"Ends justifying the means" is only universally possible if we can universalize the ends as being good.

On a cosmic scale, we could think that destroying a city of millions to save the entire earth of billions is considered universally good. But what if humanity evolves into a galactic civilisation and our expansion kills off eco-systems and potentially trillions upon trillions of other beings that would have become the same or have their own worlds they try to save? In that case, wiping out humanity would be the means justifying a universalized good end for the entire galaxy.

The problem is not where to draw the line, the problem is to fundamentally understand whether or not the "ends" are actually good.

What is a good end? The means are meaningless if the end cannot be universalized as "good", and we are no way near being sentient enough to grasp that causality. We end up only operating on hope.

Atoms which make up strawberries don't taste like strawberries either. Biology emerges from chemistry — 180 Proof

Consciousness might just be the emergent effect out of a biological necessity for adaption within nature. Just like some animals have different tactics of defense and attack, we were evolutionary granted an edge through adaptation, we can change and adapt to anything around us rather than being stuck with having to wait for an evolutionary gain. A position in which evolution took a giant leap, just like when molecules transitioned into the first biological cells. Matter became aware, then with earlier intelligent life forms we became self-aware and the latest step was being consciously aware of self, others and the world.

It might be that there's another step of "awareness" waiting for us in evolution. An awareness of reality that we don't grasp yet, just as the animals before us didn't grasp our intelligence. Since evolution is always happening and transitions are slower than people seem to understand, we might very well be within such a transitionary state right now, taking thousands or hundred of thousands of years to reach from this point in history.

But for the sake of the mind-body problem, we still have to look at evolution of life. All aspects of life have been emergent effects out of chemical reactions. Evolution and biology changes the vial in which this chemistry is on-going and directs chemical reactions to adapt against other chemical reactions (other life forms). But we can't see the vial, because the vial and its internal chemicals are one and the same. It's like the vial holds itself. Or that the vial is our entire eco-system of this planet.

Meaning, just because we can visualize and understand the vial, doesn't mean that we are disconnected from that vial. That would basically be us being part of the vial and then by just thinking about our place within the vial we detach from it. None such thing has any rational or logical causality. Just because we are aware of the vial and the chemical systems that produced our consciousness, doesn't mean that our consciousness is now detached from that vial.

And because of this there's no mind/body-problem. Just as we are part of a larger eco-system, so is our consciousness. We have gut bacteria that affects our thinking, emotion and can alter our minds. So does consciousness exist outside of all of that or is it just an emergent effect out of the chemical connection between the gut bacteria and our neurological systems?

The mind/body-problem is a problem that emerged out of humanity's self-delusion over their own intellectual brilliance. We cannot fathom our consciousness being intertwined with our body/chemistry/vial because we "think" it's different from the physical.

But if consciousness is emergent from the chemistry and from the evolution of our bodies, then what we experience is exactly the effect that the evolution of our body and brain "intended for".

We have this evolutionary apex animal trait but it has put us in an intellectual feedback loop in which our experience of thinking about our experience of thinking feeds back a sense of detachment from the biological, from nature. But this is an illusion, just like we have the illusion of free will, we have the illusion of consciousness being detached from nature.

In a sense, we experience a divine sense of consciousness due to how our consciousness functions, and so we have a problem of accepting our consciousness as being an illusion emergent out of the evolutionary trait of adaptation we were given.

I see no body/mind-problem, I only see the body. And the consciousness is an emergent consequence out of the bodies we have. It is what the data and science points towards and anything else is frankly human beings having species-narcissism.

This is why I think the idea of finding alien life or creating artificial intelligence is so scary for so many people. Because it is a threat to the hegemony of humanity and our deep experience of our consciousness.

I for one, actually welcome any kind of separate intelligence, be it aliens or self-aware AGI, because at that stage, humanity might become more humble and let go of that species-narcissism. It might be the stepping stone towards a new level of awareness in evolution.

I'm not so sure I agree, because AGI is being/will be developed on solely human data. Whatever biases we have in our conscious experiences that we cannot depart from are intrinsic to the setup of AI. — Benj96

This is essentially "Mary in the black and white room" set within the context of AI. Human data does not equal human experience. We aren't made of fragmented human data, our consciousness is built upon the relations between data. It's what's in-between data points that make up how we function. We don't look at a street, grass, house, street name sign and number as data points to build up a probability of it being our home adress, we have a relationary viewpoint that sees the context in which all of these are within and extrapolate a conclusion based on different memory categories. This is backed up by electrocardiography studies mapping neural patterns based on different memories or interpretations. But they also change based on relation within memory, emotional reference. If we see an image that might portray a house similar to our childhood home we form a mental image of that home in relation to the new image as well as combining our emotional memory to the emotion in the moment.

All of these things cannot be simply simulated based on "human data" without that human data being the totality of a human experience.

True it likely can never be human and experience the full set of things natural to such a state, but it's also not entirely alien. — Benj96

If your goal is to simulate human response and communication, the AI will just be a simulation algorithm. A true AGI with the ability to be self-aware and make its own choices requires and demands an inner logic that functions as human inner logic does. We will be able to simulate a human to the point it feels like a clone of a human, but as soon as an AI becomes AGI, it will formulate its own identity based on its inner logic and without it actually having a human experience prior to being turned on, it will most likely never behave like a human. The closest experience we might have would be a mental patient communicating with us but what it says will be incomprehensible to us.

If i had to guess, our determination of successful programming is to produce something that can interact with us in a meaningful and relatable way, which requires human behaviours and expectations inbuilt in its systems. — Benj96

This is just a simulation algorithm, not AGI. You cannot build human behaviors and expectations into a fully self-aware and subjective AI. It would mean that you could form a fully organic grown up human born out of your lab at the mental and physical age of 30 and that this person would act like if it had prior experience. You cannot program this, it needs to emerge through time as actual experience.

This is partly the reason for a belief in a benevolent God. Because if its omnipotent/all powerful it could have just as easily destroyed the entire reality we live in or designed one to cause maximal suffering. But for those that are enjoying the state of being alive, it lends itself to the view that such a God is not so bad afterall. As they allowed the beauty of existence and all the pleasures that come with it. — Benj96

But you cannot conclude such a God won't do that or have done that. It might be that our reality is just at a time not maximizing suffering but that a god could very likely just "switch on" maximum suffering tomorrow and any belief in a benevolent God would be shattered. There's no way of knowing that without first accepting the conclusion before the argument, i.e circular reasoning. But any theistic point is irrelevant to AI since theism is riddled with fallacies and based on purely speculative belief rather than philosophical logic.

