Neither can I. I just believe in it. — Arcane Sandwich

I have definitely been drawn to the idea, but I have never been able to believe in it. Same with religion and mythos in general. I love some of it as literature, as expression of the endlessly creative human imagination. That'll do for me.

Literature can be propagandistic. Theology is one aspect of the Bible.

Theology is one aspect of the Bible. — BitconnectCarlos

What are the other aspects? To me it's 100% theology, but I could be wrong.

I have definitely been drawn to the idea, but I have never been able to believe in it. — Janus

Nothing wrong with that. You're under no obligation to believe in it. No one is. That's the whole point. The Absolute Spirit, as Hegel understands it, is Freedom itself. It's Liberty itself. At least that's my interpretation of it. I could be wrong, of course.

Same with religion and mythos in general. I love some of it as literature, as expression of the endlessly creative human imagination. That'll do for me. — Janus

I'm inclined to agree with you in general. I have some reservations about the specifics, though.

Canta el pueblero... y es pueta;
canta el gaucho... y ¡ay Jesús!
Io miran como avestruz,
su inorancia los asombra;
mas siempre sirven las sombras
para distinguir la luz. — José Hernández

fotos gif

What are the other aspects? To me it's 100% theology, but I could be wrong. — Arcane Sandwich

Some of it is about tribal history.

Time to perk up the thread; here's my new Bible:

Here's something to consider: Who was the first Christian? It has to be Jesus Christ, right?

And here's another question to consider: who was the first atheist?

I have some reservations — Arcane Sandwich

OK, table for two.

The stodgy elevation of doctrine over ethics
Will no longer carry the day, and there will be less
Emphasis on believing, with more on belonging.
All will become more democratic, with much singing.

The Bible will be seen to be of but human construction,
A result of human instinct, frailty, fear, and no wisdom;
Thus all actively speaking to another, with laughter,
Will come to replace the passive readings from scripture.

Did you write those quatrains yourself, or did an A.I. write them? Omar Khayyam wrote his own quatrains, he didn't use A.I.

Did you write those quatrains yourself — Arcane Sandwich

Yes!

They tried to undo evolution’s pace of snails,
But the stratified fossils ever told the tales
Of no special humans at once unveiled
But of only natural selection’s weathered sails.

Myth’s performance is now over its tasks;
The artists have taken off their masks.
The illusion is fading; it couldn't last;
The scenes behind are appearing fast.

Not really my cup of tea, as far as poetry goes.

Not really my cup of tea — Arcane Sandwich

Coffee is not my cup of tea.

The Religious Convention

I looked in on the Two and Seventy Sects,
And heard but the Karma of the Barking Dogma:
Some Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews
Wondered what stories they should choose.

Even though they’d already so many chosen,
They just didn’t want to keep notions so frozen;
So they met to merge the postulations into one,
Thinking that this might be a whole lot of fun.

“In our hypothesis, there is just the only One.”
“Well, our conception is a multitude of many Some.”
“Well, we’ll part way meet: there’s only the Holy One”
“Nah, the odds of that are over three million to one!”

“Buddha of us was one, so of Gods there are none;
A human above all that now’s not seen by the sun!”
“Humph! Holy Jesus of our one God was His son!
He lit mankind’s darkness with light of the Sun!”

“No, Jewish Jesus was not of any nature Divine,
But was just a mere man much ahead of his time.
This you all should know, being there at the time.
Look at our history singing old biblical rhymes.”

“All is not real, so what is this great big fuss?
Retreat back to where it’s all at to slow the rush.”
“Oh God’s universe and creatures are so real
And that is why we’re making this very big deal.”

“In the afterlife, we in Hell or Heaven reside.”
“Not so fast, for in between these realms we lie,
And if you in this testing life don’t do so well,
You’ll have so many subhuman tales to tell.”

Reason arrived: “Possibility reigned way then back
‘Before’; there’s nothing even holy about all that.
‘Tis all made up, those many fabrications made,
So just let it all be, for this is what existence bade.”

Not really my cup of tea — Arcane Sandwich


Coffee is not my cup of tea. — PoeticUniverse

I don't drink coffee on a regular basis, dude. It's a drug.

Not sure if it was mentioned in earlier responses but from a biblical/historical perspective Jesus was not a god or "god" until the council of Nicaea in 325ad. Up until the Catholic church decided he was god(325 yrs after the fact) was it considered so. Makes the argument seem silly. At that council they decided that Jesus was "god" for purely practical reasons, namely better control of the followers. And of course their assertion was that he was the son of the biblical god Yahweh.

