• Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    My view is pantheistic more than anything and probably Spinozist. — kindred
    Afaik, Spinoza is an acosmist² and not a "pantheist"¹ like (e.g.) Hegel.

    (2023)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/825698 [1]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acosmism [2]
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    What is wrong with saying life/intelligence not just emerged but it has been there all along just not manifested to what we today recognise as life ? — kindred
    Nothing except saying that amounts to an evidence-free fairytale – pseudo-science (e.g. "intelligent design") or pseudo-philosophy (e.g. "vitalism, panpsychism") – that does not explain anything.

    Isn’t it like looking at the mechanism of a clock ...
    No. As I've previously pointed out, the "clock analogy" doesn't work.
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Apparently, you don't recognize the relevance of my paraphrase of Nietzsche. :meh:

    I imagine that AGI will not primarily benefit humans, and will eventually surpass us in every cognitive way. Any benefits to us, I also imagine (best case scenario), will be fortuitous by-products of AGI's hyper-productivity in all (formerly human) technical, scientific, economic and organizational endeavors. 'Civilization' metacognitively automated by AGI so that options for further developing human culture (e.g. arts, recreation, win-win social relations) will be optimized – but will most of us / our descendants take advantage of such an optimal space for cultural expression or just continue amusing ourselves to death? :chin:

    Thus, as I've already pointed out, the human "need for wisdom" (e.g. ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics) will remain to be cultivated by us reflectively and dialectically (like other modes of hygiene & fitness) so long as the human condition (i.e. facticity) remains.– the advent itself of AGI will not change that. And compatibilism (re: embodied metacognitive volition, ergo moral agency) suffices, so I don't see it's conceptualization as either paradoxical or problematic (i.e. like the MBP, "free will vs determinism" is a pseudo-problem).
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    If life came from non-life can’t you say it was there all along ? — kindred
    We can say anything without evidence.

    For how could it emerge if it wasn’t?
    We don't know yet.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    One data point is not evidence.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Intelligence precedes the universe, and has eternally existed independently of it and it’s manifestation in nature is inevitable. — kindred
    Merely an article of faith. :sparkle: :eyes:
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    So, what I am querying is for whose benefit is AGI? — Jack Cummins
    AGI's "benefit" in the long run. To paraphrase Freddy Zarathustra: Man is rope stretched between animal and AGI ... :smirk:

    Surely, what we need is more wisdom...
    Nothing I've speculated on above is incompatible with your/my need for wisdom.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    :roll:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I did not find him [Trump] crazy.
    — L'éléphant

    Eating dogs and cats, and after birth abortion isn’t cray cray where you’re from?     — praxis
    We can only hope L'éléphant is not a voting-age US citizen. :mask:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    Repeating anthropomorphic fallacies does not make them any less fallacious. And yes, brains are intelligent, livers & gonads are not. :smirk:
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    The nature of childhood trauma and development of AGI are different. — Jack Cummins
    :roll: Strawman. I never claimed or implied anything about "childhood trauma".

    It signifies the idea replacing human beings with the non-human.
    Only to conspiracy paranoids who are terrified of a robo-apocalypse (e.g. The Terminator). Nonsense non sequitur.

    Do you not see this as being problematic at all?
    I don't have this "problem", Jack :sweat:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Are you saying the universe is non-intelligent irrespective if there is intelligent life in it ? — kindred
    Yes. 'Intelligence' is an emergent feature of sufficiently complex living systems.

    intelligent laws of physics
    Wtf :roll: Now a genetic fallacy. They are not "intelligent", the physicists are. Physical laws are only invariant features – artifacts – of physical theories.

    It’s like looking at the mechanism of a clock ...
    Since "a clock" presupposes the universe, an analogy of "clock" to "universe" does not work.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ... because the universe contains intelligence it would make it an intelligent universe — kindred
    Compositional fallacy. :roll:
  • What is your definition of an existent/thing?
    Energy and mass aren't existents (per se), they are properties of things that exist, and they can be converted to each other (that's entailed by E=MC^2). — Relativist
    :100:
  • If you were God, what would you do?
    So, supposing you were a deity, what would you do and why? — Benj96
    I would not ever do anything and be eternally at peace with that.

    What would be your characteristics?
    Blissful contentment.

    As in how would you define yourself?
    I wouldn't define myself or anything else ever.

    And what would be your motives?
    To be.

