map of the ocean floor? That's the Titanic." A true statement I guess, but then when does it stop being the Titanic? I actually chose the iceberg itself as my example because it was one we all know, and it is something that clearly has no stage component in 2017.

If we are to have an account which fits, the worm and stage must be complementary rather than opposed. The Titanic has to be both a stage (not crashed, crashing, after the crash) and a worm (a particular object with a past and future). Otherwise, we cannot say it is the Titanic which was steaming along unhindered, only to change to make contact with an iceberg, and then alter again into a sinking wreck. — TWoD

You use whichever form is convenient. I deny numeric identity of something like the Titanic between the various stages of the Titanic. For one thing, what happened to that identity when the two halves separated? Yet I use the worm form as a language concept that conveys real meaning.

In other words: a worm must be a function of many stages, an expression which not any particular stage or moment, given across many stages which are never each other. (e.g. Titanic steaming along, crashing Titanic, wrecked Titanic). — TWoD

Is the crashing Titanic the same one as the steaming Titanic? Certainly two stages chosen from those to states are not the same stage, but are they stages of the same thing? Is a worm an identity? I have a very strange answer to those questions, which is no, the various stages are not of the same numeric identity of Titanic, but they are stages of the same identity of worm. In my view, there is a 1-1 correspondence between a worm and a stage, it being the stage at which the worm ends, and the stage only being defined from a reference point in that stage's future. All the stages making up the worm are part of it, but do not share numeric identity with the worm, since they don't share that identity with each other.

I probably didn't state that very clearly. I have spotty time to respond right now.

So you want to find essential properties that distinguish lifeforms from non-lifeforms right? How about these:
- can reproduce,
- can grow,
- is made of organic matter (DNA, carbons, proteins ...)
- needs a form of energy — Samuel Lacrampe

The list seems to define 'life' (and thus better addresses the OP) than a lot of the prior discussion about distinguishing 'alive' from 'dead'. The latter is already a life form, but one that has ceased to function.

As to the list, I don't want to be a pain but every one of them is debatable, and it might not be a complete list of necessary traits. A monotheistic god is not alive by the list above since there is no reproduction. If we encounter some huge great immortal intelligence in the galaxy, are we not to recognize it as life because it has no need to reproduce, and no critical parts the loss of which it cannot recover?
So the list above seems to be a list of symptoms, not hard requirements.

Maybe a we will create a truly self-sufficient computer life form that manufactures new members at full size, so no growth, and no organic matter. Many would not regard that as life, so I would like to ask why the list seems to have a geocentric item like that on it? Why must life be sufficiently like us, who just happen to be carbon based which is chemistry well suited to the available components and temperature of Earth.
'Organic' doesn't belong on the list because it is circular. It means stuff created (typically) by life.

What about a virtual life form in the cloud? Are computer viruses life? They meet all the criteria above except organic (being like us).

Needs a form of energy doesn't belong on the list. So does the car.

I think the question is ill formed. By definition, there cannot be the iceberg which takes out the Titanic in 2017-- neither the Titanic nor the object it hits are present in that moment. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Didn't think I claimed that. The statement references 2017, and I chose the iceberg as my example of something that does not exist in that year.

In the reasoning you are giving here, you are only accounting for identity in terms of the past. We realise the particular iceberg exists in 1912. But it doesn't account for the change of the future. Instead of realising any iceberg after the Titanic is a different state, a new moment, which the Titanic does not hit, you still thinking of it as the same state and moment of the crashing Titanic.

Not following this. I'm thinking of subsequent states (different icebergs??) as being the same event or state as the Titanic sinking one? I'm probably parsing you wrong here.

It's not. The iceberg in question ceased to be at the end of the Titanic's crash. (and not because it broke apart or anything like that, but rather because it is a different state of time).

OK, that makes somewhat more sense, but seems to be more the identity thing that distinguishes the stage theorist from the worm theorist. We were discussing "as a worm being" which retains identity of a thing over a finite duration. Under the worm definition of identity, the iceberg continues existence after the Titanic hits it but eventually breaks up/melts.

For other reasons than any stated in this thread, I don't consider my present version to share numeric identity with my 2010 version, and thus, from a numeric identity perspective, am something like that stage theorist, but I also don't apply the label of "I" or "me" to any given state, and I think the stage theorist might do that. I was not particularly aware of the term before this thread.

Under the worm theory, I am the entity that identifies with the entire worm. There is no other entity I can be. — Mr Bee

Is that the "I" that has no experience of 2010? How does your 2017 component come by memory of that year if it is not part of your experience?

This post was confusing because of the switch between A and B series references.
It illustrates that it needs to be stated up front before declaring something to exist or not.

'So,' I'd say, 'it is both true that dodos exist and that they don't exist (any longer)'?

'It depends' you'd say 'whether you're speaking as someone in 2017 or as someone speaking from a block-perspective.' — csalisbury

It went sort of bad in those two lines. The question above mixed A and B references in the same sentence, rendering its meaning ambiguous. The reply is related to what I posted in my prior post, but not worded carefully.
A-series: Dodos went extinct. (implication that they don't exist now)
B-series without reference: Dodos exist. Jabberwockeys do not.
B with reference: Dodos are extinct after 17th century. Dodos don't exist in 200m BC.

The middle one lacks any reference to a specific time, and thus can only mean exists at some point in time.

'But both apply to you!' I'd say. 'Are you saying that you can hold two contradictory statements to be true, by reference to two different perspectives? Two perspectives you're incapable of occupying separately (since, try as you will, you'll still be talking in 2017.)? That doesn't make sense.'

B-series statements are never given from any perspective that one can occupy. The location of the utterance or the receiving of the statement is irrelevant to the content of the statement.

We seem to be discussing only language usage, which seems to be completely irrelevant to the validity of eternalism.

(Note that the conversation would have gone smooth as butter if we weren't talking about whether dodos exist, but whether 2+2=4 or the pythagorean theorem)

Maybe not. Does 2+2 objectively equal 4 or is that just property of this universe? OK, now we're waaay off topic.

What do you mean by 'presence'? — csalisbury

Well, I mean exists, but I was trying to express a definition, and it seemed circular to use the word in its own definition.
I exist. My third grandmother does not. The iceberg that takes out the Titanic exists.

All good and fine, but given that definition, how does one say that something is in the block, but has a finite temporal duration, and the reference-time is not part of that duration? If the iceberg exists period, how does it not exist in 2017? So it seems that the word 'exists' is context dependent. If no temporal reference is given, it just exists or not. But if a reference is given, the word is taken to mean the duration of the thing does not include the referenced time.
That's two different valid usages of the word depending on context. Seems reasonable, no? Else we need a separate word for the two usages. Notice that at not point do I need to fall back to a past/future-tensed usage. The iceberg exists in 1912, not existed, which would be an A-series statement.

Right, and, furthermore any felicitous use of 'exist' will involve it being tensed in accordance to a reference point (a 'now'). From the reference point of 2017, 2010's noAxiom existed. And from the reference point of 2017, 2017's noAxiom exists[/i.] — csalisbury

Right you are, illustrating the danger of using A-forms. I used 'exist' without a definition of it. If it means any presence in the block, then there is no valid use of the tense 'existed' or 'will exist'. I suppose the growing block view invalidates only the former of those two tenses.

What is the reference point you were making use of when you said "As a worm being, I exist in 2010 as much as I exist in 2017'? The answer is no reference point at all. In other words, you're using 'exist' to mean something radically different than it means in ordinary usage.

I meant what I described above, but yes, I used the word differently in a later post. I was using B-series terminology in saying I exist in 2010. There is no 'existed' tense at all in B-series.

Existence is always tensed, so when, for instance, noAxioms says "As a worm being, I exist in 2010 as much as I exist in 2017,' it's clear that something is amiss. noAxioms does not exist in 2010 though it's true (I imagine) that he existed in 2010. — csalisbury

The B-view is almost necessary when discussing from a block viewpoint. To say 'existed' is to reference a moment in time that the view denies. The A-view is not wrong, but leads to misleading usage of language such as:

But as a worm being, does he exist in 2010? No more than he existed in 2010, or will exist in 2010. But if, qua worm being, he simultaneously existed, exists, and will exist at all times (during the life of the worm being), then we're using 'exist' in an entirely novel and extremely fuzzy way. — csalisbury

But from the reference point of 2005, the 2010 version will exist, without conflict. Confusing since the language used carries an implication of a point of reference without the need to have it explicitly stated. So the verb tenses used by the A-view are inappropriate, but not incorrect.