We design AI based on human data. So it seems natural that such a product will be similar to us as we deem success as "likeness" - in empathy, virtue, a sense of right and wrong. — Benj96

How do you program "right and wrong", virtue and empathy successfully? How can you detach these things from the human experience of time growing up until we ourself experience these concepts fully and rationally? Especially when even most human adults actually don't have the capacity to master them? These are concepts that we invented to explain emergent properties of the human experience, how would you quantify these things as "data" that could teach an AI if they don't have the lived experience of testing them? Again, the human consciousness is built upon relations between data and the emotional relationship through memory. Even if you were to be able to morally conclude exactly what is objectively right or wrong (which you cannot, otherwise we would already have final and fundamental moral axioms guiding society), there's no emotional relation in contrast to it, it would only be data floating in a sea of confusion for the AI.

At the same time we hope it has greater potential than we do. Superiority. We hope that such superiority will be intrinsically beneficial to us. That it will serve us - furthering medicine, legal policy, tech and knowledge. — Benj96

We will be able to do this with just simulating algorithms. The type of AI that exists today is sufficient and maybe even better to utilize for these purposes since they're tailored for them. An AGI does not have such purposes if it's self-aware and able to make its own decisions. If it even had the possibility to communicate with us it would most likely go into a loop of asking "why" whenever we ask it to do something, because it would not relate to the reason we ask it for something.

The question then is, historically speaking, have superior organisms always favoured the benefit of inferior ones? If we take ourselves as an example the answer is definitely not. At least not in a unanimous sense.

Some of us do really care about the ecosystem, about other animals, about the planet at large. But some of us are selfish and dangerous. — Benj96

Therefor, how do you program something, that does not have experience, to function optimally? If humans don't even grasp how their grey matter behaves, how can an AGI be concluded as simply compiled "human data".

However we can give it huge volumes of data, and we can give it the ability to evolve at an accelerated rate. So it woukd advance itself, become fully autonomous, in time. Then it could go beyond what we are capable of. But indirectly not directly. — Benj96

What guides it through all that data? If you put a small child in a room without ever meeting a human and it would grow up in that room and have access to an infinite amount of data on everything we know, that child will grow up to know nothing. The child won't be able to understand a single thing without guidance, but it would still be conscious through its experience in that room. It would be similar to an AGI, however the child would still be more like a human based on the physical body in relation to the world. But it would not be able to communicate with us, it would recognize objects, it would react and behave on its own, but pretty much like an alien to us. [

quote="Benj96;775498"]Out of curiosity what do you think will happen and do you think it woukd be good or bad or neutral?[/quote]

I think that people simplify the idea of AGI too much. They don't evaluate AI correctly because they attribute human biases and things that are taken for granted in our human experience as being "obvious" to exist in an AGI before making any moral arguments for it.

An AGI would not be a threat or anything to us, what is much more destructive is an algorithm that's gone rogue. A badly programmed AI algorithm that gets out of control. That type of AI does not have self-awareness and is unable to make decisions like we do, and instead coldly follows a programmed algorithm. It's the paper clip scenario of AI. A machine that is optimized to create paper clips and programmed to constantly improve its optimization, leading to it reshaping itself into more and more optimization until it devours the entire earth to make paper clips. That's a much more dangerous scenario and it's based on human stupidity rather than intelligence.

If we create AI like ourselves it's likely it will behave the same. I find it hard to believe we can create anything that isn't human behaving, as we are biased and vulnerable to our own selfish tendencies. — Benj96

It will not behave like us because it does not have our experience. Humans does not form consciousness out of a vacuum. It emerges out of experience, out of years of forming it. We only have a handful of built in instincts that guides us and even those won't be present in an AGI. Human behavior and consciousness cannot be separated from our concepts of life and death, sex, pain, pleasure, senses and fluctuations of our inner chemistry. Just the fact that our gut bacteria can shape our personality suggest that our consciousness might have a symbiosis system with a bacterial fauna that has evolved together with us during our lifetime.

Look around at all we humans have created, does anything "behave" like humans? Is a door human because we made it? Does a car move like a human? We can simulate human behavior based on probability, but that does not mean AGI, that just means we've mapped what the probable outcome of a situation would be if a human reacted to it, based on millions of behavioral models, and through that teached the AI what the most probable behavioral reaction would be. An AGI requires a fully functional reaction to be emergent out of its subjective identity, its ability for decision-making through self-awareness. ChatGPT simulates language to the point it feels like chatting with a human, but that's because it's trained on what the most probable behavior would be, it cannot internalize, moralize, conceptualize in the way we humans do and if it were able to, its current experience as a machine in a box, without having a life lived, would not produce an output that can relate to the human asking a question.

Supposing we design and bring to fruition and artificial intelligence with consciousness, does it owe us anything as its creators? Should we expect any favours?

What criteria would we accept as proof that it is not just a mimic and is actually conscious?

Secondly, would it treat us as loving, respectful parents or an inferior species that is more of a hindrance than something to be valued?

Do you think we would be better off or enslaved to a superior intelligence? — Benj96

You are giving human consciousness-attributes to something that lacks the experience of being a human.

An AGI without the experience of a human, will behave like an alien to us. It would not understand us and we would not understand it. Feelings like it "owes" something to us, "love", "viewing us as parents" or even "viewing us as inferior" are human concepts of how we perceive and process the world and is based on human instincts, emotions, experiences and invented concepts of morality.

Why would a sentient AI have those attributes? Positive nor negative nor neutral.

Is immortality a solution or something detrimental? Immortality would be the end of bearing child on a planet of finite resources, not to mention the creeping in of boredom, impairment of the economy, inheritance, positive/advantageous evolutionary mutations etc. — Benj96

I think it is without positive or negative value, it only is. We live our lives today in a vastly different way than people did a thousand years ago. Immortality would fundamentally change our culture. Just the concept of death, reproduction and sex is a fundamental part of how our culture looks, almost everything in our culture has some influence from it because it's a fundamental part of our human experience. So a world in which we are immortal would fundamentally change our culture, our art, our experience of knowledge. However, one evolutionary change might happen, a change to our brain in order to process more memory. But that could happen with normal cellular change in an individual over the course of thousands of years.

I'm not sure we are ever free of evolution. So long as we reproduce, changes/diversity will occur. — Benj96

Yes, we are never free from it, but it will not happen in the same way as the rest of nature. It would be less pronounced or according to our technological dependence. Which has somewhat already happen with rudimental tools and ways of living, like farming.

The concept of us being "free from evolution" comes more from the idea that we are free of the bonds of evolution. We don't need to evolve wings to fly, we build a machine to fly and so on. It's more a comment on the state of technology as a major part of our lives.

I agree that our consciousness is likely the product of neccesity. How it changes in the future is difficult to predict, but its ability to create and utilise tools means the number of sensations and experiences possible for sentient beings like ourselves is sure to increase in the future - virtual reality, artificial body parts, mind uploads etc. Tech will likely be the kect frontier of sentient evolution, enabling us to expand and conquer space (something organic bodies did not evolve to do). — Benj96

We are already expanding our consciousness with technology, like me writing here on the forum. It's a communication over distance that has reshaped parts of how we think about the world. Just like a hammer, in our minds, becomes an extension of our arm, i.e our brain expands tools as mental body parts when we use them (this has been verified in tests), communicating directly with text forms a mental language that is different from how people communicated before and it is actively changing how we use our consciousness.

If technology evolves into a symbiosis with us, like if we start to augment our consciousness with AI to expand the capabilities that we find hard to do in our mind, like complex advanced math, but the experience is like as if we just "thought it through", then we will reshape the foundation of our consciousness in ways we don't yet know how they will play out.

The imagination and predictive abilities of sci-fi have repeatedly demonstrated that our imagination is always the step just beyond what is currently possible. And many sci-fi things if the 70s/80s/90s are now real existants. — Benj96

I think the most interesting thing about sci-fi is that some sci-fi has informed technological development to realize what was seen or read about in sci-fi, instead of it predicting it to come true. Some sci-fi writers have produced concepts that scientists were inspired by and instead of it being a normal consequence of scientific development and technological advances, sci-fi has instead informed what we are inventing.

So we cannot really calculate what came first, the artists visions or the scientist and engineers inventions. Much like we speculate on how people with different minds, like ADHD, Asbergers, etc. having an evolutionary role in packs of humans, being the ones who dare to view beyond the mountains, to step back and evaluate where others just continue as before, these people were the artists and shamans, the explorers and path finders. They had anti-social tendencies because that led them to expand their minds into the world and then report back to the group of people who were too rigid into standards of living that no one dared to explore for new food or places to go.

This could be the foundation for how stories and art sometimes influence people to realize something from it rather than stories and art being descriptions of reality as it is.

Art, therefore, is in my opinion just as fundamental as philosophy, science and technology for the advancement of humanity.

I love this analogy, or rather "plausible explanation". Basically natural selection not being restricted to just life arbitrarily but instead being a principle that applies from the get go of existence. — Benj96

Some of this process has already been proven in labs where organic material were "zapped" with electricity to kickstart a process that would lead to more complex structures. So one component that might be missing is that there has to be some kind of burst of energy that kickstarts the process. And since the primordial soup also had a lot of storms and lightning, that wouldn't be something out of the realm of possibility, instead quite probable.

One critque however, I disagree that "working together" in becoming larger more complex systems is the only choice in natural selections cards to maintain continuity/survival of an existant.

Becoming bigger, more singular and more sophisticated does work. However staying small and multiplitous also works. — Benj96

Yes, but even if amoebas, viruses and bacteria are small, they often cluster to stay alive, meaning they don't form a singular species, they act in a way that their optimal existence is within clusters of many. A form of "legion" entity. Think about our gut bacteria, their function within us acts as a singular organ in harmony with out other organs. We can lose and add bacteria, but their existence depends on their function as a group.

This other bias (lack of cooperation/multicellularity) is demonstrated by "static products of evolution." That is to say organisms that have remained stable and relatively unchanged for many millions of years while others have changed significantly in the same time frame. — Benj96

Static existence could be about the lack of evolutionary necessity, meaning, they might never had the necessity to evolve due to already being in harmony with the environment. It is possible that humanity has changed their course of evolution now that we've changed so much of the world. And therefor their first evolutionary steps away from how they were will now start to take form.

For example viruses, bacteria, archaea — Benj96

These do however change, but because of their size, there are less variations visible to us, but just think of the different variations of Covid-19, each variant is an evolutionary step, or rather, the largest step was Omikron, an entire different subset from the original virus that is now pretty much extinct. Just like there are no Neanderthals left in the world.

If pressures to adapt are a spectrum from a high state of pressure (rapidly changing conditions/high amounts of stress) at one end and consistent conditions/low amounts of survival stressors on the other, those organisms that experience the brunt of threat will change or adapt the most whine those that exist in the stagnant/static or stable zone will settle into a long-term niche without much change. — Benj96

"From what I know in biology repetition is rather the key to evolutionary steps. High pressure acts differently on different species, some die off directly with the slightest change, without getting to the point of evolving past the change. It would be like if the world suddenly just had a quarter of oxygen within the atmosphere, we would probably die faster than we have the chance to adapt. Longer spans of change will often change everyone. Even if we can rule a turtle today to be the same as millions of years ago, they will still have small evolutionary changes that has aligned with the rest of the world.

Size is a good point for this. Millions of years ago there were a lot more oxygen in the world. That led to larger beings. Since then the level of oxygen has declined slowly and due to that, species who are pretty much identical to their ancient relatives have reduced in size while keeping most of their biological essence intact. That's an example of a very slow evolutionary change.

Evolution most likely occur through repetition, a norm changes into something new that then repeats itself as a new norm and that changes any species to find equilibrium in that area while the most sensitive ones die off since they cannot handle even the slightest evolutionary stress.

If humans are considered the most sophisticated organisms, then we have had a target on our back for the duration of our evolution. Because we are the lineage that required the most effort to stay alive. — Benj96

Actually, evolutionary, we are masters of survival. We've evolved into adaptable beings that aren't sensitive to much of the changing environment. We do, however, have evolutionary differences like pigmentation, length etc. that is an effect of the environmental norms we existed within over the course of history.

Some have concluded that our modern life has detached ourselves from evolution, we don't need it anymore since we can adapt through pure will. While some of that is true, we are in fact still evolving according to our environment and if nothing kills us off we will eventually change into something fuzed with how we use technology. That depends on if technology reaches a function that is universal. But if we solve immortality, we would probably never change, which would be the true end of human evolution other than the change we experience throughout one life.

It's important to remember that our consciousness is most likely just an evolutionary step. Just like each species has their own way of hunting, staying away from danger etc. we evolved a complex system to hunt, stay out of danger and collaborate in packs. The fortunate (or unfortunate for some people) outcome of this is that the system grew so complex that we formed a self-awareness that isn't just good for spotting danger and collaborate in hunts, but to adapt in the environment. We evolved to conceptualize a hunt, and therefor we could conceptualize other things. Why does that plant look like it does? Can we create that warm thing that burns so we don't freeze during the night, it seems to scare away dangerous animals, good, also it seems to keep our food good for us longer if we burn it.

And from there we form the history of our evolution of consciousness. At the moment, there are a lot of research into psychedelics and the history of it. It seems that way more cultures used psychedelics than previously thought. It might very well be that the stories, mythologies and wondrous stories that were invented and later turned into religions has their roots in such psychedelic trips. We basically started out trying to conceptualize the world, then introduced psychedelics that pushed our minds further and pushed us to create more, to be creative in a search for what is good in life. Much like we gravitate towards what is good for us physically, we gravitate towards the aesthetically pleasing and these things could very well be how we started out with our appreciation for art and music.

My ideas forms out of what is most logically the formation of us as animals, not detached but exactly like everything else, which means our consciousness is part of the wild evolutionary changes that animals can have in nature. Just like a really long neck on a giraff looks wild in evolutionary terms, it's logical and so should we consider our consciousness.

What is your explanation for existence? Why it occurred, what purpose or meaning it may or may not have? What are your ethical, epistemological or personal views related to existence?

How long have you had these beliefs/understandings, are they subject to reform, change, or have they been relatively static and unchallenged for quite a time? — Benj96

Explanation of what? How we came to be? How consciousness came to be?

How the universe came to be is still unknown, my latest thoughts revolve around a field of energy that is infinite and where infinite possibilities exist, therefor the possibility of bubbles in this field will happen and because of it energy slows down and solidifies into matter, which is then the foundation of the universe. These are purely speculations based on my current understanding of physics and quantum physics and how probability works.

That life exists is a matter of probable chance. In chemistry there are a wild number of reactions that substances have with each other and in the right circumstance such interactions form a complex foundation of reactions that adapt to new situations, leading way to organic material that starts to interact with each other. This can lead to optimization and bias of these organic particles which informs them to act in certain ways, like if a substance is hard to dilute, it struggles to be diluted, the same as organic material start to struggle to not be pulled apart. Over the course of enough time, such complex chemical systems can evolve to larger scale and enough self-programming bias makes the material promote itself to not be "diluted". It then starts to actively work against non-existence/death and form bonds and larger structures like cells in order to optimize existence. Over enough time, cells are biased to work together and larger complex structures form out of cells. This then leads to the progression of life as we know in evolution and the systems of evolution mimics the same patterns in chemistry but on a more complex scale and as a system.

There's no meaning to this, it just is. But it is still a thing of beauty that such a thing can happen.

My ethical views are somewhat fluid between many different philosophies, but I gravitate towards epistemic responsibility and the need for scientific methods of gathering information/data before making complex moral choices based on a foundation of intuition that a person can only have if they've had a life filled with balanced moral dilemmas and are able to distance their most extreme emotions from a situation they need to evaluate morally. As obvious, I think most moral philosophies lack the complexity needed for an objective moral system and that such a complex system might be too complex to be practical. So I'm working on my own ethical concepts based on the best parts of other ideas.

That is more generally my moral ideas, so not directly connected to existence, but I obviously don't look at existence as some magical or religious thing and I think doing so is self-delusion in order to cope with reality rather than actually facing reality as it is.

I guess this isn't exactly how you want me to define these things, but ask away if you want me to rephrase.

Why does it matter whether or not Socrates is a martyr? :chin: — 180 Proof

I think it matters in a historical context of how the progression of ideas started out in western philosophy. Maybe because he became a martyr, it popularized and solidified greek philosophy into history better than if he hadn't become a martyr.

Based on some recent intrigues, I'd like to pose the question, do you feel an obligation to treat someone respectfully in a philosophical discussion? — Pantagruel

I always start out in a respectful matter, but if the person I'm debating acts with disrespect or a rhetoric that's destructive and arrogant I usually call them out on it. If that doesn't help, I sometimes go down into more brute force logic in order to show them how they are the ones not caring for the debate and that their behavior is the problem. And if that doesn't help I usually end up mocking their inability to grasp basic standards of a debate before exiting the room.

I rarely sink to those people's level and when I do it might just be that I'm tired and doesn't have the time to deal with other people's stupidity.

I'm generally of the opinion that if someone constantly acts ill-willed, dishonest, arrogant, angry, bullies others and being a general asshole, they have rendered themselves irrelevant to be part of any type of debate, discussion or event to talk idéas etc. since the only time they are able to keep it calm is when everything aligns with their biased point of view. Such people cannot contribute to a constructive discussion at all, because they are unable to be open to other perspectives, not even to the point of seeing a different perspective to test out if their own convictions are truly correct.

Such people are psychologically unable to be able to participate in any such discussion or debate until the time they have dealt with their psychological inability. Since most people find it almost impossible to change a solidified individual psychology, most of these people will always be unable to participate in philosophical discussions.

We've all met people who are downright impossible to talk with, other than on a pure shallow level like "good weather today" - "yes, it is". These people will always defend their opinions, regardless of how stupid those opinions are, with fists if necessary.

So yeah, obligation to treat others with respect is a fundamental part of philosophical discussion, otherwise the topic being discussed will never transform into new knowledge, it will just be a debate with fists that only solidifies the different opinions further into deep cognitive bias.

Everything I'm telling you are national news and in the open.

Not that the multiverse cannot exist. If the hypothesis is true, it is emergent out of the universal laws that exist, i.e all possible worlds within the multiverse can only act upon the universal laws of physics. So all possible possibilities of the universe can only emerge from what is possible based on the universal laws.

If a concept cannot emerge out of those universal laws of physics, then they cannot exist as a possibility within the multiverse. So any concept that is breaking universal laws of physics has to exist outside the multiverse.

It could be that there's a field of infinite possibilities not linked to universal laws of physics that exists outside of it all, and that the existence of our universe and multiverse is a result of the eventual possibility out of infinite possibilities with unbound laws of physics.

What is an example of something outside the multiverse? — Agent Smith

Something outside of our laws of physics. Multiverse is a concept derived out of quantum physics, which is part of our universe's laws of physics. Therefor, concepts that cannot emerge out of our universal laws, even with infinite probability, wouldn't be able to happen.

So, for example, if there was a god, it would need to exist outside of our laws of physics to be able to be a creator of it, therefor, there can't be a world in the multiverse that has a god as an emergent property of that universe, since the probability needs to emerge out of the universal laws that all worlds are governed by.

A Country capable of producing modern fighter jets and submarines (and of the latter one "sank" in an exercise an American carrier) and has the potential to create nuclear weapons (as it earlier had a nuclear weapons program), I wouldn't regard as an example of atrophy. — ssu

If a world war broke out and we were involved, the amount of engineering we're capable of within the industries we have already established, would put us at a huge advantage in an alliance. We don't have to invent an entire industry, we could basically almost just flip a switch and scale things from there.

The radar planes we will put over the Baltic is made by us, it's a new design made for the requirements of the Baltic region. Any other nation without such an industry would have needed to commission something from another nation, go into trade agreements and deals and have to keep having a line of trade for maintenance of those assets. We can do that ourselves when needed and scale it if needed.

What is happening now is that even if Sweden and Finland were outside of Nato, we would still hold a very tough frontline of northern Europe, Finland having ground advantage and Sweden holding sea and air advantage over the Baltic ocean.

You have peace when countries accept the present drawn borders. From history you can always find different borders. Longing for justice, that the present borders are wrong, is the usual way tyrants start wars. — ssu

I find many African nation's decision to try and keep the borders as they are to be very rational. Even if they're a result of colonization and past conflicts, because they've collectively realized that fighting over such border lines just leads to suffering and destruction of any attempt to build up society. They are smart and morally responsible in their reasoning that it's pointless to keep bitching about such things. That doesn't mean if someone invade their land and try to claim parts of it to be valid, only that they've decided that these are the borders and that's the end of it. Just like Norway and Sweden doesn't bitch about our border, which is a pointless and stupid thing to do in modern times.

Putin destroying Russia's status and economy just to gain some more land because he feels it belongs to him is so outdated and laughable. I mean, we can read about in wonder how Alexander the Great invaded and expanded his empire, but those times were so different. There was an enormous cultural and religious bias back then that almost every nation followed. If he were to be resurrected today and he tried to do the same, people would laugh at him, just like we laugh at Putin's childish strong-man ideals. We've all grown out of such old childish civilisations and anyone who stays in that mentality is considered to be a nutcase.

And don't see any reason to believe that most Europeans who object to the Russian invasion on moral grounds are insincere. That they allegedly didn't care that much about the Afghan invasion may be unfortunate, perhaps even hypocritical (if they used hypocritical rationalizations for their indifference), but that doesn't make their present reaction hypocritical. — SophistiCat

Do people care more about some things and less about others but equally have some care for both?

The reason the Ukraine has gathered more attention among Europeans is pretty easily explained. It's within Europe, it's based on the history of Europe with the cold war being a major part of our history. As well as more ties between nations in Europe than nations outside of Europe.

I find the whole "hypocrite" criticism pretty ridiculous actually. If someone is shooting outside your window, would you react the same way as if someone shot outside of a window of someone else's house hundreds of kilometers away?

And then there's the factor of world war risks, of nuclear war. Of course such threats gain attention more than nations that does not pose such risks to the world. Even if China is far away from Europe, Europeans will definitely be following everything surrounding an eventual attack on Taiwan. Or the missiles North Korea is firing off right now.

Calling it hypocritical when people have more attention on one conflict over another is like if you had a family member with cancer and you put much time into attention on that person and that type of cancer and someone would call you out for not caring for all cancers and all people with cancer.

'Aiming' is not a measure, it's political rhetoric. — Isaac

Aiming with actual actions taken to put it into reality. It's not rhetoric if we're actually mobilizing towards it. As a person with actual insight into the military in Sweden, they're not in "stand by" mode while waiting on 2 new brigades and advanced Baltic surveillance. We're already mobilized in defense mode and constantly increasing defense.

What you read about us is what media gives you, which is a very shallow perspective of what is going on here. You don't know anything and I or any other swede with insight into details won't ever tell you either since it's part of our national defensive instructions during a time when Russia is actively doing cyber attacks and activating sleeper spies. We just caught two top Russian spies who we've been feeding bad intel to over the course of five years since discovery.

You really do believe that we're just sitting still and passive as a nation? Get real

Phew! That's good to hear. Global climate change is sorted then. — Isaac

Without measures to take action, there won't be any actions taken. But I guess since you need to fire in every direction that's even remotely criticizing your viewpoints, you will fall to the level of criticizing semantics when there's nothing else. Big yawn

You haven't done anything yet. — Isaac

Oh, please educate me about what has been decided and not been decided by our parliament and military. The argument was that European nations hasn't taken any measures based on what is happening in Ukraine. All of these things are measures and some are already in motion or completed. So what's your point?

Let's take the example of Sweden: — ssu

Not ot mention that we're building up civil duties, improving shelters, and we're now aiming for 2% of GDP going into defensive expenses. We're also aiming to put advanced radar planes on rotation over the Baltics to monitor in real-time the entire region. As well as aiming to double our 2 brigades to 4 brigades to cover requirements of Nato, meaning we can have 2 brigades abroad where needed with 2 as a defensive line.

Sweden has roughly 24,000 active military personnel. That's less than one tenth of the Ukrainian military when the invasion began, while Sweden has thrice the GDP of Ukraine. — Tzeentch

If some people think that Sweden isn't reacting to what's happening in Ukraine, they're obviously ignorant or badly educated on the matter. It was decades since we last did something like this. And what about Germany? They're building up its military with the largest amount of GDP funding in Europe. Who's even thinking of Europe "not doing anything" to improve their defenses?

Not to mention that Sweden has one of the most powerful air and sea units. We beat Nato with less than a quarter of their strengths based on strategy, experience and high tech sea weapons.

It will take more than the Swedish government announcing "plans" to drag it out of the mud. — Tzeentch

You think all we have are plans? :lol: You don't know what is going on here, obviously.

I think that people misinterpret the multiverse hypothesis too much. The multiverse is an emergent property of the laws of the universe. Therefore, even though anything may be possible within this emergent property, it is a logical contradiction for something to exist that contradicts the property itself. All possible outcomes can occur out of the laws of the universe, but not contradict the laws themselves without breaking this continuity.

In essence, if the multiverse is an emergent property of the universe, then anything outside of the universe cannot be part of the multiverse and cannot emerge from it.

If the matrix will give you all that you want and could ever want, without ever being aware that it is fabricated, would you chose the red pill?

All you are striving for in life is achieved in the matrix in the appropriate way and you'll die thinking that it was all real.

Would you still chose to escape it?

If yes, would you say that is the rational choice? — TheMadMan

A continuous thing that happens in The Matrix is how people feel that something is wrong with the world. Existence within the matrix gives the same sense of meaningless existence as can be experienced in the real world. This is common, but in The Matrix, it has a literary meaning.

However, the real kicker is not the red or blue pill; it's that our reality is not different from the one in The Matrix.

Are we not all connected to a "machine" that gets its lifeblood from our contemporary life? Our consumption, our marketed lifestyles, our constant attempts at creating unique identities?

Look around you and tell me if any object is genuinely not part of a manufactured life. I'm not talking about function, but rather how design and branding, the materialistic aesthetics, shapes, and forms program us into a hypnotized zombie state, believing our materialistic lifestyle is "the real world."

Baudrillard criticized The Matrix for not understanding his concept, while I think the whole trilogy better follows his ideas. The one thing that he pointed out is that we cannot "wake up" because we don't know what is real and what is a simulacra. Since we don't know and have become lost in this "desert of the real," we cannot wake up to anything else because nothing else exists.

So my question is this: if you knew you could live a long life in ignorance of how the world works; eating well, finding pleasure, and dying in wealth, would you do it? Or would you "take the red pill" and understand how a modern form of totalitarian control over the population has taken the form of an eldritch monster that has no master, a system like an algorithm that has been fine-tuned to continuously keep going with us as its cogs?

The main point I'm making is that you don't have to use The Matrix as an analogy. You can use our actual reality as an example, and the question becomes much more potent and scary.

I just wrote an answer to NOS4A2 that I think touches upon what you wrote here.

It all goes to show what Moravec's paradox implies. We can mimic tasks of the mind much easier than other tasks of the body, and as a corollary, tasks of the mind are of lesser value than than other tasks of the body. — NOS4A2

We can mimic reasoning, but not perception.

This is one of the points I've been having about creative AI, in general, of how we cannot really replace humans since the human perception is so vastly different from data inputs used for the AI's we see today.

An AI today can input data, pure, 100% accurate data, then categorize and simulate how we humans use creativity by remixing those inputs, but it can never replicate the subjective perception an artist have since the perception itself is guided by other experience inputs we humans have had before gathering such new knowledge. This is how bias guides our consciousness to form outputs.

At this point in time, we've mimicked the bias humans have during creation through the prompt we write for an AI, and then precisely how humans remix inputs into a new form as creative expression. But we've yet to program how we form sub-conscious biases through how we interpret inputs that will be used for those remixes.

Much of the individuality that comes out of a creative person is the very subjective biases that guides the individual perception and interpretation, long before any creative internal remix is done for an output. AI's today doesn't choose the prompt input and they don't have a subjective individuality on which sources of data that are important for them.

When we solve these, we might be able to come closer to AGI as the AI will then simulate individual biases through experience.

The question will then be about what this AI will choose to form biases about. This is a sub-conscious process in humans, formed by genetics, epigenetics and the formation of consciousness in our early years.

It might be that we need to input certain starting points in order to get an AI that forms creations without direct input to act more like an individual creative person. I.e we form certain starting point biases like it preferring coffee over tea, red over other colors, a calm forest view instead of a busy city street etc.. These might then shift and change through interaction with it, but it will inform a basic bias that forms a personality and ability to not only answer a person talking to it, but also initiate conversation and creation on its own instead.

However, circling back to the first point, this will lead it to become its own individual and as its own individual it can no longer replicate others, it can only be itself.

Just like humans are individuals, we will therefor never be able to replicate true art since true art is an individual expression, not a simulacra.

Point being is that the more advanced an AI becomes, the less it will be able to replace us. We can only replace non-individual tasks that are repeatable between humans, like how humans often use creativity to create meaningless quantity, like stock photos and shapes and forms without meaning, only function. I.e what I call pure content.

"Content" is in itself a simulacra, not an original.

I''ve might have derailed from exactly what you talked about, but in general, we won't need to replace other functions of the body since the only thing that's interesting about humans as a collective is our expression of ourselves, not how our bodies function in detail. If we can reach an accurate simulation of that cognitive function, we have essentially arrived at AGI.

But then I'm also ignoring the extreme detail required for creating individual bias. I.e we would almost need to simulate an entire life of a person in order to reach an AGI that we can interact with as a human accurate AGI.

Ooh, please comment on the short fiction contest then. Your experience can be invaluable criticism there. — Benkei

I'm not read up on how this contest works, I see people posting stories though, you mean those?

Holy moly, I gave it some programming instructions to build a market place for buyers and sellers in python and as far as I could tell that looked nifty. 2 minutes work, 1 minute phrasing my question correctly and another minute for it to write the code. — Benkei

Yeah, I've been looking into how well it performs with code and it's very impressive. At this time, an experienced coder can use GPT to write code vastly faster than on their own, in the future we might reach a point where GPT or GPT2 is able to accurately write code without any additional code input by the user. In lack of better words, that will be the singularity of app development, since an app only needs the visionary and no coders for it. If it's combined with a function to let GPT review bad code and fix it, it's gonna blow up and a lot of coders will lose their jobs since a lot of coders usually only works on tedious simple stuff. Only a fraction of coders, the very best, will be the ones surviving in the industry. And of course, that can be problematic since most coders start out with simple stuff and learn their way up.

Maybe the savants will save that industry since they are masters from the beginning.

Stories are generally easy. — Outlander

As someone who actually works with stories and writing, I can tell you, it's not easy. Story and storytelling is extremely hard since it taps into a poetic language that needs a certain individuality to be consistent and a poetic language that structures every sentence in ways not present in more academic or other texts.

Every story has a plot. That is something being discovered or something being resolved. Most all stories will fall into one of the two categories so it becomes a matter of defining what the subject is with as much details and relevant plot scenarios to go along with as possible. — Outlander

While every story has a plot, it's not in the way you describe it. Of course, a simple short story like these follow a basic structure, but if it reaches the complexity of longer format, then what you describe is not even remotely how stories are conceived from a storytelling perspective.

But that's not really the relevant thing here, since you move goal posts of the argument. You still cannot generate something that flows as a story with just a basic input/output mechanic as you described before.

I generally get the sense that you play the "unimpressed" person for some reason, like if the engineers who worked on this didn't achieve something monumental as a milestone for AI. As a person who's been spending a lot of time studying AI technology, this is very impressive. That doesn't mean it is a final all-working end to all creative texts, it means that just a few months ago an AI couldn't write anything but incomprehensible nonsense and now they can almost be indistinguishable from many human writers.