    Would you be an active force in the world/reality or merely a passive observer?
    Neither. My eternal bliss would be complete (or sufficient enough) for me to be forever oblivious of everything including myself.
  • What is your definition of an existent/thing?
    energy are massless (not physical) eg a photon, — Benj96
    :roll:

    Photons are physical. Energy is physical action. And phenomonology pertains only to organic subjectivity, not to "not physical photons".

    ↪Moliere
    :up:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    What else is there besides vacuum fluctuations? — Fire Ologist
    Lots of "somethings": fields, excitations, density patterns, nucleogenesis, black holes ... you & I, etc. This universe has dynamic contents whereas (possibly) most other universes do not.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    the universe is only an expanding (cooling, or entropic) vacuum fluctuation that is/was random / acausal / non-intelligent.
    — 180 Proof

    Would you say that explains everything?     — Fire Ologist
    It only "explains" the planck era of the universe which excludes "intelligence" (re: @kindred's OP).

    Seems to me that is an explanation for everything.
    You are mistaken (hasty generalization).
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    So how is the "ideological influences" on the development of prospective AGI different – worse – than those affecting human childhood-adolescent development? You (Mr Ball) seems to believe without warrant that AGI will be incapable of learning how to think outside of ideological boxes the way (some) humans do.

    Again, reread and address the rest of my post ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/932449
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    something can’t come from nothing — kindred
    Non-life =/= "nothing". Also, vacuum is not-a-thing (i.e. not-something aka "nothing") =/= nothing-ness (i.e. im-possibility aka "an impossible world"); "some-thing" is just a fluctuation / phase-state of not-a-thing (i.e. not-something) like order is a phase-state – dissipative structure – of disorder (i.e. chaos). Ergo the universe is only an expanding (cooling, or entropic) vacuum fluctuation that is/was random / acausal / non-intelligent.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Then you could equate life with intelligence ... — kindred
    No, I surmise that they are independent, discrete properties which rarely overlap.

    ... and you’d be saying that intelligence is a rare property of non-life
    Yes.

    we do know that something has always existed
    How do you/we "know" this?

    pre big bang world
    This phrase is nonsense. "World" (i.e. universe) is an effect of the Big Bang. "Pre-big bang" cannot be a "world".
  • Can the existence of God be proved?
    How then is [only so called for a point of mutual focus] God to be conceived of, absolutely? — ENOAH
    Spinoza's Deus, sive natura is conceptually coherent enough for me (& Einstein).
  • Can the existence of God be proved?
    ↪ENOAH
    Well, if theism is not true or noncognitive, then "God" conceived of this way is factually disproven (i.e. demonstrably not the case, nonexistent).
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Would you then agree that non-life has the potential to give rise to life and intelligence? — kindred
    No. "Life" is, as best we can tell, merely a very rare property of non-life.

    Would you also then agree that at the very least intelligence is a potential in the universe?
    No, it's actually manifest. "Intelligence" is, in its most basic form, the capability of adapting to change inherent in complex agent systems – both living and artificial.

    ↪kindred
    Okay, a quasi-animist.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    you can’t get something from nothing just like you can’t get life from non-life — kindred
    Nonsense – "non-life" is not "nothing". :roll:

    Besides, order emerges from disorder (e.g. vacuum fluctuations, hurricanes, languages)

    And if "you can't get life from non-life", then either (A) everything is alive, (B) nothing is alive – "life" is an illusion or (C) biogenesis is a miracle – product of divine/transcendent intelligence aka "God". Which do you "believe", kindred?
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    So you don’t believe that these processes exhibit intelligence from an anthropic perspective? — kindred
    No, I minimize judgments based on my anthropomorphic bias as much as possible.

    If so then why would non-life lead to life? (Abiogenesis)
    There is no "why" for "non-life" processes.

    or put more simply how do you get intelligence from non-intelligence?
    We do not know how yet. Scientists are still working to crack that nut.

    You can’t.
    How do you/we know this?
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    I do not conflate intelligence and self-organizing processes. Do you equate intelligence with agency? Are you an animist? It seems to me your pan-intelligencism, like pan-psychism, is just a (reductionist) compositional fallacy – if local-temporal / particular "int", then global-eternal / universal "INT". :roll:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪praxis
    :rofl: Another conflicted true believer.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing? — kindred
    In other words, does it make sense to conceive of 'inteligence in the universe without the universe existing' (i.e. disembodied agency)? :roll:

    No, I don't think so.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/931639
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    'The Book of Minds: Understanding Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to Aliens', Philip Ball (2022). — Jack Cummins
    With all due respect, I suspect a less superficial (non-technical) gloss on the topic of 'nonhuman intelligence' is popularist Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus (2016). YMMV.

    As far as I'm concerned, Jack, anthropomorphizing intelligence / mind (as you and others do) shows a basic lack of knowledge of cognitive sciences in general, artificial intelligence in particular and related concepts covered by the philosophy of mind. Your subjectivist / folk psychological qualifiers such as "intuition" "truly free will" "consciousness" "inner world" "emotion" "insight" "empathy and compassion" "truly free thinking" etc have nothing substantive to say about nonhuman – nonbiological – metacognition such as prospective AGI (or 'strong AI' ... rather than mere chatbots/LLMs & expert systems).

    And you still haven't addressed, Jack, (1) why you assume 'self-aware intelligence requires consciousness (i.e. any phenomenology whatsoever)' or (2) why compatibilism (re: embodied volition – whether in biological or nonbiological systems) does not suffice to address the concerns of your OP.
  • Can the existence of God be proved?
    ↪ENOAH
    Is theism 'either true or not true'? If yes, then this can be soundly demonstrated. However, if no, then theism is noncognitive (i.e. figurative, analogical, mythopoetic).

    NB: I'm using 'theism' in this context to mean 'sine qua non properties attributed to g/G' such as
    (1) an/the ultimate mystery
    (2) that created the whole of existence
    (3) and uniquely intervenes in (re: "providence") – causes changes to (re: "miracles") – the observable universe (i.e. nature).
  • The anthropic principle and the Fermi paradox
    ↪Benkei
    I've read the book; what do you mean "our universe operates as suggested ..."?
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    truly free thinking — Jack Cummins
    Please explain what you mean by this phrase. Also why are you anthropomorphizing prospective AGI's metacognition (i.e. why assume that 'nonbiological thinking' is to think like humans)?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Israel is the aggressor, Hamas commits a war crime and Israel uses it as an excuse to step up its decade old aggression by committing even worse war crimes. — Benkei
    :100:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    15September24

    Another "assassination attempt"(?) today. I hope The Old Fat Fascist Clown lives long enough to see Kamala Harris sworn in as the 47th POTUS on 20January25. :victory: :party:
  • What is the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy?
    ↪L'éléphant
    In other words, when one misunderstands it.
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    It partly comes down to the question of what is [do we mean by] consciousness? — Jack Cummins
    Maybe for you ... a stipulative definition suffices, however, for a subject matter-informed, speculative discussion: consciousness = pain-awareness (i.e. what bodily activity-feedback feels like, not just PNS reflexes).

    It also depends on what do the artificial simulations serve, and in accordance with whose will?
    AGI =/= "artificial simulations" (whatever those are). As for "programming": same as neonatal pair-bonding + socialization in humans but with powerful neural nets instead: training metacognitive systems to self-learn within enabling-constraints. IMO, 'intelligence' = outside-the-box thinking that surpasses – repurposes – "programming" (i.e. not just "bot automatons").

    If one has any sympathy with panpsychism ...
    I don't – it's only a reductionist appeal to ignorance (i.e. woo-of-the-gaps) and/or compositional fallacy.
     
    ... beings with free will.
    E.g. such as ...
  • What is the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy?
    Who would you name as the 10 [13] most important philosophers born after 1900? — Joshs
    Speaking only for myself ...

    Keiji Nishitani, b. 1900
    Hannah Arendt, b. 1906
    E.M. Cioran, b. 1911
    Albert Camus, b. 1913
    Philippa Foot, b. 1920
    Walter Kaufmann, b. 1921
    George Steiner, b. 1929
    Clément Rosset, b. 1939
    Martha Nussbaum, b. 1947
    David Deutsch, b. 1953
    Cornel West, b. 1953
    Thomas Metzinger, b. 1958
    Ray Brassier, b. 1965
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Intelligence =/= consciousness (& self-awareness =/= pain-awareness), so why do you assume consciousness – simulated or not – will be required for or is entailed by 'AGI'?
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Well, I assume that AGI, while self-aware, will not be "conscious" (i.e. feel pain).
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