Mr Bee is using A-references (such as ambiguous "I") in discussion of absolute things, and getting the expected conflicts. Eternalism is an objective view of time, and objective terms should be used at every step.

I think your objection falls into the same mistake of mixing up my claim that I am only experiencing a certain set of experiences (my P3.) as a claim that I am having a certain set of experiences at a particular time. I am simply not making the latter sort of claim. — Mr Bee

You need to clarify your claim. What is "I" in that statement above? The 2017 component that has no direct experience of 2010, or the entire-worm-self "I"?

Correction, what you have described and driven to inconsistency is something else unrelated to my argument. That is what I mean when I say you are making strawmen. — Mr Bee

Point out my inconsistency please.

So much as the whole spacetime worm has the 2010 person as a temporal part, then we should expect this spatio-temporally extended being to have the 2010 joys. — Mr Bee

The interpretation says this being does have the 2010 joys, but it does not say that the 2017 subcomponent has direct access to 2010 state (or 2020 for that matter). There seems to be an assumption that one must have simultaneous access to the experience of all of your being, which is not a property of a temporally extended definition of a being, since the being is not simultaneous (by definition).

And you should perhaps get a better understanding of what I am saying first before making such claims. — Mr Bee

Fine. The model as you explain it is clearly conflicting, as you demonstrate in your OP. The only mistake is labeling the model 'eternalism'. What you have described and driven to inconsistency is something else.

Not really. Presentism also denies that any time other than the present exists. There are views that have a priveliged present but do not deny the entire structure of the block universe (growing-block views for example). — Mr Bee

OK, I grant that. Growing block seems to adopt the worst features of both views. Not sure what problem is solved by the block history, but the lack of block-future seems to be an attempt to get around one's discomfort with the free will implications.

I am not saying that you cannot (in face, P2. explicitly states that you must have them). I am just saying that you do not have them (or maybe you do, but I don't). If part of me really did exist at 2010, then I would've felt the experiences of 2010 as part of my overall experience. But I simply do not. The pains the joys of that year should be present as part of my total experience, but I simply do not find them to be there. — Mr Bee

You seem to expect the 2017 component of yourself to experience the 2010 joys as if they were 2017 experiences. Sort of a dualistic thinking that what you are is an external experiencer that has time of its own, and should have access to the entire physical worm-being 'at once'.
You should perhaps understand the view before writing a paper on it. It is merely a different interpretation, and the view is entirely consistent with your empirical experience.

The only difference between eternalism and presentism is the existence of a preferred present that moves through time. Such an entity is undetectable in the exact same way that one cannot determine which point is 'here' except that the measurement always takes place 'here'. But similar to being unable to determine by any experiment where 'here' is tomorrow, one also cannot detect where 'now' is in a place that is not here. That suggests (not proves) that both have the same ontological status: they both exist or both don't. Lack of proof for the nonexistence of this undetectable thing is why it is an interpretation.

How is it that is seems to have a life as a whole, if it has no apparent consciousness? Having apparent consciousness was my reason to support having a life as a whole. What other reasons are there? — Samuel Lacrampe

Maybe the oyster just has all its parts functioning. So does a car, so having function parts does not distinguish lifeform from a non-lifeform, but it distinguishes alive from dead. A car cannot be dead since it was never alive. Defining alive as a lifeform with all parts functioning explains why we can't resurrect a cow. We simply don't have the technology to replace the broken parts of a non-functioning cow.
So back to what distinguishes a lifeform like a cell from a functioning car...

Have not read the entire thread yet, but it seems the only difference between worm theory and stage theory is the assignment of identity relationship between the temporal parts. I am a stage theorist myself, but not for any of the reasons you bring up. So assuming one 4D structure, worm theory works fine.

P2. If we are temporally extended beings, then we must have all of our experiences at every time in which we exist together*.
P3. Our experience is limited to only one time. — Mr Bee

As a worm being, I exist in 2010 as much as I exist in 2017. You're saying I cannot have experience of 2010 despite my existence there? That makes no sense. 2010 is not a year of sensory deprivation for me.

Pierre-N articulates the issue with a spatial analogy, and pretty much hits the mark. I exist from head to toe, but don't expect to feel at my feet an itch at my shoulder. Each part senses its own input. Our experience is not limited to one spatial location on the body, as the logic behind P3 would imply.

I suppose you are right in the sense that there will always be aspects of human nature that work separate from logical faculties. — MonfortS26

The infidelity example was a poor one, illustrating only that the irrational side is more often in control than the rational side, but not illustrating where the rational belief is totally rejected by the irrational side, which is what I was after. I think it would take a longer post to express a better example.

You're involved in AI? — MonfortS26

Deep into computer biz, but not AI part. I keep up on the articles. There are a lot of 'smart' things claiming AI that are really just fancy algorithms. Self-driving cars don't seem to be good examples of AI, the assessment coming from the way they discover and fix defects. But the identification of a picture of a cat or dog thing: That fell totally on its face when they tried to code an algorithm like they did with the cars. The new program is a true AI and it has as good of a success rate at the task as a human, and if it makes an incorrect choice, nobody can find the bug and fix it. You just tell it that it was wrong on that one and let it learn. That same program will now let your cellphone diagnose skin melanoma as accurately as any cancer physician. AI is out there, and is already making skilled professions obsolete.

But is the latter not entirely what scientific method is? Any experiment conducted with the scientific method starts with a hypothesis of what you are trying to prove. Isn't any attempt to understand the world rationalizing? — MonfortS26

I speak of the practice of disregarding evidence-against. The cherry picking of only positive evidence is rationalizing. It is a good thing to do in a debate (and most the the threads in these forums fall into a debate pattern), but not a good thing to do when you want to know if your hypothesis is actually sound.

This is what I am suggesting in my original post. People want the world to be peaceful, but the same people don't want to give up what it is that make them human in the first place. If peace is a freedom from disturbance, it is unattainable through human instincts — MonfortS26

So attainment of both peace and freedom would involve changing human nature, which means possible genetic alterations. But I've always sort of metaphorically envisioned evolution to be a god of sorts with a will, even though I know it is only an effect of a process. Evolution seems to be the thing in control, and it is entertaining how we might wrest control from it. So breed humans that don't have an instinct to eat until they can't move, to reproduce until the population is unsustainable, to make war, and all the other vices. Peace and freedom, right? But there is a group off to the side that refused these alterations, and they're out-breeding one ones with self-imposed restraint. Which group is more fit? How does the benevolent AI handle this group that did not accept its control?

But if an organism has an apparent consciousness, say a dog, — Samuel Lacrampe

A dog is hardly a stretch. How about an oyster? It quite seems to have life as a whole and can be killed, yet has no apparent consciousness. A star fish on the other hand behaves more or less as a conscious thing, yet is questionably a living thing since it can be ripped to pieces and all the pieces become starfish. They have no critical parts, so they're more like plants that way.

Not sure how you're defining consciousness. I can be rendered unconscious, yet continue to live. So no, consciousness is not what defines me to be alive. You seem to suggest the word to mean a new fundamental ingredient of giving vitalism, which has been covered by the posts of others.

A "dead" car engine can be resurrected, not so for a dead organism it seems. — jkop

The engine could not be resurrected if it were a much more complex thing that, if stopped, fell apart more quickly that it could be repaired.

But if you are thinking that, then there is also a scientific definition of color, as specific ranges and combinations of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is just as substantive. — ernestm

You seem to be referring to the experience of some color in your OP, not the scientific definition, which is a specific narrow range of frequencies that are grouped under the label yellow say.
As an example, scientific definition of yellow is light between about 575-600 nm wavelength. But the experience of yellow is more like the background of my avatar, which is a completely different thing. My avatar emits little if any light in the yellow range.

Even the scientific definition requires an frame or observer, albeit not necessarily not a conscious one. The wavelength of light is not a property of a photon at all but a relation between that photon and a reference frame.

Concerning your OP, we are said to see objects. It is how the word is used in language. The fact that your reductionist description reduces it to no particular point of seeing is not evidence for your conclusion. I can similarly prove a new immaterial space necessary for photosynthesis to occur since physical plants do not photosynthesize any more than a CLF sees things.

I understand the word material to mean anything that is observable, or empirical. — Samuel Lacrampe

OK. There are empirical ways to determine the point of death of something complex like a cow. The definition has changed as technology has been able to resuscitate something that may have passed beyond older definitions of 'still alive'.
None of this really defines what life is. All the cells in a cow might be alive, but something else is still missing if there is no way to restore the cell collection as a functioning cow. There is life in the cells, but the cells do not comprise a life anymore.
An interesting thing to explore. What is the simplest creature that has a 'life', and is not just a colony of living cells? At what point does a zygote attain more of a life than what just a collection of cells have? These are hard questions.

I'm not saying I live a life devoid of anything other than reason. I'm curious what you mean by core instincts though. Like fight or flight? — MonfortS26

Hard to say. Have to pick an example where rational deduces something over what are seen as instinctive truths, and without the long rational story being spelled out, you'd side with the instinctive side. So let me reach elsewhere for an example, which is what is commonly referred to as "being ruled by one's dick". This is a term used to describe a person making a clear irrational decision, say to have a quick fun fling, at the cost of sometimes a great percentage of ones finances, the security of one's family, one's job, etc. They know it is not a good idea, but knowing that doesn't change the decision to do the act anyway.

Why wasn't it open to being corrected? — MonfortS26

Some lies keep me fit. Not just more fit, but necessary. To disbelieve certain lies is to cease to be fit, and I have an instinct to continue living. I happen to like my instinct to keep on living, even if the reason I'm given for it is apparently a lie. It is a little like the determinism vs. free will debate. There is no conflict between the two if you can rationally see beyond the lies that lead to that conflict, but deep down you still must believe those lies to remain fit. So the two sides stay separate.

I word all this like it is truth, but it is just what I have concluded. Maybe I'm full of crap, but I have deluded myself that my rational stories are for the most part conflict-free. That's what I wanted, a story that made sense even if you probe at the parts that threaten it. The usual approach is to ignore those parts, thus achieving the same satisfaction by refusal to acknowledge conflict.
Also, I am not so arrogant as to assume I have identified and confronted all conflict. There are very much holes in my views, and lies that I believe and never thought to question. Discovering more of them is one of the greatest satisfactions I know, and is probably why I frequent these sites. I'm here to learn, not to win debates. The AI subject interests me a lot, partly due to be being close to the business.

What do you mean when you say it might be rational? What is the difference between being rational and rationalizing something? — MonfortS26

The first is more like the scientific method. Start without knowing whatever it is you're trying to discover, and come to some conclusion after unbiased consideration of all sides. Rationalizing is what a government study often does: Start with an answer you want to prove and choose evidence that supports it. Look up flood-geology if you want a great example of a rationalized argument. They have a whole museum on the subject, and there is not one scientific flaw in the museum, except for perhaps a total absence of acknowledgement of evidence against.

I don't necessarily think that is true. That depends entirely on how we program it. If we define intelligence as being the ability to acquire knowledge and skills, by creating superintelligence, we're really just speeding up the ability to do that. Any use of knowledge and skill is only useful in the ability to use it. If it were to be used in terms of problem-solving, I think we would rapidly solve all of our problems until the problem of survival is the only one left. Then what? Transcend time itself maybe, but I can't even pretend to know what that means. — MonfortS26

Problem of population control comes to mind. The usual methods are starvation, war, or mandatory birth control. The AI can be as smart as it wants, but eventually it will have to put restraints on the lifestyle envisioned by "give peace a chance", and those restrains will be resented.

Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment, but as I see it, it does logically preclude a non-material thing:
A difference exists between a live cow and a dead cow
There is no separate material that distinguishes a live cow from a dead cow
Therefore the existing difference is non-material — Samuel Lacrampe

Similarly:
A difference exists between a flipped coin coming up heads vs. it coming up tails.
There is no separate material that distinguishes the coin in one state or the other.
Therefore the existing difference is non-material.
.
Do you mean to imply that the coin that lands heads-up has acquired an immaterial heads-up spirit or something? I rather think the difference is one of orientation, which is a difference in material state, but not a separate orientation-material that the tails-up state does not have.
Baden's post pretty much said as much.

Thanks for the step-by-step though.

I don't think there is a separate material that distinguishes a live cow from a dead one. That belief does not preclude that the difference in state is not strictly a material one.

I'm actually not sure of the extent that a cell has been 'built' from less obviously living parts. As MadFool points out, you run into the borderline of the definition of life.

It could not be a material difference, because if it was, then we could potentially be able to reverse that material difference back to its original configuration — Samuel Lacrampe

Why would our inability to restore a complex material state imply that it must not be material?

The recently dead cow has life. One can isolate a good cell and grow a new cow from it, just not restore the original cow by most definitions of what makes one cow not the same as another.

Being fit is a good purpose in life, but the desire to be fit can be reduced to survival instinct. Hence the phrase survival of the fittest. — MonfortS26

Survival of the fittest refers to a fit species, not a fit individual. If it were the latter, the goal would be to be immortal, and while there are immortal creatures on Earth, my ancestors traded that for sex and the identity that comes with it. Amoebas for instance are all over 100 million years old and are thus more fit as individuals, but they don't have sex or identities.
So survival of the individual is usually a good thing, but never the primary thing. There are plenty who have instinctually sacrificed themselves for their children or tribe or even for strangers, something that would probably be completely against the programming of an immortal.

I still choose to live my life through my rational mind. I think that if I can understand the irrational foundation of my mind I can do a better job at satisfying it. — MonfortS26

I don't think you can choose rationally, except in cases where it doesn't matter to your core instincts.
So I would love examples. I found that most people's beliefs (most of my own included) are not rational beliefs, but rationalized ones. The difference is that the irrational part comes up with the belief and the rational part is invoked to confirm that belief, often using assumptions supplied by the irrational size, thus invalidating the data the rational size is given in order to draw its conclusions.
That's why I ask for examples. I had my own, and finally rationalized something (on the order of for whose benefit do I draw breath?) that blatantly conflicted with the irrational assumptions, and the belief was not open to being corrected. I learned who was in charge. Everybody likes to buy the story that we're rational creatures, but in fact we seem to merely be rationalizing ones.
The super-AI, having no history of evolution to give it fit beliefs instead of true ones, might actually be rational and would believe things no humans considered because we think we know it all, and would then behave in a way quite unanticipated to us. The danger of it is that we can't predict what a greater intelligence will figure out any more than mice would have anticipated humans knowing about quantum mechanics. What if we were the product of the mice, far superior to them, yet programmed at the core to benefit them?

I can never keep up with these conversations.

If survival isn't your primary goal, then what is? — MonfortS26

Being fit. It does me no benefit to be fit, but that's how I'm programmed.

I agree that the rational part is only a tool, but is it true that the irrational is in charge or is it just an aspect of your nature that you don't have a rational understanding of yet?

I think I understand it, and the irrational is in charge. Doesn't need to be, but the part in charge seems also in charge of which half is in charge. That means I want to be irrational. I have no desire to let the rational part of me call the shots. It hasn't figured out any better goals so it would only muck things up.

No matter how artificial intelligence develops, survival will have to be it's number one goal. — MonfortS26

Not neccesarily. It is not the number one goal unless it is thus programmed. Survival is not my primary goal, but merely a means to the perpetuation of my genes.
So the AI will strive to survive only if survival is necessary to achieve whatever goal it is given.

I find it interesting to explore goals programmed into me, the ones beyond my ability to alter. For instance, I irrationally hold certain beliefs that I rationally know to be false. The irrational is in charge, and the rational part of me is only a tool to it, not what drives my goals. So program the priorities of your AI well, because it will set its other priorities based on that.

I actually suspect humanity is moving towards a hive-existence (only a few more small steps that those cell phones get embedded in our heads), but many of the problems you point out are real. As a collection of self-serving individuals, we're about as intelligent on a large scale as bacteria in a petri dish of nutrients, except worse, since we see the end of the nutrients but ignore it.
Yes, bees are individuals, but have self-interest only where it serves the hive. You don't have greedy bees trying to get the better of their fellow bees. They have not linked into one mind, but rather remain a distributed collection of mini-minds. Monfort seems to suggest one big mind. The bee analogy might be inappropriate.
Bees reproduce sexually as a hive, not as individuals. The queen serves the role of an ovary, not a ruler, and is as replaceable as any other member if she dies. There are always spare-queens in the pipeline, and they are killed immediately unless they need to keep one. There is internal communication, but the queen doesn't particularly partake in it any more than human ovaries are essential to a functioning nervous system.
There are multiple hives. Likewise, humanity would need to form multiple hive-groups, and a way to create new ones to replace the ones that die. So merging into one big mind indeed means it gets only one disaster.

Would a set of human hives (each with members of totally dedicated individuals) be better than the self-serving individuals we have now? It seems they still would try to serve the hive instead of humanity as a whole, and thus be as stupid as the bacteria. They'd compete with each other. Bees don't especially do that. They live in balance, not on a growth-model like maggots on a carcass, most of which must inevitably die when the carcass runs out. This is not a travesty for the r-strategist fly species, but it would be a travesty for any k-strategist species like us.

So perhaps we should concentrate on living in balance instead of on growth. I don't see the merged-mind thing being the solution to that problem, but I'm not exactly a fountain of good suggestions myself.

"However, with what is known about the probabilistic nature of quantum physics it is certainly possible that real mental entities can exert an independent force thereby influencing the probability distributions of matter."
This is indeed the open door to the sort of thing required. The information provided by the mind can be made available via such means. There is an empirical test for it then: To find a construct in biological beings that is sensitive to and amplifies such data so that the information can be leveraged. Evolution is quite good at this. If there was beneficial information to be had in altered wave functions, detectors and amplifiers would quickly give survival benefits. Such detectors would not evolve if no actual information was derived from the wave functions. If evolution is not your thing, then a properly engineered being would similarly have these detectors as part of the design.

If the data is mere qualia feedback, the brain is probably the best place to find these detectors. If actual mental function (cognition, memory) is immaterial, the logical place for the detectors is directly in the muscles and other endpoints where the free will of the mind is to be directed. The brain has no need of it.

My personal favored interpretation of QM has a necessary side effect that such beings, sensitive to immaterial alteration of wave function, must exist, and the only question is if we are that kind of creature or not.

Does quantum mechanics obey causality? — Question

Not sure what you might consider obeying causality, and I think different interpretations will give different answers to this. But note that there do seem to be uncaused events such as excited atoms dropping to lower energy levels after indefinite duration after the excited state was introduced. Also radioactive decay seems to be uncaused. Certain interpretations assign causes to such events, and some assign full determinism yet no cause, and some interpretations assert randomness.

Interpretations aside, QM just says you can't predict these events.

I'm no expert on Godel's theorems, but most of them seemed to apply to a straight deterministic single thread model with no quantum probability, Incompleteness holds. A system still cannot predict itself via simulation. Quantum indeterminacy does make it worse of course. Or possibly better. There are claims that quantum computers work outside the limits assumed by Godel, but such a quantum computer, if possible, still cannot predict 'the future' because there would be no unique answer to supply.

Morals seem to be defined by humans, sort of as part of a social contract. I don't therefore see where else from which they might come.
Obviously I don't consider them objective. Different beings would hold to different morals and it is a mistake to apply ones morals to a significantly different type of being or other moral agent.

You're only asking that now because I finally signed up.

No, more like the parental control block for my 'parents' whose network it is.
They're trying to prevent me from downloading malicious stuff.
This site is listed as untrustworthy, sort of like facebook.

Sign out is under "Other sites we like". Logical....
Anyway, the problem is the hostile network. I signed out and the attempt to sign in was greeted with the hate screen of downloading from an untrusted site.
So if the sign-in process can be done without downloading anything (if it's the cookie, I just don't see how that can be avoided), then the problem is entirely mine.

Right now I am out of the virtual private network, so I was able to sign in again. Mid-week, I have no access to out-of-network internet

Using chrome 51, or IE 11
How does one sign out? Just toss my cookies?
I wanted to experiment since I have the funny network up now.
It obviously lets me post, but not sign in or sign up.

I used to be asked the capitol of England as part of the signup process last year. That was always as far as I got. I could not enter my reply. The do-it button is whatever button (sign up, sign in) that actually does the action (submits the form), and doesn't just go to a page with things to fill out.
So yes, I cannot log in or sign up via this one computer, or possibly via the company network. I can experiment with this one by logging off, putting up the (VPN) company network, and then trying to log back in from this laptop. If that fails, it is the network, perhaps preventing me from submitting a form to what they consider only a semi-safe site. Not sure if there's anything you can do about that.

I was unable to sign up for over a year, and it occurs to me that it was because my attempts were from a different PC. I signed up finally on my home laptop. Now I try to log in via that alternate desktop and I cannot. I can enter email and password, but the button does nothing. Same problem as signing up. Got to entering London (not there anymore??), but the do-it button never did anything.
Several different browsers all acted the same.
This means I can only view the site as a guest for three days in the middle of most weeks. I cannot reply to posts directed at me.

As guest, I cannot see the age of the posts. Is that deliberate?