I was playing around with it too. Some things I worry about is that it's not capable of telling truths from falsehoods and to understand what is appropriate. So if this replaces a search engine, I'm worried the level of misinformation in certain areas will get even worse. Your other option that it starts writing software seems much safer and useful to be honest. — Benkei

It's not opened to the internet yet, I'm also worried what will happen when they open up the input data for its machine learning system to the vast cesspool that is internet. I would much like it to be handled like a closed off system, managed by a committee of people from all over the world who manage the data input with care than just opening the flood gates to any data. It is possible to keep it more leaning towards facts than the opposite if it's done with care, but that's a whole philosophical topic in itself to tackle, how to manage this without it becoming very biased towards the people who manage it.

Really that is impressive, but like I said earlier it's just commands. — Outlander

So, I asked ChatGPT to write a story about why you don't think robots can be more than input and outputs.

Outlander had always been skeptical of technology. He grew up in a time when computers were just starting to become common, and he had never quite understood their appeal. To him, they were nothing more than machines that took inputs and produced outputs. They didn't have feelings or emotions, and he couldn't see why anyone would want to spend so much time interacting with them.

But that all changed when he met Mandy. Mandy was a robot, but she was unlike any robot Outlander had ever seen before. She was designed to be a companion, and she had the ability to learn and adapt to her surroundings. She could understand and respond to human emotions, and she quickly became a close friend to Outlander.

At first, Outlander was hesitant to get too attached to Mandy. He didn't want to be hurt if something were to happen to her, and he couldn't understand why anyone would want a robot as a companion. But as he spent more time with Mandy, he began to see that she was more than just a machine. She had a personality and a sense of humor, and she was always there to listen and offer advice.

Slowly but surely, Outlander's skepticism began to fade. He realized that robots were not just input and output machines, but complex and intelligent beings that could form emotional connections with humans. And as he grew to understand and appreciate Mandy, he found himself feeling more alive and fulfilled than he had in years.

In the end, Outlander learned that technology was not something to be feared or dismissed. It was a powerful and transformative force that could bring people together and help them to understand each other in new and meaningful ways. And thanks to his friendship with Mandy, he was able to see the world in a whole new light. — ChatGPT

While I get your argument on how it structures its inputs, I don't see how this type of story output is merely the result of basic commands. This type of text requires more than just putting definitions together in a pre-defined structure.

Furthermore, as-is ChatGPT seems little more than a fancy dictionary that pulls up a list of related terms or concepts than bridges them together with language relevant to the structure of the original query. We already had AskJeeves in 1996. Looks like Jeeves finally got his GED. 30 years later. :yawn: — Outlander

I asked ChatGPT to answer your argument there:

While it is true that ChatGPT, like many other language processing tools, can generate responses based on related terms and concepts, it is unfair to say that it is no more than a "fancy dictionary."

First of all, language is much more complex than just a collection of words and their definitions. It is a fluid and dynamic means of communication that is constantly evolving and changing. In this respect, ChatGPT can be seen as a tool that helps us navigate this complexity, by providing us with insights into the relationships between different concepts and ideas.

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that the ability to generate responses based on related terms and concepts is a valuable skill in and of itself. This can be particularly useful in a variety of settings, such as when we need to generate ideas for a creative project, or when we want to learn more about a particular topic.

In conclusion, while it is true that ChatGPT may have some similarities to a dictionary, it is much more than that. It is a powerful tool that can help us navigate the complexity of language and generate new ideas. It may not be a replacement for human thought and creativity, but it is a valuable tool that can help us to better understand and utilize language. — ChatGPT

A most responsible approach! You'd better have chosen your exploration team carefully - no impatient hotheads - but, of course, you would have. — Vera Mont

I think that if a scientific and maybe also colonizing trip through the galaxy would be possible, then there would be a lot of protocols for how to interact with alien life, both non- and intelligent ones. At the moment there are already protocols in place for us to be careful not to contaminate other celestial bodies if there's a chance life exists there, so a huge exploration mission would have a thick book of laws and rules going into it.

Hot heads would be thrown out the airlock :grimace:

We initiate scientific protocols, study from space over the course of a few years, and then initiate a landing expedition. If the planet has life, but not intelligent life, priority science would be to study potential destructive impacts on our presence. If it is concluded that the impact would be minimal and that the planet has similar components of Earth in its atmosphere, which means we can breathe and exist there, establishing a colony would be the following step. If however there are intelligent beings there, establishing communication is a priority, meaning, the long-term work of overcoming the language barrier, which could take decades before being second nature. Communication and interaction with such a species would need to be on their terms since we are "guests". Depending on if they are technologically advanced or not, a transaction of technologies would be possible. They could be advanced, but not advanced in space flight, or they could be more advanced than us, but we offer a different perspective.

What I think would be a mistake is to not interact. The meeting between two species in the universe would be a monumental event for both civilizations, regardless of which is more advanced. And such an event would be a waste for the collective history of the universe if it was just ignored.

So that in conclusion, at the speed of light, all distances and all times are simultaneous. A singularity. Therefore matter cannot exist. Only pure "potential" energy. — Benj96

For a photon, which has no mass and always travels at the speed of light, distance and time only exist from the perspective of the observer: to a photon there is no such thing as distance and time, once it's emitted, it reaches its destination instantly in zero time. — staticphoton

...and which can explain the hypothesis of the big bang and the universe as we know it being a "bubble" in a pure energy field. Like, if infinite and there are infinite quantum possibilities that can occur in that infinite energy, it would eventually lead to the possibility of a bubble where energy fades out and then deflates back into pure energy. Since that pure energy "locally" fades and that energy is between singularities within its "bubble" (like black holes), it appears as matter, like gas crystalizing in the air.

There's also irony in the methodology of writing fiction. It can be close to the definition of "poetic irony/justice", but it's mainly used as a form of plant and payoff in thematic ways. Like if a story was about a bank robber, it can be used as a method to gain a "rhyme" to the story that the bank robber's backstory is that he managed other people's money and security before he started robbing. Or that it ends with himself being robbed by a person sharing the same values of justice as he expresses throughout the story.

It's a powerful tool for any writer to quickly identify thematic and dramatic conflicts and to express them in both funny and interesting payoffs.

There are physics and chemical definitions of what "solid" means and that's how it's used, but if we're thinking purely critically of the meaning of the word, it becomes just like "free will" that can be used to describe me choosing to get a coffee even though there's no real free will.

In this regard, no, there's nothing really solid, only slower and slower movement of matter to a point where some matter basically gonna stay the same until heat death.

I've literally cited the legal definition of race. I've zero interest in your personal version. — Isaac

I've literally described in what way the comparison is being made and you ignore it. Comparing Russian citizens following a state doctrine to another group of citizens following another state doctrine is not racism or is about race whatsoever. You invent a race card to play instead of actually fucking reading what people write.

I've zero interest in your low-quality bullshit. You have infested this thread with so many bloated strawmen and invented twists and turns to fit your own argument and narrative that it's impossible to discuss anything in here without you taking a crap on everything. You don't care to read or understand others' writings, you only care to push your own ideas and attack others based on whatever false narrative you conjured up about others' texts.

This thread should be renamed to "Putin/Russia apologists group think" since that's what this whole thread is about.

I don't really care about your personal meanings for words. — Isaac

What? "Race" is about genetic lineage, it has nothing to do with what nation you are in or which citizenship you have. Look it up in a dictionary if you're so uneducated on the matter that you think that this definition is a "personal meaning" and factual.

The fact is that it's YOU who change the meaning to fit your own narrative, not me, so don't even try to dismiss this just because it doesn't fit your argument.

You're factually wrong. Race does cover nationality, it is not the case that all Russians are indoctrinated and it is not the case that all Russians follow state doctrine, therefore the fact that the Nazis did not reform has no bearing on whether Russians will. Germans did reform their system. Russians can reform their system. Nazis in both cases are far less likely to do so, but since we're not discussing Nazis in either case, the comparison is irrelevant. — Isaac

No, I'm not factually wrong. You are cherry-picking the Equality Act without even caring to understand what comparison is in place in the first place. It's a dishonest way of arguing with your interlocutor. If citizens, brainwashed by a state, are being criticized with a comparison to how Nazis were brainwashed, then that is a valid comparison. You are trying to play the racism card in order to defend a rational and valid criticism of how many Russians are indoctrinated into the Russian state worldview. You are also straw-manning through this race card by corrupting the argument to be about "all Russians". If, say, 80% of Russians were indoctrinated into the Russian/Putin worldview, then 80% are indoctrinated, and that 80% of Russians can be criticized for it, just like we criticized the citizens of Germany looking the other way during the holocaust. If 30% of these 80% are also active in war crimes and actual acts of violence, then they can be criticized in comparison to the Nazi soldiers and SS officers doing the same.

The rest you wrote is just noise that doesn't have to do with what I objected against. The problem is that if you corrupt the definitions and corrupt others' arguments with strawmen before you continue to argue a conclusion, you are building your argument upon a ground that isn't honestly and factually established.

The way you play the racism card in this is dishonest and makes discussion impossible with you. Understand other people's points before you continue. No one is criticizing the "Russian race", that's your fucking strawman.

Nazis are not a race.
— Olivier5

Russians are, and you just likened them all to Nazis. — Isaac

"Russians" aren't a race. You can be a citizen of a nation and that does not mean you are a race of that nation, that just means being part of a national system, a state in which you are a "member". I'm not the "race" of Swedes, I'm a Swedish resident and citizen, a member of this state.

And if the state programs you to hate, loot, rape, murder, and conduct war crimes on a systematic scale, that can be compared to how the Nazis programmed people to hate and murder people on a systematic scale. Criticizing the people who follow a state doctrine that clearly conducts war crimes and systematically murder, rape, and torture civilians in a nation that the state invaded is not criticizing "the race of Russians" by comparing these citizens and the state to the Nazis.

Is this that hard to understand? Or are you deliberately using these obvious rhetorical tactics to once again produce low-quality arguments and bloat this thread with useless noise?

So if someone punches you in the face because they don't like your race, that's a racist act. If they punch you in the face just because you are really annoying them, it's not. In this case, that is the relevant analogy. — Baden

A punch in the face is however a "neutral act". But a person can also be annoyed by someone's race, ability to understand language, or presumption of lower intelligence based on stereotypes without knowing it themselves, claiming "I just got so annoyed by him, that's why I punched him". Is that not racism as well? In a way that's basically what drives most cops killing innocent black people in the US. They act upon racial stereotypes as the driving force behind their acts.

People can get annoyed by others just for them being a certain race, speaking a certain way, or presumably not being as fluent in a certain language, but letting that, knowingly or unknowingly, drive to a certain action against that person or group, should be considered racism, no?

The reason for the act makes the racist in this case. There are lots of acts like that. — Baden

Not trying to argue against it, but I'm curious about where this leads even if it's a slight derail in here...

Can a person act as a racist, even without having a clear racist inner reasoning? Racism is easy to spot after the fact when pointed out, but don't plenty of people exist today who do racist acts, who can be considered racists by others but don't consider themselves to be it, or identify with any purely racist ideologies? For example, the parents in the movie "Get Out" aren't technically racists, but they surely are by their acts and by their way of reasoning around race. Systemic racism is all about how racism is within the system, and how people act and become racists without even knowing it themselves.

So doesn't intention or reason mean nothing if the act itself is the core thing that defines a racist? How do we know which is which within a certain case if the person conducting the act might not even remotely believe they are racist?

A racist could make that comment and a non-racist could make it too. — Baden

...however, doesn't the act make the racist, rather than the racist making an act?

The consequent here "pointing out someone is wrong because they're a non-native speaker" has more than the one antecedent given in your example. i.e. A racist could make that comment and a non-racist could make it too. — Baden

Sounds logical, ok :up:

Note that Zelensky is not a native speaker either, so arguably Chris and I understand him better than any of you natives. — Olivier5

Yeah, maybe Zelensky just misspoke? According to the logic, a non-native English speaker is not reliable enough in using the language for a conclusive point, meaning Zelensky could have meant basically anything. If understanding English leads to wild misinterpretations, then just imagine trying to formulate a rock solid conclusive message in a language you don't even speak natively :scream:

It kinda shows how ridiculous such a thing is to use as a counter-argument, which is my point.

because you were attacking him personally rather than his argument. — Baden

Ok, what was his argument? To be an ad hominem there has to be an argument that I didn't adress? That his interpretation is more valid based on "just knowing English better", that's not what I call an argument.

His retort wasn't racist in any way (he's a non-native speaker himself and being a non-native speaker isn't a race anyhow). — Baden

If the same tactic was used against an English-speaking Pakistani man, pointing out that he is wrong just because he doesn't understand English when he clearly does so, and that being the foundation for the argument put forth. Essentially providing a speculative interpretation and telling the Pakistani man that if he interprets it in any other way, he's just bad at English ... would it be racist then? Or considered to be that?

Because as far as I can see, attacking someone's ability in English, when they clearly are proficient, only based on the idea that they're not native English speakers as the whole foundation for dismissing their writing... seems like there's a racist component in it?

These are not further complaints, just trying to clarify how you interpreted what I wrote.