I am an igtheist and am certain from a philosophical point of view that the existence of a god can neither be proven or disproven logically. It's been tried by greater minds than ours. I do not believe there is any sort of personal god-being. But arguing the existence or non-existence of a human made construct is problematic at best. The historical existence of a man named Jesus isn't even certain. It's basically a fairytale of sorts and has little to do with the concept of a "god" in the generic sense.

So the identification of Jesus with God was a deliberate act of that council. There was no logical syllogisms or modus ponens involved, only man made calculation and deliberation in order to further the control of the authority of the day.

Ok, cool. Is it ethical to create a malevolent A.I.?

Depends on what system of ethics you adhere to and your reasoning for doing so. I can think of some military use cases that could be argued for doing so

Depends on what system of ethics you adhere to and your reasoning for doing so. — philosch

Then .

I can think of some military use cases that could be argued for doing so — philosch

:100:
I'm currently working on the project of creating a malevolent A.I., and one of its purposes will be to defeat other malicious A.I.s. But that raises some ethical questions, and I don't have an answer to them, at the moment.

Think about it. Suppose, if only for the sake of argument, that we're living in The Matrix. The Matrix, according to the movie, is an A.I.
So, wouldn't it make sense to create a mirror image of it (i.e., another malevolent A.I.) in order to defeat The Matrix? The Oracle, Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, etc., none of them ever considered the option of creating Roko's Basilisk.

Well to start with you need to shore up some definitions. Since AI is a computer generated construct it can't be malevolent. The Matrix is not even malevolent per say. It is interested in self preservation, just so happens that's at the expense of humans. So if you mean you want to create a destructive, offensive AI sort of like Tron in the original Tron movie (he was a program used to search out and destroy other "bad" or "malicious" programs), you don't have to worry about the ethics of the situation or the label "malicious". You just need to make sure the AI has proper safe guards built in so it can't then run amuck itself after it has destroyed it's targets..

Well to start with you need to shore up some definitions. Since AI is a computer generated construct it can't be malevolent. — philosch

Yes it can, have you ever played Dungeons & Dragons? I'm :100: confident that I can create not one, but three types of Evil A.I.s, like so:

AI1 = Lawful Evil
AI2 = Neutral Evil
AI3 = Chaotic Evil

Very easy to do. Now, the more difficult question, is what sort of malignant A.I. is it going to be? There's three options:

(Option 1) Lawful.
(Option 1) Neutral.
(Option 1) Chaotic.

I already said that it was going to be malevolent by definition. So, what's malevolence, exactly? You know what? Scratch that, I have an even better question:

Which option (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic) would be the best fitting one for Roko's Basilisk, specifically?

The Matrix is not even malevolent per say. It is interested in self preservation, just so happens that's at the expense of humans. So if you mean you want to create a destructive, offensive AI sort of like Tron in the original Tron movie (he was a program used to search out and destroy other "bad" or "malicious" programs), you don't have to worry about the ethics of the situation or the label "malicious". You just need to make sure the AI has proper safe guards built in so it can't then run amuck itself after it has destroyed it's targets.. — philosch

No, I don't want any of this, that's neither benevolence nor malevolence, it's either neutral morality ("neutrevalence", or "neutral balance", if you will), or lack of morality to begin with (which is what I believe defines a machine, at least partially, if not wholly).

No, I don't want any of this, that's neither benevolence nor malevolence, it's either neutral morality ("neutrevalence", or "neutral balance", if you will), or lack of morality to begin with (which is what I believe defines a machine, at least partially, if not wholly). — Arcane Sandwich

This I agree with, it's lack of morality. No I have not played dungeons and dragons so I would need a definition of evil as you are intending here? As far as Roko's Basilisk is concerned I'm on the side of those who don't take it seriously.

I see no logic to the notion of torture used in that thought experiment. Could have left it at simply "killing" anyone who learned of it's existence. Keeping people alive to torture seems illogical, even risky in the sense that killing would be more efficient and not have someone lingering to possibly expose the knowledge that's the threat in the first place. A sophisticated super AI would be able to calculate that easily. Any super AI would necessarily be dispassionate and since it would be a machine, neither benevolent or malevolent as it would lack intention. It's actions may appear to a human to be good or evil but unless it became sentient and therefore no longer artificial intelligence but actual intelligence, it's actions would remain dispassionate and so morally ambiguous.

There's a Thread that I started about the alignment chart in D&D, maybe we can talk there, about this issue.

Perhaps we may continue this conversation in the Thread for the Basilisk's existence.

For this Thread, here's my question to you:

What would Jesus Christ think and say about Roko's Basilisk, in your opinion?

Can't answer that as I don't believe there ever was a "Jesus Christ". Actually I'll take a wild guess after all and say he'd say the same thing that I said about it as he would have most likely been a rational man had he actually existed.

Cool :up: